AQW: Journal of Markus Wisp Entry 3

(Written December 9, 2014)

My ears rung as shots and explosions shook the ruined stone wall I used as cover with but one thing going through my mind, "How'd things get this bad?". Loading my gun I readied myself to do a gamble that would be very brave, very stupid, or both.

Some Weeks Ago:
It all happened over the course of a few weeks ago, Mogan and I'd left Safiria's castle and headed to the tombs where my grandfather’s home was. It was pretty easy to get there, that is until we ran into some rather unpleasant paladins. Seems they were trying to make a name for themselves by tracking down and purifying the land of the urban legend of a beast neither vampire nor werewolf. One of them sensed I wasn't human and demanded I forego any thought of passing and surrender to their authority. Understandably since I was in a rush and near what I sought I wasn't in the mood to humor them. Thus upon my attempt at circumventing the blocking my path by walking around them they called out for me to stop and one attacked when I didn't. This..... put me in a rather distasteful state of mind or in simpler terms, I snapped. Drawing my blade forth I charged forward and clashed my blade with my attacker and his companions. They fought back hardily but I was angry, stubborn, and short on patience. After disarming the first one I punched him in the side of his gut with my full strength and down he went, clutching his side. At that both his allies came at me, I simply blasted one with a fireball spell while the other had the displeasure of facing Mogan's wrath, going down quickly with confusion and soon letting a holler of terror escape his throat as Mogan dug his claws into the unlucky man’s armor. After knocking out the idiot I set ablaze and putting him out I pulled Mogan off his prey before he did some real damage, the man was unconscious and frothing at the mouth as was from terror.
Continuing on we finally arrived at the tombs that Safiria directed us to. We walked in, half expecting some undead to rise up or wander out from somewhere to assault us. But luckily nothing as such happened. Mogan and I walked the path way that interconnected all of tombs, eventually coming to a shack. It looked shabby but livable. We looked to each other but with a motion from Mogan I walked up and knocked on the door. From within the noise of something shifting and grunting came soon followed by heavy steps. The door creaked open before him stood a massive creature, it looked down upon him in clothes of ragged years. Finding my voice I asked if his name was Markus Wisp. He made an expression that to my best guess was a raised eyebrow of surprise, curiosity, and suspicion. After several moments he answered "Yes." with a dry and rusty voice and waited for me to answer. In response I told him my name was Marcus Wisp, his grandson, and his reaction was honestly alot my normal than what I was expecting, he was actually caught off guard. After regaining his composure he came outside and we talked. Telling my tale and why I sought him out he was quiet for a time. When he spoke, it was distant, he told me that if I wanted to rid myself of my curse I would have to ask the Elemental Lord of Darkness. After teaching me the ceremony needed to gain audience, or atleast try to, with the Elemental Lord he sent us to where he'd gained his audience all those centuries ago.
As we arrived I saw remnants of the pirate camp. Ancient, rusted hilts of scabbards were scattered here and there. Walking around I found a patch of ground were no grass would grow, the dirt seemed soaked with darkness. Examining the dirt it felt unnatural, like it wasn't really part of the earth, Mogan even said it smelled of darkness. Setting up the ceremony I began, the forest went silent and the shadows all around us started moving. As it progressed things were going as they did for my grandfather and I was having actual hope that I'd be free of my curse. Hope, that is until there was a flash of energy from the sky followed by blinding light and I found myself in the middle of nowhere in alien surrounding, literally. After letting the nausea and numbing feelings pass I picked myself up and checked to see what was going on. My Hydra Hunter coat was gone along with my equipment and I was left with my clothes torn up and alone. I took my surroundings in and spotted a hill a small distance away and headed towards it. Walking to the top I was able to spot city far off. With a heavy sigh I started walking, hours passed before I arrived at the cities edge, and it wasn't what I was expecting. I was so not on Lore anymore, I wasn't even sure if I was in the land of the living. I passed many different creatures and people as I walked around looking for help, some giving me odd looks, I was not sure if it was because of how their eyes were or what. Walking abit more I found what could only be a pub/bar with the noise coming out and the few beings that stumbled out with a drunken walk. Passing through the swinging doors inside some of the patrons took notice of me and watched as I went to the bar. I tried talking with the bar tender but he had no idea what I was saying and simply stopped paying attention to me. I sat down on a stool with little hope going through my mind about getting home when a little voice spoke up to me. I looked around to see who was talking to me when I was told to look down, “Down here stranger!”. Looking down I saw what looked like a moglin woman, though I wasn’t entirely sure. She said her name was Asamm Mogtress. “If you need some help I’m your woman.” she stated with a smile. We talked and I told her I was from Lore, “Lore, eh? I have heard of it, a planet with a recent reputation for trouble. I can get you there, but you will have to work for me for abit. I have some supplies I need to sell and I lack the aid for it. So here’s the deal, you work for me and help me move and sell my cargo and I will take you home, deal?” she holds out her hand as to shake on it. I think it over and with no real choice shake on it. She led me to a docking station close to the edge of town. Her ship was rather big despite her small stature. Once inside she gave told me to find some armor in the cargo bay to wear as my torn clothes weren’t going to be of help with working. After changing she seemed a little more impressed by my appearance, though not much as she had me take a seat and buckle up. I won’t forget how I reacted when she flew the ship out for the first time with me there. I was rather pressed against me seat by the force of the blast off, I was certain by her grin at my shock that she took off harder than normally done. Well it was quiet on our way to wherever she was taking us and I stared at the passing stars, both in awe and in sadness as I remembered that I was far away from home. But as the scene of space changed little I dozed off.
I was awoken later by a kick to the leg by Asamm and told to follow, it was time to work. She had me load crates onto some sort of levitating push trolley. I followed her out of the ship and placed the crates where she told me too. We did this three more times at three different planets. We finally took a break at a planet near the next stop to get some food. While I was explained by Asamm what was wrotten on the menu a man came over and slammed his hand on the table and told Asamm he wanted his property back. She just shrugged and told him it was too late, she had already sold most of it. It wasn’t too hard for me to figure that something wasn’t right and that trouble was about to happen as the man got indignant and drew his blaster. Asamm acted quickly and jumped onto the table, making it flip upward, knocking the blaster out of his hand, and she ran for the door with me following almost as soon. We made it halfway to the ship before being shot at. We hid behind some old decayed building walls as the man from before shouted to us to surrender. “Why is he after us?!” I asked Asamm. She shrugged and said he was a sore loser. We got shot at some more and I snapped at her, demanding an explanation. With things as they were she came clean and told me she stole them from the guy but that he was going to sell the stuff on the black market. I rolled my eyes in my helmet at how stupid our situation was.

Present:
And thus that brings us to the present situation of me stuck behind a stone wall with a space thief while being shot at and about to do something they might actually get me killed. Taking the quickest look I could around the corner I saw there were about a dozen of them. So as most of them stopped to reload I ran out and shot at several of them, with the aid of my helmets targeting system, and got clean shots. I took cover behind another bit of old wall as I head a holler of rage from the guy who came after us in the first place. While catching my breath and putting a new energy pack in I talked to myself, “Man, it would help if I could get a better shot at them.” And from nowhere someone replied, “I can help with that.”. It was a cheerful voice and I soon found the source in the form of colorful see-through moglin. I was quite for a few moments before I asked what it was. It said it was an A.I.C. designed to aid those who used the helmet I was wearing and that his name was ACE. I had no idea what an A.I.C. was but the blasterfire at my back made it a question for later. I asked how he could help and he said he could help me take out as many enemies as there were rounds in my gun, which was a lot. So when there was an interval I jumped out and my helm showed several targets in view and with aid from Ace they all went down. It was quiet after that and upon scoping the area there were no enemies left standing. I looked to see if Asamm was still around but she wasn’t to be found so I headed back to the ship. When I heard the engines begin to start I hightailed it and barely got in as the bay door was closing. I made it up to the cockpit where Asamm was sitting and looking like she was in a hurry. “In a hurry to get somewhere?” I asked and she jumped in her seat, looking back with a nervous smile. She tried to sound casual about me surviving but I was right mad at her. Ace jumped in when she tried to say she was going to come back to get me and revealed she had set coarse for some planet I’d never heard of. I gave her an annoyed look which she ignored as she gave a death glare at Ace.
Things had calmed down after we had taken off, with the occasional venomous arguments between Ace and Asamm, so as to tune them out I dozed off. I was hopeful to get home soon before these two drove me insane. But as I was falling asleep, a thought occurred to me, being hopeful was what got me in this situation in the first place.

End of Ch.3