Dolok Pickering's page

About Dolok Pickering

Dolok Pickering was born & raised right here in this very city. This is home for him. His family was very poor & worked the land as best they could as tenant farmers.

When he was a young child, Dolok was always fascinated watching the flames leaping & dancing in the fireplace or anywhere he could see the tongues of fire. His 3 brothers (Calvert, Farrell, & Sherm) & his sister (Shahana) liked the fire, but they did not find it near as fascinating as Dolok did.

It was his HUGE delight whenever the village had a festival with a big bonfire & more than once he had to be pulled back or he would have wandered right into the fire itself. This worried his parents greatly.

As he grew a little older he would often be found in an old barn or off in the woods starting fires with his flint & steel or a tinder box if he could get his hands on one. At least one old abandoned barn was burnt down accidentally (or maybe not so accidentally...). After it happened the first time they could never lay the blame on him for sure ... but the suspicion was always there. Shahana (his sister) tried to discourage him from playing with fire so much, she knew how dangerous it could be, but his 3 brothers found it quite fun! BUT, one fateful day Dolok was not aware that his little brother Sherm was in the barn watching him, waiting for the fun fires that usually sprung up around Dolok. The fire did come & spread faster than Sherm expected it! There was nothing Dolok could do! Sherm was lost to Dolok's passion & carelessness that day. Dolok quit playing with fires.

Then ... he saw the blacksmith's fire!!! He realized the potential that this fire was in a 'controlled' environment. He started hanging out there as much as he could, it was so intense & hotter than the previous fires! At first the Blacksmith would chase him off, but then the blacksmith (Mr Figueroa) figured maybe the boy could be of some help keeping his fire stoked since that was what the boy seemed to like so much anyways. And free help is always usefull! As time went on Mr Figueroa came to realize that his fire was burning better & hotter than it ever had before, making his work faster & easier. Dolok was quite content getting to play with this fire all the time & the village was content not to have any other buildings being burnt down.

The more time that Dolok spent in front of the the fire, he could almost imagine he could hear the tongues of fire whispering to him, encouraging him & instructing him on how to make them burn hotter & longer.

Naturally as he spent time there, he would also observe the blacksmith at his work some & he started realizing that this was another use to fire, for without his fire Master Figueroa would not be able to creat the things he did. So then Dolok started getting more interested in how he could create things by means of his fire & he has recently started to learn how to make some minor armor & weapons. He has also become closely attached to Master Figueroa who claims to care not for but the use the boy is, but of course he is just a great, big lovable guy who actually has come to care deeply for "the boy".

"The boy" is finally becoming of age, but many people still distrust him due to the fires of the past. He must find some way to gain their trust ... .