Starting Anew

Sid stands waiting behind a counter. He had just signed some papers dealing with his release and a "prescription" amount of Astragalus herb roots. It had been 6 months that he had been in the hospital and honestly he should probably be staying longer, not all of his fractures had fully healed. He wasn't sure how he would do in the outside world again. He was now broke and all he had on him were the clothes on his back and a moderate sized pouch of Astragalus herb roots.

As he makes his way out the entrance he sees all of the people there. There were nowhere near as many injured when he had first came in. He didn't know exactly what was causing it, but from what he heard, some Elder Dragon was running amuck. It seemed odd to him, usually the Peacekeepers would have taken care of it well before it got to the point it had. As he exits the Shelter he notices a Guard outside.

The city guard walked up to Sidney, there was a notice in his hands. As he stopped in front of the newly released he began to read it. “Sir due to the lack of able bodied guard, we are here by recruiting every able body being to take up arms against the masses of monster stirred up by recent events. This order was given by the peacekeepers.” The guard then lowered the notice so he could look at Sidney. Reaching in to a pouch he pulled out an odd looking token, handing it towards Sidney. “This token will get you some basic armor and weapons from the armory down the road, as well as some gold coin given for enlisting in to the recruitment army. If you have any questions please ask the barrack captain. He will have more details any questions you may have.” The guard would then walk in side to find any more people to recruit, leaving the token in Sidney’s hand.

Sid looks down at the token and clenches his fist around it. "Things must be worse than I had thought..." he says. He then heads down the street towards where the guard had directed them. Sid was not about to join the guards, but he would see what it was they needed help with. It really struck him funny that the Peacekeepers were seeking help.

Sidney Hawkins wrote:(Go ahead and post that he gets put in the hospital after this.)

Sidney looks over to Imusa and is surprised by his consideration to Sidney's discomfort.  I'm glad you came, but even more so that that other death intervened.  I've never even read about such circumstances in modern times where deaths were conflicted like that.  He is extremely grateful that the three had interfered on his and his team's behalf, and he knew exactly how abnormal this was.

Imusa had made it with sidney to the hospital and place him in the first vacant bed with a light grunt he sets him down. "there we go." imusa stood up and nodded thinking about how to answer sidney. "well none of the death have really ever done that... and plus most history is only recent only the halls of lost city's or in the archive in my tower would have such records that date older then what you find in modertowns. uncensored at that." imusa said remembering some tomes now where rather twisted to the point they where lies, or some just outright lied. imusa went to take his leave to leave sidney in the care of any doctors.

Well, again, thanks. says Sidney as one of the nurses walks up. Back so soon Mr. Hawkins. I hate to tell you that there aren't any new History or Bestiary books since the last time you were in. I still can't believe how quickly you went through all that the library had. I'd never seen someone read through so much material anywhere near as fast. Sidney kind of frowns, remembering the time that he was here before.

Imusa had yet to leave when he heard the nurse talk to sidney, the man had read through all there books here sidney might be why that group survived the encounter with the white beast. imusa took a moment and smiled looking at sidney. "once your able to travel again and you find your self on the Lights corner port in the dragons lands come to my tower you might find the library there full filling you needs for learning." with that imusa made his way out of the hospital and teloported as if particulars of his body disappeared in little white flex of light.

As Sidney was helped to a bed he responded to Imusa I'll keep that in mind, if I find the opportunity, I will definitely try and stop in. He then is settled into the poor quality bed that he had become all too accustomed to. He sighs and starts a pleasant conversation with the nurse before she goes out and gets a doctor. As Sidney waits he realizes that this could be interesting as the doctor won't be able to help all that much with what his issue was.

When the Doctor came in, it had taken quite a lot to convince him that he would be unable to help Sidney much. Even when Sidney told the Doctor that it was Deathtouch that was plaguing him, and that Imusa had done what he could, the Doctor still was skeptical. Eventually he did look Sidney over and due to Sidney's body condition yet lack of a physical cause he determined that Sidney was telling the truth. After he left the nurses came over every now and then to ask Sidney about what he lead to the run-in with death.

They were kept amused with the stories of his latest adventure and while a lot of people came in and lied about their deeds in the past, Sidney always gave credit where it was due. This led to a less self-centered story that they believed. After a while Sidney started getting bored and while it was true that he had read about all there was to read about the creatures of Humus and the world even, he hadn't fully delved into the History of the region, he was more knowledgeable about the History of Tempestas more than anything else. He calls a nurse over and asks if someone could gather some local History books up for him. He's told that they'll have some for him in the morning.

The rest of the day is rather boring. That night he slowly drifts asleep. His sleep is very troubled, not from the Lich, the Golden Horse Killer, or the Angha which had troubled him a lot in the past, but of the Death trying to snatch the soul from his living body.

While Sidney is sleeping Remy stops by and leaves a note for Sidney that says "Sidney, I made a Waterfall Bank Account for you and deposited your share from that odd horse killer. We made out really well, I think you'll be happy with the payout. As far as the gear from the chests, I'm not sure what's going on with that as Tokara has some errands he is running. The password to your Waterfall bank account is the name of Tokara's Horse, the password is only in place until you see them the first time and then there won't be a password - Remy"

Sidney wakes up the next morning and yawns, he stretches very briefly as he feels stiff.  After a while he sees a pile of books beside him and under them there appears to be piece of paper.  He pulls it out and reads it, seeing that it's from Remy.  He wishes he would have been awake when Remy had came but it was still nice of him to have done as much as he had even though the two of them hadn't seemed to get along as much as possible.

After having a light breakfast Sidney starts on his first book which is actually about the History of Mendefera.  He frowns as he makes it through a few chapters, it was filled with blatantly biased accounts of primarily fictitious events that glorified Mr. Friedrich Von Ronsenberg.  While this book might have some truth to some things, like Von Ronsenberg's accomplishments before Mendefera, it would be damned near impossible to pick out from all of the lies and kiss ass stories.    Sidney puts the book away and starts chatting with the nurses whenever they have a rare free moment.

Then passes lunch and Sidney picks the book back up reading another couple of chapters which is all he can stomach before a very boring evening and him going to bed.  Again his dreams are focused on that death.  This time though it is a little more mellow, less on the actual events and more on why she was after him, almost as if he was being scolded by 'her'.

(2/30)

The first thing that Sidney does once he awakens is get a nurses attention. He asks the nurse to please find any books that might pertain to the entrance ritual of the Assassin's Guild. The nurse looks at him funny but says that he will go and get them. He does good as it was shortly after Sidney finished breakfast that the nurse had returned with 11 books that all had relevant information. Sidney read through the first one completely by lunch time. And he read through the second by supper and the third by bedtime.

So far he was getting rather agitated, they all just mention about it being a tradition though one does make reference to a name that he had heard before. It was the name of the death that had tried to take his soul. He read two more books that night because he couldn't sleep. The last book was the most insightful as it mentioned about it having been done by the founder of the assassin's guild, exchanging his soul for help with assassinations. Apparently he lied to the rest saying that it was just a tradition and good luck thing. This enraged Sidney and gave him a new goal in life.

When he finally did fall asleep he again dreampt of that death but this time the death seemed rather friendly to him. It said it had a proposition for him, if he killed the Assassin's Guild leader it would leave him to be reaped by the proper death when it was his time.

When Sidney wakes up he shakes his head a little. He wasn't sure that it was really a Death contacting him in his dream, but that deal sure sounded like a deal with Death. Agreeing to that deal would probably drop his morality enough for that Death to be the one to take him anyways. It was a typical deal that a Death would offer, tricking the human into doing more for it and eventually getting what Death was going to get in the first place.

At the same time, even if he did accept it, the head of the Assassin's Guild was his former mentor and he knew darn well that he was nowhere near the level to be able to face him. Ironically though, it was definitely something that he wanted to do. The Guild Master was a self centered ass, and that had been Sidney's opinion of him before Sidney had mellowed down and righted himself. Throughout the day Sidney reads a few more books about the ritual and the truth of it gets more and more sickening to him.

By bedtime all 11 of the books had been read by Sidney. He gets to sleep at a pretty normal time this time. He had fully expected another random dream with Death in it and sure enough it happens, but this time is different. The Death is in the dream all right, but she seems more bored than anything else. Nothing is said in the dream by either person. It was actually extremely weird considering the past few dreams.

(4/30)

Sidney woke up from his relatively peaceful nap more confused than anything else. What in the world was going on and why would he have dreams like that. It's a shame that he wasn't able to talk to the other Death more to try and determine exactly what the cause of this was. He understood nightmares about it, even though he wasn't particularly prone to nightmares, but just chilling out in the dream? That was really weird.

After breakfast Sidney starts reading more of the local history books and again, they aren't very useful as they are still mostly worshiping the ground that Ronsenberg walked on. How a man could own brothels and do so many unsavory things but still be loved so much by the public was beyond Sidney and probably beyond anyone else that had their heads screwed on straight. In the next couple of books he only reads a dozen or so new and interesting facts.

Come supper time he had read 3 books total and had amassed a total of 18 or so interesting and likely truthful tidbits of information from the region including exactly how it was that Von Ronsenberg had been able to get all of the land for Mendefera so cheap and how Mendefera was built around a previously set up layout. Before he goes to sleep he kind of mutters out loud to himself about how he wishes he could talk to the first death that he had run into before and and after he met the second death.

(5/30)

The previous night had started with a typical dream with the Death that had tried to take his soul while he was still alive. In the dream she had spoke some with Sidney about how killing people for her that had already committed crimes against humanity would be good for his morality. Sidney listens to her in his dream but he doesn't seem very convinced. A while into this dream the death disappears and is shortly thereafter replaced by the death that had intervened and probably.... no, definitely had saved his life.

He has a conversation with her that is rather lengthy about the dream with the other death. She explains to him that it is a kind of loophole in the rulings of deaths having little to do with humans and that she is trying to interfere with fate and how she is trying to get him to do the same. She explains that following the other death would just further sink him further into her clutches. After this though, she says something that REALLY grabs his attention. She tells him that if he looks hard enough he will find a way to undo what had been done by the assassin's guild ritual. After saying this she disappears and Sidney awakens.

He had slept until about midday which surprised him and had the nurses worried that he had been regressing rather than progressing. He pretty much immediately asks for books regarding dealings with the deaths and if there are any methods to purify deals with death. The get books to him in the evening and there isn't much time for him to read. He gets through one book and finds nothing of interest before falling asleep.

(6/30)

Admin Interruption!(Rolling for chance of rare find.if the roll is 18-20 you will find a large clue in the next book you read. the clue how ever maybe coded and not understood very well the lower the number the easier its is to understand. DOING THIS FOR THE LAWLS!)

The member 'forty' has done the following action : Dices roll

'20 Side' : 2

That night in his dreams he is scolded by the Death that had tried to take his soul. She repeatedly growls at him that he won't escape his fate no matter what he does. After a night full of dreams of that nature he wakes up relatively early as it isn't full daylight out yet. He has a decent breakfast and he contemplates if there really would be any useful information in the books here in Mendefera. That couldn't be very common information, mostly because a lot of people would likely consider any accounts of this as false information.

Regardless of that Sidney decides to continue with reading the books that the nurse had kindly supplied for him. He reads a couple of the books before lunchtime which was no great feat. One of the books was relatively short and the other one has a bunch of pointless pictures in it. The most useful information in either of those two books was that it had appeared as though Von hadn't been so corrupt seeming, or perverted in the past. Even when he was a business tycoon which seemed out to Sidney as being a business tycoon would probably make people corrupt more at first than later. It didn't necessarily add up to Sidney.

That afternoon he reads up through more books. These ones are more informational than the other ones had been to this point but they were too vague and only really mentioned that there was a way to reverse "dealings with death" but that they only worked once in a lifetime and that they weren't sure how to do it. Then Sidney eats supper before falling asleep.

(7/30)

That night's sleep at the end of the first week of him being in the hospital was pretty predictable. He slept pretty well but his sleep was again full of dreams. This time was pretty similar to the last night's series of dreams, though this time the message was a little bit different than before. This time he was told that he wasn't going to succeed in finding anything, that his efforts would continue to be futile.

After a few of these dreams that seemed to be a little bit longer than the dreams from the night before he awakens. When he wakes up he notices that it is a rainy day. He sighs and then eats breakfast. He cringes for a second as he wonders about there being a possible bill this time. He wonders what the fee was per day when you were in the hospital but not recovering from surgery or anything. After all he was taking up a bed during a time when there were a lot of refugees and injured people. This made him feel a little guilty.

From that time until lunch and even through supper Sidney reads a few more books and he finally finds something that is more direct than the further tidbits of information that he had gotten. This had a reference to some kind of ancient spring, not the fountain of youth or the spring of life, but something else. It said that the water was completely pure. This water was supposed to purify your soul from any dealings with death, but only once. Before he goes to bed he tells the Nurse that he has read what he needed to. He then asks for some books that might have references to legendary places, in specific The Ancient Spring. The nurse says that he will do what he can and that he'll try to have them for him sometime in the morning. Sidney thanks him and then goes to sleep.

(8/30)

In his sleep that night Sidney dreams about the Death that he had dreamed about every night that he had been in the hospital to this point. This time she was telling him that the Ancient Spring was a fantastical hoax. That it was just going to be a waste of what little life he had left to go and get it. After a couple of dreams of this nature in the same night it becomes pretty obvious what she is trying to do.

When Sidney wakes up it doesn't take him long to crack a smile. Death was trying to drive him away from this Ancient Spring because there was truth behind it. Why else would she try and convince him that it was pointless? Wouldn't that be a good thing for her if it really was? Sidney continues thinking about this through breakfast and shortly after breakfast the books that he had asked for the night before are brought to him. He thanks the nurse and then begins to read one of them.

It doesn't take him long to realize that this too is going to be painful reading as this book loosely references random legendary locations and where people speculate that they are. Truthfully that is likely all Sidney would be able to read up on as he didn't have very high hopes on figuring an exact location. He gets into a second similar book and finishes it before he goes to sleep. That day he didn't find anything useful. He hadn't even found a reference to the Ancient Spring in either of the books.

(9/30)

In his sleep that night Sidney gets exactly what he would expect for a dream. That Death mocking his efforts. Saying things like "See, I told you it was pointless" and "Looking for that imaginary place again?" or "You sure enjoy wasting your life with trivial matters." Sidney ignores it as much as possible in the dream but if it did have any effect on Sidney it would encourage him to continue searching, not discourage him, because she was giving him the desire to prove that he was right and that she was speaking crap.

When he wakes up he feels a strengthened desire to read through the books and skips breakfast doing so. He reads several books throughout the day. He reads about The Golden Plains in the heart of Lymphae, The Maiden's Oasis in the lava flows Igneus and The Jeweled Grotto in the depths of the Atrum swamps. He gets more useful information on The Ancient Spring as well, reading about it being somewhere in Luminarium, but that is about as much information as he finds until later in the evening.

In the evening he finally finds something that is more useful. This text tells him that The Ancient Spring is actually the fountain at the center of the long hidden Crystal City. By the time he goes to bed he finds another reference to this. As a result he asks if the nurses can return these books and bring some that might have information on the Crystal City in Luminarium for him.

That night Sidney's dreams with death in them were very grating and annoying with death telling him that the only one of the legendary locations that Sidney read about that didn't exist was the Ancient Spring that he was seeking information about. Sidney eventually went off on death in his dream, the only line of his that he would remember once he awoke was that he called her a lying manipulative bitch that was acting like a kid testing boundaries to see how much they could get away with. Death's reaction to this was 'Thank you for the compliment.'

When Sidney awoke he realized that Death had seemed more amused than anything else at him snapping at her like that. Maybe she was testing to see exactly how much of a back bone Sidney had? He wasn't sure, all he was sure of today was that he had one hell of a headache from all of the reading the past few days. With that in mind, even though the nurse had arrived with the books that he had asked for Sidney still decided not to read anything and to take a break today.

Instead of the usual he talked with the nurses on and off and was trying to figure out if anything interesting had happened in the outside world since he had gotten bed-ridden again. He didn't find out much other than that Big Red had moved on from Mendefera for now, in search of more exotic creatures from other lands across the globe.

11/30

Sidney had pretty mellow dreams that night and for the first time in his hospital stay he didn't have a single dream involving the evil death, or either of the two deaths that he had met for that matter. Instead he dreams about his past, back when he and his brother had been a nuisance to everybody in his home town. Climbing all over the place, running off adventuring and just narrowly missing being killed by bandits, harpies or other mountain dwelling threats.

When Sidney wakes up he feels more refreshed than he had since his stay. That didn't last very long however, as soon as he sat up in bed a horrible nauseous feeling took over and he laid right back down again. This was definitely going to be another day in which he doesn't get any research done again. At this point Sidney is starting to get extremely anxious about getting back on the road again. He has a lot that he wants to get done, especially if there had been much money made off from that Golden Horse Killer. He would put the finishing funding into getting his hometown rebuilt.

That afternoon Sidney goes rumor hunting again with the nurses. This time he hears an interesting story about with some kind of unique weapon that is being referred to as a root whip. It is said that she can do some amazing things with it and sounds as though it is an Earth elemental weapon. It kind of sounds like a weapon that is similar to Sidney's Plasite Cutter and Tokara's Meteor Sword.

(12/30)

Again that night Sidney dreamed of his past. This time was much less pleasant than the last time however. This time he dreamed of when his town was destroyed by the Angha's and the mass destruction that they had caused. He dreamed of his and his brother's reactions to finding their parents dead, and then one by one each of their friend's and then simply finding everybody else dead. That to this day had easily been the worst day in his life.

He must have slept extremely restlessly that night because when he woke up things around his bed had been knocked to the floor, and when the nurse came by she seemed to check on him a bit more than normal seeing if he was alright. Today he was far different than normal. He was more introverted and quiet, not speaking with anybody unless spoken to. This lasted through breakfast, throughout the morning, lunch and into the afternoon. It would have lasted the entire day if it wasn't for a rumor that he heard one of the nurses talking to another nurse about.

Apparently that giant earth dragon that had flown over his group had once again been spotted off from the coast from the Assassin's Guild and then again over Sidewind Pass, coming back towards the center of Humus. If that rumor was true than horrible things were about to happen once again. Sidney can't do anything more than hope and pray that the dragon is somehow dealt with before it sows even more chaos.

(13/30)

Sidney's dreams continue to advance throughout his past as this night Sidney dreams about his brother and himself as they sought revenge on the Angha. He remembers that man who said he would help them both gain the strength they would need. At the time he thought that this man was a hero to them, now he knew differently. That man had been the head of the Assassin's guild and had lead both him and his brother down a dark path in the name of revenge. He's also the one that got them both to do the Assassin's guild ritual.

As Sidney wakes up a thought hits him that shakes him to the core. If that ritual really did bind your soul to the evil death than his brother must have.... Sidney tries to clear this thought out of his head but he can't. He remembers one of the last things that his brother had said to him and that was 'If either of us die fighting these creatures, at least we'll get to see everybody again.'

Sidney feels himself once again slipping into the dark path from before. Once again lead there by the head of the Assassin's Guild and once again because of revenge. This time however the cause was different. He knew now that he would kill the Assassin's Guild Leader no matter the cost. With all of the people that he had fooled into the 'tradition', he needed to die to end his tricking that many more people. There were some members of the Assassin's guild with morals who picked and chose their targets and they surely didn't deserve the same fate of those who were just cold blooded killers.

That night was a night of clarity for Sidney. He dreamed of exactly what would happen if he was to go after his old mentor anytime soon, even at full health. It wasn't that he hadn't known, but his thinking had been clouded. It would be a horrible tortured filled death for him. It is very clear that he needed to get much better than he was now. When he was awake he was feeling much better.

He stretched quite a bit and even got out of bed a couple of times during the day in order to limber up. At this rate it wouldn't be all that long before he could walk around Mendefera a bit and kill off some of his boredom. Throughout the day he talks with the nurses and doctors and again he listens to the recent rumors from around Humus.

This time wasn't as useful as the rumors had been in the past. He did hear a rumor that the man named Donnie Love was indeed based somewhere in the forests of Humus. Yeah, that was sooo useful because humus wasn't like.... seventy five percent forest. Oh that's right, it is seventy five percent forest. Well, then again it would be something useful if he even heard anything in the future to help him narrow it down.

Later that day Sidney takes out his map and tries to hide exactly what it is that makes his map as special as it is. He doesn't see anything out of the ordinary nearby, at least not in the hospital.

(15/30)