Scene 1: Ancient Varisia, Lurkwood Forest – Faunra Felldoom
My village was a small one, normally left alone by the Wizard Kings and Runelords of Thassilon. There wasn't much of value, and it was more of a bother to march in and harass the elves, rather than just leave them be. That was just how the elves liked it. I thought of herself as pretty much just a regular elf. She was good with a boy, studied magic and other arcane knowledge, and spent her time in the woods. She hasn't had much time to differentiate herself from her other master's pupils, but she hoped that her devotion to the things that he would teach them would proof to be the difference. Unlike some of the other students, I decided to study intensively on the subjects of monster identification, focusing on the creatures of Magic, the Aberrations from another realm, and other creatures from the Planes. During this focus, she learned some secrets on how to effectively hunt Shadows and other incorporeal creatures. You never know when Xanderghast might send his shadow army against the tribe to try to bolster his forces. The other undead that he might send would be hemmed up by the ground for the most part and the tribe could dispose of them at distance.
One day, a representative of the Runelord Karzoug came to the village. His master, Karzoug demanded a sacrifice of several elves from the village as test subjects for some experiment he was doing. As a whole, the village council, including my master, rejected this audacious demand and sent the representative packing. As soon as the vile messenger was clear of the forest, the council announced this to the rest of the small village. As a whole, the village decided to relocate to another part of the forest and gear up for war. The backing behind this was universal, so the people were preparing for a fairly long time. It wasn't until a decade had passed, and I had finished her apprenticeship that the town started to relax. Maybe the attack would never come. Humans were notoriously short lived beings, maybe he had gotten bothered with something else and just forgot about a small group of elves in a forest. Eventually, it was noticed that contact with the outside world stopped entirely.
There was never really a lot of outside people coming in, but maybe once a season, a human trader might come in to try to exchange some metal things for some of the resources that nature has given us. It was the human way to always want more than they could get. We were all free to not trade with them, but sometimes they brought things that were just so fascinating. This one time he brought Candy! Who knew that the humans had developed such a thing? But alas, for several years, there had been no traders. If the humans were told to not interact with us, then so be it. Life would continue as it had for us, for centuries. Nothing to worry about, really.
One day, a group of hunters had come back and told us of a pond with a water mephit had been found. Apparently none of the Hunters spoke Aquan, and the mephit didn't speak our tongue. One of the hunters spoke a smattering of the Angel's tongue, enough to determine that one of the mephit speak the same, and told them that they would get someone to go talk to the mephit. I volunteered, as I knew Celestial and had studied Planar beings. I gathered up all of the things I might need to be out for a while, and went to go talk to this visitor to our realm. The mephit was polite enough, and was happy to hear from someone. Apparently, he thought that there had not been elves in this wood for centuries, and had not seen anyone in a long time.
A lot of the conversation was difficult, because there were not words for a lot of things that he tried to communicate. It took quite a few days, but apparently the mephit was insane. It had thought that there was a calamity of giant stones falling from the sky, and a lot of the world being cast into darkness. The mephit wasn't impolite or angry, so I took down all of his words to take back to the council. I pressed for details where I could, and challenged what I had thought the council would have wanted to have challenged. As I returned from the days long conversation, a flash of light went through the forest. I worried that the Runelord had finally struck, and quickened my pace to get back.
When I got to where our village was, it was empty. No dead, no wounded, no enemy soldiers, nothing. It looked like the village had been empty for centuries, if not millennia. Tree houses had been overgrown from lack of use and pruning. Foundations had crumbled and the smith's forge had rusted away. Even the Anvil had rusted away. This wasn't natural. This could only be magic. There could only be one thing that caused this. Karzoug had finally struck her people. He had to pay for what he did. I don't know how I would do it, but I will make him pay for his destruction of my village. All I know about him is that I think he was south of us. At least that was where the representative had come from and where he went back. I'll start heading that way. I'll keep my plans a secret for as long as I can.
I gathered up my supplies, found what meager things I could to round out my travelling supplies and started heading south. I thought it best that I keep to myself, but there were times where I would encounter some human who tried to talk to me. They didn't seem to be able to speak the same languages as me, so I just left them be and they pretty much just ignored me. I had heard of a weapon of great power that could be used to launch mystical attacks from far away to the south. Maybe that is where I can head first to find out more information. To effect a place that is dozens of miles away would need to use a hellishly powerful artifact like the one that I am heading towards.
First, however, I need to check out this building up ahead. It looks like it is at least a hundred years old, but it wasn't here when I travelled this way two decades ago, just after my naming ceremony. Shortly before that vassal came forth and made the demands of Karzoug. Must focus on the task at hand. It looks like this building is a temple of some sort. Maybe the head priestess is of a good deity and she'll help me. Apparently the Masked Abbess is at least willing to help. She told me that most of the information that I could need would be able to be acquired by heading to Sandpoint to talk to a person by the name of Broderick Quint. Apparently he was a sage with a specialty in ancient Thassilon.