A beautiful girl child is born with Magenta skin and ridged black horns sprouting from her forehead. Her right eye is the colour of morning sun and her left the Azure blue of the Great Crescent Vale. Born to commoners living in the Eastern Forests of Tir’Gwain she did not have many prospects in life, until that is, she committed her first murder.
A group of bandits raided her family’s farmhouse when she was eleven and in between all the looting and plundering they slashed down the mother right in front of the young girl. When Zara opened her eyes, she stood in the centre of a crimson splatter and burning hot with fever. She searched the charred wood boards and furniture for her father and the next morning she walked away from her home, alone but for the voices in her head.
Twelve years later, the name of Zarael Darkhorn commanded both fear and respect from commoners and the rich, as the most ruthless and vicious mercenary in all Tir’Gwain and beyond. Of her accomplishments was the slaying of the great cyclops Salneyt single-handedly and fighting a troll to a standstill on the foothills of the Great Sun Mountain. She was the dark gladiator, one who fought solely for wealth and held no value for kinship or morals. Those close to her told stories of her brutality while in the safety of taverns and huts, while they praised her strength and courage while fending off the wild beats in the woodlands.
As for Zara herself, she took no mind of the stories that spread of her, a good tale brought name, and name brought wealth, so while the stories spread, she travelled the lands going where the blood flowed thick and gold flowed thicker. She had many reasons not to keep company, the journey was long and often dreary, the dangers were many and another soul would slow her down both in combat and travel. But she knew she was hiding the true reason, even from herself. On long nights when the light of Selunine lit up the sky, she would revisit all her battles, especially the ones that brough her to Death’s doorstep. She remembered how broken, bloodied, and gored she fell to her knees in front of the troll, then she remembered the acidic smell of burning flesh as she stood up and the monster fell in front of her burning and screaming. The fever lasted three days and four potions.
Zara’s greatest challenge however arrived in the twenty fifth year of her life, when she was summoned by the council of Gwain to aid the Mariner army against the scourge that was rising from the deep. For tenthousand gold she took up the job and she fought alongside soldiers for 60 days. It was not long before the soldiers realized the stories were not far from truth as Zara rose in ranks among them slashing and swinging her sword clear through hordes of sahuagin. She soon found herself in a family where one protected another, and she no longer had to dream about burnt bones and flesh. But the ocean was relentless, and the land had to give in. When the last of the soldiers had been dragged into the waves, Zarael stood alone on the shore burning and melting the sand under her feet and the flesh of the gilled folk clung to her body like leeches. It was 5 more days before Zara was brought to her knees.
As her golden eye swelled shut with the final blow from a sahuagin’s spear she saw two women walk to her from the frothing sea form. She awoke, bruised but alive on the edge of the Vale and she knew with compunction that she will be the last one to see trees stand proud on the eastern lands of Tir’Gwain. She walked for days and nights and when she reached the dwarves of Duren Craig, she was a husk of the strong and beautiful warrior she once was. The emaciated and leathery woman accepted the hospitality of the wise dwarves under one condition, that they would craft her three jewels, each capable of containing the force of a sea in the midst of a storm.
The Dwarves struck steel upon stone and stone upon fire until it turned to solid mist. They then blew on it with all their might so that the jewels might take its form. Finally, they quenched the jewels in their tears and sweat while the great Gofan watched. So was built three clear tear shaped jewels, each strong enough to hold a raging storm.
Next Zara travelled to the hidden grotto north of the Hermit mountains. There she met an old friend, the one eyed Salneyt who built her a chain made of seaweed and coral that could bind the three jewels without breaking.
Finally, she jumped into the crescent Vale holding the necklace and burning bright. With her last breath she demanded reparations from Melora and Eldath for the destruction of the forests on the West and East. As the water and life was drained from the woodlands turning them into scorched earth, Zarael broke out of the Vale’s surface wearing a necklace of three iridescent blue tear drops and carried by great white wings sprouting from her back.
Zaraelys the twice favoured fought the Sahuagin under the great waves as the seas boiled. She struck the leader of the scourge, the chosen of Sekolah upon its cursed armour, tearing the Hunter’s Skin from its body and casting it back into the maw of the Great Shark. Her final blow was the first of many that would follow in the First Age of Cataclysm, but it was enough to drive the armies of the Demogorgon and the filth of the sea back into hiding.
As for Zara she grew old upon the desert shores of the eastern lands. In her final days, she had a tomb built to guard her greatest treasure, the Riptide’s Tears, the first Shard of Cataclysm born of sheer mortal will. Later, long after she passed and as the war reached its zenith the priests of the Divines would build the Ward Pillars across the world on places of latent magical potency with one such pillar resting on her Tomb.
Commenti