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Message: <blockquote data-quote="megamania" data-source="post: 1098303" data-attributes="member: 9255">STRIKEFORCE: MORITURISEGMENT 003“Vander Stormbringer”He was a big man.  Always was.  Even in on the island Wavely on Athas he was considered a big man.  However, as a big man on an island known for philosophers, he was not respected.  He cared little for the tricky words.  They often confused him and bound him to do things he didn’t want to.  He hated it.He was nothing to look at.  He was not handsome or bright.  He was just big.  Sometimes, in secret, he wished he were a dainty respected man that everyone looked up to.  Whenever he thought this way he would laugh.Vander hasn’t laughed in a long time.The big man was within a simple room with a fire burning.  He had requested oil and polish.  He was spending his last quiet day fixing his armor and weapons.  He didn’t want to reflect on his past.  He had hoped NOT to by keeping himself busy.  But his memories, his painful awful memories were too strong for him.  He paused looking at his hands and forearms.  They were big and heavily callused from hard work.  From what felt like hundreds of years of hard work.  He took pride that he could still identify most scars by battle and who gave it to him.  He became pail seeing one scar.  It ran the length of his arm.  He received it in a place best forgotten.  He was given it by something best avoided.  He put down his chest plate and carefully placed the oil and its smeared rag on a table.  A bottle of strong drink was there.  Beside it a glass and another bottle.  This one water.  He stared hard at the liquor.  There was a time he enjoyed such drink around a campfire.  But no more.  It reminded him too much of the better times.Why?  Why was he so damned?  Was this last contract the reason?  He had fought all his life.  He should have died at the great battle of Utopia in southern Tyr Valley.  He should’ve died when he pulled that cursed card from the deck of Wondrous Things.  He should have died (slowly and VERY painfully) at the hands of Barticuss Filthy.  He did die at the hands of Queen Ten Bites.  He did die…right?His entire life was of conflict and war mixed with other’s hatred.  Vander Stormbringer was a contractual mercenary with limited psychic powers.  He fought in several battles before joining the army of General Irikos.  General Irikos was a strong and heavy-handed leader.  Vander liked that in some ways.  He was leading an army of 10,000 men to Utopia.  Utopia had been corrupted by magic used by the various non-human races.  Vander hoped not to fight them even then.  He feared magic.He had seen magic but twice before then.  Once a novice was practicing something referred to as a Magic Missile.  His family only had ashes to bury.  Another time, a novice blew up an entire city block.  Many died.  Magic is evil.  There was no doubt of that in his mind.  Psionics however were pure.  They came from within you.  They were a part of the user.He and the other soldiers gathered.  He was amongst the newest to arrive.  He was still many hundred miles away from the city when it happened.  Powerful magics were unleashed.  Powerful psionics were also released to block the onslaught.  Too much raw energy was released at once.  He remembers seeing a mushroom like cloud with a bright light.  The light burned or blinded most viewers’ eyes.  Then came the black winds.He should have died there and then.  But he didn’t.He was wisked away and found himself in another reality and plane.  Allon.  It was so very different from his known Athas.  Orcs were greatly distrusted.  Many humanoid races were at war and huddled in barbaric tribes in the wilds.  Magic.  Magic was freely used and used with the greatest of respect.  Psionics were nearly unheard of.  They only place he found to train further his skills was within a monastery in Skydock.   It was so strange.Here he meant his only true friend.  Snak.  He was a dwarf whom believed he got his powers to heal from a deity named Kord.  Vander and him spoke of Kord often when playing games of chance or building their strength through exercise.  Snak clearly didn’t understand Vander and his truth.  Vander had never known of a god.  He was positive his dwarven friend was mistaken.  He figured the dwarf to be a psion or psychic warrior like himself whom had lost his way from the dwarven city lead by his king.  King Rkard.  He battled his first ever dragon ( a wyvern but you tell him that) and drove it away by himself.  Snak, his best friend was being hunted by it during a night of having too much drink.  He was also involved in something he very much understood.  A war.Gnolls and Bugbears were forming an alliance to over run the outer towns.  The halfling villages never knew what hit them.  It was during this conflict that the team’s mage, Kessem, had found a box with magical cards.  She was hesitating to use them.  She sensed their might.  Snak only knew it was cards and he had lost his in a battle.  No.  Vander stops.  He has been pacing about the room.  He now leans against the stone wall with his head against his arms.  No.  Snak knew better.  He knew the dangers and welcomed them.He goes to the table and looks at the drinks.  He pours a small amount of strong drink into the glass.  He sniffs it.  If is sweet and strong.  But no.  He will not drink!  He throws the cup into a fire where the flames rush high and mighty before returning to their normal steady pace.Snak was a follower of Kord.  He respected this god for his great strength and his willingness to take chances.  He had talked Vander into taking one card.  One card only.  Kessem had taken one card and seemed smarter for it.  Maybe this wasn’t magic afterall.  Maybe it was psionic in nature.  He reluctantly reached forward with a trembling hand.  At that moment Snak also reached in great haste and bumped Vander’s hand.  To his horror he pulled free THREE cards!He was gone.He never saw Snak again (and believed it).He awoke in the abyss.  He was a prisoner and plaything of the Pit Fiend Bartacuss Filthy.  Filthy experimented on his new tool.  He would break it then repair it.  He would break it then repair it.  Vander could do nothing but scream.  And he did.  Loud and often.This went on for years (decades? Centuries?) until Filthy was summoned to visit a powerful ally in Acheron.  Vander was traded for a new toy.  A paladin!  Vander was caste into the Great War with nothing but his scars and memories.  He fought and won.  He continued to until he gained new armor and recognition.  Too much apparently.  A rival merc and overall bi*** decided to take out Vander.  Queen Ten Bites was a large ugly 1/½rc.  When she defeated Vander and his group of mercenaries, she took him as her plaything also.  Filthy was about pain and torment.  Ten Bites was about lust and things best not said or thought about.  Vander was further disgraced.  His indestructible spirit was weakening.  She was winning and knew it.  He willed death and unlike Filthy, she could not heal him or repair him.  In time, she broke him beyond repair.  He died.Or did he?His spirit never left the body.  He was beginning to think he was still a captive of Filthy whom had only thought of a great ruse to give him new pain.  To give him hope.  He was left for dead…unburied.That night a light spoke to him.  If he agreed to one last contract…he live a life that never involved Filthy.  Never involved Ten Bites.  A life with respect.Vander staggered to the corner of his room.  The bottle of water was split on the table.  The liquor…empty and now on the floor.  He curled up into a ball and began to cry.  He wanted his love back.  He wanted his…Snak.</blockquote>

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