Pierre Hansford

Race

Demi-human

Age

19

Origin

Azshar

Biography

Like hundreds of other unfortunates, Pierre's family were outcasts of Huplaatste, the de facto capital of the Azsharan wastes. Pierre's father drew the ire of a powerful corporation when he learned one of its darker secrets, and was forced to flee from Cardinal to the desert continent with his pregnant wife. Corporate secrets were of little use to the city's thugs, however, and as quick as they usually were to sell a pretty young woman into slavery, pregnancy tended to severely degrade a slave's worth. Effectively worthless and penniless, the two were cast out into the desert and left to fend for themselves. After wandering the desert for three days, their luck changed, and they came upon an encampment of similar refugees. Unlike many such camps, who valued strength and material possessions over brains, this particular group of vagabonds were one of the kinder groups that roamed the sands. It took time to earn their trust, but eventually they became part of the clan, and Pierre's older brother, Jean-Paul, was born to a warm, if rag-tag community.

Roughly a year later, Pierre was born, and the brothers had their work cut out for them. Survival in the Endless White was difficult for even the toughest and most skilled outdoorsmen. For this group of lost causes and cast-offs, every day was its own desperate struggle against distant odds. The Hansford family became excellent scavengers, which was the primary method of survival of anyone who had to live outside of the city walls. Recovered tech, metals, and weaponry earned them bits of food and water, depending on their general worth. Sometimes, they instead bartered large amounts of salvage for appliances and methods of travel. Jean-Paul became something of a savant at maintaining and repairing scrap machines. Pierre never quite found his calling, though in such an inhospitable environment, it was surprising for anyone to find that much. What he did have, however, was something of a wanderlust, and it was this wanderlust that ultimately plunged his family into chaos once again.

Pierre had caught wind that Huplaatste was in the market for ancient artifacts from the ruins that were reportedly all over the sands, but always seeming to shift locations, thanks to the wind-blown geography. He wanted to find one of these ruins and find something valuable enough to buy his family refuge within the city, if only for a while. His father always warned him against risking his life on some fool's errand, especially when, even in the best circumstances, the end result was dangerous and sketchy, at best. These artifacts were sometimes said to hold incredible power, which is how the mobsters of the city maintained their grip upon it. Could gangsters really be trusted to be fair with an exchange like that? Pierre wouldn't hear of it, though; he felt that the fact that they were maintaining civilization and watching over at least some people meant there had to be some redeeming honor about them. It would all mean nothing, anyway, if he didn't find an artifact, and so every day he ventured out on the scrap-bike his brother built him and scoured the area for possible ruins.

Sometimes, he would find a promising cave or structure emergent from the dunes, and he'd fetch his father. Despite looking down on the idea, he didn't want his son to go venturing into such places alone. Everything was already either picked clean or wasn't a ruin in the first place. Once or twice, Pierre would think he'd found something, only to have the structure cave in and fill with hopeless amounts of sand before he could reach it. One day, however, after having a fight with his father over something trivial, the boy took off on his bike and cruised the desert, trying to get the futility of his situation off of his mind. He soon felt something pulling at him, subtly, and he piloted his vehicle to a place where he'd never gone looking, before. He almost completely overlooked a small opening in the sand where a structure just barely abutted with the surface. Still angry with his father, he decided to check this one out alone. He plumbed into the ruin's depths, which turned out to be much more vast than anything he'd ever been in before; certainly more than what the modest opening had suggested. Remains of other tomb raiders were strewn about, the cause of their demises unknown from simple scrutiny. He tread carefully, but found no traps to snare him, no death lurking behind any corner. Instead, he found a dusty old thing that looked like was made of little more than dust and clay, in the midst of a pile of brittle-dry bones.

Pierre picked up the strange thing, and could not make much of it. It seemed inert. There were carvings all over it, and it seemed sturdier than its strange design seemed to suggest. It was about the size of a grapefruit. Perplexed, but convinced he had found something worth trading, he stuffed the thing in his bag and left the ruin before it could give him a sandy burial. When he returned, he showed it to his family. Nobody could make heads or tails of it, but his father cautioned him not to show it off to too many people. Just the idea that it could be a relic of the Old Ones was enough to motivate a man to theft, or even murder. Everyone knew that ancient tech was the golden ticket in this hellish world. They needed to figure out what this thing did before they brought it to the city.

So, father and sons would head out into a far stretch of the wastes where nobody would come upon them, and testing began. They ran electrical current through it. They struck it, and shot it with a gun Jean-Paul had scavenged. They buried it, submerged it, and even cut themselves to see if the artifact would react to an open wound. Nothing seemed to make it do anything, and the three were about to declare it little more than a bookend, or a paperweight. They returned home with designs to make it a subtle part of their tent's interior decor. It seemed Pierre had little to show for his big discovery.

That night, the boy was laying awake in his cot, playing with the artifact. As he wondered what this thing could have been, he heard a rustle at the entrance. When he turned to look, a woman was standing over him, looking rather menacing. Pierre had no idea who she was. She seemed to have thought he was asleep, and was alarmed that he wasn't. She reached out for the artifact, and he felt it strangely tugging out of his grasp by some unseen force, but he wrestled it away and cried out. His father came awake instantly, and in a single motion, was on his feet and moving to deck the intruder. She was too deft for him, and his punch fell short of his target. Suddenly, the man was thrown back violently, and his weight pulled the whole tent down on one side, bringing the rest of the family awake. In the confusion, the woman turned back to Pierre and tried to make another, more forceful grab for the artifact, and this time it came out of his hands. Now Jean-Paul was up, however, and he grabbed the artifact out of the air and fumbled over the woman, who was taken by surprise and bowled over by his weight into another side, bringing the rest of the tent down. It was a flurry of limbs and confused shouting and cursing from there; at some point, Pierre and the intruder both got their hands on the artifact at the same time, and in an attempt to get a better hold on the thing, Pierre triggered the device, and it folded over his arm like a bracer. Something pierced his skin, and he yelped, but the pain was forgotten in the next moment.

A bizarre, foreign voice entered his mind, speaking a language he couldn't comprehend, and he felt a presence exploring his body, even as the melee continued. The woman tried to pry the thing off Pierre's wrist, only to find it wouldn't budge. She began to use that strange invisible power to force it off, and at once the artifact came to life. It glowed brightly, and the voice in Pierre's head spoke again, with a quiet fury that belied the undecipherable words it uttered. The tent exploded to shreds, and the woman was blown clear. Pierre felt his arm raise up of its own volition, pointing at each of his bewildered family in turn. The ruckus was beginning to draw attention from the sleeping neighbors, and people were emerging from their tents to see what was going on. As Pierre found himself recalling his memories of each person unbidden, his arm tracked to another person, and another. After a moment of this, he looked over to where the woman had gone. Somehow sensing his intent, his arm fell under his own command again and then thrust out toward where the thief was getting to her feet and regaining her bearings.

The woman sent her force at him, and this time it was powerful enough to cause the air to ripple before her. This only made the strange artifact angrier, and with a pulse of light, the attack was dismissed. The resulting shockwave knocked everyone but the woman and Pierre to the ground. Muttering something that sounded belittling, the trinket created another attack, and to the abject fear of the woman, she was pulverized into bloody sand with a strike that sundered two other tents nearby and blasted a pile of debris sky-high. It was over; the threat was gone. Or was it just beginning? There was now chaos in the camp as everyone stared at Pierre and his glowing artifact, which he had apparently hidden from everyone but his family. In this insular, communal society, there was going to be hell to pay.

An emergency meeting was called, and it resulted in nothing but bickering and unfulfillable demands. Pierre could not remove the device, no matter how he tried, and the voice in his head simply seemed to chuckle at his efforts. Someone suggested cutting his arm off, but after the events that had just unfolded, nobody wanted to be the one to bear the axe. It was eventually decided that the clan should pack up and head for Huplaatste, with the idea that with this powerful, unremovable artifact, they would be able to barter for the whole clan's reentry. Pierre would be their guardian, ensuring no harm would come to them. His father didn't like it; didn't that mean Pierre would have to become a mobster, like the rest of those thugs who lugged ancient weapons around? It was a sacrifice that was worth it, the group decided. Despite the protests, Pierre agreed, and the journey was made the next morning.

Their visit to Huplaatste didn't quite go as planned. It seemed that they had no interest in a mere boy joining their family, and they simply wanted the artifact, in exchange for entrance for three or four of them. when they were told that the artifact couldn't be removed, they sent out death squads to ensure that it would be. At first, Pierre held strong, blowing a score of bikers from their rides in a single blast, but then the leader attacked with his own artifact, and Pierre was sent sprawling, while his artifact audibly cursed. It began to mutter fearfully in its odd tongue, and somehow, Pierre understood, in a way. He called for everyone to run, and they fled to the east, toward the Portal facility. The Huplaatste gang pursued them relentlessly, and in their cruel fashions, they slowly whittled away the Hansfords' clan one by one. They would come at night in a surprise raid, or they would make guerilla attacks over large dunes. By the time they reached the facility, Pierre's father was dead, and only his brother, mother, and two others were still alive, out of the thirty-four they had begun with.

After speaking with the Portal authorities, the refugees were placed in protective custody, and allowed to pass to Cardinal. With Pierre's father gone, they had no reason to fear the corporation that had originally driven them to flee to this nightmare realm. It seemed that they had finally achieved a fresh start on life, but what had it cost them?