Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-24685738-20170731183450/@comment-5583506-20170802012917

"So many pasts", Shanks groaned. "One day Shanks remembers it one way, another day he remembers it another. Maybe they are all true?"

He closed his eyes for a short moment as if he steadied himself. "But Shanks will try. Again, that is. Whether you decide that this version is true or just some sort fiction, is up to you. It matters little to Shanks, seeing as he barely knows this himself." He fell silent for a moment. His otherwise distracted mind seemed to focus for once.

"This story takes place a long long time ago, back when people would still live under the reign of the Septims", he began. "Shanks was... a slave. Yes. That he was. On a plantation on the island of Vvardenfell. Long before the Red Year. He was but a cub. Fifteen years of age. Curious and hard-working. Honest and willstrong. The Dunmer tried to break him a couple of times, yet Shanks persisted and endured. He knew better than to lay down and accept death. So he worked hard. He got beat up for not working hard enough. So Shanks worked harder. Maybe Shanks' ancestors showed mercy on the poor cub? Poor poor Shanks. For just the day when Shanks was going to receive yet another beating, he was bought. Elka was her name. A Nord. Or was she a Breton? Shanks can't remember. Maybe she never existed in the first place? Either way, Shanks was bought. Bought by Elka the Witch. Beautiful woman. Very beautiful. Haunts Shanks' dreams to this day."

The Khajiit seemed to linger on his own reflections before taking to word again. "Elka brought Shanks with her home, to serve once more as a slave. She lived in a cabin on an island in the Sheogorad region of Vvardenfell. Shanks never liked the smell of that island. It reeked of sea bottom. According to her the Sheogorad isles had one day risen from the vast depths of the sea, from the kingdom of the Dreugh. Strange stories she would tell Shanks at night. Of old and dark beings on Nirn, hiding below the waves, beyond the emptiness of the stars, and within the very deepest pits of the world itself."

The Khajiit's gaze flickered. "She was very kind to young Shanks. She gave him shelter and food. All she wanted in return was for him to clean and obey. One late night young Shanks was awoken by a most disturbing sound. Elka was standing out on the pier, not a single thread on her body, chanting out to the waves in the moonlight in a language Shanks couldn't comprehend, yet one he recalls to this day. And when she called out to the sea..."

Shanks face turned into a ghostly pale. "... the sea replied." Shanks shook his head. Whatever he had heard or witnessed that day, he seemed hesitant to describe it in detail. "Of that, he will speak no further. However after the ritual was completed and when Shanks approached, Elka took notice and invited him to..."

Shanks' eyes rolled as if he tried to locate the right word somewhere within his broken mind. "... unite with her. Though Shanks' heart trembled in fear, he dared not to disobey, after what he had just seen. And on that very beach Elka bereft Shanks of his purity. Shanks gave her his seed that night. The days that followed were... strange. Elka barely spoke to Shanks. She just observed him under silence, like... like someone studies a creature to understand their behaviour better. She only came to Shanks' cot every night to indulge herself in carnal desires... and maybe Shanks' desires too? But the truth was that Shanks only did what she wanted him to do, because he dreaded her. Though he had never been treated unkindly by her, he almost wished to return to the plantation from where he had been bought. Back there, he knew what to expect. A regular beating for not working hard enough, even when working hard. But there... on that island... everything seemed so..."

The Khajiit's gaze seemed to fix on something in the distance, behind Phantom's shoulder, as if he was staring through the wall, or perhaps he was looking at something that had just appeared right now. Who could really tell?

"... cut off from the world. It felt as if neither Elka, the ritual she had performed, or that very island, belonged there. They were as if stolen from some other world, another age, either hundreds upon thousands of years from now or back in time. It was just... strange. Shanks didn't belong there. Shanks doesn't belong here."

His eyes returned to Phantom. "Elka entered Shanks' nook one night where she rode him and stole his seed yet again. When she was done, she told Shanks that she had been observing him and taken notice of how distant he had become in comparison to how he had been when he had first arrived there. She said that she truly cared for young Shanks' well-being and wanted him to be happy. She didn't want him to fear her. And the only way for Shanks to not fear her was by teaching Shanks everything she knew, so that they would be on equal grounds. She would teach him everything that mankind was never meant to know... and..."

Shanks suddenly clipped with his ears and listened intensively, looking over his shoulder as if he could hear someone or something standing behind him. His head turned in the direction the inaudible sound came from, tracing it for a moment before returning his attention to Phantom.

"So Elka brought Shanks to a cave on the island. The strange erosion and formation indicated that it had once been submerged along with the rest of the landmass. She drew a circle in the sand, put out candles, and let a few drops of her blood spill into the circle's midpoint with a curved dagger. For what purpose? Shanks doesn't know this. Maybe she told him? If she did, Shanks forgot. Elka summoned once again upon powers Shanks couldn't comprehend. The candlelight began to fade around him and the walls of the cave seemed to close in on him, until there was only him, Elka and the darkness that surrounded them both. But they were not alone..."

Shanks froze up. "In that darkness they spoke to Shanks for the first time. He saw them. And they saw him. With a thousand eyes or more, they all saw him. They spoke with him. Though Shanks didn't understand the language, the one which he had heard Elka speak, he understood the core message. All of a sudden Shanks head was bombarded with knowledge. He saw things. Things that shouldn't be. Visions of dying stars millions of years distance between us, of lifeless lands blowing away like dust in the wind, of celestial bodies made entirely of ice. He saw the very reaches of Nirn. He saw beyond the frozen wastes of Atmora and the ruins from those who once dwelt there. He saw down into the impenetrable depths of the seas where no light had ever touched the bottom. He witnessed the unspeakable things of which shouldn't be mentioned that lived there. He gazed into the dark abysses of the mountain ranges where no man nor beast would ever tread for thousands of years. And he saw them... Shanks head was being torn apart from the inside out. He was taught things that no man should ever have access to. He saw things that weren't meant for mortal eyes. He experienced pain, pleasure, every human emotion; inconcievable and familiar. He went through it all. In an effort to make it all stop, Shanks grabbed the dagger... He didn't know how he got it or... or how it ended up in Elka's chest. But the very next moment the horrible sights stopped. They had stopped, and returned from the incomprehensible space from wherever they came from. And Elka... was dead... a dagger to her heart, with her blood on Shanks' hands."

He made a short pause. "Shanks was never the same from that day onward. He would hear them occasionally. He knew what they wanted, and it scared him. Shanks mind had been torn to pieces and then patched together and now he was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He knew things, more than he should know. He knew of secrets to powerful magic. After mourning Elka and having buried her body to hide his crime, Shanks didn't stay on the island. How could he? His first idea was to drown himself. Sink himself into the sea to be rid off it all. But knowing what he did, of the things that lurked unseen all around us, he dared not to. Instead he chose to live. As some years passed he uncovered in his mind the enigma of life and death. And not long after that he performed his own ritual which granted Shanks an unnatural long life. Prior to the night in the cave, things like magic and rituals had been unheard of to him. But the very next morning, Shanks knew everything. The ritual of eternal life had come to Shanks instinctively and he had performed it with no trouble. With his enhanced lifespan Shanks delved into every art of magic he could master, he became a skilled alchemist, a master of illusions, a teller of truths, a teller of stories, a seer of visions. But it was all but for one reason."

Shanks' gaze darkened. "To keep himself safe... to keep the world safe from... from them. And now... Shanks is here. Hackdirt was a prediction. Yes, it was. Shanks didn't recognise that one though. Oh no. Far too estranged from the rest of its kin. Dark being. Dark god. Shouldn't exist here at all, yet there it was. Yes. Shanks is now here. Masked man is here, listening to Shanks. Shanks hasn't told this version of the story before. Or maybe he has? A long time ago? To another person? He can't remember. Sometimes he thinks that they keep him from remembering. Keep him from telling the truth. For whom in their right mind would trust the one with a broken mind?"