Hamsterz

**Hamster Van Niemandsland** is one of the few citizens of the Eisenlandian town Kaminhagen. He is currently the Minister of Resources and is on a short break as Vice-Mayor of Kaminhagen.

## Player information

### Appearance

He usually wears a painted wooden mask that resembles a hamster together with protective glasses to protect him from the flames in the smeltery. His mask covers his face most of the time, and it has become a habit. But when he doesn't cover his face, his mask and goggles usually reside on the side of his head. He wears a long beige jacket with a dirty white shirt beneath it. To protect him from the sand that blows through the desert, he has a red scarf that covers the lower part of his face. He wears simple brown trousers with walking boots, and a small backpack, in which resides a small plushie his wife gave him. Ever since he started training self-defense, he made the addition of metal shoulder blades and a belt under his jacket, which has his sword attached to it. He added the Eisenlandian flag to his outfit when he was elected a Minister. The hard work and the ashes made his dark brown hair look black. His eyes look empty and have the colour of dark stone. He is quite short in human standards. Underneath his mask, his face and neck have large burnmarks, caused by the incident of his wife's fiery death. His skin colour is browned by the sun, and dirty from the smog.

### Biology

Nobody knows where he came from. Most people say he and his wife one day appeared out of the ground. Time didn't have any visible effect on them either, as if something cursed them to live for an eternity. He doesn't know where he came from either, and he classifies himself as a human, because other than not aging, there is nothing about him that makes him any different. His skin has been browned by the scorching sun in the desert, but on the right side of his face and neck he has a large burn mark that stretches over his eye. His hair has a dark brown colour and is semi-long and messy. You can only see the brown colour in the sun because his hair, clothes and skin are full of smog and ashes most of the time. He's about 177 cm tall, and hard work has made him strong and of great capability to handle people bigger than himself, despite his unintimidating look.

### Personality

Before the death of his wife, he was happy and hard-working, willing to do whatever it took to make her happy. Ever since the incident in the smeltery he became depressed, and on the edge of madness he tried to resurrect her without success. Llyre es vel Volaerys helped distract his mind from her death, but he still grieves, and will, until the day he too dies, *which may never come*.

He is obsessed with everything that has to do with mechanics and technology. He likes to be on his own, working on one of his many projects. He has really strong morals, and firmly follows the rule of karma: *"Give back 3 times what was given to you, whether it was positive or negative."* One of the reasons he chose a hamster for his mask was because he's a massive hoarder and very cautious about when to use his good tools, which causes him to come across as a beginner, even though he has enough to live from.

He doesn't like change, and loves cookies, chocolate milk and coffee.

Even though he's involved in some minor politics he refuses to participate in elections of any kind. The idea that he has to vote for a friend, and not vote for another is to much for him. He doesnt like to do things that don't have any benefits for him either.

### Life

#### Beginning of an Eternity

The Iron Country, Eisenland. A country that has never lost a war before. But even there not every day is sunshine. Even when you live in the scorching desert, where once the town of New Volotra used to lay. There was a large sand-storm, it had been raging for a few days. But this didn't stop the newly appointed Mayor of New Volotra, Egizzo, to start the demolition of the newly captured town. So he started, and after many days of work, the end of the demolition project was still not in sight, but something else was. 2 people came walking out of the sandstorm towards him. Their faces protected by masks, glasses and scarfs, their bodies wrapped in long jackets, aimlessly wandering around. A man and a woman with no memories. The few things they knew was that they were married, and only she knew her name. Egizzo called him Hamster Van Niemandsland, since they didn't know where they came from. Hamster and his loved one decided they would settle in what would be reformed to Kaminhagen. They started working, and after many weeks the first canals appeared between the dunes, and some time later, a building rose up, one that would cause the biggest loss in his life. The smeltery.

While still working on other projects, like the vault, and their home, Hamster and his wife decided to start working in the factory. They both had a burning passion for technology and mechanics, so it made sense. They began producing XP, to make a living out of it, and the glow coming from the ovens wasn't nearly as strong as their passion for working with them. But that same red glow, would be her end. On a rather dark day, another sand-storm was raging through Kaminhagen, so the two of them decided to stay in the smeltery, and while they were there, they decided to start extracting XP from the ovens to pass the time. She leaned a bit too far over, and fell in. Her screams echoed throughout the building, and Hamster desperately tried to save her, jumping for her, anything, but the other workers didn't allow him. He fought back in tears, and was so close to jumping after her, so close in fact that his mask came in contact with the fire and began to burn. The incident had left Hamster with a scar on his face and an even bigger scar on his soul. The thing they both loved, had taken her from him.

From that moment on, he didn't trust technology made by others anymore. He decided he would make everything he used himself. He knew that if he made something, it wouldn't hurt anyone, unless he wanted it to. He took her burned body out of the oven, and put it in a bottle. Seeing her like that, he fell into a deep depression. It was around the same time he appointed himself as Vice-Mayor. His experiments and inventions started to become a bit questionable, people began to realise that he was sharing the same fate as the famous but fallen hero of Eisenland, Industro, and he ended up breaking his roof to build a large telescope. Their house that was once filled with exotic plants, started to overgrow, and his attic became his scientific playground. He washed her body and replaced her unrepairable parts with copper ones and her eyes with pearls. Her hair had become white, like the moonlight, from being kept in a bottle. All of his attempts were written down in his journal, "The fall of Icarus", which is now in possesion of LIyre es vel Volaerys. People quickly realised he was trying to bring her back. His behaviour varied from being extremely sad, to angry at the world and on the brink of insanity. At one point, he decided it would be best if he joined a religion, and he ended up going with Gisdalfgoda. He had heard of gods, and the fact that they granted miracles, but after doing his best to please these so called "gods" he didn't truly believe in, nothing happened. Looking at it now, he realised it was because he never believed in gods. How can someone be more powerful than humans? He didn't like the idea of being controlled, that there were things that were meant to happen.

He was grieving, *and it would never go away.*

During the Viodoxan Cival War, his mind was distracted from her death. He didn't have time to think, he was busy building a wall, making jam in his recently built factory, and preparing to die in the fight, because he knew he wouldn't die of old age. It was something both Hamsters and his wife had always kept to themselves. They could get sick, wounded or killed. But they didn't age. So living the monotone life he did, he realised he would have to live for an eternity without her. During the protection of Maxstadt, the capital of Eisenland, he met LIyre es el Volaerys, a man with wings. He had some strong political connections, and he sometimes seemed to be somewhat insane. He had large black wings, and he covered his face with a mask that resembled a wolf. Talking to him on those walls, almost getting shot down by him, he realised some things. There will always be pain. And pain doesn't go away. It will always stay there. But you can learn how to use it. Make it a drive. A force of energy, to keep you going. And that's when he handed over one of his most dearest possesions. His journal.

And even more important was what was in the book.

*The book said her name.*

Her name, *was destiny.*

#### Power

Quite some time had passed since the last interesting thing had happened in his life. Eisenland had grown, but so had Kaminhagen. He had won the elections for minister of economy, which is rather impressive when you know that everyone else was in a singular party. Him winning meant that he was able to begin his second period as minister. In Kaminhagen some new projects were started, he was now an xp-producer for Ryan's armour company, and he had started the construction of a building that would house the bees and everything needed to brew. And this building would indirectly be the cause of something bad or good, that depends on how you think of him.

While he was continuing the slow process of mining stones and other valuable resources he felt something. He felt his heart beating a little bit stronger than it usually did. He didn't think much of it, and continued. But as he got deeper, Hamster realised his heart wasn't beating harder, small shocks were vibrating through the entire space, like one of a larger being. As he wandered through the mine he felt the hearbeat stronger in some places, so he decided to mine in that direction. While mining in the direction of the heartbeat, not only did the heartbeat become stronger, it became hearable. The strangest was that at some times he blacked out. And as he came closer, it became more regular. He blacked out, and came back, at the same spot, but often at a different one, not knowing what happened. Until he hit a hollow wall. Dark bricks reached out to both sides. He swinged his pick and entered a long hallway.

A dark hallway stetched out in front of him, with at the end, a large wood door. There seemed to be a soft light coming from under the door, it almost seemed as if it was pulsating. He walked towards it, the black-outs now becoming even more regular and longer, on his clock he saw that he had passed 5 hours down there, while he only remember 5 minutes of them. He finally reached the door. The heartbeat and light now almost becoming unbareable.

He opened the door, .... .... and yet again, lost his memories just like the first time, the only things he remember were direct memories of Destiny.

In the split second before he passed out, he saw a large circular room. The light and heartbeat seemed to come from the big white orb in the center of the room. It was held captive, orange tubes leading in and out of it, buzzing, as if the were extracting it's resources.

#### Origins

Another day in Eisenland had begun. A soft yet warm eastern breeze flew over Balhurst from the deserts of Internland.

Ravennn, the mayor of Balhurst was checking out the new buildings that started to appear in Balhurst. He walked around, hands behind his back, smiling satisfied seeing a bank and apartments pop up, in what was a rather dead town a few months earlier.

He stepped on the white stairs leading up to the bank, and opened the door. The floor was dirty due to the construction, but it meant progress was being made. He went through the many documents lying on the work table. Building permissions, building plans, resource orders. While sorting through this wide variety of documents, a transparent envelope fell down onto the ground, causing some dust to flow up. He coughed and tried to pick it up to see what it was, but it just flew away, flowas if it was alive. He stood still and tried to look at the letter from where he was. He squinted his eyes trying to get a clearer view of the letter but it was blurred. He stepped closer, and it flew away again, but as it moved it became a bit less blurred. It was Industro’s letter, the one in which he gave ownership of Balhurst to him. He began chasing after the letter, trying to catch it. He ran through the streets of Balhurst, his footsteps sounding through the empty streets.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

From the docks, Industro was watching how the waves dissolved into small ripples on the water as they broke on the rocks, while his bobber drifted up and down.

He looked over his shoulder because he heard someone running through the town. For a split second he saw Ravennn running through the streets. A strong gust of wind flew over  his head. He looked back at the ocean and his bobber had disappeared. He bent down to check if it had flowed under the pier, and yes, there it was, stuck between the rocks. He stood up again and sighed. He’d have to buy a new one. As he was standing up he saw something fly by from the corner of his eye. A glowing object had flown over the pier. He turned around to see where it had gone, but it was gone. He dropped his fishing rod and walked to where he saw it, and when he reached the spot, he saw it again, this time in the street, and for a bit longer than before. His mind went into overdrive as he realized that it looked a lot like the letter that he had given to his adoptive son, Ravennn, when he left. It was just transparent, glowing, and it was as if it was blurred when you looked at it intentionally.

He thought it had been lost forever, it had been months since he wrote that.

He ran to the corner of the street where he saw the letter, but it had flown even further away. It was laying several meters in front of him on the pavement. He slowly stepped closer, but the wind blew it away, yet again. He started chasing down the letter, reaching for it as he almost tripped over the cobbled streets. He was almost able to reach it multiple times. His fingers inches from the edge of the enveloppe. On the crossing of 2 streets, near the docks again, he crossed with Ravennn.

“Your letter…” Ravennn said out of breath. Industro pulled Ravennn up again and ran after the letter. “Where the fuck did it come from” he replied. But it was already too late when they reached the wooden pier, the letter had landed on a piece of wood, on the sea, and it started drifting away. “Shit!'', Industro said. “Don’t just stand there, get a boat!”, Ravennn exclaimed. They ran down the stairs of the dock, stepped into a boat, and started chasing the letter across the sea.

—--------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours later after Industro and Ravennn began chasing after the mysterious letter that had flown away from them, Pooththick was working on the parliament building in Maxstadt.

It was already a bit dark outside. Dark enough to not be sure if something was what you thought it was, or just a shadow of a dead tree. He walked around the building tired. It had been a long day, a long week actually. Ever since JBDpixel had leaked that New Octavia was planning a coup, he had been working day and night. He contacted everyone he knew, the IAU army, the IAU government, people he knew, all to try and stop this revolt. Their revolt was stopped easily though, but it didn’t stop his work. He was now busy planning a war, a war against New Octavia so that Eisenland could regain control of their land. He had sent tons of letters, but none had been responded to yet. He walked to the window to breathe in some cold air, and calm down a bit. He looked out over the big square and the streets of Maxstadt. “We've accomplished a lot” he thought to himself. He closed the window, dropped off the last documents he had and went on his way. He passed by the bar that once was Jaxamax’ and got some coffee for his ride on the metro.

As he sat in the metro, looking through the rough and primitive tunnel his thoughts floated away. He thought about how he would spend his night, maybe read a book, but as he thought, he saw something pass in front of his eyes. He quickly looked through the window to where he saw it, but they had already passed it. He stood up and ran through the metro, he hung outside of the metro, holding himself to the frame of the back door to not fall out, and he looked down the metro tunnel. “Reaper?” he mumbled. A few hundred meters down the tunnel he saw the skeleton horse that once used to be his, but had been killed. “REAPER!” he yelled. The horse neighed and together with the clicking of his hooves it sounded through the tunnel. He realized he’d have to go back to Ozenia on foot if he jumped off here. He saw his horse near the exit to Kaminhagen, which meant he’d have to walk back a long distance. “Why do I do this to myself?!” he said, as he jumped off the metro. He easily landed on the ground and began running back to where he saw his companion. “Come here, don’t run, it’s me!” he yelled as he noticed Reaper running away down the Kaminhagen tunnel. He began chasing it down.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

It could have been any amount of time, but Hamster had been working down in the cactus farm for a long time now. His mask was covered in coal dust and cactus dye when he went back up again. He opened the door and looked at the sun going down.

He looked back at the factory. “Time to close for today, old friend”, he said as he locked the door. He had started a routine a few weeks earlier, every evening he’d go to Justin’s bakery, eat something and read through his diary to try and remember who they were. Names like Justin, Panter or Llyre didn’t bring back any memories, but he knew they were supposed to. It annoyed him, something so normal, and he wasn’t able to remember it. He closed his diary annoyed and put it back in his backpack with his plushie that he got from his wife.

He leaned against the window and looked at the flowering bushes that were growing due to the heat created by the glass covered park, and the water from the canals. He cleaned up the utensils that he used and closed the store. As he turned his back to the rest of the town to lock the door, he heard a cow bell. He quickly looked at where the sound came from and saw a Scottish highlander bull walking away behind the mayoral house. “Daisy, where have you been?” He had lost her around the time when Justin disappeared. He began walking towards the mayoral house, not that a cow can get far away in a town that is 50 % made of canals. But as he turned around the corner, she was gone. He wondered where she went and peeked into the mine entrance, as she couldn’t have gone anywhere else. He heard her bell softly jingle down the long stairs.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

Industro and Ravennn noticed that their letter had flown up again as they neared Kaminhagen. While the two of them were still chasing after the letter, Pooththick ran up the stairs of the metro exit into Kaminhagen. Hamster started slowly making his way down the stairs when he heard people above him. He ran back up again. “Hello Hamster!” Industro said quickly. “What are you doing here?” Ravennn said as he saw Pooththick running toward them with heavy breath. “Reaper, my horse… h-he ran down your mine I think”. “Yeah, we didn’t see any horses around here,” Industro said, “but our letter did fly down there however”. “I don't know what any of you are talking about, but there wasn't a letter here either,” Hamster said. “I can hear him down there” Pooththick said, and the 4 of them looked down into the mines.

The four Eisenlandians were confused, but curious; hesitant, but also dedicated to figure out what was going on. Poothtick and Industro took the lead. They lit some torches as they wandered down the long stairs. Once they reached the bottom of the mine, it was quiet, not a single sound was to be heard in the dark depths of the Kaminhagen mines. They could only feel their heartbeats in their chests, and hear the sound of their breathing. “It's this way, I'm pretty sure”, Hamster said. “Why?” Ravennn asked. “I just know, I don't know why.” Hamster answered. Hamster took the lead for a bit, and entered a tunnel. “We just need to follow this tunnel” and he let Industro, Pooththick and Ravennn in front of him as they walked deeper and deeper. As they went further a soft light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Their heartbeats and breathing faded away to make way for a different heartbeat, coming from the light. Industro held his torch close to the ground, and noticed footsteps, a few months old, definitely, but fresher than he expected. As Pooththick stood up again, he, together with Ravennn and Hamster, blacked out. Industro, thunderstruck by why everyone had fallen to the ground, went to Pooth and shook him awake “Hey! Wake up!”. Pooththick came back to consciousness and looked behind him “H- Huh? What?”, “What happened?” Industro asked, to which Pooththick replied “I have no idea”. They looked behind them and noticed that Ravennn and Hamster were standing still with a glaze over their eyes. “Ravennn!” Industro shouted. “What is happening”. Ravennn came back, and a few seconds later Hamster did too.

They looked confused at Industro and Pooththick. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing, don’t worry”, Industro said. As they made their way down the tunnel a large wooden door became visible. A light was visible from beneath the doorframe. It slowly faded in and out. The heartbeat which had canceled out theirs was getting louder and louder. The tunnel that first looked like a regular mining tunnel became something more, it now looked like it was made by someone, and the blackouts started happening again. They were all confused, even though the blackouts were getting stronger for everyone else, Industro wasn’t affected by them at all. Until they stood in front of the door. They covered their ears as the sound hurt both their heads and their ears. The light coming from under the door was so bright, they could barely see anything. Pooththick covered his eyes, protecting them from the burning light and pushed his body against the door with all his might. Slowly the door started opening. The wooden door scraped against the floor, and once the door was completely open…

The light and the sound dimmed down.

They entered a large circular room, with a big glowing orb in the middle. It seemed like it was almost being held captive. Big copper tubes ran in and out of the tube. It was held up in a large harness-like structure.

“Holy shit,” Industro mumbled, “what in the world is that?” The four looked around the room. It was old, dirty, and it looked like the people who were here before them were in a rush to get out of there. Books and lab equipment were scattered all around. There were transparent glowing objects, which became slightly more visible each time the heart-like contraption beat. 3 more big doors were visible at all other sides of the rooms. Industro slowly closed the door behind them.

As they walked through the room, trying to figure out what was happening, Ravennn noticed a faint light coming from under one of the other doors. “Can you come here?”, he said as he looked at it carefully “I think we should go this way”. They gathered around the door and carefully opened it. Pooththick and Ravenn took the lead and went in. They looked through the long, dark hallway, you could see doors on each side for as far as you could see. Industro closed the door behind them. Ravennn walked further and noticed light coming from under a new door now. He opened the door and looked into a theater-like room, he looked a bit closer and saw a white screen in the front, and one of those glowing objects in the back of the room again. “It's some kind of theater or something”, he said as the others came to watch.

They walked into the room and sat down somewhere in the middle of the room. Pooththick and Ravennn sat on the front row with Hamster and Industro behind them. As soon as they sat down, a beam of light came out of the transparent glowing thing behind them, and it shined straight onto the white canvas. They looked behind them wondering what was happening, but once they looked back at the canvas they saw a picture appearing of 2 men in long jackets. A buzzing sound came from square boxes on the wall. The sound became more clear and they understood that it was someone talking, they looked at the screen and listened to the people talking.

Man 1: “TEST - TEST… is this working?” \*the sound is still buzzing a bit\*

Man 2: \*from the background\* “Yeah, go on”

Man 1: “Ok… so… I am Dr. Weber. I am a technostate… and this is an attempt to preserve the knowledge of our disappearing civilization” \*the man sighs and looks somewhat sad\*

Man 2: “Come on, my recording tape isn’t infinite”

Man 1: “I know… Technostatos was a civilization formed around the orb. I guess that if you see this you must have found it …. I hope you survive it as well. Because even though we might not age, we can’t survive this. When our ancestors first discovered the orb, they realized its potential.”

Man 2: \*holds a picture of the orb in front of the camera\*

Man 1: “It held great power, so… we started to study that power. After many years we were able to capture its power and use it for our own machines. We called the machine that captured its power the Müller sphere, created by Adam Müller.”

Man 2: \*holds a picture of Adam Müller in front of the camera\*

Man 1: “We expanded our studies, we researched the ways of XP and enchanting, and after another few years of hard work we cracked the code of the enchanting table. But it didn’t happen without effects. The Many years of studying the orb and the enchanting table caused some people to have an almost purple skin. Later the purple skin became a symbol of wisdom and knowledge”

Man 2: \*holds a picture of someone with purple skin up, someone that vaguely looks like Pooththick\*

Man 1: “We became a society led by the wise. We call them the Conclave, and they’re led by the Inquisitor. You enter the Conclave once you are smart and old enough. The oldest one becomes the Inquisitor, the younglings can follow and learn, but can’t give input”

Man 2: \*shows a picture of the current Inquisitor’s family (the picture shows Industro, Ravennn, Hamster, Pooththick and some other people\*

Man 1: “You didn’t need a purple skin tone to get into the Conclave. Those who studied XP didn’t have it, but were still deemed to be some of the wisest people of the community… “

Man 2: “You’re getting off-track” \*he says from behind the camera\*

Man 1: “Oh, yes, I'm sorry…”

Man 2: “No problem.“

Man 1: “This work had effects, unplanned effects, to say the least… A few years ago the orb’s powers began fading. We thought that it was dying. What we didn’t know was what it would do next… people started losing their memories, and soon enough we figured out that it was the orb. It searched for power elsewhere. Sadly enough, it found it in our heads. Some people got absorbed into the orb, others, we think, got lost in the above, and they don’t know who they are anymore.” \*wipes a tear from his face\*

Man 2: \*steps in front of the camera and pats Dr. Weber on the back before he goes back behind the camera\*

Man 1: “We are making this b-because our numbers have been steadily declining, and soon we won’t exist anymore. Nearly everyone in the Conclave is gone. We hope someone can find this and spread our knowledge.”

Man 2: “We have to end it, the recording tape is almost gone.”

Man 1: “Ok…”

While the others were watching the documentary, Industro, out of nowhere, whipped out his newly forged greatsword, and desperately slashed at Hamster, but missed. Hamster, completely thunderstruck, jumps up and runs for the door. Ravennn and Pooth are entranced by the movie, and don't notice anything going on behind them. Industro begins chasing after Hamster, but Hamster gets to the door first and... the door’s locked. He turns around, and as soon as he does so, sees an enormous blade right in front of his face. The blade scratched his mask, and forced him to push against the door. Industro, standing completely still, began reciting something. Hamster, still terrified, closes his eyes and stands completely still, waiting for something to happen, anything. He opened his eyes. Industro was standing with his greatsword at Hamster’s neck, but didn’t kill him for some reason. His eyes expanded, as if he was freed from someone’s grasp, and he turned towards the screen.

Man 1: “Industro, Inquisitor, if you somehow find this after we all die off. It has been an honor working with you. I wish you and your family the best of luck. Tesno Technostatos!”

Industro dropped his greatsword. He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. He laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed and fell to the ground. His hands were crimson red from the tears he had cried. As the documentary ended, Ravennn and Poothtick were freed from the trance and averted their gazes towards Industro, now unconscious, and Hamster, still clutching the door in a panic reaction.

#### A leap of faith (trapped by duty and obligation)

It's been a while since pretty much anything happened. After almost getting killed by Industro in the remnants of his old home he didn't remember, nothing had happened, and i mean nothing had happened or changed that could change his life in a positive way. Hamsterz just fell back into the same repetitive life he dreaded.

Day in day out he work and did his job as minister. He did it well, but we're not talking about that, but he hated it, he hated every single thing about it. It was the same thing he had been doing for years.

For years he had been stuck in Eisenland, chained to a withering nation led by a blinded government. They were blinded by their own succes, unable to see the things they did wrong. A government that had been doing the same thing over and over again, in a constant state of collapse or on the brink of war. Like it always used to be the political environment in Eisenland was toxic. People blamed each other, trusted individuals were pushed out without anyone listening to their side of the story.

That's how Industro and Ravennn left. They were both pushed out by the nation they worked for for years. And Poothtick, he just kind of dissapeared in Ballhurst, nobody really knows what happened, he probably secluded himself, or went on a journey of his own. Hamsterz had lost anyone that had any kind of actual family tie to him. He didn't really know them, but still. He genuinly had no family anymore. And so, after many months passing, not knowing what to do with the knowledge he gained about his past the orb began taking it again, and his memories became fuzzier and fuzzier by the day.

He had tried, so much, he had tried anything he could imagine to make his life better. He started discussions that nearly got him exiled to stop the tension between Eisenland and the IAU. He had quit his political carreer, multiple times even. He even tried to move once. And none of it ever worked. He kept on getting pulled back to Eisenland, by his unfinished town in Arcturus, by his past, by who knows what more. He was trapped by duty and obligation.

So he became desperate. He had talked with one of his best friends, Fools, who he by mystery of fate met again, a few times, about trust and support. About what would happen if Eisenland finally collapsed. If Eisenland collapsed then Kaminhagen would secede, he would join Sirradra and live the rest of his life out in peace.

So he began waiting, waiting for the day Eisenland collapsed. And one day it actually looked like it would happen. Fawkes who had apparently been on the IAU's side for some time decided to declare his town Eisenburg and the southern parts of Eisenland as territory of the IAU. Nothing against the IAU, Hamsterz was on good terms with them aswell and he was seen as one of the actual good guys from Eisenland in the IAU aswell, but Eisenland was just better of outside of the IAU, especially after the war that destroyed Maxstadt.

That day Hamsterz set his plan to actual use, in coöperation with people from the IAU he announced that Kaminhagen would secede and try to join Sirradra. After he did that he waited, waited to see what would happen. He tried to make sure everything went as peacefull and diplomatic as possible. During that time Kaiser Max 'Ablaze' Swanz stepped down as kaiser. Gustav became kaiser, which felt strange, because he knew Gustav would actually change stuff, Eisenland would become different. But he went on, he had gotten so far, he couldn't just stop.

And then, the news came in. The discussion between Eisenland and Sirradra were done.

His plan ... it failed, and he , he was officially a traitor, locked in the country he betrayed.

#### The final play of destiny and fate

Half a year since he discovered for the first time and the forsaken amnesiac cycle of losing his memories had begun. 4 more times had he lost them to that big glowing crystal like thing under Kaminhagen’s grounds. And he’d been so dumb to give away the single item enabling him to connect him back to the people he loved, his journal.

Kaminhagen had become empty. Water became stagnant, sand and dust settled on all surfaces, but at night the factories kept running in the darkness. Nobody had seen him in ages, but they assumed he was still alive, somehow, because Kaminhagen was still being maintained, even though it almost was nearly falling apart.

One night he became desperate, more desperate than he was at any other time in his depressing life. He wrote a letter. Well, he scribbled it down, his hands shaking as he did so and the paper basically ripped apart and smudged with grime and dust. He put it into an empty bottle and threw it out into the ocean as far as he could. Fate had been against him for his entire life, but maybe it’d help him just this one time. In said letter he reached out for help, to anyone who knew him now or back then.

And fate did toy with him once again. A few months later, in a river delta a little west of Requiem, the white city located on the continent of Cymru. It happened that Jericho lived there. He moved there after he left Ryoujing. And fate made sure he found the bottle with the letter inside. Apart from both of them having been former citizens of the Imperial Archonal Union there was one thing connecting Jericho to Hamsterz. They had both been friends with Llyre. Once Jericho read the letter, as soon as he was able to and once he had digested the content of the letter, he sent an urgent messenger across the sea to the pink city of Kumaur to deliver the letter and the bottle to Llyre.

Worry filled Llyre pale grey eyes as he recognized the shaking handwriting of his friend in Eisenland and as he read the letter the feeling increased to the closest thing Llyre could feel to panic and empathy. He sent a letter to Hamsterz telling him to meet in 4 days on the tallest mountain between Kumaur and Kaminhagen.

It took 2 days for the letter to even arrive in Kaminhagen, but as soon as it got in Hamsterz’ hands he began travelling to the spot where Llyre told him to go. They had met in this spot before. It was where he handed over his journal, not that it mattered. That memory had long faded into the dimly glowing orb. It took about one and a half days for him to find the spot and as soon as he sat down in the shadow of one of the few trees growing there, he passed out, however, it would be his last time.

Llyre barely found him. His small frail grimy body covered by the long grasses, hidden by the jacket he always wore that had become more faded in colour and grimey than it used to be.

He fell down onto the ground trying to wake him up. He grabbed his shoulders, shaking him ruthlessly. Llyre’s fists hit the hard dirt in anger as he tried his best. “wake … up” He hissed. After a few minutes Hamsterz’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at Llyre and just for a few seconds a sparkle of light appeared in his eyes before he’d whisper his last words. A light he thought had long passed. “Th-thank you.” He stammered, his voice shaking and barely hearable, and then he disappeared. He quite literally faded away into a small cloud of what looked like blue-ish water vapor or blue smoke. The only thing left behind was his charred and scratched mask. Llyre held onto the mask and hugged it tightly.

Miles and miles away, at the same moment Hamsterz’ faded away, Jericho swore he saw a shimmer of the cloud forming together to form a vision of the small man inside of the heart of Vathir. He’d been pulled back to the single center of all mystical power, even larger than the orb of Kaminhagen.

Even further away in the other direction, Arturo Swanz (a.k.a. Pixel) was woken up. Pixel was related to Llyre and thus had a very obscure, vague connection to Hamsterz. He’d been woken up by a vision-like dream. He understood what had happened. The single thing he heard in his sleep was: “Tell them thank you”.