Thany
Thany
She was taken in by a innkeeper, Hanna Rist, and has now been living in Saltmarsh for roughly a year while waiting for her memory to return.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Short, but slender.
Facial Features
She has dark red eyes, with one eye often being covered by her hair.
Apparel & Accessories
She prefers to dress in dark clothing, covering her head with black hooded cloak whenever possible.
Always carries around a large scythe.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Her past is mostly unknown to her, but she's starting to remember...
Gender Identity
Female
Sexuality
-
Education
She has studied briefly under Eresh, a friend of hers.
Employment
She currently helps out at the Snapping Line as thanks to Hanna for letting her stay and taking care of her.
Personality Characteristics
Likes & Dislikes
Likes: Masks, Evening Walks
Dislikes: Sickness
Social
Contacts & Relations
Hanna Rist: The innkeeper of the snapping line. The one that has taken care of Thany for the past year.
Eresh: A pretty upbeat girl under who taught Thany several things in regards to combat.
Orphas: A man that seriously injured Thany a long time ago.
Religious Views
As a devout follower of Keretos, she hates undead, necromancers, time mages and any others who run from the death.
Keretos code: She will attempt to eliminate her target, as well as any undead without mercy. The same applies to any person who has extended their lifespan to beyond what's natural. She will attempt to kill any necromancer or time mage regardless of age, but can be persuaded otherwise.
A young girl with amnesia that washed up on the shore of Saltmarsh.
View Character Profile
Alignment
Lawful Evil
Age
16
Date of Birth
13th of Necrolm
Birthplace
Unknown
Children
Current Residence
Saltmarsh
Gender
Female
Eyes
Red
Hair
Medium-length brown
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Slightly pale
Height
5ft
Weight
105lb
Chapter 4: New purpose
13th of Alloyir, 1422 AF
After resting for a short time, Tomos asked for our help to deal with the rest of the bandits that we saw earlier. It seems likely that the bandits were using the house as a hideout, spreading rumors about it being haunted to keep people away from it. Some of the men came back and were close enough for Kanna to overhear them talking. The important thing that the pirates mentioned is that they would be forced to send a group to attack Saltmarsh to allow them to relocate to a new safe location, apparently afraid that the crown would send troops to deal with them now that they were discovered.
The group's opinions were divided on what to do. Eshim believed that the contract had been fulfilled while the others wanted to deal with the pirates before they could initiate the attack. While not particularly concerned about Saltmarsh, Hanna did take good care of me and sending a few more souls to Keretos early can always be fun, so I agreed to continue helping as well.
Mia removed the bar that was placed on the door again and we quickly eliminated the smuggler that was put on watch. After that, we moved down and eliminated the remaining enemies without much trouble. With all of them dead, our mission was done though I suggested that were search the entire place - including the mansion - more carefully once more to make sure we didn't miss anything. It gave us a few nice items, including a bag of holding that I kept for myself and a plate armor that Mia decided to take. Considering how close she came to dying already, none of us objected to that. After that, our little alliance came to an end and we each went back to where we were staying in Saltmarsh. Eshim helped fence the stolen goods from the smugglers cove, netting us each a decent amount of gold.
I decided to remain in Saltmarsh until Keretos would give me my next target. When He finally spoke to me in my dreams, I saw Asmodeus being crossed off the list. Presumably whatever he was, he's dead enough for now. Unfortunately, my next target was unclear. Instead of a single name, I got a deluge of names. While my memories of previous incarnations are an unclear mess, I definitely don't remember ever receiving more than 1 name. I cannot begin to fathom why He would send me so many targets at once. Are they linked? Did He make a mistake? Is this a result of killing of Asmodeus? During this week I also felt myself regaining the capacity to cast spells once more, perhaps a blessing of Keretos for a job well done.
Regardless, I can only attempt to do my job and kill every single one of them. I began by asking Hanna if she knew any of the names, but found no leads there. I then visited the two temples in town, one to Giamae and one to Ulmthro. The priest in the temple of Ulmthro, Wellgar Brinehanded, mentioned that Punketah was a scrawny boy who had a middling talent for magic a few decades ago. He apparently ran off to be a sailor and was not heard from again. I could feel that this is the person I'm looking for, but tracking him down with only that info to go on would be hard. There is a small link between him leaving to become a sailor and the pirates in the area. It could also just be a coincidence, but maybe Keretos knows that's he's close.
Upon leaving the temple, I was greeted by a large horsefly landing on me. Shortly after a small, turquoise colored frog chimera appeared before me asking me if I was a warrior. I denied this of course, as I am a priestess of Keretos before anything else. The frog also claimed to be a priest, who was led to me by his goddess, Marai Seven-Eyes. Presumably a local deity of his tribe or people. Since he appeared before me as I was lacking information and direction, I decided to humor the idea that he was led to me and heard him out. The frog introduced himself as Rani and claimed to be looking for allies as well to become stronger himself. I suggested to him that he can tag along with me, my enemies are likely to be some of the strongest enemies a person could face after all.
I asked him about the names as well, hoping that maybe fate was be so kind to give me a clear direction. Alas, this was not the case though he did suggest that his goddess could help in finding them. It seems that if she does intend to help, she will do so by communicating with Rani, probably similar to how I received my orders from Keretos in my dreams. He also appears to be extremely poisonous to touch, I'll have to ask him to help me prepare some antidotes to prevent any accidents in the future. While we were talking it began to rain, so I suggested that we head back to where I was staying and continue our talk indoors.
Chapter 3: A fool and her life are easily parted
6th of Alloyir, 1422 AF
The tunnels we walked into were about 20ft high and quickly branched off to the west, east and south. Having not much to go on, we turned to the west path where Eshim quickly spotted several green slimes on the ceiling. We had a brief discussion on what to do with these slimes. My first thought would be to kill them, but they are extremely tough to kill from a far and going around them would be extremely easy. The others seemed to be more afraid of the slimes and instead wanted to take a different path.
And so we began to head towards the east. A quick glance in the southern tunnel revealed that it was likely it would connect to the slime room. Kanna tried to scout ahead, but was unable to see anything in the dark tunnels. Beatrice was carrying a torch, but we didn't want to reveal ourselves to any potential enemies lurking in the dark, so I went to take a look next. This body might be human, but if I couldn't see in the dark, then it would be extremely difficult for me to do my job. Despite this, I also didn't see anything, but I did hear something further to the east.
Kanna moved closer to be able to hear better and after coming back, she reported that several men and a hobgoblin were standing guard in a large chamber and judging from their conversation, they were aware that we were in the area and that we had killed the previous people who were sent to stop us. As we were making plans on how to deal with the bandits that were awaiting our approach, Kanna suddenly mentioned to me that she felt a weird presence.
I presumed this to be the same weird presence I sensed before and upon feeling out my surroundings, I could confirm this to be the case. However, I could also feel the presence of several undead directly above us. I immediately turned back around to where we came from with the others following behind me. Eliminating undead was the primary reason I came along to begin with, even if now turned out that the rumor about there being spirits here was most likely a lie. I was worried that this weird presence I felt had somehow raised the people we killed earlier, but once we arrived back in that room, this appeared not to be the case. My attention then shifted towards the east door with 'DANGER' written on it, it was likely that the undead I sensed were in this room.
The door was barred from our side, if such a simple thing could keep the undead out then we couldn't be dealing with anything particularly tough. Skeletons or zombies, most likely. After carefully searching the door for any traps - danger could mean multiple things after all, we opened the door and found several piles of bones. Regardless of how weak skeletons are, this body is also weak still and my companions don't see to be any more competent, so we decided to funnel the skeletons in 1 at a time through the door. A simple, but effective strategy and against the mindless undead.
Or it should have been, but after Tomos failed to hit a stationary pile of bolts with his divine bolt (Did he miss on purpose?), Beatrice ran into the room. I've rarely seen a mortal with such a huge deathwish. If she wanted to die so badly, she could have just asked me. She almost seemed surprised when the piles of bones formed into skeletons, being unable to move before the skeletons surrounded her and began to beat down on her. While I was happy to just let her die, I am compelled to attack the undead in front of me. I ran into the room and swung at one, but took a hit in return when I was retreating back again.
We had lost vision, but the loud sound of her falling to the ground in her heavy armor alerted us to what had happened to her. Disregarding Eshim's suggestion to close the door, Tomos moved forward and healed the fallen Beatrice. Unfortunately for the girl, she was still stuck in a room full of skeletons that had no other targets available than her. I expected her to fall again shortly after, but a purple flash illuminated the room and she came running out in shock.
This seemed to have distracted Tomos, as she took a skeleton's scimitar to the chest. A blow that could have killed someone, but as a servant of Keretos, I denied him the ability to die for that moment. His position was key in preventing the skeletons from swarming into the room we were in. With our original strategy back in place, although with a different person blocking the path, we were able to clear out the skeletons including an alchemist skeleton that had come from a hidden room further in.
Beatrice began to talk about how she was free now, but after Eshim's warning that people were coming up from the secret entrance we went down earlier, we closed the door behind us and hid inside the hidden room that the alchemist had come from. We found a book as well as alchemy supplies when we searched the room and after waiting for a while to make sure the bandits from earlier were gone, I approached Beatrice to ask her about what she was talking about. I noticed that the presence I kept sensing earlier had disappeared and Keretos had expressed his approval of this - so what exactly was going on with this girl?
Beatrice, or Mia as she claimed her actual name was began to tell a story of how the raccoon she had carried around with her had been controlling her for the last 15 years. She claimed that the raccoon, Asmodeus, had suddenly appeared and taken control over her, apparently denying Mia the ability to do anything at all. The connection had only broken cause she was about to die to the skeletons. She managed to tell the story while sounding very emotional, but I am not sure if she's telling the truth. There were simply too many holes in this girl's story.
To start with, why would a creature powerful enough that I would gain approval from Keretos upon seeing it die choose to control a young girl like Mia when she was only 5 years old? Did he see potential in this girl? If so, why had nothing materialized from that potential after 15 years? Forget a powerful being, even a regular mortal should be strong enough to handle a few skeletons if training seriously for 15 years. Plus, the fact that Mia had survived when Beatrice should have died.
The presence I sensed is gone, but I must remain on guard against both this 'Mia' and keep an eye out for any further signs of this Asmodeus. I suspect she either willingly contracted this creature and made a deal with it or that this Asmodeus is going to have a backup plan in case the connection was severed. I could simply kill her before she can become a threat, but I'm afraid the rest will not take too well to such a solution. Working with others can have its downsides sometimes.
Chapter 2: Ambush
6th of Alloyir, 1422 AF
After the voice spoke, nothing else happened. I presumed it to be a simple warning trap, but Eshim appeared to actually be frightened from what happened and nothing we said could dispel his fear. I suggested we head back and check the rooms we skipped earlier for more clues, but before we could head back we discovered tracks of dried mud that were several days old. The tracks led directly to where Beatrice was standing and after trying to be funny, she stepped aside to let Kanna open the trap door that the tracks led into.
As everyone else seemed to prefer going down, the other rooms would have to wait. I tried to reassure Eshim that Keretos would protect him, but that only seemed to have the opposite effect. How ironic. As if any other god would have more authority of who dies than the god of death?
We moved down the stairwell and came into a small room that looked like it was used as living quarters and we were immediately attacked by some of the inhabitants, a group of 3 thugs. One with a longbow that opened fire on Tomos who had taken point and two with scimitars that slowly approached us. I immediately ran up to the nearest one and sliced him open with my scythe, though not wounding him fatally. This was the first opportunity I've had go to wild since I had woken up, so how could I not take it? The others also moved in and attacked without much result while Eshim, having heard noise above us and shouting "AMBUSH", tried to keep the trapdoor shut.
I jumped up on the nearby table to get a clean cut on the man's neck, but an arrow from the archer made my swing go wide. I plucked it out of my arm and paid no further attention to my injury. Keretos will protect me after all. My allies had more luck, with both Kanna and Beatrice downing one of the scimitar wielding thugs.
Eshim at this point could no longer hold the trapdoor shut and we were at a risk of being attacked from multiple sides, so I moved in to eliminate the archer from the fight by removing his arm and Kanna quickly followed up with a rapier stab to the head of the man. I noticed a door with 'DANGER' written on it in chalk at this point and only barely resisted the temptation to open it up and see what was inside.
After a few failed attempts, Eshim who had managed to retreat successfully fired a crossbow bolt into a thug's eye while Beatrice had climbed out of the trapdoor and decapitated another one. The last remaining enemy tried to flee, but I'm a hunter. Prey like that will not escape me. Beatrice followed after me as well, though at a much slower pace and it only took me several seconds to catch up with the runner. With his back turned towards me, I cleanly removed his head with a single swing. Beatrice seemed to object to me killing the man, instead talking about justice and interrogation. Maybe she should have thought about that during all the killing she did herself back in the previous room? I chanted a small prayer for the man's soul - even trash like him doesn't deserve to have their souls tampered with after all, and then moved back downstairs again together with Beatrice.
Upon returning there, I repeated the prayer for all the dead men and women that laid in the room. Tomos seems to disapprove of me, but what honestly what else can you expect from a cleric of Giamae? The people we killed are obviously not undead, nor are they necromancers so we began to wonder whether there truly were any spirits here or if it was simply a ruse to keep people away. Still, I sensed something earlier and found a note mentioning undead.
Before continuing on, we searched the room and looted the dead bodies as well as the lockboxes they kept in the room. We discovered nothing about who they were or why they were here, but we did pick up some coins. We also managed to find a secret door and the party consensus was that we should see where that leads first. I suggested we move a bit more stealthily from this point on. We had no way of knowing what would be down here, Eshim made a passing comment that the underground tunnel we were heading into was only dug less than 30 years ago, much more recent than the mansion we were just in.
With Kanna taking the lead due to her keen senses, we headed into the tunnels.
Chapter 1: The haunted house
6th of Alloyir, 1422 AF
It had been only two days since I met that priest Tomos in the Snapping Line and he appeared to have kept his word. His other helpers had arrived faster than I expected, but that was only a good thing. We left early in the morning and his other helpers were briefly introduced to me, though little more than their name was given:
Kanna: A gray-haired rabbit girl that the priest had helped before apparently. It seems she came along solely to repay the priest for his kindness.
Eshin: A hairy dwarf and local brewer that lives in Saltmarsh. I don't remember seeing him around the town before, but I didn't pay much attention to things like that either. He looks a bit of a coward and not very comfortable with fighting.
Beatrice: A human with long blonde hair that was wearing heavy armor. She appears to be very full of herself and constantly shouts nonsense about heroics. She also has a pet raccoon that she drags around with her.
Tomos had truly assembled a weird team for this. While I may be qualified for this, Tomos would have had no way of knowing this so is he simply that confident in his own abilities? From the others, only Beatrice seems to have combat experience. Perhaps he considers us expendable? But no, a priest of Giamae wouldn't do such a thing.
We traveled to where the haunted house was for several hours. During this time, we chatted a bit about why we were tagging along. Apart from Kanna, the two others appeared to have come along just for the money which was revealed to be 10g, or 20 if there was trouble though it was never stated what exactly that meant. Either way, money was not my main concern here. I simply had to kill the ghosts, no matter what it took. The people from the town appeared to be very interested in us, some even going as far as to follow us all the way to our destination. Did they not have anything better to do? Beatrice tried to show off in front of them, while I tried to scare them a bit after their horrible accusations about me being a necromancer. It's not too surprising after I switched back to my traditional outfit, the dark clothing and scythe was meant to scare people. To most people, death was something scary after all. I didn't go too far in scaring them though. Hanna had taken good care of me and I didn't want her to get into trouble because of me.
The haunted house we arrived at looked like it had been abandoned for several years. Although mansion would be a better word to describe how large the building was. Before we entered, Tomos was kind enough to give each of us a vial of holy water and two healing potions just in case. I don't remember much about prices and maybe things have changed, but wouldn't those items be worth more than the reward that was offered as pay for this assignment? None of the others seemed to have this question either due to lack of knowledge or maybe they were worried Tomos would ask for them back later.
The inside of the mansion looked as I would expect from a house that had been abandoned for so long. I tried to sense where the heretics were hiding, but could only feel a faint trace of a living person that had been here. It startled me for a bit, as I was only expecting to find undead here. My immediate thought was that a necromancer was responsible for the creation of these ghosts. If so, then maybe my job wasn't finished after this then. While I was thinking of this, Tomos suggested that one of us take the lead and Beatrice immediately volunteered for the job. She walked deeper into the house and began to open the doors of the many rooms of the mansion.
Most of them were empty with little of interest inside of them. There was a kitchen, a room with a table and two chairs, another room with a broken table and a broken chair, a room with a clump of tiny red mushrooms growing in a semicircular fashion around the fireplace and an empty room of which Kanna warned us that the ceiling looked unstable. We never bothered to give these rooms a deeper look, despite some of them sounding kind of suspicious. I'm just here to kill the ghosts after all. In one of the rooms, Beatrice used some form of magic to move the chair and scare Eshim, who responded by shooting the chair. She claimed it was a test, but none of us were really buying it. Maybe the heroics thing was simply a well-performed act? I'll need to try it some time.
Another room we entered was a room with a desk. Two of the drawers were open, but one of them was locked. This time I volunteered to try and open the lock as I vaguely remembered having done things like this before. While these two hands were more skilled, I hadn't done such a thing in a while so it took me longer than I would have liked. After I opened it, I took out two more healing potions and handed one to Beatrice and Kanna each.
Across from the room with the desk was a room with a pile of books. I'm not particularly interested in reading, but if this was the work of a necromancer then I have no choice but to take a look. While I didn't find any necromancy books, I did come across two books that stood out. "The magical properties of gemstones" and "The magical properties of herbs and flowers" - both written by Archmage Thelia. I tossed the gemstone book away while loudly saying its title, seeing if anyone else would be interested in the book. This did not appears to be the case as everyone ignored it. Kanna then called me over after having found a scrap of paper in another book and asking me if I could read more. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so as well and the only few words legible were 'beyond skeletons'. Maybe this was written by the necromancer who was here. Ghosts are certainly beyond skeletons. Beatrice took the book the scrap of paper was in, "The metaphysics of mathematics" and then we headed for the next room.
This next room looked uninteresting at first glance and even on a more through inspection by Kanna, but suddenly a loud booming voice that sounded fiendishly evil screamed
"WELCOME, FOOLS - WELCOME TO YOUR DEATHS!"
An unfamiliar room
1421 AF
Thany found herself awakening in an unfamiliar bed, inside an unfamiliar room. Warm rays of sunshine trickled through the window onto her face and she slowly opened her eyes. The room she was laying in was a small one with not much inside of it. Next to her bed was a drawer and on the other side of the room she could see a simple desk and chair. Her brief inspection of the room was interrupted when she heard the door open to her left and she turned her head to see who was entering the room.
A middle-aged woman entered the room with a slight look of worry on her face that quickly turned into a smile when she noticed Thany was awake.
"It's good to see you're finally awake. You were asleep for so long I was starting to get worried. How are you feeling?" The woman spoke to Thany.
The young girl herself was unsure on how to respond. A dozen questions were racing through her mind. After a short silence she asked.
"I'm fine. Where am I?"
"The snapping line, an inn in Saltmarsh. I'm Hanna, the one who runs it." Came the reply and the woman looked at the girl expectantly, the unasked question of 'Who are you' being visible on her face.
"Thany." Was all that she could answer the question with. Not satisfied with the answer, Hanna continued asking.
"How did you end up washed ashore here?"
"I don't know."
"Where you are from? Where are your parents?"
"I don't know."
Hanna ceased her questioning, though she still had her doubts about the girl. As if to confirm those doubts once more, her eyes wandered towards the large, black scythe that was leaning against the wall on the other side of the wall. Thany's eyes followed Hanna's gaze, but showed no sign or recognizing the strange weapon.
"You seem honest enough." The woman finally concluded with a sigh. "You can stay here for now until you recover. I'll get you some food, you should stay in bed for now to recover. Do you have anything you like?"
Thany shook her head and pushed herself upwards to sit in her bed. As she was watching the innkeeper leave the room, she called out to the woman.
"Miss Hanna?"
Hanna paused and turned her head back towards Thany, waiting for her to continue.
"May I have an apple?"
Comments