A wise man once stated that “he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man”. Of course, he was speaking of the excesses of drinking, and the escape some seek within, but the concept can easily be applied to any situation in which one willingly gives up one’s capacities for rational thought. In so doing, one often finds respite from the troubles of the world.
But what if one gives up their choice, the very free will that makes us human, not of their own accord, but due to happenstance? What if a person finds themselves reduced to such a state not by drink or surrender to a willful state of nirvana, but instead by having their freedom to choose their fate stolen from them?
Does that person find the same release from the cares of their soul? Does the great burden on them lessen? Or is the burden merely added to by the chains of their oppression?
And what then, if one day, they should, in this metaphorical sense, become a man once more? Do they merely return to the state they were in before their will was stolen, or does the experience forever change their perspective? Do the pains they had before lessen, knowing that there is always worse out there, or do they grow, knowing that there is no escape, no true respite from the burdens of being a man?
This too, perhaps, is a choice that a man makes for himself. Even if that man is a woman, and even if that woman’s veins flow not only with the blood of mankind, but also with the blood of those of a darker place.
But, of course, that comes later. For the tale of any man, or woman, begins much earlier.
For her first several years, Natalya could easily be described as a happy child. All the women of her mother’s circle expressed their jealousy at the child’s mild demeanor. Rarely did she cry, never did she fuss.
It did not hurt that her family was wealthy beyond imagining, so never did her belly go empty nor did she ever spend a single night shivering. She never lacked for toys to tickle the imagination nor for clothing and adornment of the greatest finery.
That isn’t to say she had no expectations upon her. It is oft true that those who seem blessed suffer hidden tribulations, and Natalya was no different. But one could be forgiven for considering her troubles as meaningless in the face of those suffered by others.
When she was five, she began training in her Grandfather’s dance studio. The studio was famous, having produced numerous stars of stage productions much sought after in Magnimar, great Cheliax and Korvosa, the city where it was located. So it was that the world greatly looked forward to seeing how this child, heir to such a legacy, would turn out.
And Natalya struggled, doing her best to live up to the legacy. Many days ended with her unable to even walk, her feet stressed to the point where any further strain could cause them to fail entirely, with either fractured bones or snapped tendons being the result.
But still, she never complained. It was difficult, but she knew she could do it, if only she tried harder. And, to some degree, this was true. She improved in leaps and bounds, and by the age of nine, would have been considered a world class dancer anywhere else.
But her grandfather was from Brevoy, and he held greater standards. The dancing had never been the true goal. No, indeed, it was simply the first step. For he was the master of more than dance. He was a Swordlord, and it was his duty to pass the skills of his forebears on to the next generation. The dance studio was merely a front that allowed him to keep his secret out in the open, where none would investigate.
So, at the age of nine, she began training in more than dance. She added training in tumbling, climbing and even rudimentary work with the blade. Many a night, she would be forced to deal with the ministrations of a healing cleric to mend a dislocated shoulder, or a torn ligament.
While she took to the other training easily, the work with the blade was difficult for her. An Aldori dueling sword is not like the rapiers or other thin blades favored by duelists, being much more unwieldy. And while it’s true that they lend themselves well to the same styles of fighting as more common longswords, this was not the kind of swordplay she was expected to learn.
Even three years later, while she had mastered the techniques, she still found the weapon difficult to wield, much to the frustration of her grandfather. Even her mother, who had lacked the talent for her father’s teachings, harassed her about her lack of progress.
Only her father, who had been a nobleman from Cheliax before marrying her mother and moving to Korvosa, took her side. He was often told to keep out of it by his father-in-law and wife. And Natalya, eager to please, refused to give up.
In the end, the fighting between her parents grew to be too much, and her father was forced to leave. He fought to take her with him, but was denied by authorities that sided with her mother’s much wealthier family.
The stress of it all was compounded when she began blossoming into a woman. Not only because of the tumultuous nature of such a change, but because it brought out something that had been hidden until that point.
One morning, Natalya awoke as normal and headed to breakfast. She met her mother there, and when the woman saw her, she screamed and dropped her fine porcelain tea cup. It shattered into a thousand pieces upon the marble floor, then the woman fainted, crumpling onto the ground beside it.
Natalya rushed to her mother’s side, trying to wake her, and ask what was wrong. The servants fled in terror, bringing her grandfather as quickly as they could.
Her grandfather struck her immediately upon seeing her, sending the scared child flying.
Only then, in the shards of a shattered vase, did Natalya see what had caused the commotion. From her forehead grew a pair of horns. She was a tiefling, her blood tainted by the foul influence of fiends somewhere in her family line.
While her nature was a curse inflicted by a pact made with a devil by someone on her mother’s side of the family many generations past, her mother and grandfather blamed her father for the curse now apparent in the child. For he was from Cheliax, and everyone in Varisia knew that the people of Cheliax consorted with devils.
For two more years, Natalya’s training continued while her family sought a way to hide the mark of her shame, but it had become much more brutal. More was expected of her, and often she was denied the services of a cleric, left to agonize through days of recuperation as her body tried mending itself from the over-exertions demanded of her.
At the age of fourteen, she experienced a growth spurt, and with it came more changes. Her hair darkened, becoming raven black overnight, and her skin also changed, taking on a visible crimson hue.
Her grandfather was furious when she arrived at the studio for training and removed her heavy cloak. He took his sword down from the wall and began ranting. Then he charged. It was obvious he intended to kill her.
But she had learned her lessons well. She dodged his blows, dancing around the room, enraging him all the more. She knew that her only hope was to disarm him and escape. Then she could run home, steal some money, and try to find her father. He would protect her.
She grabbed the nearest weapon, a slender rapier taken from a fallen foe in a duel that was displayed on the wall as a trophy. And she fought for her life.
Had he not been so enraged, her grandfather might have been proud, for she fought with all the skill he had taught her. But he was literally foaming at the mouth in his anger, so it never occurred to him to marvel at what this child, his own flesh and blood, was showing him.
While rage can aid many in combat, for those who practice the fine art of dueling, it is often the one who remains the most clearheaded who wins. And, while terrified, Natalya was certainly the combatant thinking the most clearly.
In fact, her grandfather may not have even had a coherent thought at the moment when Natalya ran him through. He quite possibly may have died with his brain locked in a rabid, unthinking rage.
Natalya took the bloodstained blade and its sheath, then put on her cloak and rushed home. She took what she could carry and tried to flee before her mother found out. But that was not to be. Her own mother drew a dagger on her, intent on doing what her grandfather had failed. And Natalya, at the age of fourteen, was forced to take someone’s life in self-defense for the second time that day.
She fled the city, paying a group of travelers far too much money to bring her with them, and made her way to Cheliax, to the city of Kintargo along the northwestern coast.
That was where her father was from, so she hoped she could find him there. She just knew that he would take her in. Surely he wouldn’t care what she looked like. She was his daughter, and he loved her.
But getting to him was the task. She spent the last of her coin on information, finally discovering that he had a home in The Greens, one of the city’s wealthiest districts.
She believed that with that information in hand, she needed only to walk up to his home. But the city guards didn’t allow tieflings, which were viewed as little more than thieves and thugs, to enter the district except under very strict circumstances. And telling them that her father lived there wasn’t one of those. In fact, it only earned her a thrashing.
So she looked for a way in. Eventually, she found it, though it involved crawling through a storm drain that someone had been pouring chamberpots into.
She stealthily made her way through the streets until at last she found her way to the doorstep of the home where her father was said to live. Taking a deep breath, she knocked.
A servant answered. Upon seeing her, a waif of a tiefling in filth-stained clothing, he immediately slammed the door in her face. She banged on the door again, louder, and was told to leave before the city watch was summoned.
But she persevered, and eventually, the lord of the house answered the door. Upon seeing her father, Natalya began crying and flung her arms around him.
He pushed her away. “Leave this place,” he told her.
“But, Daddy, I have nowhere else to go!” she begged as the last pieces of her heart shattered.
“Who is this girl?” a woman’s voice asked from behind him. She peered around him and saw a young woman holding a small child.
“Daddy,” she begged one last time, knowing that it was probably hopeless.
“She’s no one,” her father said. “Simply a tiefling looking for a handout, or maybe a con-artist, looking to swindle us of our money.”
The woman sighed. “The guards get lazier every year. We should complain to the watch captain.”
“I will do so first thing in the morning. But for now, this girl knows there’s nothing for her here. She’ll leave, if she knows what’s good for her.” Defeated and utterly broken, Natalya nodded morosely and trudged away.
That night, she slept in a gutter, too upset to even bother finding shelter from the light rain.
The next day, she tried to find some way to find something to eat, but no respectable businesses would deal with her, not that she had any remaining coin to use even if she could.
She learned that the city’s leadership paid a bounty of a copper piece for killing mice, doves and ravens, so she tried that, only to learn that she wasn’t allowed to enter the building to claim her reward. In the end, she had only corpses of a couple scrawny mice to show for her efforts.
She traded one of them to another tiefling in the slums for use of her fire. She gagged on the meat at first, but was too hungry to turn away the meal and ended up eating it.
She spoke with the other tiefling for a time, and learned that the only way for a tiefling girl with no other prospects to earn money was to sell her body.
She refused at first, but after almost a year of living on the street in squalor, teetering on the edge of starvation and nearly succumbing to the cold of the winter, she knew she needed to do something to survive and reluctantly accepted her fate.
There were few places in town where the guards would turn a blind eye to such a trade, which was dangerous for someone who had no coin with which to bribe said guards. So she had to find somewhere she thought she wouldn’t be bothered, and found it in one of the city’s older parts.
She was standing on a street in Old Kintargo, near the city’s saltworks, when a carriage stopped and a man invited her inside. She hesitated at first, having heard of the dangers inherent in the profession. But if she wanted to survive, she would have to take the risk. It was either a chance of danger now, or a slow, inevitable death.
Within the carriage she found a man wearing simple clothes of fine make and a long black coat. “My, you look terrible, if you don’t mind me saying. Come, let’s get you something to eat.” He seemed cordial, and his tone of voice and demeanor held a simple respect that she had not heard in ages.
Still she was suspicious, and didn’t answer, giving only a nod. She knew what the meal would cost her and she hoped she would not have to fight for the coin that she earned as well. She wished she had her sword, but she had traded it for a small dagger and blanket to survive the winter.
The only thing of any value she still carried was a music box, given to her by her parents long ago during happier times. When you opened it, a little dancing girl twirled around to a stiff, mechanical tune.
She was sure she would eventually have to sell that as well. It was only a matter of time.
They arrived at a building on the edge of town next to a warehouse and he led her inside after greeting the guards, who seemed very professional to the girl. Inside, they went immediately to an office of some sort.
The room was strange, lit by some kind of magic lights rather than candles. Other than that, though, it was neat and very well kept, and quite comfortable. He had her take a seat on one side of a desk, and he sat on the other, putting his feet up.
He really didn’t say much during that time. She didn’t know why, but in truth he was perplexed as to what to say to her. A minute or two after they arrived, a servant entered the room carrying a tray of food. It smelled amazing, and while she hesitated at first, the girl needed little prompting before digging in.
“Take your time and enjoy your dinner,” the man told her. “I need to go take care of a few things and will be back in maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then we can talk some business.”
He left, and for several minutes, she did exactly that, though she did not take time to savor the meal. In the tiefling slums where she lived, you didn’t eat slowly. If you weren’t quick enough, someone was liable to take what meager scraps you’d found from you. So she wolfed down her food, chewing only when strictly necessary to prevent choking.
Then she began looking around the office, snooping through the shelves and cupboards. It didn’t take long before she found something of some value, a bar of pure platinum large enough to be worth thousands of gold coins.
She considered her situation. In a few minutes, he would return and she would be forced to – she didn’t want to think about what she would have to do – in exchange for a meal and a few coins. If she was lucky, there would be a gold piece in it for her, which would cover her basic expenses for at least some weeks, or maybe even a couple months.
Alternatively, she could take this bar and run. With that kind of money, she could find her way to a whole new city, perhaps one where tieflings were treated better. She might even be able to purchase passage to Xin-Shalast. It was rumored among the tiefling community that the ruler there gave even tieflings a fair opportunity to be a valued part of the community.
With her noble’s education, Natalya was certain she could make something of herself there, and never again would she have to even contemplate selling her body.
Her mind was made up. She would take it. Fate had taken everything from her, but now at last had given her a chance to take it all back. She wouldn’t miss this opportunity to seize the life she deserved.
She opened the string on her worn belt pouch stuffed the bar inside. Then, as she was beginning to tie it closed again, she heard that sound of the doorknob.
Panicking, she dashed over and leapt out of the open window. They were on the second floor, but she had her acrobatic training, and such a fall was nothing to her. She landed and tucked into a roll, then quickly scrambled up and over the wall and dashed into the back alleyways.
As she made it over the wall, she heard a voice shout behind her. “Wait!” the man called out. But she didn’t stop. She knew they’d be coming after her, so she continued fleeing.
As expected, pursuit did not take long. Several of the guardsmen were following her on foot, and she thought she saw someone flying above in pursuit.
She dodged from alley to alley until she spotted one that was covered above so the flying pursuer couldn’t see her. She quickly ducked inside, and immediately realized it had been a mistake. The alley was a dead end.
She turned to find another path, but heard the sound of boots just past the entrance. Her only hope was to hide, so she quickly looked around for an option.
There were several piles of refuse and debris that might hide her, and she nearly chose one of those before spotting a gap in eaves of one of the overhanging buildings. After a quick appraisal, she was certain she could squeeze in.
She leapt up and barely made it in before the light of the torches reached her. She watched breathlessly as the wealthy man and two guards began searching the alley.
The guards were checking the piles, but the man was looking higher. She realized in terror that it was only a matter of time before he spotted her hiding place, and then it would all be over. They would probably hang her for thievery. In hindsight, she wished that she had accepted her fate. It had been distasteful, but at least she would have been alive.
Then a miracle happened. Just as his eyes neared her position, she heard a strange bell tone. He looked concerned and immediately retrieved a small object from his pocket.
“Hello dear, is everything okay?” he asked, speaking to the object. “Slow down. They woke up what? I can’t understand what you’re trying to say. Where did they find it? WHAT?! Did you mean to say ‘Huitzilopochtli’? When the hell will people learn not to dig under Aztec temples? Yeah, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He put away the object.
“Trouble, my lord?” one of the guards asked.
“You could say that. Nothing you have to worry about. But I really need to go deal with it.”
“Shall we keep looking for the girl?”
“No, head back to the office. If you do happen to run into her, take her into custody, but do not harm her. I want to speak with her.”
“Understood, my lord. Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck. I have ammo.” Then he cast a spell and disappeared. The guards looked around for a few minutes more, but soon left as well.
Natalya had done it. They were gone. But she was still worried that it might be a trick, so she remained hidden for a few minutes more, just to be safe.
But she could risk looking at her prize. Carefully she pulled it from her pouch and viewed it, seeing it in black and white in her darkvision. It wasn’t nearly as beautiful without the light reflecting off of it.
When she put the bar back, she noticed something. Her music box was gone! That upset her more than it should have, she felt. She had enough to make it to Xin-Shalast and buy a hundred music boxes with the leftover. And it’s not even as if she still loved the family that she’d left.
But that music box was the last link. And she found that her heart hurt a little to have lost it. She couldn’t help it. She cried for several minutes.
Once she regained control of herself, she climbed down from her hiding place and skulked out of the alleyway. But she wasn’t sure what to do next. She needed a way to sell the bar, and then a way to get out of town.
She had heard things about the city, and knew that there was one group of businessmen who would be willing to trade for stolen goods, and who were rumored to have ways of smuggling people. And better, they always had an agent awake so tieflings thieves could visit while others were sleeping.
So she set out for the offices of the Aspis Consortium.
She was careful moving through the city, as it was nearly time for the nightly curfew, when only a rare few individuals – mostly those who could bribe the guards – were permitted to move through the streets. There wasn’t too much of an issue inside the tiefling ghettos, since guards rarely patrolled, but she’d learned quickly to keep from being seen outside of them, especially at night.
After a few close calls, she finally made it to the offices she sought. She had never visited them before, but she’d heard a lot about the place. She knew she would get the short end of the deal. That was to be expected. But they seemed to put profit above race, so she hoped she’d get enough to fulfill her goals. And trading directly for a service from them would hopefully get her a greater value than trying to trade for money.
She knocked lightly and a few moments later a panel in the door opened. A pair of eyes regarded her from within, then the panel closed. She then heard the sound of locks being undone and the door creaked open. “Hurry inside, and tell me what you have,” the man said.
She went inside and he shut the door behind her. She then pulled out the bar. “I have this,” she said. “I want to use it to buy passage somewhere.”
The man examined the bar. “How did you come to have this?” he asked. “Wait. Never mind, I don’t think I want to know. Especially if you’re so desperate to leave the city. We can get you out. Where do you wish to go?”
“Xin-Shalast,” she answered.
He appraised her for a moment, then nodded. “I should have known. Yes, we can get you there. It will be pricey.”
She looked at the bar. “I can afford it though, right?”
“Yes. This should cover your trip, food and a set of clothing for the mountain passages. There won’t be much, if anything left, considering how many bribes we’ll have to pay.”
She knew she was getting ripped off, but everything would be fine when she made it there. She knew it would be. “Deal.”
“Good. Let’s get going. We can get you on a ship tonight if we hurry.”
“A ship?”
“It’s the easiest way to get you to Magnimar. From there, we’ll put you in a caravan heading up to Xin-Shalast.”
She didn’t know much about the geography, but that sounded right. She did know that Magnimar was fairly close, more or less. “Okay,” she agreed.
The guards paid no attention to her and the Consortium agent as they moved through the city. Only at the docks were they stopped, and a quick exchange of coins solved that.
The agent spoke to the captain, and left after telling Natalya that the captain had been given instructions and would take care of her. She thanked him for his aid and made her way onto the ship.
Less than an hour after leaving the harbor, the sailors slapped manacles on the girl and stowed her down in the hold, along with the other slaves. Tears of rage filled her eyes at the betrayal, and she fought the entire way. She even bit one of the men, leaving a nasty wound that would eventually fester and kill him, though she had no way of knowing it.
Sometime later – she lost track of the days down in the dark hold – she found herself in a city, brought before a slave master. A member of the Aspis Consortium was there to oversee the evaluation. He was a disgusting, morbidly obese man who reeked of stale fish and garlic.
She was half delirious from malnutrition – they had fed her only enough to keep her alive on the ship, as punishment for harming one of the sailors – so she didn’t remember much. But in the end, the disgusting man decided to keep her.
He placed a magical leather collar around her neck. She tried to remove it, but the lock was too strong for her to break, and she had no tools to try picking it with, had she even the skill. Within minutes of being bound, she felt all will drain from her, and she could not resist any commands he gave her.
The less said about what he did to her, the better. But she suffered for years in his “tender” care.
In that time, she was broken utterly. The things that he said to her, calling her worthless, a worm, she began to accept as truths about herself. Eventually, the collar was removed – it was valuable and could be used elsewhere – but its effects were no longer necessary. She simply lacked the self-worth to put up any resistance to her fate.
That finally changed one day, nearly six years later, when armed men and women broke into her owner’s home. Confused and fearful of what would happen to her if the intruders made him angry, she tried to shield him from harm, but the intruders were skilled and easily able to get past her without killing her.
Terrified, she cowered in a corner as they did the work of making absolutely sure that the man was dead. She did not know it at the time, but he had been responsible for a great atrocity and that was why he had been killed.
“By Shelyn,” one of the intruders said as she stood over the cowering young woman.
“That can’t be… do you really think she’s the one we were told to keep an eye out for?”
People were looking for her? Why? She could barely remember much of her life before becoming a slave. Why would someone want her? “Stay back,” she whimpered quietly.
The woman sat down on the ground a few feet from her. “We aren’t here to hurt you. We’ve just been told to deliver something to you, then help you out if you need it. But we can’t stay here for long. I’m sure that the guards are already on their way. Let’s get out of here and we can talk at our safe house.”
It couldn’t be any worse than what she had endured so far, and she was terrified that she would be blamed and punished for her master’s death, so she agreed.
They escaped through the city to a home in a slum. Natalya knew that a little charity would buy a lot of loyalty from the neighborhood, so she understood the reason for its location.
Her female rescuer sat down with her at a crude table and produced a small bundle with a letter tied to it. “He said he was pretty sure you would know how to read, but if not, please let me know and I’ll be happy to read it to you. Take your time. We’ll be laying low here for a couple days, then we’ll head out of the city.”
Natalya nodded and opened the letter. She almost tore it several times, her hands were shaking so badly. It was written on strange paper, unlike anything she’d ever seen, even when she lived in the luxury of her family’s home.
Greetings, dear child,
I hope that this letter finds you well, though in truth I suspect that fate has not been kind to you since last we met. Let me first state that I am in no way upset about your theft of the platinum bar. In truth, I didn’t even know you had taken it until weeks later, when I received the report from my local factor that it was missing and realized that must have been why you ran.
In truth, I was trying to catch you because you had dropped your music box while you were leaping through the window. It was finely crafted, so it intrigued me. Knowing what I know now, and believing what I believe must have happened to you, I consider not catching you that night to be a great failure on my part. Would only that I had, so that I could have spared you what I fear you may have suffered.
I did not seek you out immediately because I wanted to repair your music box before doing so. In some ways, my tardiness in doing so is because I find myself constantly incredibly busy, but that is a mere excuse.
I do not know where they have found you, but my agents should have been looking much sooner. And for that, I can only beg your forgiveness.
The truth is, I picked you up that night because I saw a young woman on the edge of desperation and dreadfully close to starvation, and it broke my heart. I suspect you thought I had other intentions and that is why you ran.
I had indeed picked you up to offer you a job, but not in the kind of service you were offering that day. Our organization is always looking for loyal employees, and I had hoped we could find a suitable position for you, perhaps as a clerk, or a maid or perhaps, knowing now what I know about you, as an instructor in the art of swordplay or dance.
Does it surprise you that I know who you are? It shouldn’t. I was curious and did my research. I wasn’t able to get all of the facts, but it was easy enough to piece together once I found your father and got him talking. On an unrelated note, I believe he may have acquired a severe acrophobia – the fear of high places – during our discussion. I cannot entirely be sure why. Perhaps it was my fault.
Needless to say, the job offer is still open. All you need do is ask, and one of my agents will see to it that you are brought to whatever city you wish that contains one of our offices, where work will be found for you. I’d suggest Absalom, where wearing the livery of the Voidstrife Cartel will cause people to ignore your outward appearance for fear of upsetting us.
Or, of course, you are welcome to come to Xin-Shalast. The academy we’re building is nearing completion, and we’d love to have you, either as a teacher or as a student, if you should so desire.
Take your time in deciding, and know that I am glad that you are now free to make such a decision.
Sincerely,
Kyle O’Halloran
Runelord of Generosity, Master of Xin-Shalast
And Junior Partner of the Voidstrife Cartel
PS. If you happen to know who crafted your music box in the first place, please let me know. I want to offer the person a job because of his fine handiwork, and then smack him upside the head for making the inner gears out of noqual, which made it impossible for me to repair with magic.
She read the letter three times before it truly sank in. In the moment that she had leapt from the window, she had chosen to throw away an opportunity to have exactly what she wanted. Her mistrust had cost her dearly. How could she have been so stupid?
Tears began to stream down her face unbidden, causing the other woman to offer a shoulder, which Natalya accepted reluctantly out of a desperate need to be comforted. The fact that the woman didn’t even hesitate to comfort a tiefling told Natalya all she needed to know, not just about the woman, but about the people she served.
When she was through crying, she opened the wrapped bundle and found her perfectly repaired music box, which only caused her to cry again, though this time it was a very different kind of tear.
When they were able, they fled to a compound an hour outside of Almas, the capital of Andoran. It was there that Natalya lived for a year, learning more from those who lived there, as well as from the people of Andoran.
At first, Natalya didn’t go out much, keeping to herself, but trying to be useful by helping with the household chores. In time though, she began opening up to those around her, and found a few dear friends among those who shared the residence.
Soon thereafter, she found her way into Almas and was delighted to learn that not only was slavery illegal in this nation, but that people held great contempt for slavers. Indeed, it was a topic of conversation in many places she went.
She found a second group of companions with the local branch of the adventurer’s guild – yet another institution she later learned was created by her mysterious benefactor – and spent many afternoons just listening to their stories or watching them practice.
One day, perhaps the thirtieth time an instructor had offered her a chance to join their training, she took him up on his offer and began relearning the skills she had forgotten and rebuilding the muscle tone she had lost. But this time, she didn’t go to bed in agony, but instead with a satisfied soreness that she knew was justly earned and heralded another day of growth and progress.
It took a while before she decided to join in the combat training, but when she did, it was a sight to behold. She managed to disarm several veterans in combat, holding a crude wooden training rapier as masterfully as she had the blade she had sold long ago.
When she returned to the compound and told her rescuer about it, the woman had smiled and produced another bundle for her. “What is this?” Natalya asked.
“I was told to give it to you when you were ready.”
Inside the oilcloth was a gorgeous steel rapier. The hilt was perfectly sized for her hand and the mithral handguard depicted a tiefling man and woman standing proud, shoulder to shoulder. It was a finer work of art than anything she had ever seen before.
She swung it through the air a few times, doing a practiced routine she had done a thousand times before in her grandfather’s studio. The blade was perfectly balanced and felt natural in her hand. “It’s amazing,” she said to her friend.
“He said that it’s called ‘The Faith of the Fallen’, but that you may simply call it ‘Faith’, if you want, since it’s easier and saves time.”
“I don’t deserve such a thing,” Natalya protested.
“It is yours, nonetheless. It’s up to you what you wish to do with it.”
Natalya nodded, unsure whether she could speak, then she went to bed to think on it.
That night, she didn’t sleep much. She had a lot on her mind, and knew that whatever she chose might very well shape the course of the rest of her life. This time, she wanted to make a good choice.
She had lived her life afraid, constantly letting fate and circumstance make her choices for her. But she was through with that life, the life of a worm. For once, she would shape her own destiny with her own hands, and with the blade she had been given.
In the morning, still not entirely certain it was a good idea, she officially joined the Adventurer’s Guild and took her first job. Working with others, they managed to bring down a massive boar that had been destroying local crops.
The jobs got harder from there, but she found she loved the thrill of it, and more than that, she felt useful. In a scant two years after joining, the woman who she saw in the mirror bore a proud confidence that made her look nothing like the scared girl she had been before.
It was on one such job that the course of her life changed once more, and where the greatest challenge she would ever face came to the fore, though she didn’t realize it at the time.
“You really should have known better,” she was saying to the half-conscious man she was tying up. “You know slavery is illegal in Andoran, yet you still tried to raid that village to try to steal away a few kids anyway. That really pissed off the local magistrate.”
“It’s not my fault!” the half-elf whined. “My employer said that the local garrison was paid off!”
“They were,” Natalya said to him before giving him a swift kick. “But your employer forgot to tell you that they had been exposed and replaced. Probably figured you had a bit of a window before the new guys were really ready to deal with the likes of you. Instead, every other member of your crew got nabbed or killed. They ratted you out immediately, of course.”
“Traitors,” he lamented before she kicked him again.
“Luckily for you, or perhaps unluckily, they were mad enough to pay extra for me to bring you in alive. I’m glad I’m not you right now.” She pulled him to his feet, the chains on his ankles clinking.
“Come on, you have to let me go. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Can you go back in time and not try to raid that village?”
“Well, no, I can’t do that?” It wasn’t exactly a question, but he questioned her sanity.
“Then back to the authorities you go. Don’t make me hack off one of your limbs to make you more compliant.” She heard someone clear their throat behind her. She turned, Faith in hand.
“You’re a hard woman to find,” the man, who had the appearance of a butler, said.