Kaveh blinked. The sky was a bright blue, dashed across by slowly drifting exotic streaks of white that would slyly hide colourful rays of light. A dark circle of seagulls flew over him, their shadows dashing across Kaveh's eyes as quickly as it left. Kaveh turned to his left, his eyes checking his surroundings.

Ramshackle piles of wooden planks lay within his eyes, stretching out across the sea as far as he could see. Cadavers and pieces of human limbs were washed ashore, a deep taint of red washed across the white sands. Weird, jagged pieces of metal stuck out of the ground like hills, gleaming in the sunlight.

Where was he?

"Did man move?" A voice spoke. Kaveh froze, and his eyes darted about. Where had it come from. The sound? He closed his eyes, crunching his eyelids together to quickly refocus his eyes. The accent. He recognized it, yes. It was Nikelo, the language of the people of the great east. Was that where he was? How did he get here?

"Watch out. Might be Grey Fae, shapeshifted into human." A second voice. It was deeper and more cynical. Grey Fae. What were that? The name seemed familiar but…

"We should kill it." A third voice spoke.

Kaveh blinked, and his eyes grew large. Kill.

Immediately, his body jolted, and he felt re-energized all of a sudden. His eyes darted left and right, making sure he did not show that he was awake. He needed to keep surprise on his side. There were atleast 3 men there, behind him, out of eyeshot. He needed something to fight. To kill.

"Yes. Kill." First voice. Loud. Kaveh continued to search for a weapon, and found it. A blunt piece of wood stuck out of the sand, its smooth yet awkward edges calling out to the warrior. His instincts took over, and he slowly shifted his hand over.

Footsteps. Kaveh could hear 3 men stepping towards him, their feet crunching the sand underneath them. By the sound of their footsteps, he measured that they wore soled leather boots.

He slowly shifted his hand towards the wood that stuck out of the sand. It would do. He just needed the element of surprise. He could kill them.

"Keep any metals away from that Fae. Use obsidian weapons. If we wake it it'll absorb them."

Absorb… metals?

"Yes, sir." Two voices. Kaveh heard the clatter of metal against the sand, and he heard the distinct scratch of unsheathing swords. His eyes trailed, and he found the shadows of two men over him, and a third beyond him.

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"Moving in, sir."

"Keep an eye on the Fae."

There was only one pair of footsteps now. Left side. He was closing in. The shadow was closing in, and Kaveh readied himself.

As the man closed in, Kaveh Fahraddin readied himself. His eyes were concentrated on his left, and he squinted them to pretend that he was asleep. Wait… wait… wait…

A leather foot appeared next to him, and Kaveh leapt forward.

Grabbing the ankle of the man to his left, he pulled it to the side with all his strength as he grabbed the blunt wooden piece stuck in the sand next to him. Pulling it with all his strength, he used his momentum to roll himself over onto his knees, and within a moment, struck the man in the knee with all the force he could.

The man screeched, and the other two assailants immediately shouted. "It's awake!"

Kaveh eyed the two men for a moment. One had a bayoneted musket, the other a white sword, and rolled to his right. The burst of the musket pierced through Kaveh's ears, and the two men disappeared behind a wall of grey smoke. With his makeshift wooden mace, he quickly finished off the screeching man next to him, a young one no more than 20, before snatching his white sword and rushing forward, using the smoke to his advantage.

There was a silhouette through the smoke, and Kaveh readied the sword. Raising to his full height, he recklessly threw the sword forward, and it hit the man square on his arm. The man dropped, Kaveh rushed forward.

Another shot, and Kaveh felt a rush of pain through his body. He looked down. Side of stomach, just a graze. It hurt. It burnt. He bit his lip, and the overpowering taste of copper washed over his mouth. He continued forward, and quickly finished off the second man, snatching his sword too.

Rising once more, he found himself in the middle of the grey, and he squinted his eyes. There was a faint disturbance in the air, and he saw a bayonet fly through the smoke. Almost immediately, he rose his mace to bear, and knocked the musket away. There was another disturbance, and he felt something land square on his nose.

He hissed in pain and stumbled backwards, dropping the wooden plank. The bayonet came once more, and it was just by a hair's breadth that it missed Kaveh. Stumbling to his knees in pain, he realized his dire situation as the musket-wielding man stepped out of the smoke.

He was tall, masked, and heavily armoured in steel. His markings were clearly Nikelo in nature, the Golden Lorica Squamata donning him as an officer. He was silent as he raised the musket, his eyeless mask exuding a full killing intent.

Kaveh looked about, and he found a piece of iron sticking out of the sand. It was do or die.

Kicking himself forward, he grabbed the piece of iron and threw it towards the officer. It was as if time slowed, but as the iron flew towards the armoured man, it seemed as if the world shifted. The musket moved sideways towards the flying piece of iron, and the officer stumbled forward. As the piece of iron struck him, instead of bouncing off, it stuck. He fired, the lead bullet hit the sand.

Kaveh blinked in shock, but he realized an opportunity where there was one. Years of war had taught him such, and he had the scars to prove it. Rushing to his feet, he once again found his trust wooden mace laying by his side and brought it to bear, bashing it down on the helmet of the officer that lay at his feet. He grabbed hold of the helmet, and with his full weight on the chest of the armoured officer, he continued to smash the man's skull with the helmet. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over again.

By the time he was done, the Nikelo officer's skull was a broken mess. It was gorish, akin to mash potatoes. His nose had been broken inwards, his teeth lay by his side. His eyes crushed, brain matter and blood flowing out of the numerous cuts across his face and through his nose. His face, once human, now resembled a pancake.

Kaveh took in a number of slow, deep breaths, before finally dropping the helmet. It was coated red, and dented. He licked his lips, and fell sideways onto the sand. As he mindlessly eyed the clouds, he slowly shifted his gaze onto the helmet, and the piece of iron that lay beside it. Had it just been a trick of the eye, why had the piece of iron stuck to the helmet? Why did it stop? What the hell was happening here? He had so many questions to ask.