Life in Aridin: How he got here

Vex didn't know how long he had been wondering through this strange forest. Days? Weeks? Months? He just kept walking with a sense of wonder and excitement... Finally he was free. He was also very much alone for the moment... And for now he was enjoying it the calm of just walking instead of fighting in an arena for days on end was something he had a great fondness for. For now though he was just resting his back to a tree. Then he heard rustling coming from a bush next to him. Curious he looked over and saw an odd colorful creature clinging to the side of a tree staring at him. It was odd looking to him at least the six limbs connected by a thin webbing wasn't like anything he had seen before. Especially not in a bright green coat of fur. His world didn't have Parkats after all. Though he didn't yet know the name of these creatures that knowledge would come soon. '"Hello there." He said with a calm smile. '"You also lost?" He asked expecting no answer from the creature. 

 

'"No she isn't lost." A female voice called from behind the creature causing Vex to jump up in self defense mode. '"Calm down..." The voice ordered and Vex relaxed a little. Then one of the people of Aridin stepped out where he could see her. '"Anyway who are you?" The woman asked.

 

'"Er... My name is Vexcaliber Enduri... But that's a mouthful so just... Call me Vex..." He said a bit nervously as he was on edge half expecting to just be sent back by this woman.

 

'"You lost?" The girl asked sensing Vex's nerves. Though considering they found him in slave rags and in the middle of nowhere he probably had good reasons to be nervous.

 

'"Kinda... It's complicated..." Vex admitted now leaning against the tree he had been sitting against a few seconds earlier. 

 

'"I think we have time." She said grinning slightly. '"Also we should probably get going it's almost night so tell me as we walk." As she said this she started walking back to where she came. Vex decided to follow her and as they walked he told her his story. Well some of it he didn't have time to go into that much detail considering he was over 100 and this walk was sure to be much too short.

 

 

'"And that's how I got here..." He said right as they got to the Woven city the woman was from though he didn't notice the city at first thinking it was just an odd cluster of trees... Then he was led inside by the girl. He was awestruck by the pure beauty of the city in the trees. The girl showed him around before taking him up a set of ramps and across a bridge to the home of the mayor where Vex and the girl explained his situation.

 

'"This is a strange series of events fate has spun up..." The mayor said with a smile. '"I would be lying if I said this didn't sound like something out of old fables... A man accidentally opening a portal and finding a beautiful woman accompanied by a creature he hadn't seen before in the middle of an unknown land... Next thing anyone knows you two will have fallen in love." He joked Causing the girl and Vex's faces to turn bright red from embarrassment. 

 

'"A-anyway I just need a place to stay for the night..." Vex said still a bit flustered before he was led to an empty house by the girl. Needless to say he was confused.

 

Until she said. '"This house belongs to you if you want it... You'll be free to come and go as you please..." This was information that took Vex by surpise as the only thing he's ever owned is his sword... He didn't know how to respond or act.

 

'"Thank you." Vex said hugging the girl quickly. Needless to say this was rather awkward... For both of them.

 

'"A-anyway I'll get going." She said leaving the house with Vex left holding the key staring at a closed door. He sighs and after a short learning curve of how to lock a door from the inside... He went to bed... and almost as if in the blink of an eye months passed by... It took him a bit of exploring in those first few weeks to learn the layout of his new home. He constantly went back and forth between being a member of the hunting parties and the adventures guild of the city before sticking with the adventures guild. Years went by in what seemed like the blink of an eye Vex got married after his third year in the guild to the woman who found him so long ago. he helped rebuild after a rouge pyromancer burnt most of the city down. Then tragedy decided to strike... One day about fifteen years after he got married he was celebrating at the guild for a successful job when someone ran to tell him that he heard something from Vex's home. Worried he ran back... Only to find his wife dead... The only clue being a scrap of cloth that was oddly familiar. Vex didn't go for revenge however he knew that it lead nowhere... He went to ensure that whoever was doing this couldn't hurt anyone else. He left alone running through the forests once more alone. Until he had caught up with the monster who had taken his wife. It was then he found that it was one he knew. The Skymancer from nineteen years ago.

 

'"So you finally found me." Vex spat in anger but didn't draw his sword not yet. '"Before we finish what was started in the arena tell me why you didn't just let me go? I was out of your hair and effectively banished to another world." 

 

'"Because that would require me to lose... That would require letting a worthless slave live after fighting me... And in every single way you were just lucky you didn't win and you don't get to live! It's my choice to make not some insignificant slave boy's!" He screamed before lunging at Vex. Vex drew his sword slashing at the same time finally ending the life of the multiverse's most pathetic Skymancer in a single move. Vex turned to leave and started walking home. Leaving the body of the Skymancer cleaved perfectly in half.

 

'"Thus ends the agony of my past and my ties to it served they shall forever be." He said to himself cleaning his sword as he walked before sheathing it. Eventually he made it home. Before collapsing in tears. Time seemed to move in a crawl for him each day feeling longer and darker without her there... He may have killed the Skymancer but he couldn't undo what had been done. Though he found that though the pain never really went away it became easier to bare as the years went on. And so it was that three years after his wife's death he had managed to get back to being an adventurer. Five years later he had started working with some of the other adventures in the guild to help build a school for young people who wished to be adventurers to teach them what they would need to know and prepare them. It took twenty years for the school to be ready and staffed With Vex as the swordsmanship teacher where he taught the city's children for twenty-five years before stepping down to after hearing rumors of something stirring. He looked at his home and smiled. This woven city has no reason to take him in and now here he was looking out over the twisting paths preparing to go and train to protect this place from an as of yet unknown enemy. '"How time flies my beloved." He said to himself a tear rolling down his cheek as his mind went back to how this started before he left to train in the forest vanishing for another twenty-five years. And the time has come his training is finally over. Vex is returning home to face this new threat. As his eyes once more stare in wonder at his home in the woven city.