Archon
Friendly Neighborhood Gem-Collector
The gentle lap of natures trials softened the air in a blaze of bird song and gentle wind's caress, the radiance of day washed over the rolling tracts of green casting away the dark creeping shadows of the accursed dark. Okgar raised knelt down, his hand gliding through a rough-pile of soaked leaves, long-dead thanks to the unnatural amnesties that haunted the lands. These fields and forests were yet untouched--unlike his Uradoan--unlike home, where the dark had blackened and malformed the land in a twisted reflection of it's natural state, the sky black as night and the land both dead and yet living, the very soil possessed of a dark mind towards slaughter and turmoil. His people exiles in their own territory, resisting the encroaching hordes of certain doom with ferocity only an orc could possess--yet doom was an abstract, endless and eternal. They could not beat this threat through force of arms. Which is why Okgar stood here, away from his forlorn people, curled in the muds of a glistening forest with the bird song and wind lapping at his ears.
He'd searched in vein for two painstaking years, the frightened villages and superstitious monks of the outskirts would not treat with an Orc. Those he sought, the hedge wizards, turned him away with boundless accusations of darkborne and cursed, but they're cries of terror had foundation in truth. For what is more dark, than the absorption of the soul and disassembly of matter itself? There was nothing inspirational or heroic about Okgar's affliction, he was a walking beacon of death. Truth be told, even he had little idea of how a supposed hedge wizard could tutor the circumstances of his power. Motivation made way to desperation, Okgar was brought here--further inland than he had any right to be--in search of the very men and women who would be his executioner. To those in the mainland, orcs were but a myth, and one such as he would be condemned a darkborne, yet the proud orc had little else to lose, better to die with a purpose than to slink back in shame--if the denizens of the dark didn't rend him apart with their evil maws, first.
Then he heard it; loud and piercing yet beautiful, blanketing the serenity of the trees with the soft sound of song like none Okgar had heard before, an instrument, it's magic crescented only by the sounds of faint but assertive marching. Okgar steadied his breath, his eyes shut tightly and he whispered a prayer to the ancestors, he walked to what he surmised to be his doom--towards the sound of music--of beauty and magic.
It didn't take the orc long to find the scene, a great expedition laden with wagons, a small grizzled army traversed the road in tact formations, the music dancing gently from within. The muscled orc moved forward slowly, his hands stretched out to the sides, absent of weaponry or danger. His long grey-cloak that hooded his features cast off to avert suspicion. Each step was a cautious breath, the sentries noticed the large figure--cries of alert were shouted throughout. A darkborne attack, an assassin, some twisted dark guardian come to exact furious vengeance? He expected a volley of arrows to cut his efforts short soon enough, but trying was all he had left.
"I mean no harm." The orc started slowly in the common tongue, "I journey from Uradoan--home of the orcs--to offer aid." He spoke slowly to the foremost sentry, the man's face was blanched in terror and disgust, white-fingers tense around his bow, yet no arrow was loosed. Okgar stood motionless, idle and non-threatening, so that his life may continue and his mission may see success.
He'd searched in vein for two painstaking years, the frightened villages and superstitious monks of the outskirts would not treat with an Orc. Those he sought, the hedge wizards, turned him away with boundless accusations of darkborne and cursed, but they're cries of terror had foundation in truth. For what is more dark, than the absorption of the soul and disassembly of matter itself? There was nothing inspirational or heroic about Okgar's affliction, he was a walking beacon of death. Truth be told, even he had little idea of how a supposed hedge wizard could tutor the circumstances of his power. Motivation made way to desperation, Okgar was brought here--further inland than he had any right to be--in search of the very men and women who would be his executioner. To those in the mainland, orcs were but a myth, and one such as he would be condemned a darkborne, yet the proud orc had little else to lose, better to die with a purpose than to slink back in shame--if the denizens of the dark didn't rend him apart with their evil maws, first.
Then he heard it; loud and piercing yet beautiful, blanketing the serenity of the trees with the soft sound of song like none Okgar had heard before, an instrument, it's magic crescented only by the sounds of faint but assertive marching. Okgar steadied his breath, his eyes shut tightly and he whispered a prayer to the ancestors, he walked to what he surmised to be his doom--towards the sound of music--of beauty and magic.
It didn't take the orc long to find the scene, a great expedition laden with wagons, a small grizzled army traversed the road in tact formations, the music dancing gently from within. The muscled orc moved forward slowly, his hands stretched out to the sides, absent of weaponry or danger. His long grey-cloak that hooded his features cast off to avert suspicion. Each step was a cautious breath, the sentries noticed the large figure--cries of alert were shouted throughout. A darkborne attack, an assassin, some twisted dark guardian come to exact furious vengeance? He expected a volley of arrows to cut his efforts short soon enough, but trying was all he had left.
"I mean no harm." The orc started slowly in the common tongue, "I journey from Uradoan--home of the orcs--to offer aid." He spoke slowly to the foremost sentry, the man's face was blanched in terror and disgust, white-fingers tense around his bow, yet no arrow was loosed. Okgar stood motionless, idle and non-threatening, so that his life may continue and his mission may see success.