| NAME: Dakeal APPEARANCE: 6'0 tall, amber eyes, brown hair, and amber, crystalline arms. Weighs 489kg (1076lbs) RACE: Human HISTORY: Dakeal lived out the first decade of his life at a small farm in a rural village, thinking the farmer and his wife to be his real parents. However, on the day of his tenth birthday, the farm was attacked by a brutal group of armed men, their black tabards adorned with the image of a white, staring eye.. His parents were killed and he and his older brother and younger sister were captured. The man Dakeal called father revealed that Dakeal was an orphan, left on their doorstep in the dead of night, the hooded man who delivered him leaveing only one clue: the word "Manaveil." And then the kindly farmer died, and his children were tortured, the older brother dying and the bandits riding away with Dakeal's sister, leaving Dakeal beaten and near death. Dakeal, mad with pain, stumbled aimlessly, finally collapsing on the indistinct dirt trackm leading to the nearby city of Greenbridge. He awoke in the small city's church, and was informed by the minister that he had been found on the road, and brought there. The clerics had been unable to save his left arm, and it had been amuptated near the shoulder. Though at first shocked into a deep depresstion by the loss of his family and arm, Dakeal eventually emerged from the church to make a life as best he could. For the next eight years, he lived in the small city of Greenbridge, performing such jobs as he could find, stealing when none were available. The theft of a money-pouch from a trio of visiting mercenaries brought Dakeal?s residence in Greensbridge to an end. The men, less forgiing than the city?s residents, chased and cornered the young man in a filthy alley. Dakeal was brutally beaten, and as the leader raised his cudgel for the killing blow, Dakeal closed his eyes, desperately willing his assailants to leave him alone. There was a thud, and long moments passed before Dakeal realized he was still alive. When he opened his swollen eyes, he saw that his assailants had been thrown against the alley walls with crushing force, smears of blood marking the stone where the men, dead to a man, had slid down the wall. A passerby, a brown-robed man with a long white beard, found the terrified young man and ushered him hurriedly away from the alley, and out of town, to a spindly tower just beyond Greensbridge. The man turned out to be a wizard; he had entered town for supplies and sensed Dakeal's desperate, untrained application of power. The kindly old man took the crippled youth as his apprentice, and during his short year in the wizard's tower, Dakeal learned suppress his power, so that such outbursts would not harm innocents. Control was to come later, but Dakeal?s time with the wizard was cut short. The wizard Mecian had devoted an entire floor of his tower to his collection of strange magical artifacts, the purposes of most being unknown. One, an amber globe the size of Dakeal?s fist, drew the young man?s fascination. Mecian assured him that it was magical, and was astounded when Dakeal lifted it from it?s pedastal. The sphere, he explained, weighed far more than it should, and others whom the wizard had shown it to had proved unable to budge it, Mecian himself being able to move it only with his magic. After some weeks of fruitless study, Mecian decided that Dakeal?s ability to handle the sphere was due to the object?s magical nature, and forgot about it. Two weeks before Dakeal?s time with Mecian came to an end he was in the museum, once again marvelling at the assortment of odd devices and trinkets. On one, pointy such object, Dakeal pricked his finger. The injured digit, bled, but not worryingly, and Dakeal turned away to examine the amber sphere. As his bloody finger contacted the orb, it changed, flowing like wax up the startled young man?s arm, and bringing with it horrible, unbearable pain. He awoke to Mecian worried face, and the old man informed him that he had been unconsious for a week, and brought his attention to the afteraffects of Dakeal's strange encounter:his right arm was covered with the amber of the sphere, or had been subsumed by it...and where the stump of his left had been, there wasanother arm of the same crystalline substance. Mecian's comment that his magic indicated the benign nature of Dakeal's new extremities fell on deaf ears, as Dakeal marvelled at this unexpected gift. Several days later, Dakeal returned from a trip into Greensbridge for supplies, revelling in his new arm, to find the tower in flames. A rival wizard, jealous of Dakeal's mentor, had > engaged the old man in a sorcerous duel, and won. The victor and his retinue, four well armed and vicious-looking men, stood gazing up at the inferno, laughing amongst themselves. Dakeal shrieked in rage, and charged the group, intent on rending them limb from limb with his yellow hands. The wizard was startled, but still flung a ball of sorcerous flame at his assailant. Dakeal raised his arms in a futile attempt to ward of the flaming projectile...and the flames dissapated on contact. Annoyed now, the wizard ordered his men to kill the annoyance. The unarmed boy attempted to ward off their swords...and the blades glanced harmlessly from his crystalline arms. Dakeal felt a sense of fear, anger and, oddly, frustration. He found his body no longer his own as long amber blades extruded from his forearms. The wizard's guards were momentarily startled by this development, but at a glare from their employer, renewed their attack. Dakeal parried easily, wondering at his incomprehensible transformation, and his counterattack left two men dead, spurting blood from their severed necks. The other two followed quickly into death, and Dakeal turned his attention to the wizard. The mage exercised the better part of valor, rising into the air and soaring away, quickly becoming a speck in the distance. The amber blades retracted into his arms, and Dakeal fell to his knees, screaming vengeance at the retreating wizard, amber fists outstreached to the heavens and tears of sorrow for the kindly old wizard straming down his face. Only when the sky darkened, and the tower?s fires smoldered to nothing did Dakeal recall the image on the sorceror?s black robe. A white, staring eye. Dakeal?s search of the ruined tower produced much ash, but only two things of value: a flute of black stone, found among Mecian?s collection, and a chest containing nothing but a bag of gold coins. Taking the remnants of his brief, happy time with Mecian, Dakeal set out to find the man who had ended it, and find out if that man had also been responsible for his parent?s death. After a year of searching, Dakeal found the wizard completely by accident, while running ? Dakeal had found that he weighed far too much for the average horse to carry, but could run at similar speed for long periods? through a lonely forest path. With a bellow of joyful fury, Dakeal redoubled his sprint, and dragged the startled man from his horse. Dakeal tried, as he had several times before, to summon the amber swords, but failed as usual. He resolved to simply wring the man?s neck. The wizard, however, gasped nonesense, and Dakeal was flung several meters down the path. His enemy chanted another spell, but Dakeal raised his arms in time to block the fireball. The wizard grunted, and spread his arms wide, his voice rising and falling in ear-twisting syllables. Dakeal watched warily, ready for another sorcerous attack. It didn?t come. Instead, a blue tinged shadow appeared, Dakeal?s own. Glancing behind, Dakeal saw a portal of shifting blue radiance suspended in midair on the path. His gaze caught for a moment, Dakeal had no time to dodge when the wizard whistled and his horse>butted Dakeal with it's head, plungung him into the glimmering door, which vanished abruptly, along with it?s occupant. The wizard, grumbling, dusted his robe, remounted and continued on his way. CAPABILITIES: Dakeal himself has powerful telekinetic abilities, but his trining in their use was cut short, and he has only learned to suppress their unwanted manifestation, for which he is greatful; their first appearance led to the deaths of three men whose only crime was overzealous punishment of a thief. Dakeal fears that his unasked for gift and will not use it unless absolutely necessary. Ochre, Dakeal?s symbiotic partner, has the ability to extend swordlike blades seemingly made of the same substance as itself, and allows him to use them effectively, on the order of a skilled, but not unsurpassed, swordsman. The symbiont?s great weight is offset by enhanced strength, reflexes, and endurance, allowing Dakeal to handle the weight and still act with the same fluidity as a normal human. Due to Ochre?s great mass, and Dakeal?s enhanced leg strength, his punches and kicks hit with great force, but his arm strength is comparable to a normal persons; he might punch through a door, but couldn?t rip it to shreds. Additionally, the symbiont can ?parry? incoming magical projectile attacks, suck as fireballs, provided Dakeal sees it coming, and can intercept with his arms or blades. Ochre?s most impressive ability is the power, for a short time, to further enhance Dakeal?s physical abilities to superhuman (or more so) levels, and extend to cover Dakeal?s entire body in an armorlike, amber covering. In this form, Dakeal/Ochre can activate their magic negation ability over their entire body, becoming highly resistant (though not invulnerable) to magical attack. This form cannot be maintained for long, and exacts a terrible price; the enhanced abilites and armor are created from Ochre?s mass, and the chemicals in Dakeal?s own body, and cannot be reabsorbed. When the transformation ends, two thirds of Ochre?s mass is lost, and Dakeal is left drained and weak, nearly comatose and barely able tomove. A week?s recovery, during which Dakeal will eat like a horse is needed to recover Dakeal?s strength, and the pair cannot repeat the transformation until all lost mass is replaced. The symbiont itself shares Dakeal?s senses, and is sentient, but very alien, and can only communicate with it?s host through impressions such as like/dislike, danger, affirmation, etc. It can't hold a conversation, or convey complex concepts. All of the symbiont?s voluntary abilities, the blades, fighting, and the transformation, are under Dakeal?s direct control, the symbiont having responsibility for ?maintenance? functions, Dakeal?s ?inner workings? so to speak. |
| DAKEAL |
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