Eluye, Shunned

Application

[   ] Eluye: A plain scroll, penned in oily black ink
Tue Feb 25 02:44:05 2003
To: Shunned
Greetings.

The Lands have changed much, I hear.  The Champions walk without fear,
fortified by an alliance with the only acting Guardian.  The Canyon has been
quelled, its greatest warriors shamed in combat by those that aid the Light.
It seems that a time of peace has fallen upon Avendar,whence before it was
not so.  It is an ideal time, for those who dwell in shadow.  An ideal time,
to prepare.

I am called Eluye.  My family name is of no consequence, for I was given
none.  I have existed as I am now for barely even a year, prior to which I
was only half alive.  Eighteen years of my life was spent as a being of
spirit and mind, imprisoned in a simacularum formed of sand and sea rot.  It
was what spread my influence, what allowed me to sustain my true body, that
layed comatose, beneath the waves of Lidraeu.  Those who placed me there,
those who poisoned my flesh, have long perished; my adopted mother never
awoke from her nightmares, joining her husband in death.

I am called Eluye.  My family name is of no consequence, for I was given
none.  I have existed as I am now for barely even a year, prior to which I
was only half alive.  Eighteen years of my life was spent as a being of
spirit and mind, imprisoned in a simacularum formed of sand and sea rot.  It
was what spread my influence, what allowed me to sustain my true body, that
layed comatose, beneath the waves of Lidraeu.  Those who placed me there,
those who poisoned my flesh, have long perished; my adopted mother never
awoke from her nightmares, joining her husband in death.

I will never change.

Through the aid of the unwitting Xegzen, and the Two, I am whole.  The
Trigon binds my spirit to my body of flesh and blood, returning to me all
that I had lost.  Now, I seek what I have never known: my heritage.  My
so-called parents found me as a babe, deep within the Blighted portion of
Qilarn.  Always have I felt a strange resonance there, a kinship with those
that exist within that dark decay.  I have only felt the same sensation in
two other places: the Plains of Shargob, and the city of Gogoth.

I am told that the Coven can provide me with the knowledge I seek.
Knowledge that may perhaps lead me to the answers I seek.  I have met the
Vanguardsman called Rilistrac.  From him, I learned that the ways of the
Shunned are not so far from my own.  Beyond seeking first true existance,
and now my heritage, I seek direction.  I have no ties, beyond those to
myself.  Perhaps within the Coven, may I find a true purpose, for my
talents.

Such is what I can offer.  My skills, my abilities, my dedication.  My very
life.  With my mind, I can tear the secrets from others.  I can turn friends
against each other, creating turmoil from within.  And with the misbegotten
trust of the Light, I can tear away at their very foundation, should the
need arise.  I offer myself to the Coven in my entirety, as the tool and the
artisan.

I await your answer.

Signed,
Eluye, the Complete

Background

Much of Eluye's past is unknown, even to herself.  Found deep within
Qilarn, naked but for the soiled feathers sheltering her unconscious form,
her would-be father thought her first to be a long-dead pheasant.  His
entire life changed however, from the moment he lifted Eluye's broken wing
with the tip of his spear, in a simple attempt to see if what lay beneath
was still edible.

The man, a young human ranger who went by the name of Davyn, quickly carried
the baby to his home.  Greeted by his wife Sari, the two decided it upon
themselves to take care of the child.  They named her Eluye, and Sari was
delighted to act as a mother.  In fact, she was all too happy; her womb was
barren, scoured by a disease that befell her while both she and her husband
still lived in the squalid alleys of northern Var Bandor.  It was a miracle
that she lived, and she had the ethron of Qilarn to thank both for her life,
and her new home.

The portion of Sari's motherhood appeared to go well.  Davyn continued his
hunting, sometimes venturing to the southern forests of Morn for game.  But
as the years progressed, the parents began to grow worried about their
daughter.  Davyn had first found Eluye when she appeared to be a little over
a year old, so found it strange that after four years Eluye still remained
silent.  Davyn would have thought his adopted daughter deaf and dumb, were
it not for the keen look of recognition and understanding that showed eerily
within her vivid black eyes.  Her skin was pale and sickly in color, but the
druids they consulted could find nothing wrong with Eluye's health.

It wasn't until six years had passed that the nightmares began.  At first,
they were few and far between, with one in Nelennamir, the next sometime in
late Rystaiamir.  But always were they disturbing, filled with morbid images
of death and decay accompanied by strange sibilant whispers.  Into the
eleventh year, they began to grow in frequency, until the nightmares began
to sap at the couple's strength.  Their nerves became frayed and slowly, the
warmth that the couple shared began to ebb as their irritations turned
towards each other.

When Eluye neared what her parents decided to be her thirteenth birthday,
the family finally fell apart.  The nightmares had grown too much for Davyn,
who had always been superstitious.  One night, whilst drunk over half a
dozen mugs of bitter ale, both he and Sari fell into an explosive argument.
The culmination was Davyn's sudden departure, as he took both his bow and
quiver and fled Qilarn's twilight.  It was a week later that his body was
found by the druids, rended by what could only have been the shura.  Shortly
after, Sari became a recluse, rarely leaving her home and daughter.  And so
did things remain for nearly another year, until finally Sari never left at
all.

Her body was found by an inquisitive neighbor, nearly two years after her
husband's death, already deep into the latter stages of decomposition.  Her
body tightened nearly into a ball, fingers curled in so deeply that the
nails bit far into the decayed flesh of her palms, she was a ghastly sight
that coupled well with her husband's death.  Their daughter Eluye was
nowhere to be found, and was considered a suspect in the death of her
adopted mother.  The ethron would have searched for her, were it not for the
partially burned diary they discovered later in the cold fireplace.  From
what they could read, the writings began to grow progressively more insane.
Nearing the end, Sari blamed Eluye for both the nightmares and the death of
her husband.  She spoke of Eluye as an obscenity that found joy in
suffering, a corruption that was born of the black decay that plagued
Qilarn.  The last entry detailed how Sari had drugged Eluye, poisoning her
with spider venom.  The passage was written in a gleeful manner, that of an
ecstatically happy woman who had just accomplished a lifelong goal.  It
finally ended with how Sari felt overjoyed as she slipped her daughter's
body into the Sea of Lidraeu, relieved to be rid of such a plague upon
existence.

The ethron left the family home and burned the tree down in an
uncharacteristic display of fear.  The lives of Davyn, Sari, and Eluye meant
nothing to them from that point on, and they decided it best to forget about
such atrocities.

Four years later, Eluye showed up before the cell of Kisjam the Elder.  She
was alive and well, and for all appearances, the exact same age as when she
was last seen before her mother's death.

* * *

Nearly two decades later, Eluye has finally been revived.  No longer a being
of mind and spirit possessing a simacularum of sand and sea rot, she lives
now as flesh and blood, reunited thanks to the unwitting help of several
fellow adventurers.  Most important amongst them were Xegzen, whose healing
magics cleansed Eluye's true body of the poison that kept it from awakening,
and Isaradin, whose Trigon of Binding sealed Eluye's spirit into flesh and
blood.

Her existance began as an aimless child, seeking only to bring suffering to
those closest to her.  Then, for the seventeen years she spent without true
life, her world was one of tenacious survival.  Taking the life of others,
in order to bolster her own waning energy.  Nearing the end of those years,
she learned the art of Deception, befriending the likes of Aehaeser and
Avowael in her quest to be revived.  Now, alive as she is, her goals have
changed.  Without the encompassing need to survive, she can now explore what
was once left untouched: her heritage.

Found as barely more than a babe within the decayed forest of Qilarn, her
past is lost even ot herself.  She seeks the answers to her dark blood,
searching beyond the madman, and the demon within Shargob.  Both Gogoth and
the Tree of the Dead now hold her greatest interest, and she will take any
means to gather knowledge of them.  Perhaps even going so far as the seek
kinship with, the Collective.

Discussion

• It seems the details behind her heritage are up for us to decide. Any ideas?

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