Awakening of Talikarni

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1

Faint but strange memories swirl his head as he lie there in the dark. He knows his eyes are open but still fails to see anything but a sliver of faint flickering light coming from under what he assumes is the door, casting shadows along a short length of the floor. Trying to toss and turns, he tries to get back to sleep, consciously knowing that he is laying in a bed but still failing to grasp any details aside from the desire to sleep some more. The thoughts finally give way to an aching body and darkness consumes him.
He awakens from his deep slumber seeing a bluish glow through a clear pane in the wall which fades against the distance as his eyes have trouble focusing on anything specific. A blurry object moves about the small room and then comes nearby to touch a cloth to his face which begs the thought, "is it damp from me or was the cloth damp to begin with?"  But before the thought process had a chance to run its full course, the warmth of a motherly feel to his soul helps take him back into a deep sleep, transporting thoughts to the place he was before. The dream comes back where it seemed to have left off some time before, familiar, but trying to remember when or where is futile so he decides to take in his surroundings.
A fleeting thought of "why does it always start in these beautiful fields of reddish and bright blue plants" quickly passes as he looks to his right and sees a curious looking building with a balcony atop what he assumes is a house. He looks around and sees another in the distance with a similar format. Chunks of rock protrude out from behind the wood and metal braced corners that give a sweeping motion from the ground up, he rubs his eyes to see if he was looking at it properly or his eyes were failing him. Tilting his head slightly, he makes out figures through a aqua colored pane on the broad side. Straining to get closer he takes a few steps and makes out a much clearer image of its inhabitants... The skull-spines vary on each but they are more familiar than strange for some reason. A thought crossed his mind of what he expected its inhabitants to look like and he could not conceive an answer as if this was a foreign thought never asked of anyone before. He had this nagging feeling as if thinking this was wrong somehow, but he shrugged it off and continued to study the figures through the viewing portal. A figure with softer features carries a platter of some sort with a malformed and wobbling item on top. They carry it out of view with the others in tow so he inches closer again to see if he can catch a better glimpse of the events unfolding inside. After moving a few steps left, he sees a larger group of the skull-spined types and a wave of happiness flushes over him as he sees a little one opening his maw wide ready for the acceptance of what was on the platter. He sees the hand claws grasping at this little almost dead creature and the large members surrounding him as happy as can be.
He stares at this for a moment and just as the little one starts tearing into the bloodied creature, he hears a noise rustling along the pathway. He darts off behind the lavaleaf bush scared of getting caught as he realized at that moment, he was less than an arms length from the windows peering into someone elses abode. As he hears the clang on the side of the house around the corner from where he squatted, he makes a quick turn and rushes off towards the fields and away from this wondrous experience. As his legs carry him along he feels that the closer he gets to the glowing rocks coming from the firm but familiar dark rocks above his head, the farther away they look. The bluish tint and patterns started making him dizzy as they dance around him... until everything just goes blank. He looks around with familiar motions of his eyeballs and lids as wide as can be but cannot see anything, not colors or black or white, it is as if his eyes are completely failing him...

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2

Light blasted his eyes as he opened them forcing him to squint to be able to make out any shapes around this room. The thoughts and images of the senile red and blue fields escape quickly as he struggles to cover his eyes. No matter how much he tried to squint and focus, the light was entirely too bright for him to keep them open long enough to catch a glimpse of anything. His groans started getting louder until he was able to put the plush covering over his face to block out more of the light. Apparently the sound and movement of his bed caused someone... or something else to stir in the vicinity. Continuing to move around, he manages into a comfortable spot keeping the soft covering over his head until it was dark enough for him to see clearly, even if it was only his strangely colored coverings. The bustling continued outside of the coverings for what could have been a few winks but carried on for what felt like an eternity...
As fast as the blinding light came, it was subdued to a much more comfortable level which allowed him to cautiously remove the coverings to try to get a better look at his surroundings. He saw the rough hewn wood supports on the edge of the bedding which lead down to a smooth rock floor, one that looked much like the rough rocks did above his head in the memory that he had just left. He starts looking at the walls seeing books with strange markings on them and on the way towards the source of the light he catches sight of the caretaker. Taken aback by what is seen, his thoughts go right back to the dreamscape of what should the inhabitants appear to look like. He felt a type of displaced connection with the spine-skulled beings which offered some comfort but this being was so different than anything he had seen, or at least remember seeing before.
It was short and stout, had long haggard fur growing from the top of its skull down to its waist with a touch of fur showing from the opening in the body covering above the wrist. It had a strange method of covering itself rather than the loincloth the spiny familiars donned. When it turned around he saw that this... thing... had a flat back without the back extensions the familiar images in his mind had. His heart was racing and mind going like a whirlwind in the warm seasons of some soothing moment in the back of his mind. The strange creature started making unfamiliar tones and sounds as if it was speaking some unfamiliar language never before heard. He cowers back against the wall feeling the cold stone wall against his back, hearing a small thud as the top spike bumped the window sill. He glances over his shoulder and sees the same back extension behind him that had been seen in the dream previously.
Before he knew it, he felt his body flying through the air as if someone had thrown him. Some instinct kicked in causing him to jump straight over the head of the short furry creature and out the door into another room. Seeing more unfamiliar sights and smells, he peered around trying to find something, anything, to kickstart the memories of familiarity. He stood there for a moment seeing something flicker in a stone cave in the corner but the smell from that direction was something soothing and strange at the same time, yet just as this thought came to his mind he glanced down and saw his hand paw... the claws at his fingertips leading to firm but soft scales right up his arm onto the rest of his body. His hands reach up and run across the bare skull to feel the spines running from just above the forehead back to the base of his neck. A glance down at the frontside of the body, he leaned forward to see the loincloth around his waist and drooping, just as he had seen in what he thought was a dream. Below that were the strong muscular legs and feet with similar claws to what were on his hands.
Then just as he was grasping the realization of his external appearance, something inside of him just shot pains through his body causing him to double over and fall to the ground. Through all the pain, he feels the cloth on his face  and head again, just as before but this time he was able to look up and see the creature with a much softer skin tone about it, a look of concern.

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3

The red and blue fields lay before him, with the beautiful scattering of the occasional green flower intertwined with the familiar blue leaves and red lavaleaf bushes. The blue haze emitting from the rocks running from ceiling to ground shed a feeling of time, always there and always changing, typically with the sleep patterns. As his mind pondered where and how the glow appears, he sees a recognizable face, but in a older body. Not quite the height of the others he saw before but the face mostly unchanged from the time he saw it tearing into the almost dead creature. This entity was looking off the railing into the distance, off a high point of the house he remembered seeing before. Deciding to try to make contact, he works his way closer to the house. Who or what are these things and why are they so familiar yet distant? Just as the corner is turned, he hears a voice from inside the towering partition, but clear as day, "get your winged bottom off that balcony NOW young Klyros. You know you are not allowed up there!" He glances up as if he knows exactly what happens next... just in time to see the youngster with his paws at the end of the extensions as if to fan them out and jumps off the balcony. The sheer horror of watching the events unfold tie his stomachs into knots as he watches the jumper's face turn to fright as he lands on a pile of lavaleafs.
They were scooped up a few days prior as a chore for getting into trouble. He is taken aback... the whole world swirled again as the questions in his mind start going crazy asking "how did I know that?" and "am I a Klyros?" and trailing off into a million directions at once. For the first time he is realizing that memories are seen in his dreams. Yet he doesn't know who he is so how can these be HIS memories? The knowledge that memories manifest themselves as dreams to a Klyros amazed his intellect, and allowed the realization that he is in fact a Klyros. The clawed paws, the back extensions, the hunger for blood all came to him as if it were life, not just a memory.
As the thoughts and questions continue to swirl in his head, he opens his eyes to see the wooden outcropping of a ceiling above him. This now familiar scene is back with the furry creature that showed concern for him. This time he was not startled when he saw it near the tiny flickering cave. His scaled arms push him up off the floor to a seated position as he calmly looks around some more, taking in the new scenery that was missed with his first episode. This room was a little bit larger than the previous, but not by much. There were strange platters on a shelf on one side of the flickering cave, unusual looking drinking rounds above the platters, inside the flickering cave was something different than last time and the smell was repugnant... like something had been left out to die for too long in the fields without a baby clacker coming to clean up the remains.
He tried to speak but the muscles in his throat were still tight from the experience of the jumping Klyros so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Excuse me, where am I?" The creature turned towards him and ruffled its small fuzzy sections above its eyes, looking like they didn't understand a word he said, so he tried it again. This time they got up and he saw the silhouette of the creature against the cave flicker with somewhat feminine features like the female Klyros in his memory. He started to understand this must be a female version of this creature thus the motherly instinct to take care of him. Then the question came back to the surface, "Who am I?"

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4

The female walks towards the dizzy Klyros handing him a drinking round that looks entirely too large for her to drink from but is just the right size for his larger frame. He looks inside and sees a clear liquid, puts it close to his nostrils and smells, no distinguishable scent. She nods slightly as if to nudge him to drink it. He takes a small sip as a precaution and realizes it is water. A bit funny tasting from the water he was used to drinking but it is water. There were rumors going around as he grew up that other areas near other glow rocks may have different tasting foods and drinks but the memory of his family never traveling much farther than their own rock-region was less fuzzy and more surreal now. As he sipped his water, he looked around the surrounding room.
A wall to the right of the glowing cave has some sort of tools hanging on a wall, created for jobs he had never known or heard of before. In the middle of these tools was a doorway that looked just tall enough for him to walk through. He takes a bit larger drink of the water and after swallowing, without thinking says "Thank you for the water." Then it hits him, she doesn't understand a word he says. He looks over in her direction and she turns, smiling and says something in her language ending with the word "water". Amazed at the common word they just found, he started trying to think of what other words they may have in common, he blurts out "Klyros!" She reaches a finger towards him as if to point and says "Klyros", then turns towards herself and says something incomprehensible. He turns his head sideways as he has always done when he doesn't understand. The fur over her eyes make another unusual motion and she says the same thing but slower: "ssssttttoooonnnnn", and he repeats, "thone"... then she shrugs and continues, buh buh buh, brrrray, bray, ker, ker, brayker.... he replies br-ay-ker... then she says it all together several times. He tries repeating, thonebraykar. She looks at him like a mother hearing a child say its first words "yes! Stonebreaker!".

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5

The time that followed went by like a blur for the Klyros. His language skills for the new language seemed to be improving daily yet the female Stonebreaker had difficulty learning his language so he gave up on trying to teach her. Patience was never something he had a whole lot of. He noticed a much more pronounced amount of light coming in from the wall pane which he learned they tend to call "windows" and he noticed that she had "curtains" covering them as she prefers it darker during the day which is also what he was used to as well when compared to the full brightness of the outside world the few times he peeked out.
He felt himself getting stronger during the light periods and the dreams were just as vivid during the dark times. He started seeing more of his previous life in the dreams and current life when awake. Yet even with the dreams, there was still the nagging feeling of identity, a name, something to call himself other than a Klyros. He tries to influence the dreams more then he used to, but without any success, it was always some event in his past life. One night may be as a very young child, another closer to his current age, the next during the region school periods, but at no point would it ever give any hint or indication of a name.
There was one light period where he had the chance to step outside of this abode to see the outside world. When the door was first opened, the light was blinding but his eyes adjusted fairly quickly as he saw an amazing sight: green plants. He looked back at the female stonebreaker and asked “Are my eyes seeing right? Are these plants green? What are the larger plants that are many times my size?” The questions just came as fast as he could think of them, and the female stronebreaker was stumbling trying to answer them fast enough and then tried asking some of her own but was interrupted before she could get more than a few words out.
Finally she got him settled down on a rock a few steps from the door and asked him questions such as “where he was from that did not have green plants?” and “why has he never seen it as bright or dark outside than it was on a normal day cycle here?” among others.
He had to go inside, into a familiar setting as his head started buzzing about as confusion settled in. This is when he came to the realization that he was from somewhere else entirely.

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6

The next day, the female stonebreaker tried to explain exactly how he ended up at her house. She decided to start by explaining that there are different types of creatures roaming this land, many with intelligence or strength equal to or greater than their own. Some even have magical powers which confused the Klyros as she tried to explain what it was so he decided it was not that important and let her continue the story. She stated that she has a male stonebreaker mate that spends much of his time away in the mines or near a blacksmith creating and selling armor and weapons. There are times that he disappears for anywhere from a few sleep cycles (that he has come to learn as days) to longer periods of times that he has begun to understand as weeks and months.
Through his dreams he has learned that time is measured according to the sleep cycles based on the brightness or dimness of the glowing rocks and that was just how life began for a young Klyros and had gone on for as long as his family line can remember. She explained that it is pretty much the same with most creatures in this world, that the brightness and darkness is much more pronounced because of the direct light from the crystal and that others of his kind have also showed up before and after him but only very slowly. Due to his extreme circumstances, she explained that her mate had showed up with 2 of his digging buddies with this Klyros in tow at the darkest dark of the night. He explained that they had been working at a deep mine digging for coal and iron when they all of a sudden broke through into a cavern below. As they put their lanterns into the cavern they saw that a young Klyros, barely into his adult life, had been hit on top of the head with large falling rocks not more than 2 or 3 stonebreaker body lengths below. So they lowered one down, tied him up and raised him into the cavern where they were digging. They found he had real shallow breathing but without proper medical supplies, they put him in the mining cart with a cover on top and moved him towards the surface. One had stated that these Klyros are pretty resilient to injury so they had a few days time before he would need serious medical care. They waited until nightfall before they hauled him out and carried him above their heads to this cabin which is quite a distance from any known towns or encampments.
They brought him in and used the oversized bed for the occasional guest that they have over on occasion or lost traveler that finds their way in this direction. He had to get back to work to make sure he and the others made quota for the guild or he would end up getting a mark towards a demotion which was almost unheard of for most stonebreakers. She cared for him on a daily basis, helping to keep the wound clean and mostly closed. At one point she had to make a quick day trip to the East Hydlaa library to check out a book on Klyros anatomy or care or anything they had on hand. Since they are still fairly new to the world, there was not much information so she got a book on scaly creatures, which is how she knew to keep his skin moist to help the healing process. He reached up and felt a rough patch of scale on his skull that he did not remember being there before. The scales were soft but firm, which reminded him of a time he got hit by an adult clacker on his forearm, when the scales grew back.

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Finale

7

The Klyros dips his head in thought trying to remember something, anything about the last moment in his world. He explained that his kind keeps memories and skills active in their mind by the nightly dreams they have. There was word of a Klyros some years before that had completely lost his mind because the dreams had stopped. As he went on with the story, she realized that he was not content here and wanted to get back home. His words started draining off into his native language again, the memories started flowing clear as day as he daydreamed. The image of his parents and friends, of baby clacker hunting, daring each other to run into a Trepor nest and bring back a few babies for snacks, and then the ghastly stories of a Klyros heading to the Death Realm to be lost forever. As the images danced in his head, he found he could direct them to a point and strained to get the memories of his last moments in his world. Finally it all settled into place...
There had been word of strange noises coming from a stone wall about half a sleep cycle away from his parents house and somewhere up a rock wall that had a few small blue glowing stones emitting light, but nowhere near the size of the large needles from their sky or entire rocks that went from ceiling to ground. Being the adventurous and stubborn type, he set out after waking for the rock wall where a few had gathered to camp to see what, who and where the noise was coming from. The Klyros worked his way up a path he had climbed a few times before but doubted anyone else knew. He came upon a cave where he would spend some of his pre-adult time thinking about life and whatever else crossed a young Klyros' mind. His friends and family members said he was a fool for wanting to ever leave the soft blue and red ground. Climbing was “just not like a proper Klyros”.
This cave is where he found the strongest concentration of noises. He decided to camp out for a sleep cycle or two and report back to the messenger at the camp below, who would then pass the information to the regional elder. He remembers that he had not been there long, was reaching for a barely alive Trepor baby from his sack to munch on when the ceiling collapsed from above... then nothing... blank memories until the first fuzzy days here with this female stonebreaker and the ensuing events.
Going back to the memories of the camp below, he strained to remember that specific timeframe where one had said his name... That is it!

Talikarni... Talikarni Phaskil the Klyros.

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now a bit of after the fact comments from the author:

This is not meant to entirely fit into the official PS storyline but rather give an alternative view of where Klyros may have come from.

Someone in IRC asked about the Blue and red plants... as I am a bit of a science and sci-fi nut, I read some news bits over the past few months that stated habitable planets with a bluish sun (class "F") would deal with the flood of blue photons that may be so intense that the plants would need to reflect it using a pigment easiest to do so, which to our eyes would appear blue or a bluish tint.