The Legacy of Kalisto Krauss.

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Losstarot
Posts: 53
Character: Kalisto Krauss

The Legacy of Kalisto Krauss.

Post by Losstarot » May 23rd, 2021, 10:18 pm



Kalisto Krauss

“I deny morality as I deny alchemy.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Black Grease

Image

Full Name: Kalisto Krauss
Birthdate: 16 of Warmwind
Birthplace: Tor
Birthsign: The Moon

Appearance

Age: 23
Height: Average
Weight: Below average
Eyes: Dark green
Hair: Black and wild
Skin: Fair
Handedness: Ambidextrous
Posture: Relaxed, lazy
Hygiene: Impecable
Scent: Alchemical perfumes, or no scent at all

Physical Description: A young man with wild hair as black as coal. He has an elegant air about him, pacing about in a confident step. His dark green, cynical eyes seem quite observant and give you the feeling they watch you even when he's looking elsewhere. A sly, joyful smile always decorates his lips.

Personality

General Health: Excellent
Profession: Alchemist
Faction Affiliation: Unknown, if any
Languages: Common Decusian, Nothryan
Accent: None, he lost his accent long ago
Roleplay Tools: Rolled cigarettes, jokes and trickery

Hobbies: Meeting new people, hunting and exploring, taking notes, sweet talking
Habits: Incurable joker, insatiable inquirer, ever the philosopher

Personality Description: Bearer of good humor and an easy grin. Usually tries to solve problems peacefully, favoring words than weapons. A positive and progressive thinker, with expectations for the future. Among friends, he is very prone to irony and shameless jokes.

History: ((coming soon in the form of rp posts))

Strengths: Observant, intuitive, perfeccionist, speechcraft
Weaknesses: Rarely opens up, doesn't trust so easily, night terrors

Governing Virtue: Justice, Sacrifice, Valor
Governing Throne: Covetous, Murder, Chaos
Last edited by Losstarot on June 13th, 2021, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Losstarot
Posts: 53
Character: Kalisto Krauss

Re: The Legacy of Kalisto Krauss.

Post by Losstarot » June 13th, 2021, 5:45 pm

1342. Tor.


Our makeshift lab is no more. All samples were lost during the riots. Any hope we had of researching for a cure is now just a blink of an eye, in a past soon to be forgotten.

Few of us remain, hidden here in this basement. Our food will soon deplete, but no one who stepped out to search for more has returned. I can smell the fires from here and I know the crops in the farms are burning. I wonder if the first cyst appeared there. I wonder...

A prodigy, they called me. Too young to find interest in science, in alchemy. Well, I suppose figuring out how to mix two components to obtain a completely different substance has always amazed me. For a time, this job was what put food on our plates. To think we'd end up trapped in here, starving...

It's been 3 days since Wedge left, to look for food. He hasn't returned, he won't return, I know it. And among those hiding here, I can already detect the spectre of famine twisting their minds. How long till we start eating one another? Decus... I gotta take Adrian out of this hole.

"We will make it through", I told him. "I promise, brother".


* * * * *


1346. De Ravin Parish.


I woke to my own screams again and again I couldn't move. My mind was awake, but my body... My body was a slab of stone, cold, imobile. I know this place, it is a house I own. A house, but not a home. Why the fuck is this happening to me? It's been four years, four long years, why does this continue? This trauma, this memory turned nightmare. Why? Why, Adrian?

I thought I would forget if I ran away very far. And ran I did. I got as far as I could from this Decus forsaken province, living life from scraps and whatever I could muster to get by. To survive, I had stolen and I had lied, I did many horrible things. Yet none of these new fabricated traumas could possibly make me forget. If only we had found a cure then...

No matter how far I went, somehow I came back. And look at me now - me, the slab of stone. I assumed if I merged in, if I attempted at a normal life, that perhaps I could forgive and forget, and move on. This Parish seemed the perfect place to start my new life. Neutral, peaceful and most importantly: none of them know me.

The very first job I got: alchemist. The irony of it...


* * * * *


1342. Tor.


Wedge has not returned. Eleanor went to look for him and she also has gone missing. Only eight of us left now. The others are looking at us strange. Some of them are enduring fever and cold sweat. I wonder if it has anything to do with the reagents we're consuming for food. I have to take Adrian away from here, there is no hope for us. Tor has fallen, I know this much by now.

"We should try to make a run for it, we are not far from the gates. Maybe we can make it", I told them.

"No", replied the elder alchemist of the guild, Timont. "We wait. I am sure the Church will come and purge the Torment. We wait and leave when it's safe."

"What is the point in waiting? Haven't we waited enough? Must we all die here, doing nothing?"

"You are too young, Krauss, you haven't seen this affliction up close. Or you'd know why. We wait."

"Adrian and I are leaving with the next sunrise", I stated flatly. Adrian looked at me, a question in his eyes.

"As long as you are a part of this lab, boy, you'll do as I say."

I stared into Timont's eyes. He was afraid, I could tell. The fear of the unknown held him in place, like a slab of stone. He'd happily die waiting for a salvation I knew wouldn't come. Tor was beyond salvation.

And I didn't want to wait...


* * * * *


1346. The First Torian Legion fort.


Graelynn was kidnapped. It took me so long to allow myself to care for someone again. And now she is captured and we don't even know why, or by whom.

When I offered to take on the mantle of diplomat, I assumed this civilized side of the province had more use for words than blades. And perhap I could help the reclamation by establishing peace between these many groups. I know the Parish has a similar goal, to remain neutral and work as mediator between parties during conflict. "This is the place to be", I thought. And for a time it worked well.

But what use are words against brutes? Graelynn was kidnapped and no amount of talking would return her to us. Captured by rogues and mages. Always the mages, they're always involved somehow.

"We have to search every corner, leave no stone unturned. I will go immediatelly. I already have some places in mind", I informed them.

"You will do no such thing, Kalisto", Nicolien replied.

"Why not, m'lady?"

Inside me, I was the hurricane and the tempest. If nothing else this proves I still have a heart. And that heart was pounding on my chest.

"We don't know their demands yet. We wait, Kalisto."

To wait... there it was again. The killing verb. To wait. To do nothing but sit and hope for the best. Inaction.

"Wait? What if she is being tortured right now? We should wait for demands while we search", I said. "I will go."

"You will not."

I felt angry. An anger so powerful and pungent, that I could almost touch it. And yet, I was not angry at Nicolien. I was angry at myself. Decus, it was all happening again...

"Do you think you can order me around?!"

"As long as you're a part of this Parish, Kalisto, you will do as I say".

I stared into Nicolien's eyes. I didn't find Timont's fear in them, but rather a worry, a concern so great for her sister that... That reminded me of you, Adrian, and Tor. And it made me angrier.

I wouldn't wait. I couldn't wait. I had been through that already and like a book, I saw the story repeating. In my head, I found every reason not to wait. This.. inaction, this lust for a neutrality that is beyond reach in this Hel of a province.

"So be it."

I unclasped the belt holding my cloak bearing the De Ravin red and I threw it on the ground at Nicolien's feet. No one will command me to wait as someone I care suffers. Not again.

And when Lucien opened the door, coming into the Fort, I slipped past him and ran off. To find her.

Was I really looking for her? Or was it you, Adrian, I looked for?


* * * * *


1342. Tor.


"I won't be long", I told Adrian. "I'll just get us some food and return. I won't leave you, brother, we will wait for the Church together, yes?"

The boy nodded his head.

While the others were sleeping, I stole the key to the trapdoor from Timont. I waited for the screams to subside above. When it was all silent, we looked at one another and we knew: it was time.

I turned the key, then passed it to Adrian.

"Lock it as soon as I exit."

I left to find... the sky? The building was ruined, burnt. There was nothing left of out lab.

The Tor I met outside was like nothing I remembered. Hundreds of dead birds just lying around and many still falling from the sky. It was rainning death. Even the land itself was dry and cracked, a crimson red like the earth itself was bleeding. The air was dusty and heavy, and I had to cover my nose and mouth to breath.

The farmlands weren't too far. If just one warehouse had stood, we could find enough food for weeks, enough to survive while we waited. I sneaked along the ruined walls, sticking to the shadows. Whenever I heard a noise, I'd stop and stand still, my heart racing. Was it one of them? Had it seen me?

I cannot explain how I reached those gates, it could only have been a miracle. But as soon I set foot on the farms, I knew no miracle was going to save us. There was nothing left. Nothing. Just fire and that bloody red everywhere. Hel, even the trees seemed afflicted, moving, stretching its roots and branches like plague-infested tentacles.

I was right all along. There was nothing to wait for. Tor was abandoned.

And as I turned around to leave, I heard them.

That scream... I will never forget that scream. There was nothing human left in that voice. Then I saw them, hundreds of them. I saw Eleanor and Wedge among them. And, Decus, could they run. And they were running to me, flooding out of the gates and onto the farms. Oh, Adrian, to remember all of this now... What could I have done? What could anyone have done?

I did the only thing I could.

I ran.


* * * * *


1344. Somewhere in the baronies.


...I have been running for two years now. When will this be over? I have been travelling and in my travels I learned many new talents I didn't know I possessed. I became a thief and a killer. And I would have descended deeper still. I sought the bottom, Adrian.

I haven't touched a flask in ages. Still, the eventual poison applied to a blade still makes me think of alchemy. And alchemy always reminds me Tor. And Tor always reminds me of you...

I cannot sleep. Three or four hours per night, at most. I still hear their screams when I shut my eyes. And when I wake up, it is I who scream. And then the paralysis takes over. These fucking night terrors are driving me insane. Am I going insane? No matter. Anything, Adrian. Anything to reach the bottom.

Why? Why did I accept Timont's idea? Why did I let myself become tainted by inaction? An affliction much worse than the Torment itself. Now this inaction haunts my dreams and turns me into a slab of stone with eyes and lungs every night.

Why did I wait? Why?

I keep hearing rumours about the First Province in my travels. It was quarantined and accepting settlers as an attempt to reclaim the lost territory. After two years, I had no hope of finding you, or any of the others. And I feel selfish for prefering it this way, for I could not look into your eyes, brother.

Still, slowly, job after job, I'd find myself closer to that train station. Was my mind sabotaging me? Filling me with hope? I heard one needed only a stamped visa to get to the Rumbling Pass. I am sure I could get my hands on one, if I tried.

Hmmm, should I try? Should I, Adrian?


* * * * *


1346. Fort Praesidum.


Graelynn is safe. I left the Parish and moved to the Fort. I feel the same energy now as when I arrived here. A new beginning. A new road to follow.

Neutrality and waiting were never much my style and I'm a fool to have ever tried to convince myself otherwise. Because there is no such thing here, the First Province is only partial to devouring its denizens alive. Like it swallowed you, my brother. How long will it take for the torment to reach us here?

I will not lay in wait. After many years, I placed a black pearl into a mortar. And grounded it to a fine dust. My hands moved as if possessed by a ghost. My own ghost. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing.

Late at night, going for a walk, I thought I had heard a wolf howling to the moon. And I wondered if its fur was black. I looked upon the moon myself, bathing in its silver light. The same moon that welcomed me into this place, now showed me a different route, a different path.

Now is the time to act. The wait was too long. But it is over.

I wonder if Patricia will show me Pyreholme today...

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