Path of Exile Talent Competition

I opened my eyes, reflexively squinting against the sunlight, finding myself standing in Highgate. I died?, I thought, Of course I did. I sighed before slightly grimacing as the memories came flooding back – as they always do. I was fighting Malachai. I had just destroyed the third heart and was fighting a group of abominations that crawled out of the sea of blood. I was distracted. Malachi disappeared, then exploded behind me. I tried to get away. I wasn't fast enough.

I find a wall to rest against as I collect myself; coming back was always a little unnerving. I've fought Malachai countless times before. I've crushed him, shattered him, dismembered him, burned him, flayed him, pierced him, cursed him, withered him, electrocuted him, and killed him in many, many more ways. But each time is different and I still haven't quite adapted to the style I've adopted this time around. Obviously.

I look up toward the city before me and watch as phantoms of other people interact with its citizens. Selling their wares to either Kira or Petarus and Vanja, planning with Oyun and Dialla, conversing with Tasuni, or getting their fortune read by Navali. I interact with them sometimes as well, trading for currency or equipment. They are all variations of the same six people, all of which I have experienced myself as. I often wonder if these phantoms are me, or if they are other people caught in this cycle as I am?

Why am I here? What is the purpose of this cycle of fighting, dying, resurrecting? Is there something I am supposed to learn? To accomplish? With no answers to offer I stand up and begin making my way to the Waypoint. Whatever the reason I know I will keep fighting and maybe, hopefully, this story will end and I can finally wake up from this dream.

Call her Hiaula

The name she had been born with was forgotten: call her Hiaula. How long had she spent on this hell, this Wraeclast? More moons than most who washed ashore managed, that much was for certain. She prided herself on her ability to survive in the wildernesses, the dream-dark wastes, the monster-infested plains. There was nothing left for her to discover on this island. She knew her corner of it intimately, and it was this intimacy that kept her alive, day by day, as she scavenged and foraged, fought and bled.

The shore was a thin wash of grey sand, colour drained from it by a constant infusion of muddy rain and dark blood. Her territory began at one end of the beach, the other survivors' huddled together at the other side. Every now and again she would come close enough to see the outline of their ramparts, barely more than planks of wood, stolen from the wrecks that lined the coast, bound together with rotting ropes or mouldy vines. They scurried together like dogs in a pen, jumping and barking at anything that came near to their precious gateways, pelting the shambling deadmen with stones and flint-tipped arrows.

Hiaula laughed at them. Their way was to die, that much was obvious. When the deadmen rose the only thing to do was to run. Resisting the simple truth of things was what got exiles killed. She would occasionally see them running along the shore towards the Watch, screaming and shouting, begging for help. The loud ones never survived. They would scratch and scrape at the wooden gates under their hands bled for splinters, whilst a hundred deadmen pulled them down to the sand. The quiet ones would watch and wait, and make their way to safety under cover of night or rain. For these exiles, Hiaula felt a pang of kinship. Survival was an instinct, this much was true, but only animals act on instinct alone. To survive was to be smarter than the animals that surrounded you.

The waxing of the moon had led her close to the Watch, and she regarded the weak spitting torchlight that marked their camp with a cool disdain. Wet sand curled between her toes. High in its heavenly abode, the moon looked down on the scavenger and shone a light towards the prizes brought in by the tide.

Ten deadmen could be worth as much as one, depending on where they were from. Exiles were stripped of most belongings, but their clothes were usually left with them. Some came in burlap scraps, useful in their own right, but Hiaula took special care to search out the corpses wrapped in silk or cotton, the rich men and women. They more often than not washed ashore with a bevy of other goods, metal buttons and cured leather belts, that she could use for any number of purposes. The shiv she carried at her side was forged from the steel boot cap of a man who had washed ashore without half of his body. The sirens always seemed to chew up the rich men first.

Picking her way between the battered ribs of shipwrecks led her to a painfully common find. A small wooden chest, heavy enough with loot to have sunk deep into the sand, but locked and bound with chains and metal latches. Hiaula cursed in ten languages as she grappled with the metal. She hadn't lived in Oriath long enough to learn what a keyhole was, nor how to pick it.

She relented. Perhaps one of the exiles at the Watch knew the secrets of the metal clasps that held the thing shut. For all she knew what was inside the thing was worthless, and she would happily trade it to those exiles who dreamed of the comforts of home in exchange for food and water. How many times had she made such transactions? None recently. She wondered if the exiles at the Watch were even the ones she remembered there. How many had died or fled further inland?

A groan. Her hand snapped to her dagger and she spent precious seconds untangling it from her belt. One of the deadmen around her was moving, slowly beginning to stand. She would have to leave her treasure for another day, she would have to run, now, and hope that the deadman wouldn't somehow signal others to follow her.

The groan turned into a word.

"Where?"

The man was grey, his eyes sunk into his skull, but he wasn't dead. Muscles seemed to curl from every bone along him, and each swathe of dark skin was painted with symbols and icons in bright red. As he staggered to his feet, blood and water dripping from his damaged body, Hiaula balked. He was twice her size, and if he had been a dead man then there wouldn't have been a thing she could do to fight him off if he had set his mind to following her.

"You're alive?" It seemed like a stupid thing to ask, but she had to be sure. The words came out of her slowly. It had been a long time since she had spoken to another living person.

"Wraeclast." He said, nodding, looking around. He was injured and tired, barely standing, but he still managed to stagger towards her. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" Her hand shot to her weapon again. His tone was that of confrontation, not relief. The few living men she'd dealt with on this shoreline begged for help rather than make demands.

"The totem." If she hadn't moved back a few steps he would have caught her in his mighty swinging arms. "Where is it?"

"You washed up alone, giant man. There is nothing here except you, me and the sands." She pointed idly at the crate she had been wrestling with. "And a locked up box."

He paused, a great sadness flowing over his chiseled features. He rubbed a hand across his face, smearing blood from his mouth down to his chin.

"I will make another."

At that he walked past her and out onto the strand alone. She shook her head. He was so badly injured that it was a miracle he wasn't already dead, and yet here he was shambling his way into the thick of the deadmen with loud, heavy footsteps. Despite his size he was clearly no idiot. He threaded his way between deadmen with remarkable ease, occasionally stopping to bend down and grab something out of the sand. Hiaula followed him, far too curious as to what the brute had in mind to leave him alone in the night.

He stopped in front of a chunk of driftwood.

"There is an exile camp down the beach." She offered as she approached him. "It should be safe there until morning." He said nothing, his attention absorbed entirely by the grey knot of oak in the sand before him.

"No." He said through gritted teeth. "This is more important."

With that he leaned forward and hefted the log onto his shoulder. He seemed to sniff at the air before turning back towards her and heading off along the beach.

Towards her own camp.

How could he have known? Hiaula thought as she followed. A glance thrown over her shoulder reminded her of the pathetic spots of light that marked the other exiles' watch fires. Perhaps he has no interest in the others either. Perhaps he will kill me in my sleep and eat me. Perhaps...

"I am sorry." He said once she was close enough to hear him over the crash of the rising tide. "I never asked your name. Mine is Tukra."

"Hiaula. Where are you going, Tukra?"

He grinned.

"Your camp, it should be quiet there. You are leading me there well enough."

"And the tree?"

"It is for the totem." The grin faded. "I should not have lost it."

"You are not from Oriath."

"No, but it is because of Oriath that I find myself here."

"You seem very calm. Most exiles I've met are manic."

"The world is my home. There is no place where I could be considered an exile. The ancestors spread their hands across each land until place was known by them. I am not afraid of this Wraeclast, as you are."

She decided not to respond. Hiaula was used to the doting admiration of the other exiles, the ones who knew that they could not make it on their own without help, the ones who had braved the wilds in bands of five or six and had come back as two or three, and all the more fearful for it. Their respect for her ran deep, even if she held them in contempt.

The camp was not far. Tukra led her through the same rocky crevices she had clambered through just hours ago, as if he knew the land as well as she did. Before long they came to the place, a small cave whose entrance was covered over with a lattice of branches, cloth and vines. Tukra waited as she pulled the cover aside, and then stooped down to enter the cave, still carrying his log with him.

He placed it near her fire pit as gently as anyone else would lay down a baby. Hiaula busied herself for a moment as he fumbled with the embers, turning away for a moment to dig through her trove of scavenged goods to find some cloth. When she turned back, she was surprised to see her dead fire crackling into life.

"How did you do that?" She snapped, tearing up valuable cloth, thoroughly cleaned in a pan of boiled water that morning, in order to better bind his wounds.

He grinned in response.

"I will tell you if you lend me your knife."

Fear washed over her in a crashing wave. She had no reason to trust this man, this stranger, and she had no reason to believe that he wouldn't take the knife from her hands only to turn it on her the instant she had disarmed herself. At the same time, a long dulled aspect of Hiaula whispered to her, there was no reason why he couldn't have killed her already. He turned the mast of deadwood over in his hands as if it weighed nothing.

She drew her knife with a quick motion and turned the handle towards him, already hating herself for her decision. If she lived, she decided, she would invest in another knife, for moments like this. Maybe a third knife, a dud or fake made of painted wood, in case she needed a distraction or a chance to escape any time in the future she found herself cornered by a giant.

Tukra held the knife over the fire and watched it until it glowed gently, heat weaving through the metal and turning it a bright sunset orange. Then he turned the knife in his hand to hold it backwards, steadying the blade by placing his other palm against the makeshift weapons wooden pommel, and began to chip away at the wood he had carried from the beach.

"My people believe that stories hold power." He began to say. "That there is strength to be gained from the past, from the collected wisdom of our forebears, from-"

He turned suddenly, back towards the entrance of the cave, the knife paused against his carving.

"What?"

"Nothing. I thought I heard something, but it is night." He hesitated for a moment but quickly returned to his work. "The most dangerous predators wait for day, for the only food to be had at night is mice and grain."

"This is your first night on Wraeclast, Tukra, you have much to learn."

"As do you. I would like you to consider this some meagre payment for your kindness. Come closer, you look as if you are ready to use those bandages of yours."

Hiaula obliged, and as he worked she began to wrap coarse linen over the worst of his cuts, sprinkling weak moonshine onto the cloth, hoping that his wounds would not become infected. She was beginning to like the strange, huge man. He spoke to her with the respect devoted to equals.

"This," He murmured as he tapped with her knife, chiseling away at a section of wood that he had already scraped clean of dead bark. "This is the story of Palgruiz the Reckless, who was so small he rode a mainland Rhoa into battle." He pointed at the symbols he was writing. "His many victories against fellow tribes made him so bold that he led the charge against a group of Oriath horse-riders, who trampled him without a second thought."

There was a sort of sense to what he was carving, and as he spoke the symbols began to coalesce into detailed murals of battles long lost to any other historian.

"See here, once I am done you will be able to see Drenluz the Dragon, whose words were fire in the hearts of his men and a terrible inferno to his enemies."

Time passed. Each time the fire burned low Tukra would reinvigorate the embers with a passing shove that caused them to crackle to life once again.

"Look, the story of my great-great-grandfather, Toruvara the Wise, who was the first of the storytellers of my family. He believed that honoring our ancestors was the path to greater power over the other tribes."

"Did you believe that?"

"There is power in truths as much as there is power in lies. Wraeclast is a land of shadows and myths. I will purge it with my truth that no darkness remains."

Before long Hiaula fell asleep. As her eyelids drooped she could see the huge man with her tiny knife cutting a symbol of a winged monster that spat poison at a noble warrior, who faced the demon with a roar as the venom seared his skin. She dreamt of dragons.

"Up!"

She stirred slowly, her hand reaching for her belt, for her knife.

"Here. I'm out of time."

"Tukra?"

Behind him she could see the grey whispers of dawn filtering through her messy barrier of twigs and leaves. The fire, she realised, was gone. The warm light that illuminated her small hovel was not coming from the firepit.

Tukra opened his mouth to speak as the makeshift barricade at the front of the cave began to shake. The noise of rustling leaves was a cacophony in the morning quiet. He turned slowly, padding quietly towards the centre of the cave, where the totem was waiting.

Hiaula gripped her knife tightly, and dimly wondered what was happening. In her dreams she had fought beasts she had never once seen, in her dreams she was a hero to the other exiles. Reality seemed grey and grim in comparison.

Suddenly the barrier was torn aside. In the darkness that lay beyond Hiaula could see the morning half-light gleaming off a dozen beady eyes.

"Stay behind the totem, it will protect you."

"What?"

Tukra took no time in sprinting forward. In a heartbeat he was amongst the goatmen, grappling one by its shaggy beard and hurling it back towards its compatriots. The silence broke, and the noise of battle echoed through the narrow gulley. Goatmen bleated and whistled, charging forward with crude clubs and staves. The giant man batted them aside, barely slowing as some broke over his body, showering the ground with splinters. His tattoos swirled across his skin, dimly illuminating the fetid mass of savage creatures that clogged the ravine like lumps of mud in an artery. Hiaula shivered, gripped her knife to her chest, and watched.

The tattoos flared. Suddenly the giant man was a walking star, the light that burned from him bright enough to hurt the eyes. With a startling yell to match the savagery of the bleating creatures around him he held his hands up high and brought them crashing down. Fire rolled along the ground around him, the goats closest to him incinerated in a mess of charred fur and terrified animalistic screeches. The battle began in earnest then, with the goatmen satisfied that they understood their foe. They pelted him with their crude weapons, hurling stones and sharpened sticks at him as he fought his way through the horde. Blood saturated the sand that was left. Most of the ground had been scorched into glass.

Hiaula watched, entranced by the fury that Tukra was conjuring. She kept her slim arms wrapped tightly around her chest and pressed herself against the totem, cowering behind it, too scared to move. She had seen goatmen before, but never in such numbers, never when she was trapped in a cave.

A grey maned head crept into view at the entrance to the cave. It's black lips pulled back, revealing yellow stumps of tooth as it bleated at her, growling and gnashing as it made it's way towards her, it's arms raised, grapsing and clawing the air.

Hiaula waited for it to get closer, gripping her knife. Each step it took brought it closer to its own death, she thought grimly, gritting her teeth and thinking about where best to stab the hideous creature.

As if the monster had crossed some invisible threshold, it suddenly burst into flame. It's screeches overpowered the battle and it ran, dying as the inferno embraced it, slamming through its compatriots, who in turn began to flee. Tukra hurled a final blast of flame towards the stragglers, and then watched as they disappeared from sight, scrabbling through the dark and vanishing between the rocks.

Hiaula looked to the totem, where an ethereal figure stood, watching her with a disapproving scowl, it's hands made of dark embers.

"Ancestors guide me." Tukra murmured as he collapsed into the cave. "The day is won, at least."

"I've never seen anything like that. What are you?"

"I am Karui." He spat, as blood began to dribble from his nostrils. "I am a warrior and I protect my people. And now, I am dying."

"Let me help you, I have more bandages, I have more-"

He laughed at her, and shook his head.

"Your words and your actions were kind, but I did not expect to survive the night. My wounds were too great, no matter what medicine you offered me. I prepare for the next journey, although I fear my failures in this life will haunt me there."

"You have failed no-one, Tukra of the Karui."

His eyes were dimming now, the bright glow of his tattoos fading.

"The totem is not finished."

They looked at it for a moment, together. The spirit was gone, receded back into the stories that summoned it.

"There may be other Karui on Wraeclast, Tukra. I will make sure it is returned to its rightful people."

His grin was gone, but his grim smile grew.

"Take your knife, and show the wood what this battle was. The last stand of Tukra the Storyteller, and the rebirth of his companion Hiaula."

"Rebirth?"

"The totem is yours now." His words were barely audible now, bubbles popping in the blood that sealed his lips. "Wraeclast is yours now. For now, and perhaps forever, you will be-"

The world grew still, until Hiaula stood up and went out into the gulley. Once she was satisfied that the enemy was gone, she dragged the giant man down to the beach on a rickety stretcher made from the tools their foes had dropped, and used the contraption to start a pyre. By the time the sun was well and truly risen, his flesh had been taken by the flame.

She was not surprised to find that the totem was light to carry. She cradled it under one arm, her other hand clasped around the hilt of her dagger. The Watch was far away, but she could see the dim outline of the wooden barricades that the other exiles hid behind. Entirely by accident, she came to the place where she had found the giant man. Shipwrecks curled over and around her, and she found the crate she had been wrestling with when the corpse had started talking.

It had sunk lower into the wet sand overnight, but with a shove it popped free from the mud, revealing its bright coat of locks and chains. Fury grew in Hiaula. If it hadn't been for this box she would never have found the giant man, and would never have had to watch him die. She raised the totem with a mighty shout and brought it crashing down against the box, once, twice, until her arms shook with the effort and her chest hurt from her cries.

On the last strike, the box clattered open, the chains that bound it broken. Hiaula fell to her knees, the exertion of the day and the night finally shuddering through her. She was dimly aware of the fact that her shouts had woken some of the deadmen nearby, but her attention was drawn to the box.

Inside was a set of swords, gleaming and mirror bright. She could see a face in one of them as she angled it towards herself, a mess of lank hair and wide, bloodshot eyes. Beneath them was a set of armour made of boiled leather, and beneath that still, a set of matching glass flasks that bubbled with strange liquids.

Hiaula looked up at the deadmen stirring across the beach, and gripped the totem so hard that her fingernails bled.

Today, she was reborn. Today, the deadmen didn't scare her.