Dst – Writing of an Immortal (1/2)

As some know, I’m something of an avid role player. Or once was. My times of RP are less than they used to be a few years ago. When I was younger(in a relative sense) and more into it, I was often on one of various MUX servers, interacting all around.

As of late, there is one place I RP regularly, with a good friend whom has been my partner in various zany misadventures for almost three years. Other places I tend to RP on intermittently.

But the details of that and other related thoughts are the topic of another entry.

Suffice it to say I’ve had a dozen or two characters over the approximately five years that I’ve spent doing the RP thing online. I’ve had powerful ones and weak ones, sane and insane. All have been interesting in their ways. But of them all, one of my favorites has always been Ren.

I play him on an ‘anything goes’ game. There are no real rules and minimal setting, save that it’s a game for ‘furries'(anthropomorphic animals – To those that cringe, I’m not a furry. I just like animal-like characters and nonhumans in general). A perfect environment for the type of creature that Ren is.

At one time, Ren was mortal. He’s a mix of human and fox, who has an obvious look about him, considering his dark color and ‘star point’ spots of silver that cover him. He was marked for some manner of greatness form birth, though if that was great fame or grate infamy was not known at the time.

He grew up with many friends, despite being mistreated for his strange look and stunted size and inordinately focused and intelligent mind. He and his friends grew close together, most prominent being the strange Clariss who is more than she seems. A magical creature trapped in a form not her own, powers largely locked away. She believed Ren would soon be her salvation from her curse and stuck close to him from the time he was young.

He got the first solid hints of some strange destiny when he and his friends went spelunking in a cave, only to be separated when they fall into an underground river. There, alone, Ren met a strange being who gave him a runic knife told him that great things lay ahead. The only evidence Ren retained of the strange event was when the knife, lost as he left the cave, reappeared to him that night.

Ren and his friends, through the winning of a local contest went on to serve the king of their kingdom(their world was one in a state of medieval civilization with two distinct regional kingdoms – One human, the other animal people). They were scouts for the kingdom’s army and had befriended the crown prince on their trip to the kingdom’s capital to attend their duties.

They served for years in distinction, Ren growing more in skill than stature as the time passed. Times were not so good. Strife between the two kingdoms was coming to a head. In time the humans struck out and dealt a terrible blow to Ren’s homelands when the old king was killed in an assassination attempt. The young prince was not ready to lead and the kingdom of the animal people soon fell, the prince, Ren and his friends escaping capture with thoughts of revenge on their minds.

Previously Ren had been learning magic from one of the court’s magicians and though he was but an apprentice, he had great potential that surprised his tutors. Having read many of the books in the capital’s library, he brooded much on means to strike back against the humans who had set them to running and hunted them still. It came to him later that there was legend of a mystic draught that could infuse one with pure powers of magic. There were many warnings of the draught’s consequences, but with revenge hot in his young mind, Ren paid them no heed.

Clariss had heard of the very same draught, thus when she gathered that Ren meant to seek the ingredients and combine them, she tried to stop him. He broke from his companions and went on alone, with them on his trail and bounty hunters behind them, each dogging the steps of the other. Ren’s companions seeking to stop him, while the bounty hunters sought to eliminate the exiled prince.

Ren learned much on his travels, his power growing in leaps and bounds as he sought the rare, dangerous ingredients of the draught. Gradually he collected a great following of minions, some seduced to his side by promises of power and revenge. Most a product of the dark magic that grew within Ren, summoned or created to stymie his pursuers.

Eventually, in a fortified tower, Ren sought to combine the ingredients. Having long since caught wind of Ren’s intentions, the king of the human kingdom sent a sizable force to stop him. They laid siege to his fortified tower, but were too late to stop him. Ren finished his draught and drank deep. The power was his, burning from some unknown place into him, making him stronger than he could have dreamed.

Ren wasted no time in finishing the force that came to destroy him, then going on to lay waste to city after city that made up the human kingdom. But, in his haste, he hadn’t tested the limits of his new powers. Thought formidable, he was not immortal or invincible. After nearly being slain by a force of mages backed by a small army, he retreated to lick his wounds and brood, seeking a new way.

Ren came to an idea. He would subvert the very world upon which his enemy lived and direct it to wreak havoc upon the human kingdom, destroying it all from a place of safety. By the time he was found, it would be too late for them to stop their demise. It took time to prepare for the ritual that would bring about this and he had to fend off several desperate attempts to stop him, but he outlasted them and conducted his ceremony far from their reach. Deep within the very ground, guarded by fell guardians.

His plan worked. Too well. The ground rent and tore, swallowing scores of cities. Volcanos erupted without warning from the ground and deadly earthquakes ground to the ground cities that were proof against even the strongest armies. But Ren’s triumphant laughter stilled as the upheaval of the ground spread, bleeding into the lands of his people, still under the sway of the humans. His magic had damaged the planet irrevocably. Despite all of his attempts to stop it, it spread.

He had doomed his world to shake itself apart.