Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies
Thy shall do no harm
Ryltar/ Robert Archer:
"Florence!" A large strongly built barovian man bellowed. Soon after a girl aging around 15 years can running in at her father's call.
Black hair, well toned femine features, a pure innocent face, and an all around calming demeanor radiated usually from this barovian teen, now though nervous fear was across her body as she came into the room and faced her father. "...Yes father?" She said cowling her head slightly at his harsh gaze.
"...Where's your fangs! I got things to do tonight!" Her father bellowed again shoving out his large hand and slapped her across the face hard sending her sprawling to the floor with a pained grunt. Her hand reached to a small bag at her hip and handed the coins over. "...he...here father 20 fangs from tending to the injuries of the farmers the other day."
The girls father snatched up the coin bag eagerly then scowled as he heard the amount. "...ONLY 20! You..." He kicked her savagely then followed by a fierce blow to her face. "...weak girl! You never pull your weight around here! Barely can afford to feed you and keep this house of our own!" With that the girls father left the small house in Valiki's slums district.
The girl Florence laid curled up in a ball crying and sobbing for a time before pulling herself to a sitting position. She closed her eyes trying to think of more happier times then the pained ones that now filled her life seeming always.
Slowly her mind drifted back to a scant year before to when her mother pulled her aside one day to talk to her. "..Florence? Where are you dear?" The girls mother asked then coughed a bit.
"Mother?" Florence replied coming around the corner of a wall. "..You called?"
The girls mother sat down in a rocking chair patting the smaller chair next to her. "...Come sit Florence, we must speak." She said
The girl dutifully did so hopping into the chair and looked at her mother attentively and waited for her mother to speak. "..Now Florence you have grown alot in the past year as I am sure you have noticed." She asked the girl giving a slight nod. "...And with that you have also learned greatly about how to heal others, and tend to them from my lessons to you." Again the girl nodded. "...Yet there will come a time that I will not always be around to guide you and help you."
"..What? Mother I do not understand, you are still young!" Florence said. The mother smiled resting a hand on her daughters own.
"...Yes, I am my dear, but there is still one lesson you must learn that I wish to impart on you." The mother replied.
Florence quickly took out a book from the satchel around her shoulder and readied an ink quill. "...Yes mother?" She said with a eager to learn expression.
The mother gave a soft kind smile pushing the book away as well as the ink and quill, much to the confusion of the girl. "...The lesson is simple Florence, with your skills you could if you chose bring great pain and suffering to others. But if you did do this you would betray everything I ever taught you." The girl gave a slight understanding nod. "...Your last lesson then is this, with these skills you must promise to only use them to help others and ease their suffering, Thy shall do no harm. As the final lesson is called."
The girl tilted her head slightly seeming to consider the words of her mother. As she did so her mother took both Florence's hands into her own. "...Promise me dear." The girl nodded then with a smile. "...I promise and swear to you mother. That I shall never use my skills to bring harm and suffering to others."
The mother smiled again and stood. "...Good, now lets get dinner ready for when your father comes home." She said.
A week later though sadly Florence mother came down with a fever, and despite the best efforts of Florence she could do nothing to help her mother. A few neighbors offered of the mother going to the charity house in the district to see what could be done but before Florence could respond to them her father did instead. "...Nay! Not going to charge some damn cultist to poke and prod my wife! Thats my job! I get it for free though" He said with a grin getting a few chuckles from some of his drinking buddies. Spinning then the father looked at Florence. "...go get dinner ready girl! Or feel the lash of my belt"
Florence scurried to do so, and even with getting dinner prepared on time she still felt the sting of her father's belt. The next day her mother passed on in her sleep from what ailed her and was buried soon after.
Florence shook herself from the happy and painful memory wiping away the tears. "...Tears are for the weak!" She said to herself, with that she stood and went into the small kitchen and started to prepare dinner for when her father would come home soon.
Ryltar/ Robert Archer:
Days later the young teen girl was clumsily shooting a crossbow at a herd of deer, her shots wild and imprecise. Eventually though from plan luck she brought one down and at least in this task fared better skinning the deer. The meat would feed her and her father for many days to come and would allow the girl to use the fang saved from not buying the meat directly to purchase much needed medical supplies and herbs.
She had offered her services to the guard as a healer, but after several days she still had heard nothing back from them. She stood carrying the hunks of meat over her shoulder when a odd tongue sounded from nearby. Suddenly she felt a gripping fear enter her mind, and she dropped the bag of meat and ran cowering inside a tree hole.
The next several hours were a blur to the teen, pain, fear, and an odd unnatural sense of calm washed over her body so quickly she lost count of it all. Eventually though her mind cleared enough for her to see a bone face being leering over her. "...Your father will be mind dearest one, death shall be sweet to him." With a cackle the being disapered from her vision and florence ran from the cave finding it near noon time by now.
"FATHER!" She thought in panic then ran as fast as she could to the southern farm lands. On the way she ran into an outlander man who followed her as she ran explaining quickly what had happened to her. As she ran and looked about calling for her father she still felt occasionally her mind blur in confusion, this same assement also gave her the feeling that some physical drug had been used though what it was exactly she was not sure.
Eventually to her relief she found her father tidying up the tools and placing them back into the work shed. "Father!" Florence said happily rushing up to him and embracing him with a hug. Her father's large hands reached around her shoulder and for a briefest of moments she thought he was going to return the hug. But no instead savegly he pushed her away a few feet then delivered a savage smack across her face sending her sprawling into the mud. "URGHH!" She groaned wipping the blood and mud from her face.
"...Weak girl, where's your fangs!" He snapped glaring down at her after delivering another savage kick to her ribs, which florence absorbed with a grunt and cough. Mutely she heard the outlander shout for him to stop but her father ignored it.
With shaking hands Florence handed over the small bag of fangs she had been given for treating a broken leg at the orphanage the day previous. Her father greedily snatched it away counting it. "...Umph, hardly enough here for a good drink and whore girl!" Her father said. "...fact, that aint such a bad idea you get to doing that you hear!"
Florence looked up to her father dutifully and nodded realizing that in a way he was right, she was weak, and with the cultists taking so much of her potential customers away she would have to resort to other means for fang, even if she did not like it. Nodding her head to him she said. "...Yes father as you say."
Florence's father then stalked over to the outlander who was trying to stop him from beating her again. Recovering herself she stood shouting as her father started to beat the outlander man. "...Father no stop!" She said rushing and trying to drag the large man off him.
A savage push with his left arm sent her sprawling and dazed her for a moment as she stared up into the cloudy dark sky. "Momma I'm sorry I cant, he's to strong." Her now foggy mind said as the last wisps of the drugs took her mind into thinking her mother told her to stop her father from causing suffering to the man. Slowly she got to her feet again biting her lip as she watched the large man beat the life blow for blow out of the outlander. "Fathe stop please! I beg you!" She said.
"...Kill him!..." An unknown voice whispered near her ear, Florence's angered, pained, and drugged mind took this as her own. And finally a red haze drifted down over her and she drew her scapal. "STOP STOP STOP IT!" She screamed charging and slamming the scapal into her fathers neck just below the brain stem. The blow did not kill him but instead paralyzed him. Then with the red mist still over her eyes she drew the scapal up around the skin slowly skinning the hair and scalp off. Finally digging it in deep into the brain and putting all her strength into it she drew it down his spine snapping all life from him.
Her father grunted in this swift action that took no more then a few seconds. Falling dead on top of the outlander as she ripped the blade from his back. Florence stumped back blood coating her hands as she stared in horror at what she had done. "..I...I..." she said slumping to her knees and stared at the blood of her father.
The outlander pushed the dead wait of her father off him and stood backing away from Florence in shock, surprise, and vaguely Florence realized fear. Silence then dropped over the area as she continued to stare at her hands. But it was soon replaced by a soothing feeling, of doing the right thing. "...You did well my daughter, you did the right thing." Kept echoing in her mind, it was comforting to the teen like when her mother would hold her tightly to soothe her from a raging storm, or after enduring one of her father's beatings. She was so caught up in this she did not notice the blood seep into her hands. As she stood still feeling that warmth she felt, stronger, and healthier. Her head hurt but she reasoned that was from the last effects of the drug that the witch, yes witch she finally realized had used on her.
The outlander just stared at her then as she coolly wiped the scapal clean with a cloth then sheathed it. "..You should do something with the body there." He said.
Florence nodded, feeling joyful in having righted a wrong deed, and ending forever the torment and pain her father had brought to her and her mother. With ease she lifted the large man onto her shoulders. And turned to head for the thoull caves. Once there she gave a dark cold grin that made the outlander step back away from her. With effort she stuffed her father head first into the large cooking pot outside the cave mouth. "...Enjoy your stew father, dinner is ready." She cackled a bit laughing.
The outlander she learned shortly after was Ramionus and he figured that what was done was done, no sense in him reporting this to the guard. For this Florence was grateful as it meant she would not have to needlessly kill him to preserve her own skin, "...Still I will have to watch him, just in case." She thought. The two parted then the outlander heading away at a fast jog and Florence heading into the warehouse district and soon making her way to the Slums.
The rain by this time had washed away any trace of blood from her clothes and skin, at the house though stood the tax collectors of Valiki. "...Where's your father girl?" The one asked. Florence had started to appear dispirited and quickly told them how thoulls had killed her father. She knew what was coming next but did not try to stop it. "...How is not yours then girl, no family, no house, less you can pay the taxes for it?" He asked.
Florence shook her head. "...Then get lost girl, this aint yours anymore. You got ten mintues to get whatever you need of yours from here and get lost. Understood?" He said to which she silently nodded.
Florence quickly packed a few sets of clothes and a satchel of her mothers for around her shoulder to carry her medical supplies. Then assembled a pack for further carrying. Finding her mother's old set of scapals and vials also helped as well as her book on medical studies. With that she left the house with a curt nod to the collectors and his guards. She was now on her own, homeless, without a family, and only a few fangs to her name. Still life was not so bad. "...Father's torment is over, now I start anew." She thought a grin and smile crossing her face.
With that Florence headed for the one place she knew she could have a remote chance of finding work, that being among the outlanders at the Ladies Rest.
Ryltar/ Robert Archer:
The days past for Florence and as she did every day since her mother first taught her to read she would spend hours studying her journals and notes. However with that studying came over new notes on fey, and halflings. She observed the interactions of the the two races and even with asking members of each sex and species came to a certain conclusion on how to best treat injuries on there respective bodies. She delved into the work with gusto and enjoyed a few of the friendships she formed as well.
She had always been a loner growing up not having many friends if at all due to her father. "..Now though what stops me? I am free! Free to be whoever or whatever I want to be!" She thought excitedly. To this end she had offered her services as a healer to the guard of Valiki though still waited for a answer from them.
She earned extra fang from hunting rats in the sewers, a smelly job yes but the skills of using a blade and wearing armor were in valuable to her. After one such venture she entered the Broken Bell in the company of an outlander named John Umpton, he was charming in his own way and Florence indulged his charming ways finding the hope that perhaps she could use his easily driven nature to help her get what she needed. "...Men were so easily to manipulate." She thought having found if easier to get men to do what she wanted if she gave them the idea they were the ones doing the work. Her efforts proved fruitful and all it required was getting a bit drunk and allowing John to lay with her and share a bed. When he left the next morning as she got her boots brought on idly she thought. "...Yes soon enough I shall start the molding." She thought with a smile.
A few days after that she found herself hunting a few rats in the sewers, when as she hacked away at them the blood soaked around her. The stench wafted into her nose and mind, clouding it like a haze. When if finally lifted she found the necks of several dire rats snapped half way around there bodies while other were sliced open with the fine keen blade of her scapal. Florence felt confused and worried as she had little recollection of doing these things. "...Proably got overzealous from the fighting." Her mind reasoned as she gathered teh skins of. Feeling her pack reach its near full weight she heaed for the ratter. "..Crazy fellow that is." She thought. "...Still he pays well" She muttered to herself taking the offered fang while the ratter contently went out preparing the corpses for cooking.
Ryltar/ Robert Archer:
The day finally came where Florence was accepted into the guard, and through training and diligence she through many trials she eventually reached the ranks of first Recruit, then Private. During these times Florence had constantly encountered times where she got what she called 'urges' times where she say someone unjustly hurt, or beaten, or when someone tried to prevent her from getting what she wanted. Or where she desired something or someone but knew she could not have it for one reason or another. She had been taken under the wing by a fellow guard who taught her ways to control herself, and ways to vent her 'urges' as she called them. She also was taught by Rozalina how to fight better, and defend herself. Her keen mind took all this in and she grew sharper becuase of it both mentally and physically.
During all this time Florence made friends among others, both in the guards and miltia as well as a few outlanders. One such person was the drunk named Finn, while not a friend persay there was something about him that cried 'injured lamb' and Florence felt compelled and felt that there was more under that thick head of Finn's then a drunk. So during her off duty hours she begun her studies on Finn's behavior and spoke privately with others about him to learn more. Florence loved a good puzzle and she was determined to figure out what secrets Finn held beneath that kilt of his.
Ryltar/ Robert Archer:
Further time went by and Florence grew in both skill with healing, knowledge of medicine and even other basic things. She formed friendships with others. Mainly of the guard and militia but a few outlanders caught her eye. She had recently been also promoted to PFC of the guard. Her patrols were rough at times. The fact that a neuri rat named claire had 'marked' her bothered her to no end. She hated the fact she could do nothing to fight the neuri or the woman. It angered her and made her focus more on her training in combat. Both ranged and Melle.
Still times were happy for the most part for the young teen. She had become close with a few others both men and women. She was curious about experiencing the touch of another man but for now restrained herself. In all her talks with others she knew that to rush into things would only cause pain and misery in the long run. She did not wish to end up married to a man like her mother was to her father.
Yet she used these friendships to twist others to her needs. A bit of a sad tale here, one of pain there, granted some were true like during an attack by a nerui. But others she twisted the events to her own ends. She loved the feelings of getting her way, the sense of control she felt. "...Its so much fun..." She thought with a smile one evening while making further notes on her study of Finn. And her notes did confirm what she thought. That there was more to Finn then he put out. She would find the answers and reveal it all to others. Closing the book she smiled happily, laying her head back to rest her eyes for a bit.
When she awoke later, she felt her pulse race and her breathing was heavy. Partly in the back of her mind she realized she was in one of her 'urge' states. Yet there was no cause for it that she could think of. "What was it that was causing it?" She thought. She wasnt in danger, she didnt want anything, she wasnt near someone she wanted to manipulate. So why was she in this state?
Then the hunger hit her that curious feeling she had grown to realize also came about at times. She had learned somethings about others. Studied what they did. And in her mind she was curious to try to do those same things. "...Could I do it though?" She thought. "...And not get caught? Who could I twist so that they could allow me to test my wants and not have them say anything." She then went through her list of trusted friends. Discounting many of them right away for one reason or another. Then she smiled making a decsion. "..Yes they will do quite well." She grinned nostrils flaring a bit and laughed some. "..Yes quite well.."
Florence then gathered her things and set out for the person in question that she knew she could use to satisify her urge to try new things.
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