RhyDin wasn?t built on a grid system with roads carefully laid out and planned for the most efficient flow of traffic. Like most aspects of the city, it was more chaotic than that. The ancient city had grown from a backwoods internexual trading crossroads to a vital hub of economy, art, and the exchange of ideas.

As had so many before them, the Daniels were drawn to the energy that emanated from it. Most of them thrived off the spirit of the city and were happy enough in its embrace but some went down other roads. They set out exploring the unbeaten paths that stretched out as the streets went from cobblestone to gravel to dirt to barely marked at all, getting increasingly narrow until they disappeared in brush.

And, yet, some of the Daniels didn?t stop there either. Some of their best adventures started when they stepped off the marked trail and blazed their own path.

((This thread is for whatever the Daniels family and friends encounter off the beaten path. Pictures, short stories, journal entries or whatever else you can imagine can be posted here! Introduction by Colt's player. ;-) ))

2 March 2013, 16:35 local

There would be questions about how Sgt. Daniels found the spice traders in Winter Storm Hannibal's whiteout conditions; fortunately for him, local organizations like the Port Authority were used to unanswered questions. His movement-sensitive second eyelids had picked them out of a wooded vale where they huddled together, appearing as a faint golden blob of untapped potential energy through the violet speckles of fast-moving snow. With the traders safely in tow, the Port Authority patrol began the long march back to civilization through almost two feet of snow.

It was getting dark, and the cold air that brought Hannibal to RhyDin's gates would only get colder. Rhett led the way, scanning the swirling snow for signs of any other survivors. When they reached the top of a low hill he stopped for a better look, letting the rest of the group catch up again.

"How are they, corporal?" Rhett said, squinting at the lights of Stars End glimmering through the thick snowfall. They were close and would likely make it before nightfall, but only just. Luck was on their side today.

"Better, sergeant. Tired, but not too tired for a few more miles. They're lucky you found them."

Rhett grunted in reply and turned his attention to the middle distance. "There." He saw another golden glimmer of potential energy at the bottom of a long, gentle slope, and now the corporal saw it too. It looked -- at this distance -- like a figure in rags blowing wildly in the snowstorm, standing alone.

"Gods above, she must be freezing." The corporal grabbed his pack and hurried forward, stopped suddenly by Rhett's hand on his jacket, grabbing him and pushing him back, his gaze never leaving the figure for a moment. "What is it?"

"Wraith." The wind-blown blush on the corporal's face suddenly paled at that word. "Hasn't seen us yet. Get them behind the hill and stay down," Rhett added, dropping to a crouch and shifting his rifle from his shoulder. "If you don't hear anything in two minutes, you know what to do."

"Sir."

Rhett heard the corporal's boots kicking through the snow as he scrambled back to the group; he even heard a few murmured words over the wind's rising shrill, but his eyes never left his target. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and leveled the scope. For a moment the wind died, the snowfall thinned, and the target became clear. She turned her head to face him.

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/225/1/f/snow_ghost_iii_by_vil_painter-d46e1qy.jpg

It. The reminder of the ice wraith's alien nature came with the roots, branches and feathers woven through its hair, rot-blackened lips and heavy, hungry eyes with only an illusory glimmer of human interest lurking in their depths. It took slow but silent steps, one after another in his direction, and he felt icy tendrils probing through his chest, curling around his heart.

This was how the wraith fed, by luring lost or helpful travelers in snowstorms. Once a wraith made eye contact it could begin feeding off a person's internal heat, stopping their heart in under a minute.

This wraith did not get five seconds. Rhett's pointer finger curled through his fingerless gloves, hovered over the trigger's chilled steel... then squeezed. The report was a single loud crack that echoed through the empty country, and the wraith collapsed before it was done, leaving no trace of its presence but a pile of empty rags.

"Sergeant Daniels!"

"It's dead, corporal," Rhett informed him through a breath he'd been holding since the wraith's icy embrace touched him moments ago. He grimaced and spat on the frozen ground. "Let's get the hell out of here before we find its pack."


((Image found here, credited to Mihail Savchenko (photographer) and Melissa (model).))