((An old post and the start of a re-telling of Parigan's history. This was my first rp toon, and the stories that follow are some of my first as a roleplayer. They are graphic, and depict scenes of violence, gore, death, and morbid imagery.))
I wasn't born to rule kingdoms or fight for what I think is right. I was born an ordinary citizen in an extraordinary world. Gilneas was once my home, but no more. My name is Parigan Blackmane.
In death I have seen the world outside the walls. I have seen things I had heard of in stories and imagined only in nightmares. I have watched the world burn, and my only instinct is to feed the flames.
For twenty years I lived as a citizen of Gilneas, an odd duck in a family of politicians and royal guards. I lived to become a builder, a craftsman, and a miner, always unordinary. Yet somehow, I was lucky enough to meet a woman who loved me, someone who cared for me. Brinnea.
The name makes me tremble for an unknown reason, was love so important? I can't remember.
I was a paranoid man, always worrying for whatever reason. So when I heard about an imminent attack from the Scourge, I wanted to be prepared. I joined the city guard so I could steal supplies for my home, to protect my wife. She had become pregnant, and the shock of a child was mixed with the paranoia of an undead attack; I had never fully accepted that I was to be a father. I never wanted my life to change -- the idea of change frightened me -- but the day came when the city was attacked. The undead swarmed the streets; my job was to guard the gates for civilians to escape, but I had to get Brinnea out. She was defenseless. I took Brinnea, a horse, supplies, and rode as fast as possible away from the city. The undead raiders scattered the group of refugees I had joined, forcing us to take refuge in the forest. On the way to a rally point for evacuation, Brinnea forced us to stop. She was going into labor.
For hours we waited for what should have been the happiest moment of our lives, until finally, she was born: our daughter, Charlotte. Brinnea rested with the child while I forced myself to ignore my fatigue. I heard a noise from the trees and went to investigate, sword in hand. I stepped softly out of the clearing, into the trees, when a geist jumped out at me from the side. I fell over with no idea if I was hurt or how bad, but I managed to regain my balance. As I sprang up, the undead charged me recklessly, skewering itself on my blade.
I forced myself up, realizing I had been slashed along my left hamstring. My leg was covered in blood, so I limped back to the clearing to patch it up. I heard panicked screaming before I saw mother and child huddled against a tree. I approached them to try calming the child, when suddenly I lost my breath and was forced to the ground. I grabbed at my throat, finding a throwing dagger stuck deep into my chest, the blood from the wound slowly trickling into my clothes. I looked up and saw the terror in Brinnea’s eyes. She struggled to stand on wobbly legs, still weak from childbirth, and dangerously low on blood. As I hacked up blood, I picked myself off the ground and held my blade at the ready. A pair of glowing blue eyes pierced the shadows in the foliage behind Brin and Charlotte. Then a pair of yellow eyes, and another. A man entered the clearing, a massive black hammer in one hand and a metal stake in the other. His skin was black as night, his head bald but for a full brown beard. His eyes were without pity or remorse, and regarded me coldly as if I were a piece of meat he had to cut up for a meal. Ghouls flanked him, left and right, a slobbering, cannibalistic honor guard in the wake of the unholy warrior of death they served.
Brinnea shakily wandered away from the man as his ghouls began to pursue her. Rage billowed in the forge of my heart. I burst forward with all my strength, ignoring the pain in my chest. My blade danced forward, piercing the flesh and bone of the ghouls’ heads. They fell to the forest floor. I turned to Brin and managed between ragged wet coughs to say, “Run…take Charlotte…and run!” She paused for a moment, tears welling up in her eyes, but she knew she had no choice. She turned away and fled. I faced the death knight once more, who had yet to raise his weapons or even move towards me. More undead emerged from the forest behind him. Nerubians of the frozen north, gargoyles, ghouls, and skeletal soldiers, all with the same hungry look in their eyes. All facing me.
It felt like hours before he stopped sending his minions at me. A few had managed to add further injuries to my body, but I was still breathing, and mad as hell. I saw an opening and decided to finish things quickly. I rushed the death knight himself, my blade moving fast as a bullet. His was faster. The clang of steel on saronite sounded like a death knell. My blade shattered to pieces; shrapnel flew through my chainmail, piercing my flesh. Then with his left hand he impaled me through the heart with his stake. My vision was fading quickly, and the realization hit me just as I began to lose consciousness that I was going to die. I fell on my back, the blade still in my heart. The night sky grew dim, but I saw a silhouette against the full moon. A gargoyle carrying a slim figure, higher and higher, until finally it let go. The last thing I saw as my heart’s blood tricked free from my chest was the love of my life and our newborn child fall from the sky. That, and the death knight’s emotionless face as he watched me die at his feet.