My name is Talocarian De'Laras, please sit down and listen to me. Let me tell you my story, the story of my life. How I became what I am now, and learn what I learned over the years.
What I am going to tell you is perhaps not the kind of stories that songs are made of, but it is the truth. It may open your eyes and enlighten your soul. It is my life without keeping any secrets or falsifying it.
My parents lived in Silverling for nearly a lifetime since their parents left the hometown of our race, Razza. So, in Silverling, the city in the clouds I was born.
My father worked at the docks down in Cloud Bottom before he lost his work one summer. The times were hard and my mother tried to earn at least some money to keep us from starving by collecting and selling herbs she searched in the dangerous and abandoned areas far from town.
Then, two years later in the spring, I was six or maybe seven years old, as far as I can remember, a plague spread over the city, the third that year, and infected many citizens all over the town in the skies. My father was still without regular work and we had barely enough money to survive.
The forth child of my mother was born dead in the hard winter, my sister and my older brother both tried to help my mother as good as we could to forget, but she became more and more silent and we often saw her cry.
One day she came back with an old man she found in the mountains, starving. First we didn't know what was wrong with him, but when we undressed him we saw the swellings all over his body. We took him to the officals and he died the same night. Two days later my mother got a strange fever and soon we knew she was also infected by the plague.
On a fateful morning then, she got weaker and weaker, my father kissed her softly on her cheek and left the house. He knew that, with the disease and the hunger we were suffering from, his wife, our mother, couldn't survive the next morning, so he went out to seek help from a cleric. Our older bother, Cohen, went with him.
One of my later waymates told me what happened after he left.
Our father wandered through the city, visited the hospitals and talked to all persons he knew to find someone to help him. Later that day, he finally met a Cleric of Rokoon, one of the 'holy' men, who are said to have the ability to cure every possible disease.
But the 'holy' man only laughed at the entreaties. "The city is punished by the Gods", he said, "for worshipping the false gods of the warshrikes", and that he wont do anything to relieve the residents from wrath and punishment.
My father was a proud and just man, but when he heard those words, he begged once more, driven by the love to his wife, and fell on his knees, lowered his head with tears in his eyes to entreat the Rokoonian cleric to help him. He implored in the name of all holy, not to let his wife die.
The Rokoonian turned lowly, and drew a small glass vial from a pocket of his robe.
"This vial", he said, "can save her life ..... but like every- thing in life does not come for free. For 5 platinum coins it will be yours."
Tears of despair rolled over my father's face, for he didn't even have the money for a single bread, the price for this vial was more than he ever had.
The Rokoonian spat out contemptuously before him and told my father that he won't help him then and all he could do is to pray. Then he turned to leave.
My father raised his head, now clear minded and cold hearded. He knew, that without any help, he would loose his wife ... the one person he loved more than his life. When the Rokoonian turned his back on him, he silently drew a rusty knife and raised it high over his head to take what he knew was her only chance to survive.
The sunlight was reflected from the blade when he ran after the robed man, but suddely, so fast that he couldn't even gasp out for surprise, a large, black-haired man with a face made of stone stepped out of a shadow and drew a long, blacksilver blade. The arm of my father rolled down on the road and streams of blood ran out of the deadly wound before he noticed the pain.
When Cohen saw that, he cried out in pain and attacked the Satai with his bare hands, but was knocked down by the haft of the Satai's sword.
Going down, he noticed 5 silver stars on the headband of the Satai, and saw the cleric spitting on our dying father. He heard the Cleric calling him a stray dog who wasn't worth to live. The Satai and the Cleric took Cohen with them and went away, leaving my father dying in the streets.
My mother was to weak to bare the hardness of hunger and the plague and died the next morning, her eyes full of fear. Yet there was hope that her man would come back before she had to walk on the road that leads into the land of darkness.
But he didnt.
Not long after midday there were steps at the door, and two Satais entered our dusty hut. They noticed the dead body of my mother, looked at us without any emotion and told us that our father was dead. Slain because he was a bastard and a murderer. They demanded that we should follow them, and that we will grow up in a Rokoonian orphanage.
Tears ran over my cheek when I grabbed the handle of the firehook. The Satai laughed and stared deep into my wet eyes. "You are about to enter the ways of your father son.", he said and laughed once more. "Be careful."
But all I felt was hate and the desire of putting the hook deep into the grinning skull of my tormentor. I cried out and raised the weapon. I didn't even saw him drawing his sword, but when I awoke deep in the dungeons of the cityguards, dry blood was all over my face and the pain of my wound drove my insane.
The wound on my forehead finally closed one day, but the wounds inside of me did never. I escaped one year later, and survived by stealing what I needed to survive. After some more years I met a gnome who told me that noone is allowed to steal without the permission of the Pickpockets, but his smile was friendly and warm. So I became a member of their guild. They trained me in the Art of the Shadows, the art of stealing and robbing ...
There I found out that my brother Cohen was alive. He also became a thief and I started to 'earn' the money to by a passage on a ship to Padorn, where he was supposed to be.
I never believed in gods, only in my own strengh and will to survive.
Then, about one month before I took a ship to Padorn something happened that changed my life entirely. I was wandering through the mountains of Silverling, searching for lonely traders with too many coins.
It was an unsuccessful day and the sun began to vanish behind the mountains, when I heared a terrible scream echoing from the rocks. I sneaked forwarth and carefully entered a small clearing to see what caused the noise.
In the wet grass was a man in light blue robes, kneeing and begging for mercy. Blood ran from dozens of wounds, spoiling his clothing and soaking the ground.
High over him a creature, like I never saw before, flew. A huge snake, with the head and wings of an eagle, blood dripping from his huge claws and shouting out his victory. Then I noticed a huge man standing not far away.
His face, and nearly of his appearence was hidden by a hodded robe, sparks of lighting were whirling around his fingers. He raised his hands to the skies and suddenly the kneeling man was struck by a bolt of lightning, hitting his chest and burning the flesh from his bones.
Then the robed figure walked slowly towards his victim, grapped the remains of the man by what once was his hair and drew a dark dagger made of obsidian from his belt.
He began to chant in a language I never heared before, raised the blade and drove it deep into the chest of his helpless opponent. He put his hand into the wound. When he raised the bloody hand to the skies a beating heart was cluntched in his fist, and all around him lightings stroke the earth. He yelled a praise to a god whose name I never heard before. "Huitzilopochtli".
I hid fearfully, my body trembling, but something seemed wrong .... I felt warmth and joy in my heart, something I couldn't understood. When I finally dared to look up, the robed man was gone. I carefully entered the clearing trying to rob the remains of the man, but when I reached the lifeless corpse, I freezed when i noticed the face of the dead man.
It was a Cleric of Rokoon.
But there was more .... I looked into his face and suddenly I knew him. This cleric of Rokoon was the one my father attacked. This man was the reason my mother and father died and my brother was displaced. The one whose guilt it was that I never saw my sister again.
That day i didn't wondered about the cognition, but today I know that Huitzilopochtli himself gave me this knowledge.
I cried out in fury and stroke his face again and again with my hoves until his head was only a bloody mass of flesh. Exhausted I broke down, and stared to the skies.
A shadow fell over me, blocking the sun. There he stood. A huge, menacing looking robed man. He looked deep into my eyes and for a moment I was able to see the face behind his robe.
He smiled .... it was a slight smile, hardly to notice, but I saw something in this smile and eyes I should never forget. Then he turned back and vanished between the stones, leaving no trace.
An eagle cried.
That was the day I began my search. It led me to the mountains north of Padorn, the place the dwarfes call home. There I searched for a fallen temple of a god which was rumoured to be there. I wanted to learn more of the god with the strange name.
The search went on for many endless days, but finally I found the temple. It was an abandoned place lying in ruins, but when I entered I was able to feel power streaming from every single stone of this building. Joy filled my soul.
I searched the ruins for something I could use to answer my questions, but I found nothing. Disappointed and exhausted I fell to the ground and a deep slumber came over me. I dreamed.
In this dream I wandered around in a dense forest ... it was more of a jungle, hot and wet. Suddenly I stumbled into a clearing, a huge pyramid came into sight. I smelled the strong odor of blood behind me and when I turned around I saw him again. The same huge, robed man I saw months ago, was standing only a few steps away from me.
"Search your way and find the only one who is worthy of your faith. The one who has the might and power to strike down all who stand against him, the one who destroyed your life.
Search for him and he will let you find him .... serve him and he will give you a new life, a life dedicated to the things that burn inside your soul.
Serve him and raise from your slumber you call a life. Awake to see the light. Open your eyes and see the truth about all the lies and illusions the other worthless creatures believe and trust in."
Then he drew a dark, obsidian knife from his belt and bend over me. The blade touched my clothing, ripped through it, and left a deep wound in my chest.
But I felt no pain, no agony, only joy and delight. I awoke. My shirt was wet with warm blood, but there was no wound.
When I stepped out of the building, I saw an eagle sitting on a boulder in front of me. He was tearing pieces of flesh out of another animal, and when I came closer I noticed the dead body of a falcon.
That day HE showed me the way, HE gave my more signs then any living being was worth to recieve.
I wandered through the mountains back to the city of Padorn. Soon after that day I met Arayel, the Hight Theocrate of Huitzilopochtli, Marek, the Priest of Blood and many other worshippers of my beloved god.
They tought me the way of our god, the god of War, Blood and Lighting and when I threw me into the blades of the altar I finally awoke from that deep slumber I once called my life and raised my eyes to a new one.
There I was reunited with Cohen, my lost brother who also found the way to the light, the way to the truth. He became the spiritual leader of our god and my happiness was devine.
So next time you meet a Priest of Huitzilopochtli, ask him to teach you in HIS ways, and you will open your eyes, too .... and maybe you will be born into a new life.
All other heretics fear his wraith. And be warned - the new order will come soon.
PRAISE HUITZILOPOCHTLI, the Lord of Blood