The Drowned Ones (solo)

[Ulric]

87th of Summer, 511 AV Ulric had missed the sea. He sauntered along the strand, cast net in hand, content to suck in deep breaths of the salt air as he listened to the crash of breakers against the rocky shore. Oh, how he’d dreamed of this moment, even before he set eyes upon these waves. He was just a fugitive in those days. His only desire was to be a fisherman again, but fate had a way of casting aside desires. More than a year had passed since then. Now he stared out to sea, yearning for the dream that he knew would never happen. He had a duty not just to a slain god, but also to the countless souls that wished to be something more than they were, to sunder the bonds of power, hatred, doubt, and so many other vices that kept mankind in a prison of perpetual dark. He had a duty, yet here he was, seeking to capture a fragment of a long departed dream. “So far, I have been.. selfish,” he murmured, a smile teasing his mouth. “So many dreams, so many dangers, so many dead. So many regrets.” “Uodna nnda ojd, bus iadfn adbfubad andn pqwb andn, adinewpn adbus sdb daondf. Aonad weorn badb osdn nauu. Iaaon adonf zuub omao jaudn uuadon naubd, bag admdan ggafy jad adfbub,” spoke the gasvik. Ulric gave a shrug. He did not comprehend these words of the counsel, but he understood their gist. “We’re not running any more, Desank.” Overhead, clouds twisted across the azure sky, so vague they offered scarcely any protection from the blazing sun. Ulric was grateful for the balmy wind off the sea. His tunic kept flapping open, and the sweat dried as soon as it beaded upon his brow. He continued to stride along the shore, leaving faint prints among the worn pebbles and chunks of driftwood. They would likely remain until obscured by the high tide. After a while, the shingle tapered away, leaving the waves to thunder against squat crags and jagged, tumbled boulders. There was spume everywhere. The water was laden with tangles of kelp and flotsam, heaving through the white, churning foam, while the rocks were encrusted with barnacles and blotches of salt. The spray was refreshing against his face, though it quickly soaked his tunic and trickled into his boots. Ulric scrambled over the crags, trying not to slip on the slick rocks. His eyes swept over the tidal pools, replete with oysters and mussels, scrambling crabs, sea stars, limpets, vibrant anemones, swollen, leathery sea cucumbers, and tangles of dark seaweed. Every so often, elongated grasses swayed from pocks in the carpet of boulders, their faint whisper lost amid the deafening cacophony of the birds. There were throngs of screeching gulls, large, yellow-headed gannets that dove into the water from great heights, and even a few cormorants. The rocks were stained with their droppings. They scattered as he strode past, heading for a low promontory where the waves were calmer. He coiled his net, wrapping the trailing rope around his wrist a few times, and grasped the tarred hemp at the top and middle, breaking into two sections. He draped the leading line over an elbow to distribute evenly the weight of the net and its sinkers, then opened it slightly. Turning to the right, he spun back around, heaving the net into the water. He watched it spread out, then sink into the brine. After a few moments, he began to haul the sodden net back to the surface, the corded muscles of his back and shoulders straining with the burden. His catch was fair, mostly herring, anchovies, and sardines. From then on, he went through the same motions, preparing the net, casting it into the sea, and hauling up his catch. He threw the larger fish into his burlap sack, which soon bulged with dead and dying fish, and the smaller ones back into the sea. The whole process didn’t take very long. By the end, which was scarcely half a bell after he’d begun, he felt almost cheated. “We’re going to need another sack,” he remarked to the gasvik. “Uadon badu ondn and qwoenmd?” Desank looked over. He favored a pair of stubby horns today, yet for some, mystifying reason, his face was rounded and cherubic. “You look absurd.” “Ksjdn oandfn aubdao, anewon buab ojado nabuq fanodn aubado. Aeon adbfn onsdfn ubanof iapwqn cbidf zosd!” “Fair enough,” he replied. “Come on, let’s take a walk.” Ulric didn’t want to return to the city. He was enjoying the solitude. Hanging the sack in a crevice in the rocks, where his catch would keep for a while, he covered the mouth with chunks of wood to keep out the birds, the stood. Heaving a sigh, he set off across the jumble of rocks, making sure to mark his cache with a cairn of stones. The crags soon receded, ushering them onto a broad, yet tapering strip of beach that ran along the boundary of a cove. Ulric removed his boots and walked at the water’s edge, delighting in the chilly water that lapped at his toes. The sun was hot on his face. He felt the grit of pebbles, sand, and broken shell shifting under his feet, and occasionally the cling of rubbery kelp. Then he saw the corpse, lying facedown on the strand. The waves kept pushing it against the shore, only to suck it back as they receded. When he picked his way across the shore, Ulric turned the corpse over and found himself peering at a woman’s swollen, pallid face. Slimy weeds entangled her dark hair. She wore a ripped, dirty shift, which clung obscenely to her bloated body. There were bite marks on her arms, as if the fish had been feeding on her. “Oh, shyke,” Ulric grunted, staring out to sea. There were others.

[Ulric]

Ulric drew them from the surf with cold, shaking hands, slowly hauling the corpses over the strand to where the tufts of beach grass swayed in the wind. There he left them in a meager row. The rising moon cast a blush tinge over pale flesh when he’d finished with the last, shivering as he sat down on a chunk of debris. He gazed at the blotchy, unmoving features, the scraps of sodden clothes and a tangle of hair and kelp, unable to avert his eyes. Who had they been? What were their names? What had befallen them out at sea? He didn’t have any answers. And yet, he felt guilty. Had he been there, he might’ve been able to stop this from happening. A tear slowly trickled down his cheek. He cuffed it away, cursing. Tears were for women. Tears were for the weak. What did he care for these corpses? They were strangers. They were dead. Not once, when he’d slain with knife, fist, and axe, had he shed so much as a tear. That wasn’t his way. But now, he was starting to lose himself. “I could’ve told them to reef their sails,” he forced out the words, thinking back to that night he’d spent on another ship, when the entire world had seemed so simple. “If I had been there, I could’ve told them what course to take, or when to angle the prow into waves. I would’ve known how much ballast was needed in the hull and whether it needed caulking. If only I had his powers,” he spat, trying to dispel the bitter taste in his mouth. He couldn’t shake the despair of his own impotence, for he knew how it felt to be godly. If only for a few moments. That was the one thing that bothered him so deeply. Everything was so broken, but he couldn’t do shyke to change that. He’d endured through cunning, brutality, and being selfish, yet now his tapestry of deceit was swiftly unraveling. Ulric couldn’t deny that he cared about the people around him, even though they were strangers. He always had, even though he’d been so scared and angry, jealousy shifting to bitter resentment under the burden of constant rejection. And now he was growing soft. He thought about that for a moment, but the rage did not come. He did not despise himself just this once. There could be no more seeking to escape his troubles. There would be no more deception and delusion. He kept fleeing, halting to fight, and then fleeing again. That was his way, but it was not the way of Ur-Xhyvas, the god incarnate. Ur-Xhyvas was what he aspired to be, but he would never let go of himself. He despised many the things he’d done, the monster he’d come to resemble, but rather than seeking to redeem his sins, or hating himself for them, he had to embrace himself and his fate. Rising, he shambled across the strand, his joints having stiffened from the chilly night. Desank stayed behind, perhaps sensing that he wished to be alone, leaving Leth to bear a silent vigil over his bowed shoulders. Ulric strode past heaps of debris, and then halted, his dark orbs espying the contours of a familiar shape among the tangle of kelp and shreds of cloth. He bent down, wrestled the jar of wine from the jetsam. The clay had been warded by a net of rope wound around the base. There were others there, strewn across the wet sands, but he paid them no heed. Taking the jar to higher ground, he clutched it beneath one arm and drew his knife, breaking the wax plug. The stopper was next, and before he could reflect upon what he was doing, he began to quaff the honeyed wine. The amber fluid seeped from the corners of his mouth and trickled down the base of his throat, but he did not stop. He was stricken by despair. He just wanted to be a fisherman. Weeping, he weaved across the strand. Later he lay in the damp grass, arms splayed to either side as he watched the winking of fireflies, heard the chirp of crickets and the roar of the surf pounding upon the shore. He was shivering. The jar had broken into a hundred shards, the dregs seeping into the rich, dark earth. He took a deep breath, savored the sweet aroma. His head was whirling. Like a farmer striding through verdant fields, wielding his mattock to cull weeds and tender buds so the others would be more bountiful, so did he move through the dark corners of the world, eradicating the throng of demons that threatened to keep good, honest folk in perpetual misery. There was much strife in this world, and nobody that dared to stand up for broken things. He was a murderer, though. That he could not embrace. Her eyes haunted him. Their faces were always before him. Broken things would always be broken, but they could do many things with a tenacity that defied the flaws of body and mind. The warrior that lost an arm could learn to use his other. If he lost a leg, he could always serve as a scribe. There was always something. That was what they often forgot. The dead could do nothing, though. Heaving a long sigh, he clambered to his feet.

[Ulric]

Ulric knelt by the corpses, dazed by the grim finality of their repose. The shadows crowded him. He brushed a hank of dark hair from the woman’s dead eyes, hand trembling. They were singing to him. The drowned ones were singing. There was a murmur in the back of his head. He heard them speak, and suddenly their hoarse, wordless voices were towering over the horking gulls. He unclenched his other fist, found a crudely carved flute. His flute. How had it gotten there? He did not recall taking it from his pack. He’d even thought it lost. He turned it over, peered at the whorls of black wood, the tiny piercings. Then, almost involuntarily, he brought it up to his mouth. No longer the cacophony. No longer the grating squeaks. Now, music flowed from his cracked lips, a ringing, rending threnody that jerked at the strings of his heart, danced with the turgid lurch of his soul. Never before had he played quite like this. He played with the warmth of a lover, the anguish of a lover spurned. The tips of his fingers, heavy, blunt things that had known only hardship, stroked the flute tenderly, urged on the sweet, yet mournful sounds. There was no beginning and no end, for the music could not cease. He played away his fear and doubts, the soft shock of writhing forms. There were no more jealous thoughts, no furtive whispers. There was only the music. He played for the tangle of dark rocks and the darting shadows, the crash of the waves against the shore, and the distant, shrouded ramparts of the city. He played for the fathers and sons, the daughters and husbands and wives. He played for the fish in the sea, and the ships with their trenchant prows, and the cold, howling winds of the north. He played for the embers of so many fires. He played for the spine of the mountains, capped with snowy white, and the birds and beasts, caught in repose beneath ranks of solemn pines. He played for errant dreams, the agony of defeat, the scant spark of hope. He played for burning ice and scorching sands. He played for the long watches of the night and the swift, rising crimson of the dawn. He played for the dead in their barrows, sad things of musty, charred bones, clad in rags and rust, and the farmer with his plow in the fields, urging on his weary beasts. He played for the fecund earth and the rich, watery muck, the acrid smoke and seeds of a legacy. He played for the mason’s chisel and the stinging beads of sweat on the smith’s bring. He played for the harsh clangor of the anvil, the high, sweet cries of urchins in the streets. He played for the mount and its rider, the mongrel that sprawled on a heap of dusty sacks, the strange, lumbering beasts of the south. He played for the distant jungles and deserts, for floors of decaying timber and shiny marble, for the reek of offal and the strong, heady aroma of spices. Ulric played a lament for the world. And the world listened.

[Bedlam]

Thread Completed!

Player Name

Experience:
1 Fishing
2 Observation
2 Flute

Lores:
A Lament for the World

Notes:

Sorry it took so long for me to get to this. There’s really no excuse that I can give you except that I didn’t pay attention to my office. No one comes there for some reason.

It was a pleasant thread. I can’t say I’ve done research into your character but I have looked at many different points in his development and it’s interesting to see how he’s developed. Where will he go next, I wonder?