A place called West

[Theur]

34th, summer 511 A.V How did it end up like this? Theur thought to himself, and to think it was going so well too. It started out like every other day. Theur would wake up from a long cold night, attempt to find some food then continue on the Mirahil pass until nightfall came. He had no idea where he was going or where this pass was going to lead him but as long as it wasn’t in the direction of Sunberth he was generally happy. Up and down the pass went, narrower and wider at some points and after some time on the pass itself, seemed unending. It gave Theur a chance to reflect on what has happened so far. He remembered a storm, a storm unlike ever he’s seen before. As he recalled he remembered the gut wrenching sound it made when it crashed into the mountains. It was as if the mountains themselves were alive, howling and wailing in unison to the storm. The very ground shook too, violently at that. He shuddered as he recalled these memories. If it wasn’t for the mountains themselves, if he was out in the open he wouldn’t even be here today. Theur shuddered at the thought but still pressed on, neither slowing nor quickening his pace. As Theur continued to walk, a sudden smell filled his very lungs; it invaded him. At once the richness of salt came, subtle at first but soon grew to an overwhelming amount; but soon after the vibrant of smell of sun baked sand came and as quickly as it came was gone; Smells of wind worn wood and stone went through him; Smells of seashells pungent and still raw pulsed in him. A smell he was all too familiar with, the smell of the ocean. Theur could feel it in him right down to his bones. His two season journey was about to end his body and from the corner of his eyes he thought he saw a city. And then he was brought back down to earth. "Halt traveller"! said a man "An illness has plagued Zeltiva traveller it’s best for you to turn back" explained another man. NO NO NO NO Theur came too far to turn back now, one or two illness couldn’t possibly make him turn back now but apparently two men in azure can. They were wave guards the city’s defence, what could an eleven year old do. That didn’t mean Theur didn’t try as a matter of fact he might have been the most persistent. He tried forcing his way through, climbing his way through, talking his way through, bribing his way through he even tried scaring them. None worked, defeated he turned tail and left. If he ever hated adults now he loathed them. Sulking Theur walked for quite a bit but with no idea on where else to go he eventually sat by the side of the road. He removed his collar via key and just stared at it. As he stared one thought filled his head. Should he go back, back to Sunberth. Immediately he put down the thought but at the back of his mind he was seriously considering it. For one it the only other city besides this one, any city beats the wild any day even Sunberth. How did it end up like this Theur thought to himself. It was nighttime before Theur had even realized it. A light rain came next, quickly he fastened the iron collar around his neck and rushed to find sticks. He needed the sticks to raise his tent and to protect him from the rain but as he quickly found out, it was next to impossibe. The mountains on either side of him the same ones that saved him from the spring storm also blocked most of the light. Down at the ground it was black he couldn't see past his knees, forget sleeping on the ground he needed to go up. From the corner of his eye he saw it, a shadow of a house. It was slanted and it was long and it worked for Theur all he had to do was to find it. From what he saw the shadow came from the other side of the pass that meant he had to climb and climb he did. Theur only climbed about a hundred foot when he noticed that it was becoming even darker. Theur wouldn't go down or rather he couldn't, not of fear but he couldn't see the ground. He spied a small ledge ten feet below him however the space between him and the ledge was completely black. Slowly but surely he made his way there, groping the side of the mountain as if it were his mother. Heavy breathing, cracked nails, bloodied fingers, cold sweat. All this for a piece of rock barely bigger than himself but he was satisfied. It was only then did sleep take over.

[Theur]

35 Summer, 512 It was roughly midday and also very hot, odd considering that it was very cloudy today. It didn't rain much last night but Theur wished it did. He was higher this time about fifty feet more than the ledge he used as a bed not too long ago. He only needed to climb fifty more feet to reach the top but he was stuck. He couldn’t go back down simply because he couldn’t see the way he took. At this level all available footholds were out of reach, the closest one he saw was four feet away and elevated. To reach it he would need to jump, sideways and nearly his entire body length without a running start. Theur himself was perched on a foot hold himself. Just six or seven inches outwards and just over a foot in length, he could barely fit himself let alone move. An old dead tree laid overhead him, its roots slightly protruded and reachable to Theur. He thought about climbing the tree via the root but as he looked up the roots of the tree, it got thicker and thicker the closer it got to the tree, not climbable or feasible at all. They did however serve as a good grip to him. He stood there in that spot for the longest time, baking under the sun; all he could do was stay there. The tree provided some shade but as the sun moved across the sky, the shade grew less. Eventually he was literally hugging the wall of the pass just to stay out of the sun. He didn’t know how long he stood there but he saw it, a chance to finally move. He saw a crack that ran from his foothold to the other just four feet away and from the looks of it, it looked negotiable. Why didn’t he see it before? Slowly Theur made his way down towards the crack and put one hand on it. Seems stable enough he thought to himself as he wriggled his hand around though he wasn’t particularly keen on what he had in mind. He planned to shimmy across the gap. He has shimmied a couple of times before on the walls of Sunberth but never from this height and never with so much risk. He took a deep breath and then he was off. Beads of sweat formed around his body, his heart was in his throat, his veins in his arms popped and, he was still alive. Theur needed a moment, a moment to grasp what had just happened. He slipped that part he got. What he didn’t get that was that he was still alive. Surely he must be dead a sharp pain from his knee told him otherwise. Slowly but surely he began to move again. It was a lot harder Theur noted shimming the side of a cliff rather than a wall. Besides the height and the risk factor, the crack itself was uneven and elevated. It meant that he had to put more effort than a simple wall a lot more. Theur was no weakling but the four feet distance might as well have been a hundred or two to him. His muscles groaned every inch of the way, with each foot a feat for him. When he finally reached the foot hold the sun was already setting. The foot hold itself was a lot bigger than the thing he stood on a few bells ago it might have been appropriate to call this a ledge even. Theur now faced a dilemma, should he continue to climb or to sleep then and there. Quickly he weighed the two options in his mind and without giving it too much thought he chose to climb. It’s amazing how people tend to work faster with a little motivation and Theur was no different. With light fading fast he was finding foot hold after foothold. His arms, his legs, his body spent but Theur didn’t feel tired at all. Quite the opposite really, it fuelled him to go faster and faster. Forty, thirty, twenty and ten feet, he only needed ten more feet to go when the last of the light left. Black surrounded him and devoured everything else. Theur couldn’t see squat even if his face was right in there. With no light he couldn’t climb up or down. He was stuck and Theur knew it too. No he thought to himself. Theur had ten feet to go, his muscles ached and he wasn’t stopping just because he couldn’t see. He groped his way up; whatever he could grab or dig his finger through he took. It was a dangerous move that he nearly paid for with his life, and he only moved about a foot. His only other option was to wait till his eyes adjusted to the dark. Theur waited and waited, a chime passed then two, it wasn’t long until he was just about at wit’s end; Theur was not a patient man. Suddenly the idea of groping up again seemed like a good idea. He tried again but he was careful this time. He tried not to rush but he couldn’t help it. Theur had good reason to hurry, his body couldn’t take much more. With each chime he moved one foot and with each foot the climb grew harder. Just four feet in (or four chimes in) and Theur was just about spent, second winds and all. Dammit he told himself. He cursed and yelled and cursed some more because he knew he had almost nothing left to give. His legs were giving in and his grip was loosening, Theur looked up and he could smell fresh dirt. So close he whispered to himself, so close that maybe he could touch it. His grip loosened, his body leaned back. He took one last long look at the moonless sky and he noticed something long and slim almost like a rope or vine. Had his eyes finally adjusted or was this some trick of the eyes, he couldn’t care less. His last hope and he didn’t even notice it. Theur was already in a bad position. His body was arched backwards, supported only by his heels and his arms had nothing to grab onto. Still he was gonna go for it and his body groaned on what Theur was going to do. With all his pressure on his heels, his legs curled slightly, his arms tucked in, he prepared to jump. His heels bled, his legs hit the wall and one of his arms missed but that was ok, he didn’t even have to grab it. His other arm was tangled in it. Theur was in disbelief. A hundred things could have gone wrong but he did it on the first try. Nothing else mattered but maybe he should have paid attention to the wall. His head rang then his body went limp. When he came to he was lying on the top of the pass staring at the sky.

[Theur]

36 Summer, 512 There was a certain coldness that kept Theur on the ground. It was about early morning, the sun began dispelling the night sky with its orangey light. Slowly but surely the pass lit up from east to west (or west to east, depends on how Mizahar rotates) and onto Theur. Theur was outstretched on the ground tired and sore. The dirt served as a soft bedding for him and a cool salty breeze came from the direction of where Zeltiva was. Frankly he didn’t want to move so he didn’t. Theur drifted to and from consciousness, drifting from the dream world and back. He dreamt that he was still climbing the pass and he was making considerable progress. In his dream the pass he was climbing was bigger, taller, more dangerous and grander than the one he just climbed but as he reached the top he would suddenly find himself back at the bottom of the pass. No matter how fast he climbed, or how he climbed, he always found himself back at the bottom. What was odd was that he never thought of it as strange, what he didn’t realize was that everytime he found himself back at the bottom, the pass grew a bit more dangerous. It was only a matter of time before he fell and when he did, he woke up. Theur did not wake up suddenly, nor did he wake with cold sweat running down his body, rather he woke quite calmly. His eyes opened as the sun gently passed him and then he just laid there face up enjoying himself. He basked in the warmth of the sun, the dirt was soft under him and he was in a good position so he didn’t move, why would he? For the longest time he stayed there unmoving, suddenly he felt an urge to stretch his arms this way and that and then he noticed something; nothing. He felt nothing as he moved his arms odd as Theur had a habit of putting his things close to him when he slept. Like a bolt of lightning shooting straight up, Theur sat up. Quickly his head snapped left and right. Nothing he thought to himself. How could this be Suddenly a thousand and one needles coursed through his entire right arm. It wasn’t painful but it annoyed him. He found his arm wrapped up in rope or was it the other way around. His free hand went for the knife that he kept in the space between his back and his shorts but found it was not there. He clawed at the rope till his nails were worn down and even until they began to crack, and when that didn’t work he bit at the rope wearing down his own teeth; but the rope stayed on. A snake with a vice like grip it was. Besides the uncomfortable feeling he was getting Theur was in really big trouble if the rope stayed on for a few more bells, well he needed to get that rope off soon. His arm was already swollen to nearly twice of its original size and his veins popped out, blue and green both. He kept one eye on his arm the other scanned for anything, anything he could use to break free. Theur spied a rock not too far from him and with his left hand went to reach it. At once a plan came to him, it was a simple plan: smash the rock down at the rope and hope for the best. As he raised the rock up hight above his head, dilemma washed over him. Theur was a right-handed kind of guy, his left hand held the rock and there was a lot more skin then rope. As his hand played with the rock, feeling the edges for something he could use, Theur grimaced when he felt that it had a sharp edge. With each time the rock fell, Theur bit his lip. The pain was excruciating even when it landed on the rope itself. The blows landed at the side of Theur’s arm more or less so even if it did hit flesh it should just be a graze on his part. As he continued to strike at the rope he found it odd that he was doing this, did something happen to him? Theur thought to himself. It all came rushing back to him, like a sudden wave that takes one by surprise, Theur remembered. He was climbing the Mirahil pass, what was he doing on the top? His eyes fell upon the rope on his arm, he remembered that he had jumped and grabbed it but couldn’t remember what had happened after. He remembered that during the climb he got injured along the way but when he inspected himself, he found bandages. All Theur did was connect the dots and when he did, he fell into a fury. Someone had saved him and took his stuff as compensation. It took the better part of the morning to free himself from the rope. The thief could be long gone but Theur was filled with rage to actually see that. He did notice however a strange marking on the ground, it’s almost as if someone was dragging something. He got the hunch that maybe just maybe it could be his bag and so he followed it, sprinting. Not once did he stop to think on the odds of that actually being his bag or how maybe he shouldn’t be sprinting as it tires one very, very quickly. Still he pressed on not knowing that he had already been sprinting for fifteen chimes now and closing in fast. He found his bag a few more chimes later abandoned on a patch of grass. Not too far from his bag, on a patch of dirt laid two bodies, one of a man and one of a wolf both dead. Apart from the cramps racing through his body, there was an odd surreal feeling to the bodies that Theur never felt before. As he moved closer to the two bodies he noticed some strange things, the body of the man had its throat ripped out. Obviously the wolf got him first but the body was splayed face down. The wolf itself had puncture wounds across its body almost like a spear’s but the holes were too small, that and Theur’s spear (which was being held by the dead body at the time) was clean. For the longest time Theur stared at the two bodies and not of disgust but of interest. He had never seen a wolf before and he never fully grasped what death was. In the next chime he was all over the bodies. He wanted the teeth of the wolf because they were bigger and longer than his and he wanted what the other body had for stuff he could use (and also for Theur’s stuff) eventually like all other boys his age he got bored real fast, it was only when he was about to leave that he heard a voice. "Leaving so soon, sonny" The voice was harsh and carried an artificialness sound to it but it sounded just like disappointment to Theur. Quickly he turned his head and found nothing. Again the voice came but this time Theur paid no mind to it, until a sharp pain to his leg brought him down to his knees. It was only when he was down on his knees that he saw where the voice came from. .A body of clay, expressionless eyes and it spoke. For one reason or the other Theur did not react, rather he replied rather rudely too, befitting of any Sunberthian. The figure just stared at Theur and Theur stared back and they stared and stared without making any noise. The silence was finally broken when the figure spoke. "Come" The same harshness and artificial sound filled Theur’s ears; it almost gave him a headache just from hearing it. At first he refused, but every single time he did the figure would repeat the same words with the same harshness in the tone. Eventually he gave up and just followed the figure, the figure never spoke afterwards. A brisk pace for the figure did not mean a brisk pace for Theur. He was basically scuttling forward with the figure. It took patience to keep up with the figure something Theur has very little of. As a matter of fact he was usually in front, he could even wander off and come back and the figure wouldn’t have moved much. Theur even tried talking to it but the figure never replied so he talked to himself. By late afternoon they finally reached an open land, a vast open land. It was only then that the figure talked again. In a low, barely audible tone it said to wait then it stopped. Theur at this point was confused. He had no idea why he allowed these things to happen and no idea what was happening so he sat right next to the figure and waited. He didn’t have to wait long and soon it was evening. Suddenly a light appeared, a faint red light emanating from the distance. The figure pointed at it then looked back at Theur. "Go Wesht" it said with a harsh tone Theur himself was drawn to it, even without the things permission, he would he would have just left and followed that light. Wecst huh he liked the sound of it and off he went without looking back. oocthe thing/figure is a pycon in case you are wondering

[Paragon]

Theur

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Land Navigation	1
Wilderness Survival	2
Climbing	3
Bodybuilding	2

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Persistence in Character
•	Traversing Cliffsides
•	Leap of Faith
•	Pycon's Guidance

Legend Becomes Reality

I really enjoyed this. You packed a lot of description and character development into such a small solo. Great work! If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can work from there.