My family was prosperous in the Ashen
Kingdom. My father came from a long line of traveling merchants, my
brother and I were to continue the trade. However, when I was 10
years old my father got wind of a deal that sounded profitable.
Supposedly a neighboring region was going to be adding more silver to
their coins in the following months, the plan was to gather plenty of
their currency before that happened; when the coins gained value my
father was to reap the rewards. The nobleman who had traded the
coins to my father had spread that rumor around, when my father
realized what had happened it was too late. My family was bankrupt,
and no one was willing to lend my father money to help him out. My
father fell into a deep depression and ended up killing himself
shortly after. My mother ended up working the streets in the seedy
part of the city, some nights she wouldn't make it back home, when
she did come back she was riddled with bruises. My brother took off
after my father died, last I heard from him was that he had made it
onto a cargo ship and hoped to someday have his own shipping
business; for all I know his ship has sunk to the depths of the sea.
Since my mother wasn't the most
dependable I found myself begging for food or money to buy food.
There were many nights when I went hungry, and many more when the
guards would chase me away. Begging wasn't enough though, it might
put food in my stomach, but I needed more than just food to survive.
I started stealing what I needed, usually from the vendors in the
streets when they were distracted with a paying customer. There were
some other kids that were begging and stealing to get by, sometime we
would work together but we tended to keep to ourselves, it's easier
to blend into the crowds when you are by yourself verses a group of
shabby looking kids.
When I was 14 I had heard whispers of
a rebellion that had been moving against the Ashen Kingdom. I found
one of it's members after some round-about searching and talked him
into letting me join. Jerrod warned me that it was a dangerous life,
but I refused to back down. There was to be a task to see how
committed I was to the cause, the task was more of a trial, one I
almost didn't survive. There was a caravan of five wagons heading
towards the Ashen Kingdom, I was told to steal one of the wagons full
of supplies and destroy the others. I figured fire would be the best
way to destroy the wagons as well as create a distraction so I could
escape with the last one. I stole some matches and oil and made my
way to where the caravan had made camp for the night. I had dowsed a
fair bit of the oil on four of the wagons and had even lit two of
them on fire before the guards noticed what was happening. I was in
the process of lighting the third wagon when I heard guards yelling
and running around rousing the wagon drivers. I started making my
way towards the last wagon that was set to burn when I was spotted by
a guard. He started to chase after me so I ditched lighting the
third wagon and launched myself onto the one I had planed on
stealing. I whipped the horse so hard I thought it would rear so far
back and topple onto me, instead it took off into the night. This
wasn't how I planned it, I had hoped to make off with the wagon while
everyone was distracted with the fires, but I could hear the guards
chasing after me. I was running the horse as fast as it would go,
but it was pulling a wagon of goods behind it. I could see the horse
foaming at the mouth from exertion and I was still quite a distance
from the rendezvous with a the resistance. There was no way I would
make it, desperately I looked around but saw nothing that would help
my escape. Being captured wasn't an option, I would choose my own
death before I would endure the guards torture until they decided to
kill me. I saw the edge of a cliff to my left, I wasn't sure how far
down the cliff went but I didn't see any other way out. I leaned
forward and started to cut the ties used to tether the horse to the
wagon, there was no sense in letting the horse die, if anything it
was a liability to the plan since it could refuse to go over the
cliff. I managed to loose the horse from its restraints and whipped
it out of the way. The guards were yelling something at me but I was
to occupied looking at the cliffs edge that was rapidly approaching.
There was a moment of weightlessness as the cart sailed over the
edge, then I was gripping onto the wagon as it plummeted, there were
loud snapping sounds and bangs, then blackness.
I woke to footsteps shuffling towards
me, my heart raced, I had hoped to die in the fall but it seems like
that didn't happen and now the guards were almost to me. I started
to move, then sucked my breath in when a pain in my chest shot
through me. I reached up to my ribs and I new that I had broken
some, not to mention my right leg started to throb. There were
footsteps right next to me now, I looked up expecting to see the
guard but it was Jerrod. He seemed surprised to see me alive and
quickly called for the others to bring medical supplies. When he
returned his attention to me I said “I failed, I only destroyed
three of the four wagons... and this wagon's cargo might be useless
after this fall”. He just chuckled at me and told me to rest.
I spent the next few months
recovering, when I was fit enough to get around Jerrod showed me the
ropes and helped me get set up with missions in the rebellion. I
spent a lot of my time in the rebellion running smuggling missions,
the benefit of this was that I was given a wagon and started a small
trade route to cover for the smuggling. Jerrod used to joke about
taking better care of this wagon than I did the last.
I traveled to many areas; and the
trade business grew just a steadily as the smuggling business. All
the while I was learning about new places and it's people. The
people were easy to talk to, and it turns out I had a knack for
swaying people. Not everyone is sway-able as it turns out, I've
started as many fights as I have as many rallies.
The resistance has been sending me on
more missions which in turns grows my merchant business. This is a
huge step in reestablishing my families business, which couldn't make
me happier... well that and sticking it to the Ashen Kingdom.
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