How I came to be

Messages for the Theatre des Vampires.
Leaders: Satyana, Tazmon
Alioik
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:53 pm
Guild: Barbarians

How I came to be

Post by Alioik »

Alioik enters the Theatre, sits and a table and pulls out parchment and a pot of red liquid. He dips his finger in the liquid and using his finger nail as a quill tip begins to write.

I'm am here writing a tale centuries in the making, while the story may seem fantastic, I assure you it is real. I began life in the grand city of Devardec over 2 centuries ago. I was a happy child to a wealthy merchant family, my father traveled the realms selling wears from craftspeople in Devardec. My mother had a fairly weak constitution so I was the only child she was able to bear. My father wished for more children, but he loved my mother and never spoke badly about her. I lived happily as a child, playing in the streets and being spoiled rotten by my parents. I had a private tutor who taught me to read, write and do sums. It was during my teenage years that my father's business began to suffer, the land was not as wealthy as it once was and my father's luxury items were not selling. At the encouragement of his partners he began to sell weapons, for there was always some war that needed equipment. From this venture my family once again became wealthy. So happy was my father about his returning wealth that he became very irresponsible in his dealings. He began only selling weapons to the people whom he felt had a good cause, but after he gained his wealth back he would sell to whoever wanted war. On one occasion he sold some weapons to a group of bandits, he didn't care how they used them as long as he made his profits. It was a few days later while walking through the streets that he heard that a small herding village outside of Frostfall had been attacked by bandits and everyone had been slaughtered. He didn't believe it was the bandits he has sold the weapons to, but I think in his heart he knew it was so. It was a few days later while he was helping take inventory in his warehouse that a young girl entered covered in blood. I was just old enough to start learning the trade so I was helping stack boxes. My father ran over to the girl and asked if she was ok, and if she needed the guards. She looked up into his face, and her face twisted in rage and pain. A voice far to loud for such a small girl tore our of her throat,
"YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF MY PAIN AND SUFFERING, YOUR GREED HAS TAKEN EVERYTHING AND NOW I SHALL TAKE FROM YOU"
It was then that the girls head slowly turned, turned so far that bones could be heard cracking, and looked at me. She ripped a dagger from out of her own back, one marked with my father's companies stamp, and flew towards me. I could not believe my eyes, I was so shocked I just stood there as the little girl cackling like a banshee rammed the bloody dagger into my chest. As the dagger pierced into me the screaming stopped, stunned I fell backwards and looked around me. There was no little girl, no blood, and no dagger sticking out of my chest. A moment later pain erupted within my chest, it was like a frozen hand was ripping its way through my breastbone to squeeze my heart until it popped. I managed a weak croak and everything went black.

I awoke some time later, the servants of my parents house said I had been unconscious for days, I felt terribly cold and was in a large amount of pain. I looked around the room and saw my parents hovering over my bed, they were having a conversation with someone else in the room. I managed to lift my head and say it was a cleric. I couldn't make out much of what they said, just little snippets. I heard, "Not long to live" and "Can anything be done?" I quickly passed out again. I started having dreams when I was unconscious. At first they started vague, a rushing sound like a river, the color red, and laughing. All these images were out of focus in my dreams. I reached out with my mind and tried to piece together what they meant, but could not. I awoke again, my parents and the cleric were gone, but my parents servants were adding logs to a fire. I heard them saying things like, "Young master keeps moaning about blood in his sleep." Again, I the black grabbed me back. I again dreamed, but this time the images were more clear, the rushing sound was a river, a dark red river pulsing with life. The laughing was coming from a human body standing in the river. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was me. I was bathing in a river of blood laughing happily as I used to laugh.

I sat up quickly and looked around, realizing that my mother's favorite servant Reint was shaking my arm. He said to me, "Young master, you kept calling for blood in your sleep, is everything ok?" I looked at him confused, I had no idea what he was talking about. I fell quickly back onto my pillows and felt how weak I was becoming. I had no been the strongest youth, but I was vibrant and alive. Now I felt as if I was barely alive, my skin felt cold underneath my own fingers and I could hardly move without concentrating. "Reint, I don't know what is wrong with me, I feel weak and I'm having weird dreams about a red river, i'm bathing in it and I feel happy..." Reint could tell that I felt distressed by these dreams and even though he was my mother's servant, he never told her about the dreams. Days went by and slowly I started to become weaker and weaker, I couldn't even lift my head from the pillows anymore. My father felt that I was surely going to die, I heard whispers around the house the he was seeing mistresses, he was trying to have another son to replace me. It wasn't good for business to not have an heir. My mother withdrew because of this and soon became ill herself.

I knew I was that I was going to die, I knew that I had hours not days left. I had one final dream. Again I saw the red river, but there wasn't laughter, I didn't see myself in the river. I started to draw myself one inch at a time towards the river. Each inch closer and I felt stronger, so I kept moving to the river. As I got closer to the edge of the river, I felt a presence next to me. It was the monster who had stabbed me, she turned and smiled a warped smile at me. She spoke with a voice that sounded like glass breaking,
"The choice is yours, jump in the river and live a life that others would never choose or die here on the shore..."
I dragged myself on final inch and fell into the roaring red waters, I heard laughing behind me as I fell. I opened my eyes in the water and struggled to swim to the surface, but I was so weak I couldn't seem to breach the surface. Every second I stayed in the river I felt stronger and soon I felt the strength to swim again as I had before. I broke the surface of the water and realized that I was sitting in a copper bath tub. I saw Reint standing over me with a knife. I panicked for a moment then realized that Reint was slitting the throats of chickens and dumping their blood into the tub. I was terrified and was about to scream, but then I realized that I felt better, better than I had felt since I became ill.
"Reint, why are you doing this?"
"Because, young master, you kept calling for blood and I was desperate!"
"Where are my mother and father, Reint?"
"Your father is with one of his mistresses and your mother died a few hours ago..."
"When you father returns, if he finds out what I have done, he will have me imprisoned, for this is dark and evil magic. Please do not tell him, your mother isn't here to protect my job anymore!"
"Ok Reint, I won't tell him. Could you help me out of this blood and clean me off?

Shortly after this experience I began to have a full recovery. I felt normal again, not cold and on the verge of death. This went on in secret for 2 years, Reint would bring me a creatures blood when I started to feel ill and I would bath in its blood. My father seemed to be very happy with my recovery, but did not stop trying to have another son with his mistresses.

One evening I was feeling particularly ill, Reint had gone to the forest to kill a wild boar and bring me back it's blood. As I sat in the bath of warm boar's blood, I heard doors bursting open and my father's voice booming through the halls. "Ali, Reint I have news for you! Exciting news!!" He burst into the room, and saw me laying in blood, a boars carcass behind me and Reint standing there squeezing it's heart over my head. He screamed, and ran from the room. Reint and I scrambled to clean everything up and try to cover up what we had done, but it was too late. My father returned quickly with a cleric and the city guards demanding we be burned. Although we had cleaned quickly, the priest didn't seem to find anything wrong with the room and told my father that the stress of his job must be taking its toll. Shortly after the cleric left, my father came to Reint and me. He told us that the news he had was that one of his mistresses had born him a baby, a new son. We were to take only the clothes on our back and leave his house and never return. We left that very evening.

For several years Reint and I wandered the lands, Reint killing animals and monsters to keep me healthy. Soon after leaving the city however, Reint mentioned that He was getting older and would not be able to take care of me much longer. He would have to teach me how to fight and get the blood I needed to live. During this time Reint trained me on how to hunt, kill and draw blood. Soon I became proficient enough to range out by myself and kill small game. One day I had ranged further than normal following a doe. I missed my chance to kill her and trudged back to camp, hoping Reint had done better. I'll never forget what happened next, as I entered the camp I saw that everything was destroyed. The fire was scattered, the tent was pulled down. There was blood splattered on the ground and Rient was face down. I ran over to him to see if he was ok, I rolled him over and gasped as I saw his gored stomach. Blood was pooling between his finger and he tried to hold his internals from spilling out. I started weeping and asked,
"Reint, what happened to you"
"A wild boar caught me by suprise" He gasped out.
"I didn't have a chance to defend myself and the tusks took me in the gut"
"Reint, I can't survive without you! How will I live if you cannot get me blood"
"Don't worry young master, take my blood and my spear... you will survive"

I bathed in his blood as tears fell from my eyes, I took his bloody hands and laid them on my cheeks. Each hand left a print on my face, that would be my warpaint. With Reints blood, I felt strong, stronger than I had ever felt before. I took his spear and set out after the boar that had killed my friend. I used all the skills that he had taught me, but my sense of smell was sharper and my vision clearer. I quickly came upon the boar as it was using its tusks to dig for roots. As I crept up behind it a branch snapped under my foot, the board turned quickly and prepared to charge. Normally in this situation I would be afraid, but I was filled with a confidence that didn't seem to be my own and faced the boar. A voice in my head told me, "Let it charge, plant the spear in the ground and let the thing kill itself." So that is what I did. As the board charged me, it's eyes red and breath hot, I planted the end of my spear into the ground. I placed my food over the end and waited. The boar impaled itself, but kept and charging. the spear exited it's back and finally the charge stopped right at my foot. I could see how the boar could have killed Reint, it was a true mad beast of the forest. I carried it back to camp and set to butchering it. I took out its heart and squeezed it between my hands. I felt the blood thick and hot dripping off my fingers and felt compelled to use the blood to draw patterns on my face and arms. I didn't know what they meant but I knew they were important. As I finished the ritual blood painting, I noticed a red misty aura was surrounding me. I took a deep breath in shock and could feel the aura enter my body. I felt strong like I did when I had taken Reint's blood. I found out through this that I could survive on the blood on anything, but if I took the blood of the strong, I could thrive!

I spent almost 200 years fighting strong enemies and taking their blood for my ritual and gaining strength. I began calling myself a Hemomancer, one who takes the blood of the powerful to thrive. This is how I came to join the Barbarians guild of Frostfall and why I joined the Theatre, the only group in the realms that would understand blood the way that I do.

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