Post by deathworm on Jan 9, 2016 1:58:15 GMT
Name: Jal
Age: In late teens to early twenties. He isn’t sure exactly but he usually says 20.
Gender: Male
Race: Human sorcerer
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 147
Rank: Citizen
Basic Appearance:
At first glance Jal is 90% legs and hair. At second glance he still isn’t much more. Having spent most of his life living either in the woods or on the road, his body is built for speed and stealth rather than strength. Which is the polite way of saying he’s a scrawny little wimp. The thick mess of wavy hair that seems to defy all logical and physics is technically a kind of golden brown but most of the time it’s so filthy it’s basically dirt colored. Similarly, he has a fair complexion but thanks to a life spent outdoors his skin is tan and rougher than expected, dotted with freckles and small scars. Aside from his eyes, which are embarrassingly large and a murky blue color, his features are sharp, giving him a look similar to a fox or a particular disagreeable weasel. His canine teeth are sharper than they should be and he’ll claim he was born like that but it’s just as likely that he filed them for dramatic effect.
Combat Credentials
Combat Style: While he’s not quite a pacifist Jal isn’t much of a fighter either. But when it comes down to it magic and trickery are his usual methods. He views violence as a last resort because he knows there’s a pretty good chance he’ll lose any fair fight he’s in. So when he does fight, he tends to cheat a bit. He was never properly trained in any form of fighting so when it comes to hand to hand combat he just jumps in blindly and wildly. There’s a good bit of biting and scratching involved and his fighting style has been described as ‘rabid dog’ or ‘crazed idiot.’ Both of those are fair assessments. He’s quick with his dagger but just as likely to stab himself as he is his opponent so he’ll rarely use it unless he’s managed to sneak up on someone or he’s desperate.
Jal isn’t very strong, but he’s agile and quick. In general, he’d rather run from a fight than actually face anyone. Thanks to his prophetic nature he’s good at knowing when to leave a situation and while his magic isn’t very useful in combat it’s excellent for distractions.
Abilities:
*General Note*
Jal is a sorcerer which means his magical abilities are innate. He was born with them but has had very little useful training for them so he has very little control over them. Easier things like palm reading come naturally to him but more difficult tasks like his will take years of practice to properly manifest. Since his powers are innate, they’re very much at the mercy of his emotions and if he’s upset or otherwise not in top shape they behave accordingly. As he gets older this will calm down but for now he does magic accidentally almost more than he does purposefully. And while he has the ability to learn other magical skills, they’ll never come as easy to him as the ones he was born with.
Prophecy/Divination: Part of his prophetic abilities seems to manifest itself as a form of luckiness or just innate guessing. He’s excellent at games of chance and always knows which fork in the road to take, though he sometimes has trouble interpreting his own instincts- a lot of the information he’s able to gather about the future is extremely vague and he isn’t the smartest person in the world. And though he has a much better grasp on the future than the average person it seems to have negatively affected his memory, making him absent minded and forgetful.
It doesn’t help that he has a tendency to mix up the present and the future in his mind. Occasionally he’ll be given flashes of insight about the future, typically brief images or bits of information, and sometimes fail to realize what they are so he assumes they’re events that have already happened or vice versa. He tries his best to distinguish the two but with more mundane events it can be very difficult to tell.
He also has specific abilities that he can control, as opposed to the flashes which happen randomly and without prompting.
-palmistry: he can use this one to tell individual people information about their future and offer insight into their current situation. Usually vague, though occasionally he can pick up specifics if someone’s path is particularly strong. He uses this one most and it’s his main trade so naturally it’s the one he’s best at. He cannot read his own palms.
-aruspicina: divination through entrails. Obviously, this can only be used on dead things. Gives him information about the being the entrails came from and if done involving a ritual sacrifice can offer insight into a specific question. This isn’t used much since he doesn’t stumble across a lot of bodies worth investigating and he can’t afford to be buying animals for ritualistic slaughter all the time.
-hydromancy: offers general information on the future. Can be as simple as observing patterns in water, which only offers vague guidance, or he can induce a trance state that allows him to see visions of the future. However, this second option involves completely submersing himself in water that he has ritually blessed. It’s a long process that involves a lot of preparation and leaves him exhausted and slightly unhinged for a long time after. He’s only done it once before on accident and would prefer to never do it again due to the unpleasant and uncontrollable nature of the visions and the erratic state it puts him in.
Enchantment: use of various runes, sigils, and charms to change the appearance and properties of items/beings. He isn’t all that good at this yet and is only proficient in a few enchantments.
His most used enchantments so far include
-A charm that allows him to move silently.
-A rune that changes his voice. His natural speaking tone is rather scratchy and not very awe-inspiring, so he prefers to make it more echoey and deep when he’s telling fortunes.
-An incantation that creates a temporary fog. Again, mostly used for atmosphere during his palmistry sessions.
-A rune carved into the hilt of his dagger that keeps it perpetually sharp
Weapon(s): A single dagger, nothing remarkable about it aside from the aforementioned enchantment. He keeps it in a sheath attached to his belt. Mostly used for preparing food.
Gear:
-Pair of sturdy black boots
-Rough pants that have been patched a thousand times
-Simple tunic
-Plain dark blue cloak
-Backpack containing:
-Large Book of Shadows he’s been working on for the past several years
-A sewing kit
-Various healing balms of varying legitimacy
-Satchel of enchanted gems and assorted amulets
-Scrying bowl and flask of purified water for when he can’t find a suitable water source for his hydromancy
-Second flask used for drinking water.
-Olid, his familiar. A white one-eyed cat who’s only notable ability is being able to find all the things Errol loses.
-Cord necklace with a gem that produces a glamour when it makes contact with his flesh. The glamour doesn’t change his appearance but rather makes him incredibly forgettable- people who see him just can’t quite remember what he looked like.
Background
The breeze that disturbed the two vagabond’s robes would have been peaceful if not the ash and faint stench of burnt flesh that it carried. Faces shrouded by layers of thick cloth, the two men stood silently on a knoll overlooking the burnt remains of their destination. Their clan, a nomadic group of entertainers and thieves, made their living traveling from village to village and this was supposed to be one of their bigger jobs. The Piriihu Region wasn’t normally profitable but they’d heard tell of a large festival or celebration of some sort and they were near enough that it was worth making the journey. Or it would have been if the village hadn’t been raided the week before. By the time they arrived it had already been abandoned by who ever deemed it worth destroying so they didn’t have the option to scam them out of some of their loot.
“It’s a shame.” The taller of the two sighed. What remained of the village was mostly rubble, the few structures left standing little more than hollow shells.
“A damn shame.” The stouter of the two nodded. After another brief pause they glanced at each other. “No sense letting what’s left go to waste.” With a synchronized shrug, the two scouts scrambled down the hill as their feet struggled to find purchase on the rocky soil. Unfortunately whoever had been here before them was very thorough and pickings were slim. After more than an hour of picking through the ruins all they had to show for it was a few blankets, some cheap metal cutlery, a half burnt book, a handful of trinkets left behind or dropped, and a hacking cough. But there was one structure left to explore that looked like it used to be a small house. The taller one poked his head inside, squinting against the half blackness inside.
“Looks clear.” Content with that assessment the two of them strolled inside, the stouter one heading for a pile of singed cloth in a corner while the taller one poked around in an overturned chest. His discovery of an almost salvageable pair of boots was interrupted by an alarmingly high pitched scream from his partner.
“The feckin’ rags bit me!” As he leapt around, waving the injured hand erratically, the rags scrambled for the door. Luckily the taller one was quicker than his hysterical companion and managed to grab the rags by their skinny neck, yanking them back.
A quick examination confirmed his suspicions. “They ain’t rags, ya dolt. It’s a kid. Think it’s a boy one, not sure though. What are you?” Bending down to the child’s level, the tall man squinted at them. Through the soot and trashing he could make out blue eyes and a scowl but not much more. The hair was grey but that seemed wrong for someone who only appeared to be about seven years old.
“Well, it ain’t human, the little monster made me bleed.” The stout man joined his friend, sucking at his wound with a petulant expression. “No wonder they left ‘em behind.” Throughout all of this the child had been screeching incoherently, clawing blindly at the man holding him. After a more thorough examination that involved prodding and ended when the child managed to scratch the tall man’s face they determined it was in fact a human boy. Whether or not it was capable of real language was still unsure. “Well, what do we do with it?” While the scouts were not the type to feel any kind of paternal pangs at the sight of young children they were also not the type to leave children alone to most likely starve to death or be eaten by whatever might come along next. After a bit of bickering they decided to take him back to their camp. The child didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect and actually getting him back to the camp involved wrapping him in one of the blankets so they could carry him without being bitten again. Once they were at the camp they enlisted the help of the rest of their clan to figure out what exactly the boy was. One of the mothers suggested bribing him with food which was a huge success. The tall man implemented a system of dangling various pieces of food in front of the boy and dropping them when he properly answered.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, I’m not a baby.”
“You got a name?”
“Dunno. When there were still people, they all called me Bastard or Boy.”
“You got a family?”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, did you?”
“I want more of the first thing.”
“Well?”
“Nah. Ma died.”
“How old are you?”
“Dunno. Younger than the larger boys but older than the drooly ones.”
“What happened to your tribe?”
“A bigger tribe came. I tried to tell ‘em but no one listened.”
“How come you’re still here?”
“I knew they were comin’ so I went and hid. The rest of ‘em got burnt or taken. Dunno where.”
“How’d you know?”
“How do ya think? Saw ‘em comin’.”
In the end they gave up on finding out much about him. Since they had found him the clan decided the two scouts were in charge of him. The scouts, tall Rosen and stout Guilder, didn’t mind much since they figured a child could be useful and the one they had seemed interesting. After deciding they should stop calling him Boy, they settled on naming him Jal. It took a few months for him to learn it but once he did he loved it. Aside from being scouts Rosen and Guilder were also talented musicians who played the fiddle and the flute respectively. They attempted to teach Jal an instrument but found him to be about as musical as an angry cat so that was abandoned. But luckily his similarities to an angry cat carried over into impressive acrobatic abilities and with a bit of prompting Jal could leap, twist, and tumble well enough to earn a few coins. Although some of those coins were swiped by Jal’s thin fingers rather than given voluntarily his surrogate fathers were still impressed. In time the trio even learned to like each other. It helped that Jal took to the clan like he’d been born into it. They lived a wild, anarchistic life full of travel and excitement. Granted, part of that was due to the large number of thieves in the clan which meant they were often on the run from something or another.
A few years passed in this manner. By the time he was approaching puberty Jal was friendly if not better behaved. But with puberty came complications of course, though Jal’s were a bit more unique than his peers. While he’d always seemed to have a trustworthy instinct it wasn’t until what he assumed was his twelfth year that his powers began to properly manifest. The clan was highly superstitious and after he correctly predicted rain five times in a row Rosen and Guilder sent him to talk with the clan’s most respected old crone, a wizened fortune teller everyone called Yaga.
“He’s got the touch. A bit daft if yer asking me but the boy’s certainly got magic in ‘em.” Her skeletal hands shook as she lifted them, gesturing for Jal to step forward. It took Rosen shoving him to get the boy to approach the crone. According to the other kids she ate teeth and Jal was very fond of his own set. But she just took his right hand, turning it over and tracing the rough skin there. “Yep. Sorcerer blood is my guess. He’s gonna be a right pain in the ass. But fortune telling’s a good trade, he’ll kept you two fed well past yer prime.” Yaga dropped his hand, turning her cloudy gaze on Rosen and Guilder who were torn between pride and terror. Raising a borderline feral child had been difficult enough. Finding out he was a sorcerer was enough to have them rethinking abandoning him in the woods. But Yaga had a point. A good fortune teller or at least one who actually told the future was hard to come by. “I can train ‘em a bit, see what else he’s got in there.”
While she wasn’t a sorcerer or witch herself Yaga knew a fair bit about magic and for the next several years Jal was her protégé. She was unable to perform any of the enchantments she beat into his scrambled brain but she had stacks of books and decades of experience with magical types. So most of his training consisted of being screamed at by an old woman who looked like she might die if she tripped but it hardly mattered. Jal’s magic never responded well to training and it just seemed to pop up as it pleased, growing more complex as he got older. Yaga taught him the finer points of palmistry and helped him discover his knack for aruspicina and hydromancy through trial and error. The enchantments were more tricky. After her extensive tests for elemental magic which consisted of throwing rocks at him, attempting to drown him, having him jump from a tree and run across hot coals all produced negative results the old bat figured she might try something easier for the boy since she was starting to suspect he was as dimwitted as his adoptive family. Luckily enchantments were much lower risk and it turned out the squiggly signs she’d never been able to decipher responded to his skinny fingers eagerly. He even managed to come up with the fog incantation himself by messing around with ones based around wind and water. It isn’t strong but he was proud enough of himself.
For a long time Jal was happy with his haphazard powers. His abilities as fortune teller kept him fed and happy, his life with his clan was good, and he was actually starting to get the hang of enchantments. It was an extra special day when Olid showed up. They’d just left a fair in some backwoods village where Jal had cleaned up after correctly predicting the winner of the horse race using the entrails of some farmers prize chicken. As he was napping in the back of Rosen’s cart something crawled out of his pack and onto his chest. After the initial freak out than nearly resulted in the creature being thrown off the cart Jal settled down and got a good look at it. The kitten was covered in mud but appeared to be white based on the few clean patches of fur and its one good eye matched Jal’s perfectly. He knew from first glance that Olid was meant to be his familiar and the cat has barely left his side since. And it was Olid that prompted his journey to Etirath.
About a month after Olid’s arrival the clan had found a camp site near a small creek. Jal had been enjoying their time in the woods practicing his charms and listening to Rosen and Guilder bicker. Olid, however, was restless. The cat had abandoned its usual lazy routine of finding various sunny spots to nap in to dart back and forth between Jal and the creek, mewling at top volume. Jal chose to ignore Olid until he darted into his pack, swiping a rune meant to turn a mirror into a viewing glass through another mirror. He’d been working on it for weeks and was saving it for emergencies so when he saw the small stone in Olid’s mouth he finally chased after him. Olid led him straight to the river, scratching his hand as Jal attempted to swipe the stone back. To distracted by his own blood to stop Olid from dropping the stone into the water, Jal had no choice but to dive in after it which is when everything went to shit.
Since it was mostly performed by a cat the ritual wasn’t strong enough to give Jal a full vision of the future but it was powerful enough to properly freak him out. It didn’t help that he was completely unprepared for the ritual. Done properly he would have had a few days of fasting and at least a couple hours of mediation to prep for the trance state but as it was he’d eaten half an hour before and had been thinking unusually difficult thoughts for several days. So his first assumption was that he was dying which was a reasonable reaction to suddenly becoming a third party viewer to the bizarre events unfolding before him. All he managed to grasp was crowds of people dwarfed by massive buildings, an impossible number of books, and the word Etirath. But that was enough for even him to get the gist. When he emerged from the water gasping for air Olid was curled up asleep on the bank of the creek. In any other situation Jal would have thrown the cat into the creek but in the moment he was too muddled to do much besides stagger back onto the land. Somehow the rune stone had ended up in his hand but the rune he’d painstakingly carved into it had been eroded away, leaving it useless.
When he reached the rest of the camp he was still soaking wet and raving about books and halflings, potentially offending the two halflings that had joined the clan a few years back. Most of the clan including Rosen and Guilder were convinced their weird little orphan had finally lost his mind completely but Yaga just gave him a blanket and told him to let it out of his system. After a while his gibberish began to change into sentences and he managed to spit out a coherent thought.
“I’m going to Etirath to study magic.”
It wasn’t a popular decision. The clan tended to avoid Etirath. There were too many laws and too many people who enforced them and it was harder to make money there. The people in the city tended to be better educated and less likely to fall for their tricks or be impressed by cheap illusions. Plus city life made half of them break out in hives. But they all knew they couldn’t stop him. If he’d seen it, it was bound to happen. It took a few days for him to get back in good enough shape to set out but before long he had everything he needed packed away, Olid curled up in the hood of his robe.
Rosen and Guilder were sobbing like newborn babes when he left, surprising absolutely no one. “You be safe in the city, ya lil feckin’ bastard.”
“Don’t let those pricks rob you, a’right? You rob ‘em first like we taught ya.”
Yaga shoved aside the two blubbering idiots with more force than one would expect a woman of her age and stature to be capable of. “Here.” She jammed a necklace into his hand with a curt sniff. The gem on it was a deep glimmering blue and he could feel the energy in it pulsing in his palm. “It’ll make it so no one can remember yer ugly mug. Don’t hold it like that, ya daft cunt. Put it on or it’ll make yer face stick like that.” She slapped his arm as he slung the cord around his neck but it was a gentler blow than usual. “You’ll be fine, boy.”
He paused, fidgeting with the clasp on his robe. Even though he knew he was doing the right thing he couldn’t shake his nerves. The vision had been vague- he knew he’d make it Etirath but anything beyond that was just clouds. What if he got there and died? What if he was a shitty sorcerer? What if he lost Olid? “How the hell do you know, you’re crazy as a loon.”
“You ain’t the only one with the sight, brat. I’ve been readin’ palms a damn sight longer than you. You’ll be fine.”
A bit more sobbing from Rosen and Guilder, one last insult from Yaga, and Jal was off. He only had half an idea of where he was going but it was a pretty good half.
Relations:
Right now his only real companion is Olid. He knows very little of his blood family and doesn’t care to know any more. His adopted family prefers not to spend too much time in Etirath. His closest family is probably Rosen, Guilder, and Yaga.
Age: In late teens to early twenties. He isn’t sure exactly but he usually says 20.
Gender: Male
Race: Human sorcerer
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 147
Rank: Citizen
Basic Appearance:
At first glance Jal is 90% legs and hair. At second glance he still isn’t much more. Having spent most of his life living either in the woods or on the road, his body is built for speed and stealth rather than strength. Which is the polite way of saying he’s a scrawny little wimp. The thick mess of wavy hair that seems to defy all logical and physics is technically a kind of golden brown but most of the time it’s so filthy it’s basically dirt colored. Similarly, he has a fair complexion but thanks to a life spent outdoors his skin is tan and rougher than expected, dotted with freckles and small scars. Aside from his eyes, which are embarrassingly large and a murky blue color, his features are sharp, giving him a look similar to a fox or a particular disagreeable weasel. His canine teeth are sharper than they should be and he’ll claim he was born like that but it’s just as likely that he filed them for dramatic effect.
Combat Credentials
Combat Style: While he’s not quite a pacifist Jal isn’t much of a fighter either. But when it comes down to it magic and trickery are his usual methods. He views violence as a last resort because he knows there’s a pretty good chance he’ll lose any fair fight he’s in. So when he does fight, he tends to cheat a bit. He was never properly trained in any form of fighting so when it comes to hand to hand combat he just jumps in blindly and wildly. There’s a good bit of biting and scratching involved and his fighting style has been described as ‘rabid dog’ or ‘crazed idiot.’ Both of those are fair assessments. He’s quick with his dagger but just as likely to stab himself as he is his opponent so he’ll rarely use it unless he’s managed to sneak up on someone or he’s desperate.
Jal isn’t very strong, but he’s agile and quick. In general, he’d rather run from a fight than actually face anyone. Thanks to his prophetic nature he’s good at knowing when to leave a situation and while his magic isn’t very useful in combat it’s excellent for distractions.
Abilities:
*General Note*
Jal is a sorcerer which means his magical abilities are innate. He was born with them but has had very little useful training for them so he has very little control over them. Easier things like palm reading come naturally to him but more difficult tasks like his will take years of practice to properly manifest. Since his powers are innate, they’re very much at the mercy of his emotions and if he’s upset or otherwise not in top shape they behave accordingly. As he gets older this will calm down but for now he does magic accidentally almost more than he does purposefully. And while he has the ability to learn other magical skills, they’ll never come as easy to him as the ones he was born with.
Prophecy/Divination: Part of his prophetic abilities seems to manifest itself as a form of luckiness or just innate guessing. He’s excellent at games of chance and always knows which fork in the road to take, though he sometimes has trouble interpreting his own instincts- a lot of the information he’s able to gather about the future is extremely vague and he isn’t the smartest person in the world. And though he has a much better grasp on the future than the average person it seems to have negatively affected his memory, making him absent minded and forgetful.
It doesn’t help that he has a tendency to mix up the present and the future in his mind. Occasionally he’ll be given flashes of insight about the future, typically brief images or bits of information, and sometimes fail to realize what they are so he assumes they’re events that have already happened or vice versa. He tries his best to distinguish the two but with more mundane events it can be very difficult to tell.
He also has specific abilities that he can control, as opposed to the flashes which happen randomly and without prompting.
-palmistry: he can use this one to tell individual people information about their future and offer insight into their current situation. Usually vague, though occasionally he can pick up specifics if someone’s path is particularly strong. He uses this one most and it’s his main trade so naturally it’s the one he’s best at. He cannot read his own palms.
-aruspicina: divination through entrails. Obviously, this can only be used on dead things. Gives him information about the being the entrails came from and if done involving a ritual sacrifice can offer insight into a specific question. This isn’t used much since he doesn’t stumble across a lot of bodies worth investigating and he can’t afford to be buying animals for ritualistic slaughter all the time.
-hydromancy: offers general information on the future. Can be as simple as observing patterns in water, which only offers vague guidance, or he can induce a trance state that allows him to see visions of the future. However, this second option involves completely submersing himself in water that he has ritually blessed. It’s a long process that involves a lot of preparation and leaves him exhausted and slightly unhinged for a long time after. He’s only done it once before on accident and would prefer to never do it again due to the unpleasant and uncontrollable nature of the visions and the erratic state it puts him in.
Enchantment: use of various runes, sigils, and charms to change the appearance and properties of items/beings. He isn’t all that good at this yet and is only proficient in a few enchantments.
His most used enchantments so far include
-A charm that allows him to move silently.
-A rune that changes his voice. His natural speaking tone is rather scratchy and not very awe-inspiring, so he prefers to make it more echoey and deep when he’s telling fortunes.
-An incantation that creates a temporary fog. Again, mostly used for atmosphere during his palmistry sessions.
-A rune carved into the hilt of his dagger that keeps it perpetually sharp
Weapon(s): A single dagger, nothing remarkable about it aside from the aforementioned enchantment. He keeps it in a sheath attached to his belt. Mostly used for preparing food.
Gear:
-Pair of sturdy black boots
-Rough pants that have been patched a thousand times
-Simple tunic
-Plain dark blue cloak
-Backpack containing:
-Large Book of Shadows he’s been working on for the past several years
-A sewing kit
-Various healing balms of varying legitimacy
-Satchel of enchanted gems and assorted amulets
-Scrying bowl and flask of purified water for when he can’t find a suitable water source for his hydromancy
-Second flask used for drinking water.
-Olid, his familiar. A white one-eyed cat who’s only notable ability is being able to find all the things Errol loses.
-Cord necklace with a gem that produces a glamour when it makes contact with his flesh. The glamour doesn’t change his appearance but rather makes him incredibly forgettable- people who see him just can’t quite remember what he looked like.
Background
The breeze that disturbed the two vagabond’s robes would have been peaceful if not the ash and faint stench of burnt flesh that it carried. Faces shrouded by layers of thick cloth, the two men stood silently on a knoll overlooking the burnt remains of their destination. Their clan, a nomadic group of entertainers and thieves, made their living traveling from village to village and this was supposed to be one of their bigger jobs. The Piriihu Region wasn’t normally profitable but they’d heard tell of a large festival or celebration of some sort and they were near enough that it was worth making the journey. Or it would have been if the village hadn’t been raided the week before. By the time they arrived it had already been abandoned by who ever deemed it worth destroying so they didn’t have the option to scam them out of some of their loot.
“It’s a shame.” The taller of the two sighed. What remained of the village was mostly rubble, the few structures left standing little more than hollow shells.
“A damn shame.” The stouter of the two nodded. After another brief pause they glanced at each other. “No sense letting what’s left go to waste.” With a synchronized shrug, the two scouts scrambled down the hill as their feet struggled to find purchase on the rocky soil. Unfortunately whoever had been here before them was very thorough and pickings were slim. After more than an hour of picking through the ruins all they had to show for it was a few blankets, some cheap metal cutlery, a half burnt book, a handful of trinkets left behind or dropped, and a hacking cough. But there was one structure left to explore that looked like it used to be a small house. The taller one poked his head inside, squinting against the half blackness inside.
“Looks clear.” Content with that assessment the two of them strolled inside, the stouter one heading for a pile of singed cloth in a corner while the taller one poked around in an overturned chest. His discovery of an almost salvageable pair of boots was interrupted by an alarmingly high pitched scream from his partner.
“The feckin’ rags bit me!” As he leapt around, waving the injured hand erratically, the rags scrambled for the door. Luckily the taller one was quicker than his hysterical companion and managed to grab the rags by their skinny neck, yanking them back.
A quick examination confirmed his suspicions. “They ain’t rags, ya dolt. It’s a kid. Think it’s a boy one, not sure though. What are you?” Bending down to the child’s level, the tall man squinted at them. Through the soot and trashing he could make out blue eyes and a scowl but not much more. The hair was grey but that seemed wrong for someone who only appeared to be about seven years old.
“Well, it ain’t human, the little monster made me bleed.” The stout man joined his friend, sucking at his wound with a petulant expression. “No wonder they left ‘em behind.” Throughout all of this the child had been screeching incoherently, clawing blindly at the man holding him. After a more thorough examination that involved prodding and ended when the child managed to scratch the tall man’s face they determined it was in fact a human boy. Whether or not it was capable of real language was still unsure. “Well, what do we do with it?” While the scouts were not the type to feel any kind of paternal pangs at the sight of young children they were also not the type to leave children alone to most likely starve to death or be eaten by whatever might come along next. After a bit of bickering they decided to take him back to their camp. The child didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect and actually getting him back to the camp involved wrapping him in one of the blankets so they could carry him without being bitten again. Once they were at the camp they enlisted the help of the rest of their clan to figure out what exactly the boy was. One of the mothers suggested bribing him with food which was a huge success. The tall man implemented a system of dangling various pieces of food in front of the boy and dropping them when he properly answered.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, I’m not a baby.”
“You got a name?”
“Dunno. When there were still people, they all called me Bastard or Boy.”
“You got a family?”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, did you?”
“I want more of the first thing.”
“Well?”
“Nah. Ma died.”
“How old are you?”
“Dunno. Younger than the larger boys but older than the drooly ones.”
“What happened to your tribe?”
“A bigger tribe came. I tried to tell ‘em but no one listened.”
“How come you’re still here?”
“I knew they were comin’ so I went and hid. The rest of ‘em got burnt or taken. Dunno where.”
“How’d you know?”
“How do ya think? Saw ‘em comin’.”
In the end they gave up on finding out much about him. Since they had found him the clan decided the two scouts were in charge of him. The scouts, tall Rosen and stout Guilder, didn’t mind much since they figured a child could be useful and the one they had seemed interesting. After deciding they should stop calling him Boy, they settled on naming him Jal. It took a few months for him to learn it but once he did he loved it. Aside from being scouts Rosen and Guilder were also talented musicians who played the fiddle and the flute respectively. They attempted to teach Jal an instrument but found him to be about as musical as an angry cat so that was abandoned. But luckily his similarities to an angry cat carried over into impressive acrobatic abilities and with a bit of prompting Jal could leap, twist, and tumble well enough to earn a few coins. Although some of those coins were swiped by Jal’s thin fingers rather than given voluntarily his surrogate fathers were still impressed. In time the trio even learned to like each other. It helped that Jal took to the clan like he’d been born into it. They lived a wild, anarchistic life full of travel and excitement. Granted, part of that was due to the large number of thieves in the clan which meant they were often on the run from something or another.
A few years passed in this manner. By the time he was approaching puberty Jal was friendly if not better behaved. But with puberty came complications of course, though Jal’s were a bit more unique than his peers. While he’d always seemed to have a trustworthy instinct it wasn’t until what he assumed was his twelfth year that his powers began to properly manifest. The clan was highly superstitious and after he correctly predicted rain five times in a row Rosen and Guilder sent him to talk with the clan’s most respected old crone, a wizened fortune teller everyone called Yaga.
“He’s got the touch. A bit daft if yer asking me but the boy’s certainly got magic in ‘em.” Her skeletal hands shook as she lifted them, gesturing for Jal to step forward. It took Rosen shoving him to get the boy to approach the crone. According to the other kids she ate teeth and Jal was very fond of his own set. But she just took his right hand, turning it over and tracing the rough skin there. “Yep. Sorcerer blood is my guess. He’s gonna be a right pain in the ass. But fortune telling’s a good trade, he’ll kept you two fed well past yer prime.” Yaga dropped his hand, turning her cloudy gaze on Rosen and Guilder who were torn between pride and terror. Raising a borderline feral child had been difficult enough. Finding out he was a sorcerer was enough to have them rethinking abandoning him in the woods. But Yaga had a point. A good fortune teller or at least one who actually told the future was hard to come by. “I can train ‘em a bit, see what else he’s got in there.”
While she wasn’t a sorcerer or witch herself Yaga knew a fair bit about magic and for the next several years Jal was her protégé. She was unable to perform any of the enchantments she beat into his scrambled brain but she had stacks of books and decades of experience with magical types. So most of his training consisted of being screamed at by an old woman who looked like she might die if she tripped but it hardly mattered. Jal’s magic never responded well to training and it just seemed to pop up as it pleased, growing more complex as he got older. Yaga taught him the finer points of palmistry and helped him discover his knack for aruspicina and hydromancy through trial and error. The enchantments were more tricky. After her extensive tests for elemental magic which consisted of throwing rocks at him, attempting to drown him, having him jump from a tree and run across hot coals all produced negative results the old bat figured she might try something easier for the boy since she was starting to suspect he was as dimwitted as his adoptive family. Luckily enchantments were much lower risk and it turned out the squiggly signs she’d never been able to decipher responded to his skinny fingers eagerly. He even managed to come up with the fog incantation himself by messing around with ones based around wind and water. It isn’t strong but he was proud enough of himself.
For a long time Jal was happy with his haphazard powers. His abilities as fortune teller kept him fed and happy, his life with his clan was good, and he was actually starting to get the hang of enchantments. It was an extra special day when Olid showed up. They’d just left a fair in some backwoods village where Jal had cleaned up after correctly predicting the winner of the horse race using the entrails of some farmers prize chicken. As he was napping in the back of Rosen’s cart something crawled out of his pack and onto his chest. After the initial freak out than nearly resulted in the creature being thrown off the cart Jal settled down and got a good look at it. The kitten was covered in mud but appeared to be white based on the few clean patches of fur and its one good eye matched Jal’s perfectly. He knew from first glance that Olid was meant to be his familiar and the cat has barely left his side since. And it was Olid that prompted his journey to Etirath.
About a month after Olid’s arrival the clan had found a camp site near a small creek. Jal had been enjoying their time in the woods practicing his charms and listening to Rosen and Guilder bicker. Olid, however, was restless. The cat had abandoned its usual lazy routine of finding various sunny spots to nap in to dart back and forth between Jal and the creek, mewling at top volume. Jal chose to ignore Olid until he darted into his pack, swiping a rune meant to turn a mirror into a viewing glass through another mirror. He’d been working on it for weeks and was saving it for emergencies so when he saw the small stone in Olid’s mouth he finally chased after him. Olid led him straight to the river, scratching his hand as Jal attempted to swipe the stone back. To distracted by his own blood to stop Olid from dropping the stone into the water, Jal had no choice but to dive in after it which is when everything went to shit.
Since it was mostly performed by a cat the ritual wasn’t strong enough to give Jal a full vision of the future but it was powerful enough to properly freak him out. It didn’t help that he was completely unprepared for the ritual. Done properly he would have had a few days of fasting and at least a couple hours of mediation to prep for the trance state but as it was he’d eaten half an hour before and had been thinking unusually difficult thoughts for several days. So his first assumption was that he was dying which was a reasonable reaction to suddenly becoming a third party viewer to the bizarre events unfolding before him. All he managed to grasp was crowds of people dwarfed by massive buildings, an impossible number of books, and the word Etirath. But that was enough for even him to get the gist. When he emerged from the water gasping for air Olid was curled up asleep on the bank of the creek. In any other situation Jal would have thrown the cat into the creek but in the moment he was too muddled to do much besides stagger back onto the land. Somehow the rune stone had ended up in his hand but the rune he’d painstakingly carved into it had been eroded away, leaving it useless.
When he reached the rest of the camp he was still soaking wet and raving about books and halflings, potentially offending the two halflings that had joined the clan a few years back. Most of the clan including Rosen and Guilder were convinced their weird little orphan had finally lost his mind completely but Yaga just gave him a blanket and told him to let it out of his system. After a while his gibberish began to change into sentences and he managed to spit out a coherent thought.
“I’m going to Etirath to study magic.”
It wasn’t a popular decision. The clan tended to avoid Etirath. There were too many laws and too many people who enforced them and it was harder to make money there. The people in the city tended to be better educated and less likely to fall for their tricks or be impressed by cheap illusions. Plus city life made half of them break out in hives. But they all knew they couldn’t stop him. If he’d seen it, it was bound to happen. It took a few days for him to get back in good enough shape to set out but before long he had everything he needed packed away, Olid curled up in the hood of his robe.
Rosen and Guilder were sobbing like newborn babes when he left, surprising absolutely no one. “You be safe in the city, ya lil feckin’ bastard.”
“Don’t let those pricks rob you, a’right? You rob ‘em first like we taught ya.”
Yaga shoved aside the two blubbering idiots with more force than one would expect a woman of her age and stature to be capable of. “Here.” She jammed a necklace into his hand with a curt sniff. The gem on it was a deep glimmering blue and he could feel the energy in it pulsing in his palm. “It’ll make it so no one can remember yer ugly mug. Don’t hold it like that, ya daft cunt. Put it on or it’ll make yer face stick like that.” She slapped his arm as he slung the cord around his neck but it was a gentler blow than usual. “You’ll be fine, boy.”
He paused, fidgeting with the clasp on his robe. Even though he knew he was doing the right thing he couldn’t shake his nerves. The vision had been vague- he knew he’d make it Etirath but anything beyond that was just clouds. What if he got there and died? What if he was a shitty sorcerer? What if he lost Olid? “How the hell do you know, you’re crazy as a loon.”
“You ain’t the only one with the sight, brat. I’ve been readin’ palms a damn sight longer than you. You’ll be fine.”
A bit more sobbing from Rosen and Guilder, one last insult from Yaga, and Jal was off. He only had half an idea of where he was going but it was a pretty good half.
Relations:
Right now his only real companion is Olid. He knows very little of his blood family and doesn’t care to know any more. His adopted family prefers not to spend too much time in Etirath. His closest family is probably Rosen, Guilder, and Yaga.