Aulin Rivermist the Legend of the Battlefield, Drillmaster of Battle

Skill List

Role

Chapter 6

Aulin prepared his hut for sleep, smoothing the earth where he would lay. He
thought of his surprise at the welcoming nature of the other warriors in his
new Village. Magic looked like such an easy addiction, and he had not
believed he would find others who understood what needed to be done. And Lady
Rarywey even spoke to him directly!

His relaxed state disappeared, instantly replaced with a painful knot in his
chest. He remembered he had been distracted by his meditation on Lady
Rarywey's words, and without thought he asked the Drillmaster a question. He
anxiously hoped that he had not angered him. It hurt just thinking about his
mistake in bringing attention to himself. Would be be kicked out, to make
room for someone more worthy? Perhaps he would simply be cast into the battle
some day to save a better warrior. He consoled himself that at least then he
would have been of use.

Despite these thoughts circling his head, Aulin's tension slowly released. He
drifted off into the river of sleep, where reality shattered and memory
rushed past like shards of sparking ice.

He was a child again. He could not find his sword stick! He had painstakingly
scraped it into the shape of a toy sword, then hid it under his bed. He
confronted his brother, who airly told him that the stick had gone into
kindling the fire that morning. Aulin screamed and tried to hit his brother.
With logic only possible in dreams, he simultaneously saw his father looming
behind him, a dark figure growing taller than a mountain. The figure's voice
boomed, "You should be grateful. Should be grateful something you had was of
use to our family. Stop being so selfish." Aulin screamed back at the
darkness, and in response it grew to fill the world.

He was thrown from the dream back into a river of pure memory. Voices from
his past berated him:
"Stop crying, it doesn't hurt."
"Why do you only think of yourself? Your brother needed that pelt."
"I wish it were you that died, instead of him."
"Why do you care if it's done right. You're too sensitive."
"Why are you so ungrateful? You won't even do one little thing we ask."

Aulin was disturbed by a sudden loud noise. As he emerged from sleep, he
realized the noise was his own screaming, "NO. NO. NO. NO. NO NO NONONONO!"
In shame and horror, he stopped, trying to calm himself, trying to push his
feelings back, push them deep inside of himself, into a little ball. Where
they belonged.

Role

Chapter 5

Summary
- Aulin was raised with a reverence for nature in general and the
waterfall and river of his home in particular.

- His brother died fighting off an orcish raid.

- Aulin was sent to Darsylon as a migrant worker to help buy needed supplies
for his people.

- He worked as a janitor in a magic school, where he observed mages that
seemed indifferent to the world he cared about.

- He returned home after many years, and was welcomed.

- He witnessed a battle in his valley between elven mages and a force of orc
and undead.

- During the battle, the sacred waterfall was destroyed by the elves and his
people's graves desecrated by the necromancers.

- Aulin was knocked into river, floating down it and out to the wider world
where he angrily seeks revenge.


Goals
- Explore the lands and figure out how to direct his anger

- Seek out Rarywey and try to regain his spiritual footing

- Join the Village as a Defender

Role

Chapter 4

(continued from part 1)

Feeling icy calm, Aulin instructed his wards to flee home. They would make
their way back and down to the river, its bank then acting as a natural road
up the valley. His immediate duty was discharged, and the ice cracked. He
turned back to the orcish force, rage filling him with an unstructured scream
of hate and remembered pain.

He lost any sense of the wider battle, knowing only that he needed to prevent
easy pursuit of his former pupils. While not an experienced fighter, he
planned to attack quickly and disappear into the forest, forcing the chasing
force to move warily. For a moment, as their skirmish reached the graveyard,
the orcs hesitated, and he thought his plan was going to work. Instead, to
Aulin's horror, he began to hear and barely see skeletal hands clawing their
way out of the ground all around him. He was surrounded by his ancestors.

Aulin backed up to the river, looking about wildly, purposeful rage replaced
by horror. A massive roar filled the night from up the river, and he
instinctively turned towards it. The cliff face from which the sacred
waterfall flowed seemed to ponderously LIFT into the sky and shatter. Stones
arched upwards, visible as spots moving leisurely against the colder night
sky. In further shock, Aulin briefly noticed that the waterfall was no longer
flowing. Somehow, the roar grew louder and louder until, at its crescendo,
rocks slammed into the surrounding ground. Skeletons were obliterated. Trees
shattered. Orcs that were not immediately crushed fled in terror.

The air became a mixture of stone, earth, and darkness. Aulin was pummeled
from all sides, lost, until a larger stone slammed into him, knocking him
nearly senseless. His last thought, as he toppled into the frothing river,
was that he had reached another end - and, hopefully, a new beginning.

Role

Chapter 3

As Aulin's body slipped into the river, he would die.

Upon his return from Darsylon, Aulin had easily resumed life with his people.
Valued for his past service and now familiar with the world outside the
Valley, his elders felt he would be well suited to patrolling their borders.
His main task was to judge outsiders who found their way to the valley and
determine if they should be gently guided back the way they came or brought
before the elders.

On today's patrol, he had a small group of adolescents with him. He was to
bring them to the base of the valley, where the river was framed by two
hills, and peek into the flatlands beyond. The elders felt it was good to
remind children that there was a world beyond their home, and the trip also
gave opportunities to teach simple forest and first aid skills.

His group had happily crested the flank of one of the valley's terminal hills
at dusk. Behind them spread the majesty of their forest - to the side and
below them, the shadowed stones of his people's graveyard were laid out in
neat rows - and in front of them...there was chaos.

A battle was reaching its conclusion on the plains below. Based on the
cooling corpses strewn into the distance, a force of elves had been fighting
a retreat for some time. They used the river to protect their flank, and were
backing towards the further protection of the valley's hills. Aulin watched
them for a moment as they skirmished with the other force. He found it
difficult to make out exact numbers in the settling darkness, as not all
combatants glowed with the warmth of life. Occasionally, either side would
blast fire at the other, further destroying his night vision. Just as Aulin
had made up his mind to lead his group quietly back into the forest depths, a
burst of light revealed a sizable group of orcs waiting to ambush the elves
at the edge of the forest below. One of their scouts saw him in return.

(continued in part 2)

Role

Chapter 2

Though many years had passed, Aulin remembered his brother's funeral clearly,
and thought of it often. For him, it marked the end of his time at home. His
people had a need for armor and weapons with which to fight off frequent
orcish raids, and their valley had little more than berries, earth and sacred
water to offer in exchange for them. He and several others were sent to find
work amidst the wealth of Darsylon, so they could use the little coin they
earned to buy what the village could otherwise not.

Aulin had found a place as a janitor within a teaching laboratory of magic.
Each day he woke up early to meditate with the sun, ate a bit of bread, and
headed to the school to perform his duties. Most of the day he wandered the
grounds, emptying trash bins, collecting and cleaning used glassware, and
tidying whatever needed it. It was not bad work, and he was benignly ignored
by those who used the place. In the evenings he was expected to be available
to help clean up the results of the day's experiments. Over time, this became
a part of the day he dreaded. He never saw the magic being performed, but he
saw the aftermath. He learned how best to clean chalk and scorch marks from
stone. How to clean bloody animal cages. One time he was simply handed a
steel-traced glass jar and told to find somewhere to store it. Within the
jar, a flicker of fire repeatedly bashed itself against the confines of the
container. As he placed it on a shelf, he thought he could make out
flame-wreathed eyes watching him.

Fortunately, today was another end in his life, and as with all such endings,
it was also a new beginning. The instructors that ran the laboratory had been
called to war and tasked Aulin with storing their equipment away. As a token
of their thanks for his years of service, and a parting gift, they gave him a
month's pay and a well-crafted mithril sword to see him on his journey back
to the valley. Then, lacking any further interest in him, they left,
entrusting he would lock the doors as his final duty. The sword lay next to
his pack of provisions by the front door, ready to begin the trip as soon as
possible.

The night had grown late as Aulin placed the final box of glassware in its
cabinet. As he began to close it, a glint of light caught his eye. For the
first time in years, an impulse of his own overtook him, and he took the
metal and glass jar before locking the cabinet. Suddenly feeling alive again,
as if he had emerged from a dream of someone else's life, he collected his
things and headed back to his real home.

Later that night, someone looking north at the mountains might have seen a
small light arc from a cliffside. The distance would have been too great for
them to hear the subsequent tinkle of glass breaking, but the accompanying
momentary blaze of light would have lit a figure standing above.

Role

Chapter 1

"This is the story of Dalin's death: All that came before, and all that he
was, led him to a poisoned blade. Led him to die in his home after a week of
fevered torment, attended by his brother."

The village chief and defacto head priest paused, hands raised, looking at
the gathered mourners. He stood on a small stone platform next to a raging
river. Beyond the platform, the upstream portion of the river cut a path
through a dense forest, and in the distance above the trees a large waterfall
could be barely seen. Mist wreathed the top of the waterfall where it plunged
downwards from a high mountain cliff. In the bright morning sunlight, a
multicolored rainbow flickered just above, crowning it.

Holding back tears, Aulin joined the other mourners in the expected response,
"All that came before, and all that he was."

The chief continued, "In his death we found life. The blade did not take him
before he slew the orc that wielded it, did not take him before he drove off
the others that sought to steal from us. We will not starve this winter."

"In his death we found life."

"We place him here, at the end of the river's journey through our valley, so
his soul may continue on downstream. We inter him here, deep within the
earth, so his body will feed the forest off which we live. And as the water
that flows away will once again return to our sacred waterfall and nourish
our forest, so too will Dalin's spirit return to us."

Tears flowing freely now, Aulin could barely whisper the response, "The water
returns."

Ceremony complete, Aulin lost himself in the hard work of filling his
brother's grave. The day grew hotter, and the village chief brought him a
skin of water and a bit of dried meat. He watched Aulin for some time, then
simply said, "When you are done, let us speak."

Aulin nodded and looked once again towards the waterfall. This time all he
could see of the rainbow was a deep red, fading away to nothing.

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