What is Travis Anyway?

When I woke up, I had already been fighting for what I am told for a month. I never attempted to kill anyone, just knock them down. If I ever connected (again, I am told) and did damage, I would heal my opponent quickly.

I woke up at some point. By woke up I mean to say that I realized that i didn’t have to keep fighting. I am unsure if this period of blankness (I can remember brief glimpses of my fights) was simply what I had been doing when the ruins I was found in became a ruins or if I had been fighting some sort of betrayer. Was I a soldier or a teacher? What was this name Travis that kept running through my mind?

The name means something to me but I can never remember what it is. Is it a name? I’ve never seen a language use anything close to this word. Was it a method that was used to create me? Was it slang? Derrogatory? Complimentary?

It all sits there as a swirl in my mind.

It’s a strange thing to say that I have a mind as looking around at these fleshy beings around me, I have seen the thing that contains their mind. Mine seems to be in my chest.

When I answered the first question I can remember answering, it came after a flash from my chest to which I said Travis. The question, I learned later, was, “Do you have a name?”

And so it is that this strange being has an equally strange name. It, like me, seems to have no memory of being born, of existing, or how far in the past I stopped existing for a time.

So it is that we come close to the present.

After I said the word Travis, this was how the soldiers and miners around me referred to me. It stuck as a reference to this strange brawl-prone woodman. I do not remember how many years have gone by since that time. In fact, I often seem to forget what day it is, what year. I sometimes wonder if my memory is somehow damaged but without a reference, I do not know if this is a feature or bug of objects like me.

After coming to and beginning to be called Travis, I found that I could also recognize many of the words being said to me. This led to many, many questions. For example, was this language common to when I was originally new? Or was I somehow able to understand all languages? I found quickly that the second question was not true but the reamining question and all of those other questions remains center of my quest.

The people who found me seemed to have been funded by a school. The Arcana Pansophicle is, I am told, a premier institution. Without any way to know if this was true and without any other schools to compare, I took this to be true.

A half-elf there named Alura either took it upon herself or was forced to train me in the ways of the current time. This seemed interesting and I found it amusing as I greatly wished to understand the world around me and the entire school seemed to want to, “bring civilization to this wild woodman with the strange name.”

However, as I began my studies, I found that many of my questions weren’t being answered. Alura was extraordinarily not forthcoming. I found myself getting pretty angry and so I began to read a number of texts in the great library there as I tried to educate myself. As I did, I began to understand that Alura was very interested in what I represented: a combination of arcane magic and other technology. So for her, being aloof seemed to favor her learning more about me as I reacted and plotted against her various behaviors.

My plots were to finish my education. For a time, as I noted, I cannot remember years or anything about time, I endeavored to write a thesis on the gaps and incorrect assertions of the mixture of arcane magic and technology. These archaeo-technical systems were often leaning heavily on technical concepts, easily understandable content that can be understood easily. This meant that the more difficult mysteries of the arcane were lacking.

I assaulted Alura one day with this knowledge. After listening to my assault, she asked a number of questions, brought in other members of the school to ask questions, and then everyone applauded my efforts. The next thing I knew, I was being sent to the Glade to become some sort of educator. The nobles nearby, whom I am told made a healthy donation to the school, set me up with what is called money and lodging within which I tutor their children.

At some point, I began to take in children off the street and educate them. All of this activity seemed very natural to me. Does it perhaps point to my purpose? My original one, I mean.

Two of the children I took in, Val and Wynlyn, have presented me with other opportunities. Instead of learning and heading back to their families to become noble-people inside of their homes, these two individuals have begun to bring my posters about something called, “rewards” and this desire to go on adventures.

I will admit that much of this seems to be in line with the methods and research styles that I have often read about. My notes on the comings and goings of the people of this town have been lacking once they leave my normal location in town, and so I have begun to accompany them on small errands and searches around town as I begin to expand the areas that I am able to observe.

The tremendous number of digs and goings on at the older ruins in the area seem to be places where I might even find data that points to my own mysteries.

Right now, I am about to head to the bar to talk to what i’ve begun to call my favorite informants at, “the seedy bar” in town. I haven’t understood this term as the only seeds I see planted are at the places where the rich people gather. They constantly place seeds, plots, that will ruin their rivals or make them even more money. But alas, this sort of commentary is what Alura instructed me to avoid!