Soot never quite fit in anywhere, from the time his gaggle of a lumberjack family found him in the woods, parents no where to be found, to growing up a human raised elf in backwoods town. He was always lanky where other children were stout, he was always inquisitive where other children were boarish, picked on by peers and neglected by his guardians due to the fact the boy woldn't ever make much of a tree chopper, they were all too happy to send him off as an aprentice to the first mad scientist that came through town looking.and so it was that Aaremeth met master wheezebag ...wheezenboog. Another Human to teach him human ways and more importantly alchemy, he was a quick learn and Wheezebag was a patient teacher, so in this aspect the two got along great, they also had a keen sense for knowldge over risk. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't have a vial of some colorful liquid sitting next to whatever meal passed for breakfast.
Then came the day that master wheezenboog blew himself up, and that was the day that Aaremeth picked up where master left off. He took the coin and everything he could carry to shop and sold off every bit and piece he could, right down to the old masters land and workshop... he moved back to his town and opened a meager shop next to the herbalists shop. The Herbalists Daughter at the time was quite the looker. and so he could stop in on the oafs who "raised him from time to time to hear of the new breakthroughs in how to swing an axe at a tree. and still have the luxury of staying his shop and out of that ale stench house.
Rough timeline of life: found by woodsmen, when aaremeth was very young 4 or 5 he spent 30 years or so there on the outskirts of falcon's Hallow, but as his siblings became his elders he was shipped off with the nice Gnome that needed a hand with his viles and herbs and bubbling concoctions.
A young fellow that finally blew himself up about fifty years later when the cataracts made him so blind he grabbed an agitator instead of the base compound he had intended.with the death of a master, the apprentice finds his worth, after clearing out His mastersshop, he returned to falcon's Hallow to start his own little shop.