Childhood
Savros was born a third, unwanted child in the city of
Kidon. His parents were cobblers and part of the artisan class, but their shop and apartment were cramped and housing in Kidon is expensive. From a young age, Savros was encouraged to seek a life abroad.
At the age of eight, Savros's martial training at temple began. He was paired with two other children of the same age who attended the same temple - Jacob and Teva - and the group was taken with other children into the woods a day from the city to camp every month. They also began drilling and weapons training.
At age twelve, Savros had their first encounter with a "demon". While camping, a small group of bandits from
the Feywilds crossed through the children's camps on their way to a nearby estate. Savros and Teva awoke to the shrieking of another group of children, a strange heavily armed man looking at them. A
Demonic bandit appeared, carrying something. When Teva moved too quickly, the demon tossed the kids a severed human hand as a silent threat and statement of dominance. The bandits left not long after, and the children were gathered by the priestess and taken back to Kidon.
Not all of Savros' childhood was training and parental pressure to leave the house. He learned to speak the language of cats from the cats of Kidon; he joined his parents in business negotiations with
Selkie merchants; and he spent much of his extra time with Vizura at the temple, learning the doctrines and history of Orthodoxy.
Becoming Desmian
At age sixteen, it was time to graduate from the temple education into adulthood. The graduating class starred centrally in the first celebrations leading up to the
Day of Blood. The team starred in their district's religious theater and re-enacted the stories of ancient
Orthodoxy: Savros played
Ishkibal, Jacob played Kaydren the Hammer, Teva played
Videza the Heretic. After a few days of hype, the children from across the city were carted out to the woods at the edge of Kidon's territory, where the March's influence waned. Their task was simple: scatter, survive a night and a day in the wilds with their team, and make their way to the extraction point.
Savros, Teva, and Jacob spent a few hours in relative safety around their fire and makeshift camp, but as the hours passed they heard strange gibbering echoing in the distance. A group of wolves, mutated by
the Feywilds to become longer, larger, and more daring, honed in on their campsite. The team barely fought them off, and moved towards the smoke of the other camps to join up with the other squads against this danger. The gibbering intensified as the rest of these wolves raced through the woods. By the time Savros and their group arrived, the two nearby groups of kids had joined up but were under attack by the rest of the pack. Working together, the kids were able to fight them off once again (with several major injuries). They retreated to try and make camp on the nearby hill, which seemed to have lots of boulders and mysterious blocks of stone to use as cover. This turned out to be the ruins of an ancient
Mathari temple, infested with
Gem Plague-ridden snakes. The group was forced to abandon this otherwise-ideal camp.
The larger group of kids began heading to the river, where they would eventually be near the extraction site the next day. They made camp along the river, but as they slept they were ambushed by a trio of Feywild bandits that were boating down the river. The planning and discipline of the children's camp disintegrated, injured kids were scattered about. The camp was set alight. As Savros tried to gather together whomever they could, a child was cut down by one of the bandits. The group was able to kill one of the bandits, and another bandit fled to an island on the river. Teva, Savros, and Jacob pursued them as the rest of the kids got one of the bandits small boats to raft over to finish them off. Teva and Savros worked together to corner him, and just barely bludgeoned him to death together before nearly passing out from fear and exhaustion. The last bandit was never detected or found, and left without a trace.
There was no further violence after the bandit fight. The bloodied and exhausted children were extracted, along with the bodies. They were welcomed back into Kidon as heroes, and the next day was
the Day of Blood. They lit a candle to guide the soul of the child who died, and were transformed into adults in the eyes of their community. Savros went to the priestess, Vizura, at the end of the holiday for guidance. Vizura revealed something to Savros:
The Profane Contact and the existence of the Demon Gods of the Moon. As a demonstration of the demon's evil, they contacted
Lily of Red, who taunted and intimidated young Savros before the ritual was ended.
This was all enough to convince the trio to go into the military. They served six years in
The Golden Crusade as support troops - not fighting in the trenches, but helping run the supplies and repair the armor. The war was a miserable slog, a window into the inglorious suffering of pitched war. The trio returned home after that six year tour - no longer interested in the
Mathari front and looking to find work in their old home.
Through the No Man's Land
The trio was recruited after a month to act as support staff for something novel: an expedition into the Feywilds for a wealthy foreigner named Arstam who claimed to have hints of some kind of growing threat in the Feywilds that needed investigation. The expedition promised to pay well, would be close to home, would likely help people near Kidon, and would certainly bring glory to all involved. The next week, they headed up the river with the expedition.
The group was 21 warriors strong in total and packed with supplies, a Feywilds guide, arcane support, and pack
Lobsters to carry the supplies. The journey hit its first major snag when they reached the Northern parts of the river, where they made camp along the shore. A raiding party of similar size, also equipped with riverboat, had spotted them earlier - and ambushed them at night. The boat was damaged, and the crew fought off the attackers but took a beating in the process. The expedition decided to track the retreating raiders and then counter-ambushed them - killing all and destroying their boat entirely.
The expedition headed into
the Fey Borderlands already haven taken losses. The borderlands were as harsh as expected. Predators, bandits, and raiders stalked the land, and harried the party at every turn. Savros themselves was stalked personally by something after they were on watch one night - a strange threat that seemed to always be there when he tried to rest. He began to lose sleep. Fey-snakes bearing
Gem Plague attacked one night, requiring the party to approach a nearby hamlet to try and restock on anti-toxin and medicine. Savros and Jacob volunteered to scout out the village and establish diplomacy, and with some effort and a little luck they were welcomed into the village as merchants. When Savros informed the village elders that he was being stalked at night, they refused to allow them to stay the night at the hamlet and seemed to be deeply shaken and apologetic. Upon returning to the expedition with supplies in hand, Savros did notice that the groups guide, Okri, also seemed to recognize what was going on. After some pressure from Arstam, Okri informed them that this was a Nightmare escaped from
The Vault of Nightmares - the effects of Nefkan tamperings with the Vault, very rare to be seen this far out.
One other expedition member was being haunted by this creature: the other warrior on night shift with Savros that night, a veteran named Torin. Savros and Torin decided to try and confront the Nightmare head-on that night, alone and away from camp. Torin was from the lands of the Platinum Order, and had access to coca leaves common in that region that would allow the two to get the emergency energy needed to fight through the exhaustion. The two warriors were, as expected, attacked that night. They lost, and the Nightmare did something unusual: rather than slaughter its victim, crawled into Savros, looking through his eyes and tormenting him further every night after. Torin was tormented but ultimately it got bored with him and both warriors survived the night.
Savros was now being subject to the torments of the Vault every night. Stress was high for everyone, and the borderlands was taking its toll. When they were almost to the Feywilds border, strange Fey-warped deer, which walked above them on stilt-like legs and had antlers of massive proportions, visited the camp and started grazing around them. Savros was terrified they would attack, and opened fire. The deer stampeded, smashed the campsite, destroying many of their supplies, setting free their pack animals, and killing the lobster-handler (Marva).
The group ran, and managed to book it to the Feywild boundary. The guide invited them in and they met up with warriors from the
Federated Lands of Palava. The expedition was escorted to the capital of Palavahold, where Arstam paid the local elders to offer the expedition safe harbor. The weary soldiers drank and sang and feasted with the Feywilders in the warhall while local
dryad and human children alike played in the courtyard with not a Desmian threat to be heard. Everyone was just happy that to be safe.
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