A character background, for an online game I'm playing, and in a sense a rip-off of a character another person I know was playing in the game I used to run. It's a Elven druid, and interesting controller/striker class.
Originally, the character was meant to be a sort of Snafu-clone from The Pacific, but I've been playing it more like Sledge (i.e. tired Marine vs. cynical Marine, though by the end Sledge has plenty of both).
It was that smell and the sound. That combination of cloying sweetness that failed to mask the stench of putrid flesh. The buzzing of a thousand flies as they feasted on their bounty. In the end, goblin or elf, they all smelled the same.
"Another village destroyed," muttered hunter Selyse, kneeling at the edge of the clearing. There was evidence of the fires, set to the trees and dwellings of the elves who once lived here, cruelly put out by the rainstorms two days hence. Now, rather than having their ashes scattered to the winds so their spirits could rejoin the cycle of life, they rotted in the mud, part of a far more earthly cycle. "This was a raid in force. The Blackspears are getting bolder."
Without saying much else, we left the clearing, a spiritual dark cloud hanging over us to mirror that which roiled in the skies above. Inside me, I seethed with impotent rage. I had wanted to avenge my fallen kin. I had wanted to at least burn their mortal shells, lest they be defiled even further by the ravages of nature and time. Yet Selyse had spoken from wisdom and experience. We were exposed here. The massacre was still fresh, a few days old, and we were two-week's travel from the nearest Refuge. To have stayed, even to honor our dead, would have been folly. I wondered quietly why the goblins had not taken their victims for their cook-pots. We left in silence and returned to our 6-week ranging.
Four days later, Selyse came to me.
"Your first ranging?"
I nodded numbly, unsure of how to respond.
"It gets easier," she said. "The killing."
She sighed, that stony facade crumbling for an instant, only to return a moment later. "It's the hate that makes it easier. It's kindling for the fight, kindling for your rage. It's something you keep inside of you, a tool to use. You got your first taste at that village. It made that ambush all the more...satisfying."
I stared down at my hands. They began to tremble, and in my mind I saw stains of black goblin blood. I barely remembered my first fight, just that the desire to kill, the desire to avengy my fallen kin, burned so fiercely in me. The burned village, the awful white corpses feathered with black war shafts. As I let that Primal beast consume me, I remember savoring the hot, foul taste of goblin blood as I tore our throat after throat. I remember the fear in their inhuman eyes as I pounced on them, claws slashing. I remember standing in their stinking viscera, glorying in the bloodshed and basking the the light of justice.
Afterwards I retched in shock and shame.
Selyse took my hands in hers. I looked into her face. She didn't smile reassuringly. Nor did she look upon me with concern. Instead, there was a dull, tired look in her eyes. The war takes it's toll on everyone, it seems.
"You'll hate yourself for it. You hate that the faces of the dead, the faces of your friends, etched so painfully in your mind now, will begin to fade. Each fallen comrade, each innocent villager, will just be another unfortunate victim. Sad, but irrelevant to the moment except to fuel that fire in you. War makes the devil of all of us, and if we survive, we have many many years of anguish to look forward to until we find some peace. Not all of us do."
She held me to her chest that day as I shivered uncontrollably. Selyse was a mere 5 seasons older than me, yet it seemed that the gulf between us could be measured in centuries. How I envied her stoicism, her seeming indifference to the death and killing. Three days later, a black arrow took her in the throat and she died with that same tired look in her eyes.
I survived my first ranging, and as I participated in more over the next year, I learned. I learned to use the forest to my advantage. It is our home, after all, and the goblins are the invaders. I learned how to stalk my prey from the shadows, how to kill silently, how to pick off one goblin at a time.
And I saw comrades die, saw elves who followed me on raids fall to black shafts and cruel, hooked blades. When I returned from my 6th ranging, my mother cried out in sadness at the sight of me. I stood at first in confusion, before finding a wash basin to look into. I couldn't see what had so unnerved my mother.
Loremaster Felden summoned me some time later. The war, I had heard, was proceeding smoothly. We were still taking casualties, to be sure. But it seemed as if the goblin's initial surge had subsided. Now, for every one of my comrades that fell, 10 or more of the goblin would fall. There were few tales of massacred villages now; those remote refuges had wisely been abandoned for the safety of the larger tree-towns. So I was a little perplexed by the Loremaster's words.
"I would like you to venture from our forests, Merrill."
I nodded dumbly. What else could I do?
"The raids have died down, but I have my doubts that we near the end." He stood, circling the chambers, with their shelves of countless manuscripts and parchments. The scent of dust and brittle papyrus floated in the air. "I am not alone in this. The Council has felt something...darker...pulling at the strings for some time."
He returned to sit in front of me, unrolling an brown scroll, placing it on the table between us and weighing it down with polished stones.
"There," he said, his wizened finger pointing at the map. "I would like you to travel there, to begin with. To Nentir Vale. A sojourn beyond the Forest will help your spirit as much as it will help the Council uncover this mystery. There is much to learn in the human lands, things which you cannot learn here."
I started to protest, but the Loremaster waved his hands, quieting me. "You will come back to us, far stronger. I know you are loathe to leave your comrades here. But your inquiries outside the forest will contribute far more to our plight than your rangings in the forest. Killing every goblin that comes into our forest is a fruitless task if ten thousand more stand ready to replace them. You must find out if we are victorious, or if we are indeed entering some new phase. You must find the dark hand that pulls the strings."
Any objections I had were quickly put to rest. I could see the wisdom in his words, even as I doubted I was worthy of the task.
Before I left the Loremaster had one piece of advice. "Be wary in human cities. Deception and trickery are the stock and trade of many, and they will flock to your ignorance as insects to a moonglobe."
What would the world beyond the Forest bring? What sights would I see? Who would I meet? My heart was filled with trepidation,
