A little guest story about the Cerulean Hills and its missing background story and integration into the world storyline. Its a great new area, though lacking a lot of "flesh" in my taste. Thats why i've written a little story about it.
The days of raining. The subtle sound of dropping heaven tears, that hit the ground and dissolve into nothingness. Soaking wet earth, that started to become water itself. Nothing you would expect coming to a near tropical environment. You'd expect sun and warmth. That's exactly what Alabaster thought, when he arrived in Stormreach just three weeks ago. Alabaster is Warforged. One of those forsaken warriors that roam Eberron in search of meaning since the last war. His hearth was filled with confusion and hope. Hope of a better life, a real life, a life that has meaning.
In the first days, the days without raining, he found hope in the trust of some humanoids, that gave him a reason to live. They begged him for help. They tossed him around. They told him what to do. He felt needed and guided by the call for help just as much as by the orders, that he so willingly accepted.
But then everything changed. The rain had cleared the streets and the taverns were full of babbling adventurers. Now the humanoids, the fleshlings, they seemed rather focused on asking other fleshlings for help. Alabaster was standing outside, right next to the Wayward Lobster, a local tavern. With no need to sleep, no need to breathe and no need to rest, he just stood there, hoping that the rain would wash away the tears he could not cry. In his hearth he was a barbarian, a hard warrior that knew only fighting. Always guided by violence, he followed his axe wherever it led him.
Pushed by in inner impulse he started walking. Walking away, away from the city, away from all those laughing humans, that just like him, or so he thought, have no meaning in their life but they don't realize it. He walked outside of the city into an outer area called the Cerulean Hills. He never went there before, but gave no second thought on the matter. He went just outside of the false protection of the city walls. Storming through the city gate, he did not even realize, that the days of raining had come to an end.
Just outside the gates a wide field of green grass and lush jungle trees was opening before him. The sun, that was gone for so long, had come back from the dead. It broke through the clouds and fell on him, but he did not notice it. He was still just walking, when a rush of adrenaline sharpened his senses. His blue crystals were glowing even in the bright sunlight and he felt the sensation of battle rising up. But the battle was already here, he dodged a thrown spear just by an inch and started running forward towards the enemy he analysed while running.
Bugbear. Cloaked. 45 feet away or 2 seconds of running.
He charged blindly now, the rage burning in his wooden body. But before he even reached his enemy, he felt something try to get a hold off his foot. With barely a slowdown, he chopped the wolf in two. Six feet away from the bugbear, he jumped into air and let his axe come down on the poor creature. The bugbear tried to dodge his axeswing, but was caught by the stunning blow of the Warforged. That was the last mistake this creature would ever make. Its body dropped lifeless like a lump of meat.
Now the heat was growing and it was not the sun burning in his eyes. The sight of orcs in the nearby woods released him on another blind charge. Swing after swing he pushed away his thought, his fear and his doubt. Every chop, every drop of blood made him happy, gave him meaning again. Then he stopped.
He had been running away from the city for quite a while now and the only thing he could spot, that made him recognize his position, was the Stormreach light tower. The golden light beam was always there on the horizon. A light of hope when he first arrived in Stormreach and a beacon to go back to now.
This was the first time he really looked around in this overgrown place of murder. The blood was dripping from his axe and dozens of orcs, bugbears and wolves had fallen to his rage. He felt a strange sensation, something that his old masters called "guilt". But then he remembered a story he heard in the city about the orcs and their ruthless approach against the farmers of the city. The hills were not just only the outside of the city, they were a farming area. He heard the people and some farmers, that have left their fields, talking about the orcs, who claimed the ruins to be sacred and not to be approached nor used as farming ground.
He never understood the fleshlings focus on believe and gods. He was looking down on the ruins, the white marble pillars and broken walls, that were scattered around the landscape. Inside the city everything was brown stone, but out here, all was white and green and full of life. A nearby shrine of Arawai was the reason for that, or so the farmers believed. They had been praying there to Arawai to get rid of the undead, that arose from time to time out of their fields and threatened their families.
Slowly but steadily he was walking back towards the city, past walls that had been broken apart by time and its power, or by water and the ever growing jungle, that was taking back what once was his. A new river had found its way through the ruins. It ran past the walls, past the pillars, towards the city, just like the lonely Warforged, that was cooling his feet in the slowly flowing waters.
The jungle wanted to take back the land it once owned. The orcs claimed their ruins to be sacred and untouchable. The lions were roaring their demand for lordship over the landscape. The river was taking more and more of Eberron's body, digging its way deeper down into the land. And just like all those, that were demanding something... Alabaster desired, like nothing else, freedom.
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