Hasco | Pirate/Candidate | Male

Name: Hasco, alias "Chaos"
Honorific: S'co
Age: 21
Season of Birth: Late Summer
Birth Hold/Weyr: Bitra Hold
Time at Hold/Weyr(s):
Bitra Hold
Avrin Seahold
The High Seas
Greenfields Hold
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Rank: Apprentice Fisher, Pirate, future Candidate
Dragon/Wher: N/A
Pets: None


Play-By: Robin Lord Taylor
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Black
Height: 5'10"
Build: Scrawny
Overall Description:

Likes: Money, being respected, getting away with stuff, looking spiffy
Dislikes: Authority (other people having it, that is), bad ale, fighting, the color yellow
Strengths: Cunning, charismatic, adaptable
Weaknesses: Conniving, disloyal, ruthless
Overall Description:

Mother: Colleen, Holder
Father: Terhas, Master Beastcrafter
Siblings: Teracol, brother, +6 turns, Master Woodcrafter; Collas, brother, -9 months, Journeyman Beastcrafter
Children: If he has any, Faranth have mercy on us all
Background:

It was six turns after the birth of their first child that Collene and Terhas welcomed their second son into the world. It would be a scant nine months after that their third and final child was born. Living in the shadow of his older brother, who was already proving to be a prodigy at woodcrafting, and being left behind in favor of his "irish twin" who required a little more care due to being younger, Hasco found that he would need to be largely independent after his toddler years passed. His father was often busy tending his flocks of ovines, his mother was busy tending the house or coddling Collas, and by then, Teracol was old enough to have been shipped off to Lemos to start a formal apprenticeship with the woodcrafters. So Hasco spent his childhood days mucking around with the other boys in their collection of holds just far enough away to not be considered part of the main Bitran hold. As young boys are wont to do, Hasco and his little gang got into messes, got into stores, and got into trouble. Oh, young Hasco got plenty of belts across his bottom, but in the end, that only made him more defiant.

As he grew and started on his harper lessons, Hasco learned his letters and his numbers, words and reading and all that junk required by the Lord Holder and the Masterharper. In the end, however, it proved to be yet another basis for Hasco's troublemaking; eventually Hasco realized his name was an anagram of "chaos," and he went by that moniker amongst his friends ever since. Unfortunately for the rest of the hold, it seemed to have given the boy free reign to cause said chaos. At first, many brushed it off as the whole "boys will be boys" idea, thinking they would grow out of it. No one ever thought to make sure they weren't picking up some of the tricks of the Bitrans, like sleight of hand and how to properly cheat at dragon poker. No one was betting for marks, after all. Not with kids playing that didn't have a mark to their name.

Eventually Hasco became old enough that he was expected to either pick a craft or start lending a hand with the ovines. Begrudgingly, he took up the shepherd's crook and spent days staring at beasts placidly grazing. The only good thing about the situation, in his mind, was that it gave him time to think, rather than just act and react with his gang. Thinking led to plotting. Plotting lead to conclusions that he was better than this, and he would not only get out of watching ovines, he would come to owning the entire hold. Then maybe all of Bitra. His ideas were a bit grandiose at the time, but it was a start.

His plan came to a head one night, with him and one of his closest buddies sneaking out around midnight towards the home of the Lord Holder's steward. While their work was a bit clumsy, they managed to pick the lock and get inside. Navigating in the dark was a bit difficult, but since the steward's son was one of their "friends," they knew the place well enough. Still, creeping through the inky darkness towards the steward's office, one misstep caused a foot to get caught on an end table, and the thump of a boy hitting the floor was accompanied by the crash of pottery falling with him. Curses followed, both from the boys and the steward rushing downstairs to catch the culprits. In an effort to get away, Hasco's cohort tossed him towards the steward, effectively distracting the man so he could get away. It was then that Hasco learned the true pain of retribution and that no one was a friend, no one was to be trusted.

Herding clearly wasn't going to be an option for the boy, considering it wasn't an effective way to manage his time in the past. And so, with the welts of his lashes just barely starting to cool, Hasco was shipped off to the steward's Master Fisher cousin, who worked a small hold along Sabishi's coast. Here, he had eyes on him constantly, since the boy was now considered an apprentice rather than a shepherd's son. Acting out meant punishment, so he could either go straight like the apprenticeship was intended to do, something the Chaos resented, or he could learn subtlety and finer ways of trickery. Subterfuge took practice, but considering his lineage, it came somewhat naturally. Eventually he was conning fellow apprentices into taking his share of chores. He was sneaking in shoddy work between acceptable pieces enough that they went unnoticed. Eventually Hasco went so far as to "buddy up" with a journeyman and gain some reputation as a decent apprentice. This led to him finally moving from tying nets and baiting hooks to actually working as a ship's boy. The work wasn't necessarily better, but the sea at least held some freedom. He still chafed against the hierarchy, but the occasional "slip" off-deck was enough to satiate his need for attention and allowed him to further butter up his shipmates with so much fake gratitude when he was "saved."

His eventual plan to bid his way into an early, early journeymanship in an effort to get his own small boat and get the shell out of those waters was ended by an unanticipated but highly lucrative happenstance. The ship he was on was held up by a gang of pirates, looking for supplement their supplies with the fresh water and fish that had been caught and carried with. Their dory had no chance of fighting against the larger brigantine the pirates had, and so the fishers surrendered quickly in favor of not losing their lives. The others just wanted to get back to the mainland. Hasco, however, saw the huge potential that opened up to him. Sure, there was still work to be done, but the profit. Sure, this particular heist was for survival rather than complete gain, but trader ships were out there. The fisher crew was beaten, Hasco included, but he swore to Between and back that he would be a loyal pirate if they would just let him join. Thus, while the others were dumped back onto their little boat to drift back as a warning to the fishers, Hasco was sent, bruises and all, up into the rigging to set the sails for their escape.

And thus the real Chaos was born.

Chaos's groveling brought him favor with the captain, the man having no qualms over hearing his praises. It brought ire from the other deckhands, but promises were made, over-promises were made, a few were kept, which was enough to keep Chaos alive, but very quickly it became obvious that his conning skills needed a bit of refining. Also a reset. Soon enough, the ship harbored in a small cove somewhere along the Nerat peninsula to offload cargo to some traders who would then launder the items. While fishers did, on occasion, come to the cove to ply their craft, largely it was used as an easy way to ferry cargo from ships to shore in dinghies and the like. Hasco took what he could of his pay after one such trek and before the rest of the crew noticed high-tailed it to the nearest cothold. It didn't take much for Hasco to spin a sad story and get a fortnight's stay out of pity and the promise of help with chores and the like. He could handle animals, and the pirates had no interest in bothering with livestock or chasing after some snot-nosed kid that hadn't done really any harm that they wouldn't have done right back. And so he spent the two sevendays waiting patiently for his next opportunity.

He boarded the next ship lacking a fisher's flag to come to port without really any notice - most assumed he was one of the traders lending a hand so the exchange could be made more quickly and thus reduce the chance of being caught. The crew didn't realize he had stuck around until after they had gone to sea. Chaos did his work, he did it well and without complaint, and so the captain didn't have much of an issue with another hand on deck. The rest of the crew didn't have much issue after some of Chaos's jewelry went missing and subsequently one of their number went missing; the share of the loot was back to the even they were content with, and so the pirates went right on with their business. In time, Chaos's plans for world domination and the like were ignored in favor of the loot he had saved over the turns; he chose to live the grandeur of the wealthy on a small island southeast of Ista that had become a pirate's paradise. And thus Chaos lived the life he imagined as a Lord Holder, having all the finery, food, booze, and whores he could, all while still in the last of his teen years.

Needless to say, the situation didn't last long. Not long enough, of course. Marks were going out, but without excursions out to sea, his only methods of earning were stealing or conning, something not easy to do among thieves and murderers. He did sell off some of the opulent clothing and jewelry he had gained, but that was contrary to his intent. The only way to gain and keep what he wanted was to gain and keep power and thus protect it. All the little seeds of Chaos's decade-old plot were sprouting to the point where he was able to finally see the big picture again. Having the power of a Lord Holder, the wealth of a merchant, and the unscrupulous minions to get him what he wanted, no matter what it was? Yes, that was what he had been striving for all along, and now he simply had to take those last steps to achieve his lofty, terrible dream.

Once more, Chaos joined the next crew of pirates on their way out, fighting along side them, gaining his share of their lucre, making "allies" of trader, pirate, and captains alike. Unfortunately for him, the First Mate wasn't so keen on the too-friendly Chaos, and deduced, in part because she had done it herself, that he was working to get her job. Or, at least, work his way towards it. Accusations of mutiny were quickly spread through the crew, and using her favor with the captain, the first mate had Chaos bound to his chest of goodies and thrown overboard for his real but not yet complete plan to take over the ship. As luck would have it, the wood was just buoyant enough to allow him to drift to a nearby sand bar. He was alive, though, frankly, that wasn't likely to remain for much longer. Having little other choice, he picked himself up from his proverbial bootstraps (as the sodden rope kept him from really using his arms) and began walking along the sand bar. Something had to be causing the shallows that allowed such a formation in what was otherwise the middle of the sea. It seemed Lady Luck was favoring the Bitran as he not only found the small volcanic island that allowed the sand bar, but a fisher ship pulled ashore to repair a hull that had taken damage from nearby rock outcrops. Once more he told a convincing, sad tale of being on a merchant ship attacked by pirates and thrown to what would have likely been his death. He traded labor for passage back to the mainland.

Not daring to head back out to sea so quickly, given that no ship would bring on an assumed mutanist, Chaos returned to his old name and has been making his way back northwards. He doesn't plan to return to Bitra - certainly not now - but figures that perhaps Sabishi Weyr might be a good hideaway. He could avoid any holders that he had stolen from or otherwise wronged in the past and no one would likely have the slightest clue of any of the misdeeds Hasco had committed, considering how disparate the Weyr was to the Holds. It shouldn't be long until Sabishi has a much more terrible situation in their walls than they had ever expected.