Knight in the Mountain - Part 1 - On the Steps

Sorbar Tris scowls as he hears as his alarms go off. The old man was just getting ready to have his dinner. Not much, just a plate full of boiled local plants and a cooked half of a local bird.

Hopefully it is just a false alarm. The machinery behind his alarm system is old and it wouldn’t be the first time that an alarm has gone off for no reason.

Or perhaps some of the locals are exploring the area near his home again. Sure the Antera declared the mountain he lives on to be forbidden, punishable by death, but that hasn’t stopped people before. But his initial defences have always scared them off before.

Placing his plate of food on the table, he calls up his HUD and check which alarms are going off. Initially it was the perimeter alarms, but some of the inner alarms are going off now as well.

With a weary sigh, Sorbar decides to investigate it. The old habits he developed over the three centuries he spent as a wandering hero die hard. One of those habits was always setting up some kind of early warning system and another is to never dismiss something that might be trouble.

“By the Knights, I wish Anthea was still here,” grumbles Sorbar Tris as he grabs his old duster as he strides towards the front door of his house.

A half-Deltaen, Sorbar Tris is an impressive specimen with tall, muscular, athletic body and a criss-cross of various scars all over his body. His formerly blonde hair has become a mixture of white and grey and is cut close to his head. While not wrinkly, his skin and facial features have become worn and rugged with decades of continuously throwing himself into constant battle. Meanwhile a short beard and moustache cover the lower half of his face whilst his sharp, alert blue eyes are the mainstay of his upper face.

His clothes are simple, a worn brown duster, a pair of practical boots, black legwear and a grey shirt. And of course his prized Linx Sword, Ang’Jun, is sheathed at his hip.

Sorbar heads down the steep, wilderness path leading up to his small house near the top of the mountain. He could pave it and make it easier to travel, but the old hero wishes to discourage people from seeking him out in any way he can.

As he approaches the detected intruder, Sorbar brings up the relevant information on his HUD. Small humanoid, most likely a child, a Garc or some sort of creature. The Antera do like their monsters.

If he is honest with himself, Sorbar is hoping that it is a monster of some kind. He can deal with those with simple ease. A Garc would be more interest to handle and a child would just be downright troublesome. Not that he has a problem with children, the implications of a child being up here on their own...

Despite walking into what is mostly like some kind of trouble, Sorbar enjoys the stroll through the cold air of the mountain, the hard snow of winter crunching under his boots.

As the figure comes into view on a path below him, Sorbar bites back a curse. The intruder is a child, the girl staggering through the snow while her feet sway dangerously close to the edge.

A child should not be up here. There is no good reason for why a child would be anyway close to here and yet there is one on the path below him.

But despite how wrong it is for a child be here, decision on what to do is now extremely simple and easy for Sorbar as there is only one choice available to him.

He jumps down, easily weathering the force of landing as he touches down directly in front of the child. Looking into the dull grey eyes, Sorbar frowns at the dead look to them.

The girl is clearly no more than ten years old at the most and is on her last legs. Her body is pale and dying, she is malnourished and exhausted, her snow-white hair is dirty and matted while her expression is devoid of life. In his lifetime, Sorbar has seen countless people in this state and it hurts his heart every time, especially when it is a child.

Reaching down to the child, Sorbar scoops her up into his arms, the little girl unresisting.

“Do not worry child,” Sorbar whispers into her ear, “You are safe now. None shall harm you whilst you remain under my protection.”

Making sure that he is holding the child firmly, Sorbar breaks into a run, eager to take the child into the warmth and comfort of his home.

“H-h-hungry,” mutters the child quietly and Sorbar pulls her closer to him.

“Kid, I got a warm plate full of hot food waiting for you,” Sorbar reassures the child as he thinks about his dinner waiting for him back home. Well, waiting for the kid now. She needs it more than he does and it wouldn’t be the first time that Sorbar has had to go without a meal.

“Do you have a name child?” asks Sorbar as his home comes into view.

“I don’t remember,” replies the child, her dull, dead voice nothing more than a whisper, “I don’t remember anything.”

Jordic. That is what the child is speaking. That means she is most likely a member of the Joric people, a Jorman. Coupled with her survival in this weather and environment, Sorbar is certain that she is as Jormans are innately adapt at weathering the harsh colds of this world.

“Then you shall be Sarkira Tris,” Sorbar tells the child, “And I will raise you as my daughter.”