"What a droll group this is," the tiefling mutters, "but then I suppose beggars cannot choose their companions. Allow me to tell you a real tale, one of suffering and woe of course, for it involves myself," Anguish begins...
[sblock=Anguish's story is long, and is recommended for mature viewers only]"My kind have never been well-liked, but that didn't stop my mother from doing her best to give us a life in this strange world. I never knew my father, and I suppose my mother never truly knew my father either, for he was merely a John and she a prostitute. Not that it was her fault, for she was cast out of an orphanage at a young age herself and forced to beg for her meals. Without any schooling or even the training in a trade, she was forced to resort to the Oldest Profession, using the only natural talent she had been graced with, the ability to charm a man.
"Not that it ever left us with much, but it was better than begging upon the streets I suppose, and we were at least never hungry... well, not that hungry. But the good life had to end eventually. One day my mother simply never came home. I still never discovered what became of her that day. But every once in a while, I would pass a group of men in the marketplace and they would leer at me in a peculiar manner. Of course I suspected they had something to do with the matter, but what was I, an outcast from society, the son of a whore supposed to do about it? Vengeance was not fated to be mine.
"I took to begging on the streets of Athkatla, as my mother had done those many years ago. But unfortunately, my talents were not the sort that brought in easy money. My main proclivities lay in my silver tongue and so I thought I might use it to fleece merchants of their wares in some manner or another. Unfortunately, I was not so skilled as I had hoped and I was quickly caught and thrown into a prison cell. I languished there for weeks, receiving only a quick trial in which I was judged and sentenced without even being allowed to speak for myself, not that there would have been much to say. Then one day the guards kicked me out, saying something about making room for more dangerous prisoners.
"I found myself outside a prison several leagues away from the city where I had been raised, the only place I had ever called home, although that name, "home," carried little of comfort or significance to me. I wandered southern Amn for months, stealing what I could from the orchards and farms in the area just to survive. Soon, I developed a reputation, a well-deserved one at that. I was nothing but a cur, a miserable little thief, not that I had much choice. Because of my reputation, I was welcome nowhere, and forced to move on. It was during my travels in my twelfth year of life that the dreams began.
"The dreams were merely disturbing at first. I would find myself awakened in a cold sweat shuddering from some dark shadow I had seen in my sleep, but then eventually drifting back to sleep again. Soon even sleep held no comfort for me, as I was wracked nightly by nightmares of the most horrendous sort. The pain I felt in these dreams was as real as any pain I had ever endured before and since. Nightly I found myself in the grips of a tortuous being I knew only as the Shadow. The things I saw, the things I witnessed, the things I felt... I can never properly describe them.
"Shortly thereafter I discovered that something had awakened within me, a power I could not explain. I killed my first man when I was thirteen years of age, but I had never intended him any harm. He had been a farmer whose land I was crossing. As it happened, I had come across a natural grove of apple trees the day before and was quite well-fed for once. However, the man came across me on his land and instantly lashed out at me, calling me a villain and a thief, even though I had done him nor his land no harm. He struck me harder and harder until a sudden anger welled up inside me. I had always accepted as just any punishment levied against me for transgressions I had knowingly committed, which, although minor, were many and vast. But this man's pure bigotry and prejudice against me simply because of what I was spawned something within me, a certain pain, a certain anger. Before I knew what had happened, what I can only describe as black fire erupted forth from within me and engulfed the man. He fell to the ground completely without life.
"I fled the place in terror, afraid I would be burned alive, hung, or staked to the ground for what I had done. As I was attempting to make my way hurriedly through a village several days later, an eladrin woman passed me in the streets and stopped to grab hold of my arm. At that point, I knew a fear which I have since become quite accustomed to, the fear of death. I had been caught. Someone had recognized me and this woman was the one to turn me in. But for whatever reason, that is not what the fates had in mind. For the first and only time in my life, the fates had smiled on me.
"The eladrin woman knew my name, at least what my mother had named me, and she called me by it. She said she saw a dark power burning within me, the like of which she had not seen in many a year and that with her help I could learn to control the power within. I spent the next several years following the woman around, walking in her footsteps, learning what she had to teach me, always as if on the edge of the Feywild. She taught me to commune with the spirits of fey to manage the dark power that spoke from within. Channeled properly, she explained, it could be used to devastating effect. But she warned me that this power could be used for either good or evil, and that with time it might destroy me if I allowed it to take complete hold of me. One day I awoke within a forest where she and I had been practicing for many weeks. In these weeks before she had driven me harder to channel my power directly and with purpose. She had pushed me to my very limits. In fact the very night before I had collapsed of pure exhaustion. On that day when I awoke, she was gone, never to be seen again, much as my mother had left and never returned.
"I knew the terrible things I had done in my past could not be repeated with my new-found power. Were it to happen so, I would soon find myself destroyed. I therefore resolved to use my power only to assist those in need with worthy causes. I also chose for myself a name that embodied the whole of my experiences.
"Unfortunately worthy causes do not always put food in one's stomach. I traveled about Amn as a mercenary for some years, always somehow finding the most hazardous jobs, many of which brought me to death's door. I would consider myself lucky to be alive, if my life weren't so fraught with pain. On top of the treacherous line of work I find myself in, the nightmares still recur from time to time, though learning to control the power within me has helped to abate them somewhat. When you found me, it was simply the latest in a long line of poorly planned missions, ill-fated quests, and cursed expeditions. I am certain death lies very soon in my future. My so-called "luck" cannot last forever."[/sblock]
