Another day, another adventure for the proud, wandering ancient kroxigor Nakai. Having recently crushed a heretical uprising in Albion, Nakai now wanders through the Northern regions of the Empire, intent in reaching his next target down in the Southlands before year’s end. He paced and skipped through many a village in the countryside, most locals having never even seen one of his race before. Still it made a nice change not to immediately be attacked by something of Nakai’s likeness as opposed to the beasts and mutants they normally have to deal with so they refrained from reporting him to the guards, especially since such men wouldn’t have the necessary training to fight such a beast anyway. Some human peasants even willingly threw him some scraps of food as a thanks for his simply passing through.

One day, Nakai was traversing within that most infamous of woodlands the Drakwald located between Middenland and Nordland. Nakai knew this was a dangerous place yet figured it would delay his mission too much if he went around it, thus he Nakai decided to pass through it until he saw the smoke of a campfire in the distance. Figuring they might have a snack for him like the townsfolk before, Nakai walked toward the camp only to be surprised by what he saw once he arrived. The camp, with its makeshift tents bound together by some kind of leaf-based clothing, leather harnesses and tree bark, was littered with bodies, elf bodies. Nakai looked around the camp, the fire was still releasing smoke though its fumes had died somewhat and some of the bodies still twitched, leading the kroxigor to conclude these elves must have met their fate recently, possibly within as little as the last half hour. These elves were peculiar to him though; no perfumed bodies and fashionable hairstyles, no tiaras or pointy helmets and no metal skirts. To be honest they reminded him more of the Amazons back home than of the elves which claimed sanctuary there. At least he could clearly tell which of these elves were men and which were the women.

Suddenly, a high pitched, childlike scream pierced its way through the tree-line and Nakai leapt into action, skittering about on all fours to increase his movement speed and avoid the obstacles of tangled underbrush with his mace held between his jaws, until he found the source of that scream. A small elf girl, probably a child though you could never be certain with these pointy-eared sprites and clad in similar get up to the inhabitants of the butchered camp he’d seen before, was sat crying against a tree-stump as a group of 8 goat-like creatures approached her from all sides, standing on their hind legs as if they were men, sporting horns roughly the size of a razordon’s spikes and armed with crude axes and swords. There was no escape for the girl and she knew it. As Nakai stood up from his crocodilic pose and gripped his mace with his hands, the leader of these man-beasts turned to the kroxigor and snarled, as if to say this child was their kill and he should look elsewhere if he didn’t want trouble.

….

• Wow React: Nakai took a few glances at the gors and their prey before turning away and walking off. After all, what business is some elf girl of his? No, he’s got a destination to reach and only 11 months to get there. No time for distractions!

….

• Laugh React: As the gor leader continued to snarl at the kroxigor, Nakai suddenly took up his mace and delivered a thunderous smash to its face, beating a great dent in its head.

The other gors attacked the kroxigor but he simply swept them aside, a rather easy feat given that his biceps alone were larger than their torsos. Four more of the gors were beaten into submission before the final three turned and ran.

Nakai paced over toward the elf child and picked her up with his arms before delivering a massive, slobbery lick to her face. Taking this as a greeting, the way a dog might like its owners, the girl reached out to pat her saviour…only for its jaws to open wide and snap down on her head.
Once Nakai had finished eating his lunch, he went on his way. …. ……..Nakai rushed toward the gor which had snarled at him and promptly delivered a hit to its face. The other gors attacked, hacking and slashing with their blades only for Nakai to dispense with them one by one as their crude weapons struggled to pierce his hide. One gor attempted to pull at one of his scales, which promptly led to Nakai tearing its arm off with his jaw, before proceeding to pound his weight on top of another lowly beastman.
However, just before he could kill the eighth and final gor it suddenly let out a primal roar which could be heard miles around. ….

• Sad React: Nakai pondered what to do for a moment. Should he stay or take the girl with him? He decided on the latter, carrying her away though this slowed him down terribly as he could no longer crawl on all fours. Because of this, a pack of warhounds quickly tracked them down and went for the kill. Nakai fought back, breaking the dogs one by one with his hammer though the time this took allowed other beastmen to come, first ungors then gors then even bestigors.

Nakai smashed through dozens of beast-kin, fighting for a girl he neither knew nor had any logical reason to care about beyond his wish to prevent the children of chaos from claiming a new victim. The battle went on and the dead beastmen rose in number but so too did the attackers as even minotaurs were lured in on the sound of hundreds of dying roars. Nakai fought them off too but eventually it all began to tire him as a greater and greater tide of monstrosities attacked.

Finally, the dreaded bray-shaman who stalked this forest, known simply as The Harbinger by its locals, arrived backed up by chaos spawn and even a group of towering Ghorgons in addition to the regular waves of beasts who came for him. Nakai had put up an admirable fight but there was no way one kroxigor could possibly take on the denizens of an entire forest. And so he went down fighting until finally both he and the elf girl were slaughtered by the Bray-Shaman and his minions. ….

• Angry React: Nakai knew the roar would be heard and more beastmen would come. Part of him considered sticking around to fight them off, just as he had the gors, but in reality he knew this would just be too great a distraction from his mission. There’s a big difference between a skirmish and a one-lizard war after all, especially when you’re fighting for someone you don’t know. As such, Nakai dropped down onto his fours and made for a hasty exit, leaving the elf girl behind to her fate.

….

• Love React: Upon realising more beastmen would come, Nakai reached out an arm to the elf girl as a sign to come with him. He lifted her onto his back and proceeded to scramble away as fast as he possibly could. Internally he wondered whether he really did need to go or whether he could fight whatever came on his own. But realistically he knew that even if he could fight a whole forest off, there was no way of guaranteeing that the child would survive such an endeavour.

As for what he would do with this child once they were beyond danger, whether he would hand her to the next town that came along or if she would stay with him for the long haul. Well, that remains to be seen…