Forest and Hills

The wyvern had a nest inside of a cave near the top of the cliffs, of that Theos was certain. Theos had been camping in the area for several days, scouting the area and waiting for a wyvern to come; it wasn’t until the third day that he got his wish. He didn’t attack immediately, though, like many first time Hunters would. Those bloodthirsty berserkers were always the first to die. Instead, Theos tracked the creature.

A Rathalos it was, enormous and red and covered in scars from various encounters with what Theos assumed was probably a combination of Hunters and other wyverns. Rathalos were territorial, he knew, so fighting often broke out amongst them and other creatures seeking dominance. But judging from the size of this wyvern, he wasn’t often the loser.

At first, like many of the creatures that entered the forest, the Rathalos stopped at the nearby pond for a drink. Dipping its head into the water, it opened its mouth and drank greedily. Theos crept closer, hoping to find the weakest points in the monster’s armored hide. There appeared to be a scar across its neck from a sword or a bite; Theos mentally noted that, hoping it would pay off in the future.

Backing away, Theos hoped to get away before the creature noticed him, but as he crawled, his weight snapped twigs underneath him. Sighing, he looked up to see the Rathalos tilting its head, listening, and waiting. Theos backed away more carefully this time, but it wasn’t enough. The Rathalos let out an earth-shaking roar, and then looked directly at Theos.

Theos’ survival instincts kicked in; the man stood, turned tail and ran. He could hear the creature’s wings beating as it rose into the air. Chancing a look back, Theos saw the wyvern hovering, and then watched as it swooped forward, talons extended before it. With a monster coming at you like that, there’s really only one thing you can do: duck.

Theos threw himself to the ground, the Rathalos’ talons missing him by inches. Looking up from his prone position, Theos watched as the monster circled and came back at him. Pulling his bow from his back, Theos notched an arrow. As the Rathalos came hurtling towards him, Theos released. The arrow pierced the monster where the shoulder would be on a human, the point joining wing to neck. Despite the good shot, the Rathalos barely seemed to notice.

Hurtling towards its prey, the Rathalos opened its jaws and released a stream of flames. Seeing this fiery breath streaming towards him, Theos did the one thing he could: he jumped into the pond.

Bertius strode through the thick undergrowth of the forest, small bugs floated around him as they tried to get passed to their own nests. A couple of the more persistant insects however, thought he was a decent meal, happily biting at the bits of flesh he had exposed. If the heavy bowgun that Bertius had slung between both his hands had been a little easier to handle, he may have swatted the pests.

With a clearing just a few hundered yards ahead of him, the young man crouched himself down, propping his weight on his vertical bowgun. His rough, paw-like hand reached into one of his many pouches, a handful of ammunition, turned over with his thick fingers: Piercing, Pellet, Cluster; along side his normals could some serious damage. Bertius louded his crude weapon with a couple of cluster shots, if it was going to be an opening he wanted the recoil to be over and done with as soon as possible. Pushing himself back onto his feet, the unmistakable cry of a Rathalos echoed past him; his face lit up with his toothy grin. He bounded into the clearing, stopping short by a few feet to the edge of a tier, the scaled wing swooshing past as the beast made a dive for someone below.

The fireworks lit up, the mouth igniting into a pillar of flame. Bringing his bowgun into his firing position in sync with a widening grin, Bertius' eyes followed the other person scampering toward the pond, "Hahahaha! That's it for you!" He bellowed from the bottom of his lungs, firing a cluster round just above the Rathalos. The explosion off release soon subsided, the smaller shells silently scattered, the majority landing on the wyvern, a couple impacting the ground beside it. The recoil thrust itself into his upper arm with some force, Bertius let the weapon settle before firing again.

The Rathalos reared it's ugly head to take a glance at the new enemy. Bertius stared it in the eyes, firing his final shell in its facial direction, another volley of explosions.

From his position underwater, Theos could see a series of explosions that he could only attribute to a Cluster round from a Bowgun. Swimming to the pond’s surface, he saw that there was a newcomer, a man dressed in chain-mail from head to toe. In fact, calling him a man was a stretch; he was little older than a boy. Sighing, Theos hauled himself out of the water.

He knew that his bowstring was soaked, which meant that it wouldn’t work, so Theos did what any responsible Hunter would do: he pulled a Flashbang from his belt and tossed it in the Rathalos’ line of sight. Before it even went off, Theos had turned tail and began running in the village’s direction.

On his way, however, he realized that a lone Bowgun Hunter wouldn't stand much of a chance against a fully-grown Rathalos. Grunting, he stopped and headed back in the direction of the battle.

Tranquilizing shots were the next that slotted into the hunters bowgun, his voice soon following, echoing to the runner and the female, "Run! I see another on its way!" That was before he saw the state the current beast was in, going beserk whilst blinded.. A toothy grin cast over his face as it clicked in his mind; there was a woman present, he had to be more charismatic than usual. Two rapid shots later, his ammunition pounded the scaled wyvern in the neck and back, not causing too much damage but instead leaking an anaesthetic into the bloodstream of his ever weakening target.

He had a pitfall trap tucked away in his Gunner's Pouch but there was no way to deploy it correctly from his vantage point, and he wasn't going to leave it and give up his current advantage. The best continued to rage for a short while, in the distance he was the more bird like shadow getting nearer, it had probably heard it's fellow wyvern's calls of distress and assistance. The next couple of shots he picked out of his pouch were paint, that'd be useful for now, especially if they were to be making a retreat in order to better plan it all out.

Loaded careful, he fired the first squarely on the Rathalos' wing span, just on the edge of both under and oversides. Bertius' second shot was a little more careless than that, firing at the ever looming second wyvern, not expecting for it to make impact, that was before he saw it's face light up slightly, not to mention a distance groan of shock.

Bertius quickly looked to see the Rathalos, was the calming efect of the tranquilisers working? He wasn't sure, it still seemed as belicose as before.