The Blacksmith Meets The Hero. (Lookingforthis&Chaotic)

[Chaotic]

300 Years Ago. Twilight Plane.

The young man stood at the edge of the world. Behind him, a cliff to Hell, and in front of him, a laughing Immortal. He was panting roughly. He was exhausted, and the pain in his whole being could not be ignored easily. Blood poured from his mouth, and he stared down against the arrogant being in front of him, through half lidded eyes.

"I want you. To look back. See what has become of the world you so dearly love, Summons." The man said, his pale, almost unnaturaly silver toned face glowing in the semi-dark place. Jake looked at the man suspiciously, and he merely laughed, as his purple eyes searched over Jake's own, dark ones. "Do not fear treason. I have no reason to belittle someone who is already half dead."

Jake growled, but turned nonetheless, and instantly, his heart sank. The World... At least the one kingdom below him, was in ruin. Ardell was... gone... Pillars of smoke and flame rose, and little by little, the Immortal raised his hand, letting the image in the void amplify till Jake could see it all. Melia, Drak, Atlas.... They were all... dead. He witnessed horrible things, and little by little, he felt his spirit break. His friends, the only ones he had left. Raped. Tortured. Mutilated. Killed.

He looked at the Immortal, rage building as his eyes flashed red. "Yes... that's it... Bring your little Koshir out, Summons. Let me see that demon's hideous face once more!" The Immortal shouted, pale white lips curving into a laviscious smile, showing rows of sharp teeth as he laughed widely. Jake didn't think twice, as he let out a roar, his hair turning white as he gave out two slices. Too late. With a simple parry, the blades were thrown to the ground, and with another hit, the Immortal's hand clashed through the man's chest.

"When you wake up... If you even do so... Realize... That you will always be..." He smiled, as he pushed Jake lightly towards the cliff, the man trying desperately to even breathe as he felt the pain of his cells trying to join together once more.

"Alone."


Jake dropped down, into the abyss below. The Immortal merely kicked the blades down with him, and closed the portal to Nigh once more.

Present Day. Outskirt's of Lorran.

Jake walked slowly, clutching the ragged cloak to his body as he walked through the dunes of the Great Plains, feeling the constant batter of sand and dust against his features as he walked, ever so slowly, towards what he assumed was Lorran. He had heard about the city a bit over a month ago, and had heard quite a bit about the place, as a hotspot for people who were either trying to hide from the guard, or looking for all manner of work and trade.

He decided to go there, as he thought it would help him reclaim his memory. And if it didn't work, he hoped to at least get some good materials and a couple of jobs to pass the time. It would be much easier, as well. Slowly, he stepped up from another dune, and as if by magic, the sandstorm ceased, and the glory of the Caravan City was shown.

Lorran was always a fairly mobile city, known to move every decade or so, but it always moved to certain spots. Spots in the desert both hard to find and get to, and also... Full of water. This time, they were at the edge of the very desert, and instantly, Jake could feel the much welcome humidity of the sea. He breathed deeply, the hood finally falling back to reveal the man's features. He was fairly tall for Human standards, ranging in at 1.91m. he had sharp, rounded and fairly handsome features that made him look fairly young. His dark hair was messy and stuck out in certain tufts over his sharp, serious looking eyes.

His body was muscled, but not overly so. Just enough to be able to notice it whenever he took a layer of armor off. The latter of which he rarely used anyways, save for his cloak and clothes, the only pieces of armor he wore were quickly discarded, useless to him due to his regenerative capabilities, which were still a mystery to him and a subject of interest to others, ever since he woke up. All in all, Jake was a mercenary with a good-looking face and eyes that had seen their share of fights, even if he remembered less than half of them.

He kept walking towards the Caravan City, suddenly feeling much more relaxed.

 

[Lookingforthis]

300 Years Ago. Twilight Plane.

The young man stood at the edge of the world. Behind him, a cliff to Hell, and in front of him, a laughing Immortal. He was panting roughly. He was exhausted, and the pain in his whole being could not be ignored easily. Blood poured from his mouth, and he stared down against the arrogant being in front of him, through half lidded eyes.

"I want you. To look back. See what has become of the world you so dearly love, Summons." The man said, his pale, almost unnaturaly silver toned face glowing in the semi-dark place. Jake looked at the man suspiciously, and he merely laughed, as his purple eyes searched over Jake's own, dark ones. "Do not fear treason. I have no reason to belittle someone who is already half dead."

Jake growled, but turned nonetheless, and instantly, his heart sank. The World... At least the one kingdom below him, was in ruin. Ardell was... gone... Pillars of smoke and flame rose, and little by little, the Immortal raised his hand, letting the image in the void amplify till Jake could see it all. Melia, Drak, Atlas.... They were all... dead. He witnessed horrible things, and little by little, he felt his spirit break. His friends, the only ones he had left. Raped. Tortured. Mutilated. Killed.

He looked at the Immortal, rage building as his eyes flashed red. "Yes... that's it... Bring your little Koshir out, Summons. Let me see that demon's hideous face once more!" The Immortal shouted, pale white lips curving into a laviscious smile, showing rows of sharp teeth as he laughed widely. Jake didn't think twice, as he let out a roar, his hair turning white as he gave out two slices. Too late. With a simple parry, the blades were thrown to the ground, and with another hit, the Immortal's hand clashed through the man's chest.

"When you wake up... If you even do so... Realize... That you will always be..." He smiled, as he pushed Jake lightly towards the cliff, the man trying desperately to even breathe as he felt the pain of his cells trying to join together once more.

"Alone."


Jake dropped down, into the abyss below. The Immortal merely kicked the blades down with him, and closed the portal to Nigh once more.

Present Day. Outskirt's of Lorran.

Jake walked slowly, clutching the ragged cloak to his body as he walked through the dunes of the Great Plains, feeling the constant batter of sand and dust against his features as he walked, ever so slowly, towards what he assumed was Lorran. He had heard about the city a bit over a month ago, and had heard quite a bit about the place, as a hotspot for people who were either trying to hide from the guard, or looking for all manner of work and trade.

He decided to go there, as he thought it would help him reclaim his memory. And if it didn't work, he hoped to at least get some good materials and a couple of jobs to pass the time. It would be much easier, as well. Slowly, he stepped up from another dune, and as if by magic, the sandstorm ceased, and the glory of the Caravan City was shown.

Lorran was always a fairly mobile city, known to move every decade or so, but it always moved to certain spots. Spots in the desert both hard to find and get to, and also... Full of water. This time, they were at the edge of the very desert, and instantly, Jake could feel the much welcome humidity of the sea. He breathed deeply, the hood finally falling back to reveal the man's features. He was fairly tall for Human standards, ranging in at 1.91m. he had sharp, rounded and fairly handsome features that made him look fairly young. His dark hair was messy and stuck out in certain tufts over his sharp, serious looking eyes.

His body was muscled, but not overly so. Just enough to be able to notice it whenever he took a layer of armor off. The latter of which he rarely used anyways, save for his cloak and clothes, the only pieces of armor he wore were quickly discarded, useless to him due to his regenerative capabilities, which were still a mystery to him and a subject of interest to others, ever since he woke up. All in all, Jake was a mercenary with a good-looking face and eyes that had seen their share of fights, even if he remembered less than half of them.

He kept walking towards the Caravan City, suddenly feeling much more relaxed.

Things always leave an impression on a person, even after they've forgotten the occasion. They shaped your thoughts then and you lived afterwards with this changed mindset. People are, perhaps, not who they are but what their environment made them.

A lot of people suffer and are shaped by it; It's not at all rare in the world to grow up having to make the best of a bad situation and being harden by the experience into something...survivable. A lot of great people then are the winners of a bad situation. More importantly, they are people who learned how to win.

And this, perhaps, is the most important thing to take out of this fact. Not that they beat a horrible scenario full of ugly and nasty things, but that they managed to beat a stacked scenario at all. It wasn't the fact that it was bad that made them great, but that it was hard.

Beallona didn't want to be forgotten.

She lived in a great city of which she was but one inhabitant among hundreds of thousands. She was a pretty enough lady, with her dark hair and green eyes, decent bust and womanly hips. But she merely confirmed to the average beauty of a woman who was fed well enough while growing up, exercised well enough due to her work to keep her at a good weight, and earned enough to dress well in this city.

Maybe she would have outstanding in another place. But in Lorran? She didn't rate more then the upper middle edge. At least in the upper middle edge, she liked to think.

Everyone everywhere killed themselves these days. People who made weapons always had business of many sorts. She herself knew the secrets to high metallurgy and the chemical process that drove the so called powder weapons. The flashing sticks. The fire arms. Knew the recepies to the two most common and useful propellants to her guns and the machinery required to build the tiny gears that made such a weapon deadly.

But she lived in Lorran.

Magic warriors that needed no sleep, rest, or commands defended the limits of the occasionally nomad city. Sentries at the command of the seemingly immortal leaders of their city who needed no supplies from blacksmith, gunsmith or magicsmith. Nor would they turn to HER in particular even if they did, because the big names in the art of death tools weren't even related to fire arms.

There WAS enough demand for her kind of work. Guns were cheap enough with their required skill to kill a lot of the monsters that anyone was likely to meet. A balance between affordability and usefulness that still resulted in a positive calculus.

But she lived in Lorran.

Her father had been with a lot outfits. Mercenary or otherwise. He grew up wanting to be a soldier but came out of it all being a gunsmith. He wanted to explore the world but ended up settling in a decently nice part of the humongous city with a city girl native to the area. People that he fought with and, in some cases, fought against came from all over to talk to him. And inevitably buy what he made.

He had a close relationship with many of the store's customers. People who shopped here simply because they knew him and had done so for a long time. They trusted him and similarly trusted his work. His store flourish decently and Beollona could honestly say that hers was a family business with a good pedigree.

But her father was gone as were his buddies. The outfits now a days found it more to their liking to go to other places (Who in their right mind buys guns from little girls?) and her patron weren't the sort that used their pieces often. Or not often enough for their patronage to keep her a-flounder. But flounder she did and it was all she could do to keep her head above the financial waters of the place and keep being the boss of herself.

All in all, Beallona's problem wasn't one of living with a horrible situation. She wasn't starving, or even in danger of it, and had fallback positions if her current business position were to fall under. Her survival, morals, or sanity weren't in danger.

But she was losing.

Because she lived in a truly GREAT city and she saw no way to buy herself enough time, money or opportunity to really try for the top. Saw no way to stand out from all the other great, if unknown, persona that were dime a dozen in the city of Lorran.

And Beallona...

...Beallona didn't want to be forgotten.

"Fuck this, I am going out to the pub or something," The young proprietress of a gun store in the district of Sorran said to herself out loud as her patience finally ran out.

There was no one inside her store. Hadn't been for the whole morning so she knew for sure that no one was around to question her sanity as she talked to herself. It was fucking unnatural. Business was never really THIS bad before.

But a gnawing feeling at the back of her mind told her that this new low wasn't a exception but, rather, a trend setter on how her business would go.

She probably should stay until night. Just on the off chance that she does get someone that buys enough for the day to not be a loss, but...

She didn't know if she really had the energy to do it anymore. Sighing, she took a sign from below her desk and walked over to the window of her shop. Flipping it over she set it on the sill and exited her store. The sign read "closed" and the young proprietress her already walked off.

 

[Chaotic]

Jake had already been walking through the streets of the densely populated city. Half marveling it all, and half knowing he had to get a few things for himself. His trade had gotten harder and harder with each passing client, as every single one of them wanted another bigger, nastier thing to be killed than the last. He didn't care, personally. He had gone through the main gates, got waved through by some actual human guards -the few that weren't golems, it'd seem- and had been walking towards what he could only tell was the buisness district. Or well, the workshops.

He kept walking through streets, trying to find at least ONE store that wasn't filled to the brim with so many foreigners. Apparently, it was quite common. And the ones that were empty, were eiher close, or just plain useless. He kept walking, through alley and alley, and nothing had particularly sought his taste.

Until he finally saw it. A big wood-carved sign which read Shop, alongside a girl who was quickly going away after setting a sign. He had already tried most stores, so he figured, why the fuck not?

He then realized the girl was probably the last hope he had at good merchandise, so, he quickly took after her, his voice calling out. "Hey! Miss! Hold on!"

 

[Lookingforthis]

Baellona stopped.

The sentence itself describes the general occurrance; One moment Baellona was moving, the next she wasn't. But this honestly lacks the details that would otherwise truly describe what happen.

A person that slows down to the point they don't have more locomotion has "stopped".

A person that staggers, thereby bleeding kinetic energy and losing complete motion in the direction they were moving has also "stopped".

A person that slides in place to completely arrest their forward momentum has "stopped" as well.

Baellona pole axed in place.

No sooner had she heard the voice of, dare she say it?, a potential costumer that her leading foot hit the ground and she FORCED her leg muscles to completely stop in place. Her back arc-ed as a brace against her lower body muscles and the dust on the ground flew forward as all her 135 pounds of weigh travelling at a measly 4 miles per hour were transferred directly into the ground directly below her foot.

It sounded like someone stomping the dirt to death and Baellona took a few seconds to compose her self.

Turning around slowly, oh so slowly, Baellona put on her third best smile, her second best being reserved for paying costumers and the first for none of your business, and greeted...

The costumer(?)

"Hello sir, how may I be of help to you?" She chirped at the....well, fourth wierdest stranger to ever stop her in the middle of the street.

Tall, very tall, was her first thought and followed by, and very fuckable if he dressed better.

Of course, stating the obvious would have just made her seem like a retard and saying the second would have just been rude.

 

[Chaotic]

Jake breathed lightly. "So you are the one who runs this store, I presume." He said, his hands going inside the pockets of his cloak before smiling, a bit of a smirk that perfectly fitted the handsome, tall man in front of her, and one which exuded confidence only regenerative capabilities could give. "E-hem. I'm looking for some weapons. And by some, I mean enough to outweigh me, at the very least. I need replacements. I work as a mercenary, and as you would probably guess, the line of works tends to get... very messy." He said, an understatement. He had already broken more than half the weapons he had gathered in other stores.

"I'm basically looking for legendary status weapons, enough to pierce dragon-skin with ease and even go through golem metal, if could be." He said, before he looked at the shop. "Though I do prefer if we go in to talk about it." He said, looking at her, his dark eyes showing a kind of innocence that went weird with the rest of his armor. The blades at his back shone briefly, as he pulled back the cloak to reveal two silver handguns of quite a hefty barrel. "I'll also need copious amounts of potions, ammo, and in general anything that I can shoot things with. Holy or Dark, preferably." He said, never faltering as he gave out the long list of things.

Hey, he was a shopper, after all. And a busy one.

 

[Lookingforthis]

"You presume correctly sir. That would be me, Baellona Fortress of the Fortress arms and guns," She happily said, trying to blind him with her smile as she introduce herself. No, really, she angled herself and everything to catch the glare of the sun from her pearly white eyes into his retinas.

Hmmm, no she was wrong.

He would have been fuckable without clothes on

Sweet smile, confident gait. But oh, so innocent eyes.

A king of the battlefield had just stepped a rabbit into the vicious ground of a starving merchant like her. She was going to eat him alive, she thought. But not just a rabbit, a fat plumb one full of gold for all the demands he was making. He looked to weighed around three times her weigh and if he was literal about his needs, then she would be having enough money to spend several times THAT in crafting materials. Mewwwwo~

And then he opened his mouth and she realized this wasn't a rabbit but a mythical creature like an ever ripe apples; Theoretically delicious but as useless to look after for all that it was with in her reach. Seriously, legendary weapons?

...Who the hell even sold those?

"A-alright, sir, please do come inside," Baellona invaded him back into her store with a now more brittle smile. This wasn't her number three smile sadly. It was her number 9 smile. And it wasn't a willingly one at that; It was her "Oh shit" smile.

Thankfully her back was turned towards the man as he followed her in so he could see her face. The few seconds that it took her to go inside her store were spend heatedly thinking about how she was going to get anything out of this sale.

Womanly wiles? Yes, perfect! She would use her totally above average looks to get him to buy purely on sex appeal!

She was half way to unbottuning the third button on the collar of her shirt when she remembered that she had her corset on today. Curses! Obedience to her mother had foiled her sexy plans once again!

Sighing as she opened the door, and without a thought reached out with her child bearing hips and bumped her "closed sign" so that it would rotate into an "open" one, she walked to behind her service table and sat down on her nice cushiony chair.

Well, pure sales skill and bullshit it is.

"I am not going to lie mr...." She started to go on her spiel before she realized that she hadn't heard his name yet.

It wouldn't do to not know the name of the customer whom she was about to give the hardest sales speech she had ever spoken.

 

[Chaotic]

Jake picked up on it immediatly, and he couldn't help a large, fanged grin creep up his face. He should've guessed. Eh, whatever. Knowing the people in Lorran, he could find someone to enchant any weapon he bought here, if not, he could just do it himself.

He stepped in alongside the woman, his eyes catching the much more... provocative movements that she had begun. What was she trying to do, seduce him? He couldn't help but chuckle under his breath. This girl was a knockout, that was for sure. He kept his hands inside his pockets, looking at her with a mildly normal look, obviously not completely confragulated by her looks. At least not yet.

He looked around. She certainly had a lot of things. But she had ammo, bows, swords, some pretty rare guns, axes, shields, maces, lances. She was pretty well stocked up, but sadly, nothing that could fit what he needed.

He heard her speak, and he walked to a side, inspecting a fine blade of Norric design. "Jake. Jake Summons. I'd give you a buisness card, but sadly, I don't have any." He said, turning to her with a bit of a grin before he looked unto the weapons once more, finally returning to the counter.

He quickly moved, and immediatly, two darkened pistols of clearly Demonic design were dropped at the table, alongside two blades. One white, the other black. Both were ingraned with runes, the black one's being red and spelling death, doom, and certain other spells in Daedric, Demonic and Punisher tongues, and the white one saying things like Life, Rejuvenation, and Retribution in golden, spelled out in Elvish, Angelic and Immortal languages.

"I need ammo for these two. Anything works, but I prefer if it's something either explosive or thick to pack a bit of a punch. As for these two, I need something that can either match them, or resist a blow from my unguarded fist." He said, smiling at her sweetly, as he leaned back, waiting for the woman to talk.