Ok Figmike, here's my character, False Skies the Zenith Initiate Monk. The intro's 1700 words, so I hope you don't mind reading. Char sheet will be up soon.
False Skies was in times past a brigand. He led a small gang, raiding small caravans traveling through the mountains in the North-East of Creation. It was not a fantastic living, but it was a living. Then, that fateful day came.
It was a small caravan, moving slowly through the mountain paths, as though trying to remain unseen. Indeed, it was laying false trails, as though attempting to mislead trackers. Perhaps, it would have evaded whoever was tracking them. But it was in plain sight to the raiders watching them from above. The caravan itself was a profitable take. Several treasure chests holding gold and other interesting trinkets. The two guards were good, very well trained even, but were eventually outnumbered and killed. There was a young man in the back, rather foppish looking and very much afraid, so much so that he actually slipped and fell off the cliff. Probably the son of some merchant or other, and robbers honestly could not care less who.
They should have though. Not two days after the successful raid, disaster struck. The sentries noticed the five figures heading toward their camp at the top of the hill. No alarm was sounded however, since they were but five. How wrong they were. The five struck the camp with a furious vengeance. One seemed shrouded by a gentle breeze, his features obscured by the flapping of his clothing around him. But who had the time to look? Daggers flew from his person with unerring accuracy, piercing throats and hearts. Yet it was the other man with him, surrounded by a nimbus of flames that ate away the resolve of the camp. Everything about him was set ablaze, even as his massive red cleaver swept men aside with every blow. And he inexorably stalked toward Skies, as if knowing that he was the leader of this motley crew.
In a moment of unparalleled clarity, Skies noticed the resemblance between this demon, and the boy who fell off the cliff. How they found his hidden camp, Skies neither knew nor cared. He simply fled, out the camp, down the hill, into the dreaded forests below. He ran, unthinking and unfeeling. The fiery man pursued him, but paused at the edge of the forest, as though knowing something Skies did not. He would, however, not escape unscathed. From out of nowhere, a dagger past his face, taking his left eye with it. Skies screamed, but kept running deeper into the forest for fear of his life.
Soon, he was deep within the darkness of the trees. He was weary and weak from hunger and thirst. The first few days were truly miserable. There was no food, and while water was readily available, it was often bitter and dirty. Still, he managed to survive in the harsh environment, scavenging for fruit and even worms.
One disaster lead to another. He thought that the gods finally smiled upon him when he found a watering hole near a fruit tree. He had finally found a reprieve. As he was resting against the tree, munching on a fruit, a huge black bear prowled into the small clearing. Eyeing Skies, the bear raised itself onto its hind legs and growled. Fear suffused every bone in Skies’ body, his body seizing up as if in rictus, as though already preparing for death. Within, it was as though Skies was screaming into a vast emptiness, “No!!! I want to live!!!”
Beyond any explanation, that vast emptiness was filled with a great light, and a voice not his own answered, as one with great authority. The words were neither shouted, nor whispered for any effect, merely intoned as if they were already fact. “Then live thou shalt.”
As though reacting on its own, Skies’ body sprang forward, his bare fist striking out of its own accord, burying itself into the bear’s chest and crushing its heart in a single moment of sheer brutal force. The skies seemed to light up in response to the momentous occasion, although Skies had no idea what had happened or what the occasion could be. Reacting once more in fear, he ran half-blinded by the blood in his remaining good eye, almost in feverish delirium as scenes of grandeur and glory unheard flashed through his mind. He seemed to identify with one particular person within all these scenes, but they could not be him, as this person did mighty things he was not capable of, that no mortal was capable of. Still he ran, seemingly guided by an unseen force, till he reached a clearing within the forest, where he promptly collapsed from exhaustion, both physical and spiritual.
It was not a large clearing. But it was unique. No more than a hundred yards in width, but the same width all around. A perfect circle in a natural forest. Skies awoke the next morning, as the sun first crested the horizon. He crawled to his feet, his head still throbbing. He stumbled in beat to the throbbing, unwittingly toward the centre of the circle, where he noticed a small hole, the size of a fist in the ground. Looking through the hole, he saw that there was a cavern underneath the surface. It was a good place to hide, he decided.
But how could he get in? Before he could even think of the question, the world about him swirled and he found himself within the cave. Skies was so shocked he nearly collapsed. The only thing that sustained him was this unshakable sense of familiarity about the place. More images flashed before his mind’s eye as he traced out steps that had been walked eons before, arriving in a small room with a single mat on the hard ground. Uncaring for comforts and thankful for the safety this strange shelter provided, Skies once again lay down to sleep.
As he slept, he dreamt. He dreamt more vividly than he thought possible. He saw a world of wonders and great terror. He saw feats of sorcery and power untold. He saw himself. It was a different face, but he was certain it was him. A venerable figure, a powerful figure, and a compassionate figure. So different from what he is now, but it was him. Then that voice of Authority echoed in the walls of his mind again. “To become.” This time, he heard his own voice reply, “I hear and obey, Master.” Abruptly, he awoke, feeling oddly refreshed.
He reflected on his experiences, seated on the mat. The answers suddenly came very easily. He had been transformed, and into one of the Solar Anathema. He had never cared much about the Realm and what it preached, or of the Dragon-Blooded and their wishes, or he would never have started a life of crime. While that was now clearly past him, since it deviated starkly from the Voice’s commands, he was not about to become a law-abiding citizen either. Still, becoming Anathema was rather unsettling. Deciding to attempt to at least look the part of his new vocation, he settled into a rough lotus position he had seen a mendicant in once and tried to meditate.
After roughly a minute, he had the distinct impression he was being very silly and got up, feeling lead to explore his new ‘home’ instead. It seemed every path in the cavern lead toward the centre of the cavern, where he had first appeared. In the centre of the cavern, where a single beam of sunlight struck the cavern, there lay an orangish rock, as though haphazardly dropped into the ground. Somehow, Skies knew that from this single beam, light was given to the entire system of caves. It made no sense, but Skies knew it to be true.
He reached out and picked up the rock, and was immediately assaulted by a barrage of mental images. Seven dragons he saw, leaping outward like a fountain. A single figure within that draconic maelstrom, twirling about in a mass of robes, but clearly unscathed. A fist shattering boulders. Fingers that pierced steel. And again, seven leaping dragons, now leaping back together, to once again form the shape of a man. And the face of the man, as though a mirror. He saw himself.
Clutching the rock, it felt as though the rock was leading him to another room. Following the seemingly insistent tugs of the stone, he was lead to a small room, somehow carpeted with lush grass. Hung on the walls were a pair of gauntlets, with claws gleaming as gold, yet brighter. In an open box below the gauntlets were bracers of the same material, gleaming like the sun itself. Skies slipped on the bracers, feeling the gentle warmth of the sun coursing through his body. There was a socket on the right bracer. He fitted the rock into the socket, and that warmth intensified, as that of the midday sun. Putting on the gauntlets, he felt as though there were sunbeams in his blood. He felt a faint sense of approval, but he could not put his finger on where it came from.
Then, the memories came. His mind was flooded with information. Ideas and skills he never thought possible rushed into his head like a mighty river. He knew how to fight. He knew how to heal. He knew how to speak. He could uproot trees and fall off cliffs unscathed. He could pass out. And he did.
When he awoke, he knew it was time to leave this sanctuary. He needed a place with clear sunlight to think. A new position in life needed a new direction in life. His world swirled again, and he was back on the clearing, the only evidence that he had not gone mad were the bracers about his wrists and the claws on his hands. He set off on foot for the highest mountain in sight.
It would have been a perilous trek, but his newfound abilities made the journey relatively smooth. He settled onto the peek to meditate once more. There was a pang of loneliness that seemed to permeate his solitude, but it was a new world now, and he felt that he could wait.
