[DD3] Found Family
Prompt: Where are your roots? Are there any famous adventurers in your family, or are you the first of your line?
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Jin and Logue trotted through the Moor of Sleep, looking for anything of interest that would make the trip worth it. Just learning about the place had been very worth it to Jin but funding the trip was essential especially since he had to hire Logue to come with him. Jin did not have enough experience to travel the Moore of Sleep by himself but was grateful that the tan brindled dungeoneer was willing to take on the job Jin offered him.
Looking across the landscape around them, they could see a history now buried deep within the ground and a challenge for coursers to explore. The restless rising from their long slumbers to kill and fight as if the battle that had taken their lives had not yet ended. Homes in ruins, razed to the ground by the boulders that had come down upon the heads of those who once lived here. Jin could only imagine the streets bustling with life as a family went to the market, pushing their way through the crowds. Towers topped with watchmen keeping an eye on a distance now replaced with cave walls. Builders putting up new homes as the city continued to grow. The hardest part imagining these tales was the fact they knew the creatures that once lived here had not been coursers. Jin knew they were not but had trouble imagining the creatures as something other than the skeletal creatures that rose from the ground of this place and wandered in search of victims.
“The story of this place is so mysterious,” Jin said.
“It is indeed,” Logue replied.
“Thanks for showing me the view from the top of the tower by the way. I appreciate the new perspective. The battle must have been huge.”
“Indeed. And the battle is easier to imagine than the life before, honestly.”
“I am glad I am not the only one thinking that.”
Jin thought for a second before it occurred to him.
“What about yourself? What was your life like before entering the dungeons?”
Logue appeared to hesitate for a moment at the question.
“I was not born into dungeoneering and no one in my family has gone before me. They were all quite surprised when I left since we had always been surface-dwellers, but I wanted to see what secrets were hidden below and see the sights. Everything up top felt mundane at some point and I’ve found my calling here. Can’t say it was easy, but it was definitely worth it,” Logue told Jin, “What about yourself?”
Jin tried to decide where to begin.
“Well, I am not the first adventurer so to say, but I am the first dungeoneer. At least that is among my found family. I never knew my parents…”
A young Jin ran through the tent, dodging the piles of books with the expertise of having been raised amongst them. He knew where every since book belonged amongst the hoard and knew how to navigate the maze they formed. The ground was covered in thick, detailed rugs, many were old and worn but they served their purpose of providing something less sandy for them to walk and lay on and to set the books upon. They could never truly get rid of all the sand, they lived in a desert after all.
“Uncle Basir! I found a flower! Look! Look!” Jin called out.
“Oh?” the courser named Basir, hummed.
“Yes, see!”
Jin carefully placed the flower in front of the older courser.
The other courser laid on a bed of cushions, mane and tail a tangled mess of curls, braids, and knots. He was a simple gold pearl with a star on his forehead but nothing much else. The two looked nothing alike and it was evident there was no blood relation. Basir was the only family Jin had ever known though.
In such a rough environment it was not uncommon for there to be orphans and Jin was one such orphan. Parents could not care for him and so he was left behind in the place of his birth, a small cave in the middle of nowhere. Lucky for Jin, Basir had been passing by and found the cave, and Jin, by chance. The kind hearted soul took the young foal under his care and raised him as his own.
“That is a beautiful flower! What wonderful shades of pink,” Basir replied upon seeing the flower.
All throughout his childhood, Basir had encouraged Jin to explore and learn, to read and gain wisdom, to ask questions and listen to those around him. Jin grew up around stories and books and he came to love them as much as Basir did.
As Jin grew into a young adult, Basir grew ill. Basir taught Jin more fully knowing that Jin could choose whether to follow in his hoofsteps or not but that Jin was also the only option he had to share all his knowledge with. The chimeric ether took it all to heart and learned everything he could. In the night he went to find food and water for the both of them and in the day he hid from the blazing sun in their tent and learned from the elder courser. They did this until Basir could teach no more as his illness caught up with him.
“I never could have asked for a better young lad to raise,” Basir whispered.
“Hey, don’t say such sentimental things. You’ve got a ways yet,” Jin replied as he brought over a shallow cup of water.
“Oh, Jin. It’s time.”
“Basir…”
“Please, can you read me one last story?”
Jin could not even think about the story without the pain it brought to him, let alone share it with another courser. Today he carried that book with him and kept it close, only to be shared with those closest to him. It was the moment he read the last words on the last page that Basir left this world.
“I won’t let your legacy die.”
“After Basir passed I went in search of more stories and to share Basir’s stories with the world,” Jin told Logue, “that is how I ended up in the dungeons. I came here in search of stories. I have no background connected to the dungeons, I don’t even have parents whose lineages I can trace.”
“Do you miss the desert?” Logue asked.
“At times. It could be beautiful and mysterious, vast like the sea of books Basir had gathered, but I am happy to see new things.”
“Do you still have all those books?”
“I do. I have a home on the edge of the desert in which I keep my stories, old and new. They are precious and I took it upon myself to preserve them and share them with all who wish to hear them.”
“And will you one day teach someone, as Basir taught you, to care for these stories and preserve them as you have?”
“I hope I will find the right one to take on the role. I just haven't found that courser yet. For now I think the dungeon has called me to find the stories that lay within. Like yours I’d recon.”
“Haha! Well, I’ll be happy to tell you in more detail.”
“I’d like that,” Jin whispered, remembering those times he listened to Basir tell his own stories.
He could not wait.
A bit of Jin's backstory.
Submitted By NARANDA
for Level 3 Dungeon Dive
Submitted: 2 months ago ・
Last Updated: 2 months ago