"I'm sorry Jeras. Sorry I asked you to meet me out there. Sorry you came. Sorry that you loved me". The young half-orc sobbing over the gravestone clears his throat and wipes his eyes. "And I'm sorry that I brought you back"
Raised by his human mother Shelar in the small town of Roslar's coffer, Tymar Fangborn had a difficult childhood. His mother showered him with affection despite his origin, but the other inhabitants of the town weren't so accepting, and the two of them lived a solitary existence for most of his youth. Tymar had few friends at school, and eventually Shelar took him on as her apprentice herbalist, which gave him the chance to visit the local farms and see people other now that he had left school.
It was on one of these visits that he met Jeras, a quiet young farmer who had finished his schooling and begun working for his parents a few years prior. The pair hit it off and became fast friends. Tymar had never met anyone before who treated him with kindness and respect, and Jeras’ interest in the arcane had always been forbidden, with Tymar he could indulge it to his heart's content. Exploring both the arcane and their feelings for each other, their friendship blossomed into a clandestine romance. Pursued by candlelight in the library, and sometimes in the parts of the village that the other residents didn't go for fear of the red reaver.
Tymar didn't fear though. His days were filled with elation and excitement, and their meetings in the abandoned parts of the village were his favourite part of the day. During one such evening, Tymar waited for hours for Jeras to arrive. His mind raced with possibilities, perhaps he had forgotten, or perhaps he had spurned him. Eventually, Tymar gave up and returned home, only to find Jeras slain by the reaver, his body broken and mutilated.
He was consumed with sorrow and anger, but as luck would have it it was only a few days later that the pathfinder society arrived and slew the beast, and Tymar was left alone with his mourning. Alone but for the contraband books of necromancy that they had planned to study. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t shake the idea of using the spells and ceremonies in the book to bring Jeras back. He pursued the idea with a tenacity he had never felt toward Herbalism, hiding the late nights and dark rituals from his mother, explaining away his mistakes and his tiredness as insomnia. At last on a stormy night he went to Jeras’ grave, supplies in hand, and began the ritual.
As is often the way with necromancy, the spell worked, but not in the way Tymar had intended. His beloved did not return, only his corpse, and in the ensuing fight for his life, Tymar truly didn’t know if he wanted to survive. It was his hatred that saved him, not his love. Hatred for undeath, for the necromancers who wrote the book, and for the gods who permit it to exist. He swore then, never to use his own arcane powers to bring the dead back to life, as he swears now.
“I will join the crusade and release the souls of the undead back to Pharasma. I promise you Jeras, I will make you proud of me. I love you” he kisses his ring, the only gift he received during their short time, and places his hand on the gravestone. “Just as soon as I can figure out how to tell my mother”
