Amare Jelani

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**Amare Jelani**, also known as **Zoomer Strife**, is a Voshi former politician, former guerilla, former athlete, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and Outlander. Born in 4,786 in an inland slum in Voshe, he was sold into slavery at the age of 9. After orchestrating a mass escape a half decade later, he became a young member of an Oceanic commune dedicated to slave liberation and education. As his strength and knowledge both grew without bound, he sought to create a legacy for himself throughout Aquila, and left his commune behind for the great expanses of Kilran. Beginning as a somewhat well-known monster and treasure hunter with an overt and excessive fondness for earthly pleasures, his adventures with the Outlanders transformed his world view and personality into one dedicated to improving the world and the lives of others. When this mission demanded his blood, he proudly gave it.

## Personality and Traits

In his childhood, Amare was curious and adventurous with a limitless supply of energy. These innate traits pushed him to join a wandering storytellers' group in Voshe before his town was tragically razed by slaver bandits.

During his time as a slave in a weavers' compound in Agelisaus, Amare became significantly more reserved and introspective while still finding the glimmers of heart and energy to be a social and flirtatious teenager. He developed senses of cunning and justice that would enable him to escape the compound. However, the unfortunate casualties of his escape brought to Amare a deep guilt and powerlessness. Although he learned self-sustenance and the way of the warrior in a freedmen's commune, he left in shame after being defeated by his own shadow in a ritual battle.

Upon his relocation to the port town of Anselm at the age of 16, Amare developed a shield of forced joviality and addictions to earthly pleasures to escape his guilt and growing inferiority complex. He developed a reputation of being lecherous and uncaring yet simultaneously became a respected hunter, consistently eliminating dangerous monsters that threatened the city's way of life. He frequented the pierside bars at nighttime, most of the times to drink, but on rare occasions playing a solemn and enchanting slow piece on the pub piano.

To escape his complexes over his past the duality of being an admired guardian as well as a drunkard, Amare worked hard at his two primary hobbies; weaving and aquaball. He made many of his own clothes and started a small weavers' guild to sell his surplus, finding it humorous to profit off of skills learned in servitude. As for the latter, he became a fan of the sport and practiced fervently, receiving an offer from the fledgling Anselm Sturgeons that he ultimately declined to travel with the Outlanders. Regardless, his discipline and unique ability to swim quickly and weave between opponents elegantly attracted attention from higher-ranking sports analysts of the time.

After about 2 years of a chaotic life in Anselm, Amare was approached by a stranger who foretold of a duo of escaping warriors that would need his help in the coming days, and who urged the now 18-year old Amare to join them. The two would be Ulysses Cannonwalker and Ned Edgewalker. Amare's fateful joining of the Outlanders would define much of his life. Although he initially introduced himself with the hunter's alias of **Zoomer Strife**, still unwilling to own up to his name, he learned much about life and refined himself throughout the Outlanders' junior years. Despite being the group's humorist and sweet talker, he was well versed in tactics and machinery, and became comfortable with these two personalities over the course of his travels with his fellow heroes. He gave the group his real name at the conclusion of their second journey, the first defeat of Makrozoia, and immigrated to the bustling southern city of Dreiton.

As his adult years continued, Amare's exploits and fame grew in size, and he was slowly able to reconcile his childhood personality and needs with what he had become and what the world needed him to be. In his sunset years, having been a worldwide hero, sports star, politician, and entrepreneur all at once, he thanks his friends dating all the way back to the Agelisaus compound and forward through the freedmen's commune and the Outlanders for having helped realize who he was meant to be. He still frequents the jazz pubs in his new home in Dalatari to play a mean piano piece, and enjoys weaving. His life lesson has been to appreciate the dichotomy of silence and energy, of humor and introspection, and of heroism and having fun.

## Upbringing and History

### The Beginnings

#### Hope Midst Sorrow

Amare Jelani was born in Narani, a small inland village in Voshe, in 4,786 AD as the second of two children to a mailman father and a mother. In stark contrast to his sister, Adaliya, five years his elder, Amare was raucous, adventurous, and highly social. Literacy and especially thorough education were sparse in Narani, and most knowledge of the arts and the world were bequeathed on children and young adults by the griots, who were adventurous poets who traveled from village to village, particularly in eastern Voshe.

Intranational travel was a particular risk during Amare's childhood as, at the time, polycrat and polycrat-funded slave driver bandits patrolled the scorching countryside in search of human capital. While they didn't capture on sight, there existed a code in the loose bandit government to seize any during times of high demand. Even so, the griots accepted the duty of being the continent's de facto cultural education system, reading and singing in the town squares by night. Alongside the wandering artists traveled bands of daredevil teenagers who also taught small village children how to read and write while themselves becoming griot apprentices. Amare was captivated by the poets' stories of ancient empires, angry gods, and mythical explorers seeking ruins and treasure. He was present every night by the central village campfire, and was the most avid reader of the short texts they could afford to give away.

Unlike him and like all other Voshi girls, his sister focused on housekeeping and childcare. Adaliya kept order in the Jelani home and kept the sizeable shack from collapsing by Amare's antics. Despite their stark differences, the Jelani children were the prime source of emotional support for one another in a village and continent that were constantly on the verge of starvation and enslavement. Family and religion were cornerstones of the Voshi lifestyle, and practiced Oimezenism was the norm in Narani despite its distance from the sea. Together with their mother, Adaliya taught the young Amare much about compassion and emotional strength. Although she was forced to grow up quickly, Amare clearly recalls chasing her around the inner slums of the village when he was about five years old, pretending he was a disease-ridden zombie. The two would settle around the town well, where the occasional silver-tongued young suitor would come and try to woo Adaliya with a desert dandelion. They would invariably be ignored until she reached the age of thirteen and became smitten by an older boy by the name of Abel. The couple would sometimes sit with Amare by the well at night, listening to him go on about some foreign text, memories that would dot with light the fog of his boyhood.

At around the same time Adaliya was ready to marry into another family, Amare began his own griot apprenticeship and traveled by mule-drawn carriage through the savannahs of eastern Voshe, reaching as far as the then-small coast town of Agadir. While his parents were reluctant to let him go, the size of their group and Amare's advanced age of 9 gave them some relief. As a traveling child orator, he met countless children and adolescents stifled under the same fear of capture and lack of basic necessities. Simultaneously, he shared his immersion in the tales of adventures, continents and peoples ancient and modern, mythical and real, and was well-received in the towns he visited. He seized the opportunity to continue his own reading and studies, practicing his spoken and written word as well as geographical, political, and anthropological knowledge.

Given his precocious knowledge of the world, itself made more unlikely by his living in a continent of poverty and anxiety, Amare's childhood dreams vacillated from fisherman (inspired by "The 999 Little Boats of Hurksvitch") to inventor (after reading "Technologies of the Khaganate") to tragic hero (on the days he would recite the epic "The Summerhold Quartet"). Above all, Amare had a fascination with the world in its physical presentation in maps as well as in its history and myriad peoples, and sought to explore the farthest reaches in the world. During his intermittent rests in Narani, the nine-year-old Amare, with "The Outlander's Guide to Survival" as a manual, began drawing up plans for a small sailboat on which he and his family could travel to the nearby island town of Tempus, at that point a small but growing settlement run by a conference of craftsmen's guilds.

The short-lived epoch of boundless dreaming would be quashed by an unprecedented era of heartbreak and shackled servitude.

#### The Port of Weeping

*"For a while, all I could do was wail. I was nine. I had lost the three people closest to me. The island of joy I had amidst the scorching sands, reduced to ember. I would never get to see it again - but I didn't wish to. It has a dignified burial in my memory. In the all-consuming darkness of the late 90s, I found a light in a certain girl..."*

One fateful night in 4,795, as Amare read "The Ghost of Fargogh", a platoon of slaver mercenaries raided and thoroughly pillaged Narani, capturing most of the young and leaving the rest to fend off a horde of well-trained desert dogs. Amare and Adaliya were put on a caravan to western Voshe for their fates - and later prices - to be decided. Much like most of the other children, Amare was inconsolable, having lost his parents and livelihood and having little more than the clothes on his back and his sister next to him, yet no control or certainty in the continued presence of either. Adaliya was stoic, although Amare never understood whether that was because of a broken spirit or because of her unwavering strength and dignity as a firstborn daughter. Her fiance was nowhere in sight, and her future was entirely planned one day and shattered beyond healing the next. The young Amare would cry on her shoulder deep into the next night - when he awoke, she was gone.

The following day saw the arrival of the caravan to the port of Serveu. The children went through an ordeal best described as *processing*, by which they were funneled through a small warehouse and allowed to "bathe" themselves with lukewarm bucket water and a rough scrub. Amare, with many of the others, were then put to wait in a large storage facility, being given little more than a thin blanket in which to wrap themselves as they waited on the floor. A cacophony of emotions and sounds surrounded Amare for the next few days, a storm of wails and shouting and lashes that grew increasingly quieter and sparser as more and more children seemed to be plucked out of the room, never to return. As more space became available, Amare was able to look out the barred window some more to see a worn and small port city, with many pale-skinned rugged men and women out and about, and the occasional wealthy-looking Oceanic.

At the same time, Amare noticed a boisterous small girl making the rounds, trying to strike up conversation with many of the other children, but to little avail given the collective terror and confusion. When she came up to Amare, he was, for one, a bit relieved to have company and be able to speak for the first time in days. The girl seemed to feel similarly, and the two became fast friends and gazed in awe out of the same window together. Rather quickly, the girl shared her story; she was from a small town far to the east, and was out collecting lizards' tails outside her town when a cadre of beastmasters descended upon her and took her captive, despite her best attempts to claw at them and yell whatever generally unpleasant things an eight-year-old can at them. Amare was more reserved, sharing only that his town was reduced to ash. Nightly, the young girl with emerald eyes, dark brown hair, and a somehow mildly irritating yet endearing tendency to ask too many questions, would listen to Amare go on about a book he once read as a griot, and was deeply impressed by his ability to read as well as perhaps his tendency to talk without end when probed on, for example, the aquatic life of the Sea of Mes Raina.

With the thought of Adaliya and Abel weighing heavily on his heart, Amare took the girl in as his childish girlfriend of sorts. After what seemed like weeks of nighttime recollections by Amare and daytime pouncing by the girl, the lash-bearer entered the facility and walked directly and ominously toward the two. The absent-minded Amare, eyes still puffy from the days prior, at last thought to ask the girl for her name.

"Bisa... Bisa Jabari. Don't you forget it!" she whispered to Amare. The lash-bearer beckoned at the two and they held hands as they exited through the shoddy loading gate. A tall polycrat man, burly and with a healing scar, forced the two apart to analyze them as if they were livestock. He took one look at Amare and seemed delighted - a young, able-bodied boy able to work for years. Bisa did not impress nearly as much - the man turned to the lash-bearer and spoke of mild disappointment. While boys were preferred young, older girls were more popular, recalls Amare. The inspector explained something to that effect, citing the laws and morals of polycrat society as demanding a few more years on her. In any case, he relented, and Amare and Bisa were sold for 100 emerald nuggets to a textiles conglomerate operating from Agelisaus. The deal was further sweetened by the slavemasters, who added to the transaction three crates of grain per slave. The two were loaded onto a Mendean frigate and put in separate cells.

In his cell, Amare was comforted to see a young woman, seeming even older than his own sister, seated in a far corner. She was beautiful and her hair was long and well-kept, but her clothes were in tatters, and her legs and feet were covered in lashes. Most distinct was the "009" branded on her right arm. He would spend his days and nights on the ship recounting adventures and jokes to the young woman, and indeed, the young boy felt great pride and an unfamiliar warmth the handful of times she would chuckle - and the one time she looked up and smiled at him. Her eyes, although they seemed to have once been as green as his - had lost all vibrancy and had returned to moss. And 009 never spoke. 009 would jolt awake regularly in the evening, most often when the sound of thumping footsteps came upon them, and did not like when the boy wandered too far from her in their cell.

But 009 never once spoke before she, too, disappeared overnight. Gone, as another piece of his heart vanished without farewell or closure, not the first and not nearly the last. Amare cried once more into his hands for hours, heartbroken - but this time, he was quieter. And between sobs, he wondered if the tall, slender, blonde-haired lady clad in white robes holding him was real.

### A Flower Growing in a Cell

#### Nameless, Faceless

"*What they don't tell you is that, a lot of the time, you don't cry when you've lost something, or someone. You kind of just sit there. I didn't absorb losing my family for years. I think \*they\* helped me with that. I would just sit, thoughtless. With emotion, but also without. No kid deserves that. But the old generation lives with it."*

The night came when Amare would arrive at the port of Agelisaus, beautiful and regal. Due to its latitude, the city was chilly and night fell earlier and for longer than it did in Voshe. The air was dry and the frequent cold gales almost threatened to slice one's skin right off. The new slaves were housed in a multi-story compound, where each floor was composed of a central office and living room and surrounded by cells to ensure efficient supervision. Amare was to stay in the 4th floor and Bisa on the 3rd. The work station for all captives was on the 1st floor, and was heavily guarded at almost all hours.

Their work was robotic and excruciating - they were made to weave clothing and accessories along strict guidelines and within strict timeframes. Pricking oneself and dripping blood onto the fabric was punished by the lash. Going over time by seconds was punished by halving of rations. The clothing was to be of precisely the same dimensions as specified, or rations would be halved. The slaves were made to work in thin robes and barefoot, and the poorly insulated building did little to protect them from the cold of outside. They were prohibited from speaking. All items were tagged and able to be traced back to the slaves should they be defective. Above all, it was *absolutely forbidden* to carry weaving materials out of the work station.

Amare, in a stupor of grief and shock, did not register the pain of the lash or of the routine. Instead, he worked diligently and say nary a word to anyone except Bisa, whom he looked forward to seeing in the hallways, but still could not talk to. For the first few weeks, 9-year-old Amare kept himself obedient and focused solely on weaving, which reminded him of home. He was unable to accept that he was no longer there, and would never be able to return, as the home itself was now gone.

#### A Growing Mind, A Growing Will

"...*there comes a point when everything hits you like a sack of stone bricks. Grief is a universal human experience, which makes it worse yet when you're just... not allowed to grieve. I hated that. I think there was a trend of me being okay with things I hated, for a long time. One of the things I came to quarrel with was destiny."*

Eventually, even the illusions could not contain the inquisitive and once-vivacious Amare. Months in, his visage regained some color. His heart wept loudly, though his mouth dared not open for fear of the lash or starvation. He missed his sister Adaliya and her fiancee Abel. His father's tales and his mother's scolding were forever memories. Over the days he wept, he realized he could not possibly be the only one. Shivering in the darkness, every other boy and girl in the compound had also been torn from their homes. He began devising a method of sign language to communicate with Bisa. To ask her how she is and how she felt. They began whispering in the fleeting moments they had in the hallway. Others began to do the same, here and there, and never enough to anger the guards pulling them to their cells.

As the months went by, Amare realized that he did not at all know how much time had passed. Banking on his status as a model slave, he built up his courage and asked for a calendar. He was promptly denied and given the lash. However, this only served to embolden him, and he devised ways to counterattack the slavers. When the guards were unaware, he would chat up the slaves next to him. While they were initially terrified, the earnest and humorous Amare was able to lighten their moods as even more months went by. Between whispers, he would learn of their stories and personalities. He met Nuru, born the last of ninth children near Agadir, who would become a steadfast companion over his time in Agelisaus.

Amare particularly enjoyed chatting up and flirting with the girls, who were always happy to see him, even if only to laugh at his childish advances. Through this, he met a beautiful older girl named Cerise, whom he always scrambled to sit next to at the station. Suddenly, Amare had an idea; at the work station, he would take advantage of the relatively low supervision in his direction and his speed and skill with the thread to create smaller articles, like socks or single sleeves, while disguising them. He would sneak them out of the work station and give them to the object of his affections and his friends. Sometimes, he would take advantage of the slow single-file line to walk with an article stuck between his two legs without looking silly and arousing suspicion. With smaller accessories like hair ties, he would trick the guards with a sleight of hand. He would secretly give it to others in the hallway, keeping only a few for himself. One time, he sneaked a spool of blue thread out of the station by grabbing and rolling it under his toes as he walked to his room.

Amare's good deeds brought him unspoken fame in the compound as time continued to pass. He grew cocky and, in a sense, developed some comfort. However, no matter how much he covered his ears, the sound of the whiplash was ever-present in the early mornings. Cries for "mommy" and "daddy" and a plethora of other names amidst quiet sobs at midnight were burned into his memory. New lashes would appear on Cerise's legs to supplement the ones that had healed into scars. And what he hated most was the *flow* - old friends would leave, and new people would come in. The slave trade would not end with Amare and Bisa. And it would soon ask for more of him than he thought.

#### Model Slave

"*I think most people don't realize that there's power structures within the oppressed. Makes me hurl thinking they wanted to separate me from my kin and be their main breadwinner. Glad I didn't just drive that needle through my veins right then and there. I found a way to fight back soon after."*

One morning, Amare was awoken early to accompany the compound staff on an errand. As property of the company a driver of its efficiency, he was to be taken around town and paraded to the company's competitors. He would be shown advanced techniques and material, with belief that he may one day help mass-produce the company's more luxury goods. Amare was neutral to it. For one, the light of the outsided invaded and penetrated his eyes like nothing else. He was able to see the compound's surroundings more clearly for the first time in years - it was relatively isolated, with the company's horses in the stables next door. They would be traveling by carriage.

Amare went about his demonstrations the same way he did about his work - focusing on the thread and its patterns. He did enjoy the part where the staff allowed him to keep his creations. And, when the carriage drivers weren't looking, he'd steal a sugar cube from their bags and give it to the horses. At the very least, the trips stimulated his mind. And feeling a bit empowered, he'd walk next to Cerise in the line to their cells. They enjoyed some time together, holding hands and sharing secret kisses until she disappeared one day, much to Amare's heartbreak.

Developing an aversion to attachment, Amare focused his attentions in another direction. The kids who had entered with Amare had grown and were developing features that came with age. As flirtatious and well-liked as he was among the girls, he turned his attention to books, an old friend that had been gone for too long. Figuring that if asking for a calendar begot the lash, asking for a book would beget death, he turned to the stock of spools, needles, and other tools in a small hole under his bed. He noted that, twice every seven days, the central room on his floor would be left with one guard, always too tired to stay awake throughout the night. Over the next few weeks, he fiddled with the lock with his needle, unable to see anything but memorizing its internal workings. One night, he felt a rattle and heard a small *click*, the same as he'd hear when the cell was unlocked for work.

*Bingo.*

Putting on some bottom-heavy socks that he'd made in the work station and smuggled out, he made his way to the center room with not a single footstep heard. Coming in through the open window, he made his way quickly to the bookshelf and, in an adrenaline rush, took four books without reading their titles. He made his way back to his room, closing the door by reversing the process used to open it. He looked closer at his haul: *A Geographical History of the Old Ways, Laymen's Guide to Horses, Modern Civilian Redstone,* and *A History of Sivistyan Monarchy*. There was no consistency in it, but Amare was content. Feeling victorious, he began studying the monarchs of that continent he had never seen, and maybe never would.

Indeed, Amare *conformed*. He was not happy with his imprisoned, but he had his intellectual freedom. He was bereft of his family and could hardly ever see Bisa, who had to almost his height, and often stole his gaze from the other girls. The lashes had not been kind to her, and her legs were deeply scarred. Despite her beauty, her light had dimmed with hopelessness. Amare had begun to understand *fate*, which decreed he lose his family. Decreed that the friends he'd made in the compound would also one day disappear without a trace. His friend Nuru, who he'd joke around with as if they were back in Voshe mid-weaving, would one day simply not exist in his life. All he could do was weave and read, he thought; and he hated it, but can fate be overcome?

He developed a system in which he'd complete his work, make some extra clothes, and hand them out quietly in the halls before going into his cell to read, hidden behind his bed, giving the facade of a crying child but instead being engrossed in a book. He'd rub Bisa's thumb with his own as he handed her a hair tie, and for a split second life would return to her. He finished reading about the Old Ways, but lamented likely never being able to meet a warlock. He felt similarly about the Sivistyan monarchy and the continent. He replaced those two books with others, leaving the ones about horses and redstone to the side. And the system of conformity would continue for months before the past returned with a force.

#### A Higher Call

"*Knowing who she was now... I'm not sure if beings like that can feel, nor if it was genuine. But I'm happy she saw something in me. It was a privilege to be able to return her kindness all those years later. As for that day... probably one of the worst days of my fucking life. But everything began that day."*

Amare, on a particularly late night, finished reading a book about the legendary Dragonbridge and hid it under his bed. When he resurfaced, though, he was met by a beautiful woman with green eyes and skin as white as snow sitting on his bed. Her clothes were in pristine condition but were of no kind he'd seen before; it could be described as a pearl-white princess gown. She almost glowed, and seemed to be more goddess than human.

"Happy birthday, Amare."

*That voice.* Something came rushing straight into his heart - fangs of the past. He remembered his first night as a slave, on that ship from Serveu to Agelisaus. How the quiet woman, 009, comforted him in the absence of anyone else. How she smiled at his stories. How she disappeared overnight. And how this same woman held him as he cried the following day. The memories of that day had been buried deep within him, and he had been reluctant to admit he had them. This was the case with many other memories of his time in the compound. The muffled sobbing, the lash, the screaming, the scratching of others on the walls until their nails cracked and bled and they wept harder. But the lady in white was here again. And, apparently, it was his birthday.

He could do no more than meet her gaze, wonderstruck but also on the verge of tears.

"You're thirteen today. It's been four years since we last saw each other." she spoke slowly. Her voice had a mellifluous depth, and Amare felt almost serenaded. "You've seen some of the worst of this world in such a short time. I can't say that there isn't more, that there isn't *worse.* I can tell you, boy, that you are meant for better." the lady caressed Amare's face and handed him something that had been in her lap.

The book about redstone.

He picked it up and opened it. "U-um-" he intended to ask *why*. When he looked up from the first page, the lady was gone. On the cover of the book had appeared an inscription in cursive Kilranian: "Fate can be changed."

A second after, Amare woke up in a daze. His cell door was being unlocked. Today would be another errand, another *parade.* He got into his outside clothes, and mounted the carriage as always, deeply confused. A well of emotions was within him, but he did not understand them. What did the book about redstone mean?

The carriage group went about its usual duties, showing him off to competitors while he skillfully weaved. He was able to keep a jacket and socks for himself, as well as an experimental deep blue bandanna that kept his hair in place real well. It was that day that he saw Cerise again, in the carriage of a competitor. Now at least 16, she was as beautiful to Amare as ever. But her skin was pale and her eyes robbed of color. She was instructed on how to stand and present herself, it seems, by the competitor's staff. She was clothed in sophisticated high Kilranian garb.

But what drove a knife through Amare's heart was that her belly was round and protruding. She was expecting, and Amare had read enough to know what that implied. The two made eye contact while the company men spoke. She almost smiled, but closed her eyes before they could leak and turned her head. Her hand raised a bit, beckoning Amare's own, but they could not be together, and would never see each other again. Amare's mind raced in anger and sadness, but underneath it all was one final thought - *Bisa.* The girl who'd be happy only to see him. Who got him through those nights at the warehouse. In a year or two, she would be Cerise's age when she disappeared.

Amare returned to his cell that night, and understood the goddess-lady's message. It was time for them to leave. He put on that bandanna for the first time and began to read the book about civilian redstone construction. He'd burn down the place if need be.

#### New Fire

Over the next few weeks, Amare paid extra close attention to the structures on the walls of the compound. Every floor had one, sometimes two large circular panels. He would come to discover that those were concentrations of redstone wiring, pulled into a larger space to prevent tangling within the walls. If exposed to a liquid, the book stated, the circuits would break and redstone electric potential would build at every endpoint, causing a surge that would disable the device in question. Most modern buildings were wired so that the circuit would stop working before a fire was caused. Amare did not know if this was one such building.

Amare returned all books except the ones about horses and redstone to the center room. In return, he took a glass, a carving knife, and a small compass. He deliberated breaking out as many people as he could alone. But if he could a friend to open locks as he had, the amount of people that could escape within any given time would double, and increase as so for every accomplice.

As he pondered this, he also grew tired of being without Bisa. From her brief descriptions in the halls, he was able to track down her cell on the floor below his in a matter of days. The ever-handsome Amare charmed the girl in the cell above Bisa's to let him carve a small hole out in her floor through which he could talk to Bisa. The solution was imperfect, as all conversation had to be hushed and Amare feared flirting would make the girl in the cell jealous. But he was glad to be able to talk to his friend uninterrupted, even if only for a few minutes twice a week. He pondered telling her of his plans, but decided against it.

He opted instead to tell his steadfast friend Nuru, and the two would begin analyzing the behavior of the guards on their respective floors. Their responses to the work bell. How they'd act if a slave seemed sick. They began plotting diversions - anything that would allow them to liberate as many people without being discovered and run out the front door... and then Notch knows what.

During the months of analysis, Amare carved two small holes in the panel on his floor. If need be, he would fry the circuits with liquid. Before that, he planned to rip them apart with a sewing thread to minimize the risk of a fire. On the supply floor, Amare had built up a supply of sleeves and socks with the wool he could find. Knowing that north Kilran would be warmest around the middle of the year, he planned to escape the following Highharveste - around his 14th birthday. He continued to chat up Bisa, hopeful that he could save her from Cerise's fate. Beyond that, his heart wanted her for himself, and wanted to watch her regain and practice the personality that had drawn him to her - and reawaken his own.

Nuru and Amare were eventually able to overlap the times on which their floors were the last guarded. On those nights, Amare taught Nuru the basics of picking locks with a sewing needle, giving him one of his own from his secret stockpile. As every lock is different, Nuru needed to think on his feet and remember the procedure - but he was a quick learner. It took months, but Nuru was eventually near Amare's level, having trained in the quiet darkness. The day of their plan's execution was approaching. It was as follows:

* The duo would wait until the lockdown bell, and for Amare's floor guard to fall asleep.
* Amare would cut the power to the building from his own floor.
* In the darkness, both would sneak around guards and unlock as many cells as possible.
* Rush down and out the first floor workstation as a stampede.
* Use a compass to head westward.
* Find transportation ASAP.

To supplement their plan, Amare had kept his carving knife as a weapon, and become comfortable with certain grips and moves in his spare time, as childish as he looked wielding it.

Soon, the eve of their escape was upon them, and Nuru and Amare were beside each other in the work station. The former was determined. His purpose, he declared in whispers, was to hijack a boat from the water nearby, sail back to Voshe, and save his entire family. Amare reminisced to his plan of escaping to Tempus so long ago. How he wished he could return to that time. Now, he had no family left to speak of. And it dawned on him that he had forgotten the voices of his mother, father, and sister. For the first time in a long time, the hope subdued, and he felt like crying as he weaved.

But, for fear of the lash, he could not.

### Path of Light and Shadow - Zoomer's Ballad

#### Cold Freedom

"*I think there's some things you just never get over. And this was one of them. I hope and hope with all my heart that I caused more good than harm that day. But regardless, I'd rather not dwell on this chapter too long."*

The following day, the two had finished their work and returned to their cells. Activities in the robotic compound were as always. The lockdown bell rang. It was time to play the waiting game. While he waited for the guard to fall asleep, Amare urinated into the dusty glass cup he had stolen almost a year ago, and prepared a sturdy line of spool and needle. It felt like an eternity before the guard fell asleep, but the time finally came. Amare quietly unlocked his own cell, rising to the next floor, meeting Nuru's gaze briefly to give him the green light. There was no going back now.

Amare ran back down to his floor and to the redstone panel. He inserted his needle carefully through the top hole, hoping to pull it out from the lower one and pull the long string hard enough to break at least half the wires, shutting down the building's electricity. But with his hands sweaty and shaking for the first time in his life, he could not. Time was of the essence. Frustrated, he picked up the glass of urine and dumped into the top hole. Sparks flew out immediately, and the building went dark.

The commotion was immediate. Guards from below began rushing up the stairs. Amare threw the now empty glass to the opposite hallway to divert attention from himself, and headed to another hallway to unlock cells. The slaves were confused. But he got one cell open... and then two... before a strange warmth began enveloping him.

The ruckus in the upper floor had become the screaming of two dozen people. In the stairwell, Amare could see dancing shadows. The floor above him was on fire. Guards raced up the stairwell, not having the time to apprehend the fugitive slaves that were coming down. The screaming was contagious, and as the temperature rose and the flames of the higher floor began to illuminate his, hands and arms were through the cell bars begging for Amare to open them. He had no time to think. He opened one, then two, then three. It took him about 15 seconds each. His hands did not shake. He was focused on only one thing now: open, open, open.

Fugitives from the upper floor continued to pour in. It was impossible that Nuru was doing all of this himself; the guards were attempting to save their prized property, the older slaves on the higher floors. One of the runners tackled Amare, interrupting his lockbreaking. When his eyes cleared up, he noticed a distinct hole in the floor. It was the cell he had spoken to Bisa from.

*Bisa. Oh fuck!*

Amare finished unlocking the cell, and hovered over the hole one more time to reassure Bisa: "Hey! I'm coming down there!" It was the first time he had used his full voice in years. It came out strained and deeper than ever. But Bisa heard.

Amare ran past another cadre of guards, knife and needles in hand. Running past his cell, he picked up as many woolens as he could, as well as his compass, leaving his books and other weaving tools behind. In the corner of the room, behind the black smoke that was beginning to build on the third floor as well, he could have sworn he saw a dark, red-eyed figure - one that looked suspiciously like himself.

He flew down the stairs to unlock Bisa's cell on the 3rd floor. By this time, the guards were beginning to coalesce on the 5th floor, where Nuru was - and he had not left. In the midst of the fire and chaos, Amare hoped Nuru would come flying down the stairs. In the meantime, Amare put woolen slaves on Bisa, and hastily put the soft blue bandanna he had made exactly a year ago on his head. His unkempt hair could not get in the way of their freedom. They had to get out, now, or be left behind in the fire and company's wrath.

The duo burst out the front door, already opened by other fugitives. In that moment, a dash of fortune befell them, almost aethersent. The two horses that Amare had bonded with for years were standing outside, still attached to their carriage. Putting what he had read about horses to use, Amare detached one, and soothed it amidst all the chaos. The horse - which he would later name Abel - allowed itself to be mounted by the duo. Amare took the reins, and they rode off into the western sunset. The night would hide them, but bring more dangers. It wasn't as cold as it was on the opposite months of the year, but the air on their bare legs was like knives.

They would make do somehow, Amare thought. He wished the rest of the slaves good fortune and a free future. As the fiery building became smaller and smaller behind them, he would have to accept that he never saw Nuru leave.

## Aquaball Career

Having been a strong swimmer in childhood, Amare developed a lifelong interest in aquaball in his later teen years living in Anselm. Although he was initially recruited as a forward for the Anselm Sturgeons, he declined in favor of traveling with the Outlanders. His aquaball career would begin during his studies at the University of Dreiton, where he tried out for and was fully recruited by the Dreiton Rays in the 4806 WAF (World Aquaball Federation) season.

### Career

Amare's *de facto* professional Aquaball career began the prior year in 4805, when he played two games for the Tempus Titans during their conference finals against the Providence Pirates as a substitute for their injured star forward Cadmis Ironwalker. The team would win both those games and go on to win the world finals as the underdogs in a hotly contested 4-3 upset against the Dashari Vipers. Amare explains that his brief contract was due to the young Outlanders team being in dire financial straits, and him being noticed in a a flash of luck by the team's manager, who had attended one of his recruiting sessions for the Sturgeons the year prior.

#### Rays Era (4806-4812)

Upon his recruitment as a variable-side forward for the Rays, Amare immediately built up a reputation as an offensive powerhouse, being able to quickly swim behind enemy lines and take accurate shots. He also was a skilled roleplayer and played off his weaknesses, understanding the delicate balance between his evasiveness and relatively slender frame, and passing the ball when inevitably faced with larger, quicker attackers. Amare's first season propelled the previous sluggish Rays onto the worldwide stage once again. The Rays' last appearance at the WAF finals was in 4791, fifteen years prior, where they lost in a sweep to the Providence Pirates. Revitalized by Jelani's aggressive and elegant offense, the Rays were able to bulldoze through many of the rivals in their Western Conference, catching many analysts by surprise. They blew past the previously dominant Dashari Vipers and the Windforth Waveriders 2-0.

The 4806 WAF finals pit the revived Rays against the Providence Pirates, widely considered one of the best teams in Aquila at the time (and who Amare also played against as part of the Titans), in a rematch of the finals 15 years prior. The Rays took an early lead and won the first game. However, burnout and a lower stamina relative to the Pirates left the Rays struggling to keep up in the next two games, and the Pirates took a 2-1 lead. The fourth game saw career highlight roleplaying between Jelani and legendary Rays midfielder Rowan Bluebill, and the Rays' victory equalized the score. However, the team was unable to continue their momentum, and lost the next two games, losing their first return to the world finals since 4791 with 4-2. Even so, the Rays' blasting return to the world stage caught the attention of many advertisers and sports tacticians.

The Rays' defeat led to a reconfiguration of their team training and strategy. Because the Pirates came from colder waters, they had higher stamina. To all-around improve themselves, the team deliberately practiced in much colder waters and committed to a tough training regime to maximize both their stamina and upper body strength. Contact training was also increased, with all team members practicing their reflexes and evasive maneuvers.

Still riding the momentum of 4806 but now with a strengthened and more cohesive team, the Rays rode another wave to the world finals against the Providence Pirates for the second time, and in what is believed to be one of the best sports series in Aquilan history, defeated the dominating Pirates in a blowout seventh game. In a tough vote, Rowan Bluebill eked out a victory as finals MVP over Amare, but the two became closer friends. Dreiton took home the aquaball trophy for the first time in a decade and a half. Amare's increased visibility also led him to campaign against the treatment of the Oceanic peoples in northern Kilran, piquing the interest of many common people the world over.

The 4808 season saw Amare entering a long prime and delivering some of the best aquaball spectators had ever seen. The Rays knocked out their competitors in spectacular style; in their second playoff game against the Kalimor Angels, Amare surpassed the world record for evasions in a single game. He would later comment he felt a need to impress the "fair ladies" of Kalimor. The 4808 WAF finals were the third rematch of the seemingly unstoppable Rays against the Providence Pirates. Held at the Puffin Center at Providence, the game attracted 8,000 spectators the world over into a jam-packed arena. The other three Outlanders - Cannonwalker, Edgewalker, and Darkwalker - were also in attendance. The Rays erased all possible doubt of them being the new dominant team on the world stage with a crushing 4-1 defeat of the Pirates; the one loss was in the third game through a buzzer beater by the Pirates. This season would also end with the Outlanders' fateful meeting of the King Puffin, who honored them in the castle. The Outlanders would return to Dreiton for some weeks of merriment before Amare began his school year.

The smoldering ashes of the 4808 seasons also put Amare on the radar for many clothing companies, and he signed numerous contracts with popular Dreitonese brands, often offering his input into designs as a professional weaver and designer.

The following year's season was similarly glorious for the Rays. Highlights include the Rays' impenetrable defense in the playoffs against their northern rival, the Dashari Vipers, and Amare's 100% accuracy (in passes and shots) against the Ramona Rippers. The 4809 WAF finals pit the Rays against a new enemy familiar to Amare: the Tempus Titans. The Titans had had a stellar season in their eastern conference, blowing their rival Krak Cavaliers out of the water in a 4-0 sweep in their conference finals. Coming into the finals, the Titans also studied the dynamics of Amare with respect to his team with an insider's perspective, and were able to capitalize on their strategizing effectively in the first game, taking an early 1-0 lead. In a dramatic and explosive ending to the season, the Rays recovered and vanquished the ambitious Titans 4-2. Jelani and Bluebill would highly compliment the Titans' style afterward. The Rays became one of only two teams in WAF history to score three consecutive finals victories (a three-peat), the other being the Providence Pirates who achieved it 4799-4801. After this victory, all six team members and their coach were inducted into the WAF Hall of Fame and honored by then-president Karl Astor in the Dreichstag.

Amare's contract was paused for the 4810 season as a result of a journey taken to Dashari as part of his senior project for the University of Dreiton, initially upsetting many fans. However, he emphasized that he'd return in time for the finals and genuinely did want to undergo the journey. His trip also saw further campaigning against mistreatment of Oceanic peoples, which attracted the attention of the Dashari in particular. Amare was able to meet even the Sultana who, despite initially dismissing him on the basis of his sex and current profession, became deeply interested in his explanation and analyses of the situation from a scholar's perspective and began to look abroad toward Voshe as an opportunity for amicable cultural expansion.

Having graduated from UDreiton, Amare returned to the Rays as a full-time player in time for the conference finals, in which the Rays handily defeated the Windforth Waveriders 4-1. Interestingly, the 4810 WAF finals would be a rematch of the prior year's finals, pitting the Rays against the Titans once more. The Rays returned with a flaming momentum and throughout all seven games and were able to greatly reduce the Rays' accuracy with a stellar defense. This, combined with them vigorously pushing the Rays backward and outside of their comfort zone, helped them upset the Rays in a stunning 4-3 upset, ending the Rays' victory streak.

The Rays' defeat was initially a shock and a disappointment, but the team hit the ground running with the wide support of many fans the world over, and remained a fan-favorite team despite their loss. The 4811 and 4812 WAF seasons saw Amare at the apex of his prime, coordinating better than ever with Bluebill and new fellow forward Amsin Dedile, also of Oceanic ethnicity. The fiery team eradicated the Anselm Sturgeons 4-1 in their conference finals and met with a new rival, the Krak Cavaliers, in the 4811 finals. With some of their best gameplay to date, the Rays swept the Cavaliers 4-0. Jelani and Bluebill set career highs in the 4811 season; Amare had achieved a world record in cumulative points that season, while Bluebill set a world record for assists per game over that season. Dedile himself was named Rookie of the Year.

The 4812 season would bring a fateful close to Jelani's first era of aquaball domination. The team once again blazed past the conference finals, defeating the Kalimor Angels 4-2 abroad. The 4812 WAF finals were the Rays' fourth and final rematch against the Providence Pirates over the course of seven years, and once again the Puffin Arena was packed, this time with over 10,000 visitors from the world over. With stellar gameplay from both sides, even blurry monochrome pictures of the event were selling for top emerald. The Rays eventually triumphed in game six with a 4-2. The sixth game of this finals was the last game played by the Providence Pirates, as Providence would be destroyed by the Mad King later that year. Its surviving players would go their own ways, with only one - rookie midfielder Johnny "Cardinal" Redwing - joining the new Albion Raiders in 4814.

Jelani never left Providence following the finals; he was called upon by King Puffin, who urgently begged him to stay along with the rest of the Outlanders who were all in attendance of the games and staying in Providence. The reformation of the Outlanders and Jelani's subsequent journey as part of them put an indefinite pause to his aquaball career as he turned his attention toward saving Occa and eventually the world, passing through dimensions unknown during his trials.

## Skills and equipment

* **Strength**: 10/20
* **Dexterity**: 18/20
* **Constitution**: 8/20
* **Intelligence**: 9/20
* **Wisdom**: 6/20
* **Charisma**: 14/20
* **Class**: Thief, Rogue
* **Alignment**: Chaotic good
* **Weapons**: Dual blades, dagger, throwing knives
* **Armour**: Clothing, light armor

* Passive/Environmental
* Battle

 Item Boost
 Bait and Switch
 Rogueish Charm
 Weaver's Touch
 Feather Step
 Golden Eye

 Fer-de-Lance
 Viper's Nest
 Hawk's Talons
 Mist Walker
 Rallying Cry

Amare's preferred weapons are sets of light, curved blades similar to Wakizashi. The choice of one in each hand makes Amare agile and able to construct creative consecutive attacks at the cost of raw strength. The blades themselves are rare and sought-after by Rogues, and are manufactured mostly in Khotan, leading to their high cost. However, the caves and dungeons of Aquila often contain a set or two. The dual blade stance also easily enables stowing and changing of weapons, which Amare often takes advantage of to use his ranged throwing knives.

Belonging to the elite subclass of thieves known as the Rogues, Amare's fighting style focuses much less on brutish direct confrontation and more on stealth, surprise, parrying and countering, and more agility-based unconventional combat. For example, he may sneak up on a camp of enemies and instantly dispatch their unknowing leader with one slice, dealing with the rest by wearing them down through constant evasion and countering or perhaps by calling in a physically stronger comrade. To Rogues and especially to Amare, stamina is plentiful and parrying and evasion are key methods by which to create opportunities for a critically powerful retaliation. Even in direct confrontation, his combos and special attacks focus on quick flurries of slashes to targets' weak spots. More generally, his selection of movesets all use agility and well-timed attacks in different ways, ranging from crowd control to annihilating single targets to poking at enemies from afar.