• Memory • Burial

A blistering desert that stretches for hundreds of miles around Nashaki, with very little relief from the baking heat.
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Rokas
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Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:57 pm
Race: Human
Profession: Muscle
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Burial



Saun 24th of Arc 700

From his upper chest down, Rokas’s entire body was buried in sand. Unlike before, he could not move his limbs. At most he could wriggle a tiny bit back and forth, but the weight of the earth was too much for him to overcome. It was a good thing, in a roundabout kind of way. It meant he didn’t sink quite as quickly as before. On the other hand, it gave him ample time to anguish over his inevitable and steadily approaching end. Too much time, really.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, yet somehow the course of events had taken a turn for the terrible. Rokas couldn’t even tell where he had gone wrong. If he had to guess, he’d say somewhere right at the start was most likely. Around the time when he decided to trust a half-naked skeleton of a man wandering the desert, seemingly oblivious to the dangers of heatstroke and sandstorms.

Rokas craned his head, straining against his sandy confines. As expected, Zaruid was nowhere to be seen. The old man had left him to die. Rokas couldn’t really fault him for it. If someone was stupid enough to willingly and unquestioningly walk into a patch of quicksand just because he told them to, Rokas wouldn’t bail them out either. There was blind trust, and then there was sheer idiocy. No cure existed for the latter.

The sand reached his neck now, ever so slowly creeping closer to his head. Before he would be pulled completely under, Rokas still had a couple minutes to spend. It was odd how calm he felt. The panic from before had made room for clarity, as if his body understood that struggling was unless, that it would only quicken Vri’s pace. By all accounts he should be terrified, either absolutely paralyzed with fear, or flailing wildly in a futile attempt to keep death at bay.

Yet neither of the two occurred. Rokas didn’t know why he was this calm, how he’d managed to enter this state of mind. Perhaps he had already accepted his fate. His stupidity had brought him into this mess, and there was no fixing it anymore. Not by himself, anyway. Zaruid could still get Rokas out of this predicament.

Could, yes, but not would. The first thing Rokas had done upon realizing his feet were stuck in quicksand, was look to Zaruid for help. All he’d seen in the man’s eyes was an unyielding hardness, no pity whatsoever. Apart from the slightest hint of amusement, Zaruid’s expression had been flat and impassive. He’d left soon after, disappearing from view. The only help offered –if it was meant as such—was a cryptic hint. ”This is not a trial you can overcome by yourself.”

Obviously, it meant Rokas wouldn’t escape the sandy trap without being rescued. However, he could not figure out if he should interpret it as a statement that he was doomed, or if it urged him to cry for help. Zaruid’s expression had made his intention to not lend any assistance crystal clear. Calling for his aid was not going to bring the gaunt man to Rokas’s side, regardless of the desperation in his voice.

However, Rokas found himself far removed from any trading routes or oft traveled paths. No-one in their right mind ever passed through here, unless they were lost themselves, or had foolishly decided to try and take a shortcut, traversing the desert as the bird flies. Even if Rokas called out, no help would come. It was just a waste of time, a resource of which he had very little remaining.

Everything up to his chin had sunk below the earth now, and the treacherous desert underground dragged him down deeper still. Past his jaw, tickling his lower lip. A breeze whipped loose sand into his face, robbing Rokas’s sight and breath for a moment. Like a mud wall, his composure collapsed in on itself. It was only for a second or two, but it was enough. Panic dug its claws into Rokas’s chest and took a bite out of his racing heart. He thrashed around beneath the sand –or at least tried to. Struggling proved just as futile as before though, serving only for the sand to pull him deeper faster.

Rokas spat and coughed as sand worked its way inside his mouth, yet it only brought more inside. Before his nose sank beneath the earth, Rokas managed to draw in one last breath. The pounding of his heart resonated through his bones, liquid fire flowed through his veins. He did not want to die, but he was powerless to stop it from happening. All he could do was wait for help to arrive.

No-one came to save him. It was too late for that anyway, there was nothing left for a would-be savior to grab on to. Zaruid could still save him. Zaruid could will the earth to release him. But Zaruid did not come. And it was too late to scream his name.

The boy’s eyes disappeared beneath the destert surface, trading the heat of the sun for the cool death grip of wet quicksand. And he fought. Kicking down desperately, trying to force himself up. Rokas forced his arms out, fingers clawing and raking. Above him, the light of the sun was shut out. Cold enveloped him completely. His lungs were starting to burn. Limbs ached from strain. Muscles cramped. And he sunk ever deeper.

Further and further down, each and every attempt to save himself only achieving the opposite. The more he fought and struggled, the more he doomed himself. But Rokas couldn’t help it. Starved for oxygen, his body responded to instinct, not rational thinking. It gasped for air, finding only sand. It tried to swim to the surface, but the surface got only further out of reach.

Vri’s hand was on his shoulder already, and Rokas couldn’t shake it off. In the distance he could see Famula’s lantern, its light growing brighter with each passing moment. Rokas did not want to go. He did not want to die. Not that he had a choice; he was too far gone now. Stupidity had led him here, and there was no escaping this fate.

But he tried. Even though he knew better, he screamed for help, wasting the last few puffs of precious oxygen still in his lungs. His diaphragm convulsed as it tried to inhale sand. There was no air left to cough with, so Rokas threw up instead. Out of breath, no screams made their way out of him, yet he continued to cry out for help. It didn’t matter who heard him. It didn’t matter who answered the call. Anyone would do. Anything. Rokas didn’t want to die. Please!

Raw, honest, unfiltered despair. Like a flailing hand reaching out, hoping to find something to latch on to. Anything. He begged the Immortals, but they did not answer. Only Vri and his twin assistants did, waiting close by, not to help, but to cut the thread of life. To judge his foolishly short existence.

He begged Zaruid, but the gaunt man could not hear Rokas’s silent voice.

He begged the very earth itself, the sand all around him. Pleading for it to let him go, to return him to the surface. Hoping to make it aware he was being smothered by its embrace, that he needed air or would die. It was a stupid thing to do, one last attempt at survival. But the earth would not listen. It listened to no-one. Foolish really, to spend his last moments conversing with desert sand.

But something changed.

A subtle difference in temperament, in how the earth around Rokas felt. No longer oppressive and constricting, it was looser somehow, gentler. Concern radiated from all around, and it quickly turned to distress as Rokas’s flailing stopped. Everything was going dark, yet he could see them clearly. A hallucination of some sort, showing a tall and lanky man with a somber face, a young-looking girl on either side of him. Their eyes were the most brilliant blue, seeming to shine in the darkness. From somewhere outside of him, Rokas sensed a need for urgency.

Grains of sand tickled his skin, streaking past. Even through the haze of asphyxiation he noticed how its touch was not nearly as rough as it’d been before. He got the feeling that if he tried, he would be able to move quite freely now. Stranger still was the solidity of the soil under his feet. Nothing like the treacherous quicksand he’d gotten trapped in, but like tightly packed loose earth. It seemed to be pushing him upward too, rather than pulling him down. Yet another sign of how close to death he was, another hallucination that plagued his mind. Clearly his body had lost the ability to accurately interpret incoming stimuli. It kept sending him wrong information; visions of strange people, odd voices, inaccurate sensations… Lack of oxygen was doing weird things to his brain.

The weight pressing on his body diminished, the blackness was replaced by bright reds and then a flash of yellow. Rokas gasped and coughed and wheezed, and did not choke. He could breathe, air had returned. For a while, all Rokas did was cough and pant, filling his lungs to the fullest. In between wheezes, he retched, getting a lot of inhaled earth out of his stomach.

“Thanks for the help, Zaruid,” Rokas eventually croaked, “I thought that was the end of me.” A coughing fit wracked his body, followed by another violent contracting of his abdomen. This time no sand came out, and the bitter taste of bile filled his mouth. “Zaruid? Are you there?”

He wasn’t.

Rokas found himself alone in the middle of the desert, the old mage no-where to be seen.


word count: 1684
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Kasoria
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Re: Burial

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Name: Rocky

Points awarded: 10, can be used for magic

Knowledge:
-Defiance: Initiation
-Defiance: Coaxing - beg the elements to save you
-Defiance: Deference - the earth doesn't want to smother you
-Defiance: Initiation - A trial you can't overcome without the help of the elements
-Defiance: Initiation (Earth) - buried alive in quicksand
-Endurance: Suffering through suffocation

Magic: Yep

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriate to level

Notes:
I really liked this! Not just because it was my first Defiance initiation, but the way you told it was just... great! There was a nice balance between brevity and creativity, describing just enough while not skimping on details. You evoked the panic of the poor bugger perfectly, and personified his Spark coming into being brilliantly. I was honestly bent over my lappie reading, wanting to know what came next. Fine work!

If you have any questions, comments or concerns in regards to this review, feel free to PM.
word count: 158
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