Reaches of Altharion
Characters
Reaches of Altharion
Dungeons & Dragons 5e
Gold:
8.9
Species:
Reborn
Class:
Cleric
Starting Grace:
Guardian's Benediction
Oh.
My head's off.
That's not right.
There was a life attached to that head, and she saw it as she rolled off the headsman's block. Oh right. They were killing her. There was a reason. It was a rather important reason.
Rather indignantly, someone picked her up. And then it was dark.
That's not right.
She was supposed to break out of captivity at the last minute, surrounded by an aria of light while scooping up her wife. That's what's supposed to happen to heroes.
There was another head in here.
Oh that explains it.
Her wife went first, so it ruined the story. No.
Her wife is here too.
She failed then. It was fuzzy, almost at the edges of her vision when she thought of it. Something had happened. Something, and she was...
Important.
But not important enough, clearly. She was a head in a basket now.
Ah. That's right.
She had been betrayed by her order. Yes, she was in an order. That was right, that's why there'd be light. Daylight should have preserved her, she'd always kept faith. Well, maybe Daylight would still. Healing the dead wasn't that far out of a Cleric's power.
Ah, but the clerics are the ones killing me.
Sera's body was far too preoccupied dying in order to channel that sort of magic anyways.
Was it getting harder to think? Blueberry, Strawberry -- no that's not right, not now. Important things.
I hate them.
There was no greater truth left. With her last thoughts, she'd curse them. Her mouth even blabbered a little, at least she thought it did.
I hate them for lying. For killing her.
That's right. They told her that if she confessed her wife would go free. Confessed to what she had not done. They'd lied, and now here they were.
Hate ...
Them ...
And then the things that hurt stopped hurting, and she faded into a comfortable numbness.
When Sera came to, she realized a few things were off immediately. First, her head was far, far too low. She was looking at someone's boots. They were rather dirty boots, and something told her it was soil in a graveyard on them. The second thing was that she was vaguely aware of her body behind her.
It was looking for her, with no eyes. Fumbling about. Oh wait.
There she was.
Sera picked her head up and put it back where it belonged. The gravedigger offered a toothy grin that displayed the yellowed and rotting dental nightmare within.
He was looking at her expectantly. With a shovel. There was a hole next to her -- shallower than she'd have liked. She knew it was a grave. Her grave. She was dead after all.
Oh.
He wanted money for his services. Well, she was dead. They would have put a coin in her mouth. She tried to spit it out. Anything out.
Oh.
They hadn't put a coin in her mouth. Well that would go a decent way to explaining why she was here instead of ... well, she wasn't sure exactly where she should be instead.
I need to pay him before thinking about those things.
She patted herself down. To call what she was wearing rags was... generous. More like they'd wrapped her body up in bandages. She felt nothing.
"I... I..."
Words were hard. Ah. She adjusted her neck a bit to get her windpipe not quite to the right spot, but close enough. The gravedigger shook his head, keeping that same enigmatic smile.
He turned and walked away.
Then why did he...
She was distracted by the sky. It was turning the colors it shouldn't be -- red, magenta, orange. It was supposed to be black, and the little bits like spilt milk across the sky were called stars. Roscid liked those things called stars. Roscid was her wife. Her wife who was dead.
Where where where where
She scrambled, patting the ground next to her all-too-shallow grave. An unmarked grave, she might add. Nobody else was buried here. In fact, this wasn't a graveyard at all. She had the sense that people were meant to be buried next to eachother. Especially the loved ones. This wasn't right at all.
Oh.
Her eyes caught the sky again, seeing the light. The light. The Light. It was holy. Breathtaking, if she had breath to take. Oh. Oh. Oh. The Sun. It was warming her face. She hadn't even known she was cold. That she was supposed to be warm. She felt sheepish, like a child. She was not a child. She went to her knees, her body knowing the memory her head could not quite reach.
Holy. Holy. Holy.
She began to pray, the familiar way, the way where the Light filled her soul. Not the way children were taught. The way you learned to love when you began to understand. When the Sunrise ended, she felt faith renewed that she did not even know was lost.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
The Hate began to come back. Roscid was not here. Her wife was not buried with her. Where was she? This wasn't right. This isn't right.
This isn't right.
She stepped forward. Another step. Her stomach. Something was wrong. She went to her knees again. Not praying, sadly. Just heaving. Dry heaving. Nothing was meant to go in the stomach anymore, clearly.
This is hell.
Eventually, the bag came out. She suspected it wasn't supposed to smell like that. She knew the clink of what was inside though. Gold.
A gift, or a final jeer?
You can't eat gold. Except when you can, apparently.
The pool of water was... cool. She was supposed to be warm, but the sun was too hot. Letting the water over herself... it was muted. Numb. Not how it was supposed to be. Yet it was.
My eyes...
The color was wrong. Light Blue. Icy. A slight glow. Different. Her skin was ghoulish. Literally, she was confident she'd fought a 'ghoul' before, though the specifics were too hazy to remember. She remembered hate for it.
Not the hate that I feel now.
She'd washed over some of the wrappings. They stuck to certain areas and were disintegrating on others. Her skin was... in better shape than she'd expect for a corpse. She got the feeling she knew what corpses looked like from experience. Not that she remembered it. Memories were hard now.
Roscid would know more.
The scariest part was that she knew that name, but not the face for it. She knew that was her wife. And she couldn't remember who it was. Coming back from the dead is harder than she'd thought it'd be. She brushed her dark hair out of her face.
Oh.
On her thigh she saw a mark she hadn't noticed before. It was under wrappings after all. On the outside, near her hip. There it was. Not a birthmark, she'd know what that was after all. Not a tattoo... she got the feeling that was the sort of thing she'd never get. Something... else. A... mark.
A Mark of Making.
The words were instinctual more than memory. Ah. Magic. She knew it was in her. She felt it swell in her breast, heart pounding. She let it subside. She'd almost drawn upon it. But there was not a focus to be seen. She'd need one of those.
If she could find someone who'd take gold that stunk like bile for some reason.
She stood. Fixed what wrappings she could.
It was time to move.
