A Different Story - Wil v

         It was a killing cycle.

         I wondered how much amusement those people were taking off seeing unskilled amateurs go at it against unarmed opponents. I didn't spend more time thinking. Not that I had the time to... Even though I saw myself in each of the boys running hopelessly against the newcomers, I kept shouting orders around, hoping someone foolish enough would follow them.

         Quite surprisingly, a pile of bodies began taking shape. Not my body or theirs, but the bodies of the victims of our first charge. One of ours decided not to take cover behind the difficult terrain, and ran around the arena in panic instead.
         Like a pack of wolves that saw a lone lamb, he was picked, torn like a rag, and left on the ground.
         After that the time was counting. The cloud of dust kicked by the new warriors got closer and closer.
         Funny how I was on the wrong side of the slaughter this time, and how the victims of the previous one would help their killer survive. One of my companions fell beside me, managing to take one of the armed ones with him. Seeing his shiny metal lance I slid from under the two corpses I was hiding under, grabbed it, and rolled up. I still had no idea where to turn, except I knew to keep quiet and lay low.
         A boy stared at me, so hopeful, seeing my plan to get a weapon come together, he never tried to dodge my lance until it came out the other side of his chest.
         I fought my way back and forth, stabbing at the powerless that counted on me to save their sorry hides, offing one or another of the second group when noone was looking.

         The crowd roared more than ever. Everything that was going on was obvious to them, watching from the outside. But the fodder in the arena was too busy doing a horrible job at surviving to notice the guy raving through flesh and bone.
         Then we were three, and the crowd was screaming... they yelled like they still needed more blood:
         "One more!"
         We faced each other. Neither would hesitate killing, and we knew we couldn't just walk away, but I knew something they didn't: the crowd was wrong.

Two more...


Where did this come from?                                                         Oh crap, then what?

Original work C Pedro Nunes. Split according to OP's vision.

A Different Story - Wil iv

The pits. Of course.

        Suddenly all was clear. The kidnapping, the forced work, the ridiculous amount of guards for a mine of ragged weaklings... We were stocked pigs for slaughter.
        The sound of marching was muffled by the screams of the crowd. Something was brewing. I looked around: there was a bunch of boys near me, more people I barely knew from the mine; across the arena was another group, except this one had their clothes marked in blood. Both were frozen in their feet, shying away from the thousands of eyes around'em.
        Fear, screaming, blood and sand. All had a very distinct smell, and could almost touch it. There was a bunch of weapons in the middle of the arena, and it was time to shine.
        There was nothing to be said. I ran to the stack, and my friends quickly followed. Those on the other side were not so keen on living, and moved only when the glint of our blades caught their eye.
        We had been locked up for far too long to risk going back. The crowd caught their breath when we charged the defenseless kids.
        There was blood. Much more than I'd ever seen, I had never killed anyone before, but never thought I'd feel so.. unconcerned.
        Once I got past the surprise of not being surprised, I took to hacking away until not a single man in that group was moving.
        The crowd was not excited. For someone that came to see the gore and violence, they weren't showing that much passion. But I had more to worry about.

VICTORS OF THE WHITE TEAM

Put down your weapons. Leave the arena now, and rest. You've earned it.

       
        One of the larger gates crawled open. Beyond it, I saw trees, and freedom. I ran, we ran, like we had never ran before. So close, Closer, On it. A huge portcullis came down. NO.
        More loud screaming. The cheering was at its maximum now. Behind us, we found a new group, more young men in clean clothing.

                They didn't look friendly.

Where did this come from?                                                         Then what?

Original work C Pedro Nunes. Split according to OP's vision.

A Different Story - Wil iii

         There were no heroes in the mines. Noone made a move. Even the scrub that carried food terrified most of the men. Strong men, with rock-shattering picks, feared the boy with a small pot. Most wet their pants -what little was left of them- when the guards came around, picking up those too weak and replacing them with younger blood every fortnight. Not a single one of us thought the ones that were taken away were luckier than those who stayed.

         Every day was alike. The light crawled across the white rock, dance around it. Withered away and died, and some men took to follow the exemple. The stubborn ones, those that didn't, slept little or not at all, from muscle cramps, or hunger cramps, or the smell, or all the yelling in the pain that took over when the mind was not busy axing solid ore.

         The white rock was gone. We soon heard the rustle of armor, the heavier stomping of the guards' boots. Each man lined up next to his pile of ore, hoping for the smallest piece of meat instead of everyday's  bread.

         No. No meat for me either. "I should have worked harder." The meekness was finding its way into me. "No", I thought, "I should get out of here." I had grown since I had been brought to work in the mine. There was no way I could feed my newfound constitution with bread and water. I began plotting a way to train, and still work. That was an action best delayed by thinking.

         I found the corpse right where I knew he'd be. The guard had been left to rot at the place he died, consumed by the disease and despair. The other guards showed him no more respect than they showed the living slaves, but me and a couple others took off his shabby leather armor and put him in a nearby crate. It had been a week, but he still had his iron gauntlet. Though rust began to creep in, the old soldier's name engraving was still visible. Thank you, "Porter".

Those few that watched, terrified, entertained thoughts of heroes and saviors as they caught my smile.

         It fit like the glove I never had.

         Even if it was slower now, the gauntlet was the focus I needed to keep practising. My style got better, at both fighting and at punching ore out of the wall. Personal space wasn't a rare resource. Entire galleries and closed walls were mine, and I couldn't work any more if I wanted to.

         Nothing the others said about being taken and not returning worried me.

And then it was my turn. I was swinging around an old pick shaft, when more blinded boys came tumbling in. "You with the stick, time to go.".

I put down my lame weapon and walked towards the hooded men. There was a "smell ya later" in my face that my coworkers caught on, although they couldn't see that the reason I was sad was the loss of my training place.
         Blindfolded again. And chained.
         I followed the sound of the armored boots again, stumbling a few times when someone split and they wouldn't tell us where to go. Without much else to do, I thought about my future. I hoped it would not be like thebug I just stepped on. Noone would remember me that way. I wouldn't have that.

         Keys fell at my feet a second after the iron door closed behind us. I hurried to take off my chains and clear my eyes.
         It didn't improve much. It was still dark, a long tunnel with but a single, small light at the end.

         Could I see the sun again? I ran up the slightly sloped tunnel, towards the light. It grew, it was a passage, could it be freedom?
         ..Such light..

         It hurt my eyes, accustomed to the dark as they were, but I was happy to see it growing larger and larger.
         With eyes half closed, I left the tunnel at what seemed to be at the foot of a valley too small to be.
         That....
         ...and the endless cheering all around me.

Where did this come from?                                                         Then what?

Original work C Pedro Nunes. Split according to OP's vision.

A Different Story - Wil ii

        Some answers were easy to come by. Others not so much. Some were answered by questions, like "why am I blindfolded?" kinda answered "am I still in the woods?". I tried to remove the cloth on my eyes.

        Chains. Of course.

        I struggled to my feet and tried to leave. I managed to shamble a couple steps.
        Chains. Should have known by then.

        I got on my knees and crawled away. Maybe the chains weren't holding me to a wall.

        They weren't. So came the whip. I preferred the chains.

        Thinking back now, I don't know how I wasn't worried. Probably shoulda been. Then again, they could have killed me whenever they wanted, bit they didn't. I had some purpose.

        I thought of mother. She probably thought about me too, for the split second before she realised she'd only burn half the wood now. I wondered what I had gotten into.

        I walked to what I found to be the entrance of a cave, where the chains at my feet came off. "The two of you, left", came a harsh voice, followed by a punch to the ribs. "The old dogs, with me."

        Not knowing what in hell left was (love ya, mom), I took a chance.

        Whip.

        Left hand is what you use to hold the heads you'll cut with your right hand. Don't think I'll ever forget it that way...

        Iron doors closed behind me. The chains on my wrists fell, so I took off the blindfold. Not that it changed much. The world was grey and black. Brown, when you were lucky.  The close walls were a greyish-brown. The far end was black. The people around me were grey, dirty from years of earth and dust, although their hands were black. The muddy floor stank of all things that came from, or were, human. 

        A bitter "Welcome to the iron mines" was the warmest thing I was offered. "There's your pickaxe, and there's your timer" was not as bad as a "try not to get killed when you go for the wood or I'll have to hire someone to go get it". The timer was a white stone, right under the only hole that connected to the surface. "When you can't see the stone anymore, they come and take what you cut out. They give you some food, according to what you got", an old man told me when the huge serjeant looked away.

        There were a lot of people in that mine. Boys and old geezers, strong men at their peak, all cowed under the flogging.

        "And if I don't want to?"

        The sound of clashing metal and falling rocks was everywhere.

        "Ah, just do like Andrah Seih. Andrah didn't feel like working too hard either." Though I never met him, Andrah looked like an amazingly lazy fellow. He didn't work, he didn't exercise, he wouldn't even eat. He was also a skeleton, his flesh picked almost clean by the worms. "But I tell you, boy, I'd rather work."

        Chopping resources for others, rotting corpses, food that even an ooze would balk away from... If not for the low light, one could call that place home.

Where did this come from?                                                                     Then what?

Original work C Pedro Nunes. Split according to OP's vision.

A Different Story - Wil

"Quick, hide him! Noone can find out."

         When these are the first words you recognise in your life, you just know better not to expect normal to happen. But who was I to see through the intentions of outsiders, when even to keep breathing required some practice?

         Practice. Yes. The school of Hard-Knocks, is where I went, not that I ever heard of any other. Whether it was me or my mom that called that shot, I never thought about it much, and it matters even less. The house needed a man, and for good or bad, that's what I was. Short and scrawny, almost like the corpses we used to find in the woods, "We need firewood", she would say. "Watch out for the thieves" would always come after, not out of her love or fear for my life, but because it got friggin cold in the old shack.

         The thieves, or any living man, they were not what I was afraid of. The bodies, littering the dark earth of the forest, they scared me. The thought that one day one would pass by, like I did every other day, and see me there, gaping, forgotten, like trash, without any mark (on myself, or the world) to go by, terrified me.

         "Think that's enough wood? Go get some more, so we can finally eat" was the closest I had for Happy Birthday that day. That decade, in fact. It had been twelve years since I had my only gift, a shabby necklace with a small G-shaped.. thing. Never knew what it meant, or if it ever did mean anything. Probably a cheap-ass trinket found on the ground. Or a corpse. Whatever. I kept it, thinking that, some time ago, someone remembered me. In good time too, because a moment like that never came around again.

         And since the firewood never sold itself nor the food rained magically on our dirty plates, I walked to the pile of logs I had cut before.

         A man was there.

         "Sir, that wood can be yours for a good price, but please put it down"

         "Mom never told you not to wander alone, kid? I'd run to her if I were you."

         I was never a man of great thought. Thinking delays your actions. But that time, thinking out the part were I charged a man I did not know, unarmed, might have saved a lot of trouble. I looked down to the man, with his back on the floor, and took a step back.

         "Sir, my mother needs that wood to make it through the winter. Stay away from it."

         Hoping he had understood, I let him get up. His strenght was nothing to worry about, that much I knew from the impact. He was searching for a something in the snow. My hopes quickly melted as fast as the snow beneath my feet. He found, he pulled, his sword.

         It didn't budge.

         "The frost, sometimes it makes the blades stick."

         He probably didn't hear me. I had no intention of giving him time to draw. I threw myself at him.

        

         A boy, threw himself at a man he did not know, twice his size, unarmed.

          They fought.

           And someone got hit.

        

         That's the last I remember from my forest, but the godawful smell had changed little.

Then what?

Original work C Pedro Nunes. Split according to OP's vision.

Prologue - Aran

          Aran is a young Shifter. Naturally, he was even more so a few years back, when he could still call home to the large clearing in Riftwood, a forest neighbouring the Underchasm in Faerun; when he still had his clan, top of the forest’s food chain. such was the man’s name - was always happy to see Aran.

          Aran’s story begins like most other Shifters’. Although mother and father both shared the half-breed, he had met an uncle, his father’s brother, a human living in Baldur’s Gate. This man was not welcome to The Wild, but a Shifter could easily pass as a Half-Elf on a city the size of Baldur’s Gate, and Daenor -that was his name- always welcomed Aran to the big city.

          When not hunting, or visiting Daenor, Aran played with Magga, a Drow. This most strange friendship was not taken well by the clan, not with the Underdark that close. But Magga was a kind girl, of Aran’s age, and when they race, in Magga’s giant spider and Aran’s wild drake, they were not Drow and Shifter, but the forest itself . Aran was not the greatest of warriors. In the hunting pack, he would be the tracker more often than not. His light weight and slender constitution, and the awareness of the forest, would give him the upper hand against boar and bear. But the Underdark is large, and great is the power of Lolth. And as the wolf-men, the Drow did not want one of their kind exposing the secret of the dark to the overworld. So the spider lords conspired, for the forest was rich at the time, and the Underchasm depleted. The conspiracy ran wild through the East Rift branch of the Underdark. And Magga and Aran, young stalkers, knew nothing.
          The news came to Aran when he was on the road. Baldur’s Gate was his destination, as many times before that. A black crow brought him the blacker message the master of birds managed to write in the little time he had left. For months, Aran erred through the woods and mountains of Faërun. Days could no longer be told apart, and seasons lost their meaning to the boy that found himself lost in grief and rage. During the night, the sounds of predators would not allow him to sleep. The next day, even the trees would seem to whisper words of death. At last, Aran’s will broke. He laid his back on the ground, and waited.
          He closed his eyes, and waited. And when he got tired of waiting, he opened his eyes, to see if he was dead already.

          And as the biggest, largest damn bear he had ever seen was just there in front of him, he decided to close his eyes again and wait a bit more.

          Katar was the shaman’s name. The bear was called Faerun, and the bear was Faerun. And Katar listen to Aran’s tale, and then told him hers. Katar needed a student; Aran needed some fire, and perhaps a bed; Faerun needed nothing, because he was a bear, but mainly because he was a spirit; but still he took in Aran. And Katar showed Aran the trees, and plants, and animals, and the spirits of everithing that lives, and everything that has come to pass. Aran learned fast, and through Faerun, would speak to spirits.
However, Aran was unable to take a spirit as companion. His scars were too deep. With understanding, Katar took to the spirits she knew the least: of wind and of life, of fire, and water. And Aran took them in his heart, and the started mending the pains. Then, Aran would come of age. With Katar and Faerun’s blessing, Aran was now truly a druid. As a parting gift, Katar created a portal, and, not revealing where it would take him, bade Aran cross it.


          For over a year, Aran roamed Greyhawk. Working as a hunter, or maybe a healer, or even the bodyguard of some lordling with airs of grandeur, Aran was comfortable in most any shape he took, but the greater fortunes seem not to smile at him. What he looked for, though, was some other like him. Another orphan, refugee or reject, with the least bit of respect to the spirit world. Katar had taught him well, and the best way to repay, he thought, was to bring to life another primal warrior.
          It was on the outskirts of a small village where heard, from a small farmer whose crops he had saved, a tale of a dragon, to the South, which was said to rule the neighbouring city. Stopping at the village for some more info, he was at the bar when a horde of goblins decide it’s probably fun to torch the place. Somewhat annoyed (Aran enjoys his coffee cold..), he fights off the mob with an amazing display of force, and the small help of two bands of adventurers. When it calmed down, his heightened panther senses heard some kind of disturbance to the East, and went to help there too. For a job well done, Aran was awarded a pouch of magical dust. His inability to recognise not-primal magic dictated that experimentation would be a good way to find out what it was. Along with the pouch, the promise of even greater riches, should he be able to recover that which the goblins took, was given to him by Head of town council, Troyas. And, ten hours later, Aran and his team arrived at the old castle ruins where, he thought, the goblins had set camp, controlled by some higher power.