Alyssa Faerondalan's page

Very short for someone of elven heritage standing at 5 foot 2 inches, she has a slim build. Gold eyes that reflect light like a cat’s, curly red hair that hangs to her shoulders and silver horns that curve back and up over her head and delicately pointed ears. Her teeth are pointed and reminiscent of a wild cat’s.

She was born in the capitol city of Iadara in Kyonin, to elven parents of high standing, tragically resulting in the death of her mother in childbirth despite the efforts of several clerics to save her. Her father, traumatized from witnessing his wife die screaming in her mysterious and painful death, had no notion of his newborn daughter’s tiefling nature at first.

Born appearing like any other elven baby, she had large blue eyes and a head of fine golden fuzz atop her head. The baby was strong, and with a powerful set of lungs screamed out her fury at the new, cold world; echoing the cries within her father’s heart. As he held his new daughter he gazed into her face and saw only the killer of the only woman he had ever loved. And his grieving heart could not bring itself to bond to this little creature. He handed her over to the wet-nurse and left to be alone with his grief.

The years passed and on her eleventh birthday she received the name Alymranthiel Laerwen Faerondalan. Her father, still a recluse, did not participate in the naming ceremony as was customary; the servants and caretakers of the large estate her family owned felt it necessary that they take matters into their own hands and name the poor child. She received her mother’s given name, in the hopes that through the child her mother’s memory would live on. Her nanny gave her the middle name “Laerwen”, meaning “maiden of the meadow”, because of the child’s love of the gardens and preference to sleep under the stars rather than in her bed.

Young Laerwen was a happy, if lonely, child, wanting for nothing but the company of others her age and her father. But he was resolute in wanting to keep her within the walls of his home, never allowing her to step outside save the gardens.

At first the servants had believed it was because he was being overprotective, but as time passed they began to suspect it was for a much darker reason. As time passed, it was becoming more and more clear that their master was slowly losing his sanity. He never left his own chambers, demanding that visitors and business partners see him there, and a few of the servants had overheard him even muttering to himself in a language that none of them could understand.

But despite their concerns, he had an iron will over his daughter’s life, and he took every opportunity he could to control her from afar. Tutors were brought to her chambers to teach her to speak, read, and write Elven but no other languages, and far earlier than was proper she began the training necessary to become a Wizard.

Laerwen was an obedient child and prone to the mischief that children are wont to do. When one of the gardeners presented her a book written in common, she was delighted to take and learn from it, hiding this and other books from her father’s knowledge.

By the time she had reached her 62nd birthday, and beginning to blossom into puberty, she was a beautiful and intelligent young lady. Her golden hair hung to her hips, and her dark blue eyes appeared that they had trapped the stars of the night sky within them. She could speak Elven perfectly, as well as several others, and while her studies in Wizardry were going slowly, she had a knack for the Evocation and Transmutation magics.

The servants had prepared a glorious party for her, and the next day she was to awaken early for the festivities. But Laerwen wasn’t feeling well, having suffered from frequent headaches the past several months, and so she retired early for the night in the hopes that a good night’s sleep would help her feeling right the next morning.

Upon closing the door to her chambers, however, she was struck with a sudden and painful throbbing in her head, strong enough that she was driven to her knees. She attempted to cry out but when she tried to open her mouth the pain spread to the sides of her face and jaw, and she felt as though someone was attempting to rip the bones from her face from the inside. She fell to the floor and curled tightly into herself, her hands gripping either side of her head. It was after several excruciating hours that Laerwen came back to herself enough to realize that she could taste blood in her mouth.

Thinking that she had bitten her lip in the painful throes of…whatever that was, she shakily stood to walk to her washroom. She noticed the moonlight coming through the tall angular windows of her bedroom seemed strange somehow…too sharp and clear to her vision. But she paid it little attention as she hurried in and bent over the sink to spit the blood out.

Her blood ran cold as she heard the “plink plink” of hard objects hitting the inside of the smoothed granite bowl. Her eyes wide, she felt with the tip of her tongue along her teeth, only to find that several of them had fallen out, and she winced as one brushed against the sharp edge of what she at first assumed was a broken fragmented tooth. How hard had she been gritting her teeth during the pain?!
In a panic she looked up to the vanity mirror and jolted in shock at what she saw. Despite the dim lighting from only the moon she could see in startling clarity, and what she saw had her choking on her own blood in order to scream. Wide eyes stared back at her with an inhuman glow the color of gold coins. Her mouth and chin were covered in blood, gaping holes where many of her teeth were missing. Her hair was matted and clumped with blood, several rivulets trailing down either side of her face, and when she reached a hand up to her head she found that her hair was coming out by the handful.

But underneath it all was the horns.

They were wicked, ugly things. Cold and grey, they twisted around themselves in a tight spiral and curved up over her scalp so closely that a deep gouge from the point gave evidence of the trail they forged as they grew.

Finally Laerwen found her voice and began screaming as loud as she could, running from her own reflection and the blood soaked demon within.

But when she exited her chambers she realized something was wrong. She could smell the blood covering her, but she could smell something else as well…smoke. And sulfur. It was then that she realized she couldn’t hear the voices of any of the servants. It was late at night, but there was always someone awake to at least guard her door as her father decried. Looking to the side of her door she found him-
Her guardsman lay in a heap, an arc of blood splatter painting the wall behind him. His abdomen was hardly recognizable for the gore and his eyes were lifeless and cloudy as one several hours dead.

“What-?” Laerwen began to say, when she heard screams from downstairs. Quickly she ran, her eyes taking in the carnage around her. Everywhere there was blood, splattered on the walls, smeared across the floor. And the smell of sulfur grew stronger with every step she took.

Finally she reached the main foyer, to find her father in the center of a horrific scene. Body parts littered the floor and piled around him, several massive hounds giving off the strong odor leaping from the deep shadows lining the wall to pounce on still writhing bodies, their vicious maws tearing the last vestiges of life from their victims. The air was quickly filling with smoke, the fire of a toppled brazier beginning to consume the floor and wall beside it. One hound shook his quarry with abandon, breaking the neck of the elf it held in its jaws and causing the decapitated head to fly in Laerwen’s direction. She looked down at it and her mind could not bring itself to connect with the situation before her. She was numb with shock as she beheld the thing, skin pale and greying, the eyes still clear from newly lost life, but all the same the unmistakable face of her beloved nanny.
“I’ve always known.” Her father’s voice rang out, speaking a language that Laerwen had never heard before but could understand, the words slithering from his lips and thrumming through her blood. Abyssal. She raised her head and stared wide eyed at him as he stood untouched amongst the horror his hounds had wrought.

“I’ve always known what you are.” He spat out the words, his lip curling in contempt. “As you tore the love of my life apart from within, I knew what you were.”

He strode forward, his steps carrying him over the corpses as though he were floating, moving him too quickly to where his daughter stood frozen from fear. His hounds vanished as his focus turned away from them, dissipating into wisps of smoke that mingled with the air. The heat was becoming oppressive as the fire reached for the ceiling with determined fingers.

He reached out and grabbed one of the horns protruding from Laerwen’s head, the action causing a sharp pain to reverberate through the newly developed growth. She let out a scream even as she was yanked forcefully back to expose her neck and chest.

“If I kill you, my family’s secret will go with you. No one will even know you ever existed.” He continued to mutter deranged as he raised a ceremonial dagger high into the air, before bringing it down in an arch aimed for her heart.

“No!” She screamed, unknowingly speaking in the same strange tongue that he had spoken. Suddenly the area around them went black, an oppressive darkness pressing in on them just as Laerwen twisted in his grasp. Being suddenly made blind in the darkness, his swing faltered and missed its target, instead the dagger digging deep into the back of Laerwen’s shoulder, glancing off the bone.

She cried out in pain but was still acting on the instinct to live, and though he could not see in the darkness, she could. His hand was still wrapped around her horn, and she shook her head to try and break his grip with little success. Instead she rushed towards him, her head turned down, and slammed the bony protrusions into the lower part of his chest. She heard the wind get knocked out of him and a sickening crunch before she felt his hand fall away and he fell back.

But his grunts and attempts to recover breath were quickly replaced with screams as Laerwen stood back up. The darkness dissipated as suddenly as it had come, to reveal that the fire had grown uncontrollable, and that she had knocked her father into the conflagration. His silk robes caught quickly, and already the hungry flames were engulfing him with no place to safely put himself out. He once again reached for her but she jumped away from him, her eyes wide as she watched him burn, nearly mesmerized by watching the man she had never known and had tried to kill her slowly die in front of her.
Only when a large timber fell from the ceiling did she realize that she had to escape, wondering at the fact that she had not fallen victim to the flames herself. She wound her way through burning pillars, her heart wrenching in sadness at the lost beauty and history that was her home, until finally she made her way outside, into the gardens.

But that was only the beginning of her story…huddled in the ferns and wild growing plants of her family’s garden; she awoke from an exhausted few hours’ sleep and instantly hoped that it had all been a terrible nightmare. But it wasn’t, and soon the elves that had come to put out the flames found her. They instantly deemed her the arson, because given her appearance she was clearly not one of them and worse; she was a Tiefling. They gave no heed to her attempts to tell them otherwise because everything that came out of her mouth was in Abyssal, and they would have killed her had she not fled.

And so her life continued this way; fleeing from city to city, town to town, village to village for the next twenty years. Her hair grew back in the color of fresh spilt blood, and a new set of teeth replaced what she had lost; the sharp pointed teeth of a wild animal.

Then one evening she lay huddled in the alley behind a tavern in a little village, she’d seen so many of them she didn’t bother to even try and remember the name of them anymore, when a large creature came tumbling out of the tavern and into the mud not far from her. He had been pushed from inside, and raucous laughter could be heard as he carefully picked himself up from the muck.

“I don’t ever want to hear your sorry excuse for music around here again!” The tavern keep, a reed thin woman with a sour face, shouted as she threw a lute through the air that connected with the back of the man’s head, causing him to fall face down into the muck once again and more laughter to erupt from indoors.

The tavern keep slammed the door shut, and as he finally managed to climb out of the mud Laerwen could see by the color of his skin and his height and build that he was a half orc. He wore a simple leather tunic and breeches, the front of which had taken the brunt of the messy exit he’d had from the tavern, and a broadsword, crossbow, and money pouch hung from his belt, looking full to bursting with coin despite his unsuccessful night. He grunted as he scraped the muck from his clothing, and Laerwen slowly stood from her crouched position and drew her knife, the same dagger that her father had put into her shoulder 20 years ago.

“You’d think they’d never seen a bard have a bad night.” He was muttering to himself when she attempted to lunge at him. But whether it was a glint of moonlight off her blade or the faint glow of her eyes, he caught the movement in his peripheral vision and grabbed her in midflight. She was a tiny thing, especially when compared to him, and quickly she found herself pounded into the same mud hole that he had just pulled himself out of.

Keeping her pinned beneath his hands he twisted the heels of his meaty palms to rest over her neck, effectively cutting off her air. “Give me one reason not to end your sorry life right now.” He growled.
Laerwen coughed and sputtered, her legs swinging around in an attempt to kick her prey-turned-predator but could not find purchase. As her vision began to go black around the edges she let go of the dagger and raised her hands to show that she surrendered.

The sight of the bony arms and hands gave her assailant pause. He released her and backed up, keeping his hands in a defensive position to show her that if she tried anything funny again he would put a stop to it, but as she scrambled up out of the mud he dropped his hands and sighed. “You’re only a starving kid ain’t ya…”

“I am no child.” Laerwen spat back at him, standing as tall as she could and attempting to look regal despite her filthy appearance. She blinked twice when she realized that even standing she was shorter than him while he was kneeling.

“Ah, a Tiefling with a complex.” The man chuckled to himself as he stood and collected his lute. “C’mon Squirt, let me buy you something to eat.”

“Don’t call me Squirt, and I don’t need-“ Her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, and after the man was able to bring himself back under control from his laughter, he propped his lute up over his shoulder said, “Well what do you want me to call you then?”

Laerwen paused, realizing that she could not give her real name. She didn’t trust him or anyone else and hadn’t for the past 20 years. No, she would keep that secret to herself.

“Alyssa.” She said, using the short version of her given name.

“Okay fine, Alyssa.” He over enunciated her name and grinned when he saw her lip curl in distaste. He held out one massive hand to her. “The name’s Cyglider, but you can call me Cy. Now be a good girl and come with me so I can have a clear conscience. I can’t stand to see a starving waif.”

And so she went with Cy, and over the meal he decided (much to her displeasure) that he was going to take her under his wing and be her mentor. The only reason Alyssa agreed was because he also offered to protect her, and in the tough world she knew that surviving alongside someone else was far preferable to surviving alone. Besides Cy knew a thing or two on how it felt to be an outcast of society. He too had lived a life of wandering because of his appearance and the lack of acceptance he could find.

So they traveled together for the next ten years, he trying to teach her barding and she failing to learn any of it. Well, except for swordplay. After several nights of catching Alyssa trying to wield his longsword, Cy surprised her with a parcel which, when she opened it, was revealed to be a rapier.

“It’s much lighter than this guy.” He said, patting the longsword on his hip. “So you can learn with this one.”

He’d begun teaching her how to fight with the sword for several months when they arrived at yet another city that Alyssa didn’t care about the name for. After another night of entertaining at the local tavern, the two were walking together back to their chosen inn when suddenly what Alyssa thought was a hand reached out and pulled Cy into an alleyway.
Alyssa only had long enough to draw her weapon before she heard Cy begin screaming, at first it was the sound the half orc would make when faced with a fighter and raising his courage, but soon the sound changed into a higher pitched, terrified shriek. She lunged forward to assist him only to be met with a wall of oppressive darkness and the smell of sulfur, with just enough ability to see body parts flying at her. “Cy!” She screamed as she felt the warm spray of blood hit her face and she tried to dodge, but she could not see his assailant or how this was being done to him. In a matter of moment her friend and mentor was torn to pieces before her eyes, and the darkness surrounding them seemed to giggle into her ear before departing.

Alyssa felt cold and numb as she fell to her knees before what was left of her friend, his remains left in a pile of gore. Slowly she stared at the remains and noticed that every piece of metal that Cy had been wearing while alive had instantly melted into an unrecognizable lump.
Except for his sword.

His longsword lay under some unknown bit of flesh, and as she picked it up she saw that the entire weapon had taken on a black ebony sheen. She held the cold metal close to herself, feeling her own heart turn as cold as steel.

“I will find what did this.” She swore quietly to herself, using the Abyssal tongue.

“I can help you.” She heard a voice within her mind speak, and at the same moment she felt the hilt of the blade in her hand tremble softly. Her eyes went wide as she realized that the sword had spoken to her.

Alyssa’s travels took her wherever her wandering feet carried her, often to places where she was run out or persecuted for her appearance and Tiefling heritage. But even so she sought knowledge, both in the blade to continue the teachings Cy had begun in her as well as the magical arts to learn more about her own blood and better temper the voices within the back of her mind that goaded her always to seek further power and destroy anything and anyone she loved.

She quickly learned that the sword would no longer speak to her, though the strange weapon always felt cold to the touch in her hand. Any and all magic users she would present the sword to would claim not to feel or sense anything unusual about the blade and would infer that she was mad, but Alyssa knew better. She would find some way to get the sword to speak to her once again and learn of its true origins, and then use it to take down whoever was responsible for the death of her friend and mentor.

On one of her many stops into libraries and colleges of learning, Alyssa had once again been turned away from being permitted to enter and peruse the books within. The librarian assuming that anything this Tiefling would want to learn could only be used to no good.

So Alyssa plotted, and in the dead of night she stole into the dark and silent library, using her own ability to see within near complete darkness to find the section of books she’d been hoping to find; tomes on summoning demons and anything she could lay her hands on having to do with shadows that lived and killed.

But as she had just begun to select the books that she would steal, a faint light and the soft sounds of footsteps came from a nearby door in the opposite wall.

Alyssa tried to hide, but as she attempted to duck into the shadows and towards the window that she’d left propped open for her exit, the longsword on her hip gave a soft but discernible tremble.

“Who is there?” A man’s voice, based on the treble and tone it was an older gentleman, with an accent that Alyssa could not place. And the sound of rustling robes.

“ক্ষীণদৃষ্টি আপনি” Alyssa muttered an elven curse under her breath.

“I know you’re there. Your magical artifact gave you away.” The man continued and the light moved closer. “You won’t make it out the window, so you might as well show yourself.”

Alyssa slowly turned to confront him, but at the last moment she dropped the books she’d been carrying in her arms and lunged. As she moved her hands appeared to be engulfed in flames, and she raised them to meet his throat. She would incinerate him and the rest of the library-

But all the old man did was stand perfectly still. His eyes widened only a fraction and Alyssa felt as though she’d run into a brick wall at full speed. She fell to her knees and gripped her horns and the sides of her head, feeling as though her skull would split open from the inside. Her concentration was completely foiled and the flames circling her fingertips puffed out as quickly as they had come.

“A Tiefling…” He said as he stood over her. He didn’t look very imposing; a neatly trimmed white beard and moustache framed his mouth and wisps of thinning hair clung to the top and sides of his head. He would look friendly if not for the hawkish nose and deep scar that marred one eye.

”Do not lump me in with that filth, স্বামী বা পিতা” Alyssa snapped even as she struggled to keep from crying out in pain. She could not even concentrate enough to discern what spell he had cast on her.

Her assailants eyebrows rose a fraction and she felt the pain abate. “A Tiefling that speaks elven? You are a unique one.” A glance at the weapons at her sides told his more. ”And one who would attack with both magic and blade?” A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth, and Alyssa snarled like a wild animal at being mocked.

The smirk was gone as quickly as it had come “You’re a fool to try and steal from this college. I could put you to death right here and no one would even bat an eyelash.” She scowled but said nothing, knowing that he was right.

”But I would be a fool to dash such a specimen to pieces.” He continued, his voice dropping as though he were speaking to himself rather than to her. After a few moments of pondering he brought his gaze back to her as though only then remembering that she were there. ”I will not carry out justice on you on one condition: allow me to learn more about you, to study you-“

A low deep growl came from Alyssa’s throat. ”I will not be your experiment. I would rather die and take you and this entire building down with me.” She’d regained enough of her concentration that flickers of shadow and darkness encircled one hand, the other landing firmly on the hilt of her ebony longsword.

But quickly the old man raised a placating hand. ”Not to study, then.” That insufferable smirk was back and although he was obviously not afraid of her, he still took a step back so as not to be within arm’s reach of her dark touch. ”Let me propose a trade:” He held his hands out in peaceful supplication. ”We only speak. Tell one another about each other. You about your past,” He paused as though weighing how wise this trade could be for himself before finally continuing. ”and me mine. Surely there is something that one such as you could learn from an old man?”

Alyssa’s scowl didn’t leave her face as she stood back up, contemplating his offer. The way this old man held himself spoke of an abundance of confidence, but the way he had handled her; without word or movement, was a skill she undoubtedly coveted. The voices in the back of her mind flitted and echoed as they argued.

হয়তো একজন বন্ধু?
پاگل مت بنو، راکشسوں، دوستوں کی ضرورت نہیں ہے.
Նա կտրել է Ձեզ կտորների ու գիտափորձի Ձեզ, դետալ առ դետալ.
بہتر ہے اس کو کاٹ قبل اس کے کہ انہیں موقع ملا ہے.
শুধু পরে আমরা কি আমরা জানতে চান শিখেছি আছে.

She gave a curt nod as she held her hand out, palm up. Her old customs were still hard to break. ”Alright.” He took her hand and turned it sideways before clasping it in a hand shake. ”What are you called?”

”I am Professor Lorrimor.”