ROLEPLAY

<OOC>
Hello all. I hope no one minds, but I figured I'd gather my stories into a singular thread (sometimes containing links to other threads) so that I can have a simple link in my Profile Biography. I'll start at the beginning, a story I wrote in the early days when each race had their own starting islands and Silan had not yet existed (first posting back in 2005).
I'll post these items over time.
For those not aware of the old starter islands, here's a map:
Matis starter island (Notice the similarity to Silan :p).
</OOC>

Time to Leave (originally posted June 9th, 2005)
Part 1: Magic

Rosilio:

“I love the stars.”
Valeriana stared up at the night sky. Stretched out on her back and using the soft grass as a comforting mattress, she watched the streaks of falling stars blink in and out of existence. She was softly rubbing the tender flesh that surrounded the rawness from a burn received trying to harvest amber from the ground.

“Maybe, some day, Jena will return to us and take you for a ride among them.”
Suibom was also looking to the sky, but it was more out of distraction than to watch the evening display. Valeriana could tell something was on his mind, but chose not to pursue it, content with counting the stars.

“Val, this island has grown too small for me. I need to leave.” He said, sounding as if he were somewhere in the distance.

“I've heard it before.” Val said with a smile, still counting falling stars.

“I know you have, Val. But this time it is actually happening. My things are packed and I just need to complete some errands before I go. I will be leaving in a couple of days.” Slowly, a cloud seemed to cover Suibom's mood, “The whispers grow day by day that a war is on the horizon. I must join our kin in Yrkanis and help with the rebuilding. I plan to join a mighty guild and continue my training. If war does come to us, I will be ready.”

“Continue your training? You plan to be a mighty farmer?” Valeriana snorted softly with a giggle.

Suibom stood up, apparently missing the joke. He looked down at Valeriana and closed his eyes, arms out slightly away from his sides with the palms up, as if he were opening himself to her. Valeriana looked at him from the ground, waiting for something but unsure of what. She watched as his breath became deeper and more rhythmic. Her eyes grew wide as he began to lift into the air. She scrambled up from her bed of grass and watched Suibom, jaw slack with amazement; watched his hands begin to form a glow as he drew them to his chest and curled into a fetal position three feet off the ground, hovering stationary. A bright light began to form from somewhere within his chest, warmth and energy emanating strongly from it.

Suddenly Suibom flared open, releasing the healing energy in a bolt. Valeriana jumped back and caught her breath as the bolt consumed her, the healing energy spiral up through her body. It filled her with an ecstatic glow. And in that instant, the glow was gone. Valeriana looked down at her arm, knowing what she would find but not believing it. The pain and tenderness were gone, as was any trace that her arm had been hurt. She looked back up to Suibom, who was smiling broadly.

“You're a healer!?!” She gasped, the shock quite apparent in her voice.

“Not primarily,” He said, sitting back down on the grass, “but I know enough to heal light wounds. I know you have many questions, but they will have to wait. We need to get some sleep, I have a lot to do tomorrow and there are a few people I want you to meet before I leave.”

With that, Suibom began to walk back to the small encampment they called home.

Valeriana watched him walk away for a moment, then shouted after him “And all this time I thought you were just playin hooky at the kipee ponds!” She layed back down on the grass and resumed watching the stars, deep in contemplation. “Stinkin boys.” she said while stifling a yawn. Too many thoughts were racing through her mind and it made her realize how sleepy she really was. Valeriana stood back up and began to walk after Suibom, back to the camp, back to her bed.

Deep in thought.

Time to Leave (originally posted June 12th, 2005)
Part 2: Dreams

Rosilio:

Valeriana lay in bed, sleeping but not asleep. The night was torn apart by endless bouts of tossing and turning. Images danced across her brain in a cinematic of chaos. Slowly, the images began to congeal into a more solid form. Tangible, but only just.


A hazy, heavy mist-covered field
A man in the distance
Walkin towards me.. us?
I know this man, he is my father
he is wavin goodbye.. smilin, sad eyes

Fire burns away the mist
Screams, tearin at my ears
Screams of pain from one direction
Screams of hate from the other
The fire burns away the screams
Burns away everythin...

Revealin a face, lookin at me, smilin...
Her eyes do not smile
I know this woman, she is Jena
Surrounded by machines,
She reaches a hand out to me
I extend my own hand to her
It is enveloped
By metal and machine, consumin me
I close my eyes
I am devoured...

My eyes open again, I see another
A small creature, playful and simple lookin
It's eyes, dangerously mischievous
This creature is Ma-Duk. How do I know this?
It reaches a hand out to me
I extend my own hand back
It is enveloped
By plant and energy, consumin me
I close my eyes
I am devoured...

My eyes open again, there is a third
A male being watches over Jena and Ma-Duk
He holds Atys in his palms
This man is Elias. How do I know this?

Suddenly a shriek that splits my brain,
A cry for blood; loud, strong and multiplyin
I turn to look and see a livin ocean
Swarms of creatures, giant and spidery, everywhere
In death's carapace, the swarm consumes all
Behind the swarm is a fourth being,
Watchin
Laughin
Without mercy
Fear strikes my heart like a lance of ice
Fear consumes me
Fear devours me...


Valeriana shot from her pillow, sitting up; back rigid and body drenched in sweat. "Only a dream", she quavered, trying to convince herself. The last images seared her mind's eye. She knew those creatures from many childhood stories. Slowly, she lowered her head back to her pillow and tried to fall back to sleep.

“Only a dream”, she whispered to herself.

Time to Leave (originally posted June 20th, 2005)
Part 3: The Journey

Rosilio:


The scent of morning hung thick in the air, pleasantly filling Valeriana's nose as a hand gently nudged her shoulder. Not wanting to wake yet, she kept her eyes closed and enjoyed the song of the birds and the warm sun which peaked through the window and streaked across her back. The hand nudged her shouder again, this time followed by a voice, breaking through the clouds in her mind, "Wake up little sis. There are some people I need you to meet today."

Valeriana cracked open the lids of an eye and peered around with blurred vision. She saw her pillow, her bed, her room. Things seemed intact and as they should be, but she had a burdening feeling that something had been forgotten. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, trying to clear the fog webs of her mind. Suddenly, a brief flash of memory flared in her mind's eye. Her breath caught, as if a hand reached into her chest and tightened it's grip on her lungs. A glimpse of the dream shattered her peace. Through the haze of clouded memory, she remembered machines and metal encased bodies. She remembered a woman's face. Everything else was lost to the haze.

"Are you alright, Val?" Suibom said as he noticed her body tense.

Val sat up in her bed. She reached back in her mind trying to remember more of the dream that seemed so frighteningly real earlier that night but found nothing more than the gray fog. "I... I had a dream. A woman, a goddess... Jena. Homins... enslaved?... by machines, by metal. I can't remember the dream. It's more of a feelin at this point than a memory. I believe the goddess may be returnin to us, though."

"I would not doubt it." Suibom said as he sat on the bed next to Valeriana. He was looking out the window at the dense forest that extended beyond. Thoughts of the rumors and hearsay that had been whispered throughout the camps recently raced in his mind. Whispers of war, whispers of broken treaties, whispers of Matis destiny. There were more quiet whispers as well, whispers of an old guild that has long been forsaken. Suibom didn't know what to make of it all, though he did know to trust Valeriana's dreams. He also knew he had to get to Yrkanis to seek the truth behind several mysteries.

"For now, though,” he said as he stood up and began to walk to the door, "we have a long journey ahead of us. Wash and put on some traveling gear, we will be making our way to Borea."

“Borea,” Valeriana thougth to herself. She never traveled outside of Rosilio and did not have much in the way of traveling clothes. She led a mostly meek existence, farming and harvesting basic materials which she used to craft the basic necessities needed for the camp, as was the existence of most of the permanent members of the encampment. Her father, Petrov Azini, was one of the initial builders of the camps, created to help refugees integrate back into Matis life.

Her father... There was something about her father in the dream. She reached for it, but grasped little more than the wisps that remained around her mind's eye. She stood up and walked to the small wash basin on a table near the window, shaking her head to release the memory, not wanting to think about it any further. Her father died when she was only two and she didn't really have any memories of him. It didn't make sense to her to be dreaming of him now, but the fog lay heavy on her head. It was the type of dream that frightened her; the type of dream that she had more and more frequently as she grew older. These dreams were more than dreams, they were glimpses of reality. They were glimpses of events that happened in the past, present and future. She shook her head again and this time splashed water on her face. “No time to be thinking these thoughts now,” she said to herself, quietly. The journey to Borea would not be an easy one.

* * *

Valeriana emerged from the small hut dressed in ragtag clothes that were more suited to farming than traveling through the forest. She expected Suibom to be dressed in a similar manner and was not at all prepared for what she found. He was outside finishing his travel preparations, but rather than wearing the basic clothes of a farmer, he was dressed in a suit of light armor as finely crafted as any she had ever seen.

"Where in the roots did you get that??" She said incredulously.

"It's pretty isn't it?" He said, moving his arms and torso about, settling the armor in. "One of the folks you'll meet today, Sinkelinke, made this suit. By Jena, she's talented! The other, Sophy, is equally as skilled."

"The Sophy?" Valeriana sounded surprised.

"You know her?" Suibom asked curiously.

"I've never met her, but I have heard her name. Sounds like she has quite the ability to turn boys into puppy dogs."

Suibom rolled his head back in laughter at the statement. "Indeed she does. I think you'll love her," he said with a broad smile.

The smile faded, though, as his jovial mood turned somber. He threw a travel pack over his shoulders and attached sword and dagger to his waist. "We must be leaving now," he said. "We need to make it to Borea before nightfall."

Valeriana understood why his mood went somber, and why he was equipped in such a way. The path between refugee camps was never completely safe, but one could generally travel the distance alone. Recently, however, something was stirring up the ragus and gingo into a constantly frenzied state. The same tension that seemed to be affecting everything. The predators had become extremely aggressive and were ever-present in the forest. At night, there was no hiding from them, nowhere safe from their claws and fangs.

Slowly, the pair made their way thorough the forest. As Valeriana watched Suibom, she began to wonder how she had missed the shift in who her older brother had become. For some time now he had often been absent from the encampment. She had not given it too much thought as he continued to finish his duties and boys often seemed to become preoccupied with various shiny objects. But watching him now, as he guided her through the forest, pointing out the tracks of various animals and what activities they had been engaged in, and showing her the behavior patterns of the visible creatures, she realized that he had been spending his time growing up and training. He was preparing to follow a higher calling that he was not fully aware of yet. She had seen pieces of this in dreams, she now realized.

They continued through the forest on the way to Borea, Suibom showing Valeriana how to visualize where gingo and ragus were hiding based on the herding and clusters of the bodoc and capryni. She was amazed to see how accurately he could predict where the predators lay in wait. As the day began to wear away, they could see the tower of Borea looming in the distance.

“We're almost there!” Suibom shouted to Valeriana as he raced ahead to look over a ridge and stared down at the small village happily. He turned back to urge his sister on and noticed that she had fallen behind. Fear struck him when he saw that a ragus had caught sight of her and was preparing to pounce.

“Val! Run!” Suibom shouted.

Valeriana looked confused for a moment, then heard the unmistakable growls and bounding claws from behind, approaching swiftly. She screamed as she started to run as fast as she could force her weary legs to carry her, praying they would not trip on the underbrush. To be attacked by a ragus, unprepared as she was, was to die, rent limb from limb. Suibom, too far away to reach Valeriana before the ragus did, fumbled for a pair of ornate gloves from his backpack. Quickly, he put the gloves on as he watched the bare fangs of the beast get closer and closer to his sister. He placed his hands slightly apart from each other and began to concentrate. A small green ball of energy began to grow and crackle between his fingertips, letting off a bright yellow-green light. The energy-ball grew. The fangs got closer to skin. Suibom flung the energy-ball forward, releasing it's kinetic force in an acidic bolt that streaked at the beast as it jumped at Valeriana's legs, trying to bring her down. The bolt struck it's mark true, a large cloud of noxious acid bursting around the beast and knocking it off it's course. Valeriana continued to run, but was no longer pursued. Slightly dazed by the cloud, the ragus found a new target. Quickly it began another chase, bearing down on Suibom himself. He brought his hands together again. Valeriana watched as the ball began to grow. Suibom let loose another bolt which tore through the ragus' face. The predator slumped to the ground, lifeless.

Suibom and Valeriana stood there, breathing heavily, shaking with fear. “I didn't know if I could get to you in time,” he said, his voice calmer than he thought it would be. “I though I was going to lose you.”

Valeriana couldn't say anything. They stood for a while longer, until the shock wore off, then continued to Borea. Quietly they made their way into the village as night took over the sky.

Years later, on the mainland, some time not long before the Temple Wars...

Glimpses of the Past (Originally posted February 15th, 2009)
Part 1: Memories of Rumors and Stories


Suibom sat at the base of the Towerbridge spire, resting on one of the rolling hills that sprawled outwards from the jutting rock formation. The cool spring early morning air occasionally brushed his face and the tips of his ears, causing a slight flush to his pale Matis skin. He hardly noticed the chill that surrounded him though, or the fading stars above him or the changing colors of the sky as the new day began. His hands were working nimbly with the jeweler's tools and materials as he worked to perfect his craft, but his mind was growing increasingly distracted with the mists of faded memory as he thought about the strange events that had enveloped his life over the last handful of years.

Sui had left his sister, Valeriana, and his refugee camp home all those years ago to come to the mainland and carve out a life in Yrkanis as a productive member of a prominent guild, preparing for the world changing events that were heavily rumored to come. The kitin were reported to have become very active in the world again. There were many stories of the growing conflicts between the religions of Atys and their devout followers. In the refugee camps, as new blood was trained up and prepared for life on the mainland, it was told that the tenuous peace agreements between the political structures of the different races were quickly degrading.

War was descending. Guilds were scrambling to control outposts to best support their alliances and beliefs. The goo was spreading and infecting the world. Jena was returning to us and Ma-Duk loomed, hidden in the jungle and amassing Kami armies. The presence of the Dragon felt palpable in the air. The day of judgment was near.

At least, those were the stories that Sui came to the mainland with.

The reality that met him when he arrived, however, was quite different.

Sui's mind fogged again and he looked around, blinking, not sure where he was. In his hands was another degraded necklace he just finished crafting. He was usually frustrated when his time honed skills were met with failures, but he was grudgingly used to it when pushing his skills to the edge of his abilities. Right now, though, the failure was just caused by distraction. He was remembering something, what was it?

At some point in the past, since arriving on the mainland, he made -- in hindsight -- some very bad decisions. He can't remember what happened exactly, but it left his mind like a sieve. It started with the search for his adoptive father, which lead to roadblocks in every direction. It then lead to a bar where the first drink was on the house and the second was a gift of the barman. The bar was a much easier place to exist, where he didn't have to hear the ghosts of his father or sister and he didn't have to worry about impending war. Not when there was enough to drink.

Often lucid, every so often his thoughts would randomly wisp away. His memories were much worse; like trying to hold onto water. They came to him when they want and all he could do was pay attention to the daydreams and try to recover the holes in his past. The episodes usually left him unresponsive to outside stimulus with a vacant stare on his face. He transformed into a deaf, dumb, and mute living statue. Sometimes this happened in the middle of interacting with other homins. His social life had been destroyed by the affliction, and his chances of being a prominent member of a strong guild decimated.

Guilds... Sui's memory stream opened up again and mental visions of his arrival on the mainland continued while his hands still worked the jeweling tools and materials.

***

Soon after arriving in the Matis capital, Yrkanis, Sui sought out others who were willing to continue to train him in the skills he began to learn in the refugee camps. While honing his skills and abilities he started to investigate guilds, trying to find one he could apply his skills for and take pride in being a part of. He soon found what he was looking for and joined the ranks of the Dragonblades. It was an excellent time for him. Sui learned many skills quickly and the guild was very active in preparations for the purported future war.

But time marched on and the signs of war never manifested more than rumors. Jena was no closer than she had ever been and Ma-Duk still only communicated through its devout spiritual guides. But the threat of war still persisted through the rumors and statements from political leaders. It hung over every homin like a suffocating wet blanket. The sense of anxiety was thick in the air. Guilds continued their bloody clashes in attempts to control the outposts and territorial battles in the Prime Roots were common.

Then he started hearing rumors from new arrivals to the mainland that the refugee camps had been raided by kitin. The camps had been utterly destroyed and very few homins had been able to escape. The kitin had razed the Matis refugee lands with their devastating efficiency. Waves of homin bodies were left strewn across the land in their wake. No one had information about his sister, Val.

***

A small snap quietly shattered the peaceful morning air. Sui shook himself out of his reverie and looked down at his work. The seed and amber he used to craft the necklaces had shattered into small fragments that fell to the floor and the jeweling hammer was snapped in two. A bead of sweat trickled down Sui's brow.

To be continued...

Glimpses of the Past (Originally posted February 18th, 2009)
Part 2: A Great Man, A Father, A Ghost


Sui stared at the complete failure he held in his hands. He had made a simple, but disastrous, mistake that resulted in the loss of the fragile jeweling tool and materials. A neophyte mistake he had learned to avoid long ago.

Back in the refugee camps, Sui had befriended a woman who had taught him how to avoid simple crafting mistakes that degraded the end product. Her tutelage had helped him to get to a new level in his crafting abilities, as well as helping him to understand intricate facets to many of the skills he learned in the camps. Sophy had become a pillar to Suibom's life, teaching him much about the mainland and the need for homins to be prepared for their journey. Unfortunately, like his sister Val, Sophy was lost to the kitin invasions on the refugee camps.

Sui reached in his bag and shuffled around until his hand clasped a small hammer. He pulled out the unused jewler tool and began to work on more amber and seed. The amber glinted in the freshly risen sun, sending small reflections in all directions. The slightly acrid smell of fresh seed permeated the air from all the work. Sui was moving automatically, only slightly more than half conscious of what he was doing; burning the intricate, but repetitive, work into muscle memory.

Over time Sui found fewer and fewer refugees that had come to the mainland from his home camps. He began to hear of kitin invasions on refugee camps of other races as well. Each story was more withering than the last. The destruction of the camps was complete, there was nothing left in those areas.

No one had any information about Val or Sophy. Eventually, there were no more stories of the camps at all. Sui lost hope; he had fought kitin with the Dragonblades, he knew the destruction they could cause. He knew the singularity of their focus on the eradication of homins. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to encounter waves of the beasts swarming at him.

The thought brought another memory forward. A dream that his sister had told him about shortly before his departure to the mainland. She told him that she had dreamt of Jena and Ma-Duk, both consuming hominity in their own way. She also dreamt of a man called Elias. She dreamt of her father as well. But her dream ended with the kitin. They had swarmed the planet and destroyed everything in their path. No homin trace was left.

Val's dreams were often difficult to decipher properly, but they were rarely wrong – at least, as far as Sui had ever encountered. The kitin raid on the camps, that one seemed obvious now. Jena and Ma-Duk, Sui had thought that part of the dream was about the coming war he continued to hear rumors about, persisting in the constant static of undertoned conversations that echoed off every surface it seemed; the day of judgment. But he began to think that war would not materialize any time soon, if at all. If Jena and Ma-Duk represented something else, it was not something he could understand yet. Elias, Sui was not sure who that was or what he had to do with the rest of the dream. And then there was her father.

Val's father, Petrov Azini, adopted Sui when he was very young, before Valeriana had been born. The story that Sui had come to learn was that Azini was an honored Matis warrior that helped to forge the Matis refugee camps. He helped to train refugees so that they would better be able to protect themselves when they reintegrated into life on the newly reachable mainlands.

He was also a man with a ferocious temper and the leader of a group of Matis that viciously raided a tribe of renegades who had set up a sprawling camp near the refugee territory.

A refugee scout determined that the renegades were slave traders that had been abducting refugees from the camps. They were preparing to take the abducted refugees to another land and sell them off, or worse. When the news got back to Azini's group, rage flowed through the Matis and they assaulted the renegade encampment with a blazing brutality that took the renegades off guard. The tribe was destroyed swiftly, allowing no mercy for the slave traders. Aside from a handful that escaped, they were all killed in battle or executed.

During a final sweep of the area, searching for any renegade bodies that might still be breating and needing to be separated from their corrupted souls, Azini heard a small, soft sound behind the dangling flap of a tent that was still partially upright. He shifted the flap over with the blade of his sword, his grip tightening and ready to bury the blade into whatever lay beyond.

He was greeted by a small basket covered with soft blankets and tucked gently into the edge of the tent. Small eyes peered into his from inside the basket as a tiny hand reached out to the blade, inquisitively. The Matis baby was mostly quiet, making occasional soft cooing noises and looking around at his surroundings.

Azini looked at the child and his legs wavered, rage flowed away from him like a demon released. He fell to his knees before the small child and gently took the tiny homin into his arms. Holding the baby close, he looked around at the carnage that his group had inflicted on the tribe. He never meant for his skills to end the lives of so many homins in such a simple, quick tailspin of rage and hate; even homins as wicked as these lost souls. Azini claimed the baby as his own, a small sliver of redemption for his personal sin. He rescued Sui from the tribe and adopted him.

When Val was still sucking on the teat of her wet nurse, Azini followed a calling to the mainland to serve for his king, Yrkanis. He left his children in the care of their tutor and nanny. Then, on one very sad day early in his life, Suibom learned that his adoptive father had been killed in battle. He was told that it was a glorious battle and Azini died a hero.

As Sui grew up, he naturally began to ask questions about Azini. As his sister grew from a baby he would tell her fabulous stories of their father and he wanted those stories to be true. However, the leaders of Rosilio, the people that Sui had thought were friends of his father, only quieted him when he asked about their father's journey to the mainland and his heroic battle. Over time they systematically ignored his queries and worked to eradicate Azini's memory. Eventually the name of Azini had disappeared from the camps; their father had become a figment of the mind to most.

The memory continued to lived strong in the two children, though. Sui became resolute that he would find out what happened their father. He would join a guild on the mainland and find out why the elders of his camp tried to erase Azini.

Sui reached absentmindedly into his sack to gather more amber and seeds for another necklace, but his fingers only found the walls of the sack. He was out of materials for the jewelry. The realization crept into his mind enough to forced the weave of memories to unravel like a flower opening to the sun. The first layer to unravel was the memory of childhood and their father. Then Val's dream peeled back. Finally Sui was left on the Streets of Yrkanis, the memories of his time with the Dragonblades and coming to terms with the loss of his sister and friend.

On that day, long ago, Sui decided he would discover what happened to their father. He would find the truth for Valeriana, so that she could rest in peace knowing that her father was a great man to the end.

On this day, enshrouded in daydream memories, Sui broke away enough to decide he needed to gather more materials for his creations. He gathered up his bag, switched his jeweler tool for a harvesting pick, stood up and stretched. The memories still floated in the back of his mind as he soaked in the warmth of the morning sun.

Mornings like this were a blessing and a curse. It helped him to piece together his life, but it absorbed him fully. When the stream of memories stopped bombarding his mind's eye, they would inevitably shrink back into the shadows. It was like trying to hold onto water.

To be continued...