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TennyoCeres84
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Post by TennyoCeres84 »

What was your life like prior to meeting Aspasia, in the 1970s? How did you get involved with Zeb and become what you are now?
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IamLEAM1983
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"It's no secret across town that I reached Hope in 1890, as just another transplant from the West figuring he'd strike it rich or at least get comfortable on the East Coast. I got my nickname from my having spent a couple years as a coach guard between Missouri, Texas and California, so I figured Ruthven's local coal mine might need a night guard of some kind. I never did get to apply for Ruthven or what was Mammoth Engineering, back then - and now is Goliath. Zebediah Buck got to me before that could pan out.

I'd been spending my reserves in a boarding house at the corner of Greene and Finch, I was stuck waiting until recommendations from the Pinkertons and Wells-Fargo reached me, and I needed money. I made like most men back then, and figured I'd attend a Sunday sermon Timothy Curran was leading. Back then, Church services served as the next best thing to Facebook or LinkedIn. Believer or not, if you were looking for a job, you usually went to church. So I went, and bumped into Zebediah. The poor man looked fairly distraught and Eliphas was his usual laconic self, so all I really got was that the younger of the two was dabbling in the arcane to try and undo wrongs the family had received. Mind you, I was still green about the whole Buck Curse thing, so I didn't expect much. I'd already kept my gun out for a few accompanying Apache or Comanche tribesmen looking to bless a campsite before dusk, so I figured it'd be pretty similar to that. Just me standing my ground while some eccentric old bean with a foot in the Old Country tried to do what hard work hadn't managed to guarantee on its own.

By the time I realized what was going on, it was already too late. Buck had offered my life to that thing that's still passing for his dead wife's spirit, but his containment grid wasn't watertight. Loose via latched onto the only things it could reach - me and Zeb - and burned us alive. He'd gotten attuned enough to survive as a lich, and I turned because I happened to be close enough to another turning lich. Zeb absorbed what should've killed me, and my then unskilled arcane ass burned instead of dying. I remember panicking, crawling out of the house, blue fire trailing after me, figuring I might be able to climb on Admiral and ride out of this mess... I burned the poor thing, instead, bound it to me. I'd need years to figure out I could summon his spirit using a leg bone that'd absorbed most of the mojo.

I'll admit I didn't do the Buck premises a whole lot of good, in the immediate. After killing my horse, I stumbled back inside. I felt numb all over, I could see chunks of my own face falling off and my own guts felt like useless dead weight I desperately wanted to tear out... I found Buck in his tower, where I'd left him, moaning and clutching at his chest and abdomen - terrified by the notion that he'd just died. What started as a brawl turned into two confused baby liches tossing via back and forth and tossing slurs and threats. Ironically, the greenhorn ended up besting the lifelong dabbler. I remember dropping the bag of old Dutch coins in front of Zeb, telling him to stuff his pay where the sun didn't shine - and walking off, initially figuring I'd just make for the hills and disappear. I had to get my things, though, so that meant heading back to the boarding house by the cover of darkness. Poor old Mrs. Abernathy recognized me from my voice, nearly had a heart attack when she saw me standing there, reeking of decay...

She held her ground, though. I'd never know why, but she didn't run away or try to shut me out. That gave me enough pause to where I ended up asking her if she wouldn't mind pointing me to a butcher's shop, nearby. A couple hours later and minus all my skin, organs and muscles - plus most of what I'd eaten before the summons - I was nowhere near being clear on what I was supposed to do. While Zeb ended up floundering on his own, I managed to catch Cody Tanner's eye while trying to sneak back into my room. Of course, he was Cornelius Tanner, back then. He took me in for a few days, showed me what he was and what he could do - and showed me what I could do with a little focus and training. He told me I might not have chosen to become what I'd become, but I now owed the world some responsibility towards my own nature. To keep myself in check, the best thing I could do was learn to develop my new talents. He gave the same talk to Zeb, from what I know, but Buck just retreated from the world for a spell. Zero studies, lots of booze.

With some help from Tanner, I found a job as a fry cook for a little pub in Sandhill - poured most of my income into my studies. If you've got over a hundred years to work at it, you can pretty much go from being a campside roadkill-roaster to a decent chef with some hot coals and a grill. Similarly, I went from the guy whose mind ached at the prospect of figuring out ley lines to enough of a confident Elemental mage that I started my stove with a flick of a thumb and a conjured flame. Whenever I'd hit a wall or a snag, Tanner'd be around to remind me even dragons hit SNAFUs while studying and that even Meris probably had moments where she threw in the towel and went out for a jog. It's sometimes that or we toss our notebooks against the wall in fits of frustration...

So I made progress and watched Zeb stagnate. I inherited the first iteration of the Last Round from its past owner, after all my years of blatantly illegal service behind the stove. The early nineteen-hundreds had me feeding the local marginals, then I moved on to Jazzmen, Beatniks and Hippies; the entire local Neo-Pagan contingent and a good chunk of the Fae... Come the sixties, I was feeling the pressure. I wasn't made to cower behind letters and excuses for generations on end, I never had George Gammell's handy proxies and street faces to co-opt. Then d'Aubignier's parlor tricks in France made it to subtitled reruns on NBC, the world was shaken up... It's like I fell asleep ducking through back-alleys to head home without being seen, and woke up in Centennial Park for a naturalization ceremony, right hand raised, the Pledge of Allegiance coming out of my mouth. Kind of a strange thing to end up doing, when you happen to have been born in Missouri...

I didn't mind, though. All around me, I could see dragons and vampires, Fae and long-lived mages shedding tears of joy as all their centuries of lies and subterfuge ended in those exact seconds. Silas Robertson had died an American, but the lich he'd become had only just been recognized as such.

Then, well, there's Aspasia and her people - and that's history to most of us, now. She kicked my door down looking for shelter and supplies and never really left, come to think of it. Neither did the Chimeras who chose to stay here after their release. After their field commander, I'd been the first friendly face they'd seen on Earth."
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