Greppa's Ambitious Destiny
Well, Incognito, everyone, here is the post on Greppa's motivations. Some of the memories of past posted, namely the Eastpass rout are distorted by personal experience and emotion. I'm not attempting to alter continuity.
Please excuse any misspellings or errors. They will be dealt with as I am able to.
The nightmare's beginning was familiar.
Orcs blanketed the mountain slope at Eastpass surging en masse, a wave death borne on swarthy muscles.
Greppa marched in the midst of his battle band, mud bearers bracketed on his left and right. In the pearlescent sunlight of the dream. The other soldiers, the adults sent reinforce them seemed to tower over him, a forest of soldiers. He was in the third rank, behind the shield wall and their spearmen. He could see Athan marching grimly with the second rank of spear man and knew that Merideth was somewhere the nearby ready to pull their grapes off the vine when the fight got underway.
Then the dream changed.
The battle was joined. The shield wall held again and again as the orcs drove into it. They could pull this off, Greppa thought. They could hold them off until Hurath comes back and sends them scurrying again.
The dream changed.
Greppa was standing on the lookout rock as Hurath requested 50 soldiers to go harry the orcs and open the northern trade route. He watched them disappear over the pass. He was waving good-bye
The dream changed.
The battle continued. Greppa was becoming numb. "El gan kinos, El gan kinos" he cast, and cast the power words had become a mantra as he strove to dirty the eyes of every orc he could reach.
"We're going to win," Greppa thought, ginning despite of himself as Athan deprived another orc of his windpipe. "We're going to…"
A heavy bell had rung and for a fraction of a moment Greppa wondered who's bright idea it was to bring a bell on the battle field, then he saw one of the spearmen's head explode, ruptured by the tree trunk that that punched its way through the shield wall. There were other ringing sounds, less pure than the first, but just as chilling.
Men were flung aside as the battering rams charged through their ranks. Goal accomplished, the orcs dropped the logs. Chitin spears appeared in their hands and the slaughter began.
The dream advanced, sharpening into bright detail as fantasy started rippling at the edges of the memory's reality.
The orcs boiled and bubbled through the disintegrating shield line. The mudbearers were gone, vanished in the panic. Greppa ran, trying to use the carnage as cover, size finally playing into his hands for once. The forest of soldiers had been replaced by fallen children and adults. The occasional orc sprinkled the ground, but most, at least from his angle seemed to be wearing the tunic and sandals of the Thoralis military.
He was considering smearing himself with other people's blood and burying himself in the growing pile of bodies when Agina's voice cut through the din.
"TO ME! RETREAT TO ME!"
Greppa ran, pumping fast as he could, ignoring the cuts and slices he had accumulated in is flight, finally he was cornered. Chitin tipped spears poking into his neck and torso, barking incomprehensible orders at him.
It was the moment that he felt defined him.
Greppa didn't want to die on his knees, Greppa didn't want to die, but he didn't want to die on his knees, before orcs, dirty, stinking barbaric orcs. He tensed hoping to make his end quick, then his nerve deserted him. He didn't overtly surrender, but his willingness to fling himself on the hooked points or fight and struggle drained away. He could feel his strength seep out, flowing, stirring into the blood caking his sandals.
He looked around, heart quailing.
Killing, at least for the Orcs, wasn't the goal anymore. They were fracturing people from the retreating ranks and driving them to the ground in forced surrender and binding them like unruly livestock.
Greppa's thoughts raced. Arcanists are supposed to be able to summon fire from the heavens. Fly from the clutches of enemies on wings of Will. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," his thoughts beat against his skull, straining against his eyes. Eyes that watched Athan cutdown and bound, watched Merideth tackled and bound and gagged.
Greppa felt a dirty piece of cloth, backed by leather punched into his mouth and tighten him into silence. They followed up quickly, binding his arms and legs. Even his fingers were restrained, with surprisingly intricate knot work.
He was dropped onto the dirt and his captors moved to the next victim. Greppa saw his people, the people of the north, of Tartwater, the field hands that helped raise him. He saw them lying dead in the dirt. He saw them being marched off to servitude.
"I'm supposed to be able to save them," he thought. "I should have studied harder, stolen more spells. I should have FOUGHT."
Renewed vigor flooded his limbs and he started to squirm, however he wasn't as alone as he thought. He was lifted bodily where his legs and hands were joined by a rope and bounced forcefully against the ground until he couldn't move any more.
The Present
Greppa woke up on the floor of Hurath's bedchamber, almost constricted in the heavy bed clothes. He was bound tightly, twisted by his thrashing and turning and tightened by his profuse sweat. Fear coated the sweat, ghostly orc drums chasing him from his sleep. Trapped in the clinging train of slumber he, tried to free himself, but with growing panic, he found he couldn't get free, not without calming down and calm was not on the horizon, not while he was trapped.
He spoke, the spell pattern forming as he visualized it happening,"mal ath abthyr manaros!" The spirits of the "lesser shadow killer" sprung into existence and ravened their way through the bedding. Greppa thrashed free and stood up shivering.
The dream had gotten worse, since he went home. He saw the overgrown vineyards. He saw the grapes that would never become wine, because the people who tended them were serving some Gods forsaken orc tribe.
He grit his teeth and felt them vibrate as a chill began to set in. The nights were cool, even chilly for someone of his small frame.
He padded over to the wardrobe still thinking. Finding the captured people was going to be more difficult, after that damned dragon decided to punish the Bone-Ache tribe for profaning its precious forest. In the illusion the kobold had cast, orc and non-orc were slaughtered viciously, and the remaining humans claimed by the orc tribe lapping at the dragon's hem. They had to find out who the new tribe was. It was the only way to get those people back.
He summoned a shadow servant and then another. He sent one to light candles in the hallway and commanded another to retrieve a knee length military tunic for him, while he stripped out of his bed clothes and pulled on dry undergarments. He was tying on his sandals when he felt the tunic brush his bare arm. He grinned in spite of his stormy feelings.
Hurath had said the best thing about magic wasn't the big things, it was the everyday things that it makes more convent. There were some people in Theralis, he'd said, who took the time to learn a few basic spells to make their lives or business easier.
Greppa raised his arms over his head and let the tunic fall into place. He had to get outside, the dream always affected him strongly, and being cooped up made it harder to get back to himself. He walked to the door and stopped.
Merideth and Athan were in the tower. The servants wouldn't have woken them, but they could hear probably hear him coming down the stairs, particularly Merideth. They had probably fallen asleep long ago like he had after they'd all had their good cry. However, he did not want to talk, especially to Athan.
Tonight's events hammered home something that his sister, Isola, told him when they'd had a moment alone.
Isola was Greppa's elder by 10 years, and was an amateur Esper and dabbled in Healing. She was a flighty romantic, and had lots of character flaws, but one thing she knew about was boys. She could smell a crush or a budding relationship from miles away and if she knew the people involved she stuck her nose in it. Around Tartwater she was known as a matchmaker and busybody, but people kept coming to her because her insight was often correct.
She came to him when he was working in one of the undertended areas of the vineyard, directing a small armada of shadow servants to help get in as much of the crop as possible.
"Very impressive," she had said as she watched the magical ballet. "You know, you should stop."
"Stop what?" He said cocking a dark eyebrow, "I have to get as much of this fruit in as possible, before it starts to rot…"
She interrupted him, "No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Athan dear."
Greppa started, blushing into his hairline as his eyes strained at his sockets, "ah, um I don't know what you're talking about?"
She smiled at him oozing matronly condescension, "Look, I know the way people talk about people they…like. And I know that you like Athan, and I know that he hasn't responded. He is your friend, a comrade, someone whose willing to risk his life for you in battle and drink with you afterward.
When you speak of him, you change, but you need to know that you should stop wanting what you cannot have. I don't know where his preferences lie, but since my family does not have any ugly members, it can't be because of that."
Greppa didn't respond immediately, his effort being channeled into his blush, sending it onto his scalp.
"But, everything we've been through," he started.
This time she laughed, "Here you are, the big arcanist, and you're still nursing the the romantic fascinations of a young maid. I knew I hadn't left my copy of the "The Taming of Hallas" in your room by mistake." She paused and began again, a bit more genuinely. "So you've had a couple of adventures. You were thinking that after you'd kill a few orcs he'd bound up the hill lift you into the sky and declare undying love?"
This time Greppa flinched. It wasn't exactly true…he'd slaughtered his fair share of orcs too, at least in his version of the fantasy.
"I know you've been though a lot, but those are not the experiences that build relationships, they result in manly bonding and there's absolutely nothing romantic involved in that dear."
Greppa deflated under the pitiless words, and he was very angry with her for laying his private world open to the caustic sting of reality.
"You need to keep a clear head dear," she began. "You want to be an adventurer and deluded romantic notions can get you killed, by distracting you when you need to be alert especially if you think that you're feeling things you are not. Athan and Merideth care about you, a fraternal care, but nothing to build a romantic love on. Value it and don't wreck it by dwelling on the unresolved fantasies of a child."
Greppa didn't want to believe her and had almost convinced himself that she was completely wrong and he was going to prove it to her when he got back to the tower. Merideth hadn't made it back from home so in her absence he was going to ask Athan once and for all.
He didn't get a chance because Athan was never at the tower. He spent most of his time sparring and spending time with the soldiers he met during the last orc incursion.
He took some time to follow Athan one day, and watched them train and work and realized that this was what made Athan feel happy. Outside of Allas' birthmark, and their stint as orc slaves, they had very little else in common. The two things they did have in common were substantial, but Isola was right. If it was going to happen, if it was even possible, it would have, but it probably wasn't. So he snuck off and returned to the tower and back to Hurath's research.
Greppa swallowed as he allowed himself to comeback to the present. He had been avoiding the others since then, pouring over the spellbooks and research notes Hurath left. Not that they'd noticed. Athan was with the soldiers and Merideth was bound up with whatever stresses she brought from home.
The uninterrupted work had helped him to get his mind back on business. He was actually getting back to normal before the dreams had started again. Despite Agina's efforts, he still felt a keen sense of responsibility.
He pushed open the window and let the cool night breeze caress his damp skin. It was a good night for a run. The last wars had taught Greppa that he had to stay in some sort of good physical condition in case he had to run, not that he expected to be able to outrun what ever is following him, but he wanted to prove to himself that he could indeed run. That and running made the pain go away and let him think.
He'd decided to abandon his plan to be the most powerful arcanist in the world. Experience had shown him that it isn't power that let someone win or lose a battle, it was how that power was applied.
"I don't want to be the most powerful arcanist in the world," Greppa said absently, although the shadow servant hovering at is side was the only thing that could hear him. "I want to be the most lethal arcanist ever born. Orcs, bandits, even dragons, will give way to me. I'm tired of being the twig being stepped on."
He pushed the window totally open. He cast feather fall and leapt into space, lowering himself to the ground and running off into the darkness. His body slipped into a familiar rhythm, leaving his mind free to contemplate magic and his destiny.
