Thalia Black

I was born in an orc community, my great grand father was an orc warlord of the Blood Moons. However, I am simply human. Though I have a tiny bit of orcish blood in me and have one orc tooth. My grand-father was a half orc, who in turn wed a human had my mother, who wed into a human and so on. Being a human within an orc community growing up was never easy of course. Strength and power was highly valued and placed at the top of the hierarchy. Being within the warlords bloodline a massive expectation was put upon me. To maintain power no one within the family could be weak, and everyone had to prove themselves in some form or another. The tribe over all did not like the human integration within the clan. Even half-orcs. Many groups wanted to return to the roots of a purely orc clan. Though given the power structure they could only bicker and whine, or be a general pain in the ass making the day to day more difficult.
 
I only ever wanted to make my great grand father, and grand father proud. They took fondness of me, and was their favored grand child. Many nights of being told bedside stories of war and conquest by either of them. Those were the best bedtime stories. I tried many times to be a warrior, to fight and be like them. I can not count the times I was beaten to a pulp in the training yards. Broken bones, bloody face, split lip, bruises from head to too. I would spend many nights in my tent curled in a balls weeping softly trying not to be heard as sobbing and crying were weakness. The tribal doctors would rarely work on me always claiming they had exhausted their supplies and only ever able to do the bare minimum if even that.
 
One day after a particular rough training, shambling to my bed I could hold it in no longer. I wailed and wept loudly. Ever motion hurt, ever single step searing pain. My skin was blistered, my face swollen from blows. Crying hurt, but it was the only way to vent the pain building up inside me. My great grandfather had entered inside. I stifled my sobbing. He was with his cane, his expression sombre. He was a very very old orc, nearing the end of his days and while I had no real concept of death given my age, I am certain he knew his final rest was approaching. He embraced me. Here was an orc of many battles, a leader and a man who achieved so much now holding my broken form.
 
"Why are you crying?" He asked.
 
"You know why papa." I answered.
 
"I do not, tell me." He said.
 
"I am weak. I lose every fight, every training I keep getting beaten. I never win no matter how much I try...I cry because of the pain but because I feel like I failed you."
 
He kept a solemn expression as though thinking, contemplating. A short nod of his head.
 
"I can see why you think that. Though you are not weak." he said.
 
"How? I lose everytime...I try and try...and...-" he cut me off
 
"And you never ever give up. That is strength my little hatchet. (Hatchet was my nickname, a small axe) "You never yield, you never give up, broken bones and blood loss you stand up. That is strength, you carry our name proudly. Your father is and mother would be proud and your grandfather and I have pride in you. I have little time left in this world and one day I wont be around. I want you to remember what I say tonight. You are fighting for the tribes love in the wrong way. Not everyone is to wield an axe or draw blood. Find your talents, you can always bring honor to the tribe to the name of your family in other ways so as long as you never ever give up."
 
He taught me much more that night and tended to my wounds. From then on I stopped caring what others thought of me. I pursued my own talents my own way. I dabbled into alchemy something no one had. I trained still to hone my physical abilities but spent more time in my intellectual pursuits. Soon enough I was sought after for balms, medicine, and more. Those next few years while rough were amazing, until my great grand father and grand father passed away. This created a power vacuum. The pure-orc supporters had gained considerable influence, and many of the old guard had passed or lacked the power to maintain the clan as originally seen. My father thought it best shortly after the funerals to leave.
 
After that I traveled with my father who had managed to take a considerable about of gold before leaving. Life after that was brutal. Homeless, tribeless most nights sleeping somewhere different. I continued to practice alchemy selling off what I could for money, or food. We eventually settled when my father used the last of the gold to buy some land and begin a farm. Things evened out from there on. I practiced medicine continually and worked the land. Though eventually like all children we become young adults and I set out into the world with my fathers blessing of course.
 
I had countless adventures, hired on as a medic for various groups, parties and so on. To much to go into detail. However, around my 25th birthday I began experiencing strange dreams. At first it was strange shapes, and symbols while only something so basic could be written off as a odd dream it there was a certain intensity to it. As the years went on shapes became geometry, landscapes appeared odd realms and of logic defying systems. It was almost maddening to see, to feel. At many points I felt I had been spirited away and was not in my own bed anymore. For five years this persisted and I often turned to chemical aids to help me have dreamless sleeps. Addiction is a bitch. I took a job due to needing the money as the expense for the drugs put a strain on my finances. Tasked by the local governor to uproot a cult of lunatics in an abandoned gold mine. The mine had been used for hundreds of years before it was tapped dry. There was one condition to the mission my party had been issued. Seal off the cave and leave the cultists to be buried alive.
 
Initially accepted and was paid handsomely half up front. Though as the trek to the mine went on my partners and myself had some moral reservations on simply blowing up the cave and leaving everyone to die a horrible death. It dawned on us that once they would run out of food they would turn to cannibalism, and then those few would become one, and their deaths would be excruciating. We debated for the many weeks it took to reach the mines and three days before our arrival we all agreed to enter the mines and kill them by blade and spell rather than make them suffer.
 
We should have collapsed the mine. The horrors in the mine I will never repeat, rituals I dare not speak of, a smell I can never abolish from my mind, and sights seared into memory. What we found was evil, and had we known this we would have collapsed the mines in the first place.
 
The mine was a sprawling network underground, and had been reinforced, built upon over the centuries by various groups who at times all held control. They were prepared. Lunatics as they were they planned and had defenses. The battle was uphill, grueling. I eventually exhausted my spells and almost all my alchemical components, our mage was burned out, supplies dangerously low if not out right expended. Throughout the battle however I felt my mind drifting back into those dreams. The cave walls marked with the very symbols I dreamed about. Writings on the wall of the same language I heard through my dreams...I was feeling something I did not like it was an answer to my dreams. I was beginning to crack and panic. Things were getting worse, injuries on the rise and we lost our fighter due to injuries. A decision was made.
 
We back tracked using what spells to our abilities to begin collapsing portions of the cave to buy time. We stumbled upon a lab where in we rested and I could resupply on alchemical supplies. My surviving partners took shifts guarding while I crafted a bomb to fully bring down those mines. In my anger wanting something to answer for this I found a large thick tome. Without being seen I stuffed it in my bag and continued to work. The alchemical bomb set we escaped and took down the mines. Sealing hundreds and hundreds to their doom of starvation and inevitable cannibalism and death. To this day it haunts me. We returned back, corroborated our stories stating that we were ambushed upon approached, and captured but escaped. We were paid and went our ways and I had my tome. I would find the answers to my dreams...
 
After that I traveled and resumed my medical practices across the land and settled in Elturel.