Saviel Cyriese spent the first 120 years of his life high above the ocean in the elven city of Ulsera. The city rests far off the Northern coast of Arboreala atop a tall looming island of jagged sheer basalt cliffs. The city has existed in isolation for countless generations, thriving with life and knowledge. Ulsera is primarily high elven, and though uncommon, other elven lineages and half-elven individuals also call it home. It does not shun other inhabitants, merely few outsiders have strong enough connections to the isolated isle. Very little leaves the island without predetermined purpose. It's exterior image is one of Power and Justice, those within understand how the foundations of the city are built upon corruption, bribery, as instilled traditions.
Ulsera's government is based around the Seven Judges of The Council, each being a member of the seven oldest families in the city. The title of Judge being passed down for generations. Sometimes a family falls from grace or is forcefully pulled from their rank by those that crave the power the Judges wield. The Cyriese family is the second oldest in Ulsera. A long lineage of judges, councilors, and advisors to those in power. Saviel's mother, Marren Cyriese, The Second Judge, is one of the most respected and most feared forces of the city. She is determined in exacting what she sees fit. Her husband and Saviel's father, Tiarres Cyriese is a revered advisor. He often does whatever he sees best for himself or can assist whoever is willing pay the highest price. Often manipulating and deceiving those around him for his benefit. The two are very business oriented individuals that were not designed to be a family unit.
From birth, Saviel was created to eventually take over his mother's role as the Second Judge of Ulsera. With strict education and the added mentoring of his father, Saviel would be shaped into the perfected form of power. He quickly developed a way with words which earned high praise from his family, but was frequently the trait that got him in the most trouble. He often spent his time below the cliffs when the tide was low, wandering the coast as the waves stirred the darkened sea to find solace or venturing through the market plaza, listening in on rumors and tales of the city and the lands beyond. As the years and decades passed, Saviel's expectations to inherit his family's title grew more uneasy as he lacked the formality required of such an honored role. Perhaps lacked isn't correct, more that he liked the splinter the confines of his mantle. He was the perfect culmination of his parents, cold and cunning, exacting whatever must be done for his sole betterment. He drifted into his more devious nature, often exposing things that were never meant to be heard, let alone told to the public about Ulsera's respected authorities.
This all came to a head one final night. After being brought to the Council's Court, Saviel became flustered in an overwhelmed moment, no longer able to bare the lies he had held so tightly for so long under interrogation, he let it all go. Unraveling and unveiling the personal information, back-payments, and broken oaths of the Commanding Guard head of Ulsera. All presented before the Council, The Judges, and a large portion of the other well respected individuals of the city. Things that were known, but never said aloud. He was promptly tossed from the Court and into the storm that raged outside and threatened with near life-time imprisonment or execution. As the crowd grew insatiably unstable at all of Saviel's revelations, he slipped into the night, returning back to the sanctuary the coast had always offered to him.
With the waves crashing almost to the cliffs, there was little of the rocky sands to support him as he precariously wandered, weighing his few choices. The damp of the rain and salted sea clinging to him, the reality of what he had done spiraling through his mind. Somewhere deep within and yet far beyond, It called to him. The image of something old and forgotten, enticing him with power and a rapid escape from what he knew to be his death. It would help him for a cost, the cost of a life in place of his. Seeing no better option to undo his current fate, Saviel accepted. Their Deal sealed as he ascended back into the city amidst the chaos of the storm and the riots that followed his actions. He would handle this.
He sought out one of the newer Council members, one he knew to be weak and desperate to claw his way through the ranks. He wouldn't have made it anyways. Saviel lured him from the growing unrest of the city to one of Ulsera's cliff edges. Enticing the man with the knowledge that any information and secrets Saviel had accumulated would cease upon his sentencing. Saviel drew out a dagger and attempted to slice the Council members throat, he had never been meant to wield a blade, little of his training went towards such “lowly” things. The drenched grass and soil giving out beneath him and his target. What was meant to be an efficient death became a scramble as both Saviel and his sacrifice neared the edge. Saviel plunged the blade into the man's chest but not before the earth gave out entirely, plummeting both his offering and himself into the raging sea far below to a certain death. The taste of the salt water and blood mixing as the final thing he remembered witnessing was the glowing yellow eyes of his God and its arms and tentacles encircling his offering, dragging it into the depths of the blackened ocean.
Saviel awoke standing within the streets of a town he did not recognize, but judging the whispers, was not far from Ulsera. A town called Eelfen, one of the few ports to bring people to and from his home isle. After a careful question here and there, he discovered it had been a number of weeks since the storm. Stories of the tempest and riots that claimed many lives, one of those lives reportedly being himself. Upon investigating himself for damages, he found trailing from the nape of his neck and spine, down to the backs of his hands barely visible faint scar like runes, that he should not have understood how to translate. Similar red script was imbedded around the edges of his irises, both a lasting reminder of the deal he made with his God. Being a supposedly dead man, Saviel wandered further away from his distant home in search of something new.
While traveling, he found himself without a real destination in mind, but would take up small jobs in forgettable towns for money. Staying a few days to solve simple issues and disputes before continuing on. His services were limited, offering unsound legal advice, detached investigations of personal affairs, and the occasional translation were among his more common jobs.
He eventually found himself in a small city called Bourngate. A foggy port trade city along the Northeastern coast. The tide never swelling like Ulsera, merely cascading over the rounded stone shore. The wood of the docks always waterlogged. Originally, Saviel had been tasked with learning some information in regards to one of the trade boats and its crew that gave an older woman an “uneasy” feeling. What he assumed to be a simple task quickly turned for the worse as he found himself in the middle of one of the most prominent underground organizations of the Northern region of Arboreala. Having mostly unintentionally learned much more than he should have or would have liked to know about this operation, he was confronted by a small group of the crew members and was attacked. He retaliated, now with only the slightest bit more skill than before, and injured a few and killed one of his opponents. Those that remained alive, imprisoned him and it was not long before he was presented before the organization's leader. A tiefling man named Kai'res Vezkova. He had coral colored skin, bright yellow gold eyes, and curly frizzy near black brown hair. He carried himself with an air of confidence and power. He led the underground group known as The Arrival who specialized in trade. Something that balanced between a refined smuggling operation and an expanding mafia. Something much bigger than Saviel should have stumbled into. After much persuasion on Saviel's part, claiming he was clearly useful, instead of being killed he was brought into the group.
He started out as a lookout and protection for The Arrival's runners. Naturally, he very quickly strayed away from being a fighter, instead offering his advice to Kai'res. Saviel understood the law and rules and knew how to subvert them. He knew he could help make The Arrival better, and Kai'res recognized that. Having found his footing in this operation and a bit of time, Saviel became Kai'res' Advisor, the one to tell him when he was in the right but often one of the only to tell him when he was wrong. He became Kai's right hand and, soon after, his romantic partner. He was, and still is, one of the few people Save cared about. That few expanded as The Arrival's inner circle grew over the next seven years. Somehow, Saviel found his skills being put to good use amongst a family he should never have known. Though he thrived in establishing business connections and pointing out the flaws in their plans, Save was finally trained to fight and survive by The Arrival and primarily Kai'res. He gained enough experience to avoid the majority of injuries that came his way by understanding to leave fighting to those that have done it their whole lives. Not every battle is won through blood, sometimes threats and bribery will suffice.
Those seven years in Bournegate would hold Saviel's fondest memories. However, it all came to a rapid downfall with the rise of a new opposing smuggling group called The Untouchables. Both organizations began expanding into the other's domains and tensions grew quickly. The Untouchables, though fewer in numbers, were more direct, more aggressive, and more powerful than The Arrival could combat. Saviel and his companions began creating plans in case of the worst. Combat tactics, escape routes, distant allies they could rely on. When the inevitable finally sundered Bournegate, all of the Arrival's preparations were revealed to have been done in vain. The Untouchables attacked with force, but few of the Arrival's crew were killed in the initial onslaught. They were divided into two smaller groupings to avoid The Untouchables' focus seeking out and slaughtering them all in a single barrage. Saviel and Kai'res were the leaders of these groups so that if one sect was wiped out, the remaining survivors would still have a well established figure of the Arrival to rely upon. They had planned upon taking opposing routes out of the town and over the next week, regroup at a predetermined meeting point. Saviel's team was the first and only to ever reach their destination.
The first week of waiting was the easiest of the nightmare that would soon consume Save's life. Weeks went by with no word from Kai'res' group. Day by day, Save's desperate grasp on stability began to slip. He was to lead his survivors of The Arrival, be the one they looked to in their time of need. Their Savior. Faces of those he cared for filled with their own growing terror and dread of what had happened. Scouting parties had been organized to find the others or their remains with no success. Every hour that ticked by solidified their counterparts' certain demise. It was like this every grueling day of dawn and dusk over what became six months. The heartbreak of having everything and losing everything, losing Kai, it destroyed Saviel. Everyone had grown hopeless of their situation and Save grew more and more distant. His hold on himself giving way as he drowned within a new storm-torn sea of grief. He sank into those depths and could not pull himself from them.
He decided to leave his surviving friends of the Arrival. He was in no position to be a leader, to be the one to replace the man he loved with every fiber of his being. They needed someone that could be relied on and that could not be the version of himself that he became. Saviel appointed Tara, a long time member of The Arrival and a close friend of both Save and Kai, to take charge in his absence. He asked that if the others were ever found, if Kai'res was ever found, to seek Saviel out, but he couldn't be the one to protect them now. Leaving was never going to be easy, but each step from the life he had built with people who cared about him tore at him. He decided it was better to live with not knowing the true fate that had befallen those he cared about. He had died once already, but knowingly leaving was endlessly more agonizing.
Saviel's course was like his original meanderings all those years ago. Without point and purpose, but a need to create distance from a life that was no longer his. He needed more than anything to keep his mind from drifting back to what he had lost. Save traveled as far away from Bourngate as he could, eventually reaching the city of Metroton. A spanning metropolis that he had only visited a few times with the Arrival, these memories had been insignificant then but how they burned as he explored the city alone. He could not keep going on this way for long. Saviel sought out an old connection of these burning memories by the name of The Rat. He had always been a strange but powerful man who led one of the less respected crime syndicates of Metroton. Save needed a distraction, anything, absolutely anything to keep himself occupied and The Rat had a few things to offer. Nothing complicated but that was enough. Quick simple jobs to get some extra gold. Few tried to pry into Saviel's sudden presence here and that suited him well.
Save had been in Metroton for a few months when The Rat had something new to offer Saviel. Someone really. A young half-elf named Aelar Cantus who was looking for his brother. He needed someone to keep the kid safe and act as a bodyguard as he traveled to Flowtyton. And so, Saviel accepted. He wasn't sure why, given Save himself probably needed a bodyguard, but figured he could likely keep the stringy bard alive for a while. The odd pair set out from Metroton and toward the city of Flowtyton, neither having a clue what would be on the path they had begun to travel.
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