The last time he had visited Tarishitar it had been under much more chaotic circumstances.  Needless to say things were much better now, but he still felt the anxious raise of hair on the back of his neck from being back.  No one changed though, and no one disappeared meaning there were no longer any nightmarish visions to plague him or any other poor souls.  Then again, he wasn’t in the bowels of the city any longer like he had been that day.  His eyes saddened, it had also been part of the same night in which he’d last seen Natsumi in person. 
 
No matter where he went he couldn’t find head or tail of the woman, yet he was certain she hadn’t died.  Even if she had never ascended it would be harder to kill her.  She was made of much stronger stuff than most people here were.  He didn’t like thinking about her, for even if she wasn’t dead it didn’t answer the question of where she was now.  Besides, he had work to worry about. 
 
While he wasn’t normally hired for this sort of thing, there had been a kind of menace lurking in the shadows of Tarishitar.  It had crept its way silently, like a tapeworm through the underground tunnel ways of the floating city and it was getting closer and closer to the head.  So, naturally, the rich wanted to make sure it didn’t find its way to their precious standings.
 
While he didn’t like that they had waited so long to do anything about it while their lowlier citizens suffered, he was at least glad that he could help in stopping it.  But it was tricky, he’d need more help, but he didn’t want to reach out to another hunter.  They could be so stubborn and prideful, no…he’d need a partner that was willing to work with him and not against him.  There were plenty with vengeance in their hearts from the lower levels, but they had suffered enough already.  Aside from that, emotion could blind you when it was something so powerful.  He knew that first hand.
 
There wasn’t too much time left to wait though, he’d need someone before the sun set.  Which worked out seeing as that was when the creature was most active; slinking about the city hidden in darkness and striking with near lightning speed.  A dangerous predator indeed, but it needed the safety of night to move.  With the reports he’d been told he was almost certain it was blind, and while some would see that as a weakness he saw it as a new obstacle: it had learned and adapted, it knew how to hunt on smell, taste, and sound.  Eyes could trick you, those other senses usually did not, especially when already suffering a handicap.
 
He stopped at one of the squares, looking at the many possible places he could check first for help.  A tavern?  No, those would be possibly drunken men and women.  A blacksmith?  No, that might attract people who were in need of weaponry, and he needed someone ready to fight now.  Perhaps just watching…?  He leaned back against an unlit light post.  The sun was still high, midday.  That meant the most people would be passing through, which meant the best opportunity right now to find someone to aid him.  Now all he needed was patience, and heavens knew he had enough of that.

Aries was wandering the town, looking for something– anything– to do. Finally, it had gotten to the point where she was just walking around, asking anyone she passed if they needed help with anything.

"Hey, excuse me! Do you need anything done? Pets that need watching? Kids? Maybe you need a lawn mowed? Food? I can hunt, if you need me to. No? Alright, thanks anyway." Quite by accident, a small jet of flame jetted from her nostrils as she sighed. Moving on, then…

She came upon a man who had scars all along his arms. "Ah, hello. I'm looking for any kind of work– you know, just, odd jobs and stuff. Do you need anything done? I can do a lot of things, I can clean, I can cook, fight… I'm also learned, so I can write and stuff, if anyone you know needs a tutor? Something like that? I'm trying to get money for a few spells… I'm just a simple ranger, but I'm trying to see if I can combine spells with my current fighting style, you know, just kind of, throw it out there. My name's Aries, by the way. Ranger, and aspiring researcher."

While she spoke, Aries got a bit of a closer look at the guy. He had rather dark hair, though not quite as dark as hers; the strange thing was that they had almost the same shade of eye color, or at least, Aries thought? Hers might be brighter, but without a mirror to check, she couldn't be sure. His bone structure wasn't what one would call "chiseled," but rather kind of… Curved, in a way. Aries had met a few people that looked like him, though they weren't common, at least not in her hometown.

After about an hour of waiting with no promising passerby, he started to think of a new course of action.  Maybe moving to a different square would be better…?  No, there was no more time to wait.  Sunset wasn’t for a few hours yet, but he still needed to find someone, have them agree, brief them on the situation, and hope to goodness that it would actually go well when the time came.  He didn’t have an exact deadline on when to get the creature taken care of, but he’d prefer sooner rather than later.  Perhaps hoping to get it done before dawn was too much. 
 
With a sigh, he closed his eyes and slowly sifted his fingers through his hair; his skin heated from standing in the midday sun for so long.  It was then that he heard an eager voice.  He opened his eyes, hand dropping from his hair as he looked out into the mass of people for the source and finding a young woman.  She wasn’t much shorter than him in height, and she was going from person to person…asking if she could be of some help.  That got his attention.  He straightened, watching her for a moment and taking in her form, how she moved, the fact that she had light armor on.  Maybe it would be worth the effort to talk to her.
 
No one had taken her up on any of her offers after all, which meant that she’d have plenty of free time on her hands.  Especially since she was so hurriedly offering her assistance.  And then it happened, it was brief and quick but his eyes caught it: fire from her nostrils.  A dragon…?  No, she didn’t smell like a dragon.  His lips parted, maybe fortune had been in his favor today after all.
 
Before he could even approach her, she had come up to him: talking quickly and in great number about how she could in any way be of service.  His eyes slowly widened the more she spoke, not used to being in the company of someone so talkative.  He quirked an eyebrow at one of her abilities: she could fight.  That was good.  A ranger, in need of spells, wanting to advance herself…yes, this was the right person.  Aside from that, he had a lot of what she wanted so it would be an even more fair fellowship.  He smiled, a gentle expression as he spoke with just enough volume for his voice to be heard, “As a matter of fact I would greatly appreciate your assistance.  You say you’re a ranger, a fighter…It just so happens that I’m looking for such a person to help me tonight.”

He looked over her head, always on the watch for hungry eyes.  If she took him up on this then he’d have to explain everything to her as soon as possible, but it would be for her ears only.  No one wants a city up in a panic, and while the poorer levels were already suffering, word hadn’t spread to any of the higher regions yet. “If you’re interested then I suggest we go somewhere more private, it isn’t a personal issue but it is one that requires more confidence than conversing in a busy square.”

Aries almost jumped in excitement. "Yes, okay!" It occurred to her for a moment that maybe following this guy might be a bad idea, but he seemed nice enough, and she was rather good at escaping. "I've got a few spells, I can breathe fire, talk to animals, do some healing, and I can reach into the Aether and grab my stuff. I'm a great shot, I think; I always won the archer competitions in my home town."

Aries prepared to follow him wherever he lead, talking all the while. "So who're you? I get that you can't really talk about why you need a fighter, but you could at least tell me about yourself– only if you want to, of course. I get that a lot of people don't really like talking about their pasts and stuff." She closed her mouth tightly. She was, fortunately or unfortunately, born with the Gift of Gab, and talked almost constantly. About pretty much anything.

He smiled as she began to list off her abilities.  Of course he would need to test many of these to make sure she was up to snuff, he wouldn’t want to put her in any unnecessary danger after all.  But she had a good attitude and it sat well with him.  Things were starting to look up, for now at least.  Talking to animals…Maybe if she had a way to commune with the beast it could help things move along even smoother.  Rather than immediately brief her, he began to walk and lead her away from the square towards a less crowded area.  Tarishitar was a grand city which didn’t leave it with many vastly empty places, but they’d work with what they had.
 
“If you don’t mind me asking, I’d like to see your ability as a ranger.  I don’t doubt your honesty, but I know every fighter is different.” He stopped at the mouth of an alley but did not go down it.  There was no one there and it led to a brick wall.  This would be perfect: there was virtually no risk at harming anyone by testing her shots, and there were plenty of people in the city that would walk passed the alley way that she wouldn’t have to worry about foul play from him.
 
She was talking, asking so many questions, and while he didn’t mind it, it was still something he wasn’t used to.  Part of him felt guilty for requesting such a seemingly happy person into possibly pursuing something…not very nice.  He gently shook his head, “It’s no bother to me at all.  My name is Naota Uharu, I come from Ataiyo just outside of Nisshoki.  If I’m to be perfectly honest with you then I’d have to say that I’m a vampire hunter by profession.  That’s not what we’ll be doing tonight though.  Hunting?  Yes.  Vampires?  Not quite…”
 
His eyes moved back down the alley, taking in everything there: some cans of rubbish, a clothesline about three stories up that stretched from one window to another, some broken bottles, crates.  Yes, this would do nicely for now, “This should do, I can set up a few targets at the end and we’ll move on from there.  Although,”

He turned towards her and continued, “You mentioned that you can speak with animals.  Tell me, what is the…strangest creature you’ve ever spoken to?  Can you speak to less common ones?”  Best to go ahead and ask that now, it would help him go in the right direction with planning.

Aries followed him at a reasonable distance, walking alongside but also somewhat behind so she knew where he was going. "Yeah okay, I'll go ahead and grab my bow…" She reached in, shivering at the fuzzy feeling she always got when reaching into the Aether, and pulled her war bow out.

It was a rather common bow, as war bows go; nothing like an heirloom or anything. She'd just bought it to have something in case she was ever attacked. Course, she'd read up on some enchanting and stuff to see if she could power it up, but the ways things seemed, she could only enchant with a Weaving spell, which she didn't know. Hopefully that would change today.

"Oh also, I'm Aries Alba; I don't think I said that. I'm cool with hunting, although vampires kinda spook me; I'm glad we won't be hunting any of those tonight." She chuckled. "Uhm, as to beasts, I mostly just talk to my cat… Although on the road here I talked to something enormous– I didn't get a good look at it. I just told it that I had weapons and fire and stuff, and that this was my camp and it should leave me alone, etc. I can't say I've ever spoken to anything truly interesting, or magical, or anything like that. What exactly are we hunting?"

As she spoke he walked down the alley at a measured pace, taking in anything that could be used for the exercise.  He rose up a hand and five bottles lifted up to the clothesline, with a slow twirl of his fingers they wrapped themselves in the twine until they were hanging in a neat but well-spaced row.  That would do.  It continued on like this as he moved further down: crates lifted on their own and stacked up at the end of the alley against the wall in varying levels; the lids of rubbish bins pressed against various areas on the wall, though some just stayed suspended in the air at staggered heights; all other assortments speckled themselves as hovering targets all down the alley. 
 
When he was done he walked back to the mouth, weaving through the range of targets he had set up until he was out of the alley completely and standing beside her once more.  He chuckled, thinking about how what they would be going after could very likely be more frightening than a vampire.  At least to a different degree.  What she said intrigued him though.  His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at her, “This enormous thing you spoke to, was it during the day time…?” It was highly unlikely it was the creature, especially since it was known to attack and kill, not listen to someone speak, but just in case…he had to look at every angle, and what they would be hunting only came out at night.
 
“What we would be pursuing tonight is very fast and extremely deadly.” He looked back down the alley, “It would require tight skill and accuracy as well as well measured reflexes.”  His head nodded towards the floating, stacked, and hanging targets as he continued, “I want you to take down as many of these targets using as few shots as you can in the course of one minute.  You can retrieve any arrows used, you can use your minute however you like, and can take down any target that you wish.”

This would tell him a great many things about the type of fighter she was, not just in skill but also in where her priorities lay during a fight.  Supreme marksmanship is nothing without strategy when it came to battle.  So long as this proved well enough then he’d want to test her ability with fire, but for now this is where his focus would stay, “If you have any questions, ask them.”

Aries pulled an arrow and set it on the string. "No, it was during the night. Though going by your description, I don't think it was the animal you're hunting; this thing was lumbering; my best guess has been a bear, though it would have to be a rather exquisite specimen to have been a bear. Also, just so you know, I realize the fastest way to take out the floating ones would be to shoot you and end the spell, but I'm obviously not going to do that. Of course, that's assuming I could beat you in a fight. Which I doubt."

Aries took a couple of breaths to calm herself; she rather disliked performing. The first targets would be the stacked ones, since she could just take out one of the lower ones with enough power to jostle the upper ones. That would be tough, but she thought she could do it, going by the size of the crates.

She did so, firing three arrows in quick succession, taking a sharp breath in between each shot. To her dismay, one pile was not knocked over, and she had to fire two more arrows to finally get it down.

Next on the list were the floating things. Those were easy enough, one shot per; she didn't miss a one, although one of the farthest ones had an arrow just barely sticking out of the side. Taking a quick breather, and developing a strategy for the hanging ones (she had been counting– she was about 30 seconds in), Aries quickly asked, "Does this beast have a name? Is it magical? What are its physical characteristics?"

Finally, running around so she was parallel to the lines that the hanging objects were on, she would line the shot up and take all of them down in one or two shots. After finishing with those, she collected the arrows within reach (a couple of the clotheslines and floating targets were slightly higher than her reach); to her dismay, one of them had broken itself on something hard within the stacked crates. "Hm. Eighteen left."

"How'd I do?"

Lumbering, that definitely didn’t sound like his target.  It was wishful thinking to wonder if that had been what she’d seen, but at least he knew for sure now.  The creature was known for slinking and moving like a whip, almost elegant in how it travelled.  If it weren’t such a deadly nuisance he might have admired it or tried to learn from its natural motion.  Sadly, that wouldn’t be the case.  He quirked an eyebrow at her comment and only showed the hints of an amused smirk. “I admire your propriety but I assure you it is no spell keeping these items held aloft.  And it would take more than arrows to stop me…if you were able to hit me.” That was all he’d say on the matter though, certain things about himself he was careful to keep close to the vest.
 
He watched as she shot, eyes silently darting to watch her arrows.  As he did he was urged to smile, impressed by her accuracy and even more so by why she chose which items to hit, as well as the order in which she did so.  He spoke softly as she continued to fire, “Don’t think too much about what the creature is, focus on the task you’re working on in the now.”  Her curiosity and eagerness was refreshing though, to say the very least.  He was glad to see her advance into the alley rather than limit herself to the entrance like many others would have, and he knew then and there that she would do just fine tonight.
 
His smile was filled with pride as he looked back at her, “You kept count of how many you had taken down as well as how much time you had left.  And,”  He moved into the alley, surveying her work and speaking as he did so, “you got over three quarters of them down.  You did splendidly.”  He turned to face her, his green eyes glowing brighter as his smile widened. “Walk with me…”  He walked out of the alley, speaking as he did so,
 
“As I said before, your propriety is in the right place but knowledge of what you’re attacking should be even higher.  For example, the fastest way to get those targets down would never have been to shoot me because you don’t know exactly what’s keeping them held up.  Though,”  He smiled more, “while I’m glad I don’t have an arrow sticking out of my chest, I would have been impressed if you’d been bold enough to shoot at me.  I like your boldness.  You’ll need it tonight.”
 
He turned his eyes to her, smile fading slightly.  She was young, he felt guilty bringing her into this to begin with, “I only say all of this to you because I want you to always remember that: the unknown is dangerous, and it takes more energy to swing a fist and miss than swing a fist and land a hit.” He looked forward again as he walked, “I also want you to know that if at any time you change  your mind during the hunt and no longer wish to continue then you’ll still be paid.”  Her safety was far more important.
 
“Are you familiar with the lower levels of the city…?  They’re very dark, very isolated from the fortunate, and dangerous.  There’s been…something hunting there.  It’s serpentine like in form, dark in color, and quick as whip.  I’ve heard varying things about its size but it’s more than safe to say that it’s quite large.  There’s nothing magickal in the way it attacks, but I do believe that it uses power to keep itself concealed.  I also speculate that it may be blind given how it hunts.  Right now its meals have consisted of the citizens of the lower levels but it’s venturing upwards.  It keeps to the dark, so the only effective attacks it’s made since coming out of the bowels of the city have been in the nighttime.  They want it stopped, and that is where I come in.  This is what I would be asking you to help me pursue.”

Aries raised an eyebrow. "You haven't even seen this thing? Going by your 'if you hit me' comment, you're probably pretty powerful. It's strange that you haven't found this thing. Why do need anyone else along for the ride?" Speaking of comments, it almost seems like he's using some kind of mind reading technique from some of the things he said… Just in case, she thought, Hey man, I don't like people in my head. If you want to know something, just ask me; I won't lie.

She followed along as he walked, listening as he talked about the monster. "Are you sure you want a novice ranger along for this ride? I mean, I guess my shooting's okay, but I'm not like, powerfully magic or anything. I mean, all I've got is this." She blew a jet of flame out of her mouth. "And that was mostly just so I could pretend to be a dragon. Learned it as a kid."

Aries kind of smiled at his "the unknown is dangerous" saying; she'd never found it too dangerous– just needing to be understood. Of course, she supposed, with monsters, it was sort of different… "I am, unfortunately, familiar with the bottom levels. I live a couple of miles away from a vent; when the wind blows the wrong way, it smells something awful." After pulling a face, she said, "So, er, wait, did you want to test me on my fire breath? I can get a pretty huge plume; or I can make a really hot jet, as the case may be."

Aries patted her pockets, then bent down and picked up a long stone from the ground. "Here, watch out." She pursed her lips, and shot out a white flame onto the rock, which was held gently by her fingers as far from the flame as she could. After a few moments, the rock started dripping onto the ground, and Aries carefully put it down. "How's that?"