Chapter 2: Ways of Life
Smoke bellowed out of the tall smoke stacks atop the town's armory. Felynes and hunters rushing about inside the large stone building, trying on their newly crafted equipment and keeping an eye on the whereabouts of the rare materials they had just handed the forge men, or forge cats. Hammers pounded metal continuously bending and shaping blades for their customers, a truly awful racket for anyone not used to the noise. Two large iron clad men walked into the forgery the only difference between the two was the helmets, one made of Rathalos scales and the other of Diablos shell. Both were curiously checking what was going on and acclimating to the sharp noise of colliding alloys, they walked about three feet into the building before being greeted by five other hunters. The two now suffocating in friendly cheers and greeting they both smiled and slapped others on the backs with their thick arms. One of the men removed his red wyvern scaled helm and shouted flirtatious words to a woman half way across the armory inspecting weapon molds that were used to make powerful monster bashing great hammers. She stood there, unaffected by the mans words, with her tan furred and black spotted felyne servant. The felyne looked up at her and noticed that her armor was a dark black and violate color, that he was not used to and unsure of, the color change was due to the dimness of the forge and the blue of her velociprey armor. He stood there puzzled for a second making sure he was following the right master, "Nya. Do you know what that guy over there wants from you? Master?" the cat said trying not to disrupt her concentration upon the weapon choices. "Not at all Sebastian." she said without taking her eyes off a particularly menacing looking hammer mold. "This one!" she exclaimed to the forge elder, he wasted no time swinging over to them on his extremely agile bamboo scaffolding, hanging only inches from molting cauldrons of metal. "A flawless choice my mistress." the elder then guided a small crane to hoist the mold up and position it under a large smelter. "Would you like me to go find out what that man wanted from you? Nya?" Sebastian said snapping out of his hypnosis of watching so many things going on at once. "No" she said curling her long orange hair around her finger "What ever he said has no relevance to why we are here. Thank you though Sebastian." she patted him on the head and walked off toward the elder and her newly selected weapon model. "What materials would you wish to use? Reyaw?"a dark cat said standing on a pillar next to the smelter. She thought for a moment then crossed her arm across her chest while supporting the other that was busy sticking her palm into her forehead then she sighed... "Kyle..." she walked briskly to the exit of the forge while yelling "Sebastian stay here!" and exited the armory.
The boat docked after its long trip from the "forest and hills" region, there were two groups of hunters each with four members, the first group seemed rather excited they had just finished telling Kyle about the amazing hunt they just embarked on. They said they killed a large Gypceros and just as it hit the ground they herd a loud screech and out of no where a very quick, and very purple "kut-ku" attacked them, one of them exclaimed she chipped off a part of its beak with her stone like shield before another one of them threw a dung bomb to warn it off. They did in fact smell rather wretched and she did in fact have a purplish chunk of a very hard beak like material that glistened in the sunlight. She was Obsessed with the fact that what attacked them was a "Yian Garuga" a creature normally herd of in fables and legends, but it was highly unlikely that anyone in town would believe her. The other group of four were pretty beaten and bloody two of them were so charred that you could barley make out the type of armor they were warring,they counted them selves lucky to not be to badly hurt but the captain of the boat still advised them to get medical attention. We all got off of our three hour trip on the placid Gabriel river and were a bit wobbly on our feet making the trek up the large flight of stairs leading to the guild hall quite challenging.
Kyle reached the doors that greeted returning hunters back into the guild, to a drink or more quests. By this time he was to tired to grab the knobs of the door...BAM! Instead he kicked them open, light rushed into the lobby of the guild hall revealing a row of tables with drinks freshly put on them and two large reception counters. At the first slightly larger desk there were two beautiful and cheery women waving the arrival of Kyle and the others. The second desk had another woman that was so thrilled to see them that she was half asleep. "Not many sales for ya' there deary?" one of the hunters said, she didn't hear him. Kyle moseyed on over to one of the six tables and collapsed there and feel asleep.
"Watch where your going!"a man exclaimed "Are you blind!" said another "Shouldn't you be slaying monsters more than shoving me around all day!" yelled a cranky woman. Nothing was stopping her, her orange hair glowing in the sun and her blue eyes fixed upon the guild hall. The quiet lobby, undisturbed with only four people in it three of them were receptionists and the other one was Kyle fast asleep on the bench of the furthest table to the right if you were just entering the room. SLAM! There was the fifth... the door slamming open had little affect on Kyle's sleeping status but everyone else was wide eyed and alert to the situation. "Can we help you ma'am?" the receptionist said "This man, I'm here to talk to him" she replied. She then lightly walked into a position where she was directly standing over Kyle's sleepy mind... "KYLE!!" Instantaneously he was awake and lifting himself up until SMACK his head met hers and they both fell to the ground with a newly acquired head ache. "What the Hell was that!?!" she exclaimed rubbing her head. "You waking me up I believe..." Kyle laughed but quickly returned to reality and winced in pain. "This is exactly how we met, those years ago, I was wondering around in the forest looking for some of my belongings that were stolen by a group of Melynx and out of no where you come flying out of a bush next to me at break neck speeds and SLAM" she smacked her hands together " We both get knocked to the ground." They got up and tried to regained part of their dignity, the receptionists still hooting from the impact. "So what have you come all the way down here for Chelsea?" he questioned, and she replied with a glance to his many backpacks. "Oh! Right, right!" he gave her the bag with the requested ores in it, she opened it up to check it and she was greeted by the sweet earthy smell of carbalite ore. "Thank you sooo much Kyle!" she said kissing him on the cheek and handing him 2,000z's then she bolted out the door she came. "Aren't you gonna ask me how my journey was?..." he said standing there with one hand clutching the bills and the other attempting to signal her back. He looked at his missing right shoulder pad when one of the receptionists asked " well... how was it?"
"Thank you so much Sebastian for staying put" she kissed him on his head and looked at the cat that was in charge of the smelting of her new weapon. "Here I would like to use these" she handed the felyne the bag and he climbed up a small latter and dumped them in the over sized melting pot. The smelter rumbled with energy and power slag started to splatter over the rim of the giant pot, for a moment things seemed out of control, suddenly a horn blew telling the cat that the metal was at the perfect temperature. He released the spout at the bottom of the smelter with the pull of a rope then the molten carbalite and dragonite mixture, green in appearance, oozed out like molasses and radiating extreme heat. The mold was beginning to fill and soon it was full, the smelter now empty almost instantly cooled off due to the mysterious properties of the strange alloys. "There you have it, smelting complete, now if you return to us in a few hours we'll have the fabrication of your new weapon done and she'll be ready to go" hummed the elder in proud manner.
Kyle was now wondering outside from his heroic tale of how his right shoulder was almost bitten off by a Rathalos, when in fact he got it caught between two trees while searching for mushrooms in the forest when after various tugs and attempts to get free it just popped right off and he was left in awe with a gigantic hole where it used to be. He strode off down the cobble stone street and after turning right between the market district and armory he reached a small house in which him and Chelsea shared. They were good friends and often hunted together but after the death of someone that was very close to him, he gave it up and sought out fortune else where. The guild was not at all happy with Kyle's choice to leave hunting, they couldn't stand the fact one of their top hunters was leaving the business and they would need more than fifty new comers to join to do the same amount of work he did in his time... Minegrade was in chaos towns under siege and settlements destroyed by the wyvern outbreak. No one did anything, they couldn't and the guild was not responding to their cries for help because they were in shock to the loss of their hero..their rise to power...and their glory to say they owned that man...
They tried to persuade him back with generous offers of gold and fame... neither were of what Kyle wanted, they tried to kill him... erase him from the public eye and keep him from exposing their secrets that they trusted him enough to tell, he didn't, all he wanted was to be alone. They couldn't get him back and they couldn't kill him... so they forgot him and so did the people...
Many new hunters joined the force to help the others, to protect their families but many had no choice their lives destroyed by the wyvern's attacks. Thousands joined and soon everything returned to normal and life was back in check, monsters were not breeding out of control, and attacking in mass numbers.
With that came the cease of people calling his name as he passed by in the streets, people stopped chanting his presence and many forgot his name... the famous Kyle Landon was no more. The guild didn't attempt at all to glorify or preserve his name in the halls like they do all famous hunters. Not even after he and his comrade Riku Vega defeated Lao Shan-Lung, The Old Mountain Dragon, and decimated the evil black dragon Fatalis. No one aided him after he left the guild and hunting, no one knew of him, the hero of Minegrade was forgotten...