Aritz a Mata

> I have faced greater dangers whilst relieving myself in the privy than *you* will ever endure in your meager existence. While you sat to grow fat off the riches and wealth of our nation, I was sowing the seeds upon which you’ve grown fat. While you asserted your own importance learning of the achievements of greater men, I was the man upon whom those achievements were written. It is not I for whom fear tolls; it is fear for whom *I* toll. Do you understand?
>
> —Aritz to Hernan, *The Bleeding Stone*

**Aritz a Mata** is a Lord of the Acrarian Kingdom, the Founder of the nation of Ferranda, and a former General of Acrarian forces during the Settling.

## Appearance

During the days of the Acrarian Invasion, Aritz had a plain face with a patchy beard, early wrinkles in his forehead and cheeks, wavy auburn hair that he tucked behind his ears, and "piercing" eyes.

In his later years, after the rise of Ferranda, Aritz garbs himself in aristocratic finery, wearing a cloak, a fine leather tunic, a cape draped over one shoulder, and trousers and shoes that were "simple for a Lord." His hair is no longer auburn, instead peppered in various shades of grey.

## Personality

Aritz is a sociopath with a superiority complex, perhaps even bordering on a god complex. After the rise of Ferranda, he views himself as a god among men, adamant that his accomplishments place him high above his subjects. He revels in the adulation and worship of the Ferrandans, believing it to be indicative of a "modern society." Despite enjoying the worship, he is also easy to anger, especially when dealing with those he would consider sycophantic, such as Hernan.

In his younger years, he is disinterested in the proceedings of others, so long as they do not interfere in his own plans. He views the Tribes as "animals," and does not shy away from calling them as such, even going so far as to call their native language "disgusting."

## Background

Little is currently known about Aritz prior to the Acrarian Invasion. In his lecture to students at the University in Ferranda, he explains the circumstances of his discovery of the island that would one day become Ferranda, informing them of his father's passing and taking up his task of establishing a trading route between Acraria and the newly discovered lands to the west. However, given the University's curriculum was written by Aritz himself, the veracity of his lecture is suspect.

## History

### *The Bleeding Stone*

#### **1556 A.S.**

Aritz has been pursuing Shara and Ran since they escaped from the City, having taken a small unit of Acrarian soldiers with him and successfully cutting his way through the Forest and the Wood Tribe, coming victorious after an unknown number of skirmishes with the Tribe.

His pursuit leads him to the Stone Tribe village, where he encounters Sen and Narva playing cards outside a tavern. He insists on playing cards and questioning Sen, and, through interpretation by Dantalhat, demands that the two runaways are returned to him while sending his men patrolling through the village. Although he initially informs Sen that Shara and Ran are merely his "companions," he is quick to also call them "animals" and "escapees." He calmly listens as Sen rebuffs him until one of his men whispers something indistinct to him after his patrol, at which point he takes a blemished card to stow in his pocket and departs.

Later that evening, he returns to the village much more aggressively, having discerned Chief Fannalhen's location by torturing Dantalhat. When the Chief receives him, accompanied by Dennalhir, Tez, and Sen, Aritz asserts that his runaways had escaped to the Stone Tribe village and demands that they are returned to him. When Fannalhen refuses, Aritz shoots him in the shoulder. After doing so, Brin runs out into the fray to intervene, and Aritz commends him for his bravery, at which point he commands his men to instead take Brin and whomever else of their choosing, caring only that he would return to the City with two Tribespeople. Relishing the panic, he knocks Brin out with the butt of his pistol and proceeds to shoot Fannalhen again, this time a fatal wound to the chest, and then departs.

Passing through the Forest once again on the return south, Aritz and his men were even more ruthless toward the Wood Tribe, who were still recovering after the prior assault.

Upon returning to the City, Aritz hands Brin and the other Stone Tribesperson to a group of guards, including Red, and orders them brought to the slave camp. Shortly after Red completes the task, Aritz stands in wait outside the camp gates and ensures that there were no issues, commanding Red to carry on as she was.

When Sen and Narva successfully break Brin out of the camp, Aritz hears alarm bells to signal another escape attempt. He shrugs it off, muttering to himself that he can "always get more," and begins to fill in the northern reaches of a war map, previously uncharted, and charts out his next move.

#### **1581 A.S.**

Aritz arrives in Ferranda after a three-month sea voyage from Acraria and is received at the port by a host of Scholars led by Hernan with the intent of hosting a guest lecture at the University, despite his personal reluctance. He is immediately annoyed by Hernan's sycophantic demeanor and goes out of his way to belittle the Master Scholar and refuses to call him by the proper name, and is only further annoyed when he is informed that his guest lecture is to begin within ten minutes. He demands the day's lecture is delayed so that he may properly change at his personal manor, and would be ready within the hour for the lecture.

After freshening up and taking a personal tour of Ferrand City on the way to the University, reveling in the adulation and awe exhibited by its citizens and students, he barges into Hernan's classroom without announcement, interrupting the lecture and regaling the students with a lecture to fulfill Hernan's request to "be a living history for our minds of the future," detailing the events leading to Ferranda's founding. After his lecture concludes, one student questions what became of the indigenous peoples who previously dwelt in Ferranda. At first conceding that the Acrarian settlers were received by a Tribe along the eastern coast who provided them food and shelter but graciously expanded elsewhere, Aritz admits, upon further pressing, that the tribes were nothing more than wicked spellbinders prone to slaughter who he gladly forced deep into the mountains. Hernan quells the argument and dismisses the class, but the student ensures to Aritz that "a people and culture do not cease to exist simply because your eyes have shut," before vanishing from sight.

After the lecture, Aritz is eager to return to his manor when he is intercepted by Hernan, who insists that he escort Aritz back to his dwelling. He learns that Hernan had never seen that student prior to that day, but while the Master Scholar is quick to extol the importance of Aritz's protection, Aritz towers over Hernan to angrily assure him that there is nothing that could possibly hope to harm him before stating that he intends to leave for Acraria the next morning with no plans to ever return to Ferranda, citing his age and family as a reason. Upon returning to his manor, he greets a doorman at his chamber named Nic who he appreciates for his bluntness and enters his bedchamber for the final time. He examines his various trophies from the time of the Settling, including photographs depicting Ferrand City in its infancy, a giant slain beast atop a wagon nearly crumbling under its weight, and a portrait of him with a female companion who he had trusted until she betrayed him. As he parses through the trophies, he notes that an ornate flintlock pistol was missing from its stand, despite it being in his chambers earlier that day. Before he can inquire to Nic about its whereabouts, he finds a letter on his desk calling him "a monster, a demon, a disease," and promising that the "Harvest" is remembered, and weighing down the letter is a pendant inscribed a rune of Memory.

Examining the pendant, he relives a memory of him at his estate in Acraria, but quickly realizes that something is amiss when it is evident that the "memory" takes place two days after he departed for Ferranda. His memory entails his household servants and guards dying without mercy by his blade until he is finally forced to watch "himself" draw his blade on his wife and two children, at which point he manages to pull away from the false memory. Panicking, he rummages through his desk for his missing flintlock until he hears a familiar click behind him, the student from earlier holding the pistol to the back of his head.

Aritz threatens the girl but she merely smiles and asks if he enjoyed her "gift" of the Memory pendant and forces him to watch the remainder of the recollection: the murder of his wife and children, and his surviving household staff watching him walk away, covered in blood and gore, before he returns his bloodied blade to a slain guard and grabs a hidden bow and quiver from the hedges. Breaking away from the Memory, the girl passes blame for the act onto Aritz, pointing out that his household recognized him as committing the heinous acts and that word was surely on its way to the King and Queen, a believable story given the rumors of Aritz's cruelty. Aritz growls that the girl killed his family in cold blood, but she retorts that he did just the same to hers. Before Aritz can belittle her for having a sob story involving poor parents, the girl changes form to a familiar face that hadn't aged a day in twenty-five years, a face belonging to someone Aritz knows to be dead.

## References

1. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Interlude 1
2. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Five
3. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Prologue
4. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Prologue
5. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Four
6. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Five
7. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Six
8. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Ten
9. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Thirteen
10. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Chapter Fiteen
11. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Prologue
12. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Interlude 1
13. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Interlude 2
14. ↑ *The Bleeding Stone*, Epilogue