Nerinoa

Nerinoa was born sometime around the year 1346. The exact date isn't known, since Nerinoa spent her childhood at an orphanage in Everlund, located in the city alongside the temple of Helm. Nerinoa's mother was very poor, and one autumn evening she brought the two-year-old Nerinoa to the orphanage, since she couldn't afford to care for her. It's known for certain that Nerinoa's father was an elf, but that's the only thing known about him. Elves have hardly been seen in the last twenty years. The orphanage's director Theodemer met Nerinoa's mother only once. Her name was Joane Seabrook.

Life at the orphanage went on, but it wasn't easy. The years passed in the care of foster mother Eilwen Perry. The other children mistreated Nerinoa, since she found it hard to hide the elven features she'd inherited from her father.

In the summer of 1358, Nerinoa remembers the day the orphanage got a visitor. Visitors hardly ever came to the orphanage, so every visitor was an event. The visitor was a very elderly man, dressed in valuable, ornate clothing. A handsome coat of arms adorned his chest, a rearing golden lion with eagle's wings, on a black background. The visitor sat in the yard watching the orphanage children play. Nerinoa remembers how the visitor chatted with her very kindly, unlike the others. Suddenly, however, the visitor grimaced in pain, grabbing his chest with one hand and bracing himself against Nerinoa with the other. A moment later, Nerinoa was thrown backward as if by an electric shock, and fainted. In the morning she woke in her bed and heard that the visitor had died.

Later that same day, playtime continued at the orphanage as before. The children mistreated Nerinoa, and she tried to avoid them. This time, however, they cornered her, and tried to grab hold of her. But something strange happened. A fiery bolt flew from Nerinoa's fingertip at the nearest boy, and the boy caught fire. Nerinoa panicked and tried to flee. For the following moments, everything she touched caught fire. Chaos broke out at the orphanage. Nerinoa ran through the whole orphanage, all the way out the orphanage gate. No one stopped her, since everyone was utterly stunned by what had happened.

For the following years, Nerinoa lived in Everlund as a child of the streets. She quickly learned how to persuade people to give alms or food, so she got by. Nerinoa also made her first friends, Skippy and Slick. The names were of course aliases, since they belonged to the city's underworld, Rinki, but those were the names Nerinoa knew them by. Together they supported each other and got by.

Nerinoa also got to know her own new and frightening powers. From the day she fled the orphanage, Nerinoa found she could do new things through willpower alone. Sometimes, however, the powers got out of hand, just as at the orphanage, and the result wasn't very pretty.

Skippy and Slick also learned of Nerinoa's strange abilities. They said that Nerinoa wasn't, however, the only one to whom something similar had happened. They knew to say that people with such abilities were sought out and hunted, since they were considered a danger to others. There was no word on the fate of those who were caught. Rinki had, at times and for various reasons, helped some of the hunted escape.

Given this information, the great city of Everlund began to feel oppressive to Nerinoa. Even though it had become familiar and had friends in it, a few times a situation arose where Nerinoa thought she would be caught. Approaching adulthood, Nerinoa grew into an extremely beautiful young woman, and easily drew attention. In addition, her elven heritage was easy to notice, and given what had happened at the orphanage, she was easy to identify. Because of this, she made the decision to move to the great forest of the High Forest, located south of Everlund. The forest was known to be ancient and dangerous, so with this Nerinoa hoped she could live in safety.

Nestled in the forest she found an ancient, ruined tower, which looked as though it had been untouched for an eternity. It still had livable parts, however, so she made them her home.

A couple of years passed living in this new place. Except for some wild animals, Nerinoa got to live in complete peace. The nights were dark, but light and a lockable front door helped a great deal. Nerinoa got to explore her own powers in peace and practice using them. They still felt frightening, though, since she never felt fully in control of them.

The most recent events took place in just the last few weeks. Unexpectedly, a woman arrived at Nerinoa's, giving her name as Zaphara. The woman was relatively attractive, with long black hair, and was dressed in a thick dark weapon coat. A spiked mace hung at her belt.

Zaphara said she was interested in the ruins and hoped to be allowed to study them. She said an ancient people had once lived there, and she wanted to look into whether they might have left behind old artifacts. Nerinoa wasn't interested in this, however, and for some reason Zaphara seemed suspicious.

The next night, Nerinoa woke to someone breaking into her home. Zaphara and several men with her got inside! Against the first man, Nerinoa managed to use her powers, but after that Zaphara pointed a finger at Nerinoa, said something, and Nerinoa lost her sight! This didn't last long, but during that time Nerinoa became Zaphara's prisoner.

They spent the next day still at Nerinoa's home, and Zaphara searched the area around it, apparently without result. After this, Zaphara left the tower with Nerinoa in tow, and they traveled somewhere for a day. The whole time, Nerinoa had a hood over her eyes.

From that day on, Nerinoa has been a prisoner at Zaphara's, in a small locked closet. Occasionally Zaphara came to examine Nerinoa, and pronounced her a prime specimen. A few times Nerinoa heard Zaphara talking with some man, and sometimes heard a few men conversing among themselves.

But a couple of days ago it suddenly went quiet. Nerinoa was left alone in the locked closet, no one brought food. The hunger is severe.