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Prologue[NOTE] Date: Month/Day/Year (in Solsth Time)
Captain, First Class, Atlas Serem Sevris of the 1st Brigade - 1st Legion – Royal Guard's Private Journal
–Date: Holen / 6019sy to Nemin / 6023sy, Location: Isle of Sol, Artemis.
Swollen with greed is where the world stood. Uncopious amounts of greed, lust, violence, and just sheer uncalled for actions of vile destruction at the hands of man; and thus not barren be the land, for most. The winds held ghostly screams of banshees, they holding into the frozen and blank night. Far above me stood in this mortal realm the glory of moon which shines only once for a lifetime and thrown down the sight of light. Its beams casted of solid gold and its trails forged of sliver. Its rays, striking thy dirt and ground, tore open in front of me a rift. Thousands of meters wide and born of only the old souls of nigh.
Seas of salty sands laid a path for me across this baron ocean of mine. Her cliffs old and rugged with fallen soldiers of man and demon a like, her beaches flooded with weapons and bodies of the cursed ones, her lands dead from countless wars that never end. Yet here I am, my soul, my form, forged into the body of the greatest leader that ever walked across the lands of the fallen dirt and ground, his name, my name, stood without tell, stood without words, stood far beyond all that was mortal. My name, or so far I have been told his name, it’s image bared into my mind, is that of 'Atlas' and with that name I was for told to become him. Walking onto the dead fields of ash and sand I stroll into the spot of light hiding in the forests beyond and I take my leave their, sitting. Waiting.
Watching the rolls and tips of the sea before me as they cast their nightly song, I am haunted, tortured by the memories of my crew, All of them slain right before my eyes, ten a night, twenty a day, they died on the rocks, the beaches, the sands.. The blood soaked sands. My eyes are cursed with seeing such and I glance away, but every where I look reminds me of my men and their brave souls and how my mistake, my curse, my dreaded lust for the power drove us all to this forsaken island, this barren rock of sand and blood!
Twas the middle of the sixth night alone when I took noticed of the fires in the distance once more. I have not set a fire on this island so the puzzling fact is to whom is lighting these orange flares of heat. As I take a closer inspection of the blaze my eyes fool me and I see the bones and flesh of one of my crew come back alive, only to slaughter itself at its own hand. Cursed. I scream into the night "Why do the gods forsake me with such burdens! Why shall I only bare them alone! Shall I carry these thirty souls with me to my grave?" each time I scream I only revive the answer of the waves hitting the worn rock surfaces of the cliffs in the distant lands. On the tenth day I learn there was never any fire, and that my mind had also forsaken me. I learned this only by trying to end my life in the fires that seem to spring from nothing.
I only managed to break my only good pen and now I resort to writing with the bones of the dammed in blood of the flesh and tears of the men whom fallen. On the tenth night however I lean another point of fact, it seems the tenth cycle is the best here, I learn of that the fish here at still alive and I have claimed to the rocks trying to capture one using a old rod I found among the rubble of my ship.
The rod had to be preyed from the dead hands of my crew's chef; His name is cursed to say now for to rob a dead man is to rob thy self. But the fish where so good and alive, it pained me to kill them and cook them in the fake fires. I would pretend they were cooked as I devoured them. By the sixteenth day I have lost all sense of up, why just up I do not know, but up none the less means nothing to be now as I walk along the shores, bare footed, skin torn and flesh wounded. MY hair has grown ever so unkempt and long and I fear I might just have to figure out how to shave if it gets any worse. "Cursed by the land that we walk, through the valley of death I must go" I say this to myself, though I know it is wrong. I also have come to fear that this log will never be found, or once it is that I am no longer here to be the reader of such adventures in miss happening wonder. I found another book on the shore today while exploring, it seemed to be a log of another crew-member, and I add it to the collection of eight others. Eight journals of a dead man fill my bag of woven leaf, Why I keep them I do not know, Maybe it brings me sanity, though by far I know I have lost that with my will to figure this all out.
The sun seems not to shine on the island anymore and I fear death is at hand. It has been night for roughly seven cycles now, how I know this is hard to tell, It could just be one night. I think I might be able to sleep n--~The rest of the text is smeared and illegible and towards the back of the journal it seems to have been burnt in a large fire.
–Date: Holen / 15th / 6019sy, Location: Capital city of Artemis, After the Battle of Solsth?
Ash fell softly like snow over the broken and ancient ruins that scattered the area, darkness from the clouds of sickness and ash above blanketed out the sky, leaving no truth to see if it was day or night Atlas, our hero of sorrow, awakens in the ash, his body covered in dirt and remains of a great fire. As he awakens fully to recover his sense of mortality and reason he gains the knowledge of how the past four years might of just been a horrible dream; A dream he surely wishes to forget.
It took Atlas only a few minutes to realize the grave state of what just happened, His men, his brave and heroic men, had fallen and with them so has Solsth. The great, know once great, capital of Artemis. Standing there in the carcass of the city stood Atlas, his eyes filled with rage and his face burdened with sorrow. The last things he remembered before his little 'dream', if it even was that to him it seemed more then real; But the last things Atlas could remember just kept replying in his head. The memory was him, standing there with his arms out reached, his hand grasping, to grab the hand of his love, but in the memory, as soon as their hands meet the world shook and a sheet of darkness covered the plain of existence; and then Atlas was awoken on the island.
This cursed memory just kept replying over and over as Atlas stood there, motionless, staring at the destruction that lay before him, and what exactly he saw was beyond expressions, and not just that, it defied reason, and kicked logic in the head. Before him laid the ruins of Solsth, the capital of Artemis, and just beyond his vision he could make our the remains of a massive crater. A massive canyon stretched out from this crater, and from this canyon a river could be made out near the bottom, and this river rushed with such speed in a direction that was odd; and for every second Atlas gazed upon this planetary feature, he became more and more stricken with a sense of shock.
A river was flowing up into the sky, and not just that, Rocks where also flowing up into the sky from the crater and canyon. It was as if gravity had been reversed. But then Atlas noticed why this was, and why saying such things as 'sky' would been wrong, There happened not to be a sky at all. Atlas's gaze turned up and far off, beyond the moon like object and ash clouds Atlas could make out the shapes of a planet. It was as if he was looking onto another planet from space, but he was not. This strange event lead Atlas to believe he was on the inside of a planet, or something like that, perhaps Artemis had been turned inside out.
Then, finally, sweet truth hit Atlas with the force that a thousand-mega-ton hydrogen bomb would have if dropped from space onto a planet from a ship that going faster then light, so in short Atlas was hit with truth at the force of infinity to the power of infinity; Atlas came to find out, he was dead.
Atlas fell to his knees in the ash covered dirt, A plum cloud of ash and dust rose in his wake, it floated in the air like particles in water as more ash fell like a peaceful snow day onto his body. A face of horror and shock replaced his previous face of sorrow, and his lips trembled a bit to this tune; and he yelled to himself in such a voice that if people were there, they would be knocked down, literary. Atlas screamed while pounding a fist into the ground repeatably, kicking up more ash and dust, forming a small cloud of the stuff around him. After his little fit, Atlas, our now, apparently, dead hero sat in silence, his face staring at the ground.
Silence, the cursed memory of nothing, the black darkness that fills all of our hearts in times of sorrow, in times of horror, and in times of carnage. None of these explained the deep and endless silence that Atlas felts in his heart, burdened and weak he did feel, but nothing else could explain the complex war the raged on inside of him over the emotions that fueled them. In the face of pure annihilation, in the face of ultimate defeat, and in the face of sheer madness, A great hero named Atlas had failed in his one duty. Now he was dead, and left to his emotions he sat; Waiting. But waiting for what? He did not know, all he wanted was a escape from all of this, one that he could never get; for what kind of escape exists in this hell? None he could fathom would suffice.
“For I am darkness, and you are sorrow, Together we make death, and separated we make pain.”
A low and dark voice said, it sounded far away, but Atlas looked up from his miserable lump and off in the distance towards the voice. Again the voice spoke out, this time sounding closer,
“and without pain, what is life? Only death and nothingness remain after pain, only the lust for a sense of reality is there.”
Atlas took a peek of interest at this voice, but remanded cautious, he did not know what this was, trick or otherwise. Atlas stood up and looked off into the distance at a cloud of ash, not to far away, that the voice seemed to be coming from.
“Do you, Atlas, Hold such a sense?”
The voice said, but now it was right behind Atlas, speaking into his ear in a hushed whisper. Atlas bolted around quickly, but nothing was there, “What do you speak of?!” Atlas growled out at the voice as he looked around for its location.
“I ask of you what it means to be human, what it means to have a grasp of real, a grasp of fake, and a pinch of sanity...”
The voice said, its location know appearing to be all around Atlas
“...I simply speak from truth, and ask questions of opinion,So I ask again, Do you hold a sense of reality Mr.Sevris?”
Atlas stopped, What tricky was this? He looked up then down, but then deiced to go back to looking all around. “Who are you? How do you know my name?!” Atlas yelled out in furry, his fuse was getting short for this voice.
“I told you, I am darkness, and your questions are irrelevant, My question is the only thing that matters. So then. Tick Tock, Atlas, I do not need to time you, but I can if it is willed.”
The voice replied in a more impatient tone then the last.”OH! Well what if I do will it!?” Atlas quickly yelled back at the voice, and just a quickly the ash clouds around him, and all the ash, burst into smoke and faded into oblivion; Leaving only the ruins of old behind and those were quickly, in a matter of seconds, covered in forest growth of trees and vines. A clearing sprouted around Atlas, twenty meters in all directions. At the edge of this clearing, directly in front of Atlas, appeared a man; and this man was dressed in a black suit, his skin stark white, his head bald, and his face covered with a ceramic pure white mask that was smooth and looked like a eggshell with no holes. It was a odd sight, At which Atlas stared at with confusion. The tall slim man walked forward with grace and quickness, soon stopping only three paces ahead of Atlas, who cocked his head slightly at this before saying “What trickery is this!?”
“No trickery here, only darkness, Now answer my question...”
The now embodied voice said, though it was coming from the man, it was still being broadcast from every direction. The man pulled a golden pocket-watch from his breast pocket, it was connected to a gold laurel chain to which was attached to his suit jacket. The man opened the watch and looked at it, Atlas could not see the mans or the clocks face, both showed up a nothingness and white.
“Tick tock, goes the clock...” The man mocked at Atlas “You would happen to have 1 minutes to answer me.”
and with that Atlas saw a countdown show up on the watches face as the man showed it to him, Atlas froze for a second then quickly muttered the first thing that came to mind, as he hoped this would and could end this confusing party, “I hold no sense for reality, do you?!”
The man laughed, and laughed, then re-pocketed the watch in his breast pocket. “Ha! You show the stature of a hero, the power of a noble, but answer with the wit of a politic. However none of these are you. So why answer with such nonsense?” The man-voice-person asked, and Atlas was hasten to reply, 'for this madness is far too much...Quit with your tricks and questions, Who are you really!?” He yelled at the man.
“Oh oh, how rude you are, well fine if you wish to not have fun then I shall get to the point....”
The man said, who was now actually behind Atlas, his movement silent. Atlas turned and looked at the man with a scowl.
“...I'm the spirit of darkness, The creed of lust, The bringer of vengeance, The walker of hate,..”
The man said as he scrolled backwards, acting out gestures for each thing he said, as if he was a poet who was reading his best work
“..I am the eater of worlds, The carrier of souls, The sinner of cold..”
The man froze and locked his faceless gaze at Atlas as he strolled towards him in a very hateful manner, he got more and more demonic looking as he got closer. The man grew pitch black horns from his head, they curved down over his face, breaking cracks into the mask he wore. Fire marked his steps, and a intense power of fire overwhelmed his body in a very tight pressure of energy.
“..I..”
The man continued, stopping his move a few paces from Atlas, his voice was very heavy and demonic;
“...am called by many names, but my true name is Soulless, and I am the Lich of Death.”
Atlas stepped back a bit, uneasy, at this show of a answer. Then the man laughed a little, and by 'a little' I mean he let out a roughly loud roar of a laugh before saying in a kidding and less demonic voice “Oh..yea no.. I'm kidding...”
Atlas sighed with a uneven anger, giving the man a black stare. “What do you mean by that? Who are you really then..or are you just some asshole?” Atlas said with a flat and hint of anger tone, to which the man replied with a shrug saying “Hell if I really know, boys down in town call me Jack, guess I'm Jack then...” The man took a step back, putting his left hand to his mask, removing it, and placing it somehow into his back pocket where it seemed to disappear, defying all logic, granted nothing else seemed to follow logic here so Atlas did not get too caught up on it. The horns stayed however, but the man, Jack's, face was smooth and fine looking, he had brown hair that was rugged and long, and he had large orange eyes.
Quickly, however, Jack's black horns turned white and he said “So then Atlas, I was suppose to give you the whole 'intro' crap about what this place is...but that is no fun, no fun at all, So I'll just be on my way...” Jack quickly turned around and stared to walk off after saying that. Atlas sighed, his head hurt as he tried to figure out what just happened, but he quickly let out a “erm wait!” and Jack stopped, turning around giving Atlas a shrug 'yes' look. “So...just answer me this” Atlas said, coughing at the end and saying 'jerk' under his breath, “Where am I exactly?” Atlas gave a puzzled look, and he really wanted to know the answer to this.
“You, my dear rude buddy, happen...” Jack said walking up to Atlas quickly and circling around him for some reason, Atlas was thinking Jack was madder then crazy; “..You are in...” Jack said, stopping in-front of Atlas, then wiggling his finger in his face, for him to come in close so he can whisper into his ear. Atlas leaned in, uneasy still, and Jack whispered into his ear “..you are in the Creator's Realm, The Vault!” Jack yelled the end words into Atlas' ear, to which he recoiled back giving Jack another mean look and he shrugged this off. Jack turned back around and skipped down the path, and out of the clearing.
Chapter 1 |Two years Later
–Date: Rusk / 18th / 6021sy, Location: Riggermis Ocean, The Vault
“Call me Crazy! Call me Mad! Call m--” A boot slammed into Jack's face mid-sentence as he fell over in sheer pair, slamming his head into the steel and wood deck of the air-ship, with a loud thud followed by a moan; Jack said in a hurt voice “You know..If you don't like my singing, just say so...” “A old book works better” Our trusted old hero Atlas said as he stepped down the steps to the level that Jack was on, He had thrown the boot from two floors above them, down at jack on the bottom floor of the Air-Ship; which was cursing nicely under the Ocean of Riggermis. If you are confused, too bad, water flows up here, so water-ships are pointless and seas/oceans are in the sky. They also form a very very large sphere around the inner rings of the Vault, which provides awkward rain and sunshine, its all quite confusing and best left alone, unless you want a melted head.
Atlas took a step back, turning around to look out the window paneling that lined this floor, giving the passenger a great view of the world below and the water and rest of the world above. Dressed in new clothes, Atlas stood there, gazing out at the wonders of the Vault, For the past two years this Armor Clad, Gun and Ballistics wielding, Maniac, has been traveling all across the Vault; in a lush battle scarred War-Freight class Airship. Over those two years Atlas has changed, forgetting his past lift as a guard, and embracing his new life as a cut-throat bandit and mercenary with the occasional bounty-hunting; Physically though his hair has turned a light white, even though he is only Twenty-Seven, a tan has emerged, and little bit shocking fangs has started to grow in. Over-all nothing was as drastic of a change as his clothes, or I should say, lack off. Preferring to wear laced combat armor over Kevlar woven leather bounds, giving him the hybrid look of a shadow warrior mixed with a human-world SWAT captain. Quite a odd combo for a odd world. But other then all that, he still holds gray eyes and short cut black hair, not to mention his slim figure.
Jack on the other hand, has changed little if any, possibly only growing more annoying in Atlas' eyes.
ITS NOT DONE.