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| Publication Date: | October 5, 2018 | ||
Meet the Character - Jaxsik-Orrn
by Tsojei
The tale of a Naga warrior battling voriplasms and undead
- By Tsojei, Reel-Ka Warrior of the Dead-Water Tribe
- There we stood, calf-deep in ooze and blood. I looked left to see Kuseem drowning in voriplasm. He died well, but could not utter his final death-curse. He just made a gurgling sound, like a guar with its throat cut. His face, once sharp and covered in bright red war-paint, sloughed off his skull like a wet rag. All in one piece. Dissolving in a pool of green slime, right before my eyes.
- On my right, Tlek fought like a tailless wamasu, filled with righteous Naga fury--desperate to kill what she could before blood-loss and fatigue claimed her life at last.
- Slime-covered ghouls approached from all sides. I crushed and cleaved, just as my root-mother, and her root-mother before her, had done. But my weapon, becoming coated in corrosive slime, sagged and cracked, growing weaker with every strike. Weaker and weaker. Just like Tlek. Just like me.
- As I prepared to charge headlong into the Dread-Father's arms one last time, I heard a hiss and a roar behind me. It was Jaxsik-Orrn. In that moment, I knew we would survive.
- She set upon the voriplasms with such rage and strength that even I, her egg-brother, felt a hatchling's fear well up in my throat-sac. Grave-stakes that the dead-not-dead wielded like clubs crashed against her armor, shattering in a spray of splinters and blood. Voriplasms lashed at her legs, leaving ragged wounds on her calves and thighs. But no injury, large or small, slowed Jaxsik-Orrn's assault.
- In the end, nothing remained of our enemies but broken bones and clumps of slowly fading ooze. Despite her seeping wounds, my sister lurched toward what remained of Kuseem, knife in hand. "Fight on, root-brother," she whispered reverently, before prying what remained of his head from his ragged corpse.
- "Stake the rest," she rasped. Tlek and I did as we were told—pressing Kuseem's grave-stake deep into his chest and pinning him to the thick mud under the water.
- My egg-sister lowered her head and pressed her fist to her chest. "Glory in dying," she hissed.
- "Glory in death," we replied.
- In those days, Jaxsik-Orrn was just a hunter like us. But as we stood there, covered in blood, we saw her true heart--the heart of a war-captain. A hero. And one day, a legend.