Alosaka (prime): Difference between revisions

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It tasted like ash.
It tasted like ash.
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The house was still a ruin when Alosaka arrived.

Scavengers should have picked through it by now. Turned over by thieves searching for an easy score. There wasn’t even a front door to keep them out, just a splintered frame that looked on the cobbled, trash-strewn streets. Anyone could walk in, just like he had. He paused inside the entry, in what had once been the kitchen, and considered the destruction.

The food in the pantry was untouched, though the door had been smashed in and bags of mouldering grain now soaked up rainwater seeping beneath the windows. The cloying aroma of a dozen different spices burned his nose. A huge tin of crushed tea lay broken beneath the table and now stained the floor a peculiar, rich shade of brown. None of the cereals or fruits were eaten -- the beasts that had ransacked this house, and many others in this neighborhood of Wehnimer’s Landing, preferred other food.

Past the shattered kitchen and common area was the home’s only true room. They’d tried to block it with boards and a dresser, but such obstacles may as well have been wet paper to the monsters of Socius’s army. The door was torn off its crude hinges and tossed into the fireplace. He stepped over the broken remains of the barricade and tried to put the pieces back together in his mind.

The parents had made their stand here. A bent fireplace poker and a stain in the center of the room suggested that. And at the far end of the room, opposite the door, a bed stood upturned against the wall. Dark smears discolored the wood beneath it.

No stories left to find here. He stared at the stains for a while, then turned and left.



The fountain in Erebor Square was a modest thing, with a basin only a few meters around and a simple, dark stone plinth supporting a stylized black gate, out of which flowed a stream of frigid water. The basin sparkled in the sunlight, and beneath the rippling surface shone thousands of silver coins. Alosaka stood quietly as an old man walked up to the stone rim, fished a silver out from his robes, and tossed it in with a splash. The man bent his head for a few moments, and with some silent prayer complete, he sat down on the rim with a restrained grunt.

Alosaka waited until he was settled, then sat beside him. “An offering for someone?”

The old man wheezed. Fluid rattled in his lungs, and he pressed a small cotton bag against his face. The scent of dried roses and something fouler, something of decay and sickness, filled the air. The man hacked into the bag, took a deep breath, and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “A hope.”

“Oh.” A pause. “For, uh, for what?”

The old man waved a gnarled hand at the fountain. “Before the monsters came, there was a girl who spent the day here. She didn’t mind the cold, and she would roll her pants up and walk in the fountain, collecting the coins. The temple let her keep a few every day, in exchange for the rest.”

Hm. Alosaka dipped his fingers in the water. They went numb instantly. He glanced at the black gate atop the stone plinth, from which the waters flowed. Lorminstra was the goddess of winter as well as death.

“Was she…” he trailed off.

“I don’t know,” the old man said. The wheeze returned to his voice, and he pressed the bag of crushed roses against his face again. “I don’t know. But I haven’t seen her since that day… And ever since I’ve been tossing coins in the fountain, thinking that maybe when there’s enough she’ll come back to collect them. I know it’s silly, but…”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Alosaka said. He drew in a deep breath, held it until the tension in his chest eased, and slowly let it out. “It’s… it honors her, at the very least. What was her name?”

There was no answer to this, not at first. Perhaps the old man hadn’t heard him. Alosaka leaned forward to ask again when the old man suddenly jerked. A wild, confused light filled his eyes, and his hand scrabbled at the stone rim for purchase.

“Her name?” A lost note entered his voice. Lost and desperate. “I don’t know. I never asked her name. I never asked, and now…”

“It’s fine,” Alosaka said. Quickly. His mouth was suddenly dry. “You can ask her when she returns.”

“But what if she never does?” The old man reached out and gripped Alosaka’s shirt with a desperate, wretched strength. “I’ll never know her name. All these years and I never asked and now I will never know!”

“It’s fine,” Alosaka said. Soothing tones, like one used with a wounded animal. He tried to gently prise the old man’s fingers apart, and when that failed he stood, pulling the man up with him. “It’s fine. Please, just, let go—”

“Do you know?” The man’s voice cracked. Hysteria inflected each word with high, glasslike tones, ready to shatter. “Do you know? Tell me, damn it! Tell me!”

“I’m sorry.” Brusque, now. They were drawing attention from the crowd. Men and women stopped to watch the pair of them tussle by the fountain. He forced the old man’s hands open as gently as he could, which was none too gentle. The ancient, papery skin around the man’s wrists tore, and dark, thick blood seeped out like sludge. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me!” Anything of reason in the man was gone now. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks. He stumbled to his knees, one arm gripping the edge of the fountain, the other clawing at the cobbles. He lunged after Alosaka with a sudden burst of strength, but it was the strength of a collapsing dam, and he ended in a pile beneath his robes. Still, though, from out the robes came his crying voice, no longer that of a man, but the moan of something broken. “Tell me! Tell me her name PLEASE TELL ME!”

Alosaka turned. He pushed through the circle that had gathered to witness the spectacle. With enough distance the sound faded, and eventually he could no longer hear the sobs of an old man, grieving for the loss of something he’d never had.
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Revision as of 22:22, 7 July 2020

Alosaka
Race [[Human]]
Culture [[Seareach]]
Class Healer, Storyteller
Profession Empath
Religion Devotee of Kuon
Affiliation(s) Member of the Landing Defense Irregulars

[[Category: Human player characters]] [[Category: Seareach player characters]]

Alosaka is a young empath and storyteller hailing from a small coastal village near the Sea of Fire in the northern Turamzzyrian county of Seareach. Following the events of All That Remains, during which Socius Leiffen led monstrous armies in assaulting Wehnimer's Landing, Alosaka became involved in the town's defense, and later placed a bounty on Socius' head, precipitating the events of Equilibrium.

He is a member of the Guardians of Sunfist, and as his thesis project for mastering developed extensive maps of Grimswarm encamping strategies across the western half of the world.

Stories and Fables

Although his primary avocation is healing, Alosaka is more widely known for his stories. Although their subject matter ranges widely, most trace their origin back to fables or allegories native to his home county, and deal with moral lessons such as loyalty, ephemerality, duty and friendship, with characters often personified by animals or spirits.

All That Remains and Equilibrium