Seriko

Seriko is an Air Genasi Way of the Void Monk in Fragments. He is played by Austin.

## The 13 Ways of the Eternal Oblivion

The 13 Ways is an ancient and practically extinct fighting style and philosophy. It focuses on turning the body into a living weapon, abandoning all thoughts in the moment, leaving the mind clear and relying on pure muscle memory to wreak destruction.

The main practice of the 13 Ways is to enter a trance-like state where all thoughts are abandoned, and from this emptiness comes power. Practitioners of this art use their bodies as conduits for the energy of people around them. They absorb attacks and build momentum and let the energy pass through them before unleashing it.

The name of the art comes from the 13 techniques known by the founder of the order, whose name has been banished from all memories. Each technique is a set of meditative practices and combat moves that seek to achieve total annihilation of enemies and themselves. Supposedly, the final technique is to remove oneself from the memory of history and the fabric of fate.

Most of his actual combat moves are based on the fastest possible path to death. Visually and technically, it is similar to pencak silat. Fast, snappy movements that form a brutal onslaught of attacks. He learned these techniques as a child, taught by the inhabitants of Mydir to use against the Dimant Family’s mages.

## Appearance and Possessions

Seriko is about 55 years old, but it is very hard to tell his exact age. His body is emaciated, and is of average height. He is extremely thin, to the point where you can easily count ribs. He is nothing but lean muscle and bone. He has pale blue skin with long pure white hair that vaguely resembles wisps of clouds. His shoulders and upper back covered in tattoos depicting wind, clouds, and other air-related imagery. These magical tattoos fade in and out and move around, like a cloudy sky on a windy day. He dresses in the traditional clothes of Mydir, brightly colored, saturated, loose fitting pants. His scarf worn in different locations depending on the current situation. He also has a formal button-down silk shirt for special occasions, although he rarely wears it.

## Behavior/Personality

Seriko takes the practices of the 13 Ways very seriously, observing their meditative practices, fasts, and other rituals with great care for detail. He recites the mantras of the 13 Ways in combat, as the belief is that they lend power to the techniques.

He is completely averse to physical contact and could be considered to have haphephobia. This could originate from the rough and dangerous upbringing fighting against the Dimant Family.

He is detached from most emotions or physical feelings. When experiencing strong emotions, he quickly centers himself. The philosophy isn’t to push them aside, it is to acknowledge them and let them flow through you.

He has a weakness for pastries, will almost always cause him to break a fast or eat too much.

He is relentless in the pursuit of self improvement. He could always have done something better, even in situations of complete random chance.

## History

### Before Fragments

Seriko grew up in a small farming village in Mydir. From an early age, he was trained to kill. He was taught that each member of the community had a responsibility to defend the village from any of the Dimant Family mages. They would come around every now and then to enforce their rule. If they ever came for someone in the village, he was to fight, kill, to save them. This kind of upbringing led to a very socially isolated and traumatized Seriko. He spent long hours in the jungles, training his body to be as fast as possible. His teachers emphasized that speed is one of the most important aspects of fighting mages. When someone can kill an entire village in a single breath, you have to kill them before they can even exhale.

In his wandering of the jungles, he stumbled upon a sprawling complex of crumbling ruins. He has no idea what civilization built this. As he explored the ruins in his free time, he discovered tablets and carvings that spoke of a particular fighting style focused around creating the perfect weapon. He realized over time that the entire complex strangely resembled a training ground, although that was obviously not it's intended purpose. The exact way that rubble fell or a ceiling collapsed lent itself to a perfect obstacle course or target range for him to practice the newly learned Way of the Void.

One night, after long hours of training at the abandoned temple, Seriko returned home to find it on fire, a group of mages prowling through the narrow alleys, claiming that they were harboring a runaway slave.

He killed them all, cutting their spells out of the air before they could reach him, and then crushing their throats and breaking their arms before they could attempt to cast more. He showed no mercy once they were incapacitated. He annihilated them. Surrounded by broken corpses and fire, he had a revelation. A moment of pure clarity, an image of martial forms and meditative techniques. He had unlocked the first of the 13 Ways.

He gathered up his people and fled into the jungles, leaving the remains of the mages to the tigers. He took them to another ancient ruin even deeper in the jungle than the temple, to a sacred place for his people (might be a manifest zone for the elemental plane of air). The village started to rebuild and, after ensuring that they would be safe, Seriko returned inland, hunting mages.

Over time, he realized the scope of the threat, and realized that he could not defeat them alone. He left Mydir with the promise that he would return with help, so that he could finally free his people. He heard about the fight for independence in Dhorane, and headed there. While fighting for Dhorane’s independence, Seriko was put on an assignment with Sly, a mage. Although distrustful at first, Seriko and Sly saved each other’s lives an innumerable amount of times, and both quickly realized the value of each other’s skills.

Eventually, they formed a company around the specific purpose of killing mages and other dangerous targets. The Queen noticed their effectiveness and made them an official company, tasking them with killing generals and archmages and the like. Their final task was to kill King Eiberion’s personal mage. Which they did, leaving the king open to several subsequent assassination attempts.

After the war was over, Seriko tried to get his squad to go help him with his people, but they were mostly interested in retiring with noble titles and boatloads of money. So, they all drifted apart. Seriko tried to return to Mydir and found that his village was still hidden, and that they were slowly but surely rebuilding what they had lost. Once again, he traveled to the inner regions of Mydir, and once again, he was unable to affect any meaningful change.

He sought out Sly after so many years, and they met up. After exchanging information, he realized that the Queen was hunting down the old members of the Silencers (working name), and that they were the only two left. They hatched a plan to fix their mistakes, and set off for the Fencian Isles to set it in motion.

### During Fragments

Seriko worked with the ABC(D)s to take down the Consortium and made a pact with the Green Armada to get them into the Feywild. After traveling to the city of Chalisar, he and Sly learned enough about time magic to leap through the potential futures. Eventually, they realized that the world would completely end if they didn't stop the chancellor of the Fencian Isles from recovering Everard's Compass. After assaulting the Prince's palace in the Dunes of the Arbiter, he recovers the Compass and works with Sly to complete the ritual that will send him back in time to defeat the Dimant Family forever.

### Time Travel

While traveling through the time stream, Seriko stops the Dimant Family from ever reaching Mydir, guaranteeing its independence. However, he has a realization during this travel. There is a missing piece of the puzzle, the events don't all add up to the outcome. But then he realizes that in order to set the timeline right, there is a single change to history that he must do. He goes to the Highfoot Tinkership in Drommen, 6 years prior. He switches the sorcium sheets in the device there with regular metal, guaranteeing an explosion that would set Kit on her current path. He leaves a message for Sly telling Kit that the explosion was not her fault before fading into the streams of time, his purpose fulfilled and goal realized. Mydir was free at last.