Originally Posted by
Tawmis
I am going to try something a little interesting with your three submissions…
You will probably quickly see what I did… And naturally, I would love to hear your thoughts.
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My name is Alethia De’fore, and I have spent a life time trying to piece myself together. I am a Half-Elf, who as an infant, was found abandoned outside a cave. A small band of travelers seeking shelter from the coming rain storm had headed for the mountains and found me and took me in. Fortunately, one of the women, a human named Ryastone Everfall, had just had a child of her own not long ago, so she was able to breast feed me and keep me alive. Her husband, also a human, named Piotor Everfall had provided me food and furs, and together they adopted me into their family.
Throughout my teenage years, I never even considered that I looked different. The way my eyes had a slight slant, the way my ears were more pointed that my brother and sister. When I was old enough to be told the truth, I can’t explain it, but I felt betrayed. Hurt. Even though the Everfall family had nothing to do with abandoning me as an infant, I somehow misplaced my anger in them. That night I ran away; and since that night had been trying to find out who my parents were.
I had fallen in with a Thieves guild known as “The Undercurrent.” They had several mages working for them (providing a trade of service; to either steal magical items for them; or so that the Thieves could turn to the mages to get magical items identified). One of the Mages, a Half-Elf like myself, was able to find documentation from a female human that claimed she had escaped the clutches of the Drow, but that she lost her child as she escaped (forcing to leave her infant behind; which, she had been impregnated by a Drow). When I went to find this woman, I learned that she had returned to the caves to see if she could recover the infant. That was exactly eighteen years ago. My same age. I thanked the Half-Elf and returned to where the Drow cave entrance was supposedly and made my way down into the darkness. The further down I went the stranger things got; there were mushrooms taller than me; plants whose illumination pierced the darkness; I even encountered talking mushrooms of some kind that warned me to turn back; that they were guardians of a sinister secret down below. Still I pressed on, and soon found myself falling down a slippery slope for almost an hour, coming to a full stop in complete darkness. Thankfully, one of my torches also made its way down the slope and when I ignited it, I stood before a massive dark statue of what appeared to be a female elf, holding a wolf’s head before her. The statue stood nearly thirty feet tall and was composed of some form of metal or stone that was so completely black that it even seemed to absorb the light of my torch.
As soon as I ran my hand across it, my eyes rolled to the back of my head as I felt my life ebb away.
I was suddenly floating in the ethereal of complete darkness; there was no solid ground beneath me, above me, beside me, nothing. Crimson eyes suddenly appeared in the darkness. “You seek your mother,” a female voice boomed, echoing all around me, in deafening volumes.
“Who are you?” I stammered.
“Ellatorn Brokemane,” the voice boomed. “My soul is trapped in the Shadowfell. However, I can see everything. I can even see your mother.”
“She’s alive?”
“I did not say that, I merely said, I can see your mother. Bind your soul to me, become my weapon, and share your light with me, so that I can once again return to Faerûn.”
“You can show me my mother? What of my father? Is he truly a Drow?”
“Oh, he is indeed a Drow, and your mother a human.”
“Show him to me,” I said, “and my soul is yours.”
A vision appeared before me of a handsome Drow elf, with charcoal black skin and violet colored eyes.
Suddenly I felt as if I was being thrown back into my body.
My name is Kin Risha. I have spent my life manipulating people. I found I was quite skilled with telling lies and stories that others quickly believed. My mother sought to curb the behavior since such skills were not welcomed among the Drow community. It’s true, I am full blooded Drow. My people, my clan, were involved in a war that last several hundred years against The High Elves. As it turns out, a High Elf Priestess by the name of Ellatorn Brokenmane led her people into the caves to finally be rid of us. However, just as my people were about to win the war, Ellatorn turned to the darkest of magics, and resorted to Necromancy. She called upon an Evil God, and rose her people up from the dead. With no way to kill what is already dead, hundreds of my people were killed, before Ellatorn was finally stopped and captured. Rather than execute her, as we should have, we called upon our goddess, Lolth, to banish her soul to the Shadowfell, where her tainted soul will forever be corrupted by the darkness.
Her body was buried just outside of our home, a giant statue erected as a warning. In her hand, a wolf head; not as a symbol that she had killed a wolf, but that she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She had led her people, who believed in Light and Hope, and in that moment of desperation, was willing to sacrifice their souls to win the war. Now, I visit the statue, because the hatred I feel seeping from the statue inspires me to spin songs and stories about those of my people who died against a woman who was willing to sacrifice her people and her soul to win a fight, and still lose in the end.
Usually I arrive and sit there, and get inspired. But tonight something was different. I did not feel the same amount of soothing hatred, and that’s when I find an unconscious half-elf woman. I immediately tie her up and awaken her.
“What are you doing way down here?” I barked.
“My name is Alethia De’fore,” the Half-elf woman replied. “I am looking for my mother and father.”
“They’re not down here,” I sneered. “You’ve gotten yourself into trouble.”
“Look at me,” she said, “my skin! I am like you!”
“You’re nothing like me, cross breed,” I barked back. “I can smell the human on you.”
“It’s true, I am part human, but my father was a Drow, like you,” she snapped back.
“A Drow?” I titled her head back and laughed. “No Drow would lay with a human.”
“Not even if he had a slave,” she asked.
Now I was forced to be quiet. There had been some Drow who took pleasure in abusing their slaves; even sexually. “What’s your father’s name?”
The woman seemed to close her eyes and be muttering to someone as if an unseen ghost were nearby. She finally opened her eyes and said, “Scáth Risha.”
I dropped my lute. “You lie.”
“I swear it’s true,” she replied. “Do you know him?”
“He’s my father,” I growled. “Are you reading my mind?”
“No, I swear it. He had a human slave, who escaped eighteen years ago. She came back just recently looking for me. I need to see him. Or my mother. Please.”
Just as I was debating what to do with her, I heard my brother shouting, “Kin! It’s the Dwarves! They’re attacking again!”
My name is Drugar Ironguard, and I have protected my brother Bauren Ironguard all of his life. When we were born, I was born to fight. My older brother was born, thinner, frailer, and had no passion for weapons or forging. He brought, sadly, dishonor to our family clan until I came along. He spent his life studying the way of magic and how it worked, even as I studied how to shape metal and understand how it worked. He would show me a new spell he’s learned, I would show him a new weapon I had forged. But because he was my brother, I took an interest in his hobbies to better understand him, and I too began to learn to use magic. While nowhere near as good as my brother, I learned a good spell or two. My brother, one day, vanished for almost three years, and returned far more powerful than I could have imagined.
The great dishonor that he had brought on our family in his youth was immediately washed away. In our constant battle with the Drow Elves who have been a constant threat and enemy, he led became far more passionate about putting an end to them. My brother became one of the most trusted confidants to our King, King Stonebroke. He devised a plan to finally be rid of the Drow elves; and while he had the King’s ear, I was one of the King’s most trusted Warriors. I was never one to back down from a fight; as a matter of fact, I had spent most of my earlier years defending my brother from those who sought to hurt him; but this new vigor that my brother had for fighting… for war… was unsettling.
When we launched our attack against the Drow, a plan devised by my brother, that he assured King Stonebroke, would not fail because he had a “full proof plan” that he did not want to completely reveal in the event there were spies in his court.
It was no surprise, within hours, covered in blood; I could see the tide of the battle was turning against us. The Drow were capable Magic Users, something my kind rarely had stock in – except for my brother, who was standing in the front of the battle with bolts of energy and arrows barely missing him. I made my way to him and called for a retreat, but my brother demanded everyone to stand their ground.
And then I saw his master plan. He was raising the dead to fight for us. Not only Dwarves, but he was raising the Drow to fight against their own kind. I shouted to him to stop, but he could no longer hear me. In his madness, he was lost to the darkness, just like Ellatorn Brokenmane had been many years ago. Our family, after the war, which we were still forced to retreat from, had been spurned and forced away from our homes. My brother was lost somewhere in the battle. I don’t know if he lived or died.
My name is Kin Risha, and I have a Half-Elf prisoner named Alethia De’fore. My brother had warned me about the Dwarves attack – a fight we seemed to be winning until one of the Dwarves turned to Necromancy, and began raising the dead. I was cut off from my own people and forced to flee from the dead that were running rampant all over, killing Drow and Dwarf alike. I fled to the surface with my prisoner, assuming that death… or undeath… would claim my family below. Even from the surface cave, I swear I could still hear their screams…