What I remember of my youth with humans, was being told that I looked beautiful almost elvish until they took a step to the left. If I was lucky they’d only scream and run away. Usually they would call me undead, ghoul, or zombie, and try to stone me to death. I am getting ahead of myself.
I was born into a village where the birth and child mortality rate was really high. Disease ended the lives of many babies and there was also the idiotic children.
[Some would walk into the wilds in a bravery contest or out of some undeserved pride and get lost or get scooped up by some denizen be it of the wild or something more sinister, I do not now.]
Children did not get names until someone from outside the village came to visit. The parents would not name their children, it was taboo to. Instead, they waited for adventurers or perhaps the odd tax collector with a peculiar naming sense. [Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Opal, Pearl, Garnet, or some other valuable object.] He never received a tax he was particularly fond of, our village was farmers; he got food. I was not bestowed a name *gestures to my face* before this happened.
When I was a boy, no more than four years old, my village got the special event of an arrival of a self-proclaimed adventurer, but he was barely more than a snake-oil salesmen. He made grandiose exhibitions of potions and alchemical wonders. He chose one person in the crowd and healed them with a potion of healing, showed the amazing power of a fire-breathing potion, and wove flame in the air. It was the single most beautiful thing that I had seen up to that point.
After he got his haul of food and secret whispers in closets with some unattached ladies, he was feeling especially generous and offered to name some of the children of our the village. I was near the front of the line when I snuck away from the group. I felt drawn to his wagon. I had to get a closer look at the magic fire in a bottle. I got through the crowd and to his wagon of intriguing curiosities and I reached up for the bottle of alchemist fire. I reached on the tip of my toes and almost got it when someone noticed me. The bottle opened and splashed the side of my face, and luckily that is all it hit. What happened next was I blacked out. I screamed something so terrible that it terrified everyone in the village and put an end to the naming ceremony. I was saved by Gent the charlatan.
Stealing is serious shit; in this village, if you were caught stealing you were shunned and sent outside the village with nothing. I was not so lucky. I had played with fire and when I was startled it splashed on my face and I blacked out from the intense pain. I let out an agonized wail so loud everyone in the village heard; there was no hiding this, even if I wasn’t burned. The right side of my face melted away. The skin is gone, what remains is barely more than bone. The skin around my right eye is gone, and due to some magic Gent performed, I didn’t lose my eye.
There was no way to pay for my blunder. My parents, not even the whole village would have had enough money to pay for the debt I incurred. I was given to Gent to make up for the debt of twenty-five gold pieces the price for the alchemist fire that was splashed on my face and the healing I required not to die that night. Gent though able to use magic, is a charlatan.
He used deceptions to trick people into buying his products. He is a cleric of Erythunul and his way to appease his deity, or so he said, was by tricking people. I do not understand it; why do people put a requirement for their magic. I know magic exists, but why do people with magic sometimes claim to get it elsewhere? Thousands of people pray; if that is all it takes then everyone who prays would get magic. But no, that doesn’t happen. It is something you are either born with or not and I was not. I get that I don’t have magic, and I understand that if I were to pray I would not bestowed with magic now. That does not happen. Gent, Gent has magic, he used illusions and lies to make people believe his tonics did more than they actually did. He would have me walk through the crowd, pick me out and use an illusion to make it look like he reduced my melted face to that of a scar. He told me a complete recovery would be far too unbelievable.
Yes, I stole once when I was four, but he stole by selling ineffective, “potions of healing.” He had me mix “potions” for him. They consisted of: water and whatever was readily available usually dirt. I would try to mix in mint, when I could, so that people would not have to have the taste of dirt in their mouth when they purchased these.
Throughout my time with Gent he only ever called me “boy”. He often regaled me with the power and beauty of his God Erythnul, but I guess he is too dumb to understand the power of his magic, is his alone. One day he came upon a different kind of settlement. There were no humans in sight instead there were Dwarves and Gnomes. He started his performance and I began walking through the crowd as is my usual setup, but because there were literally no humans here except Gent and me, he was laughed at by an older dwarf.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
This older dwarf’s name is JohJan his beard was peppered with gray and his neck was burned severely. JohJan the dwarf came forward and saw through all of Gent’s deceptions and pointed them all out to the crowd. JohJan pointed me out and asked to buy me from Gent.
Gent was startled from having his every trick seen through, and the negotiations began. Now Gent claimed that I was his nephew and his precious apprentice and couldn’t let go of me for nothing less than one hundred gold. JohJan poked holes in his store and looked at me and asked if what Gent said was true, and looking down I said “no”; JohJan told me to look at him while I spoke to him. I looked up, ready for screams but none came, he looked at me and me at him, a few moments passed. JohJan repeated himself and I responded with a “No.” Gent started changing tactics and admitted his lie and said I was a thief and it was only by his benevolence and that of his God Erythnul that I was spared from judgement. He began saying that I was not worth much to him. Apparently I was not worth much but he received double my debt to him (fifty gold). I joined the community when I was seven and they were going to try to have me come in as an apprentice for JohJan.
When I was brought to the smeltery for the first time; I saw the flames and the heat flowed over me and I fainted. This wasn’t the proudest time in my life. I told JohJan how about the whole Gent affair; it was found out that I had a trauma and before I did anything else, I had to learn to overcome my fear. We started with small fires and discussing the nature and the use of fire.
Yes, it is powerful, but it is important to know that fire is life and it is also creation. While my progress with fire grew; it was made clear that my trauma was deeply rooted and it would take some time to get over it. I would continue to work with JohJan to try to overcome my trauma, but I would also get training in other fields. This is where I began my time with the gnomes.
The gnomes are amazing tinkerers and inventors. I suppose I wasn’t introduced to the gnomes at first because of their sense of humor and pranks, and they weren’t sure I could handle it. The gnomes found it fascinating that I didn’t have a name. These little guys, having little to no experience with humans told me they have many names. They all started calling me “Nameless” as a joke, but the name stook. With the gnomes I quickly picked up Gnomish and learned the intricacies of some of their inventions. I was handed some of them and I began taking them apart to see how they worked. I found I could understand how they functioned, but my undexterous hands had trouble putting them back together. I floated between many jobs and found cobbling to be what I was best at.
I never stopped training with the Dwarves and finally pushed through my trauma and learned to appreciate it though it still made me uncomfortable to be too near to it. I could handle the bottle of alchemist fire without fainting so that was progress at least. I didn’t focus on smithing of metal working; I began watching weapon training and the strategic drills. JohJan designed a warhammer for me so I could participate in some of the drills. I was able to see the patterns and learn them quickly. I was able to handle the weapons and learned all that I touched. I am no genius it did take time to train, but time I had. After Gnomish, Dwarvish was much easier to master as if the script were the same. If only all days would go as nicely.
One day; I woke up to screams and yelling and fire. I was able to center myself and I took up the warhammer that JohJan had designed for me. Our settlement was under siege by Goblins and Kobolds, they had banded together to assault the settlement. Together they made a breach through the palisade wall and were surging through it. I fought, this wasn’t the first time I had caused someone to shed blood, but it was the first time that I killed. I was not ruined with guilt. These were invaders and I knew our settlement would fall if they were not stopped. I battled tactically, surprising kobolds as I made my way to where ‘alchemist fire’ was held. I took several vials and snuck and fought my way to the breach and threw down one vial of alchemist fire. I burned the entrance and the Dwarves and Gnomes were able to make short work of the kobolds, now able to deal with them without fear of their reinforcement. I stayed and when the fires went low, I readied to throw another vial toward the breach when an enemy rock flew from outside the palisade wall and hit the vial in my hand and it broke and burned me… I didn’t pass out this time. I held the breach blazing, my neck and left arm was engulfed in fire. Not a single kobold or goblin got past me before I was relieved from the breach and I fell and passed out.
When I woke up I was venerated for holding the line. I was given the best military training and a formal education in both Gnomish and Dwarvish. I was educated in all I could learn, and in time I felt it was my time to enter the world and pave my way to stand separate and strong. By the time I left home, the palisades were replaced with stone walls. I joined mercenaries, avoiding humans when I could. I would love to find a place to settle down, make, and sell shoes, but with a face like this.. It is not so easy.