Vaeshir, The Background Of

Vaeshir was born in Yithoul to a relatively wealthy family. As a single child, his parents raised him to be an heir to their wealth from an early age. Not unlike many children born into a position of wealth and stature Vaeshir absorbed many of the less virtuous afflictions of character. The most noticeable, and most pivotal characteristic being arrogance. As he came to be considered his own man, he walked the streets of Yithoul often, flaunting his wealth and spitting on those of lower stature lower than him. Inquisitive and intelligent, he spent a great time exploring each part of the city. By the time he was eighteen, he had seen every section of the city proper, save the lower-most levels of the temple itself.

Bored of his surroundings, Vaeshir took it upon himself to explore the nearby tunnels containing the chajas and harmless insects. Vaeshir had heard of the web containing the phase spider, and the danger it presented, but few had made the journey in the past years, and the story seemed more of a legend than reality.

Vaeshir's self-confidence overcame him and he decided that he should be able to at least explore a bit of the web. At the proper time, he would simply retrace his tracks and walk out. Tense and frightened, he soon lost track of his surroundings in the notoriously confusing maze.

Panicking, Vaeshir realized that the smell wafting through the tunnels was that of rotting flesh, he reached out to the only anchor he knew: his basic study of the void. As insolent as he had been, however, he had rejected the study of void magic as a tool his parents were attempting to use to control him. His feeble attempt at the gate spell left him infected with one of the more virulent strains of the pox. Writhing in the web, he desperately crawled about, searching for the surface.

Vaeshir had seen the effect of the pox on the human test subjects in Yithoul. As the disease progressed in the younger studies it was not uncommon for blindness to follow, either through the weakening of the body, or a mispronunciation of the spell. As he struggled, both with escaping and with the disease itself, however, he realized that the blindness had not come for him.

Staggering into the daylight, he praised both his heritage as a shuddeni as well as the void, their ancestral element. As time passed and he made his way to Var Bandor, he began to revere his race as divine. How else would they be able to see without eyes? The shuddeni are obviously blessed by the dark gods. In his crazed and panicked state, close to death due to the disease, however, he found strength in the strong, cold, structured nature of the void.

These three objects of thought, the shuddeni as the chosen race, the void as their ancestral art, and order as a requirement for power became the foundation for his beliefs from that day further.

For a time Vaeshir travelled the surface world with little driving him other than sheer ambition and lust for power. In the truest tradition of his people he used his strength and fortune to bind others with words and magic to be his servants and slaves. It was through this practice that he came upon the srryn Shasarik.

Shasarik was effectively powerless when the two met each other. So far as Vaeshir could see, little drived the young srryn other than lust for war and martial success. Vaeshir gave it to him, as he could, with tools of battle. In exchange, he called Vaeshir master, and pointed his sword where Vaeshir commanded.

He continued living his live in this way, wandering the surface of the world aimlessly, until his travels exposed him to a danger that stole from him the thing he considered the source of his strength. While travelling in the Ryarl, Vaeshir came upon the tower there. Relentless in his exploration, he opened the trapdoor there and was trapped by the oubliette. Stripped of his magic, Vaeshir writhed there on the floor of the pit, lashing out in panicked desparation to the one thing he had left; Shasarik.

At first he commanded Shasarik to bring him someone who could lift him out of the magical trap, but with time, as he began to slip into madness, the command was simplified. Vaeshir required one thing of his slave. "Wings," he ordered, "bring me wings."

Vaeshir never knew if it was his own panicked cries to the heavens or something else that drew the attention of the Fallen Lord Serachel to the the scene, but come he did. He offered Vaeshir a proposal. He would free Vaeshir from the oubliette if Vaeshir agreed to give Serachel control of Shasarik at a time of his choosing. Vaeshir's desire to live overpowered him and he agreed.

It was some time before the archmage Aziath, Scourge of the Skies, approached Vaeshir with the hopes that he would aid him with a ritual. The ritual was of the Void, but not of the kind that Vaeshir was familiar with. This magic was the magic of the srryn, woven by the lizards of the Thissa sept. Until this point Vaeshir had not met another who shared his interests in the Void with such intensity. He was unable to say no.

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