The raven-haired Kharidian trudging through a cavern.
Ali Beladin Traven is a character roleplayed by the player "TacticalAlej".
At first glance, Ali is a young man with rather flamboyant mannerisms. He is softspoken but gregarious, and his personality tends to clash with his usually flamboyant appearance.
He is a monster slayer by trade, and hs earned a degree of renown from his exploits. One could seek him out through a Slayer's Directory.
Personality[]
Ali is a very affectionate soul, and lonely by nature. He is driven to help others, hence his chosen profession, which he has gained a degree of renown in. To some, he may seen quiet at first, but friendship will quickly reveal he is more confident and cheeky than he lets on to be.
The lad loves human life, he celebrates and cherishes it, hence his chosen profession. He also treasures simplicity, which is disturbingly rare in the turbulent world he resides in.
Ali sometime after Maerith's release.
History[]
An infant upon a bed of seaweed washed up onto Rimmington's shore on a balmy summer day. A Kharidian man by the name of Ali Khalid Beladin found the boy during his fishing trip and immediately headed to the nearest town, Port Sarim with the baby in tow. In town, he sought a doctor to affirm the screaming child's health. The baby had certainly not eaten in a long while but was ultimately nursed back to health. With no one to raise him, Khalid took upon himself to adopt the boy. The man was well into his fifties, but he felt compelled to take on the role of surrogate father, partly due to human empathy, and partly due to his religious conviction as a pious Saradominist. He thought the opportunity to raise a child and deliver him from danger was a sign from his higher power; a chance to repent for his past sins.
When Khalid's custody of the infant became official, he packed his supplies and trekked back to his hometown Lumbridge. He had decided to name the child Ali, a name that carries much weight in the desert. The name promises greatness and glory and can be translated many ways to mean "great prophet" or "chosen one." To someone unfamiliar with Kharidian culture, the name could simply seem unimaginative, though.
Ali grew into a relatively healthy child, nurtured by the affectionate Khalid. His childhood was unremarkable, and he played and went to school like any other child in his swampy, backwater town. His life as a boy in Lumbridge established two things. It became apparent that the lad was utterly incapable of casting magic, even with the runes that made humanity's arcane pursuits so much easier. School wizards decided he could not be taught and transferred young Ali to an extracurricular activity of his choice. Ali stuck with art class instead, and he never looked back to what could have been. When more attuned students were casting wind rushes at chickens, he was drawing the scene.
Young Ali also became enraptured with the near constant struggle between the Lumbridge Guard and the goblin hordes plagued the small swamp town. The romance of it all captured his imagination, and scenes of epic, exaggerated battles were the subject of many of his drawings. Khalid was both proud of his "son" for his vivaciousness and talent, but also worried for his foolhardiness. There were times where Lumbridge citizens were ordered to stay indoors during a goblin skirmish in the swamp, and young Ali would try his damnedest to evade capture to witness the battle. The sight never lasted more than a minute or two before a guard or citizen would find the lad and whisk him back to safety.
Meanwhile, Khalid's health began to deteriorate, and Ali's clandestine outings did not help the old Kharidian's condition.
Eventually, Ali came of age to choose a profession and become one's apprentice. His circle of friends all supported his decision to become an artist of some sort. Excited with his aspirations and encouraged by his peers, he ran home to tell Khalid. The opportunity never came, however, for when young Ali arrived home, he was devastated to find his surrogate father lying deathly still upon his bed, having quietly passed away in the midst of his diminishing health. Art supplies fell from the bereaved boy's grip, and charcoal pencils shattered upon floorboards.
Khalid was given a modest burial, and the entirety of Lumbridge's meager populace attended. The day might have held the solemn yet serene air that a day of mourning might usually offer if a small band of goblins had not stormed in from the south to raid the town's cellars. Two guards were killed, and another badly injured. Something about the tense skirmish resonated within the bereaved and heartbroken Ali, and the lad of eighteen made a rash and sudden career change. With no one but close church friends to stop him, Ali packed what little he had and hitched a ride on a cart north to Varrock.
The large, bustling city of Varrock was a new experience to young Ali. The wealthy were overly so, and the destitute poor slinked in their shadows, all in one diverse, epic myriad of every corner of the human condition. Ali's wide eyes were immediately drawn to the grand palace that loomed over its fortified walls, and he set course it's courtyard. He didn't make it that far, though, for he was almost knocked over in the massive crowds of people that occupied the square. Eventually, he recovered and found his bearings, and a voice amongst the urban chorus caught his ear.
He had stumbled upon a Varrock Border Guard recruiter, who promised unfaltering discipline, unconquerable strength, and the glory of felling many a beast. Ali had found what he was looking for and was immediately sold. He signed his name away, and he was off to become a private in Varrock's border ranks.
Young Ali's training readied him for the badlands' unforgiving terrain, and even less forgiving denizens. He was trained in bowmanship, swordsmanship, as well as the art of the pole arm, though he was only moderately successful in that particular art. Training also involved conditioning youths to curb their fear against inhuman beasts. In six months, Ali was tossed into the field, expected to keep Varrock free of monstrous invaders alongside his fellow guardsmen.
The lad and his company patrolled the shallow depths of the badlands for two years, crushing the skulls of undead skeletons and skewering giant rats. The company's third year held something else in store for them. They were assigned on a mission to trudge deeper into the wilderness, deeper than they have ever done before, to seek out and exterminate a nest of demons that were said to haunt the area. Reports state the beasts were steadily migrating south toward civilization, and so they were to be slain before they had a chance of nearing the city.
The company marched off into the unknown, past scorched trees, massive remains of mysterious beasts, and the foot of an ominous volcano. Their march was plagued with the typical mob of skeletons, but not much hindered them from reaching their destination, the site projected to house a alleged southbound demon nest. What they found was a blasphemous synagogue, built in Zamorak's name. Surely if there was a nest of demons, they would lurk in that sacrilege of a rock!
The building was abandoned, it seemed. It was deathly quiet, not in the way an abandoned room would be, but more like the heavy ether in the air that precedes a flash of lightning.
...And then it happened. A crimson rift flashed to life, and the maw of an insectile, man-sized creature bursted forth, dragging one of the soldiers to some darker, extraplanar tomb. The flash was gone as quick as it came, and for a moment, no one reacted, as if they could not believe their eyes.
The horror was indeed a reality, however. The unholy chamber bled crimson light as several more rifts tore through space, releasing a horde of eight, jet black, otherworldly monstrosities, each one's movements swift and jagged like massive insects.
For Ali, all went dark.
...When the lad awoke, he was lying upon a bunk bed, within a familiar barracks in a very familiar castle. the calendar marked six months since he was last on his feet, and his memories of the wilderness incident blur just short of that fateful march into hell's maw. Understandably, one would find themselves extremely disoriented and confused after such an extensive lapse of consciousness, but the resident medic, and Ali's superiors all insisted he had sustained a massive injury on duty, and little else. The mysterious disappearance of his entire company was never thoroughly explained to him, and was covered up in one way or another. Ali's third year of service finished with an honorable discharge and a small sum of gold. What now, Ali?
With six months of his life lost, Ali was not sure how to proceed in life. He had been dismissed from the Border Guard, and his inquiries of his company's whereabouts were met with only vague answers and what was essentially a small bribe. Twenty-one year old Ali had nowhere to go except back to Lumbridge, though the prospect of returning home at that point in time did not sit well with him. Wanderlust began to creep into his heart, and he soon found himself in Draynor, where a cry for help, a trio of zombies, and a grateful husband set him on the path to seek a Slayer Master and begin his adventure.