*shrugs* Been entertaining myself by writing this. Don't know if it's any good, but here goes... Feel free to say what you really think of it.
Hail and well met; I am Dragoon Tassos N'blm of the
famed Indigo Brotherhood.
Bah! For the love of the Gods, please stop looking
at me like that. If I wished to kill you, you would have been dead long
before this. Try some of this wine, it's my family's favorite vintage;
it's from the best Firiona Vie vineyards.
I was born...
Damnit, are you going to just stare at that glass
or drink it? Poisoned? Why in the name of your Gods would I poison it?
Of all the... There's a fine line between caution and cowardice, and you've
just crossed it.
*The Dragoon grabs your glass and downs the wine
in a single gulp.*
There, now that I have satisfied your paranoia,
will you drink your wine like a civilized being?
Thank you. Now, where was I? Oh yes...
I was born nearly fourty elven years ago in Neriak
to a lady of ill-repute. Not a very glamorous way to begin your life, but
it was -and still is- sadly commonplace.
My mother had once been an attraction in a seedy
Freeport bar on the bad side of the city. Apparently, at one time, she
befriended a wizard who had been exiled from the realms of the Teir'Dal
and treated as if he was a Koada'Dal. He tricked her into laying with him,
and then betrayed her to the city guards. When she discovered she was carrying
a child, she returned to Neriak and took her...assets to the Maiden's Fancy.
Other than that, I never was told much about my beginnings. My mother never
said much about him, beyond cursing him and his other pale-skinned brats.
I didn't learn much more about my father until I was nearly a decade old.
Anyway, I grew up not far from the Hall of the Ebon
Mask, in the loft of a shop near the Maiden's Fancy. We lived comfortably,
for my mother seemed to make a large amount at her work.
From what I remember about my mother, she was beautiful
and quite intelligent. Intelligent enough, that I remember comments about
her using Lifetap on any customer who refused to pay what she asked. She
also had the habit of bringing home higher paying customers for a "private
show" as she called it. However, she was kind to me; pampering me in every
way possible.
I suppose it was pity. I was a Wizard's Get; much
too skinny and small for my age, and pathetically weak. I often remembered
being called a variety of names by young and old alike. However, so long
as my mother was there, I was perfect.
I chuckle now, but it was a serious matter the day
after I turned four when I walked upstairs to hear my mother had brought
home yet another man for the "Private Show." These men were not always
kind; many seemed like a male lion - more than willing to commit infanticide
in order to have the mother all to themselves. That night, I crawled into
my hiding place that muted all sound and light later, and slept what would
be my last peaceful sleep in several years.
Ladies of the Night seldom live long lives; many
times I'd seen the corpses of ladies in various states of undress carried
to a wagon and carted to the Lodge of the Dead. In fact, it became almost
routine to see a bouncer or rogue do that. I long hoped that nothing would
happen to my safe little world, however my mother was no exception to this
macabre rule.
I woke up the next morning, and went up into my
mother's room to tell her that we needed to buy more of some trivial item
like I always did in the mornings. Her door was ajar, and the glimpse I
got inside was more than enough to make me run downstairs and out into
the city to get some help. I finally found some assistance in the form
of two elders of The Ebon Mask.
They went into my house, into my mother's room,
and carried my mother's corpse out of the house. They dumped her body,
wrapped only in a blanket she had made for me once, into the cart as if
it were just so much garbage. I watched numbly as the cart rattled over
the cobblestones, until they were out of sight.
I don't know what God was looking out for me, but
I turned on my heel and ran back into the house. I packed what I could,
somehow knowing not to pack my toys, but rather clothing, food, and a dagger
my mother had always kept hidden in the kitchen. Somehow I knew that my
house was no longer mine. Somehow knew I should not be there when the strangers
would come.
Then, barely able to walk for the weight of the
backpacks and my heels crying in pain from the new boots my mother had
given me for my birthday, I started out into the city.
I didn't get very far before I was struck by a peculiar
odor.
Even to this day I can't describe it. It smelled
like lightning, and rain, and wind when it's cool and fresh. I'd never
smelled anything like it in all my life, for no breeze could penetrate
the depths of Neriak, and if it were able, it would not have smelled still
of lightning and water.
I followed it.
I ran, forcing my weak, child's body faster and
faster.
Finally, I stopped at the base of a steep hill leading
out of Neriak and into the Nektulos Forest. The smell was still there,
but stronger, more compelling.
Without hesitating, I ran outside after it. What
would happen next, would change my life.