Path of Exile Talent Competition

More pictures: https://imgur.com/a/K4u7SBa
Always wanted to do something for the talent competition but I'm not much of an artist. After seeing all the entries I'm amazed what people can come up with. So anyway I tried to come up with something I could make in the limited time I've had and ended up trying to make an Andvarius Gold Ring. For the ring I've used a piece of threaded brass connector (to imitate the grooves in original) and for leaf I've cut a piece of copper pipe. Connected by steel rivet and spray painted gold it ended up being better than I've expected considering how bad I'm at detailed work.

Like a skittering beetle, I was bellowing on the vast shores of nowhere with half of my face buried in sand. Its warmth was more suited to my comfort than the cold breeze of that endless shore. It chased droplets of salty water down my temples and played with my damp hair. After the recent events one could only find relief in a situation such as this.

I knew, that I could remain still and lay at this very place, until death would release me from the pain, I felt throughout my body and mind alike.

Instead, I carefully opened my eyes, freeing myself from the comfort of sleep. Recollections of the previous night still haunted my head, as I lifted my stiff neck to look around. Through the deafening silence of my loneliness, the panicked screams of my crew and hopelessness of their prayers still echoed in my ears.

From the young age of ten, ever since I was a young boy and boarded my father´s ship for the first time, I was in love with the sea. I strive not to remember those days, as the youthful ignorance of my prospects quickly dissipated in the cruel reality, that the life at the sea has cast upon me. Sleepless nights, drunk passengers and scurvy-ridden mates are parts of no child´s dream, lest they were never children at all.

I remember, it was at an able age of eighteen, when I was assigned control over the ship. My old man has come down with the flu and on his last day a terrible madness has began to plague his mind. He spoke of haunting echoes, that whispered auguries through a voice he could not recognize and before his last breath, he called me to his deathbed, to speak of them to me and me only.

Being young and foolish, I made very little effort to memorize these prophecies, but one warning has etched itself into my mind and has since followed me on my journeys.

"Remember the wheel of time and how it marches ´round."

I never forgot those words he spoke on his last bed. As I walked the city docks that night, they would haunt me for reasons unknown to me at the time. Maybe a mere last memory of my father, the words followed me through the streets of Theopolis, through the waves of the Golden Sea and around the world. In Trarthus I could not escape them, Pondium could not protect me, yet somehow, in the haste of my thirtieth years, they became lost in the ceaseless fervour of a sailor´s profession.

I knew I had to look forward now, not backwards. But the only thing I could see, was but an endless shore, that seamlessly converged with the still ocean waters somewhere along the horizon. The vast sands glistened on their smooth, clay-like surface in dull, grey hues. Recalling the shore´s unusual warmth, which I previously attributed to the persistent afternoon sun, I found out, that the Sun was nowhere to be found.

The wetness of the sand suggested a recent ebb of the nearby sea, but the stillness of the waters deemed the idea facetious to me. The blue ocean stood still, as far as I could turn my head. I had yet to see a single wave or wrinkle of the surface, as the dark waters remained smooth and calm. I began to believe that on a whim of a wish, I could walk the solid waters back home, wherever that "home" was.

A strange feeling has befallen me at that very moment. It took me a while to recognize it, for I haven´t felt as such in the longest time. For no sound of waves crashing at the shore, no songs of seagulls gaily preying for the fish splashing in the water nor the sound of cold wind humming in my ears could sway away that feeling of emptiness now.

There was nothing to remain, after I would close my eyes.

It took some time, but I managed to holster myself up on my feet, my body still shaken from the wreck. I squinted against the grim view of the grey beach.

My eyes slowly began to adjust to the thin fog, that coated the world as far as I could see. I carefully turned my head to the other side of the shore, observing all that could be observed. Much to my dismay, I have been met with the very same sight. Endless sands, ashen with mist, seamlessly come together with the ocean just as grey, leading nowhere.

To me, it seemed, as if I stood at the very edge of the world. Nothing but wasteland spread before my eyes, coated in grey muck, into which my feet sank, as I stood in one place for too long.

It was unlike any shore I have ever seen. I began to wonder, if the clouds above me were the same as those, that cast their shadows over Wraeclast. But one diligent look made me question, if they were clouds at all.
Like milk in a jug, the grey mass of the skies stirred right above me, as I stood there contemplating the emptiness of my surroundings.

The only thing I knew, was, that standing still wasn´t going to bring me closer to wherever I should be. Thus, I began my journey along the boundless shore, hoping to maybe find a harbour or at least some shelter.

As I wandered, I began to recollect the events of the past days. I could still remember faint flashes of some distant memories. Nothing but wild seas, smell of cheap alcohol and laughter of my crew came to me for the longest of times. None of us could ever expect that our nautical follies would come to such a violent end; that night the waves threshed our vessel against the wild currents and dragged the pieces into the dank depths below. I could only hope, I was not the only one, to find the salvation of land.

I counted maybe half a day, when my legs couldn´t bear the burden of my body and almost gave in. Sitting down to rest, I noticed that the terrain has become less level and that a small hill now divided the shore from the inland. I contemplated resting, but my curiosity got the worst of me and I turned my course away from the shore and up that hill.

The fog dissipated to reveal a new and terrible land, that now lay before me. Though I have travelled countless leagues and continents, never have I seen a land so cold and daunting.

Before me spread a world of mountains and endless deserts. Black rocks stuck from the ground in crawling shapes spread across the wrinkled dunes of ashen sands. Mountains of mud piled up in the distance, as curious white plants covered the plains around them. Their pale leaves blew lifelessly in the wind, as if the terrible sands drained them of all the vigour they might have once had.

But the strangest thing of all were the peculiar symbols, that covered the bare patches of ground and crawled among the slopes of the hills. Pondering the nature of the place, I stood almost fascinated with what I believed to have been the canvas of gods themselves.

Painted with otherworldly spirals and wild edged shapes, the likes of which I have never seen before, the landscape lay decorated, as if prepared for a grand festival. The picturesque curves of the horizon played along with the spirals, that twisted the ground between the dying flora.

Unlike the nature around them, I did not believe them to be ancient. Surely, wild winds would sweep away any reminder of a civilization, that lays their legacy into sand.

I walked towards the mountains, hoping to find the great painters that breathed life into that bare world around me. I walked maybe hours and maybe days. I could not tell, for the sun was nowhere to be seen; I began to doubt, if the sun ever even shone on this profane land.

But the sands twisted, the ground turned and soon, I had to watch my step to avoid a fall or a sprained joint. I knew, that this journey began to take its toll on my mind, and I could not let it take away from my body too.

As unforgiving as the land seemed to be, I was sure of one thing: this was no Wraeclast.

As I scaled one of the mounds, I felt my feet burn and my chest begin to ache. Last night may have not taken away from my body, but the time surely has. He, who mans a boat for living, pays the price of aching joints and cracked skin and I was no different from my fellow sailors. So, with exhaustion fogging my mind, I have decided to rest a while, once I reached the top of the hill. I only hoped that the view might provide me with further directions.

The last steps I made to reach the ridge of the mound, sent cramps throughout my whole body. I was tired of wandering and the idea of rest had by then become a vision of sleep. I fell to my knees and before my weight buried my face into the sand, I held myself up with my hands stretched far downward.

Looking at the ground I began to notice much more life than I previously believed this land could be housing. I saw small leaves, as if those of shamrock, slithering on the ground. Their colour was the same dull grey as the sand, which made it clear to me, why I couldn´t notice them before.

When I ran my hand along a small patch of the strange crawlers, their leaves crumbled as they touched my skin. I lifted my hand towards my eyes, and it looked as if I buried them in the sand instead. I stood up and, on the ground lay a silhouette of my legs painted with dead sand amidst the small field of grey plants.

Everything around me was dying and I was almost sure that I was next. I needed to leave this place at that very moment. Only the matter of “where to” still entertained my mind.

But as my head grew heavy with the idea of escape, so did my legs and I collapsed back onto the floral pillow. Granted, it crumbled into dust once again and I was left with a bed of sand below me. Bed was most fitting, for my consciousness began to drift away and I started to close my eyes, catching a glimpse the alien skies.

I stretched on the grey ground, turned to my side and used my left arm as a pillow. For the second time today, I felt the warmth of the ground. It was almost unthinkable, how much comfort one could find in a place so inhospitable. For that moment, I understood the plants.

Sleep came to cover my mind in a lazy blink of an eye. The unnatural calm of the winds peacefully rocked me to sleep. Wild colours of undistinguishable hues began to obscure my vision and before they converged into black nothingness, a figure of a man on the horizon has caught the last bit of my dwindling attention. He was walking towards the tallest mountain of those that hemmed the boundless horizons.

My slipping mind did not understand the gravity of the situation, and when I closed my eyes, the man remained before them. From the following I remember not what was a dream and what my mortal body had really gone through. I only remember, that I ran towards the man through a dark plane of what I believed to be the unconscious world of my dreams.

I watched him drifting away further into the darkness. Though he walked slowly, his legs carried him much faster than mine. At once, he disappeared, and I was jerked awake on the muddy ground once again.

But I did not lay, where I laid my head the night before. I began to doubt the fictional nature of my dream. My legs hurt, but I managed to stand up to my feet, desperate for answers.

The land was not a land of diversity. I recognized the wretched mountain before me almost immediately. Without a doubt, I stood before the mountain that the man walked towards the night before.

There was no beauty to appreciate about it. Black rocks stretched high towards the skies, overblown by sand. The mountain towered above me with the authority of a king, yet I was not daunted. To me, it was but another mound of dirt that protruded from this unholy land. It was only a walked path upwards, that intrigued me.

If the strange man walked it before me, he might still remain somewhere along the path. I was not sure why I wanted to meet him, but I believed him to have answers, as to why I found myself dragged out of my reality into this muddy purgatory.

Wouldn´t it have been enough, to let me sink with the ship? I was the captain after all...

The thought of my mates lying dead on the seafloor made me shudder. I could shed a tear or two for them, but after finding myself in this wretched wasteland, I at once wished to be a bloated corpse being eaten away at by the bottom feeders.

Grey dust rose with each of my steps and the path up the mountain became steeper every time I looked towards the top. As I made my way along the black rocks and dying shrubs, I became quite sure, that I would not be walking this same way down.

When finally, I reached the end of the path, I was faced with a small dusty plateau overlooking the boundless sands.

There, atop the peak was a strange device. A large circular frame, adorned by the very same symbols that wrinkled the sands around me, stood below the grey skies with star-like protrusions in a round formation that reminded me of a compass rose. It perched on top of a stony pedestal and five steps led up to it.

Fear took hold of my body, but I still made the foolish decision to approach the monument.

As I was standing ten paces away and the device towered tall above me, a strange whirring had caught my attention. At first, it was no louder than a fly on the other side of the room, but as if with malicious intent, the sound began to force itself deeper into my ears.

Within seconds, it had turned into a loud buzzing and not long after, it rose to the volume of a ship´s horn. But I did not notice, for I was mesmerized by the scenery, that came to reveal itself within the circular frame.

Wild curves weaved the fabric of a fantastic scenery amongst the stars and moons. The whole vista stood before me, unravelling and revealing the strangest corners of cosmos to me. The curious, decorated frame stood as the last reminder of my limited understanding of an otherwise boundless picture of eternal beauty.

Giant rocks flew through fields of stardust right before my eyes. In disbelief, I watched the stars above my head grow larger, until they burst into the most awesome pictures painted with the wildest of colours, the likes of which I had never seen before. I remained silent, as the whole picture crumbled into a small pebble and a new star began to shine in the same glory as its fathers once did. I watched the cycle countless times and each time, I remained mesmerized by the newfound beauty.

All around me a thousand worlds roared in unison of pain, as they crumbled to dust, only to be rebuilt into something even more beautiful every time. Wild voices whispering auguries of ominous ends tried to get hold of my ears, but the vast scenery had got full hold of my attention.

I stood amazed, as strands of light and clouds of otherworldly motes twisted and whirled into pictures no man had ever hoped to see. Mountains that could tower over gods themselves, grew from the ground right before me. Brooks of strange waters crawled through the forests of alien trees and lulled my mind to sleep with their bubbling symphonies. With each picture, the universe took me on a journey through a world, I never before had the chance to know. Only after a while, the beauty of the alien nature began to vanish, and the fantastic pictures began to crumble into one.

To my terror, I no longer stood before the portal of all cosmic beauty, but I found myself standing in a room too dreadfully familiar. Only gazing at the ramshackle hospital floor made my guts clench. I did not know how or why I found myself standing by my father´s deathbed at that moment.

"Remember the wheel of time and how it marches ´round."

The terrible words came back to me and gave sense to everything. I began to mutter to myself over and over that damned phrase and as I did, I watched my dying father turn his blind eyes towards me. It seemed, as if he could hear me, but I refused to believe it. Yet, never hoping to see my father again, I reached out to him. As I touched his wrinkled face, it began to cave in and before I could even sob, the vision reduced him to a pile of ashes on the hospital bed.

Some strange wind carried me out through the window, and I hovered over Theopolis, a place I once proudly called home, now just a memory amongst many.

I drifted up through the clouds, until the homes blended into stone snakes crawling across the land. Eventually, even the city disappeared under the large scale of the world, I was now looking over.

I watched Oriath from afar. I watched it diminish and crumble. Shores of Wraeclast peeled apart their land as it was carried away by the wild currents of the unknown. I saw Pondium swept away by the waters of time and disappear into the abyss. The whole scenery unfolded before me and desperate voices now chanted sick litanies of a fate soon to be my own.

The world turned to dust right before my eyes and dripped into itself as a new one took its place, only to fall apart all the same. It reminded me of watching the sand in my father´s hourglass when I was a kid, only to turn it upside down and watch as the sand fell again. But now, that sand was all I ever knew and held dear. And it was falling right then.

At that very moment I knew, that once all the sand descends from the upper half, the hourglass of cosmos turns around and the wretched cycle begins anew. A new world eager to be born, only to spend its time trickling away, will reign ignorant to the dust below. Through its whole existence its slow death shall nourish the patiently waiting new-born, until it is ready, to take the place on the crumbling throne.

The image disappeared, as I felt my existence slipping through the waist of the hourglass and falling along with the other specs of sand. I watched the skies up above move away from me, as I fell to the ground.

With wonder, I noticed the scenery around me. It was the very same one, as that at the top of the mountain I left mere moments ago.

The Blue King sat before me on his throne of dust before the portal. His face was the face of my dying father and that of my mother. It was the face of my first lover and the face of my worst enemy. It was the faces of my mates and also the faces of all my teachers. Looking straight into my eyes, their faces twisted with fear. With them I stood alone on time´s last frontier.

I saw my past right there, buried beneath the mires of time that dripped from his squalid crown. The very same mud that my feet were now sinking into, was the very one, that sloshed over my dearest histories, erasing their beauty and desperation alike.

That dust made of memories of the past began to consume me like some demonic quicksand; but the moment I looked at my feet, all my fears have gone away. It was right there, on the top of that terrible mountain, that I too, grain by grain, became a memory.