Joat

Joat's background

       Joat sat atop a rooftop, looking out onto a city that seemed to be coming close to drowning in rain. It had been a while since there had been a storm this hard in Thrymen. Despite the fact that he loved the rain, the storm seasons unfortunately had the nasty side effect of bringing back the blackest of memories, his earliest memories. For some reason he was on a ship with his parents. Joat could never remember why they were there, just that they were. Whatever the reason may have been that they left their home, he could remember that his parents were distraught. Something bad had happened. And something bad was going to happen again. While still deep in the ocean a storm began to brew. The waves crashed hard against the ship, rocking it back and forth, until finally there was a loud crack. The main mast was falling. He suddenly saw his father in front of him. He was being tied to his mother, his father not yet secured. Just as the young boy’s father was about to tie himself to his family, a wave beat over the side of the ship, and carried them all away.

For a time there was only blackness. Then he awoke, coughing, his mother over him. She was crying, and as the boy looked around, he could tell why. There was no sight of his father. They were on a strange beach, and coming towards them were odd looking pink men. His mother got up to meet them, moving away from her son. Just as the men were almost there, her expression changed. She seemed afraid. Looking down at her son, she pointed to the forest and said simply “I need you to hide in the woods and act pink.” Nodding mutely, the young boy easily changed skin color and hurried towards the woods.

The approaching men, seeing the boy running, drew swords and attempted to pursue. Unfortunately for them, they took their eyes off of his mother. Before they started running there were eleven men, afterwards there were twelve. Two steps later, there were ten. Another two steps, and there were eight. A final two steps, and there were only six.

Hearing one of the last men fall, the captain called a stop. Looking behind him, he saw the bodies of six of his men. As he turned back to the group he realized something else. There, standing in front of him, he saw himself.

The second in charge was anything but stupid. After a few minutes of examining both of his captains, and hearing both of them protest that the other was the false captain, he did the obvious. Telling another of his men to step behind the opposite captain, he gave the order for both captains to be killed. Just as his blade came around towards the captain’s head in front of him, the other captain seemed to change. Suddenly, instead of the image of the captain, there was now some sort of pale, female creature.

Knowing the charade had come to an end, the boy’s mother reverted to her normal form. Kicking backwards she managed to thread the goal posts and reduce the guard behind her to his knees. Seeing the second unable to stop his attack, she watched as his sword cut into the neck of his own captain. Whirling to the right, she spun around the second guard’s lunge, coming into the inner elbow of his arm. She then easily twisted the sword from his hand, and slipped the blade in between two of his ribs. Just as she began to think she might have half a chance, she felt a strange sliding in her chest, and oddly enough she tasted blood in her mouth. It was the last guard, and the hilt of his sword was flush with her upper back. And then she knew only darkness.

Andor watched from the tree line. He almost couldn’t believe it. But, there, the creature lay amongst the bodies of eight men. Then he remembered the boy. There was potential for an apprenticeship there, and all it would take is some kindness.

The first thing once Andor had the young child in tow was of course to take him to the next island over. It seemed the people of Thrymen were not terribly accepting of strange creatures. But, Andehil was as good a place as any for a thief. Over the years Andor trained the young boy. And the young boy acceded in pretty much every skill he was taught. As soon as the young boy easily passed the Trials set for him by "The Collective", Andor decided that he could not continue to just call him “boy”. So, he gave him the obvious name. The boy was a Jack Of All Trades, so that would be his name, J. O. A. T.

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The rain stopped, breaking the black thoughts of Joat’s past. He was getting sentimental in his old (for a thief) age; he should be focusing on the job. And the job, just so happened to be that armored Tiefling walking into town.