Post by @PeriwinkleDragon on Feb 26, 2023 22:47:21 GMT -4
Soraya began her life in humble hovel somewhere in Elswyre. With a sister, the oldest, and two brothers she came as the last and probably least wanted mouth to feed.
Her father was a smuggler, making him gone for long stretches of time, until he was caught and killed for it. This left her long suffering mother to raise all four children.
Finding and keeping gold was a challenge, but the whole family eventually managed to make a small living by finding things. Not just anything mind you, things needed by mages and mystics, apothecaries and enchanters. These sorts of items were usually just hard or dangerous enough to acquire that the practitioners preferred to hire out to find them.
So Soraya's siblings would go out each day, get a list from someone, and hope that whatever was on it wouldn't get them killed, all under the watchful eye of their mother. At first, Soraya was too young, then as time went on she became too much of a nuisance on one too many expeditions, thus leaving her stuck at home with nothing to contribute.
Filled with insatiable curiosity, she seemed to get into everything, like a racoon. Often times she would be dragged back to her mother by the ear after sticking her nose exactly where it was not wanted. But Soraya was not trying to be bad, it really wasn't her fault she wanted to know everything under the two moons.
She knew how hard her family worked and saw how her actions inconvenienced them. So one day, a teen Soraya had an idea. She read a flier on a notice board, talking about the joys of exploring tombs. Once in a while her family had ventured into an old ruin, but never had they gone underground much less a tomb, it was too dangerous, obviously. Well, not so obvious to Soraya. Here she saw an opportunity to help her family, and prove that she was of some use after all.
She was definitely too confident in her own abilities, but, by the tip of her claws, and the fur on her tail, she managed to begin this new career path, without getting herself killed, a little singed maybe, but not dead.
A year of so passed of her new endeavors, but still her family thought it was folly, since most of the safer tombs were already picked clean. But as Soraya's luck would have it, her new path to redemption was cut short, and she got herself in too deep, literally, and triggered an ancient Ayleid trap in a particularly decrepit tomb, successfully sealing herself inside, with no way out.
In her arrogance, Soraya never told her family where she went, so though they knew she was gone, they had no way of finding her, and being so deep underground, no amount of magic could help to find her. Soraya was nothing if not annoyingly determined though, and she spent the remaining days...and days...and days searching high and low for a way out.
She kept herself sane in the quiet depths by singing, talking and laughing with herself until suddenly she was aggressively silenced by a loud "WOULD YOU BE QUIET YOU INFERNAL BEAST!", after the initial shock wore off Soraya questioned the voice, incessantly, until she believed she might be going mad and hearing voices was just the start of some horrible decline, but then, "I am trying to rest! Can you be silent for even one minute?" and out of a wall floated a ghost.
It took some time for the two to understand each other, but finally Soraya learned that this particular tomb was home to an ancient necromancer.
Of course time had seen many, many others buried there, but he was first. And so began a strange friendship, born out of insults, as anyone trapped in a tomb with Soraya would begin by trying to get her shut up. However, her seemingly eternal optimism and curious mind drew this ancient spirit out, and eventually he found himself educating her, on some pretty complex things. Soraya had a sharp mind that caught on quick, that is until hunger began to dull it.
Her new ghostly companion noticed and, while perfectly content to sleep before she game, he now found the prospect of her inevitable demise discomfiting. He had grown used to her constant chatter, hard to fathom I know, and he quite enjoyed sharing his knowledge with her. So he came up with a plan, to sustain her, as only a necromancer would, by teaching her the magic to preserve her life, to essentially consume the dead.
He did not, at first, expect her to be able to manage it, but when she not only could but excelled at it, he taught her more. Of course there were some long stretches of time where she simply could not continue and had to essentially hibernate. And the prolonged consumption of dark spirit essence had an effect on her mind, namely a measure of absent mindedness, and creepy glowing eyes.
Her new mentor, judging her to be a bit too honorable, decided not to share the exact cost of what she was doing to preserve her life, as it meant actively trapping and consuming the essence of the others buried in the tomb.
This went on for a few hundred years, far surpassing the normal lifespan of a normal Khajiit. Then, when the bodies left were getting too few, the ghost sensed a disturbance in the ground above them.
A group of excavators with the mages guild were about to dig them up. So he took what remained of the dead in the tomb, including himself and poured all of it into Soraya, ensuring she would be strong enough, and alive enough to be found.
Soraya, having gone a little batty in the time since her internment, did not quite understand, but before he faded, her ghost made her promise to make something of herself, to live a long life and pass on her knowledge, and not get stuck in any more tombs.
And so, much to the shock of the excavators, she was there to greet them when they broke through the final barrier. To them she was practically skeletal, and her eyes were terrifying, but she seemed overall fine. After many questions, most of which she did not answer, she was allowed to leave. And so Soraya's new life began.
Her father was a smuggler, making him gone for long stretches of time, until he was caught and killed for it. This left her long suffering mother to raise all four children.
Finding and keeping gold was a challenge, but the whole family eventually managed to make a small living by finding things. Not just anything mind you, things needed by mages and mystics, apothecaries and enchanters. These sorts of items were usually just hard or dangerous enough to acquire that the practitioners preferred to hire out to find them.
So Soraya's siblings would go out each day, get a list from someone, and hope that whatever was on it wouldn't get them killed, all under the watchful eye of their mother. At first, Soraya was too young, then as time went on she became too much of a nuisance on one too many expeditions, thus leaving her stuck at home with nothing to contribute.
Filled with insatiable curiosity, she seemed to get into everything, like a racoon. Often times she would be dragged back to her mother by the ear after sticking her nose exactly where it was not wanted. But Soraya was not trying to be bad, it really wasn't her fault she wanted to know everything under the two moons.
She knew how hard her family worked and saw how her actions inconvenienced them. So one day, a teen Soraya had an idea. She read a flier on a notice board, talking about the joys of exploring tombs. Once in a while her family had ventured into an old ruin, but never had they gone underground much less a tomb, it was too dangerous, obviously. Well, not so obvious to Soraya. Here she saw an opportunity to help her family, and prove that she was of some use after all.
She was definitely too confident in her own abilities, but, by the tip of her claws, and the fur on her tail, she managed to begin this new career path, without getting herself killed, a little singed maybe, but not dead.
A year of so passed of her new endeavors, but still her family thought it was folly, since most of the safer tombs were already picked clean. But as Soraya's luck would have it, her new path to redemption was cut short, and she got herself in too deep, literally, and triggered an ancient Ayleid trap in a particularly decrepit tomb, successfully sealing herself inside, with no way out.
In her arrogance, Soraya never told her family where she went, so though they knew she was gone, they had no way of finding her, and being so deep underground, no amount of magic could help to find her. Soraya was nothing if not annoyingly determined though, and she spent the remaining days...and days...and days searching high and low for a way out.
She kept herself sane in the quiet depths by singing, talking and laughing with herself until suddenly she was aggressively silenced by a loud "WOULD YOU BE QUIET YOU INFERNAL BEAST!", after the initial shock wore off Soraya questioned the voice, incessantly, until she believed she might be going mad and hearing voices was just the start of some horrible decline, but then, "I am trying to rest! Can you be silent for even one minute?" and out of a wall floated a ghost.
It took some time for the two to understand each other, but finally Soraya learned that this particular tomb was home to an ancient necromancer.
Of course time had seen many, many others buried there, but he was first. And so began a strange friendship, born out of insults, as anyone trapped in a tomb with Soraya would begin by trying to get her shut up. However, her seemingly eternal optimism and curious mind drew this ancient spirit out, and eventually he found himself educating her, on some pretty complex things. Soraya had a sharp mind that caught on quick, that is until hunger began to dull it.
Her new ghostly companion noticed and, while perfectly content to sleep before she game, he now found the prospect of her inevitable demise discomfiting. He had grown used to her constant chatter, hard to fathom I know, and he quite enjoyed sharing his knowledge with her. So he came up with a plan, to sustain her, as only a necromancer would, by teaching her the magic to preserve her life, to essentially consume the dead.
He did not, at first, expect her to be able to manage it, but when she not only could but excelled at it, he taught her more. Of course there were some long stretches of time where she simply could not continue and had to essentially hibernate. And the prolonged consumption of dark spirit essence had an effect on her mind, namely a measure of absent mindedness, and creepy glowing eyes.
Her new mentor, judging her to be a bit too honorable, decided not to share the exact cost of what she was doing to preserve her life, as it meant actively trapping and consuming the essence of the others buried in the tomb.
This went on for a few hundred years, far surpassing the normal lifespan of a normal Khajiit. Then, when the bodies left were getting too few, the ghost sensed a disturbance in the ground above them.
A group of excavators with the mages guild were about to dig them up. So he took what remained of the dead in the tomb, including himself and poured all of it into Soraya, ensuring she would be strong enough, and alive enough to be found.
Soraya, having gone a little batty in the time since her internment, did not quite understand, but before he faded, her ghost made her promise to make something of herself, to live a long life and pass on her knowledge, and not get stuck in any more tombs.
And so, much to the shock of the excavators, she was there to greet them when they broke through the final barrier. To them she was practically skeletal, and her eyes were terrifying, but she seemed overall fine. After many questions, most of which she did not answer, she was allowed to leave. And so Soraya's new life began.
))
Founded April 26, 2005