No one's story ever starts from nothing. At least that's what I've learned by now. My name's Kal Ferosan, though when I was a lot younger I used to be just known as Kal. I grew up in the greatest city in all of the Scavenger Lands, Nexus. During those days things felt so simple. I think that's probably because back then, I could always rely on my folks to help point me in some direction.
Both of my folks worked with the Guild. My dad as one of their merchant agents, going about here and there on caravans to the southwest, he wasn't home all that often. But the stories he brought back with him were a real treat to myself and my sister. My mom was a beaut, but she didn't earn her keep on her back like a lot of the others around. No sir, she made her cut with the sharpness of her tongue and mind. Few others there were who'd match wits with her, especially when it came to wrangling business deals.
Between what the two of them earned, I suppose we were pretty well-made.
It was during those younger years that I picked up my love for knowledge and what could be made of it. Of course as a hot-blooded youth with a soul fed by adventure from my dad's end, and with the merit of skills and education being hammered into me by my mom, I suppose it wasn't too surprising that I found myself leaning towards the life of a 'Scavenger Lord'. I figured it provided the best of both worlds - using my mind towards uncovering relics and other things, and giving me a taste of adventure.
I began to plot my course around then, when the typical lad was busy chasing after skirts, I went to figure out how to learn more about relics and artifacts. I figured apprenticing myself to various craftsmen and the like would be useful, and so with a little nudging here and there, that's what I became. I grew to love the calm heat one could find in the forge. There's just something about building things, even if what I forged was usually something simple. It took a few years worth of training before I could hammer out weapons.
But besides working my back at the bellows, I also took the evenings to reading what bits of lore I could get my mom to take home or from what souvenirs my dad brought back from his trips. It was a great time all in all, filled with learning both practical stuff and what could be called as more exotic lore. Of course life's always got things to throw at you, and mine's no different.
It was during my seventeenth year, I think, when my dad failed to make a run. There were raiders of some sort who'd struck his caravan, taking everything away from him including his life. The failure of that magnitude demanded recompense, which was taken out of our pockets. We weren't left destitute though, but things got a lot tighter for us at that point. My mom took one of the 'promotions' that'd been offered to her a long while back, which she'd declined because she didn't need it.
She and my sister were moved off to represent the Guild in Great Forks or something. I pretty much lost contact with them awhile after that, save for the occasional letter to let me know they were alive and well. I had my own apprenticeship to finish. It took me around four years worth of saving up and doing odd-jobs which took advantage of my unusual education before I could save up enough to partly finance an expedition. I attached myself to a known Guild-friendly Scavenger Lord by the name of Touk, since there was no way I'd be able to get to do something like this by myself.
The three years spent with him was quite useful for me. I picked up a lot of things with his group, and ran into a lot of useful experiences, such as how it was to actually have to fight off bandits and plunge into ruins and places where useful artifice might lurk in. He was an old fellow and he mentioned that he was thinking of grooming me to replace him when he retired, to recommend me to the Guild after one last expedition.
I never found out how that would turn out, since that expedition would prove to be his last in such a different way.
We got word of a ruins of sorts, somewhere to the southeast. It had the usual accompaniment of unusual occurrences and supernatural influences, where living things would turn into stone should they stay too long, and where strange man-like things would appear and vanish in the same night. It wasn't false, at least the part about things turning into stone. But it was no curse or anything of the sort, simple the side-effects of Earth-aspected essence flows. He said that this place was most likely a manse, an ancient structure designed to channel and make use of essence. It was highly likely that there were old things of power within.
Our team managed to find a way to bypass this, and off we went with old Touk into the darkness. I felt a strange sensation of unease as we entered that place, the kind you feel when you're experiencing deja vu. I told Touk that it might be better if he'd stayed up, since the manse led downward into the earth and it wasn't entirely safe. But the old fellow was as stubborn as he could be when riled up, and there was no way a youth like me could've gainsayed his demands.
We eventually ran into the 'man-like' things along the way, odd automata that lay inert in various halls. The sight of them stirred an itch in my hands, broken as they were, I wanted to fix them. I tried to ignore the feeling figuring it was just habit of wanting to put things together, but after a short while I couldn't resist trying to examine them. I had no idea at the time what triggered them, but for awhile I blamed myself for the onslaught that came to life.
Touk and the rest of us suddenly came under attack by the automata that were lying about the entirety of the manse, trapped beneath the earth. We fell back as best as we could, fighting against what felt like an unending tide of archaic, incomprehensible machinery. I barely remember those moments as we fought from room to room, with me and Touk doing our best to find some room which held controls to shut them down, or at least allowing us some reprieve.
But soon our numbers fell, whittled down like a stick beneath some man's knife. It wasn't long until we were stuck in a dead end, some room that appeared to be a resting place of whoever this underground manse once belonged to. It was where we made our last stand. I remember the last of us falling, getting smashed aside in the flurry of combat, shaking my head to see Touk being torn to pieces by the accursed defenders of this place.
I remember cracking my staff, shattering it in my self-defense, and casting it in futile outrage against the inevitable death marching against me. I remember seeing a glint of metal, the lunge towards it in desperate search of a weapon, my fingers sliding over its skin and wrapping around it, as I clutched it and wrenched it towards myself.
And I remember a timeless fury surge through me.
I became a storm of anger and calm, striking with a strength fueled by red-hot rage, moving with the precision of a mind that knew each and every defect in my enemy. The glorious marriage of raw power and cold information was manifested within me for many long moments, until I realized that I was no longer harried by an enemy, and that even in the darkness I could see all around me with the light of the sun, and that from my brow blazed the sign of an ancient god.
