[spoiler]Not sure if they really are one or not, but I liked an old idea I had to make random tall tails from a character of mine's history. I only ever got around to the first chapter before forgetting about it, and its age really shows. Still might be fun for stuffs tho idk Also a little backstory: the fella 'Zbruh' can't say the name for his signature ability without a lot of difficulty, Perfect Balance. It's a very stupid, heinously overpowered ability that gives him ridiculous control over a lot of things, but back in the day it worked for story purposes, less so actual rp. Describing his appearance is hard, so imagine a dude who needs to shave instead[/spoiler] [b]Zbruh’s Tall Tails[/b] [i]The Scene: Zbruh is absolutely pounding some drinks at a booth with a few suspicious looking individuals in the back of a bar. His cards and chips are almost completely covered by his empty glasses, and waitresses have to continually clear his side of the table. Zbruh himself seems to be in a good mood, his voice echoing deeper than the Marianas as he laughs at the cards. The bartender comes over with a large figure behind him, and demands Zbruh to pay for his drinks with the pile of chips in front of him before he orders another. Feining poverty, Zbruh points to a sign on the wall that states payment as a story or cash is accepted. The bartender agrees, but the story must meet the price. And so our tale begins…[/i] “So here I am, fresh out of the nest, got my basic spells and whatnot ready. I take a name, “Seal”, and I’m out and about, exploring all that existence has to offer. It was a great time, I gotta say, not a care in the world. Didn’t need to sleep, eat and money wasn’t an obstacle. I had it all at my fingertips… Yeah, that didn’t last long. So I was checking out this nice golfing planet, I would totally recommend checking it out but I forgot the name, and I get to the 18th hole. I’m in the rough, y’know? Never played golf before in my life…” [i]About hear the tender looks angry, and it seems the story is not enough to pay for the drink.[/i] “But I’d say I played a decent round. So here I am, last hole, par 3, and these… raiders… drop down. They had some scummy tech to catch people, and before I knew it I was cuffed and beaten into a cell aboard their ship. Crazy, right? How could they catch me? Stupid balalalalananana… nevermind that, stupid pirates, raiders, pirate-raiders took me to their moon. Now Gehenna, as the name implies, is no summer spot. It was a very, very nasty den of villainy, sin and the like for centuries before and after me. Good noodles, but that’s all I can say for them. Void has better Ramen, so try there instead! Anyway, enough self promotion, I’m on Gehenna, and in chains. It was really, really dirty there. If anything is stuck in my head, it’s how disgustingly filthy the entire place was. I don’t know how everyone didn’t just… die… from infection or the toxic air, but I guess I’m just built different.” [i]A groan comes from the other players, and Zbruh realizes others are listening as well.[/i] “Cutting to the good part, they threw me into a cell and said only person walks out. Now I hadn’t even looked at my would be cell-mate yet and was already thinking of illusions or invisibility, but my fellow had different plans. He promptly introduced me to the edge of the sink, several times and very quickly, knocking a few teeth out and covering the metal basin in blood. I think that was the first time I bled, certainly not the last, and I remember it well. I managed to grab his hand and pulled it tight. Instinctively, I bit his hand. His warm flesh tore easily, and I clamped down hard enough to free him of his pointer finger. Howling in pain, he clawed at my face, and I let go as he scratched my eye. Now due to that Equilibrium, half the time I got to lash out in revenge, the other half I had to let it go. Here, I didn’t have that, and lashed out HARD. It was a big surprise to me to see Deep black tentacles writhing and pooling out of my mouth, and it was probably more of a surprise to him to feel their entropic pull beginning to seize him. In a matter of seconds, the Deep within me had torn his head clean off. I guess that part of me was hungry, because for some time after that I felt a little… full… I guess you could say. Anyway, my captors were all too pleased to find out I had tricks like that. They threw me into a small underground fighting ring to get some money out of me. I was very hungry, and tired, and the next thing I knew it was bright, and a large orc-lookin fellow was charging at me with a chainsaw. My vision went black, and when I woke up, I was in my cage again, and my captor’s tossed me some food with a sick, twisted smile. They had gotten a big payout from my wanton destruction of the arena, as well as my opponent, and wanted to use me as much as possible before the end of my rope. Well, they got more than they expected. I decided if Luck had chosen me to fight, I would learn how to fight. It was hard at first, restraining the Deep in me, but I narrowly got my first win without using it. My captors got a little worried, but noticed I… enjoyed it? I walked out of the ring with a smile on my face, and the crowd cheered. I was building a rep, but to them, I was building a brand. And oh boy did they make one… We went through as many smaller circuits as we could before moving up to a higher tier to get as much payout as possible. On the money side of things, my captors were pleased, and decided getting me trained could only increase their pay. I hadn’t used the Deep in a while, and they wanted me to combine it with martial arts. Yeah, bad idea. The Deep was really, really hungry, and I blacked out for an entire week after giving the experimental style a try. However, I felt there was something there to be had, and stopped fighting. And by that, I mean I literally wouldn’t leave my cage. My captors-agents, I’ll call them-were enraged. I knew they had enough money to be perfectly fine, but the -blam!- wanted more. Well, I gave them all the compressed, locked up and hidden rage inside my Depths. Except this time, when I channeled the dark powers within me, I was awake. I felt, and commanded the black ichor now. It responded to my will, and only asked to corrupt and eat. I told the goo that I would, and we made an agreement, the entity and I. I would use the Deep to feed and corrupt, they would keep me alive and strong. A perfect combo, really. Well, I kept trying to combine the Deep and martial arts. It wasn’t going too smoothly, like I was an all or nothing, hyper offense fellow. However, no matter how hard the Deep tried, I would always take some heavy hits, and couldn’t fight again at this level of difficulty for a month until I regenerated. It was like I was drunk or something, like I didn’t have my sea legs. And then, I came to shore. I had never seen someone use “Light” powers before. I only knew as soon as I saw it that the Deep within me hated it, and wanted to eat it. This poor cleric of some forgotten god was thrown into the cage next to mine, and I promptly ate him. But some of this “divine essence” remained, and I began to weave it. It flowed unlike any other magic I had used before, like living… well, life, in my hands. Creation and healing in my grasp. Curious, I called upon the Deep at the same time. Very, very bad idea for anyone else, I should warn you. It’s like a nuclear bomb and you’re the catalyst. Not very safe. Anyway, the two reacted like oil and water, not able to touch each other, and reacting as opposites. Entranced, I began to harness both, and found that together they fit like a glove. One was strong where the other was weak, and I felt… whole. Balaalala-I’ll just say “stable” from now on. I felt stable, and with this black and white energy flowing around me, I strode straight up to the solar barge of a wealthy slave fighter owner. He was petrified to see me, and knew the significance of Deep and Light in harmony, and was even more scared at that. Well, he didn’t believe me when I said I wanted to fight, but needed an agent. It took the whole evening to sign the deal, and I was set. This was the beginning of my real career, how I learned the Yin-Yang style from the energy within me. It was a sight to behold, I’ve heard. I don’t remember much of it, except that the two would work together to keep me alive. Apparently I had gotten into a bad habit of drinking, and both sides knew that if one grew stronger than the other, my unstable self would perish. Neither wanted to lose a singular vessel like me, so they made a truce. In typical fashion I lost my first match, and it seemed like it was all over for me. I lost another, and another, then a dozen, and I had fallen out of the public eye. In hindsight, the two just needed me alone to get me to my senses. It was about here that they showed me my position in this cosmos, this multiverse. I was equally light and equally dark, being cursed or blessed with both simultaneously. With stability like mine, I had nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. Space, time, elements, all was at my disposal, it only had to be balanced to be mine.