Aleris

Post originally by Character_Valliant Nyght

" When you're immortal you forget many things but adventuring, well thats memorable."-- SoulofBlackChaos
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In the hot, no nonsense, summer sun of Heruin, about fifteen kilometers north of Drybrush there was nothing to see but the purest, blue ocean one could possibly lay their eyes on. A beautiful blue flat plane of water as far as the eye could see with white clouds adjoining it in the sky. It was the end of the desert for those that traveled it and for some, the start of an adventure among-st the waves. But this story was not adventure on the high seas...well not in the vast span of things anyway..It was the start of a friendship that would echo through the ages..A friendship that would carry itself through the tides of fate and beyond. It was also the start of a new life for one..He who didn't remember anything about himself and the journey he must take to learn of the true meaning of life and death. It was this basis alone, we humbly start this journey..starting in the hot desert and moving beyond..

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Upon the Heruin's rocky shore, the waves wildly crashed as it did all the time during the midday tide. The gulls flew in formation along its streak mix of land and water, touching the clouds and then dipping back down to the brown terrain, finally avoiding what was the encirclement of dreadful vultures ahead and then flying off where they came from previously. The vultures were there for a reason of course..for food and they found the ultimate prize, that is if it ever would die. Vultures had this sense about them, knowing when something was alive and dead..and this "something" just happened to be someone..A man appearing to be in his mid-twenties, dressed in a full garb of merchant marine's clothes..a sailor of sorts perhaps? Not so much it would seem..he didn't look like the average sailor, which in these lands were scrawny, disease ridden husks of men..This one was different, he had an athletic build to him and looked like he could handle himself well..that is if he was awake. He was laying face down in the sand..the waters of the tide flowing over him, bringing up more sand and maybe the occasional small clam..His clothes were ripped from neck to shin..if he had anything on him before he got here, they were long gone now. The open ocean had the potential to be a ferocious beast to those who lacked the necessary skills to traverse it and it would seem that this man was a victim of such incident.

When one would scan out on the ocean surface, no image of a wrecked ship would be present, as well as no other visible means of why this individual was here at all..It was indeed a mystery to be solved and the ways things are now, it would be said this person was in trouble..because if he ever was to awake..he would find himself at the start of a very inhospitable environment. Heruin was the type of place more adventurers would tend to stay away due to the strong necessary of supplies..and when one says supplies, they usually mean a decent size caravan of supplies..It was a wretched wasteland away from the ocean..full of many harsh wildlife and who knows what kinds of horrible monsters. There was one beacon of hope for this man though..Drybrush, the one lone civilized place in this land and it wasn't very far...maybe an eight hour walk from shore..however even on the best of conditions, it was difficult to traverse even an hour through the sand and dirt of Heruin..for the sun was relentless and took no prisoners. At night, the temperature would of course go straight to freezing..it was afterall a desert and for those that were not used to an environment such as this..it was grand daddy of troubles...

What would become of this man? He appeared dead..but only one with eyes up close would be able to tell that truly...Maybe something above..a great deity of power was watching over him, willing to give him such a chance and if not, what can we say for all the other things that took place in this land? Life carries on until it ends..

The sand whips by in the wind pulling at the tattered coat of the arraki. One would wonder why a creature from wealth and riches would choose to willingly take on the form of a beggar or vagabond. How could such a powerful being hide behind such tattered rags when he could take the world in his hand and smash it without a thought? The bottle of rum swings in his hand his dark crimson eyes watching the sea as the sun sets to the side.

The rum is lifted and a long pull taken. Soul had no need for a life of grandeur or power he had tasted both and both had left a putrid taste in his mouth. He had watched immortals, high up on their pedestals built from the bones and blood of the innocent fall only to their own hubris. Immortals had the ability, the power, to change the world for the better and to do anything they wanted in life. Instead they wasted it by being kings of thousands and answered to no one but themselves, why waste eternal life on doing something so mundane?

The arraki had pondered such thoughts for a long time, in his life he had seen genocide, he had seen war and he had felt love twice. But where were they now? The Amazonian princess or the innocent girl he had changed into one of his kind knowing full well the possible repercussions. He sighs heavy hearted and his mind weighed heavy, he glances down at the beach below and notices a figure in the sand. Another lost soul, caught on the waves and thrown to the rocks. The arraki ponders saving him; at the least the man could make a good meal.

He steps off the cliff as though the fall was nothing more than a step landing heavily in the sand he sent particles flying everywhere. He stalks over to the body eyeing the seemingly unmoving sailor, maybe not such a good meal. He crouches his hulking seven foot form down over the body doing a quick once over. He wasn’t breathing, the arraki didn’t know much about bringing back the dead. He could heal well enough, his accelerated healing factor allowed him to absorb the damage done to most beings upon himself it was always a bit masochistic but it usually saved the victim.

He couldn’t use it on this victim though; this was going to have to be the old fashioned way. A rune glows under his coat very faintly, the result of combining his life to that of a sword of ancient origin his natural abilities were multiplied exponentially. The sea water forces out of the man’s lungs spraying out his mouth almost comically since the man was still unmoving. The arraki taps into a more or less unused power source and places his hand near the man’s chest. Shots of electricity arced from his fingers into the man’s heart, he hoped to jump start it so he wouldn’t have to go mouth to mouth with a dead man.

Post originally by Character_Valliant Nyght

It was at this moment, the man who hadn't been breathing before, let out a massive exhale of carbon dioxide and water, which had been trapped in his lungs..This of course followed by a seemingly endless barrage of coughing and throbbing..The electroshock helped him come back to the living but it served as one hell of a strain on his body at the same time. He keeled over onto his side and finished the last bits of coughing and struggles to breathe..eventually coming around to getting back full control of his lungs, panting along the way. This man was somewhat burly with dark brown chest hair, hair to match and a beard that was starting to grow out of control..As he laid there delirious thoughts roamed freely in his head..His icy blue eyes trying to comprehend to his brain what he was seeing..Sand?

The tide had started to die down where he was and even now as it did, this man struggled to come to terms of where he was and what he was doing here and also trying to cope with having no recollection of who he was. This thought process beckoned him to take a closer look around him and his eyes moved to stare out at the water..watching the waves a distance out crash into the craggy rocks of different parts of the shoreline. His pants lessened into soft breathing now but there was still a strong fatigue about him. His mouth was dry and stomach felt empty..That was just great..Then he removed his eyes from the ocean and looked up on the other side of him, glancing at the sight of a hulking figure standing over him. "AH! What the Hell?!" He scrambled to his feet, his breathing picking back up as his heart started to race..He felt his right arm dropping to his waist to feel around for something like a weapon maybe but this was just pure instinct..He was completely unarmed..Perhaps certain memories he did retain, judging by the way he quickly reacted and was ready to draw a weapon at what he reckoned to be danger..His thoughts were like a beautiful dance number in his head..He obviously didn't have any recollection of who this being in front of him was either..Could he remember anything? His head felt like a boulder on his shoulders...so many things happening at once. If he was a frail person, he probably would have fainted right about now..

It took him several moments to transfer his thoughts into words as he looked at this creature of a man in front of him. "Who are you? H...How did you get here so fast? What am I doing here? Who am I? What are you? What's going on!!!" He was basically in a state of sheer panic..Something inside of his head though told him not to lose control so quickly however, it was the essence of not acting cowardly perhaps, this much registered for him to take to calmness if the thing in front of him didn't lunge out at him in an attack posture..then he would be forced to defend himself, not a thought he wanted in his head right now..So now he stood there, staring at this person, creature or whatever he or it was...

The arraki watches as the man scrambles about, a small smile forming on his face under his hood. Dark crimson eyes stare out at the man who seems as confused as a horse trying to nurse a dog. He lifts his bottle of rum and finishes it off. He doesn’t answer the man right away and instead holds two fingers over the lip of the bottle. Water spray from out of the air begins to suck to his finger tips and fill the bottle.

“ I am Soul.” He was used to these types of reactions from mortals. “I am an arraki and I just happened to be wandering up on the cliff there when I saw your form in the sand. Instead of yelling at me and going for a weapon you don’t have that would probably serve you no use against me anyway so drink up.” The arraki hands the bottle now half full of water, “I’m sure you need some water, who knows how long you’ve been without.”

The arraki lowers his hood, his features were human and an untamed beard grows from his face. “You are in Heruin just north of a town called Drybush in the realm of Aleris. How you got here I do not know, who you are I also have no knowledge of such things. If you want I can take you to Drybush and get some food and fresh clothes for you. Maybe we can jog some memories out of your brain.” The arraki produced a fresh bottle of rum from his coat and takes a long pull.

“You look like a sailor of some kind, but I see nothing that says you came from a ship and usually when a boat goes down everything washes up on the same shore.” The arraki turns toward the small path leading up the cliff.

He was sure the man would have questions but the arraki could and would answer them as they traveled, the desert wasn’t a good place at night for a man but this man was in luck because for the moment he was under the protection of the arraki.

Post originally by Character_Valliant Nyght

He took a few long, hard moments to study this individual in front of him..the arraki...or so this person said was extremely forthcoming on information and somewhat very eager to help him in his current plight. A few thoughts surfaced in his head which served as a general caution to trust and other various precautions which seemed to tell him tread very carefully..He found himself looking back down at his ripped clothes. At this point, it was clear that he must of been some kind of seafaring person..judging by the nature he entered this land..however uncanny it must seem, with there being no physical sign of a shipwreck nearby.. It took him another few moments to weigh in on the only option he had..to go with the being, who called himself "Soul" in front of him. It would seem he had no choice at all..either go or stay and fruitlessly brave the open desert with absolutely zero supplies..

Upon Soul's offering of water, the man mustered with parched lips a few worlds.. "Yes...water please.." He was at this arraki's mercy and perhaps maybe his prisoner too if his intentions were unpure..He may have lost most of his memories but he didn't lose any of his intelligence..He knew what a desert was and he knew that it was physically impossible to traverse it without the proper precautions..His icy blue eyes gazed at Soul and waited for a response..Hope overcame him and desire for food and water rippled through his very soul and essence.. He imagined himself in some eatery somewhere, chowing down on roast potatos and lamb chops..or perhaps a nice hot bowl of delicious beef stew..The thought was like a wave of ecstasy, hitting him at gale speed..In the back of his mind what he was really thinking was a way to uncover the truth about himself..If Soul was true in his mission to help him, perhaps this was the ultimate opportunity to learn more about who he really was..if he would eventually run into someone who knew who he was, a friend perhaps..a family member maybe..

The bottom of his feet was scorched from the burning hot sand underneath. He fixed this by sitting down and ripping pieces of his pants legs and fashioning them around his feet..he did this is with three different layers on each leg..Now he was ready to travel..His skin however was badly burnt as well..but he would have to deal with the horrible pain later. "At the ready..." He said with a bit of cautiousness...still waiting for the water Soul offered him...