After a long time of travelling they stopped having reached the Sieghart mountains. They were still flying and Steel started to feel an ache in his lower pelvis area. He had after all been sitting on wyrm scales for what felt like a few days. He was pretty sure that at least one night had passed whilst they were in the sky because it had become dark. Right now it was also dark.
Steel needed to get down but he had not really understood how to fly yet. The wyvern however seemed to sense that Steel wanted down so it flew down and landed on one of the mountains. They had a weird connection to each other and it had only gotten stronger over the time they had travelled together. It was almost as if Steel understood what the wyvern meant and it was as if the wyvern understood Steel.
Even if they understood each other Steel had to make one thing clear tho. Sitting on wyvern scales for a longer time was not nice for his bum. He would have to get a saddle. A saddle for a wyvern. Getting one of those would probably be hard. Maybe he could get one from a local in Sieghart specially made for him. Steel guessed that was the only way for someone to get a wyvern saddle anyways.
He slowly made his way off the back of his newfound friend and stepped down on the nearby rocks. He had been wearing the vanguards armor for a long time now and his ligaments felt a bit inflamed and his joints had started locking up in an almost riding position. He was bleeding a bit from several places on his body where the skin had been strained due to the length of time in the wyvern riding position. His eyes felt strained due to the amount of air that had been hitting them and were therefore red. Some of the blood vessels had popped due to the wind strain and change in pressure. Something which was unusual in youths. He had dual subconjunctival hemorrhages. He had to sit down quickly when getting off the wyvern. Steel thought to himself “I am never flying for this long again without some sort of aid for this. His vision was very dim due to the blood and his eyes felt itchy due to the slow repairs his body was making.
The wyvern laid down on the ground. It seemed that the wyvern was also tired from the long trip. Steel stood up and started doffing his armor. Removing first his gauntlets then the couter and pauldrons, greaves, sabatons, fan-plate and poleyn, then the tasset, fould, vambraces, rerebraces and finally the plackart and breastplate. He could finally breathe normally. He stretched for a bit before placing a blanket on the ground and placing his armor on the blanket then wrapping the blanket up so as to protect the armor from any mountain winds or other creeps.
After that he noticed the wyvern sleeping soundly on the mountain so he laid to rest next to it huddling up for warmth. As he did that the wyvern decided to shelter him with one of its wings. He then slept for a while. While sleeping he dreamed. Steel dreamed that he was a small boy again. Sitting on a swing in a tree and swinging back and forth. He had fun. Which was kinda weird since he was a grown up but then again maybe the fact that Steel had had an abrupt end to his peaceful childhood had made him a bit childish on the inside taking pleasure in the simplest of things.
In a weird way though the dream changed towards the nightmarish side as Steel saw from the swing that the farm was on fire. Maybe it wasn’t a dream, maybe it was simply a memory from the past. Steel looked in horror at the blazing inferno. He ran towards it but as he got close he saw his father and his father screamed at him to run.
Steel turned around and started running for his life but as he got further and further away he wanted to turn back. He wanted to face the bandits and kill them. Maybe not even that but he wanted to tell his parents to run. He wanted to tell them he missed them. He wanted to tell them but all he could do as his body didn’t respond to him anymore was run crying into the woods. Deeper and deeper until darkness swallowed him he could hear voices tell him how worthless he was but then he screamed back at them and the dream ended. He woke up in a shock with a quiet scream.
In reality it hadn’t been more than a half hour since he fell asleep and now he wanted to sleep again but he was afraid that sleeping would give him the horrors again. He Steeled himself. A man such as him wasn’t afraid of anything, not even death. And so he huddled up again and fell asleep.
When Steel woke up the next time he no longer had a dual subconjunctival hemorrhage. His limbs and joints felt relaxed and the inflammation he had had in his ligaments was gone. He slowly made his way up waking the wyvern with a pat. It seemed that the dragon-like creature was content with sleeping for a while longer so Steel packed up his things and went out for a short hunt on the mountain. He tried to catch a rabbit or some other animal that lived on the mountain. Laying in wait he sprung on a rabbit and grabbed it swiftly twisting and breaking its neck. He grabbed himself some nearby twigs and branches and went back to camp. Making a small campfire whilst the now dead rabbit laid on one of the nearby hot stones. After making the campfire he burned the steel on his executioner's sword and slowly used it to gut and flay the rabbit. It wasn’t really the best tool for the purpose but it had to do as Steel had nothing else to use for doing it. After flaying and cleaning off the rabbit he pierced it on a branch and made a makeshift rabbit skewer. He would cook it on the fire. It was a nice day.
WC: 1065/2000
STEEL'S STATS
Strength: 43+60 from Earrings +60 from Sword +20 from Armor = 183
Speed: 31 +40 from Ring - 10 from Sword - 10 from Armor = 51
Constitution: 61 (HP + Armor = 2S ranks HP + 1S rank armor durability)
Endurance: 34
Intelligence: 21
Mana: 1635
Minor Armored Movement & Wielding: Half speed penalty on all heavy equipment except shields.
STEEL'S EQUIPMENTWeapon: Executioner Sword
Armor: Vanguards Haste
Earrings: Pyaar Earrings
Ring: Haste Ring