Role

Chapter 1

Background
Added Sat Dec 19 02:00:15 2020 at level 13:

The seafaring necromancer named Jazhi Auverait was a soul forever damned.
Jazhi, oddly, kept no undead crew, instead relying on his six apprentices.
In port, posing as a jewelry merchant, he gathered rumors about shipwrecks,
then sailed away to find sunken ships. Only then would the undead be called,
and used to loot the wrecks for valuables. It was good business, although
Jazhi was rarely satisfied with mere treasure over magical artifacts.

His apprentices did not fail to note, that after every such voyage, Jazhi
would look worse for wear, almost as if becoming older. Perhaps it was the
extensive use of the dark arts that took such a toll on him.

And once every three years, a cloaked and hooded stranger would come to
speak with the necromancer. The apprentices were charged with loading cargo
and forbidden to look at the stranger's face, then after he left, the ship
would sail into the night to deliver it to a deserted island cave in the
middle of nowhere. Jazhi, frighteningly old and decrepit, barked at them
to hurry, and the crates were full of bones and skulls...

Then as they sailed back, inevitably a storm would happen, or some other
disaster, and one of the apprentices would die in what seemed an accident.
Next morning, their master showed no signs of old age, and told them to seek
out a new boy (always a boy) to take the deceased's place. And that's how
Arstan, a street orphan, came to be part of this vicious cycle.

That was nine years ago. Thrice the events unfolded in a similar fashion.
Some of the apprentices had tried to escape while in port, but whenever
they left the ship with any intent to do so, they would inevitably get lost
and somehow turn up at the dock again. The master's magic held them firmly.
Others have tried to avoid being chosen as a sacrifice, but the criteria of
choice were not known and impossible to discern.

Arstan approached the problem radically. Instead of waiting for a disaster,
he decided to create one. Apparently, alchemistic fire can solve a lot,
especially when you don't realize how unlikely you are to survive spilling
it all over a ship. The flasks were of Arstan's own make, and perhaps by a
hint of luck from being born under the Fire sphere, he escaped the burning
ship. His skin charred, he stands ashore, watching the horizon, and wonders
if he should celebrate this as his second birthday.