Vallegrath always had it easy. Born the son of a wealthy merchant's daughter, Val traveled caravans across the continent of Faerun, but never had to pick up the trade, as his mother doted on him. Sure, occasionally he'd have to translate things for people, or figure out how valuable a trinket they'd traded for was, and maybe once or twice he'd talked their way through a toll or a shakedown from the local guards, but mostly the boy had never really known hard work. This was especially true when his magic began to manifest. His mother swore his father was a powerful wizard who'd saved her from some monster or another - the monster changed almost every time she'd retold the story. He was pretty sure his father was just some handsome elf who'd talked his way into his mother's bedsheets, but considering how easily magic came to him, maybe there was something to her story.
Unfortunately, privilege only got him so far with his grandfather, who'd resented the way his mother - and everyone who ran into the boy, really - doted on him. His grandfather, a shrewd businessman with a sharp eye for details, noticed how little Val actually did on a day to day basis. Much to the protests of Vallegrath's mother, and most of the caravan, the grandfather kicked his daughter's half-elven son out of the caravan when he'd come of age, insisting the boy needed to learn the value of hard work.
Well, Vallegrath was having none of this. He'd attempted one day of actual labor, and the spoiled young man immediately signed off of it for life. He was in a tavern trying to figure an easier way to make a living, when he'd heard some orcs in the hills had captured some of the local young women. The reward promised more than the stipend his grandfather had given him before he was abandoned, and so Val made his way to the orcs den. In the end, after a few basic illusions and talking his way through a little bit of trouble, he'd made it back to town with the captives. He enjoyed the rewards of his "labor" that night - in food, shelter, coin, and the appreciation of one of the ladies rescued - and knew that the adventurer's life was for him.
Vallegrath became a junkie for the admiration, reward, and fame that little adventures brought him, but he soon realized it just wasn't enough. He felt he was playing small-time in a big-time world. It was then that he'd caught wind of the orcs invading Sembia. He'd talked his way past those weak-minded fools once before, no? Small tribe, big army, it would all be the same in Val's mind. So, he'd packed up what he could carry and caught a carriage ride to Surd, hitching a ride with a young noble woman he'd talked up the night before, and morning of.
"Minds are such easily bent things," he bid the woman in elvish, swearing to her it was a string of compliments the likes of which she'd never heard. "When you find out I used you, don't be upset. You're still a lovely woman, and it cost you nothing but a pittance and time for the joy of my company." He even wrote it down for her, in flowing script, for her to translate when she made it to the next town. 'To remember me by.' He gave her a wink, like so many of the others, and bid her farewell as she moved on to the next town, and Val settled in to get the lay of the land in this new strange locale.
"I wonder if I can find a woman who knows how to cook. I'm so damn tired of rations..."
