Nib

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

I am still around. I will try to catch up and maybe post tomorrow or Friday.

No More Heroes

This looks interesting.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@Fetzen - Alistair will also more than likely be watching others approach from a distance before entering himself. Who is watching whome here though?

The Blighted Kingdom

His joints gave off a dull ache as he stood there in the immaculate throne room; too immaculate. People were on the streets dying of starvation or the plague, yet here the king sat in his throne basking in the multicolored sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows. Though, the king didn’t so much as back as he did slump down in his throne. He looked tired and wrung out. Roderick understood; he felt the same way. This life on the road offering his skill with a hammer either to pound steel and iron or someone’s skull was taking its toll. He came to this meeting today to hear the king out and see what this mad errand would offer him should he survive. The pardon wasn’t important; he wouldn’t need it. He could also do without being celebrated as a hero. That wouldn’t do anyone any good. What would some old timer beat all to hell like him do for anyone as hero? The favor of the king and a reward would help though. He could retire on that, kick his feet up somewhere nice and relax his aching bones finally.

That’s if he survived finding the cure that is. He didn’t have high hopes, looking around at the others who responded to the king. Two among them were children; one looked older than the other, but both were scrawny wisps compared to Roderick himself and the other warrior standing there. He looked capable. The other man was… questionable. He looked wiry and more inclined to skulk about than stand firm and fight. He hoped this quest would need men more like him more than it would men like Roderick and the other warrior, especially with the children there. He would keep an eye on them. Another child wouldn’t die on his watch. He was tired of death, weary from the toll it took on him over his long life. Watching people die as often as he had would do that to a man, it would haunt his eyes.

As the hooded sage finally came down the line to him, he shifted his helmet slightly and slid off his left gauntlet so he could shake back his sleeve. The king’s man traced his finger over Roderick’s arm and muttered to himself a moment. A shining symbol appeared upon his forearm before fading away from sight and memory as though it were never there. This mark was suppose to protect them from the blight. If that were so then why were they not administering these to the populace to protect them? Why only the foolish souls in the throne room? Best to let the questions welling up lie for now. His mind would do better to focus on the task at hand and do what he could to work with those around him and find the cure. Finding it would take time, maybe a lifetime. Roderick just hoped at the end of it all there would still be people left to benefit from it.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

In my next post I will probably jump to Alistair being at the monastery rather than spending more time in the actual forest.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

Introduction post for Alistair is up.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

The forest was silent as though it were holding its breath, or its breath had left it long ago. The latter seemed the more likely. The forest and its denizens had become warped and twisted almost beyond all recognition, much like the world at large. Great fissures had been gouged into the earth and would spew geysers of flame, whole cities left to rot and collapse, and forests like the lay decayed and corrupted. The trees were bowed and gnarled like the elderly, though few in this new world ever saw their elder years now. A crow alighted on a branch; it had nearly doubled in size, its beak looked more like a sharpened blade ready to taste blood, its talons more like daggers, and its feathers somehow looked darker as if made of pure shadow. Its eyes, however, rather than staring out with a blood-thirsty craze were instead unusually focused and alert. It was focused on the armored Seeker and his followers as they drudged past atop their horses. They made their way into the forest, talking amongst themselves. When they suddenly took off at a charge into the forest, the crow took off from the branch and flew over head. It continued watching as the line of horse-mounted warrior charged through the muck and slammed into a group of Decayed. With a soft croak, the crow landed upon another gnarled and dropping branch. With a quiver of its eyes, the thirst for blood returned to its gaze and something silvery seemed to fall from it as if cut.

Groaning, Alistair rubbed at his eyes. Shifting his gaze always made it feel as though he’d been reading through the night, again. With a final shake of his head, Alistair stood from his kneeling position on the soft forest floor. He brushed away what he could of the mud and crumbled leaves from his trousers. Judging from the information gathered from the crow’s sight, that large group of Seekers were fighting the Decayed a ways behind him. How convenient. They should keep the things busy and draw more their way. Looking over his shoulder, Alistair could also make out the faint glow of a fire off in the distance. As best he could tell, the fighting group wasn’t quite at the fire. Between both distractions, though, he should have no further problems as he continued his way to the monastery. After the mishap with that foolish scout, he would not object to an easier road. Why would the idiot not just leave Alistair be? Why had he insisted on finding and following him?

He claimed it was his duty to lead Alistair to the monastery to meet the Vicar, but he had been fine on his own. Alistair had stopped off at one of his many dead drops; this one was ironically located in the crevice at the base of a statue depicting one of the angels. There, Wilhelm had left him the invitation to the monastery and the best he could find of a map right up to its doors. He hadn’t needed the aid of a scout, so he took off on his own rather than attempting to meet up with his assigned guide. That, unfortunately, had not stopped him from somehow finding Alistair as he first entered the forest of decay. From there one the boy refused to let the Seeker from his sight and dogged his heels.

“Seeker, please... “

The boy’s last words fell upon Alistair’s ears as he skulked away into the darkness. A hoard of Decayed fell upon the lad and tore him asunder. With a nimble grace, the Seeker made it up one of the gnarled trees. He knew not how long he sat there and listened to the boy die and those things shuffle about. Eventually, silence fell back over the forest like a blanket. As the shuffling footsteps of the Decayed sank back into the darkness, Alistair slipped back to the ground like a whisper.

“That damned boy nearly got us both killed… why would he not listen?”

At a small clearing in the midst of a cluster of trees, Alistair stopped and knelt upon the ground. From the pack slung across his shoulders he pulled a slightly tattered piece of parchment with a hand-drawn map sprawling across its surface. Running his gloved fingers across the parchment, Alistair followed his progress through the forest and saw he had half of his journey left before him. From the same pack, he also pulled a spool of silvery thread and a vial of a mixed powdered substance, and a flask of wine. After taking a swig from the flask, he poured a fraction of the spirit into the vial, replaced the cork and sloshed it back and forth until the powder was floating around in the liquid. Then, with deft hands he pulled a length of string from the spool, cut it and tied a loop on one end. Into the vial went the silvery string and stayed for several minutes. After pulling the loop of string from the liquid, Alistair replaced the vial in his satchel and grew perfectly still with eyes shut. The loop dangled and spun lightly from his fingers as he sat with his breath shallow, as if waiting.

With a monstrous croak and the sound of snapping undergrowth and beating of feathery wings, a devilish-looking crow darted from the forest. It flew like an arrow through the night air right at the kneeling Seeker. As it neared, Alistair’s eyes sprang open, and he fell to the left out of the demon’s trajectory. In his hand he now also clutched a sickly black feather snatched from the blood-thirsty avian. Before it could turn and dive again, he wrapped the loop around the feather and pulled it tight. The thread glowed with a haunting purple light as the crow landed harmlessly next to Alistair, the craze gone from its eyes and replaced with an unnatural focus. Alistair’s own vision blurred before shifting lower to the ground. He saw himself kneeling on the forest floor holding the glowing thread tied to the feather. After a brief adjustment, the crow took off, and Alistair was looking down upon the dead forest.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

Great posts, everyone. I'm a bit nervous to get mine up now. I am working on it though.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

I will try to get a post up by Friday hopefully. Monday at the latest though.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

Alistair Lynch

_{Alistair Lynch}

Before the dark times, Alistair served on a merchant vessel upon the seas. He made enough money to keep his wife back home comfortable in preparation for the birth of their child. Unfortunately he was away most of the time on one voyage or another. He missed the birth of his daughter, but when he was home with them he made the most of his time. He was content with his life until Hell came to Earth. With it came abominations and ruin, and those who worshipped the beasts crawled from the shadows like mad dogs. These same mad dogs butchered his wife and daughter for some perverse ritual. That was the day Alistair snapped. He suddenly knew he had to find the Herald. She would bring his wife and daughter back to him. She would right all the wrongs with the world now.

He left his simple home behind, selling anything of value that he would part with and poured what money he had into funding his travels. He used what connections he made while sailing to meet the right people and soon expanded what small web he had at first. He hunted any clue, any whisper he heard of the Herald or strange occult rituals. He became obsessed with finding the hidden truths behind the rituals so he would be the one to find the Herald and beg her to right the wrongs. He met others like him on his travels, those who lost people to groups of men-turned-beast who performed rituals by sacrificing others. Three individuals in particular chose to follow his example and dedicated themselves to finding any clues in Alistair’s name and report to him via dead drops spread throughout the land. They also leave him resources of varying degree in these dead drops to aid him in his journey.

Greed and Envy are perhaps the closest of the Sins. They tend to walk hand-in-hand when they visit the mortals and tempt them. They once visited Alistair; they drove him toward working on the merchant vessel. They disguised themselves as comfort and stability for his pregnant wife. He believed their lies, going on any voyage proposed, spending time away from his wife, missing the birth of his daughter and then most of her life; all because he wanted to provide for them. His sins fitted him with blinders when he discovered the vessel he worked on was involved with smuggling. The extra money the vessel earned went to his family and their comfort, so where was the harm?

While he worked, his family never feared empty bellies or discomfort, but none of that mattered when he was away on another voyage and the crazed men came. They revelled in the Hell brought to Earth and began performing blood oaths and rituals. They came upon Alistair’s family and made them the next sacrifices used as fuel for their perverse practices. If not for his obsession with giving his family what he believed was most important rather than actually being with them, he would have perhaps been able to protect them from their fate. Now, he seeks forgiveness by seeking the Herald so he can beg her to bring them back and bring light back to the world he knew.

• Untrusting - Alistair refuses to fully put his faith in the hands of others.
• Emotionally Detached - He sees others only as tools to use in achieving his goals and cannot truly care for anyone else after his wife’s death.
• Selfish - Alistair is selfish in the sense that he is most concerned with his own survival in order to find the Herald of Light; he is perfectly fine with stepping on others and allowing people to die in the pursuit to find the Herald.
• Weak of Arm - Alistair is physically weak when it comes to any sort of fighting and must rely more upon his speed and guile.

• Connected - Alistair’s followers come in the form of spies and scouts with their own connections that form a web of information at his disposal.
• Guile - Alistair is clever when it comes to solving problems and dealing with unsavory individuals in such a way that he need not face them head on. He faces threats though methods such as: ambush, poison, or merely avoidance of necessary.

• Violence: 3 (2 + 1)
• Fortitude: 3
• Soul: 7
• Passion: 4
• Perception: 7
• Command: 3