The story of Ataraxis Innisci-

Psouth

Warning: this story is set in my version of the eq2 world so dont get mad at me, also it is just background lore for my character, so i didnt go in-depth on most things.

Ataraxis nodded when he received the news that he was needed for a meeting with the tribe?s elder, Kilgan, and followed the messenger out of his tent to the biggest tent on the other side of the campground, but he knew not why he was being summoned, for he had lived quietly in the tribe. His intelligence often ostracized him from the rest of the brutish clan. He trained his body like all the other barbarian warriors and perfected his body into a finely toned muscular warrior, but he still favored the use of his brain equally as much as the use of his brawn in matters. While walking he looked around at the other makeshift tents, beautiful things of stretched goatskin that were completely collapsible for better use to the nomadic barbarian tribe, for they did not stay in one place for more than three weeks at a time. The messenger stopped at the closed flap of the great one?s tent. Young Ataraxis lifted the tent?s flap and walked in.
The sights on the walls and shelves were not pretty ones, eyes and other such curiosities floating in a yellowish liquid in various jars. ?Your time for making your mark on the world has come.? The shriveled man stooped in the back of the tent declared. Ataraxis was astonished, the point of ?Hisblanch? as the people of his tribe called the time of making a difference in the world often came to men when they grew of old age and were to do one more great thing before they died. Ataraxis was only 16 years of human age. ?I have foreseen destiny for you, and you must heed my words, for compliance is necessary. You must travel west young one, to a grand and evil city called Freeport. But heed my words, Do Not go into the city or you shall be lost forever to evil forces. Outside the city on the way of the setting sun is a cave you must enter. Beware, for within lies a beast of terrible power. Though I tell you now so you may not fear you will not be hurt in this for I will tell you how to defeat it. In the cave resides a giant bear bigger than any that have ever existed. In order to fell the beast you must fall to your knees in front of it and pray to the god of war and survival. The bear will not attack you if all is well for the bear is a creature of war and survival in it?s every essence and therefore will be drawn to not hurt one so much like itself, so much like yourself?? The elder trailed off menacingly and turned to look directly in the young barbarian?s eyes. ?This will be a simple test, if you pass and quell the beasts urge to rip you apart you shall return to us with the respect of all the other barbarians. If you shall fail, you will likely be dead, but if you survive the encounter without quelling the beasts urges you will not be accepted back in the clan and will be killed if you come back unsuccessful. The bear will be killed in two years by a hunting party I foresee so you must be done with your test soon.? The elder then dismissed Ataraxis and left him to his thoughts.
Why was he chosen for such a mission when he was not exactly the embodiment of war and survival as much as most if not all other barbarians of the tribe were? He was forced to accept the mission for it was his destiny, but he wasn?t looking forward to leaving that night to travel far away from his lifelong home. Though he stoically walked out into the night towards the sprawling city, known as Freeport that marred the barren horizon with its existence.
His journey was coming to an end when he glimpsed the black as night city walls of Freeport and he turned his back upon it and walked bravely into the ice cave so completely out of place in the barren desert outside the city. All the walls of the cave were covered with a crystalline ice. Though impossible, it seemed the cave was actually made of the crystalline ice. After walking what seemed like miles into the very heart of the cavern he found an enormous brown bear! It truly was as huge as Kilgan, the elder, had said. The bear awakened soon though and was promptly staring at the young barbarian. All Ataraxis wanted to do at that moment was run away from this place, but he walked closer and got on his knees. He began to pray to the God revered by all the barbarians of his tribe, with all his heart. Then he noticed that the bear was not stopped dead or anything silly like he had thought would happen, but it was moving closer to him with a menacing stare on its face. The bear stood to its full and impressive height, dwarfing even the seven-foot barbarian with its stature. Then it let out an impossibly loud and fierce roar that sent shivers coursing through Ataraxis? body. Then it rushed full at the barbarian and all the wind he had ever known was knocked out of him as the bear rammed him into an icy cavern wall. He staggered to his feet and pulled out his short sword given to him by his father, but it seemed so puny a weapon compared to the mighty bear?s teeth and claws. Waiting for the bears next charge Ataraxis loathed his tribes elder for sending him to his death knowing full well that the young barbarian was not a keen enough believer in the war and survival tenets that ran a barbarian?s life. ?You have killed me Kilgan!? the mighty barbarian roared at the top of his lungs and he felt his blood pumping with such an intense adrenaline that he rushed straight at the bear and jumped atop its back stabbing the his short sword repeatedly into the back of the bear?s head screaming war cries thunderously into the cave. The bear fought to loose the barbarian from his back, but knew it was too late and knew it would surely die, so it simply slumped to the ground in it?s much treasured cavern, a fitting place for final rest. Ataraxis having fully played out his rage tottered from the cavern leaving the savagely dead bear behind. Anger was rising up in his blood again as he thought of the brutal deception the barbarian elder had laid to lead the young barbarian to his death, and the elder?s menacing smile filled his thoughts with only revenge. Ataraxis turned his gaze again to the ominous city of Freeport, now drawn to the evil and corruption he could sense in the city. He entered the city gates and began to walk around the city, but soon was lost in the maze of streets and was sad inside more than he had ever been. He thought again of his mother and father and the life he was not allowed to return to, and of the man who had done this to him. His emotions running wild he walked into a tavern where curious gazes met him at every step to the bar. Finally his rage consumed him, established again from his thoughts of the elder and his loss of the life he knew. He drew his short sword in his hand and lopped off the head of the bartender and proceeded to leap on a dining table and challenge those around him. He hardly knew what he was doing as he ran around the tavern driving his sword into one patron after another and in an hour he found himself alone in a pool of blood and severed limbs crying.
Ataraxis awoke with a start as the bruises from his injuries of the previous day?s encounters throbbed. He looked around not recognizing the place he occupied. A large man seemingly taller than any human even with his slouched posture walked into his path of gaze and greeted Ataraxis with a simple hello. ?Who are you?? Ataraxis defensively asked. ?To you, I am the teacher. I shall teach you the ways of the true shadowknight and train you to acquire power that you cannot even imagine.?
The teacher walked into the room he had told Ataraxis to wait in bearing a beautiful weapon indeed. It was the biggest axe the young barbarian had ever seen and it was so beautifully malicious wrought of seemingly perfect black steel and carved throughout the thing with gleaming red runes. ?It is for you, for you shall continue the barbarian shadowknight line and become terribly powerful as I was, and many have before you have. Ataraxis took the great axe from the man and could feel the power thrumming from the handle to his own skin and joints lending him impossible strength and a feeling of immortality. ?Your destiny is your own to forge from now on, for I will be unable to teach you further than you have learned so far, and that is so much?? Indeed it is, thought Ataraxis, taken in by the teacher he had learned the ways of the weapon, and even greater the way to tap into the source of evil and channel the power found there into many forms of powerful spells. On the teacher?s word Ataraxis left his company and wondered the streets of Freeport with his new axe in hand. He was compelled to reak havoc on the streets as he had done so many times, but was mysteriously drawn to the city gates and then out of the city itself. His thoughts raced, thoughts of achieving power and devastating all that got in his way of it. The teacher had tried to shape the young barbarian?s hate into a hate of the goodly creatures, but Ataraxis found that he found equal pleasure, if not more in bringing destruction upon evil cunning creatures. He was upon the ice cave as he was just two years ago; it had been so long since the teacher had first taken him in. Even though spring was upon the world around, there was a crystalline ice to be found all throughout the inside of the cave. He heard voices echoing throughout the cave and when he reached the bottom of the tunnel he was stunned indeed. He was staring at a group of a dozen hunters of his prior barbarian clan. The memories flashed in his head and he brought up a wall of rage that was fueled by these memories and he was suddenly ready to bring about the brutal destruction of the hunters. He walked towards them and fell into the evil of the world, gathering power. A purest black spread across the floor in a wide straight line through the hunters to the end of the cavern. The darkness engulfed 2 hunters and they fell into the conjured bottomless pit as Ataraxis strode across it confidently to stand at the end of the cavern facing the hunters at hand. ?The tribe has harmed me deeply and so you all shall pay with your lives!? exclaimed Ataraxis. He held his great axe in front of him and awaited the charge of even one of the barbarians, but none of them moved just stood staring, recognizing the young and now so evil barbarian. Ataraxis grew impatient and drew more energy from the source of evil and called forth a score of small round creatures of a jagged outline filled with the purest black, and they appeared out behind the hunters. The screams of pure terror that resounded from a hunter being engulfed and feeling the searing pain of the creatures feeding off his soul made the rest of the barbarians charge at Ataraxis who was waiting with his great axe in hand. He brought it in a great overhead chop to bring about the death of the first barbarian by severing him diagonally across the chest. He brought the axe sweeping about to the side of him to back away another hunter then, and leaped forward bringing his axe in a devastating overhead chop with all the momentum of his leap upon another foe, severing this one clean through his entire body so that the two pieces fell apart and to the floor. The hunters had him surrounded them with 8 left or so and he knew he couldn?t compete with them all in fair combat so he fell into a deepest of evil rumination and gathered a more incredible amount of evil energy then ever he had before. An ominously dark black cloud spread around as if a hurricane above Ataraxis? head and a great crack of thunder announced the evil pure black lightning that struck one of the hunters square on the head and shook him to the very core of his soul convincing him that he need not live anymore killing his brain activity and stopping his heart leaving the man dead on the floor spread out. The thunder cracked all about him and the thunder struck all the hunters successfully leaving the barbarians slumped on the floor, all of them dead. Kilgan walked in to that scene of carnage then. ?Ahh, elder I was expecting you had a hand in this.? Ataraxis remarked while his rage filled his every corner of his mind at this man who had outcast him from the tribe, had in effect made him a being of evil and destruction. Ataraxis had no more words left for the man and reached into his legging?s pocket to pull out a vial of swirling black mist, a soul catcher it was aptly called. Ataraxis had saved the soul of an extremely powerful necromancer he defeated just a few months earlier in this vial, so as to use in a situation just like this. Ataraxis popped the cap and remarked ?See your demise.? A specter of the same pure black and swirling black mist with jagged features and a menacing evil creature form erupted from the vial. The specter shot forward into the chest of the barbarian elder sending his heart into an immediate stop and sprawling him dead on his back on the icy cavern floor. Ataraxis satisfied strode up to the elder?s lifeless body and severed the head from the body sucking the soul of the elder out of the body and into the vial with a thought. Ataraxis was a creature of destruction, a creature of the purest evil, and he was seeking power. He made his way back to Freeport to start his lifelong quest to gain power beyond any ever seen before.

 

Well there it is, i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i did writing it. If you actually read it, tell me what you thought of it, if not just leave without a word.

I do always say taste the rainbow but i always sift through my bag o' skittles to get to the white ones.

Psouth

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I do always say taste the rainbow but i always sift through my bag o' skittles to get to the white ones.