I'm Bored, So heres a story.

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Calebkir wrote:

Hmm. What is with these removed by admins. GGG cracking down on trolls? Needs to go up

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Calebkir wrote:

I don't know if it's alright to post this here, but... here it is anyway. Be aware, it's around 2.5k words.

Spoiler

AN: I’m bored, the patch is slow so you get a story. I will write more and post it, but it may be sporadic at times. Any comments would be appreciated, any flames ignored, and any trolls will be fed to Kole.

Standard Fan fiction Disclaimer: I do not own Path of Exile, its characters, nor any concepts therein. I make no money off this.


Lone Exile
By: Xane Frostwind

“The first lesson in survival when on the continent of Wraeclast is that if it doesn’t speak, it wants to kill you, and if it does speak, it wants to talk to you while it’s killing you.”

-Journal of the Lone Exile


The Beach

As the sun crested above the cliffs, it fell upon a man laying half way in the receding tide, his tall, thin build rocking as the small waves pushed against him. With a groan, he slowly turned around, opening his brown eyes for the first time in what seemed like ages.

“Beautiful morning for a swim, now where on god’s ass am I?” he muttered. Sitting up, he looked around, his waking mind processing a few things.

First: He was alone.

Second: There was a very soaked dead body lying on the sand not fifteen feet from him.

Third: There was a lot of junk lying around.

Shaking his head, he rose unsteadily to his feet, absently taking stock of everything on him. His wallet and drivers license was gone, along with all of his money, keys, and phone.

“Great,” he thought. “Get the shit kicked outta me, car stolen, hauled off to who knows where and dumped on a beach with no way to communicate with anyone. Ten bucks says it’s a deserted island.”

He sighed and looked around the beach. Drift wood littered the place, along with some overturned barrels. Next to the corpse, leaning up against the stump of a tree was an old, yellow skeleton. Dismissing it as inconsequential, he was about to turn a way when he saw the gleam of something shiny. Curious, he walked over to the skeleton only to stop short, eyes wide.

The corpse moved.

More than that, it moaned.

“Uh uh. Oh hell no. You think you’re funny don’t you!” He cried, looking to the sky. “First those thugs, then a deserted island and now ZOMBIES?” The silence that greeted him was only disturbed by the sound of shifting sands, and was all he expected of an answer.

A thought popped into his head at that moment. Sands don’t shift on their own.

Taking his eyes off the sky, he leaped back as he found the zombie was almost upon him. It was slow, but steady, and he needed to take care of it before it made him lunch. He glanced around and picked up a piece of driftwood the size of his arm. He put a bit of distance between him and the walking corpse, taking practice swings and coming up with a plan.

‘Right,’ he thought, glancing at the slowly advancing zombie. “Zombies are weak to a head shot, are slow and I need to avoid getting bit. This is doable”

With a firm plan in mind, he waited until it was within striking distance with his club and then in a feat of dexterity, twirled around the monster and swung, hitting it square on the head. Before he could swing again, the monster suddenly turned around to face him, its arms swinging from the speed of the turn, hitting him flush on the side of the head.

Reeling from the blow, he swung blindly, feeling the blow connect he swung again. And again. On the fifth swing, he finally managed to cause it to collapse unmoving onto the sand. But he didn’t stop there. The poor corpse was then used outlet for all the man’s anger and frustration that he had been holding in for a while now.

Panting slightly, but feeling much better, he calmed down to actually look at the corpse. It wasn’t like the zombies he’d seen in the movies. Its skin was green, mottled with black spots; it had no eyes, and very few teeth. A battered breastplate rested on its chest, its straps straining against the bloated skin.

A gleam reminded him of what he was originally after when the corpse started moving. Holding his club ready, he cautiously made his way over to the skeleton, “Because,” he figured, “If walking corpses are real, what’s to say that walking skeletons aren’t?”

Five feet from the skeleton, he lunged the last step and swung, sending the skull flying into the cliff wall. The skeleton hadn’t moved, and the man was almost disappointed. He reached down not taking his eyes of its arms, and after a bit of fumbling, closed his hand around a small, irregular object.

Quickly backing up, he examined the object. It was an oval red gem the size of a ping pong ball with a gold like protrusion around the middle and weighed far more than its size suggested. But the part the man was most interested in was the soft, almost unnoticeable glow coming from within the gem. It spoke to him of something he only dared dream about, but never thought he’d see.

Magic.

He glanced at the fallen zombie. ‘Zombies, magic, this can’t be real,” He thought.
Looking at the gem, he decided if it was magic, he’d dance for joy. But if it wasn’t, it was bound to be valuable, and therefore worth holding on to. His mind made up, he concentrated on the gem, willing it to invoke its magic.

After a minute of staring at the gem, he came to the conclusion that he looked the fool, standing the on a beach looking intently at a gem. ‘Maybe it’s a magical grenade?’ He thought.

Tilting his head in thought, he glanced at the fallen zombie. “Hmmm…” He mused “A test is in order, and you my zombie friend, have just volunteered. Rejoice! For you get to further the cause of Xane Frostwind!”

Chuckling to himself, Xane drug the corpse over to the stump next to the skeleton and propped it into a sitting position. Stepping back, he retrieved the gem from his pocket and made to throw when a thought came to him. Throwing an unknown magic object without any thought of safety was tantamount to suicide, and while he may be slightly unhinged, he wasn’t stupid. He glanced around and found no cover on the long flat beach that was within throwing distance, nor did he feel like making a sand burn with nothing but his hands. He did, however, spot a trio of barrels a little ways off, and was soon dragging them into position. On the last one he spotted a sand covered plank of wood, which turned out to be many planks of wood lashed together to form a makeshift shield with a red circle painted in the middle.

His bulwark of three barrels and the makeshift shield ready, he stepped behind the barrels and was about to throw when it occurred to him that the breastplate the zombie was wearing maybe useful, as zombies rarely traveled alone. At least they didn’t in all the movies he’s watched.

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he went over to the corpse and proceeded to puzzle out the straps that held the thing on. After a few minutes of fumbling, he finally managed to undo the straps and with a sickening sucking sound, ripped the front plate off the corpse. Nearly gagging at the smell, he did the same to the back half, and after resetting the zombie to its sitting position, dragged the two metal plates to the water line. Ten minutes of scrubbing later, he examined the armor. It was made out of some form of steel, and had that same circle as his shield painted on it, although this time it was blue.

‘War. War Never changes.’ He quoted, thinking of the battle that must have happened here. Shaking his head, he painstakingly put the breastplate on. Once the final strap was secured, he turned and tested his movement and range of motion. Finding it to slow him down slightly, but not interfere with his arms, he smiled a jogged to his makeshift wall.

“Are you ready now?” he asked the zombie. Taking his silence as acceptance, he drew back, and with the skill of one who hasn’t thrown anything in a long while, missed completely. With a yelp he quickly scurried after the rolling gem, just catching it as the water caught it, attempting to drag it out to sea.

Xane made his way back to the barrels, and after a bit of shifting prepared to throw again. This one also went wide, but with the new barrel position, the stone landed into the sand away from the thieving surf. Two more throws and he heard the satisfying thunk of the gem hitting the corpse. Glancing around his shield, he looked at the zombie. Nothing had changed, except now it had a gem in its belly.

Sighing in defeat, he walked over and plucked the gem from the corpse, absently cleaning it off on his pants and put it in his pocket. It was time to find out where he was. He glance at the cliffs lining the beach and dismissed the idea of climbing them, he didn’t like the idea of doing so without serious safety equipment, a buddy and an ambulance waiting, so he made his way back to the barrels to retrieve his club and shield. Said items acquired, he glanced at the barrels. Two looked to be sealed water barrels and the last had a stout lid that looked like it could be removed. A grunt and a thump later, Xane looked inside and with a shaking hand removed an old rusty sword.

Two and a half feet long, it looked almost as dull as his club, and had spots of rust running all up and down the blade. Its grip was tight leather bound in a metal cap with no hand guard to speak of, but what really caught his attention was the three circles; red, blue and green, painted upon the leather. He confirmed with a glance that all matched the circles painted on the breastplate and shield, but sized differently.

Inspiration struck, and he retrieved the gem from his pocket. Holding it in his left hand, sword in his right he swung the sword concentrating on the gem. Nothing happened save for a thunk, a curse and a sword suck in the now lidless barrel. Grumbling as he yanked on the sword, he decided to try doing the same thing, except with the gem touching the red circle. And away from the barrels, of course.

Freeing the sword, he stepped back and placed the gem against the circle. He yelped and dropped the sword when it suddenly melted into the grip, hiding behind his shield as he waited for the inevitable explosion. A minute passed, and after a quick glance around the shield, he put his head in hand. ‘I need to toughen up. If there are zombies here, I’m going to need to calm down, as this jumping around like a scared little girl is just going to get me killed.’ He thought.

Taking a deep breath, he stood, and picked up the sword. There was no spark or fire or eldritch light, but the ring was filled in, with a gold imprint curiously shaped like the protrusion from the gem. Gripping the sword tightly, he repeated the previous step of swing and concentrate, and was rewarded with a swing that had more force that he had prepared for, and nearly fell on his ass.

Grinning, he went over to the two sealed barrels and pried the first life off with his sword. Inside was clean water, and he readily drank his fill. His thirst quenched for the interim, he pulled off the other lid, expecting water. He was surprised when he found a scroll and two glass vials, each with a different cap.

Smiling at his luck, he dipped the largest vial into the water barrel only to stare at the red liquid that flowed into the vial. After it was full he took an experimental sniff. Finding no rancid smell he took a small drink, and nearly groaned as the small aches he was ignoring from the unaccustomed work out disappeared.

A lot of people would classify the smile on his face at that point as pure evil.

As it was, the smile only got larger as the other vial filled with blue liquid when he dipped it into the now almost empty barrel. A confirmation sniff and Xane brought the vial to his lips. As the liquid went down his throat, he felt and small surge of energy.

Children had run crying from smiles less evil than his.

Xane put the cap on and picked up his sword from where he placed it on the rim of the barrel. He stepped back, thought of the gem and to his surprise, swung his sword and smashed the barrel into flying splinters.

The Devil would’ve looked twice at the smile on Xane’s face.

A few tests and Xane found he could only use the gem a few times before he needed to rest. He was hesitant to use the blue water, as he didn’t have anymore clean water, and had a passing thought that it would probably be bad to use sea water or other non-drinkable water to fuel the vials.

This in mind, he began his trek down the beach.

Edited for a mistake or 2...

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Calebkir wrote:

Hmm. What is with these removed by admins. GGG cracking down on trolls? Needs to go up