Beneath a small house in the hamlet of Augerstone lay a simple, well-crafted stone basement. It is unique to the village, a home with a basement, but it is otherwise wholly unremarkable. Farm tools adorn nails chipped into the stone here. Spare cloth and food supplies for winter are bundled in the corners. The family occupying it are hardworking folk, never discovering the trap door in the floor leading to another level. Through this trap door, a narrow hallway leads down to what appears to be a bunker. Stone ramparts crowd the entrance as if to ward off a siege, side rooms with arrow slits partition the area, and rusted vats lay overhead, once ready to pour boiling oil down over attackers’ heads. Now, however, its halls are silent, garrison weapons rusted away, its unknown guardians long turned to dust. At the end of the long line of defenses sits a door that has never been opened. And finally, beyond that, lay a stairwell unending, a strange tower spiraling down into the deep earth. Its steps have never held the feet of a living creature. Glowing, psychic runes skitter across the walls, their energy resonating powerfully even to this day. It is here at the bottom of the endless stair, the powerful alien aboleth known as Ty'lothepp waits. Imprisoned within by a sisterhood of powerful druids and wizards in a time when the world was young, the magic sealing it away causes the stair to tunnel deeper into the earth if a living creature ever attempts to descend to free the aberration, partially existing within the plane of earth. In the many years following its imprisonment, it put itself into a deep slumber, and something odd occurred in those depths. Rather than weaken over the ages, the magic started to change the aberration instead. Each day, little by little, Ty'lothepp became more attuned to the wards. The resonance frequency that pulsed up and down the tower sent sweeping emanations throughout the nearby countryside and started to affect the family living above. When Ty'lothepp turned in its sleep, so too did all the residents of Augerstone in their slumber...
Into this home Mirima Coldwater was born, a pair of retired swords-for-hire as her parents. Her childhood was, for the most part, idyllic. Augerstone, though small and remote, held the perfect mix of routine work and adventure to keep young Miri’s insatiable mind occupied. She quickly outgrew the small school the town had to offer and ranged farther and farther out, exploring the nearby environs. She discovered her innate magic and worked with the local wizard in his tower to perfect it, but could never view magic the same way as he did.
As the years went on, however, her home life became increasingly chaotic. Her mother and father argued unceasingly about even the smallest matters. Miri returned home one day from a jaunt into the surrounding forests, exploring a ruined fort, and expected to find life as it had always been there, but found death waiting for her within the house instead. Her father had been killed by her mother after an especially loud argument one day, and her mother had fled. At the trauma of finding her father dead, still lying in their living room, the dust collecting over his body, her magical powers finally exploded into true form, acid spraying from her hand onto dishes, tables, portrait frames. She curled herself in the corner, muttering, ”No, no, no, no, no, no.”
After some time had passed, she managed to calm herself, ordering her mind.
