Ghalok Horncarver's Story

Ghalok sauntered up the mountain, his hunting spoils in tow. Avoiding the main path, sticking to an alternate route he had familiarized himself with as to not disturb the locals. Most folk wouldn't know how to react positively to an eight foot man dragging several mangled deer down a perfectly public street. So he figured he'd do them all a favor and stick to his way.

From certain spots, he could maintain a rather nice view of the main path and the scenery it offered on the way up the mountain. It just so happened that today, in one of those spots, he caught site of a person. He couldn't see him very well from where he was currently positioned, but he could make out the horse, donned in a mantle far too noble for the regular traffic he had seen previously. Mostly caravans, flanked by villagers, merchants and children traversed these roads. Unless you counted him, in which case, large man-like barbarians also traversed these roads, but never nobility, at least none that he had seen.

It sparked a childlike curiosity in him, but it was also a possibility that the man could very well be lost, in which case it would be unfortunate to happen along the wrong group of travelers. He stopped for a moment as the horse did, loosening his grip on his game, letting a deep "fwump" into the air as the deer carcass hit the dirt, tumbling over one another.

Making a futile attempt to brush the dirt and grime from his shirt, leaving a large smear down the center. A combination of blood from his game and mud and rocks from various points along his trek. Letting loose a soft groan as he noticed this, he lumbered toward the man, waving one giant arm in the air in a greeting fashion, as to not alarm the man by appearing to run up on him.

"Hullo!" he bellowed, now some 40 feet from the man on the horse. His voice hung briefly on the air, low and monotone. "Yer lost, right? Too pretty a horse to be a regular roun' here." Though he was loud, it could be heard plainly in his voice he was simple, and therefore hopefully wouldn't condemn him to an attack by a surprised nobleman.

The strange melody could be heard further up the mountain coming from the tree. It sounded pleasant and very welcoming despite there being no indication where the sound originated from. Further listening would suggest it was music and appeared to be some sort of stringed instrument, but whomever was playing it, remained hidden. A tree further up the mountain seemed to be the source and legs dangling from a branch laid credence to this theory, nonetheless they appeared unaware and the build and appearance largely maintained that it was a female.

He felt his hand instinctively reaching towards the hilt of his blade at the voice that had made its self presence along with the...music? His attention was drawn to the giant man more-so since he was actively approaching. His manners suggested a more common folk than that of a lord, which was fine. There was a pause however before he spoke up.

"Y-yeah. I'm not from here. At all..."

Looking down at his clothes, there were small traces of ash and black smears which were barely noticeable, even for him as he looked down. What had occurred? All he remembered was speaking to Arvis and a sudden flash of flame. Was he dead?

"Tell me...is this the afterlife?" Sigurd decided to ask, finally taking his hand off of the sword's hilt once he regained his bearings on the situation...at least for now.

Ghalok couldn't help but perk his head to one side as a soft music entered his ears. It made him lose focus of the man for a moment, but when he spoke, it brought his attention back to him. "Tell me...is this the afterlife?" is all he had heard the man say while he was preoccupied with the music.

He couldn't help but grin a big, toothy grin, slapping his hands to his sides and stretching back. "Weeelllll I sure's hope not, I ain't had ma brekfust yet. Can't go dyin' on n' empty stummuk." He jutted a large thumb in the direction of his kill, though it could not be seen from where he stood. "Got plenti 'nuff fer you too! Could be stravin' teh death, s'why you thinkin' yer dead n' all. C'mon!"

He turned to head back, not exactly waiting for a response, he was excited to be able to help someone in need, but if he really thought he was dead he may be in need of more help than Ghalok could offer. He paused for a moment, the music once again infiltrating his mind, soothing, almost making him feel warm.

He spun, a questioning gaze on his face. "d'You hear that? The music?" He called, honestly not sure whether or not one too many blows to the head had made him start hearing things.

Still the music would continue except now a voice sang, and what a voice it was, it appeared to have magical qualities that calmed and relaxed those without resistances, just the unerring melody ringing through the area, each note being played like a blissful nap in feathery bed. The voice itself much like the rhapsody sounding forth had that same quality, but it very clearly feminine and seemed to have alto-soprano quality to it, both powerful and high, each note just a delicious rapture in the making, all while the legs seen from the branch swung apparently in time with the illustrious musicality. Nonetheless they still appeared unaware of anything in the area, instead just lost in their own chorus of supreme radiance.

Sigurd nodded slowly in reply to Ghalok. Well, he wasn't in the afterlife...so that begged the question: Where the hell was he? At the mention of the music however, he'd blink and start looking around.

"Yeah, I hear it." He responded, looking about. A voice now accompanied the melody, though it was confusing as to why someone would be singing in this environment. What's more, it was...unnatural. Like their song was calming him. Did their music hold magical properties? He could only guess at that due to his lack of magical aptitude as he dismounted from his horse finally.

"Hello?" He asked out, towards the direction of the singing. "Who's there? Friend? Foe?...Neither?"

One large stride after the next, Ghalok made his way for the tree from which the music emanated. He was soothed by it, drawn ominously near by the force of song. Surely some kind of magic was at play here, but it was unlike a magic he had felt before. He was used to magic being used offensively, and from what his mind could gather, this magic was meant to aid others.

Arriving at the base of the large tree, he still hadn't noticed the legs swinging freely from a branch. Instead, he tossed his kill down beside the trunk. "Brekfust time!" He called, whirling back around to face the newcomer. Plopping down in front of the tree, he tore a large hunk from one of the deer limbs, feeding his maw gratefully and messily.

While he chewed, he paused for a moment, pondering perhaps that this man may not be accustomed to eating raw meat. Coming to this conclusion, a stupid grin spread across his face. "S'pose you want em' cooked, 'uh?" He gestured at the pile, before shifting himself to a standing position, the top of his head nearly grazing a low hanging branch, or possibly the feet? He couldn't tell.

Tearing another greedily large bite from the bone, lumbering toward a separate tree, one that had faced the weathers of time and came out on bottom. Slinging the remains of the limb across his broad shoulder, he gripped the dying tree by both sides of the trunk's middle, and pushed.

It didn't take much of his inhuman strength for the dead tree to topple over, the crackling sound of the base snapping free from the roots echoing into the air. Once down, he dragged the tree back to his original site, where he began ripping it effortlessly into smaller pieces. It was truly a site to behold, the giant simpleton soon had a roaring fire going, the dead wood crudely stacked in a small tepee form, prepping the rest of his game to be cooked properly, all the while absent-mindedly humming along to the music, remaining blissfully unaware of where it was coming from.

The singing persisted briefly until it heard the crack of another tree being torn down, at once it stopped and figure gracefully leapt off the branch the instrument now slung over her shoulder as she surveyed both, her hair almost auburn while she wore what amount frivolaties and regal appearance, with high-collar turned up, coloured crimson the vestaments extuded an opulent look, combined with sapphire cloak adorning her shoulders gracefully and rather generous V-Plunge into her besom showed both a scandelous and rich person. Unlike most she wore black skin-tight trousers with huge leather brown knee-high boots, seemingly of Riding look. On her head was a feathered brimmed hat completing her utterly loud appearance. On her belt was thin bladed rapier, with ornate elegant handle shaped beautifully.

Seeing both, stare at her somewhat open-mouthed she chuckled, "My oh my, you act like you never seen a bard before. I am Tara, Tara Claridge I apologize for not replying sooner, I was rather focused on practicing my craft." adding with a wink she said, "Well perhaps a successful or wealthy bard is rare, nonetheless I am wanted throughout the land for my skills, although I am not solely musical genius, but exellent at espionage when needed." chuckling she appeared to very much have a high opinion of herself and this radiated from how she spoke and stood, there was no caution or doubt, it was impressionable displays and confidence of oneself and their talents, "Now you know who I am, perhaps you can give me answers to something else, what is your names?"

Slow shoeless steps brought a scrawny and starved figure shuffling through the forest, limbs dangling loosely at his sides and hair dangling in his eyes. His jaw was clenched tight shut so that his teeth grind together until his mouth ached, and the constant grumble of his stomach was almost a familiar friend by now. All of it was to a point, a resistance so to speak, to drown out the pain that crawled along his skin every waking moment of every day.

It was his heraldry, a trait that he would never escape so long as he lived, and it left what was normally an emotionally volatile teenager on a constant irritable edge. Shuffling footsteps gained pace as energy steeled itself within his body, grasping solid stone to hoist himself up on top of it so that he could survey the area around him. He hated stopping. Stopping meant a chance for him to feel the gnawing pain. And now he hated whoever made these ruins for making him stop.

Stupid ruins.

Gnarled jaws tore into the rawhide of a severed deer limb, the maw jutting up and down greedily, the flesh mangling beneath crooked, square teeth as Ghalok strode through the open path of ruins, surrounded on each side by large stone pillars, some had been worn by time, toppled by some great battle long forgotten, others remained pristine, a noble reminder of the craftsmanship put forth by the laborers who built it. Truly a site to behold.

Ghalok cared little about these rocks. Great stone paperweights, the lot of them. He stretched his long arms toward the sun, a grizzly yawn accompanied by bits of chewed flesh fleeing from his mouth as his back arched back, and his toes curled forward. Finished, he leveled his gaze ahead of him, where, perched atop one of the stone pillars, was a man?

Being only a mere twenty feet from where the man now stood, surely Ghalok would have been spotted by now, peaking just over eight feet tall he was a hard thing to miss. A childlike curiosity played into Ghalok's mind. He couldn't help but wonder who this man was.

"Oi! What you doin' up there? Could fall n' hurt yerself." Not realizing how feeble his warning was, since being alarmed to his presence could have very well caused a fright and caused the man to do just that, but he remained still. Ghalok pawed inquiringly at his scruffy jaw with his free hand, awaiting a response.

A pair of red iris, also a sign of the unnatural heritage the teen held, wandered upwards across the ground towards Ghalok and a jaw that had loosened for a moment in surprise now locked once more. Raze shuffled one foot to the edge, then let the other slip forward past it only to drop the vertical drop and land on both feet, jarring his knees. His body shuddered for a moment, then he seemed fine.

"Hey you," he called out. His voice was still breaking, that awkward croak of a teenager, and ragged from a lack of use or possibly a throat left terribly hoarse like he had strained it shouting.

His footsteps started, bringing him towards Ghalok at what looked like an aggressively quick walk, the kind of walk that took place between taking off your coat and slugging someone in the jaw for an offense they had committed against you, an offense Raze was about to level towards him.

"Did you make these ruins?" he accused, then his words took a sharp change, "Get out of my way."

A threatened feeling quickly washed over Ghalok as he was not greeted with the same amount of ignorant bliss. To make matters worse, the man was now upon him in a fairly aggressive manner. As quickly as the man's voice, Ghalok's demeanor underwent a change.

Dropping the remainder of his deer leg, a vein began to pulsate on his forehead, rippling across his bald, thick skull as he clenched his fists and a menacing grin spread across his maw, his brow furrowing. Quick, shallow breaths permeated the silence around him, the man inched closer.

In another instant, primal instinct had taken over Ghalok. Blood pounded into his temples, and his mouth began to froth, a sure sign of rage. Now only ten feet and closing, the man seemed not to be intimidated by the change in Ghalok's personality, only prompting more of a negative reaction from the behemoth.

A roar echoed through the ruins, full of guttural anger and mindless rage, as Ghalok beat his right fist defiantly against his chest. Without warning, he lunged into a breakneck run at the man, his arms shifting into a ready position should they collide, prepared to grapple.

In moments Raze found himself grabbed. One moment the person had been standing and roaring, now they were on him. His teeth clenched as his hands rose to meet the others biceps with his hands in feeble attempt to hold them off from just steamrolling him. The balls of his feet pressed into the ground as he tried to withstand the immense force and size of his opponent, but Raze's own weight was insignificant, and such an impact would see him lose grip and slide backwards.

However... His back did not crumple and his legs did not fold, and where his feet failed to find purchase grass and dirt ripped from the ground. With no purchase to apply his own ample strength back, he would be forced away until he met a wall, unless Gholak decided to do something else.

It was as difficult to push the man over as Ghalok's tiny mind had anticipated, not very difficult at all. Adrenaline surged through his chest and arms where the man collided with his hulking frame, continuing to rush forward recklessly, as if to pick up more speed. Tightening his grip around the man's torso, he quickly approached the ruin walls.

CRASH!

Debris and dust encompassed the two as the wall of the ruin was decimated by the running force of the half-giant's fury. The room they were now in was bare and dark, save for a large stone altar in the center of the room, and the light that poured through from the hole he had created and the previous 'designated' doorway. Without stopping, he continued his charge until he was at upon the stone altar. Shifting the man's weight, he flipped him around as his hands rose higher above his head, so that he had him in a suplex position, but only for an instant. With the driving force of a subway car, he drove the man back first into the altar, another loud crash piercing the otherwise serene area.

The altar room had quickly become a war zone, bits of stone wall and altar strewn infrequently around the room. Ghalok, his rage yet to subside, palmed the man's chest with his left in an attempt to keep him pinned down, while his right would begin laying into the man's face, punch after punch, each one gaining a little more momentum and power, should the man fail to break free.

Raze was largely along for the ride, slamming through the wall and losing his footing so he was almost freely dangling in the Goliath's hand, then up and down again hitting the altar with as much force until the solid structure cracked, only kept up by being constructed into the floor. The rapid punches were equally damaging, slamming Raze's head around like it was some sort of toy, and yet with each punch blood did not spill and bone did not cave. In fact, a snarl turned into a loud shout and the teenagers wild fumbling to fend off the punches changed.

Hands wrapped around the wrist that had him pinned and two feet rose, pressing into Gholak's stomach with notable force, though hardly enough to dislodge him, then a heave came from with Raze. His muscles tensed and his body strained as he pushed up and screamed bloody fury through the onslaught of punches, all an effort to toss titan off of him. His body might have been small, but if he could get purchase his strength was mighty.

Punch after punch was thrown, never once registering in his mind that he might have killed the man, his screams throughout the barrage made sure of that. It almost took him by surprise when he gripped his wrist, a menacing amount of power radiating from an otherwise feeble looking individual. At least to him.

Suddenly, he felt his feet connect with his stomach, prompting a momentary "ermf" to escape his clenched jaws. He could feel his frame being raised slightly against his will. The hand that had palmed flat against his chest, now wrapped in his embrace, gripped tightly at his sides, nearly encompassing the width of his torso, with strength that could have gored a wild boar, though the man's skin remained solid. This was mainly a way to ensure that if he did fling the goliath away, he would be following closely in tow.

The man's force pushed Ghalok back, impressive, brute strength that only seemed to put up more resistance the louder he screamed. With his hand gripping his middle, his feet planted firmly in the stone floor, he began to push the man toward the wall like you would push a mop along the floor, the tiles giving way to rubble. A couple of steps forward, he stopped.

Lifting the man up to meet his gaze, ferocity piercing from one to the other. "I! AM! MIGHTY!!" The giant roared, as if to have a screaming match with the individual before he attempted to headbutt him, his forehead meeting with his nose, should he find his target.

Felt his body sliding and the crunch of tiles beneath his tailbone and spine. But this was a good thing. Since he was no longer being slammed to all hell, he could actually focus for a moment. When the grind finally stopped one arm launched back, elbow hitting the ground and it may have looked like he was trying to push himself up off of the floor, but the reality was a prepared attack.

Head met nose, his head forced downwards with what was a crunch of relenting cartilage giving away that his nose had weakened under the relentless assault so far and with that final blow finally caved. Then he snapped. A good twenty seconds or more of solid beating had welled up within Raze and now he was unleashing it right back, fingers of his lower hand had cracked through the tiles to the solid foundation beneath and were now holding on. His other hand grabbed for the back of the Goliath's head and like a rubber band snapping, both clenching palms swung inwards.

Even if Gholak's might didn't relent, the ground did, a chunk of solid stone tearing out from ground and swung up for his face.

As he sent the man down to the ground with his headbutt, he had hardly a chance to continue with his assault, before he gripped him by the neck, and whether by accident or not, drove a very large stone into his face, and a moment thereafter, a fist. The stone, being forced between an unmovable face and an unstoppable fist, shattered almost instantaneously, the bare knuckles causing the most harm.

Ghalok stumbled to his side a few good feet as he managed to keep his footing, rubbing aggressively at his eye that now had a fair amount of debris and dust lodged within it. Howling, he wheeled around, gripping onto another large piece of debris, in one fluid motion, swung it around and threw it toward the man. The chunk was no larger than a coffee table, but surely it weighed closer to 800 pounds.

Charging after his projectile, he cocked his fist back, should the stone fail to meet it's mark, or otherwise be destroyed by his opponent, he had his next strike prepared.

Had Raze ever thought he was anything other than indestructible, he would have been afraid at the sight of the incoming hunk of stone hurtling for him. But a mix of personal experience and sheer teenage stupidity steered him wrong as he slammed into the stone shoulder first with a sickening crunch. It wasn't the sound of bones breaking, it was the sound of bone dislodging as when he came through the other side his left arm hung loose in the socket.

Burning crimson eyes locked onto his own injury for long enough to recognize his own mortality, which dug into the primal instinct of fight or flight, and Raze had never once known flight in his life. An angry scream echoed in his throat, a sound that had left his hoarse from shouting day after day, and with that scream came a punch to flung haphazardly but still carrying an unusual amount of force.

The only hint to the still growing strength of the teen was the uncanny shape in his arms that looked to be what was left of his starved muscles tensing.

As his opponent lashed his fist outward, the prepared strike from Ghalok switched from a fist to an open palm, which he shot forth to collide with the incoming fist.

Forces met, and a power struggle ensued. Easily engulfing the entirety of the man's hand within his own, he tightened his grip, offering a fair amount of pushing force to keep the punch from connecting. Not having the current wits to assess his opponent, he wouldn't have noticed that his arm had been completely dislodged from it's socket, an otherwise tactful mistake.

Using his own force against him, he suddenly jerked him backward, switching from push to pull. Wheeling around on his heels, he would attempt to throw the man, with enough access force to put him through yet another wall of the altar room. It was truly a marvel that the structural integrity of the entire building had yet to be compromised.

Stepping toward the new hole, now leading outside to the courtyard, he paused for a moment, just before the exit. He saw his opponent just outside, and with a great shove, he attempted to bring another section of the wall toppling over onto him. Muscles of magnitude shuddered the wall loose from it's precarious perch, rubble sliding out of the bottom as if the wake of a wave of stone, the slab seemingly suspended in mid-air before gravity took hold, and the slab began to fall.