Private Tales A new beginning

[Constantine]

The midday was crisp, still sunny enough to see everything around you, but with just the right amount of clouds to shield one's eyes from the sun's harmful gaze. Perfect day to take a stroll through the woods, to go camping, throw up a barbeque, literally any outside activity. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that it was as close as one can get to perfection. The pale man found himself agreeing with this notion, his watchful gaze traveling across the forest floor. His skin was deathly pale, alabaster colored and it made him stand out among the sea of greens and browns. He was tall, but not inhumanely so, standing at roughly 196 centimeters.

The male was bald, sporting a pair of boots, simple trousers, and a sleeveless gambeson vest across his torso. It was this lack of sleeves that revealed his peculiarly muscular arms. He looked so out of place, not only in the forest but in general. His body was covered in a multitude of shapely carvings, eyes, mouth symbols and strange runes were scattered irregularly across the man's frame. They screamed "warlock" or "sorcerer", but the simplistic attire, the muscle mass, and the way he carried himself appeared militant, if not a little warrior-ish.

Constantine gazed to his left, then to his right, looking for a place to sit. It didn't take long for him to find a half-decomposed tree stump. Thankfully the old tree still had enough structural integrity to be used as an improvised seat. Using his gloved hands to clear any debris and bugs from the stump's flat end, Constantine flopped onto it, ass first. A layer of moss that covered the stump's upper part made it unusually comfortable for a piece of hardwood. As soon as he sat down, Constantine started fiddling with his pockets, it wasn't long until he retrieved a crystalline object from one of them. He tapped it twice and the little contraption flared to life, giving off a soft blue light.

It was some kind of supernatural watch, it didn't have any mechanical parts inside, nor was there a fine-tuned mechanism present. Still, it showed Constantine what time it was, down to a second. 3:30 pm, it had taken him one hour and 20 minutes to traverse 7 km through this forest. Not bad given how uncharted it was. There wasn't even a proper road to follow so Constantine had to climb trees and push his way through foliage that was getting progressively thicker as he neared the forest's heart. Constantine couldn't shake away the feeling that he was being watched. Now that he had time to relax and take in on his surroundings things started becoming clearer. He could smell an unfamiliar scent in his vicinity, one that didn't belong to a person, nor a normal animal.

For a moment he hoped that whatever followed him was nothing more than a wild beast, but his eyes rolled when he heard "sinister" giggling not far off his location. The laughter was not INTIMIDATING enough. It was not scary or dramatic. It did not echo off the trees or seemingly come out of everywhere like an omnipresent demon. Honestly, it was pretty flat. It felt uncomfortably false. Like someone at a party who started laughing at the joke they didn't understand, but forgot to stop in time. Constantine could only frown at it.

 

[Herzeleide Idreius]

The sun felt good on her skin. Nothing was more important than the sun, she read that somewhere. Sunny days like this helped relieve stress, improves your mood, gives you vitamin D... but she also read that exposure to it causes heat stroke and damage to your eyes if you look at it for too long. She didn't want to think about that. It was one of those days where she could wear lighter linen as opposed to heavy armour that will make her hot and sweaty.

Getting away from adventuring for a while was probably a good decision, as opposed to having work-work-work every hour of the day. It felt good. She couldn't help but feel she wasn't alone. In the distance, she could see an inhumanly tall man, inhumanly pale... there was nothing "natural" about him. From where she was, he was much taller than her.

It was rude and not polite to stare; she just couldn't help herself and hope he didn't see her. She was unarmed and not looking for a fight at that moment.

 

[Constantine]

Looking down at his fist, Constantine found it to be...bloodied. Yet it wasn't Constantine's blood that littered the leather glove, but that of a troll. A fat, boisterous creature laid beneath him, its face beaten in, nose broken, jaw dislocated. The troll clutched its face, streams of crimson geysering from his shattered nasal cavity. The troll had tried to rob Constantine, he was using a makeshift horn to produce "scary" noises to get Constantine's attention. He was probably hoping that Constantine would come to investigate, then the creature could ambush him and attack with a wooden club strapped to his hip.

It was a puny weapon, barely the size of a baseball bat crudely carved out of a single piece of wood. The troll likely wasn't expecting to eat an elbow to the face and knees to the rib cage. Constantine shook his head disapprovingly. He wanted to spit on the foul creature, both because it was hideous as fuck and dumb enough to match. Still, he restrained himself from stomping on its head. As much as he wanted to punish it further, a murder seemed too excessive even for him.

Instead of engaging any further, he simply shook off any excess blood from his hands and elbows. Constantine made sure to kick the troll in the ribs one last time before hopping over it and continuing to walk. Nothing of value was lost, he didn't get robbed. At worst, he'd have to look out for any other sneaky run-off-the-mill trolls who liked playing vagabonds in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.

What he couldn't shake off was the feeling of being watched. Could it be that there were more trolls in his vicinity? That was unlikely, trolls liked attacking in groups. If there was in fact multiple of them, they would have all attacked him at once or at least rushed to aid their comrade who was getting the tar beaten out of him.

Herzeleide Idreius