Quinn Backstory Excerpt

Written 12/17/21

Quinn walked between the eaves of houses, keeping her vision straight ahead. Peripherally, the walls and windows of buildings passed her by. The bright moon overhead glimmered against the damp stones, reflecting how empty the streets were. The heavy rain had caused most to shy away, but despite needing some oiling afterwards, the rain gave her no discomfort. The transition from forest and the wild to a town had been a major change, yet she sought out familiarity where she could. One of these familiarities was the tending of nature. Much like the vines she grew from her head, she brought forth life from seemingly nothingness. Although most of the land in the central town of Aeris was barren, there were patches with limitless potential. As such, seeds and plant cuttings were purposefully placed, bringing stability and color to cornerpieces. Some places had already haphazardly been planted by others, and needed small adjustments to flourish. Over the years she’d stayed in town, she suspected that few had noticed her nightly activities. As a warforged, she had little need to sleep. During the night hours when few were awake, she found solace in the quiet.
The few awake tended to scamper quickly, having immediate and urgent destinations. Next moon, her class would be graduating and assigned their careers. It reminded her of her original creation - to work the fields. Such was her designation, Quinque ex Tellus - Five of Earth. The warforged had been created for many reasons - many uses. Had any of them deserved their fate? There were many advantages of being made of metal and steel rather than flesh and blood. To the best of her knowledge, she knew of no other warforged survivors. Of her immediate relations, she was the only one of five to survive of the Tellus. It had come as a surprise to her to learn that any had survived - that was to say, after over three decades of wandering the wild, being discovered by an exploring party from her current town was a shock to both. Surely, they had heard stories of the warforged - but she remembered when she first came to town, always being stopped by others. Most of it was friendly curiosity - it was rare for new arrivals to come to town. She had heard of at least one other, Maarra.
The first few years of her life had been nothing but work, and planning. She remembered darting around Extarsi’s fields, spreading magic to the crops. The humans she reported to said she performed well, but disapproved of her tendency to add additional crops into the mix. Their mono crop fields were surely behind their towns occasional famines, from field depletion. She remembered her first moments, awakening in a laboratory. Another success, was something murmured around her. For the fifth field, followed soon after. All other races started as knowledgeless, naive. The warforged, from creation, inexplicably had the knowledge of a life. And yet, they did little to question their makers. She was soon placed at a field, and only ever saw her makers twice a year henceforth. At first, they personally stopped by; general maintenance, checking for proper function, and testing the abilities of each warforged. Knowledge tests as well, observing their memories and world knowledge. Quinque ex Tellus responded dutifully to each question, observing the maintenance they performed and committing it to memory for herself. She overheard their whispers, mentioning how some other warforged had mysteriously shut down. Others, they said, had been going mad.
Quinque was in a cheery mood that specific day, for she had gotten a new plan approved for the field she worked in. After all, her primary goal was supposed to be ensuring ample nutrition for the citizens of Extarsi. She had been in operation for 4 years, and watched the people of the town come and go just as much as the crop of each season. They were more nervous, on high alert. In her first year of operation, she had seen frequent citizens wander the fields, with youth curiously inquiring on her. Now, none came through. She came to them, bringing reports each week. She was also instructed to immediately report any non-citizens. Just last week, they changed the instructions. She was to preferably capture, or less preferably terminate any non-citizens. Trade had slowed, and fewer and fewer merchants came by. She checked each, and they nervously showed documentation of their goods. She always watched them continue, sitting aloft large wagons drawn by tired oxen or horses. Unlike beasts of burden, she felt no such thing.
When she walked to town to report next, she saw other warforged. As a Tellus, she was created with height, strength, and endurance in mind. Many domestic warforged were much smaller, being between 4 to 5 something in height. She committed them to memory, for despite their smaller features they each tended to have splashes of colors. They matched House colors, likely belonging to certain creative houses. The reporting house was near the edge, but still several blocks within the town. She passed by the storehouses, watched as other warforged carried crops inside. Heavy burlap bags, familiar and yet foreign. Those were from a merchant. An annoying merchant, a cocky elf who did nothing but sneer at her when she requested identification. From his product manifests, she knew he overpriced his goods. They allowed it, as he was the only Tolvetian who dared visit. They feared them, that she surmised from the few friendly merchants who kept her updated on the politics of the age. Few could afford to live in the town, besides the brightest of the bright who could either market or invent beyond others wildest imagination. Coincidentally, it was easy for those stuffing their pockets to avoid the very real body count they created. She had ample time to ponder if she lived, and she kept some observations to herself. Many, in fact. Parts of warforged that got recycled, when she noticed certain ones slowing down, or refusing to work. How children played on the streets less. How townspeople left, never to return. Sad partings, between lovers who couldn’t stay together through their lives. How the jails inmates would disappear occasionally. And most importantly, the new project that the inventors had turned to. She could tell they feared giving the warforged any more destructive power. The warforged were too humanoid, too intelligent, and far too long ignored. Part of it was fear, and another was just ignorance. She upheld a friendly demeanor, always managing to keep her observers complacent. The truth was, all warforged remembered. Some lost themselves to the memories, and some already knew to keep quiet. She was glad her form still retained the horns, even if they were for practical reasons. Being made of titanium and tungsten gave her a silver shine, but she occasionally would lay down in the fields during the rare moments when she had completed all work for the season. She would hold her hand towards the full moon, marking the ending season. And she’d remember the light purple flesh she used to have, the curling hair. The eyes with white rims, rather than pure blue. They kept the blue at least, somehow. Her crime came with a life sentence, of a different life. The death sentence was considered lighter, in its own way from the inventors. How many citizens of the town knew, and would they care? Progress was a necessity for survival after all.
Over the next week, she added new lives to the soil.
The people of Extarsi had crawled, walked, ran, and then flown into the sun. Their latest creation, the great warbeasts meant to protect them, had been the very thing to destroy them. She didn’t go to the town that week, and decided instead to lay in the fields and wait. The warbeasts passed her, for she no longer smelled like flesh. They only concerned themselves over flesh. The warbeasts mimicked their creators in viewing her as a non life form, and from her place at the farthest field she watched their world burn. Was she to rejoice over the warbeasts, or hunt them? Perhaps the middle path. They had ended her time at this cell, but her life long tenure was far from over. With that, she turned and left. First following the path to Tolvet, which she found also desecrated. To the next she went, and the next, until passing by the corpses and destruction wrought by the beasts held no more surprise. So she went to the wilds, knowing that the familiar greens of the world would guide her.
These townsfolk, oh so similar yet oh so different. They still regarded her strangely, but that was a small price to pay. For when she saw people smiling at the mysterious new flowers outside their houses, she felt she finally had something worth protecting.