• Aydian sat there at the river, down on his haunches. His hands were lowered into the cool water of the river, washing the trail dust from his own unique personalized bow. He watched as the clear liquid carried away mud and blood from his specially carved Ivory Bow. He watched with a smile of contentment and the sun on his back, which was also testing his weathered eyes with a glare on the surface of the water.

    As Aydian pulled his bow out of the water he pulled a trail rag from his pack on the ground beside him and began drying his weapon with a sort of tenderness a mother would show to her newborn. When that task was done he strung it with simple, superb technique. At the time he finished the motion of stringing his bow his hearing picked a sound from out of the ordinary from the silent wilderness around him.

    He sat motionless waiting for the disturbance to sound again, a noise much like the sound of a large creature digging. Even for a man in his early thirties, weather-beaten and tanned from a life surviving the wild, he was still quite agile. He bounded up the small outcropping to his left and stood with the wind coming into his right ear.

    Aydian pulled a feathered shaft from the quiver so conveniently strapped to his upper thigh, a small quiver that held short-range shafts compared to the larger quiver on his back full of marksman's arrows. He was still listening for the sound that alarmed his senses.

    As for not being able to see into the small dips that were scattered in and out of the other outcroppings of rock in the ravine. Aydian nocked the arrow to his bow, the string taut with tension, shaking with the anticipation of the release of the arrow.

    He steadied the quaking of the bow, sighted to where he believed the sound had emanated from and released the arrow, watching it as it flew through the air. Aydian watched as it sunk down, front heavy for just this kind of thing as well as armor-piercing capabilities, waiting to hear for an impact.

    He set a stern face as he hard a loud "Chkkr!" resonate from behind another outcropping. He moved his eyes to either side of the small depression and waited to see just what it was that he had hit, and whether or not he would be able to kill the now aggressive creature or if he had angered something he would not be able to stop. He spotted what he thought of as a claw at first, until the whole creature rushed into view.

    "A Scorpicis," muttered Aydian, disgusted. Seeing his target was just that: a large scorpion-based creature that had an extra thick carapace, two bone-shattering pincers at its front, twin scorpion tails that instead of secreting venom were armed with a double set of scythe-looking blades to pierce holes in even the toughest man-made armor as well as to pin its prey to the ground, and four legs in either side of its body. This one though was young, and the color of dark mud.

    Aydian saw his arrow in the middle of the Scorpicis' back, sticking straight up like a flagless mast. He knew that shot had only angered the creature and did little, if any, damage to the actual body of it. He reached to his back and grabbed a marksman's arrow, easily three times the length of the short shafted arrow, twice the length of a grown man's arm. He put the arrow to the bow and pulled the string taut, ignoring the quaking and to the point the string was ready to snap.

    The Scorpicis was looking around, trying to spot its attacker. When it finally saw Aydian, he had drawn the string, Aydian let the arrow fly. The creature started its advance when half its world suddenly went black. The wooden shaft of his arrow pierced its bottom eye, causing it to lose its sense of terrain and overall dexterity.

    Aydian knew the Scorpicis could climb the rocky ledge and had time enough for one more shot, this time he would try a Myr'Ius' Shot. He pulled another long-shafted arrow and strung it, pulling back until the bow creaked with the effort of the bend, the tips of the bow nearly touching each other, the head of the arrow sliding along the grip-shaft. He willed Myr'Ius' grace into his arrow, asking her to guide his missile to destroy the creature that dared disrupt the purity of the goddess' balance of nature. After his short prayer to the woodland goddess he let go of the arrow.

    He watched his arrow leave his bow and heard his string snap forward, whipping the hand that held the grip of his bow with impunity, leaving a gash across the four of his knuckles.

    The arrow flew through the air, leaving a green streak as Myr'Ius, the Goddess Of Nature and Balance, the undeniable deity of the Rangers, gave the arrow the strength to strike through the tough hide of the Scorpicis.

    Aydian saw with satisfaction as the arrow pierced between the creature's eyes, splitting the face of the creature and imbedding itself all the way to the goose feathers that marked the tail end of the arrow – a good three and a half foot piercing.

    The Scorpicis halted its advance and shuddered, it's green viscous blood leaking out onto the ground before its legs gave away and its mass crashed to the ground lifeless, its tails twitching in the air before going limp and stabbing into the outcropping behind it. It's final breath drawing out as a long hollow sound that mocked the racket of a small landslide of gravel.

    "Well that's one perversion of nature down to its final resting place," said the Ranger, a grim look of approval on his face. He lowered his arms, his Ivory Bow pulsing with an inner bluish-white glow, the string humming with its own magical properties.

    Aydian looked down to his bleeding knuckles and reached into the collar of his vest and pulled out a small vial filled with a thick jelly known as Troll Unguent. This jelly was made from the ground-up flesh and blood of a troll, a creature that became infamous for its incredibly fast regeneration rate.

    He unstoppered the vial with his teeth and poured two drops of the jelly onto his knuckles and corked the vial and placed it back in the appropriate pocket of his vest collar and rubbed it into his skin. After mere seconds of rubbing he pulled his hand away and saw his skin was instantly restored, only a slight pigmentation difference was all there was.

    He leapt down from his outcropping, landing only a few paces away from his place earlier at the river's side. He immediately tensed as he sensed the earth beneath him sink down and begin to quiver. As fast as he was he wasn't fast enough to dodge the two sharpened tail claws that came rushing from the earth to pin his shoulders to the ground, knocking the bow from his hand. The force of the impact compressed the treated leather quiver on his back, breaking at the very least half of the arrows underneath him.

    Aydian watched as the earth where he was just standing began to roll to either side as a hardened shell came into view from between the packed down dirt that was on top of the Scorpicis. This one was an Elder of the species and had lived long enough to learn the magical nature of Earth and use some of it to its own will. He noticed right away that the area where there should have been eyes in front of the Scorpicis' body was an 'X' scarred into the hard surface of the face.

    No wonder the Scorpicis didn't surface earlier, thought Aydian. It couldn't see to tell where I was at… laying in patience till I moved close enough or in this case on top of it.

    Aydian struggled under the weight of the clawed tails, grimacing as every twist he managed caused the sharpened edge of the jagged tails cut into his vest and bite into the skin in front of his shoulder joint.

    Aydian had only one hope and he knew it. He pulled in his lower lip, pressed down his top jaw and blew shrilly into the air that disturbed even the hard of hearing Scorpicis, of which pushed down with its tails, cutting into Aydian's skin even more.

    The Ranger laid there waiting for his saving or even for a window of opportunity for escape. The Scorpicis reached with its left pincer towards Aydian, scooting it along Aidan's body, up from his waist and finally to his arm where it gripped with bone-crushing force the thicker padding on his right elbow. The creature began to pull Aydian's forearm away from his upper arm, attempting to incapacitate his ability to fight.

    Aydian grimaced in pain that he never knew was possible as he felt his ligaments and tendons begin to tear when a sudden burst of bestial rage sounded on the ledge above him. When he looked in the direction of the roar he saw a massive bear leap down from the towering rock and land directly on the back of the perversion of a scorpion.

    "Good ol' Fyeurin," he muttered with a smile, as he watched the bear bite directly on the joint of the right tail of the Scorpicis and jerk with immense force and with a popping sound, the clawed tail went limp. Fyeurin kept her bite on the tail and stepped from the back of the creature and tugged the Scorpicis off of Aydian.

    The Scorpicis hissed loudly, clacking its pincers loudly, twisting around and tried to grab Fyeurin's front-right leg. That attempt failing it lashed out with its remaining useful tail and barely nicked Fyeurin on her side, not even eliciting a growl of pain.

    Aydian stood up and recovered his bow, pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back and making the action to nick it, but the arrow was broken and he threw it down, reaching back again and drawing out a whole one. He strung it and shot at the Scorpicis, piercing its thickly scaled hide at the joint of its right pincer, locking the joint with the arrow's tip and the thick wooden shaft.

    The Scorpicis retaliated with an immense Aftershock spell, again knocking Aydian down onto his back, but barely affecting the bear. Fyeurin which swiped at the face of the Scorpicis, mauling the scarred eyes further, gouging the creature even more, drawing green ichor from the wound.

    Aydian stood there, watching his animal companion fight the Scorpicis; he stood holding his right elbow, his bow held loosely in his right hand. He watched as Fyeurin stood up to her full height of a giant eight-foot and five-inches and roared her deep baritone vocals at the abomination and crashed down onto the head of the heavy skull of the Scorpicis.

    As Fyeurin crashed her muscular paws onto the top of the Scorpicis, the air filled up with a loud crackling snap, the sound of a slow breaking boulder. The sound dragged on for many seconds as Fyeurin was pushing down onto the Scorpicis with all her weight on her front paws, pushing the creature into the ground.

    "Come on Fyeurin, clean the stain from nature!" Yelled Aydian as he clenched his fists and rooted for his companion, knowing full well that the Scorpicis still had one fully functional tail and was afraid of what a direct hit could do.

    As if the Scorpicis could read his thoughts the creature pulled back its tail, flexed the scythe-claws and lashed it forward. When the distance to Fyeurin halved for the tail there was an exclamatory pop and the Scorpicis' skull collapsed in on itself, and Fyeurin's paws rent off the topmost layer of over-hard shell that was the armor of the overgrown scorpion. The bear let the lifeless claw continue on its path, but with no more muscle powering it forward it bounced off of her chest and she continued to claw apart the back of the dead Scorpicis.

    Aydian watched her as she pulled out the innards of the creature, spilling them onto the ground. Animalistic rage drove the bear at this point and Aydian knew better than to draw Fyeurin's attention to himself at these moments and he stood there, watching his animal companion fulfill her hunger.

    Fyeurin finally clawed her way through all the gore of the slaughter and found the spinal cord of the Scorpicis. She took it between her teeth and clamped down with her powerful jaws, pulling it and twisting her head to either side until the cord snapped and her rage ended. The body of the Scorpicis, an empty husk for the most part, shuddered with severed nerves and finally collapsed where it stood, depressing the earth a few inches with its mass.

    Aydian stood there calmly, mere yards away from where this action was taking place, a grim smile of satisfaction and pride. He slung his bow over his left shoulder and got down to the level of Fyeurin's face as she walked over to him. He put his right hand under her jaw and his left hand over her nose and he kissed her forehead gently, smiling as he did so. The bear, well use to the actions of the ranger gave him her animalistic smile, looking for like a snarl to anyone else but was indeed a smile to Aydian.

    "You're a good girl, Fyeurin. A companion worthy of a legendary hero and not just a simple ranger such as I," Aydian said to the bear as he rubbed the bridge of her nose and stood up, keeping the palm of his left hand on the top of her head and scratched her gently with his index finger and thumb, snatching up his trail pack at the edge of the river.

    He looked again towards the Scorpicis that would rot to their bones here in this ravine and suffered no guilty conscience; he realized that again nature's perversions of balance were two numbers less than they were not ten minutes ago.

    So he walked towards the slope in the North that would take him above this shallow ravine, to get him back on his way towards Talbak Abbey. He clicked his tongue sharply, telling Fyeurin that it was time to be rid of this place and walked with the sun to his left and an edge wall to his right. Aydian wished secretly that nature could balance herself out, without the help of her Rangers.

    But if that were so then we wouldn't have a place anywhere else, he thought, his hands gently caressing the leaves of every plant or touching every rock that he passed on his way. It would only make us renegades if she could right her own wrong… trespassers in her region...

    So it was with this thought that the would-be arduous journey of an honorable ranger would be set with. Unbeknownst to anyone in the lands of Filarrus, a domain of shadow was entering the world, casting its tendrils of darkness over the continents. Aydian was going to be charged by the Gods with more than just handling unnatural changes of Myr'Ius' grounds, but with friends he never knew he would make, nor people he ever thought he would meet.