In the End

((I decided to write a short backstory piece for my Rift character. For those of you not interested in Rift I wanted to put this note in ahead of the story so you can avoid it. :)~ I am playing on an RP server though so at some point, provided I continue to enjoy the game, I plan to RP more in-game. (I've already had a few in-game RP encounters.)

This story is written about my new character, Kellyann Westvale. She's a marksman and has some skill with the blade, as well as some small amount of bardic skill. I'm also telling this in the first person, just for fun.

For those of you who read this just for fun and don't know about Rift's lore, keep in mind that most if not all player characters have been brought back from the dead. We're all very special snowflakes. :) ))


They say in the end that you don't get a second chance. That the choices you make and the things you do in this life have to count, because you can't do it all over.

I remember the day that our little piece of the world ended. I was there, after all, to see it. For all the dire warnings we had about Regulos' forces, for all of the neighboring towns that stopped sending us messages, you'd have thought we'd believe. You'd have thought we'd prepare ourselves. Maybe covering our eyes and stopping our ears would drown out the sound of danger. Maybe, just maybe, if we didn't see it coming, it would go away and leave us in peace.

What good would fighting do? That was the question many of our people asked. The Guardians had smashed our magitech, and along with them, the machinery we used even to manufacture rifles and ammunition. Worshipping the Gods is all well and good, but the Gods don't come knocking on your door with a freshly killed deer or pheasant so you don't starve, and they certainly don't come and tell you what to do about invaders when you've no weapons to defend yourselves.

Regardless of what we could have done or what we should have done and didn't do, the day the world ended started out pretty ordinary. I went out early in the morning, hunting game to feed myself and a few others in the village. It was a daily routine, something I'd been doing since the age of fifteen when the fever took my parents. Some of the other villagers would give me odd looks, being a young girl and going off hunting like one of the older men in town, but they certainly didn't complain when I shared the extra meat I'd bring home, or helped find people lost in the woods that I'd become so familiar with over the years. It was a good life, and that day started out just like any other. I'd managed to take a few game birds down and was heading back when I first heard the screaming.

As I rushed to the edge of the forest, it was clear already that I'd be too late to help with whatever meager defense the rest of my neighbors had managed to put up. They'd come in wave after wave, the undead silently moving forward like an unstoppable tide. Behind them the necromancers chanted, calling yet more of their minions to bear on the villagers, killing and capturing the villagers in Regulos' name. They'd raided our graveyard and used our own dead to surround those who'd remained in the village that morning. As I hid in the brush near the border of the village, I realized with horror that my own parents were probably there, standing amongst the other minions of these foul things. I remember the scathing anger that coursed through me, making my blood pump hot in my veins.

That was when I saw him. He was taller than the rest of the necromancers that had come to dominate our small portion of Telara. A leader amongst the foul magi, this necromancer practically oozed power. It was by his command that the others had raised our dead, and as I watched, he began to weave spells on the villagers, one after another, dominating their wills and binding them to his cause. Taking their freedom even to fight to the death. The rest of the villagers were herded forward, until they all stood before him, that he could inflict this torment on each of them.

What I did next was, in hindsight, pretty stupid. I was seventeen and alone in the brush. I was watching my people get slaughtered and rise in undeath. What else could I have done? My father had always taught me that living freely, and fighting with honor for those who could not protect themselves was the most noble thing I could do. I just knew, in my naive way, that I could make a difference.

I brought my rifle to bear. The shot was tricky, as the necromancer was quite a distance away, almost at the edge of the range of my weapon. The slightest miscalculation would throw the shot off, and the magitech bullets in my rifle would explode harmlessly in the distance. I steadied myself and held my breath in, only squeezing the trigger as I slowly and evenly exhaled. The shot was loud in the almost-still village, echoing above the moans of those who had been captured and were about to die or be converted. The bullet sped across the distance between me and the necromancer in a second.

I missed.

I never miss. Not in the longest time. Maybe the necromancer had spells of warding around him. Maybe my grief and fear for the people got the better of me. Regardless, the consequences of missing were dire. The undead surged towards me like a tide of death. Necromancers began chanting, their magic filling the air.

I ran.

I ran as fast as I could, the sounds of of the undead crashing through the bramble behind me as I dashed along paths that only I knew. It didn't matter though, the undead would never tire, they would never get lost or scared or confused. They would pursue me until I dropped. My heart raced in my chest. I dared to look back, and I saw with a spark of hope that I had outpaced them. They were dead things, too slow to race along on foot. I would make it.

An arrow, fired by an undead archer, hit me in the back and threw me to the ground. I only dimly remember the agony of it now. I only dimly recall seeing the blood on the leaves of the forest floor. I remember the weakness though. The feeling of helplessness as I struggled to get my legs to work again. I remember hearing the undead drawing ever closer, and the clinging terror of knowing that when they caught me, I'd join their ranks.

Somehow I got my feet back under me again. Somehow I ran on, in a daze, leaving a bloody trail for them to follow. Every step was pain the likes of which I cannot describe now and I've no wish to recall. I had only one thought; that I could not let them take my body, and shackle me in undeath. I had to go somewhere they couldn't find me, and I knew just the place.

I ran in a fog of pain for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. By the end, I recall that my vision was gray at the edges, as blood loss took its toll. I emerged from the woods at a place known as Whitecliff, where the woods gave way to a sharp outcrop of white stone that plunged down to the ocean hundreds of feet below. I had reached my destination just in time, the undead mere feet behind me.

Without hesitating, I threw myself from the cliff. As I sailed down towards my end, my last sight was of the ocean, sparkling in the sunlight. The feeling of flying, of my long brown hair flowing in the wind behind me was peace from the jolting agony of the run. I remember that I smiled in that last moment before the water and rocks rose up to catch me. I had done as my father would have wanted. I had lived free to the last, keeping my body from them. I had died well.

As blackness overcame me, little did I know that this was not the end. That my body would be found, and that I would be brought back, not in undeath, but by magitech. That I would become Ascended.

They say in the end that you don't get a second chance. That the choices you make and the things you do in this life have to count, because you can't do it all over.

I guess they were wrong.