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† Koshei the Deathless †

Quick find code: 49-50-741-60535019

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Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
New adds are finally up!

Howdy everyone. I'm Elitemage14, and welcome to my new story, Koshei the Deathless! Or should I say old story?
I had just posted a new story today called Straightjacket. (The quickfind code is 49-50-158-60534373 if you want to check it out) As I was saving what I had just written on Microsoft Word, I found the file for an introduction to an old story I had at first forgot even writing. Then I looked at the date I last accessed the file, saw it was from 2007, and realized why.
The name of that story was Koshei the Deathless, and was about a certain Fremmenik character. I had started writing the story in Word, but never posted it and eventually forgot about it. But having rediscovered it I might as well post what I wrote back in 2007, and who knows, maybe I'll even continue the story. Koshei was an NPC that had always intrigued me, even back in 2007 when everyone on the Future Updates forum thought I was out of my mind with all my information and speculation. But I don't think any of it seems so wild anymore ;)
Current story posts: 33

If you read, please comment.

07-Mar-2010 01:20:17 - Last edited on 18-Aug-2010 22:37:57 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Koshei the Deathless

The ocean swelled in anger, and another tumbling wave crashed against the sanpan hull of the helpless vessel. The rain, now turned to near hail, pelted the deck of the Fremennik boat and threatened to tear apart the interlaced cloth layersof the struggling mast. Another rolling wave shook the rear of the vessel as it took a sharp right turn, missing a massive chunk of ice by mere inches. The boat bobbed fiercely and took a sharp dip, slapping the crew above deck with another burst of freezing salt water, but by some miracle the ship remained afloat.
"Pull up the nets! We have to anchor her down now!"

A dozen men frantically tugged on the two remaining crab-loaded trappings as another three with clubs visciously beat a tuna the size of a wagon into the holding tanks. By now the fishermen were little more than wet, shivering messes draped in bearskin coats.
Brundt, the chieftan and man at the wheel, ran his crinkled fingers through his icy beard. The strong current and brewing storm had dragged his ship farther north than intended. He had never traveled this far before, and the waters here weren't even mapped. Trying to navigate through ice was suicide. Even the fish seemed uneasy.
The black clouds above opened and belched a humongous streak of lightning hardly fifty feet away, casting the overcast dawn in a blanket of light. Brundt's heart nearly burst right out of his chest with what he saw; he dug deep within himself and summoned all his strength into a mighty pull. His ship skidded to the left, just narrowly dodging the iceberg that would have surely ended the lives of him and his crew.

07-Mar-2010 01:20:31 - Last edited on 21-Mar-2010 21:26:02 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Aside from the lightning, the sky was completely dark, and Brundt had no sun to tell north from south, or east from west.
"Ease up on the sails!" he barked. "Finish up with those nets and get below decks for your mothers' sakes, before I skin the lot of 'ya!" The freezing rain had turned Brundt's cheecks a bright, almost glowing red, and it was getting to the point where he was starting to lose feeling in his limbs. They had to anchor here and wait for the sky to clear, or risk frost-bite and even death.
"Sir, there's a man in the water, starboard side!" one of his crew shouted back. Brundt scanned the water, but couldn't spot anything, even with his excellent eyesight. It was just water and ice as far as the eye could see. He looked around the deck and quickly counted heads. None of his crew seemed to be missing. He was going to shout back that the storm had just been playing tricks with the crew's eyes as another bolt of lightning struck. This one had been so close he thought the light was going to blind him, but through his squinting eyes he caught a momentary glimpse of what looked like the body of a man floating face up in the water.
"Lower me that anchor! Ease in on the starboard side and bring him in!" Brundt ordered, yelling to be heard over the storm. He sprinted across the deck, doing his best to keep balance on the slippery wood. Using the rope-operated crane on deck, he and two of his crew were lowered down to the figure.

07-Mar-2010 01:20:36 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2010 01:24:54 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The man in the water wasn't moving. His body was as bare as the day he was born. Brundt didn't know what to expect as he grasped the body by the forearm, which felt like he was gripping a giant icicle. A few minutes in freezing waters could kill a person, and Brundt couldn't even imagine how long this man had been out. The man was surely not from Brundt'* crew, but the nearest dock was three weeks away, and there were no other boats in sight. Sailing this far north was unheard of.

Once aboard, the body was carried below deck and out of harm's way. He was set down on a large table in the kitchen, beside the heat of the stove. It was in this light that Brundt got a true look at the man.
His skin was far bluer than the sea, and covered with bruises from head to toe. The man's eyes were closed, most likely frozen shut. His fingernails were scraped raw, the nails on several of them torn away. His hair had fallen out in clumps, leaving behind a jigsaw puzzle of pale, blue-veined skull. What little hair remained looked brittle and had turned yellow-white. His face was shrunken, and the skin, paper-thin and nearly translucent, clung to his cheek and jaw bones as though his face had become shrink wrap.
Brundt stepped forward to take the man's pulse. The tendons and veins and arteries bulged from the flesh of his neck. Brundt's fingers lay on the man's icy skin for what seemed like an eternity without feeling a pulse. He was about to pronounce the man dead when he felt a quiver under his fingers.

07-Mar-2010 01:20:45 - Last edited on 21-Mar-2010 21:26:43 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Brundt's hand hovered under the stranger's nose, but he could feel no air being inhaled or exhaled. He ran his palm down to the man's sternum. The body was basically a giant icecube, and all circulation should have been frozen solid, but sure enough came a shallow heart beat. That was when Brundt began to notice the large burns covering the body's torso, the faint-red at first mistaken for frostbite. The sizzled red flesh was perfectly shaped, almost like it had been done with a branding iron. The symbol was like nothing the cheiftan had ever seen before. Brundt put his hand on the burns, and that was when the man awoke from his coma.
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07-Mar-2010 01:20:55 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2010 01:25:16 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The body groaned from Brundt's touch. The stranger's chest heaved, and somewhere deep in his lungs came a wet rattling sound.
He tried to move, broad muscles long frozen beginning to awake; the figure was horribly skinny, but his strength seemed untouched. The air was filled with the sounds of popping joints and crackling blood vessels, which now spiderwebbed his body with internal bleeding. He half rose into a sitting position, clearly feeling great pain with each movement, but that didn't stop him. The foreigner pushed away the two men trying to hold him down, and then reached out with his right arm and grabbed Brundt by the throat.
The Chieftan's breathe was instantly severed. He tried to push away, but to his horror found his legs were no longer touching the ground. He was pulled forward by the neck, stopping just inches shy of the stranger's face. As Brundt looked into those horrible yellow eyes, he was overcome with a sense of dread. For the first time in his life, he understood the meaning of true fear. 'This is it', Brundt thought. 'He's going to snap my neck and toss me aside like a ragdoll.'
The stranger opened his mouth, revealing black gums. His toungue, swollen and brown, darted out to lick his cracked lips.
"Koshei," the man whispered, and then dropped Brundt onto the floor. He chieftan lay there for several seconds, wheezing to catch his breath. He looked up, but the stranger was no longer sitting over him. The stranger himself had collapsed, and had drifted back into his coma

07-Mar-2010 01:21:02 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2010 01:25:27 by Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Elitemage14

Posts: 12,429 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
~~~*~~~

The crew eventually decided to bring the stranger back to Rellekka, for he did not seem of good health or sound mind. Yrsa the Healer tended to him for many weeks, until one day it was as though a new soul had entered his burnt and broken body. He suddenly left her house one day, fully healed, and able to speak as though nothing had ever happened to him. He had no recollection of how he had come to be in the icey ocean, or of who he was, or where he had come from, but this did not matter to the Fremenniks or him. He was given the name Koshei, the first word he said upon being found by Brundt'* crew. He took his trials of adulthood, and has been a boon to their clan ever since.

End of Prologue

07-Mar-2010 01:21:11 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2010 01:25:41 by Elitemage14

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