The Reluctant Aspirant - Artemis Morrowfield

[Masquerade]

Not all adventurers are born heroes. Very few as well, live long enough to attain the title or even to see an age of retirement. Whether their deeds are benevolent or to the ends of darker powers, they share one thing in common – it is that they originate from all walks of life and each hold their own reasons for the profession.

Artemis Morrowfield is one such adventurer. He is neither especially talented nor gifted in any field of discipline, but still yet roams the land in search of adversity. An able-bodied and bright lad he is capable of holding his own, but the decision was never really his to make in the first place, and took to the road by a sense of necessity.

It is the story behind how we now witness Artemis, awakening from his troubled slumber for the second time in this very night. Emerging from his shakily erected tent, he moves to rest upon the stump beside the smouldering remains of his campfire long since burnt out, smothered by the cold floes of the ebon night.

This place is a grassy knoll set in the vicinity of Port Hempstead that he overlooks from his seat. He watches the sealed gates, the glinting eyes of the lamps, and relative serenity that has settled in this hour of twilight. His thoughts wander a time to warm beds and warmer meals; he is not much of a woodsman and so his comfort in the wild is limited but the four gold coins to his name restrict him from the luxury of civilization.

Instead he takes his flask, a couple of wine bottles and the like down to a stream. He fills them there, a heavy burden of guilt on his visage that is reflected in the looking-glass of the clear waters. It is no guilt from an act inflicted upon any other. Rather it is a loathing of the self and what he had become since his leave from the Silkwood logging camp.

An observer might attribute this to his personal wealth or that of a drinking vice by the stash of the bottles. Many that know him, too, would probably do likewise. One would actually find that both are the result of his antic disposition, a certain act that he maintains in intent to mislead, but for no malicious purpose.

He decided he doesn’t even really find a fondness for alcohol innately due to the taste.

In truth he is beset on all sides by questions of mortality and the possible consequences of his actions – what could or would have been – and it is this struggle betwixt his inner thoughts and the world around him that paralyzes him so. To mask this and anyone that might interfere with his own private dominion in civil turmoil, he throws upon a shroud of naivety and stupor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was not always this way, of course.

When he was only a little younger he set off from his home at the border of Silkwood. Bright-eyed and full of intent, full of enthusiasm was the boy that intrepidly ventured. In that day he even wielded his greatsword at every opportunity, eager to test his mettle against duelists on the road and whatever task he might be commissioned for. He had no problem slaughtering vermin, clearing out rats from cellars and the occasional starving wolf preying on farmer’s livestock. It was when the blood on his sword began to stain his hands red from humanity that realization came.

It was the tragic incident on the border of a small hamlet. There his hand was forced, and he was required to cut down a brigand whom was accosting a woman. It had been an immediate reaction for him, to bring his blade round, down, sharp and clean through the man’s torso. Like a dog or other vermin that came before he slaughtered him without forethought or so much as a moment’s consideration.

There was so much blood. Much more then Artemis had ever been able to conceive might’ve been contained therein the mortal shell. As a sheltered youth he was far from prepared for what he would experience. It was there, splattered across his chest and smearing the line of his sword, even an angry zigzag of it thrown across his face from what he could make out in the reflection of the blade. The vagabond had fallen whilst grasping at the woman for support, unable to cry through the chokes of crimson steadily rising in his throat. The woman present however, just screamed and it resonated through Artemis like a mournful dirge over, and over and over again.

He had acted appropriate after evaluating the situation. Little trouble was certain to be had from the local law, even. Yet it was that the boy could not fathom his taking of another man’s life and the ramifications of it all. The woman stole away as soon as she was able, and unthinking and unknowing of what to do; Artemis also fled the scene with her affrighted shrieks in his ears.

The sword, smote in the very essence of life from the man slain, smouldered in the corners of thought as it was forgotten for a time.

Now he does not use his sword much anymore save for in his private rituals of training, though it is his only real specialty and subsequent claim to strength on the forefront of battle. He lives each day as he can, salvaging enough to survive by whatever means, masking his thoughts and feelings 'till the day he can solve their betrayal or be rid of them completely. Then, but only then, will he require but a single reason to take up his sword and start on that journey to heroism again.