Stealth Mission

It didn't take long to spot the first Ixal raider. Mal readied her bow to take him down, but then realized he was far from alone. Several of the beastkin moved about in the dappled light, too close to one another for her to quietly deal with any of them without alerting the others. She lowered her bow with a soft sigh. It'd be a real hassle to have to kill all of them.

'Guess I'll just sneak around, then.'

The terrain of the forest was familiar, offering no challenge for the archer to slip around several similar groups of the birdmen in search of the leader. But after bypassing a third such group, and a fourth, Mal started to feel a little uneasy. Why were there so many of these savages in the Shroud? She'd counted at least thirty of them by the time she found one matching Nezul Cattlan's description.

He was huge for an Ixal—standing head and shoulders over his subordinates—and covered in actual muscle. Most of the raiders were like all Ixal she'd ever seen: thin, with a feminine sort of elegance to their lithe figures. But this Nezal looked... masculine. Powerful. His broad chest was lightly armored with a few straps of dark leather and the odd piece of sturdy material covering a few vitals but otherwise he looked just as savage as the others.

"Foolish beasts," she muttered to herself. "Don't they know that armor keeps you alive?" Then again, the raiders all carried cumbersome clubs of wood rather than proper weapons, so perhaps not.

She'd located her target, but there was a complication: he was not alone. Not even a little.

Nezul Cattlan the Violator stood beneath a small tree in an otherwise empty clearing, seemingly discussing some sort of plans with two other Ixal. Around the trio was another seven brutes brandishing clubs. All of them just sort of watching their leader rather than keeping watch for attackers or scouts. It would be easy to get close enough to put an arrow through the Violator's eye, but the whole clearing would see it happen, and then she'd be in a foot race to escape, and she was already surrounded by over thirty other raiders.

"These idiots are in enemy territory and they're not even maintaining a proper perimeter!" The archer growled. Leave it to beastmen to screw up something simple in a way that actually inconvenienced her.

Still, she had to complete her mission. So, quietly as she could, she slipped closer to her quarry until she felt she was close enough to strike, but far enough to escape. Maybe she wouldn't have to. Most of the birdmen were scrawny things, after all. Maybe after she put down their leader they'd all just charge her in one big cluster and she could take them all out at once with her wide-area Quick Nock skill. It was the perfect tool for this sort of engagement, after all.

She drew back her bow, readying an arrow tipped with deadly venom. 'Yeah,' she thought to herself as she aimed the arrow directly at Nezul Cattlan's throat. 'Maybe I won't even need to run. I bet they don't even get within five yalms of me.'

Then, startled by a loud cry somewhere far to the west, she looses the arrow with a quiet curse.