Myrandya's page

Myrandya's earliest memory is, predictably, her father nuzzling her hair with his wildly prickly beard. "Ach, my little treasure," he would say. She remembered grabbing for him with her tiny, tiny hands-- once she got a fistful of nose and he laughed and laughed until he choked. "Back to the Fault vizh you," he said, and put her to bed, tapping her forehead with one of his magic wands. She was so proud of Papa, for he was an accomplished magic-user and the smartest person who ever lived, according to the stories. Years ago, he and several other heroes had saved the world by defeating a group of ancient wizards called the Runelords. That was before he built the Vault, where she was born.

Another time he woke her for her lessons, and she bravely asked "Papa, vhere is my mozher?" He cackled, and his eyes sparked with pride. He indicated a crystal cauldron on the shelf, and explained how he had called an outsider spirit to serve him. "Zhis flask became her vomb, and you grew inside it vizh my care." He tickled her, and raucous music played. "Like a veed!" he howled. "A randy veed!" Then his expression became almost melancholy. "To keep you safe, my loff. So you vill neffer suffer the Bleachink Curse."

Papa was a genius ("Mad, zhey vill say, vench, but it's all zhe same think!"), well-schooled in magic and science, and her tutor on the days when she was wakened to learn. He was large for a gnome, or so he said, and she apparently took after him in that. Sometimes they would work together in the laboratory, and he would show her how to mix potions and tinctures and ointments, and other times they would walk through the labyrinth that surrounded their chambers, and he would show her the secret buttons and doors that disabled the traps and illusions he had built.

Occasionally they would travel out the back exit of The Vault, into the caves and tunnels that laced the mountain. There were people under there, and monsters, and Papa would say how it was hard to tell them apart. "Monsters, people, zhey all just vant to be left alone," he would say. "If you proffoke zhem, zhey vill kill you." Papa never allowed her to explore by herself, for he always said that his first priority was to keep Myrandya safe. "Zhat is vhy I built The Fault," he would giggle. "To keep my greatest treasures safe." But he knew the caverns like the back of his hand, and when they went on adventures together he would let her lead, almost like he was testing her.

One day she opened her eyes, and she knew something was wrong, for Papa had not awakened her. Something was shaking the mountain, jostling her out of her slumber, and she could hear her father crying out from the laboratory, though she did not know to whom. "I reqvire your serfices!" he was shouting angrily, "You must protect zhe girl until I get back. Zhat is my command, and you must obey..." Another blast rocked The Vault, and she cried out in fear. Papa came running in, agitated, but he spoke gently to her. "Zhere, zhere," he said, "back to sleep. You're all right, you'll be all right... I'll be back soon." She drifted off, still upset, but helpless.

She did not know how long it had been when she next awoke. Her bed was damaged; there was a large crack in the floor and one of the posts had fallen in the crevice. She could hear magical alarms ringing in the distance, and the air was very thick and smoky. She also felt very hungry and thirsty, but she did not see any sign of Papa's unseen servants with her breakfast, so she ignored the desire for the time being. Instead, she dressed quickly and made her way to the lab, hoping to find her father.

The corridor was badly damaged, sloping downward and rent with fissures. It looked like the entire mountain had collapsed! The way forward was blocked, but a hole in the passage led into her father's chambers, and she climbed through. It didn't look like it had been disturbed for months, but based on signs and mathematical notes scribbled on the ground in chalk she deduced that he had performed some kind of magical ritual, possibly involving time and space.

Disturbingly, all of his wands were broken. They had been snapped in half, many of them still in their cases. He had kept so many of them, about twenty in his room and five times that number in the lab. She stared at them for what seemed like an hour, trying to think who could have done this. Then she blinked and looked around more carefully-- she didn't see his magical staff anywhere, so she assumed he had it with him wherever he had gone. Fortunately, Papa had left his explorer's pack under his bed, the one he took with them on their adventures, and Myrandya pulled it over her shoulders as she backed out of the room.

She decided she couldn't stay in the compound, since she couldn't get through to the other rooms and his guards and wards did not seem to be working. She could reach the back door, however, and that was the direction she decided to go, wriggling through the damaged secret passage. She only barely made it through, and as she squeezed out of the ruined exit it collapsed completely. Already fatigued, she walked through the caves and tunnels of the mountain, trying to remember what her father had said about where they led. She found some provisions in the pack that quelled her hunger for a time, but after several days of traveling they began to run out. She came upon stagnant pools once or twice, and after boiling the water she felt reasonably sure it was safe to drink.

When she stopped to rest, she was surprised to discover a strange creature living inside the survival bag. It looked like a scorpion, but large-- as large as a cat-- with a red shell and red eyes like hers. As she looked at it she felt a strange connection to it, like they were somehow friends or relatives. Her father hadn't had a familiar, but she had read about wizards who did. She wondered if her father had somehow called it, and instructed it to follow her. She named it "Cal". She could see in its eyes that it was intelligent, and she vowed to teach herself how to communicate with it.

She found her way through the underground into a small underground settlement, though it seemed mostly deserted. The inhabitants were very wary: two families of dwarves and two families of svirfneblins. They were all very sick, and she offered to treat their illnesses in exchange for food and information, to which they agreed when they saw she wasn't a threat. When they saw her up close, though, they gasped and hid their eyes. They let her administer to them, but when she was finished they said she had to go; she could not stay with them. They were afraid of her. "Go, go to the surface," they said. "Leave us in peace." They replenished her food supplies, and resolutely pointed her way out.

She emerged in central Varisia, south of the Stony Mountains. Stung by her rejection from the first people she had ever met, and remembering her father's words about monsters, she was cautious and wary and traveled only at night. Her years of book study held her in good stead, however, and she avoided random encounters in the wilderness as she looked for signs of civilization. She knew that her survival out here all alone was only temporary, and that if she was to survive she needed to find a community that would accept her.

When she finally arrived in Roderick's Cove, she met a morose elven woman named Audrahni working as a caretaker in the cemetery. The elf didn't seem particularly frightened or disturbed by Myrandya's appearance, and calmly listened to her breathless story when the tiefling gnome eventually opened up to her. She agreed to allow Myrandya to stay with her until she got herself more established in the town, and Myrandya will always be grateful to her for that.

Now Myrandya works as the town's doctor and part-time forensic scientist/medical examiner. Most of the inhabitants think she is mad and possibly evil, since her fiendish appearance and her strange accent make her seem like a crazy devil child. Fortunately she has been able to be somewhat useful to the frontierfolk when their animals and family members have gotten sick or injured-- though she tends to show up without being asked, so her services tend to seem like a last resort. She also brews fabulous conconctions and alchemical devices that have become something of a novelty among the children in the settlement. Her fireworks were the talk of the town during a celebration last year, though few knew that she had made them.

Myrandya is tall for a gnome, about 3'5", with big, ruddy cheeks and full, auburn-brown hair. She wears a serviceable gown made of thick muslin and heavy boots, and has several pouches on her belt, filled with strange powders, vials, herbs, and tools. It is only upon closer inspection that one recognizes that her eyes are deep red, that she has short black horns buried in her locks, that her teeth are strangely sharp, that her skin has barely perceptible scales, and that she hides a long, snakelike tail under the hem of her dress. Presumably her feet have hooves.

She is curious and naive, logical and passionate. She has grown up around science and magic constantly intertwined, and is fascinated by the way things work. Not knowing much about the world before disaster struck her labyrinth, she views everything about life on the surface as a beautiful new experience to be recorded and cataloged. Perhaps because of her father's many cautions, she is very wary of monsters of any kind, and her instinct is always to shoot first and ask questions later.

Full round: Healing Hands, reload rifle
Standard: throw bomb, shoot rifle, drink extract
Move: tactical analysis, drink a held potion
Swift: retrieve small item with tail