Jason Wilde

In a small village, to the far North, a warrior plied his trade for coin. He was a young man, only 20 summers old, but he stood tall for his age and a life full of **** had given him a body thick with muscle and hardened for conflict. His ice blue eyes locked on his opponent; a local bandit who had taken to raiding the village’s grain supplies. The man was thin, starved, and half-mad, swinging his weapon like a butcher hacking at old meat, so it was really no challenge at all when the young warrior, Jason as his mother had named him, cut him down to size.

Jason observed his fallen foe, put away his sword, and then removed the small axe he carried on his person. He had been informed repeatedly that only physical proof would get him his bounty, so he elected to take the bandits head after the fact. He went about the bloody work, stowed the proof away in a saddle bag on his waiting stallion, Whisper, and mounted up. The wind blew through this dirty blonde hair and kissed his ivory cheeks pleasantly as he rode through the snowy terrain towards the small village.

It wasn’t much, as far as villages go, but the people seemed honest enough when they told him about the bounty and he had no cause to dislike their humble living. The people watched him with a mixture of curiosity and wariness as he rode through its muddy streets, but more than a few gave him respectful nods. There wasn’t much in the way of law so far from the Capitol, but the town’s makeshift sheriff had managed to keep some semblance of peace with only himself and two helpers. They watched him dismount, and their faces quickly morphed into enthusiasm when they saw the proof he carried with him. He dumped it at their feet.

“My reward?” Jason’s voice was raspy from disuse and his words direct. “You have it?”

The sheriff blinked for a moment and then spread his bearded face into a deep smile. “Aye, I’ve It right here,” he removed a purse and dropped it into Jason’s hands. It weighed about right, and a quick glance confirmed its contents as gold. The sheriff grinned again. “You’ve done us a damned good service lad, damned good service.”

Jason finished his insepection of the coin, and grunted in reply.

“Y’know,” the sheriff continued, “that wasn’t the first bandit we’ve had and I dare say he won’t be the last and it barely took you a day to find this cretin...would you be interested in full time job here? The village could offer you food and shelter...nice cozy life.”

“No,” Jason didn’t even bother to look back as he returned to his horse. He mounted up with practiced automation and rode out back the way he came.

Jason had no real direction he followed, no greater purpose beyond finding the next job and the next meal. Randomly he turned east and began riding through the snowy forests at a leisurely pace, waiting to see what life would bring next for him. His parents had been mercenaries of a sort, traversing the vast countryside looking for the next great battle to fight for, for the next army to smash. His father had ambitions of nobility, hoping to use his gruesome talents on the battlefield and his battalion of trained soldiers to eventually land him his own keep one day, but the end result was getting himself and his shieldmaiden wife killed and leaving his child an orphan. Jason spent much of the rest of his young life in the company of warriors and sellswords, watching as they too eventually fell to battle. It was a destiny that he himself would some day share, but he galloped towards it regardless, taking his life one day at a time, one fight at a time.

It was evening when he eventually settled in for camp, sitting by a fire and chewing thoughtfully on his rationed food. He would sleep for a few hours and then return to travel at the crack of dawn as he always did. It was a simple existence, but one that he did not begrudge. He felt the beginnings of sleep come on as he sat lulled by the fire, but something caught his eye in the darkened veil of sky. It seemed to Jason as if one of the stars had fallen from the vast tapestry of the night sky, and what more, it had fallen not too far from his camp. The thud it made as it crashed was enough to gain his curiosity, so he picked up a piece of burning wood as a torch and ventured forth to investigate.

Though the night air was cold, there was a strange warmth coming from the glow ahead which only increased the closer he got. Eventually he came upon a large crater in the snowy ground, and in the centre of it was ...an axe. It was long and intricately forged, glowing a strange silver light that compelled him forth. It was without thought that he reached over and wrapped his hands around the handle, feeling a strange power flood through his being. When he lifted the weapon he felt stronger than he ever had as a thousand possibilities flooded through his mind. Thoughts of battle, thoughts of conquest, and thoughts of the people he would fuck and slay. With this strange new weapon, Jason knew his purpose in the world: to be its new god king.