Crexgar Magestone

25 years ago an adolescent giantess sat on the shores of the Machinist Empire of Tailani staring into the ocean dreaming about the world on the other side. She had heard stories of sailors and ports far away of a land of trees and green fields and flowers with peoples of all shapes and sizes. All she knew were giants, the ever clanking machine fields of her village, and the sea. She saw a gnome once but that was from afar so she didn't count that. Looking into the sea was by far her favorite place to be. one day she was on her perch when she saw a battle far in the distance between two ships in the end one of them was sunk and the other sailed away. The sunken ship left much debris in the water, so Sher, as she was called, wadded out into the water and swept it up. attached to one of the pieces of wood was a man. Excited to meet her first human Sher immediately took the man home and fashioned a small bed for him and a box to keep him in. When the man awoke she fed him and dressed his wounds. She tried to talk to him but he didn't understand her language and she didn't know his. A few giants in town spoke common but she knew she had to keep the man a secret or she'd be in trouble and he'd be taken away. so she kept him in his box. He tried to escape several times but she always caught him before he got too far and would admonish him for trying to leave. She kept the man this way for years, eventually they learned each others language, and could communicate easily. But by this point Sher had grown to want more than Communication, She was infatuated with the man, who was still terrified of the young giantess. The man's name was Harne, he told her all the stories he could and described the lands he knew in hopes that she would let him go. But she always refused and one day she confessed her love for him. he visibly blanched at the idea saying he had a wife he wanted to get back to. Sher was incensed at this revelation. She grasped Harne in her hands and told him, "you won't want your puny wife any more once you've had me." Raging with jealousy and hormone induced teenage lust Sher availed herself of Harne that night, repeatedly. Guilty for her actions and unable to face Harne anymore, she let him go the next morning. He ran into the Gear Fern wilds never to see her again. Shortly after she found herself with child. 10 months later she gave birth to a tiny baby, the first half giant born on this continent although everyone just thought him a runt. She named him Crexgar, which in ancient giant means "My Shame". Sher wanted to love the child but his size and her inability to face her own actions caused her to keep the boy at a distance. When the Keenstone clan realized that crexgar was lacking for affection they pitched together to make sure he was shown the support he needed to grow. His small size made him a novelty and everyone wanted an opportunity to care for him. At least while he was a baby. Once he began formal apprenticeship he was no longer a novelty he was simply too small. His fellow apprentices teased him mercilessly about his size, his instructors couldn't or wouldn't let him practice because he was too small to wield the tools or too short to reach the anvil or dozens of other excuses. It got so bad that Crexgar, at this point a 5'6" nine year old begged his mother to tell him why he was so small. She confessed that she had fallen in love with a human and that was his father. She told Crexgar that his father had run off into the wilds years ago, leaving them behind. Crexgar was shocked and appalled at his heritage having heard his whole life all the stories about how awful the other races were. Crexgar redoubled his efforts. He'd do everything in his power to be the best giant ever. He'd show his peers, his teachers, his mother, and his blood that he was all giant regardless of his size. He began making special tools for himself that fit his smaller hands, special hammers that didn't weigh too much for him to handle, tongs he could use with one hand. But his size also had an advantage because his hands could handle much more intricate work than his fellow apprentices or even his instructors so his machines could be orders of magnitude more complex and half the size. It wasn't long before he was proving himself to be a true asset to the empire. The Clockwork Throne even commissioned his work on several occasions before his 15th name day. On his 18th name day, mired in guilt and self loathing for a lifetime of bad decisions Sher came to crexgar and confessed the full circumstances of his birth. Appalled at his mother he ran into the Gear fern wilds in an attempt to find the fate of his father. He succeeded, within a week he came across a small hand built shack in a clearing. Inside he found cobbled odds and ends a make shift bed, a table, rotted food and on the table he found a journal. Thankfully the only time his mother had spent time with him in his childhood had been to teach him common so he could read it. His father had kept a journal apparently to help bare the years of solitude. The book was giant sized so he must have found it or stollen it. Crexgar was amazed that his father had been so close all these years and remained undiscovered. The entries were mostly mundane talking about hunting or building, at one point he tried to build an aqueduct but was almost discovered so he abandoned the project. Near the back of the book his father talked about how he found a strange rock after it had fell up from the ground. He described it as if it was being tossed out of the ground by some great force, he said he saw it shoot out of the soil. When he touched it he felt like it was singing and it buzzed with a otherworldly power. He brought it home to study. And from that point on his entries became erratic as if his mind were slipping. There were pages of the same word over and over, "Eternity" and pages of just scribbles and doodles of shadows and runes. The second to last entry was where it got clearer:: "The ball is calling to me, it wants me to go, I don't want to resist it anymore, It feels too good, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow" And in the final entry it said: "if anyone finds this know I was Harne Stonly, I ran from the only person who ever cared for me, I'm sorry Sher I was afraid of what loving you meant so I lied. I was never married, I just said that because I didn't want to admit the truth. But then what happened happened and you looked at me with such shame I knew you'd never be whole if I was around. Forgive yourself I already have." the rest of the pages were blank. As Crexgar looked around the room again he heard a humming buzz. In a corner jammed up against the bed was a strange smooth ball about the size of his fist, made of some rock crexgar did not recognize it seemed smooth like marble but shined and moved like liquid metal. It was lying there as if it had been dropped and rolled from the middle of the room. Crexgar wrapped it in a blanket and took it and the journal with him back home. He gave the journal to his mom after tearing the pages about the ball out. Upon reading it she collapsed in tears. Crexgar took the ball to his workshop and began tinkering with it, thinking it might be able to be used as a power source. After more than two years he was about to give up having not gotten any progress on the ball. But then he finally made a hole in its surface with a diamond tipped auger he had created. as he made the hole he felt the essence of the sphere suffuse his body then the ball exploded into a puff of light and stardust only to reform floating in front of him fully intact, all traces of the hole gone. The energy that had entered his body now sang in his head to take the ball in his hands to go with it, to be one with it. Crexgar, resisted and threw a sheet over the ball. for days Crexgar resisted the urge to go back to the ball. But it made its call over and over, day and night.His work was begging to slip and his detractors were beginning to talk again always on the lookout for any excuse to tear the runt down. He resolved as he went to bed one night to take the ball back into the Gear Fern Wilds in the morning and leave it there. But during the night he heard the ball, it seemed to be screaming. He had a vision of the ball being taken by one of his rivals running down the street. Crexgar unsure of why, jumped out of bed and chased after. His connection to the sphere showed him the way all along until he arrived at his rivals home just moments behind. Crexgar crashed through the door and was faced by the much larger giant Rohe. Crexgar lept at Rhoe trying to knock the ball from his grasp. Rhoe bellowed: "Now I have your secret and the Clockwork Throne will favor me. Show me how it works and I won't hurt you too bad." With a rage Crexgar had never felt he roared at the Giant and buried his shoulder in Rhoe's gut. The giant stumbled back wheezing for breath. but was recovering fast. In his head Crexgar heard the singing buzzing sound of the Sphere, but now it sounded like words: "you came for us, do you accept us?" He decided in a split second that he did. And just like that he was gone. He found himself floating in a void of color and light and darkness swirling all around him. A cosmos of stars and planets lay among the landscape with him floating at the center and the ball just out of reach in front of him. As he stretched to grasp it the sphere began to glow blindingly. and voices came from all sides. "We are order" "AnD CHaoS" "we are the core of the cosmos" "IT Has BEEn sO LoNg SIncE wE haVe HaD a PRrOPper HoST" "You are the perfect blend of mind and mater" "ReAsON aNd iNStiNcT" "Control and discord" "wE aCCePt yoU As WeLl" and the sphere slowly floated toward his chest, he tried to grab it but it continued toward him. It touched his bare skin and began to burrow into his flesh. He tried to move but it kept sinking deeper into him, he began to scream and at that Crexgar found himself back in his workshop naked. He looked to his chest and saw to the right of his heart a very slight bit of the curve of the sphere protruding from his skin. He looked around the now ransacked workshop caused by Rhoe's pillaging. He found an old pair of breaches he'd had down there and put them on before He sat for a while just contemplating all that had just happened. What was he now, and if this is what had happened to him what had happened to his father? He rose up and began trying to clean up the horrendous mess wishing inside it would just clean itself, he felt the stone in his chest pulse slightly and just like that the whole garage came to life. Items all over the room began walking and moving themselves to their proper places. Tools found their hooks, items found their shelves, parts found their bins, even trash seemed to walk itself to the waste basket. everywhere he looked it was happening until the room was suddenly clean. Crexgar looked down and the spring in his hand was wiggling trying to get free, he startled and dropped it. The spring fell to the floor and began to bounce its way back to the spare parts bin where it came to a rest inside. Not knowing the implications of what had just happened Crexgar went back to bed. In the morning he was met with his mother's knock on the door telling him that representatives of the Clang city guard were at the door asking to see him. He went to the door to speak to them, they informed him that he had been reported as a magic user by Rhoe. "As you know use of magic is forbidden inside the empire" Crexgar assured them he did not use any magic and wouldn't know the first thing about casting a spell. At that Rhoe jumped out from behind the guards and said: "He broke into my house last night and assaulted me and just when I was about to kick his puny ass he vanished in a puff of dust. If that's not magic I don't know what is." Crexgar, visibly angering now, told the guard that the only reason he had gone to Rhoe's home was because he had witnessed Rhoe stealing an object out of his workshop and running away. He pointed at Rhoe and as soon as he did he felt a pulse of energy from his chest and out of his finger shot a sparking mass of red light that struck Rhoe in the core, causing his eyes to roll back in his head and for him to fall down. The guards arrested Crexgar immediately. He was brought to the Capital city of Klink to face judgment by the emperor, Yelit Thundermind. The Case was argued, the testimony heard, and the evidence presented including the journal of his father found within his and Sher's home. The Emperor didn't take long to pronounce Crexgar guilty. He expressed great alarm at magic being used in Tailani but also that Crexgar and Sher had deceived the land for so long about his true nature. Crexgar asked if his service to the empire for all these years had gained him nothing. The emperor said: "It has gained you much, you are here and not dead for one thing. but you are right you have done great things for us and thus I will ask you what do you think is a fair sentence for breaking one of our most sacred laws" Crexgar simply asked that his mother be spared, he acknowledged that she had never been a great mother but that she was his and so it was his duty to protect her. The emperor appeared moved by his words and agreed to suspend any sentence for Sher. "Now, as for you. As a half breed magic user on our shores you will die today unless you can prove that the genius you've shown all these years is yours and not magical, if so I will consider your service to the empire a gift and send you on your way to find your path somewhere other than in our lands." the emperor called over his daughter, a little girl of maybe five or 6 who already stood almost as tall as Crexgar. He asked her for her music box, which she handed over. "you created this did you not" Crexgar nodded "Good, then fix it" the emperor said as he pulled out a giant hammer and smashed it. "Do it right now in front of us, your tools are here" and they slid across the chamber floor to him. Crexgar scooped up the pieces of the destroyed music box as he heard the emperors daughter sniffle and hide her eyes. Crexgar called over to her, and asked if the music box played a song she liked. She responded "Yeah, its ok" crexgar asked if it was her favorite song and when she shook her head he asked if she could hum her favorite song to him. She did and he went to work. His hands moved like a whirlwind. he pounded metal back into shape restrung springs and gears and had the whole piece back together in less than an hour. But when he twisted the key and opened the lid it didn't play the old tune it now played the tune the Emperor's daughter had hummed. The emperor chuckled and nodded his head, "Crexgar of the Keenstone clan you are no longer of the Keenstone, your clan is dead to you and you are dead to it. Your memory will live in honor as a cog in the machine empire but your cog has become chipped and worn, it must be discarded for the continued operation of the whole. You are hereby exiled to where we don not know with whom we do not care. your life is your own this Empire no longer is. Be well Crexgar Nameless" "magestone" Crexgar responded "I'm sorry" said the emperor "My name is Crexgar Magestone now" He said "As you say," the emperor responds "Be well Crexgar Magestone. Do not allow the Dawn of a new week to hit you on these shores" At that Crexgar was ushered out of the capital and sent on his way to depart the nation. He packed as much of his stuff as he could comfortably carry and wished his mother well before boarding a pirate ship called the Kraken heading to the coast of Initia and a secret port near the city of Zenimole. During the voyage Crexgar decided he would apply as much of his focus to learning these new powers as he had devoted to machining. He would work as a sorcerer for hire and see where his life took him. When he arrived in Zenimole he was a bit taken aback by all the different types of people and how small they were. He had always been the smallest person in any room now he was almost always the largest.With his size It was easy to find work and nearly immediatly he was hired by a local businessman to be part of his escort party through the mountains to a town called Loredale.