Chapter One: Wake Up [Knocking on Heaven's Door]

[Devlin]

Mood Music


"If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.†- J. M. Power


Welcome to creation, and welcome to Vigilo. The air from the sea was warm to your skin, but the smell of fish and ocean may have been a bit much on the senses of anyone who wasn’t used to a port trade town. The guilds influence here was apparent, with shops all around making the town seem almost like a giant market place rather than a town at all. Vigilo still had all of the necessities needed for a town however, with an inn, a bar, and several other places you could make your way to.


Thanks to the town’s size and the popularity of trade here it was incredibly easy to hide out. All shapes and sizes entered this town, and unless you were flashing your anima no one was going to notice your divinity here. Even the misshapen and ugly had their place.


While this may have been nice, the town had a certain air of corruption and evil to it. You never could spot it directly but it was there. You could feel it, in every gaze of a guild shop keep, in breath of the warm air. The entire town seemed to have a layer of grey to it even. Maybe it was the guild, maybe it was the realm flags that hung here and there, or maybe it was something else entirely but it was there.


Needless to say, this town was odd yet somehow perfect for anyone who might have been hiding or running. If you could figure this out, it wasn’t impossible to think other exalted may have as well, all with dreams and hopes. Whatever happened after this would be exciting for sure. All you have to do is wake up...

 

[danakir]

A few steps. Dreaming is meaningless.


Nightmares only outlast the trashing respite, stretching to the horizon. Everything so dull and humorless. Living and breathing one more day if only to find meaning when there is only a blind fool standing in this little tragicomedy of jade and silver.


So pathetic. Money? Perhaps this was all mortals could hope for, the wretches, perhaps this was their fate. Was he still one of them? Did he even know fate or understand the full scope of the grand destiny that had been promised to him?


A migraine strikes, thoughts swirl in a vortex of confusion and frustration. There is no need to dwell on the past. Only the present.


Unreadable comforting smile, handing the downtrodden old hag the necessary poultice. So many idiots and a sucker born every minute, they look up to this monster and their gazes beg for forgiveness and mercy, he will hand them their remedies and he will save every single one of them.


May the world atone for their great sin. Breathing every second. Changing every second. Laughing. Smiling. Loving. Dancing. Living. So sinful, so annoying, so much.... so different. He could barely handle it. But not this place. It reeked of human misery and corruption, sweet despair. It soothed him to see those people crawl on the floor only for him to lift them up...


And then watch them fall again, harder than ever before. He took perverse joy in this. His little experiments, medical experiments. He was now quite adept at hidding his games. Not that anyone ever suspected a thing.


Always smile, be a nice girl, be a good girl. Smile or there's that dark room in the back.


The dark room doesn't exist anymore, at least not anywhere but in his mind. But it haunts him and now, the dark room, is with him. Everywhere he goes. That room is part of his self.


There is no escape.


Dusting himself off, the young 'lady' stood up as she thanked the local herbalist for his help lending Zephyr his tools. Soon outside he idly walked by the central plaza overlooking the vast sea, this was a pleasantly warm day with a comforting breeze. Most everyone in town who lived in poverty had heard of him, that young woman who healed the sick and elderly, the saint who one day came through the gates of their town.


The irony of it all.