The Poet I

Somewhere - "A Lighthouse-Mountain in Deagle"

It was said that "a while ago". There was a group of bandits that brought havoc upon the shores of Beatroot. A menace that later on escaped to continents such as Deagle and Atoll, as that motley crew of thugs aimed for something higher than villainy and anarchy. Or from being wannabe 'mercenaries', to villains whose destruction can still be counted to this day.

From what I heard from various tales involving that elusive figure. What differed his destructive tale from other such outlaws. Was how his actions held a sort of tragic reason behind them. Of trying to be of use to society, only to be bitterly discarded as a threat or villain time after time. On how he was marked for death, yet he always seemed to be one step ahead of our most fabled knights and mages attempts to hang him. A step ahead that spared even his own never do wells from judgement, even as he suffered for them in attempted heroism, for selfish, or self-destructive reasons.

Above the tragedy of how his rampage eventually ended. Is how his existence is an enigma, without a traceable source of known origin. From what little I've gathered from his past, he apparently hailed from a star completely foreign to our own, let alone the blessed planets that hang around us, everyday. If there was a home country, it was in Beatroot. Where he was forced into banditry against his will.

To the tales I've heard of him, he's known as "The Rogue Vagrant". A foreign never-do-well of a villainous supporter, said to have betrayed his own country and man for a coin from more dishonest thieves. While others say, he was a thug to them, hired to conquer our realms. Before he switched trade with even worse outlaws. Given a change, he rose within their black ranks, until he was sparking revolutions that caused more chaos than peace.

I can only speculate on what value they saw in him, when they found him at his nadir. As I thought on the contrary accounts of some saying he helped them, instead of them viewing him as a disposable lackey.

To me. I'm allured to this mystery of his. As there's something to that tale, that struck a chord in me, on his survival being a possible ballad to be, more so with how his tale was a mix of triumph and failure. In another way. If I think of being in his shoes for a moment, I feel he would be a saint of a bad deck. With how he survived with some integrity left against the odds being against him. Thrived, in the face of a world that views him as an enemy to kill.

Even as he delved into a fit of rampages and heists, he conducted his actions with striking simplicity. Even treating others with respect, even those touched by cursed stars. More so, when such an attitude often led to ruin, when faced with mutual betrayal, that led to spite fueled villainy. Villainy, that he avoided the executor's blade on a bare turn of fortune.

All those tales and more. Compelled me to search far and wide for his supposed final resting place, said to contain a trove of forgotten knowledge and influence from that distant star. No doubt, I have made countless enemies due to my pursuit of his buried tale. They say we shouldn't be inspired by tales of villainy compared to the heroes of excessive virtue whose tales should be spread by their sponsored musicians. Those who had a vested interest in destroying his again, supposed final resting place out of that persistent thorn called spite.

But it was a sacrifice worth pursuing in my view. As a suppression of voice, marks them as no different from the villains they suppressed in judgement. More so, as I feel we should learn from both accounts where possible, just so we could update our own justice to be more precise. Or failing that, learn how to be virtuous, even as one is forever branded a villain.

Or at the very least, if damned to villainy, at least aspire to be as honorable as him, from the more positive adventures I've heard he was involved in. When I heard that some say he still lives to this day. As a supposed cripple, that's still persisted up in a bloodstained tower, hidden within a forest full of predatory monsters, and corpses from many an adventurer and crusader hired to cut him down.

Rumours of living, I dismissed as unlikely, as I walked across the hearsay mountains of Deagle. Incense hanging around my cloak, to ward off the sun torched monsters. As I saw rotten corpses, being feasted on by dark vultures. Corpses I paid no heed to, as their worth was either long since taken, or rotten by the elements and scavengers.

Still, I can't help but feel unnerved at the presence of red eyes hanging at the edge of my sight. While searching through the forest for some sign of civilization, or adversary. Even with the incense repelling the presence of monsters, I felt it couldn't repel this menacing aura that suffocates the forests that claimed many an eager adventurer.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In my nightmares, I felt as if my very existence was weighed on a scythe, and only by the lack of malice to my heart, am I given the privilege of still breathing. Fears that made me restless during the constant nights, I made camp.

Still, there were beautiful sights to be seen, if one knows where to lurk. Like the trees hiding wildlife that looked beautiful when not aggravated. To how a light seemed to shine to a far distant shore, all the time when the moons covered the soul sun's rays.

By morning. I decided to look for that distant tower, to gain a vantage point to see if there's any hidden hamlets or huts, within the forests. That might portray his location, when I couldn't find his remains within the various lighthouses scattered throughout Deagle. When I got to the shores near the lighthouse, I felt a shiver billow through me, as I noticed the same red eyes that haunted me, gaze at me behind some crippled keeper from a distant field. A caretaker, clearly touched by the crimson star, as her horns were nothing compared to the menacing aura, radiating from her being. Behind her beastly limbs, I noticed a war-scythe strapped to her back, as both figures were sitting on a stray fishing boat.

"Hn, a visitor at this hour?" A rasped sound echoed, from that distant boat I spotted. "Come…"

Nervously, I took a few steps towards the wheel bound figure and caretaker. The closer I walked, the more details I noted, from the person's ravaged body. Or lack of.

He held no limbs; no legs or arms. His body was covered in dirtied clay and stained rags. Making him more a preserved corpse, with how his crude mask over his head, hid most of what visceral red was leaking out from his face. As if he was weeping blood, at the slightest of movements.

If not for his demonic caretaker tending to his wounds I presume. I struggle to think of how he could still be alive as a flayed corpse, still wheezing for life. Life that defies mortality with how his every, rasping breath echoed louder. The more I walked towards that thing of a lame man on a fishing boat, towards that light house of a destination.

"Call me Fero." Coughed the limbless rag. Whose wheezing mouth, still bled with every word he spoke. How he talked made me recoil in disgust, more than the lingering malice radiating from his caretaker, as we were assailed to that distant tower that held that limbless corpse calling him, or itself Fero...

-=-

Arriving at the lighthouse by boat was a lackluster affair. Even as the waves turned away from us, during our short trip. And while walking up the flight of stairs, as that mute caretaker wheeled that ragged man named 'Fero'. I couldn't help but note the lack of decor that the lighthouse held, as we climbed through a flattened stairway.

And my first impressions of the living quarters is that it's rustic and empty. There were the worn benches, clad in leather. Alongside a trove of shelfs, holding various written journals, I'd not be surprised if it were penned by the caretaker, over the cripple himself.

A corpse that looked like it was constantly asleep, even if his wriggling showed he was anything but a still bleeding corpse. "Admiring what work this bleeding carcass has made?"

"I suppose the shelves, are covered in memoirs?" I heard a wheezing laugh, as that gaping rag smirked at me, behind Fero's bandages.

"Some of them are, yes." Fero said to me, tired. Even if I can't help but note the quality of those bound journals are of a high quality. "Some are historical. Rest, merely patch *cough* 'es." He coughed before he could finish.

"Suppose it's homely then, ain't it?" I noticed his demonic caretaker smirk, even as my host was still wheezing as if he couldn't breathe.

"My, thank you." A brief rasp, as more blood seeped his bandages. A state that made me feel pity for the state that corpse is in.

"... You must have been through a lot, Mr or-"

"Jus' Fero, no mister, master or miser…" Coughing in interruption, as Fero kept speaking. I see he's clearly invigorated by his easily seen pain.

"So, Fero…" I said, waiting a bit in case the limbless rags moved, before I spoke. "How the hell, did you end up this way?" A lingering question I want answered.

An answer that Fero chuckled, even as his head kept weeping blood, from his bandaged eyes.

"A hell's tale, 's what." Those holes of blood, condensed to what would be his sight. As that caretaker of his wheeled the body closer, to visible bleed. "I can tell you, of hell. But I think a picture, or memory can show you, over a hearsay tale…"

Bleeding, that seeped into a crimson miasma, that made me choke at how my mind was suddenly hazed, in a vision of red.

I shuddered at the unnatural spell-casting, coming from that corpse of a thing. As phantom pains ripped my entire limbs to sunder. To the laughter of a maddened soul.

"A lil' blood, to share a tale." Laughter, I can't help but laugh with. As my head was swirling in pain, I struggled to breathe in…

"A bit infectious, to share memories of pain." As I felt that cursed blood, seep into my head. I can't help but think of the pain he must be feeling…

"Memories, I can't speak in 'tail… Only show in shared blood." Feelings, I tried to suppress as I felt a headache drill into my shattered skull, over how USELESS I am. As I dreamed of the Point of View of a malicious god of trickery and violence, struggling to breathe against genocide. As my thoughts turned to how his memories could be turned into a story..

"I suppose, I could begin by recalling how worthless, ordinary people like us, were discarded...."