Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
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Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
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Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
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Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 14, 2022 15:55:22 GMT -5
Gray's head tilt was matched by one in turn. Alden cocked his head as he considered what he'd been asked. Mostly in how it was phrased. Since Gray had said his question was one thing but then asked several more. The shape of the questions was also familiar. It was the sort that Pride had often asked, questioning people's motives to try and get more information. It wasn't something Alden had ever been particularly good at, people often confused him as they made things complicated when they could be simple.
"I never examined what I wanted much before I came to these lands. Now that I have started I am starting to suspect that what I want and what my master wants may no longer align." Alden wasn't prone to dodging questions so he'd considered his response carefully to make it clear that this was not parroted words. There was a layer of misdirect, the last sentence could easily be misconstrued to imply a fissure was forming between himself and Naoki.
"As for your first question. You are alive, aren't you?"
With that Alden stepped backward into the treeline and a moment later he vanished from sight like a ghost in the dark. He'd meant the words in the sense that clearly he'd changed because Alden really should have killed Gray if he was a wolfhound. Though there was a second meaning that could be taken from it, that someone could change so long as they still held breath in their lungs.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 28, 2022 17:03:55 GMT -5
Fractured words reached the surface of his mind, like spiderweb cracks. In Gray's culture, there was a word for repairing broken pottery with thread-of-gold. He'd forgotten it.
He wondered how many times can something be mended. Before it is nothing but scar tissue.
He heard the words like a ripple. Again, he wondered – when was the last time he'd reached for his plants? For Alden's answer was as similar to his as almost to accuse this supernatural figure of being but a figment of Gray's imagination. He supposed in their line of work people became masters at brushing things under the rug, be it bodies or doubts.
Even with their carefully considered words – for in their work, words were weapons and even when harmless they had to be minded – the man felt a sense of kinship.
"You are alive, aren't you?" The other asked.
The assassin barely saw the words. He looked through them, and felt the potential different meanings.
"No need to state the obvious problem." Gray softly said. He wasn't even sure if Alden was there anymore. If he had ever been. A smile radiated from deep inside him, through a layer of crystalized pain.
For the briefest moment he thought of his sword – the sword that he had been bound to carry for most of his life – and a twinge of anxiety spiked, before he forced himself to remember that his apprentice had broken that bond.
He thought of a hypnotist's pendulum, like the one he used, and how its regular swing would gradually put a mind at ease and bring it into trance. Left, right, unwinding into its own magic. Then the pendulum would be imperceptibly lifted, to just above the target's eyes, making it harder and harder to follow. It would fool the mind into believing that its exhaustion it faced was but a prelude of a greater power, and thus enable it to create that power on its own, and surrender to it. That was not necessarily a bad thing. There were places of Gray's mind that he could only access in trance, places where he felt safe. Self-hypnosis was something the assassin had often relied on. Occasionally, wordplay or images could be used to highlight that illusion of confusion at the perfect moment, and help the mind fully break from reality.
For Gray, Alden's question had provided that break. The failed attack had lent the exhaustion. He had no answer, yet; but sometimes an answer wasn't necessary to begin change. Thus, slowly, he let go of his knees and lay down in the grass. The training, he supposed, had been the pendulum. He barely saw the moon again before his eyes closed. His breathing became slower.
The man slept, peacefully, for the first time in days.
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