Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies

Archibald's Ascension

(1/1)

Dreaderick:
He had fled straight into Winter after the catastrophe. Snowflakes welcomed him in their swirling embrace, sheltering him and urging him on. They led him to a mountain, which he ascended. That made sense in some rudimental way, for there he was closer to the heavens. Closer to being heard. He climbed as high as he could go and shouted, begged and pleaded. The howling wind drowned out his pleas, and the sobs and whimpers that followed them after his voice had cracked.

He lost track of some many things up there, living like an animal and yelling at the heavens when he had the strength. He ate what he could kill, until the creatures that lived there learned to avoid him. Hunger eventually drove him down, this weatherbeaten shell of a man. His boots were long lost, his clothes shredded by the fierce winds. On bare feet he descended again, the lights of the city in the valley attracting him, calling out to him. His mind was that what remains when the final layer is peeled away from an onion, a small, shapeless thing, naked and vulnerable.

Dreaderick:
With the arrival of spring, an ancient man drifted into the outskirts of Vallaki, gaunt and dressed in filthy rags. A shivering bundle of nervous instinct, unable to communicte with anything resembling language. There, he foraged on what he could find. The mink were fat, slow and friendly, so unlike the feral things he fought in the blizzards on the mountains. Their hot blood filled his mouth, warming him. The barrels at the inn and the temple contained many small treasures. Little nuggets of precious food, carelessly discarded. He gobbled it all down. Sometimes a friendly face hovered into view, offering kind words and tokens of help. He ate the food. The money was spent on drink, strong raw alcohol to warm the cold that had seeped into his old bones. Sometimes the booze would stir random fragments of his shattered mind, causing him to rave and ramble. Once, gentle hands led him to a shelter where he was fed, bathed and given a white, immaculate robe.




(picture from www.desireedolron.com )

Dreaderick:
That robe did not remain immaculate for very long. Sleeping in the woods and rummaging through trash do that. They were from an order called the Morninglord. This had stirred something awake in him. It was in their temple, the one in the outskirts, where important things once had begun. He felt that on a deep wordless level. He was drawn to the temple because there he had been at some kind of crossroad. Now that his belly was filled on a regular basis, his mind started to come back, slowly and hesistant, like a small, frightened animal poking its nose out from the protective high grass.

He began hanging around in the temple, loitering, waiting. Waiting for his mind to come back. He noticed that, occasionally, people would store corpses there. That struck him as fundamentally wrong. He discovered an old shovel and took it upon himself to take the corpses outside to bury them. Somehow, he found that very comforting, familiar even. He felt that he needed to say something on those occassions, some final words or a prayer. But his mind just stared back at him, unblinking.

Navigation

[0] Message Index