Jas' Character Sheets

Warforged Seventy-Six / "Reaver"

Background:
"Do you hear me, Seventy-Six?"

That's the earliest memory Reaver has. An elderly human man, who it would later learn is an artificer working under House Cannith, stared up into Reaver's face. "Answer me, Seventy-Six."

"Affirmative," it replied, and the artificer turned without acknowledgement and returned to his workbench.

Reaver looked around, examining its surroundings. It had no fore knowledge of a workshop, but intuitively, it knew that's where it was. Everything was well-lit and organized, though the equipment showed signs of frequent use.

"What is your designation, Seventy-Six?" the artificer asked, his back still turned to Reaver.

"Infantry," it replied, simply.

"Good," the artificer replied and motioned to some aides to lead it from the room.

Over the next two weeks, Reaver trained with a handful of other warforged under the guidance of a half-orcish barbarian. In this time, Reaver learned about basic military tactics, drilled with a standard loadout of a battleaxes, warhammers, handaxes, and javelins, and learned more about the world into which it was just born. Reaver was purchased by the Karrnathi military, where it would fight and perhaps die for its human overlords. Without a better frame of reference, this seemed just fine to Reaver.

Not even a week later, Reaver was teleported to its post. The Karrnathi army was en route through northern Cyre, seizing land to stage an invasion to Breland. Reaver got a bit of combat experience as it helped to fight for control of the staging area. Once the site was seized, Reaver's captain approached.

"Seventy-Six," he began. "Get with Thirty-Four and scout the area. We need to make sure there are no more Cyran combatants around."

After a brief search, Reaver found Warforged Thirty-Four. "Thirty-Four. We have orders. We are to scout the area for Cyrans."

Even though Reaver had never experienced emotions, per se, it felt uneasy under Thirty-Four's cold stare. "I don't care for the humans' designations. My name is Dagger," the elder warforged responded. "What is yours?"

"The humans call me Seventy-Six."

"That won't do for me," Dagger responded. A brief look at Reaver's loadout later, it continued. "You appear to be heavy infantry."

"Affirmative."

"Then I shall call you Reaver. Is this acceptable?"

Reaver contemplated for a moment, silent. "Affirmative."

"Then let's go, Reaver."

After a couple of hours of scouting with nothing of note, the two warforged were on their way back to the camp. When the camp was again in sight, Dagger put its arm out, blocking Reaver's passage. "Do you hear that?"

The younger paused, listening carefully. "Footsteps. That way," Reaver replied, softly. "Let us investigate." Dagger nodded his agreement.

Dagger was much better at moving quietly, so Reaver hung back for a moment, readying his axe and hammer set. At that moment, Dagger stumbled catastrophically, loudly landing prone inches from a cabal of Cyran wizards creeping up on the camp. The wizards looked up, startled, and saw Dagger fall on his face, then Reaver some 50 feet behind him. The wizards whipped out their spellbooks and began to flip them open.

"Danger!" Reaver called out, oblivious to the ridiculousness of such a comment. In that moment, the aspiring barbarian could not have explained itself, but something about Dagger being in danger triggered something inside of it. It brandished its axe and hammer, then ran full-speed at the cabal as its vision turned red. As the distance dwindled, Reaver drew his weapons back across its chest and prepared to strike the first human it encountered.

Simultaneously, one of the wizards opened to a page written in runes. A bookmark with the label "Teleport" written on it was holding the page, but of course Reaver did not have time for such details. As the caster looked up to cast her spell, she gasped as the sky began to glow. She lost her concentration and the spell energy reacted with the energy lighting up the sky and just as Reaver closed in for the kill.

It wasn't quite sure what happened next. A tear seemed to follow Reaver's axe as it brought it down, somehow missing the neck of its target. Through the tear, Reaver could see nothing but violet light. The girl was drawn into the rift, followed by Reaver.
"Ne'er seen a golem like 'at afore."

Reaver wasn't sure how it understood Dwarvish, but apparently it did.

"Think th'magus made it 'erself?"

"Nae. Humans cannae forge golems."

Reaver had never lost consciousness before, but this state of fading back into reality brought it back to three weeks ago, when it was initially activated. The memory between the poorly-fated scouting session and this bizarre conversation just wasn't there, and that didn't sit well with Reaver. It raised its head to survey the land and was surprised to see such a different landscape. Mountains and forests rose up around them, and not too far from here some sort of stronghold rose to challenge the sky. The dwarves that were speaking had their backs to the construct now and were looking at something on the ground.

"See? Lass coulda done. Here's a spare head."

What? was the only thought that ran through Reaver's head. Until now, it had assumed the dwarves were talking about itself. But now Reaver wasn't so sure. It recovered its weapons, which were on the ground not far from it.

The dwarves' backs were presented to the warforged, and they seemed absorbed in whatever they were looking at. Reaver had no trouble approaching them and, with its significant height advantage, seeing what they were talking about on the ground. The wizard that Reaver had intended to behead lay on the ground, and a few feet from her was the head--and only the head--of a warforged. Reaver didn't have a heart, but if it did it would have sank. This was Dagger's head. While the arcane eluded Reaver, it did not take much to surmise that whatever transported it and the girl to this location transported Dagger's head with them, but its body remained behind.

This grief was the first strong emotion that Reaver felt. Dagger was the first thing that had treated Reaver as someone instead of something. Hell, Dagger had even bestowed it the name Reaver. If Reaver had understood friendship at that moment, that's probably the way it would have described Dagger. And now its friend was dead.

The mage began to stir and the dwarves drew steel, still oblivious to the warforged peering over their heads.

"No," Reaver responded to the aggression, then proceeded to smack each of the dwarves from behind with his hammer, knocking them unconscious. The mage, now fully awake, looked up to see the enemy warforged looming over her.

She shrieked in terror and tried to back away, scrambling on her back and looking around frantically on the ground for her spellbook.

Reaver was technically still under orders, but it wasn't sure that the Karrnathi army's jurisdiction extended to wherever this was. He restored his hammer and axe, then held its hands up. "I will not harm you."

The mage bawled for a solid minute while Reaver stood there, unmoving. Finally, she breathed deep and attempted to compose herself. "Where are we?" she managed between sniffles.

"Unknown," was Reaver's reply. "As the spellcaster, I surmised that you must know."

"What? But I didn't cast anything." She shuddered, recalling. Then, figuring she had an opportunity here for the upper hand, she continued. "I was just trying to get out of there. I'm not cut out for combat. I was trying to go back home to Metrol." She paused again, regarding Reaver. "I was so sure you were going to kill me," she muttered as she looked at the dwarves, still unconscious.

"I was," the construct replied. "But I no longer plan to. Such action is inadvisable if I cannot find my unit. Until such a time, you are the one who got us here and as such you may be my only hope to return."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "You want to go back? Why?"

"My purpose is to serve my unit," Reaver replied. "Until I return I serve no purpose."

"Really, you served no purpose before. Your purpose was to gild House Cannith's coffers. Once that happened, your purpose ended."

Reaver did not reply.

The girl did not think she could get them back, but she also feared that was the only reason she still drew breath. Best not to say that, she mused. Stall for time, then escape.

"My name is Gabriella. If I'm going to get us back, I'm going to need my spellbook and some time to rest. Whatever just happened drained me. And perhaps it is prudent to move from here," she added, with a glance at the dwarves.

"Of course. We should travel away from here. I considered the stronghold," Reaver gestured at it, "but it seems likely these two came from there. Let us find a place to make camp. I will stand watch as you rest and then tomorrow we return."

Gabriella offered a weak smile and then nodded, picking up her spellbook. "We'll probably need that, too," she said, gesturing to Dagger's head. Reaver bent down and picked it up, regarding Dagger's features carefully. Even though Dagger was dead, Reaver still felt inexplicably that Dagger's remains needed to be treated respectfully. It bowed its head and then stood, turning back to the mage, still cradling hits friends head. Gabriella looked back up at Reaver and offered, "After you."

As promised, Reaver stood watch over the camp that evening, and in the morning, Gabriella opened her spellbook back to the same page it had been at previously and began to cast her spell. Reaver stood with its axes at the ready, convinced it might be thrown into battle upon its return. But just before the spell went off, Gabriella met the warforged's cold gaze and simply said, "Don't look for me," and disappeared. Reaver stood there, realizing only after a moment that she had just tricked it. And she had Dagger's head. Why had she wanted Dagger's head?
"Almost there," Reaver muttered to himself. It walked alongside a caravan, surveying the horizon for threats. "Four years and finally I'm going to catch her."

The image of Gabriella holding Dagger's head as they disappeared from sight played in the warforged's mind, and its rage grew. It took every bit of its considerable fortitude to quell that rage for the moment. Ever since arriving in Faerun (as it happened, in a different realm), every day was a struggle against the raging beast within, staying in control. Perhaps the magic here was different, causing the physical and mental constructs to be in turmoil, or perhaps being forced out of servitude broke something within Reaver, with no hope to fix it. Either way, Reaver had developed an aptitude for harnessing that rage. And it was becoming good at doing so.

According to the latest rumors, Gabriella was in Greenest. Guarding a caravan is perhaps not the fastest way to get there, but it is among the safest, and Reaver did not figure a day or two of extra travel would make a huge difference. So Reaver found the next caravan going there and served as a guard for the convoy.
Reaver's looks are unremarkable to one familiar with Warforged. The mass-produced Warforged head complete with articulating jaw and crystal eyes tops a towering mass of stone, wooden sinew, and steel plates. One might note a bracket system incorporated into the top-left of its upper back, which are used to securely mount its main axe and hammer combination weapons. Similar brackets on its right side are designed to hold up to 10 javelins, though at the moment an onlooker would only see 4 tips erected from its shoulder, and again on its hips, designed to hold two smaller handaxes. By all appearances, this iron giant is a mobile war machine.

Reaver's expressionless face makes him come across as aloof, and perhaps disinterested in other creatures. And yet, if one were to get close enough to speak, Reaver would respond evenly, even perhaps a bit eloquently. When it first arrived in this realm, it was relatively cold and calculating, though the limited amount of freedom that Reaver afforded itself had become comfortable, and it became curious about this new world. Not needing food, water, or even air, it had spent a long time simply wandering the land, nominally in search of the wizard, but enjoying the scenery and nature as well. It had limited contact with the humans of this world, but what little there was had been fraught with fear, and Reaver had gotten adept at dealing with people in order to gather the information it needed to search down Gabriella. However, without a direct need, it tends to keep to itself to minimize the colorful outbursts it experienced the first few times it reached out.
 
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