鉄 Northern Encampment

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

You know you can't always kill your problems...Sometimes you need to follow your heart and avoid confrontation,
Ansem. Yeah yeah I know I know blah blah blah you were raised to kill or be killed yadda yadda yadda well it's time for you to learn something new!
Be the bigger man!

Kokoro's voice was so much more special in his mind. He could almost feel her warm caress against his skin as the words brought up his past. They spawned from the voice that warned him to run. The lights dancing around him were now in a much greater number. Would he follow the voice that warned him to run? Or would he stay and fight like the mask wanted him to?

You're much more than that mask, Ansem. You are much more than Ansem The Black. Don't let it define you... And with that he was gone. Running away from the beast and into the shadows of the northern encampment.
He lost one of the sticks he had found but it hadn't done much to help him so it didn't bother him. More importantly, he wanted to get out and find shelter for himself away from beings that wanted his violent death.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

_______________The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab The wind rushes through your hair and you hightail it out of the current clearing in the concrete maze of buildings you find yourself. Turning this way and that it became obvious that this place had been built as a sort of defensive complex, for each wall looked the same, with evenly spaced murder holes dark from lack of light. Of all things as you run you hear a whispering coming from up ahead, where a soft azure light flickers and retreats down one corridor, or alley. It is difficult to tell which word fit given the designs. Above, the wind continued to howl, and faintly the sound of drums comes to your ears, their beat a steady rhythm that matches your heart rate almost perfectly.
tab Before you the azure light flickers again in a more rapid manner, dimmer, as if fear stains it's movements.
tab

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

"Oh my God baby! Look!" She had a unique way of becoming excited. She was always happy so full of life and energy. But when she truly became infatuated with a moment everyone around her felt a sort of aura consume them. They were walking together like they always did in the streets of ***** when suddenly they came across a small puppy. It was wounded and in a puddle of blood mixed with rainwater.
Ansem paid no mind to it. The creature was weak and fell prey to life. Another stronger and abler animal would come along and live through its sacrifice. But not Kokoro. She was hope wherever she went. "Ansem you can't just leave something to die because you were taught to! Didn't your masters teach you compassion? You know you should call me a master as well from now on 'cause all I do is teach you how to love!"

Kokoro's aura was so powerful they affected Ansem even in the present but in his current situation, he couldn't dwell on such things. His trained eyes surgically looked for any place to hide or escape from the cursed place he found himself in. Then another whisper. He found himself running after a small speck of light for safety. How far he'd fallen. Ansem followed the light down the alley.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

_______________The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab Around the corner, after the blue light, Ansem wound his way down different corridors, different paths, as the wind above howled against the ancient stonework above. The source of the light kept out of sight, whispering away just before he could have seen them. It was several minutes later that he would come to a dead end with a single door as gray as the stone around it. It bore a single knob and keyhole, the keyhole glowing the same blue color as the light he had followed.
tab And as he stopped, the clanging of metal could be heard behind him, in the distance.
tab Should he make his way inside he would find the door unlocked, leading into a large, spacious room filled with sheet-covered furniture nearly blackened with eras of dust, with only two windows to allow in any light. Here, at the center, sat a well from whence the blue light escaped only weakly, as if it, too, wished not to be discovered.

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

Ansem found himself slowly running out of places to hide. "Hm." His surprise was well hidden by his casual reaction to a door at his path's end. The sound of approaching death wouldn't stop with him. It grew closer and closer as if taunting Ansem with its presence. The keyhole intrigued him. Was the light coming from the entity helping him or was it something greater? Ansem opened the door slowly and scanned the room for any apparent threats before entering. Once he found it safe enough to risk using as a hiding spot he entered the room and closed the door behind him. Ansem would use the other stick he still possessed and leave it diagonally against the door. "Activate." Hopefully, it would keep the beast out for a few minutes if it followed him that far.

In his brief moment of tranquility, Ansem observed his surroundings in greater detail. The sheet covered furniture and the dust that had settled on them made him think about how long he had been unconscious. His fingers traced the sheets and he'd glance at his fingertips covered in dust. Time viewed his absence as irrelevant. He'd use the next minute or two to move the furniture in front of the door in order to block the entrance. He took the stick back fearing he'd leave it behind like the other one. When the defenses were finished he finally realized there was a well in the center of the room with a fading light coming from within.

Crossbow raised he approached the well slowly while aiming at whatever could be hiding inside.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

_______________The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab At Ansem's approach the well began to brighten even as the sound of metal on metal scraped outside in then vicinity. The light blossomed forth with each passing beat of his heart and of all things he felt the air grow...calm. Pure. Safe. Outside there came a roar that sounded suspiciously made from the combined sound of a mating pig and nails on a chalkboard, followed by a sizzling that likely invoked memories of bacon and other charred meats. These sounds continued for another moment before rapid clanging followed, and the thing from before moved away.
tab This left Ansem alone with a glowing well that was not producing sounds that were very un-well-like.
tab A haunting melody issued forth from its depths, invoking memories of loss, of being forgotten, meaningless, but not as a Genjutsu. Merely a memory of emotions that Ansem had once felt in his life, and was now remembering clearly. These emotions seemed specific in some strange, alien way, and as the music continued the light began to brighten until it turned a ghostly, haunted blue-green that bore no name in the human tongue From the well came the melody, and from it, too, came a voice that was neither feminine nor masculine, but a combination of both.
tab "Welcome, Ansem, son of sin."

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

"You are one with the wild now, my boy!" Even as blood escaped his lips and the life from his eyes faded, Master Timothy kept the same air of vibrant bravado and ironically life. Yet even Ansem could tell there was a small hint of fear of fear in his eyes. A fear of the unknown. "I've taught you everything I know...Do not cry, my boy! This is the way of the hunt! One day you are hunting and the next you are hunted! Is it not beautiful? We are all part of something so much bigger than ourselves.
The circle of life cannot be escaped, my boy and do not ever forget this!" Ansem remembers watching his master die like a common animal in the middle of the forest surrounded by the shrubs that once concealed his presence. There would be no burial or ceremony. Even if there had been who would attend? The man devoted his life to nature and himself. The only family he had would be Ansem and the boy had been warned to leave him where he died. His death might mean the survival of others.

Ansem remembers going back to the usual hideout. He'd managed to steal 500 gold coins from an aristocrat carriage. No one had seen him it was perfect. Yet as he threw the bag of coins on the table he realized no one was there. Master Piccolo wasn't sharpening a blade, playing his piano or sitting at that same table reading his book on how to act socially acceptable in horse races. Then a footstep. One footstep much too loud for such a quiet environment broke the silence. Ansem immediately turned around with an arching elbow and felt bones break beneath the weight of his strength and momentum. The masked individual stumbled back before shooting a bolt at Ansem's shoulder. He grunted at the impact but it had come from a wrist crossbow so his balance remained. Ansem immediately descended upon the masked assailant but found that the individual was much more skilled than he previously thought. After about an hour of struggle, Ansem had managed to subdue the individual and stab them in the stomach. Taking off the mask he realized it was his master. "I know you're wondering why. But they're coming for me. I'm a dead man. I wanted to test you one last time before I left...You did good..." And just like that, he was gone and so was Ansem. Whoever was after his master was at the door. Ansem took his masters belongings and fled and never once felt like he had truly killed his master. His master was a ghost and invisible presence in the world. To let Ansem hear something so obvious like a footstep was beneath him.

"Ansem this is a farewell. I've taught you all I know and some more. This world is so vast and marvelous I cannot stay put here with you I do apologize. I'd take you with me but I am no father. You must set out on your own path and carve your own destiny. But please keep this to remember me." Master Ansem the White removed his blade from hip and handed it over to Ansem gracefully as if the blade was a feather. Later Ansem would discover that his master had died at sea travelling to somewhere far away to escape the plague.

"Ansem I gotta tell you somethin'...I'm kinda ********' sick hehe. Doctors say I ain't got much time left. But I wanted you to have this..." Master Roberts was a small aging man. His skin looked moist and his hair was thin to the point where his scalp was visible. Ansem knew his master was dying for some time but could only watch as he knew not what was killing the man. "Take this core. It's different from anything I've ever created before. It's powered by love.
I'm sure that...Near you and Kokoro...It can...It can power...Anything..." Ansem caught his old and dying master in his arms before the man could fall and took him to a doctor but there was nothing else to be done. At that point in his life Ansem didn't cry anymore but lying in bed at night in Kokoro's arms he wept.

"KOKORO NOOOOOOOOOO!" Two men held his arms while another dragged the love of his life away from him. His head flew to the left and the moment he felt weakness in the grip his elbow would lift to finish the job and his fist would fly towards the right and bashed directly into the face of the other man holding him. When they both hit the ground he'd run after Kokoro but she was nowhere to be found. Gone just like that. Was this memory accurate? The mask would beg to differ.

All of these memories grew louder and clearer the closer he got to the well.
The threat that had chased him so far was gone and in its place, a sense of security had made itself comfortable. When the voice welcomed him he could only lower his weapon and raise a brow. Son of sin was new but it did have a nice ring to it. Immature thoughts for a regressed brain. "Welcome to what exactly?" His voice cracked. It had been so long since he had spoken that he had almost forgotten how.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

_______________The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab Joy was the emotion you feel coming from the well at your response to it, a strong emotion from an inanimate object that could speed. And how you know this is uncertain, just a sense you have at the back of your mind. Prhaps it's the music playing in your ears, the eerie dirge that invokes such powerful memories and emotions. Perhaps its the way the light plays across the walls, a pattern both familiar and alien as the music it plays. No matter the case you can see from your approach that something is inside of the well, something made of the ghostly light that flows and moves like some wind given flesh.
tab "To safety from the tortures outside, young one. The creatures outside cannot enter here, not while my power bars it from their presence." The light sways, shifting as something within blocks out the light partially for a moment. This happens twice more before the voice continues, this time quieter. "Tell me what has transpired to you, Son of Sin."
tab

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

Ansem did feel the joy yet it didn't bring out the memories he had like before. This time the feeling only caused him frustration. Joy was a luxury he could not afford and his mind denied it.
Magic or not. This would all result in a frustrated shrug coming from Ansem as he pulled a chair to sit in front of the well while it talked to him. "Well I supposed I should thank you then." He stated rubbing his chin. It felt so odd to him. The young skin against his finger tips. Caloused but not to the same degree as before. He knew he should feel grateful for being saved but Ansem never did feel sympathy for people even when they deserved it. Most would label him as an ironic a*****e. "I made a lousy deal and now I don't know what year I'm in." He stated plainly. His mind trying to push back memories away. It was beginning to irritate him. Was it a part of the age reversion proceedure he went through? "And what about you? Are you somewhere down there?" He asked almost feeling curoius enough to get up and look.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

_______________The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab The light pulses and fades as you cast your gaze into the well's depths, witnessing the ebb and flow of something white and blue shifting around beneath. Odd, for as you watch you get the impression that there is more depth here. It isn't a liquid, but something multilayered, and as you watch something with a thick line slides into view before opening a moment later to reveal what is surely an eyeball gazing back at you. A bird's eye, from the looks of it, with gold where the whites should be, and a silver iris around a large, white pupil. The thing blinks slowly before the voice returns, this time a little louder, and yet still calming as ever. "A lifetime of bad choices can be made up for in a single moment, son of sin. Many have I witnessed sacrifice themselves in a variety of manners to a situation, cleansing themselves instantly by their selfless deeds. Too, I have witnessed the folly of man, to make a poor decision with unintended consequences. You are human."
tab The eye moved on, and for a moment it looks like a wall of feathers passes below you. The voice comes again, the tone of surety of purpose clear in its voice. "To answer your other question, young one, yes. I am down here, and yet not. What you see is the prison made for me long ago by these foul creatures, for my presence purifies them, returns them to their proper states. Mayhaps we work together, and find a solution that frees both you, and I, from their clutches?"
tab

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

Ansem looked at his finger tips with the light emanating from the well while the being continued speaking to him. He hadn't realized yet the glaring eyeball at the well's depth. Yet as it spoke further on cleansing and purifying beasts it caught Ansem's attention. "You purify?" Ansem asked. He felt stupid for considering himself capable of being purified. He wanted his sins to stay. To remember. To pay for them with every waking hour of his existence. "Well, I don't have anything else to do at the moment." He mumbled stepping back from the well. He looked over at the door he came through and at the bar, he left in front of it to keep away the demons. "What do you need?" He asked. While away from the well he would take the pulsing heart of out his backpack and aim it at the well.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

___The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab The pulsing heart within your grasp whispers eagerly as you raise it towards the pulsing light, perhaps desiring the truth of which you aim it at. Except as the light touches it the heart goes silent, and as your hands bring it closer the whispers come back, but frightened. So frightened that they begin to beg, scream for you to stop, to move it away. Something, it seems, does not want you to know it's secrets. Yet despite this you feel something within you recoiling at the light, something so inherantly a part of you that it takes a moment to truly recognize what it was: your guilt. Every regret for every dark deed or action, whether intentionally harmful, foul or wrong was whispering at you not to trust the voice, to ignore it, lest it savage your soul.
tab As the darkness serenades you from the darkest, dankest recesses of your spirit the light seems to deepen in a way that seems to defy sense. From the well would come a voice that was calm, cool, but filled with an authority a judge would pray for. "Listen not to your demons, son of sin," it consoled, giving advice instead of ordering despite the tone. It speaks with the tone of a patron, an understanding on a spiritual level. "The requirements are not steep, but they will free you from this burden. I am bound here by ancient laws by a being who does not understand the world as you do. To be free I must form a pact, one that will make you my avatar on this plane of existence. You will be a focus for the powers of Purity. While onerous, the laws of our pact will lead you to the purity you seek."
tab With its words the whispers of your guilt would be quieted, if only for the moment. Will you ask for the pact, or let this chance slip?

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

Ansem raised a brow at the heart's reaction towards the well. He tried forcing it but couldn't beat whatever rejected him. And then the heart began panicking. He was about to chuck the thing into the well out of frustration when his own mind became plagued by the same thing that made the heart go insane. He grunted and fell to his knees dropping the heart. He placed his hands on his head applying pressure while the memories came back.

What the ******** are you doing Ansem? You think killing anything that breathes is going to bring her back? Look at you! Go find her! If you put as much effort as you did into killing you'd- ungh! Ansem, please!

How did you get your name? Ansem the Black? Is it because you can turn your skin into black metal? No someone like yourself gets a name like that from a lifetime of death hehe...

Didn't you quit? What made you come back to this line of work? Oh...You know they got a bounty on your head. Now I'm not to judge but damn man. What you did back there was nuts. You ever get any shut-eye after that?

You want more time hehe? I can give it to you. But everything comes with a price Ansem...We need something from you. Something precious. Something you hold dear. No no no no haha. That's too easy. We want to take what makes you human. We want your humanity!

While he struggled on his knees the well's voice calmed him. Its words were somehow clear to him in its intent. "Purify..." He thought back to the events that led him to his current situation. The people he wanted dead were long gone. What would he purify now? It didn't matter. For the moment he was surrounded by beings that wanted him dead and he was powerless against them. "Maybe I'll purify them." He mumbled as he got up from his knees. "Let's go." He announced extending his hand into the well.

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.

 

[Lanfaer]

___The Narrator Whispers... ||

tab The moment flesh met the edge of the well the structure bombards you with a light to bright it's nearly lethal. The radiating heat washes over you in wave that scorches deep inside of you, past flesh, sinew and bone, to the ephemeral soul within you. And there? There it tethers on, sinking in hooks of light, each barb knifing into you stinging incredibly until spreading warmth through you a moment later. It scours away the whispering that spiders across your consciousness, the millions of tiny voices fleeing from the encroaching light like rats before a flood.
tab And your arm burns with intense pain that, unlike the rest, remains for longer. A burn that you know will never stop until the world itself is scoured clean. Pain, but one that forges the contract between you and the spirit of Purification before you.
tab Ul'Naga.
tab The name resounds within your mind and soul as a fencing sword, a crooked dagger, a bear paw and a broken heart etches themselves into your forearm. As it does the voice of Ul'Naga thunders into your being, at once both kind and harsh, silent and loud, a voice of extremes. "I bestow unto thee the Pact of Purity. I am a jealous Spirit, and will allow no other to claim thy soul. My contract is thus: protect the innocent, destroy the profane, and walk always in the light. Through thy actions will my totems be earned, for actions are louder than words. Hold fast the hounds of loss, Ansem, Son of Sin, and become the first of thy kind to become Bonded."
tab Outside the Fades that gave you chase scream in terror and flee before the blue and white flames that lick every surface within the building, and those they wriggle up from the rocks beneath as the great spirit erupts from the well in a flurry of fire and wings and penetrate deep into Ansem's arm, filling the tattoo placed there with eldritch flames that burned even after the source is locked within you. You feel no different physically, but spiritually...there is something with you, you know this, but you know now your duty. The methods, however, are your's, as long as they hold pure.
tab [+100 Exp for Spirit Contract]

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malavaes

 

[Dopy Grimes]

Lanfaer

I Don't Care About Motives.

Ansem

Toya

Family

This New World Cannot Show Me Adversity...

As the light consumed his body and his body all Ansem could think about was Kokoro. He was a man that knew pain well his life was full of it and his body was a canvas of scars but nothing could have ever prepared him for what he had experienced the moment he formed the pact with Ul'Naga. It's ok baby. I'm here... Her voice almost tangible kept him from losing his mind. Gritting his teeth he kept himself from falling to his knees and gripped the well for support. When the pain was almost gone he felt it linger in his arm. A mark spread across his forearm. Each representing a facet of what made him the man he was. When the spirit finally decided to speak, Ansem was panting. The words he spoke sounded very controlling to Ansem. He wondered for a split second if he had made the right choice. Then it dawned on him that he no longer had any choices. He was a dead man walking around on borrowed time. All he had in his future was survival. No matter how it came. Always survive.

He weighed the words of Ul'Naga and tried to interpret them the way they should. "Destroy the profane, huh?" He asked looking at the mark on his forearm. Ansem was an assassin. He killed without question for most of his life. Now it seemed he had to discern who was worthy or not. It dawned on him that in this new world there was no one to hire him. The beings that inhabited it were completely foreign to him. Yet if there was something universal about life on Earth it was that there was always a hierarchy. Someone always led. Ansem wasn't a huge admirer of the new system set up. Things crawling around with killing intent at every corner. He was used to killing leaders, figures of importance. "Ul'Naga, I need you to give me as much information about this new world of ours as possible. What happened while I was asleep and who leads these creatures? Before we purify anything I need to understand what I'm dealing with."

I've Lost All That I Care For Already.