[h1][center][color=gold]The Rise of Jaxx[/color][/center][/h1]
[h2][sub][center][color=gold]From 0 to Hero - Prologue[/color][/center][/sub][/h2]
[h3][sub][center][color=green]The Lone Survivor[/color][/center][/sub][/h3]
[h3][sub][center][color=green]A collab between [@WrongEndoftheRainbow] and [@Galaxor][/color][/center][/sub][/h3]


Galaxor left to make the Underground. Galaxor left to be heroic. Galaxor…is able to do anything. Galax…no, this is not a story about me. This is a story of my first creation, the Goblins. 
The specks of divine energy fell all around the world of Galbar, making hundreds of thousands of goblins appear everywhere which meant that some…wouldn’t survive. This is the story of one such speck and its lone survivor. 
As the speck landed on Galbar, twenty goblins materialised in the unforgiving heart of the desert on Galbar. These small, newly formed beings found themselves in a world of relentless sandstorms, with the parched and harsh landscape stretching in all directions.
Among this diverse group of goblins, one stood out as the largest, a towering figure at 2 metres in height. His name was Jaxx, and his deep, black skin contrasted starkly with the sun-bleached sands. Jaxx's commanding presence made him a natural leader, even in this hostile environment.
The desert offered no reprieve. The ceaseless sandstorms stripped moisture from their bodies and obscured the sky. With limited resources and no shelter, the smaller Goblins struggled to survive. As the days passed, one by one, they succumbed to the relentless conditions, their frail bodies unable to withstand the harshness of the desert.
Only Jaxx, the lone survivor and the largest of them all, seemed to fare better. He ate his own kind to avoid starvation, he drank their blood and anything else he could find. He did whatever he had to in order to survive. Unfortunately for Jaxx, as he was about to reach more hospitable lands, he almost ran out of food and water supplies. He barely had one piece of meat left and some blood. That is, until he saw something shining in the distance, something [i]very[/i] shiny. 

It had been born in an endless dune, nothing but the sandstorm and the dim light of the sun for company. There was no stimuli to be found but the movements of the wind and the formation and collapse of the dunes. At night, the sky was shrouded in the endless sand, and by day it studied the movements of the wind. It had gotten quite good at it; it could not imagine the concept of a name, but it could reliably guess the direction the wind would turn.

Nonetheless, while it survived, it did not thrive. In silence it trudged the endless, lifeless sands, near starvation as it grasped at whatever it could find, at multiple points reduced to sucking the smallest morsels of meaning from grains of sand. It stood at an imposing twelve feet tall, and at first noticed not the creature that had found it. Its body reflected the sun in a breathtaking rainbow kaleidoscope, lighting up the sands in colours that perhaps were the first the goblin had ever seen.
Jaxx was…amazed. He didn’t have the words to express what colours he saw but he knew that it was shiny and intriguing but Jaxx’s survival instinct took over his curiosity. Clutching the bone he took from a goblin, he approached slowly. Bone “weapon” not raised high above his head but near his body, he didn’t want to show that he’s a threat but still have enough time to club the thing if it proves dangerous. 

“[color=gray]A! A! A! OOOO![/color]” said Jaxx, not having the words to say what he meant but he smiled gently, as gentle as the face of a goblin allowed. The crystal being jerked their head around to bring all their glowing eyes to bear. Here, there was something new, and that meant something to ponder for sustenance. It harmonised, suddenly, each syllable from another portion of its body, “Wow,” and then it devolved into a similar gibberish. It sounded otherworldly, like an ethereal choir whose words could not be understood.

The kaleidoscope flitted rapidly as instinct struggled to respond to such a diminutive and odd-looking creature as a goblin, and it began to approach slowly, still harmonising.

Looking a bit confused at the sound the creature made, Jaxx was about to point his weapon at it before thinking better of it. The creature looked small at first but as it approached…Jaxx realised how big it actually was. Bigger than anything he saw. He was bigger than the rest of the goblins but this was bigger than the biggest goblin. 

He threw the piece of meat he held in his hand towards the creature and nodded at it. Either it would’ve been dangerous and ate the meat then tried to attack him to eat him, at which Jaxx would defend himself or he’d run away, hoping his legs would be fast enough to carry him far from this shiny creature. The creature startled a moment, and then curiosity took over. It reached out with one crystal hand and prodded the meat. It picked it up and brought it close, looking it over. It studied how the meat flexed, how it desiccated in the sand.

And then it dropped the meat, and leaned down to take a closer look at the goblin, its first ever sight of such a thing. It harmonised again, mimicking the goblin’s original sounds in a lilting sing-song as it reached out, intent on poking the thing and seeing if it resembled the meat.

The goblin was…perplexed. He didn’t understand this creature. It didn’t want to eat. Meat. There’s nothing else to eat, why would it refuse meat? At that moment, the creature made the same sounds, albeit a bit like music, to him. He lifted his bone “weapon” and pointed it at the crystal creature and said, in the most “do not approach more, I don’t want to hurt you” tone:

“[color=gray]Ooo! OO![/color]” while with the other hand, Jaxx made a pushing sign by having an open palm and approaching it to his body and then away from it. The strider suddenly straightened out, taking a defensive posture, spikes on the back of their arms presented as they backed away. The kaleidoscope of colours first darkened, and then, to the goblin, violently brightened; an instinctive reaction, all the reflected light pointed towards Jaxx.

Jaxx’s eyes burned from the sudden light and he put his hand up to cover them while also moving to the side, trying to avoid the creature’s light “attack”. 

“[color=gray]A! A! A![/color]” he shouted as ran around trying to circle the creature and then it clicked in his mind. The creature mimicked his sounds. Friendly. No danger.

He then stopped and did something that made his self-preservation instinct shout at him. Jaxx dropped his bone “weapon” and approached the creature slowly, one hand covering half covering his eyes while the other hand was open and pointed towards the creature. Though he could not see it, the creature remained ready to strike, warily watching as the goblin approached. It did not move away, but it remained dead silent and tense.

When Jaxx made contact, it was nothing like him. It was hard and unyielding, like solid rock; likely the first the goblin had ever felt of such material. The strider still stood there, silent and tense as it waited to see what the goblin would do.

Jaxx was, once more, very amazed at the material the creature was made of. Whatever it was, it felt durable and strong. Stronger than the bones of his people, stronger than the rocks and definitely stronger than his meat. It was amazing. Unknowingly, Jaxx was in tears, tears of joy of finding something so…perfect. He didn’t understand the feeling but he knew he met a creature truly wonderful. 

“[color=gray]Ooo, Jaaaxxx![/color]” he shouted while pointing at himself with a hand, while the other one was gently petting the creature. The creature, slowly and hesitantly, stretched one of its arms out and responded, “Jaaxxx,” in its songlike voice. It then repeated it several times for good measure. Then, it pointed the arm back at itself, and tilted its head as it stood there, towering over the goblin.

Jaxx nodded at the creature with a big smile on his face and while pointing at it, said “Jaxxx”, letting the x’s longer than when he said his name. He petted the creature gently on its crystalline body and motioned it to smell him. He didn’t know what the creature was or if it couldn’t even smell but that’s how it was in his tribe, they smell each other, smell nice, friend if not…not friend. Not that they have found any friends since they were created. 

The strider’s head suddenly snapped away, to some distant point. The winds were changing; it had studied the sandstorm enough to recognize when it was due to whip up. It further recognized the frailty of the meat the goblin was made of, and how sand at such speed could strip it. There were seconds left to spare before the front came. The strider acted, and it acted quickly.

It grabbed the goblin with both of its manipulator hands, and held him in place as it wrapped its tail around the diminutive creature. Just as it did so, the front came and any noise was overwhelmed by the whipping of sand as the sun darkened. As the light left, so too did the reflection, and it was replaced by the dim glow of fibre optic veins. The light shimmered through the body, a criss-cross of veins like a dense symphony scattered across the goblin’s sight.

Jaxx was initially defensive when he got grabbed before realising what was happening. A sandstorm. Bigger than the one he encountered before. Stronger.  Jaxxx was saving his life and not attacking him. Jaxx stopped trying to fight Jaxxx and let himself be covered up by Jaxxx…that is until the sandstorm was upon them. The wind and the sand slowly started to cut into his skin even as he was mostly covered up by Jaxxx and he let out a shout of pain. His vision started to dim and he felt his lifeforce being drained away but before he could close his eyes…he appeared somewhere else and saw goblins. Many, many goblins and someone else. Just a glimpse of a divine being. 


[hider=Summary]
Galaxor starts telling a story about himself before realising it ain’t about him. Anyways, one of Galaxor’s divine sparks falls in an uninhabitable desert and the group of goblins dies. All but one 2 metre tall goblin with gray skin called “Jaxx”. He ends up eating and drinking his tribe in order to survive. As he was just about to get out of the desert, he meets a crystal creature and while initially gets flashbanged by it, they befriend one another and he calls it Jaxxx. 

A very strong sandstorm appears out of nowhere and Jaxx [color=red]d[/color][color=green]i[/color][color=yellow]e[/color][color=blue]s[/color] or would’ve if not for Asheel’s cycle saving him right before falling unconscious. 

[/hider]