I don’t think my story is unlike many others, besides the fact that I survive. I don’t remember much of my early years; mud, dirt, hunger, yelling, pain. I don’t remember my mother. I don’t recall being part of a family; my memory really starts when I stole the apple from the priest. I must have been hungry and it was right there in the basket, so I reached out and took it. What happened next still to this day surprises me, no matter how many times I remember. I grabbed the apple and a club hit my shoulder and I hit the ground, the apple rolled from my hand. I was beaten several times, and nobody interfered. I remember the priest threatening to cut off a finger, it’s what they do to thieves. I was five or six years old at the time, I don’t really know, but I never cried. The priest roughly led me to a temple and I was put to work, cleaning and scrubbing and emptying chamber pots. Not a pleasant time of my life, but I’ve had few that others would appreciate. I do remember that if one of the priests at the temple thought I erred, I was beaten, usually to unconsciousness, as I would normally wake up later on the floor.
I was never taught about the religion in detail, only how to follow the rituals. The god took human sacrifices. A body would be brought forward, the priests would bend the body backward over the altar and one of them would cut the heart out and throw it onto a brazier where it would steam and hiss. Then the body would be thrown into the burning coals. Kind, the god was not. I was at the temple for about a year or two and I was sent to another place. This place had the same feel as the temple I had been at, but there was much more. There were many other boys of many ages, and there were priests.
I no more know the name of the city I started out in, than I do of the temple they sent me to. Memories of one blur into the other and the beatings were much the same. They taught me things or tried to. Fighting, reading and writing were taught early on. We wrestled and fought with others of our own age, smaller larger it didn’t matter. We learned to fight and survive. If we lost we were beaten. If we stopped before we were told to we were beaten. Sometimes the punishments were worse than losing, so you always wanted to win, at least that way you only got beaten once. Occasionally the punishments ended in death, so none of us cared much for each other, or the priests. Fear ruled.
We were never allowed outside the walls, but you knew there were things out there, you could hear it in the night. Our religious observations continued and I got older. I continued to survive. That’s all there was. I wasn’t as big as the others so I relied on my quickness and flexibility. Time has no meaning in a place like that but at some point I was put into a group of others who were about my size and split off from the boys who were getting bigger. Our training became more intense. Hand to hand combat became a habit. You never knew when someone was coming for you. We would be given a prey and told to attack them sometime. You had to be ready. We learned how to use our quickness and flexibility to defend ourselves and also how to use it to defeat an opponent. Eventually, we fought others with weapons.
That’s when my first “kill” happened, at least to my knowledge. It was mostly unintentional. I was brought to a ring to fight a larger student who had a sword. His intent was to kill me or at least stick me. I wouldn’t let him do that. We tested each other out for a while and at some point he over extended and I spun to the right and heel kicked him in the side of his head. He dropped motionless to the floor. There was yelling and I know money changed hands, as was usual when there were fights. I was beaten by a couple of instructors later. Several students weren’t happy with me either. At some point, maybe a week later, three of them jumped me, but they weren’t ready. They didn’t know. Two of them were left broken and screaming while the third was bruised an unconscious. No more students came for me.
I continued to train and spar. I was taught how to use daggers, knives and stilettos. It became part of my hand to hand combat skills. I was shown how to kill quickly and quietly. Instructors showed me how to pick locks and get into places I shouldn’t, how to watch and listen so that I could repeat information. There are many ways to get people to do things; pain, threats and money seem to be the easiest. I learned that people were either tools to be used, or they were of no consequence. Part of the training included learning other languages so that I could communicate effectively in various locations.
The one part of the training that never sank in was the loyalty. The priests seemed to think that by beating us relentlessly, it would result in our subservience. It never sank in with me. The more they beat me the more I hated them. I guess you could say that my final test was a fight with another student. We had seen each other before but had never been pitted against each other. I think he was better than me. I beat him anyway. His unconscious body was taken to the altar and he was sacrificed in front of me. These people were nuts, all I wanted was to get away. They began to teach me about poisons and the different methods of applications, ingesting, injecting, and touch. The results were shocking. Everything from illness and incapacitation to long and painful deaths were explored. How they were made and the plants they came from were part of the training. I was taught how to notice them and the smell, taste and feel of some of them. Then one of them was used on me.
When I woke up I was in a large city and a new person was with me. He immediately began showing me things and teaching me what to look for and made me use all the skills I had learned. I began to look for a way out. I was still beaten when I made a mistake but it wasn’t as severe. There was a certain willful need to make me learn.
At some point, I don’t remember why, I was given a target and told to kill him without getting caught. The man never knew I was coming for him and nobody saw me anywhere near the man. It was shortly after this that I tried to run away. It didn’t work, I don’t know how or why, but my handler knew. He did something to me and every time that I even thought about harming him or escaping, I would grow sick and double over in pain. The more I thought about it the more it hurt. I was patient, but the feeling never went away.
I was given a place to live and told that assignments would be sent to me through various means with specific ways to recognize them. I killed and gathered information and gave it to the appropriate people. Then one day the feeling was gone. I thought it was a trick or some kind of test. I went looking for my handler and was thrilled and amazed to find that he had been run over by a team of horses and a wagon loaded with turnips. How I do love turnips now. I returned to his house and tried to erase anything he had that might have connection to me. I took his money and lit it on fire. I heard later that it set the whole block on fire. Nobody came looking for me and I waited for several months to see what would happen. Then I left without looking back.
I went from town to town, city to city seeing things and learning things about the country. It was in one of those cities that they came for me. I don’t know how they found me or how they even knew who I was, but it was a priest and his guards. They looked to surprise me but I had seen them following me for several minutes. When they came into the alley, one was down before the other felt the knife in his throat, the priest was trickier. He used some sort of magic, but I left him dead with his guards and lighter his money. I studied his face and didn’t recognize him, which meant that somehow they know who I am. I took to using disguises when in populated areas and doubling back more often when traveling. My travels took me off the beaten trail, but I still feel hunted.
It was on one of those journeys that I was in a mountain pass and took refuge in a cave. There was an awesome storm and lightning and thunder ruled the night. The cave in took me completely by surprise and low and behold I found fear, unreasonable and undeniable fear. Being closed in with the weight of the mountain above me and no way out proved to be my greatest enemy. I pounded and screamed and tried to move the rocks but was futilely rewarded. I remember waking up in the arms of a kindly old man who said he take me out. Not being entirely in control of myself, I nodded and he picked me up and walked. I thought that a hole had been cleared, I was wrong. He carried me through the rock to the outside. I’ve never shaken so hard. He left me trembling on the mountain pass, speaking gibberish. I came out of it a short time later. I never saw him again and I make it a point to stay out of caves if at all possible.
I took to stealing and taking odd jobs in another city when I crossed the mountains. I found a network of thieves that I could fit in with and they would hire me to do certain tasks for them and with them. I mad a decent profit and continued to do work. The authorities came for me once but I wasn’t home and made sure I stayed out of sight for several weeks. Memories are short.
I took a job for a wizard and he liked what I did so he kept me in mind for other jobs for him. We worked out fine together, he got what he wanted and I got paid. Another priest came for me and I escaped with my life. Why is it they keep coming for me? The priests all look the same to me and they have scars all over their faces, so they are usually easy to find. This one had money and some documents, but nothing about me. I was a little singed, my eyebrows will grow back. His heart won’t start beating again though. The wizard heard of the trouble I had and said he had another job for me. We went through some sort of magic portal and ended up on some forsaken red desert in a town called Curst. We left Curst for some place called the Bastion of Last Hope, boy was that an appropriate name. Traveling through the desert was a new kind of hell. After we gained entrance, my wizard friend went looking for someone. Apparently all sorts of undesirables are located here. I don’t know what happened, but the wizard left me with a large hunchbacked and disfigured “man” named Arrum, and promptly left through a gate of his own creation. Arrum gave me jobs and kept me busy, killing people, stealing things. This went on for several weeks. While I didn’t seem him all the time, he was there often enough. He came to me and told me that there would be a group coming to the Bastion and that I was to lead them to a recent battlefield. What a group.
There were nine in total, although I’m not sure that they all are a group. There was a group of three that was very different from the others. They looked to be similar to Arrum in that they were huge. I don’t think they are in human. Rhage (stayed in the courtyard), Crux, and Pathos. Not pleasant sorts they sat at a table with a human, old and not entirely in good shape from the sound of his breathing. He wore armor and carried a scythe which seems to have movement along its blade in green tint. I was to learn that his name is Typhus and that he is the money behind the group. Christoph is a talker, god how I wish he’d shut up. I don’t know when he finds time to breath. But listening is a skill that sometimes requires patience and he told me about the other members of the group. An female elf named Lilith, with a body guard, I haven’t figured out what she does, but Christoph says she’s some sort of sorceress. There was the Ogre Marv that is about 12 feet tall and huge. I don’t want to cross him or face his axe. There is an overly tall male elf who carries some sort of strange thing on his back and a sword. He is called the ranger. He apparently has much disdain for humans. Christoph, will you just shut up, is a strange sort. He carries a shovel and wears fine clothes. I have no idea what he does, other than talk.
I retire for the night and other than a scream in the middle of the night from the courtyard, it’s peaceful. Apparently someone messed with the creature called Rhage and lost an arm, nothing new for this place. Another joins the group, he wears ill fitting clothing and is disheveled. Arrum tells us he’s a wizard. A wagon arrives with another oddly large creature in it. I overhear him called Toxas and he seems to be of the same ilk as Arrum, Rhage, Crux and Pathos. The wagon is being pulled by a large lizard. I don’t spend much time looking at the strange creatures as I want nothing to do with them. Arrum has told me that my ticket off this place is this job. I’m going out to the desert to a recent blood war battlefield, where they will retrieve something, and then we’re going to deliver it somewhere. I’ll be off the planet by then.
We travel through the day and all its glorious heat for several hours and arrive at the battlefield. There are creatures with scorpion like tales carrying things to a pile next to a dead large lizard. I go one direction and Christoph goes another. We are ranging out in front of the party. I hear Marv yell and can almost feel his footsteps through the ground. I run up behind one of the creatures and engage him in combat. I hear screaming and yelling and other sounds of combat, but I’m otherwise engaged. At some point a large centipede like creature burst out from the sand. I notice the one called Typhus is carrying a large banner away from the lizard and main battlefield so I quit the battle. Rhage is there as I leave and he dispatches the enemy I had engaged. I and the rest of the group walk together toward where Typhus has stopped, with Lilith, bodyguard and the Ranger. There is a circle of skeletons that react as to attack us when we approach. Typhus orders them to “Halt.” As I explain that things come out at night, Typhus orders the skeletons to “Protect” again. The banner seems to make things gloomy, but we are unbothered through the night.
The next morning we travel to Curst where Arrum uses an amulet to open a gate to a city I’ve never been to before. I learn it’s called Sigil, a city of gates. I am nauseous upon my arrival as the city is strange. I am told to be in a specific section of the city in the morning and we’ll leave for the location of the drop, a place called Rauxes.
Before everyone departs for their own enjoyments, I approach Typhus and ask him if he would have need of someone of my skills. I need work after this job is done. He responds in his raspy, barely breathing voice, that if I take his gold I do his jobs. That seems pretty straight forward. I don’t like his company any more than he apparently likes mine so it should work fine. Now let’s go look at Sigil.
