Name: Rotterdam Forest Spider
Class: druid
Biography.
Rotterdam spat blood, and along with it, something white plopped into a puddle of vomit. "They shouldn't have done that," he thought, running his tongue over the gap that had formed in his row of teeth. "I would have paid next time, for goodness sake." The elf tried to stand up, but felt nauseous and had to lie back down. "Or maybe not." The alley behind the drinking den was filthy and smelled of sewage; a huge fat rat scurried closer and dipped its snout into the blood and grime.
- Come over here, - Rotterdam beckoned it with a finger.
The naive rodent cautiously approached only to die in clawed paws and be eaten.
"Just like the good old days," the wretched ragamuffin picked cartilage from his teeth and looked at the stars dimly glowing in the smoggy twilight sky, wondering what he had done wrong.
First of all, of course, he shouldn't have asserted his rights, started a fight, and made a move on the waitress. But that was just a specific instance by which one couldn't judge the overall picture. Most often his thoughts returned to his mother, but over time he concluded that he didn't blame her. Yes, Ahrivael had been a prostitute and all her aspirations were limited to the contents of an opium pipe, but she cared for him—giving him a copper every day for bread and milk. Some children from Brabant couldn't even boast that; they had to steal and sell themselves for broken pennies. Moreover, he had a roof over his head: he wasn't allowed in the room where his mother lived, as it was her workspace day and night, but instead he was permitted to sleep in the brothel's utility closet among rags and buckets. And sometimes, rarely, but still, when she was of sound mind and not in a foul mood, she told him about their great people.
Turning his throbbing head, Rotterdam tried with an unsteady hand to draw his mother's face in the sludge, but the material smeared and the face turned out incredibly ghastly; besides, he had already forgotten some details of her appearance.
Yes, over time she completely lost her mind, and people in the brothel began to whisper that she had lost her market appeal. One day, the owner Garth placed a hand on young Rotterdam's shoulder and led him through the corridors. Along the way, he joked, smiled, and told entertaining stories. Sometimes he asked questions—trivial at first, then more serious: whether Rotterdam would like to become an adult and honest man and earn copper independently, whether he would like to live in luxurious quarters so as to provide for his mother when things became difficult for her, and so on. Rotterdam replied that he hadn't thought about it yet and needed time to reflect.
That very night he fled from there; Elaine allowed him to climb out of the window of her room, hugging and kissing him goodbye. She had always been kind to him, although his mother disliked her for some reason. Elaine was already over thirty, but she still looked good. She always greeted Rotterdam, patted him on the head, and hugged him by the shoulders, sometimes giving him a coin or two so he could buy himself a lollipop. Once she called him into her room, wanting to show him something interesting, but his mother happened to be nearby; she flew into a rage and kicked him out onto the street until evening.
"Is it my fault that I didn't want to stay there?" Rotterdam thought gloomily, shivering from the cold. He tried to get up on his feet again, and this time he succeeded. Swaying, he took a step or two, sat down on some trash, leaning against the wall, and tried to catch his breath. "What could I have done? Steal a kitchen knife and kill everyone there?"
A ragged black tomcat with a bitten ear was rummaging through a dumpster by the opposite wall.
- Anyone in my place would have done the same, - Rotterdam muttered to it. He did this in vain, as he was immediately seized by a terrible cough. Among the drops of blood were fragments of something, perhaps lungs.
"I think I'm losing myself, ha-ha!"
The cat looked at the elf with an unkind, unblinking gaze. Rotterdam kicked a half-eaten rat corpse toward it, but couldn't hold himself and slid back into the mud. Driven by hatred, swearing and mumbling, he leaped to his feet in one jerk and even maintained his balance.
"Well, I am an elf. At least I'm good for that"
Sylvans. An amazing people inhabiting the forests. They move like the wind—fast and practically silent. They can shoot a butterfly's wing with a bow from the full distance of an arrow's flight. They can deliver two lethal blows while the fastest fencer is only making a lunge. Incredible wisdom and understanding of the world are characteristic of them. No one would dare go to war against them. All this, as well as much more, Rotterdam's own mother had told him, so he didn't doubt for a moment that this was exactly what he needed. And there, his kinsmen would help him and take Ahrivael away from that unpleasant place. A great deal of time passed before Rotterdam managed to find them. There were no forests around Brabant—all the trees had long been cut down; none of the people he asked knew anything at all, but Rotterdam's vocabulary was enriched by hundreds of elaborate curses, and his hands grew calloused from heavy physical labor here and there. As it turned out, coppers could be earned in other ways than those Garth had planned for him. Sometimes the young underfed elf wasn't wanted for hire, but overall, there was enough unskilled labor for a vagrant who worked for food and a bottle and slept on the floor. Rotterdam, in his youth, quickly became addicted to alcohol. Little helped him brighten his dismal existence.
"I would have stayed somewhere like that if it weren't for Raphael. Though, unfortunately, nothing good came of it"
Raphael was a merchant preparing for another trip. He was going far, and his path lay through a mysterious forest where, according to rumors, sylvans dwelt. This is what Rotterdam heard behind the garages while rummaging through trash for rats, which were not bad when roasted and for some reason never ran away from him. The plump and stingy Raphael, after listening to Rotterdam's heartbreaking tale and obsequious whining, teared up and hired him into his caravan as an extra sword. Naturally, he had no intention of paying him, but for the elf even such an opportunity was a blessing. On the journey, he had to do everything, including digging latrine ditches. The latter was completely unnecessary, but Raphael wanted "investments to pay off." Sometimes he had outbursts of rage and attacked Rotterdam with fists and feet, but quickly tired out and returned to his litter with a skin of wheat vodka. His servants affectionately called these "incidentics." One such incident occurred once more just as they entered the shade of the mysterious forest, resulting in the merchant and all his servants being slaughtered and riddled with arrows.
Thus Rotterdam first met his kinsmen. Ganodon, the tallest and most formidable-looking, was the captain of this border garrison. "He kicked you while you stoked the fire! I never thought these monsters would stoop to slave-ownership! Not one more human shall step onto the territory of our mysterious forest, I swear by the ancestors." Rotterdam didn't want to upset them; he wanted to be where he truly belonged as soon as possible.
- I never wondered why my mother and I lived in the city at all, - Rotterdam said to a crow pecking at something on the ground. - Maybe I was too small... Or stupid...
The elf's speech trailed off, his eyelids closed, a trickle of saliva escaped his mouth, and he began to slide down the wall he was leaning against, but then suddenly leaped up with a scream of horror. Monstrous images burst into his mind once more to torture his essence.
"Chains and whips, a thousand cuts, the rack, fire" - Rotterdam swallowed. He would like to forget all this—more than anything in the world—but not a day passed that he didn't remember it.
When Ganodon brought him to Blackleaf, Rotterdam was disappointed. He had imagined magical cities in the crowns of trees, but saw only dismal wooden huts. However, sylvans scurried here and there; some of them looked at him with curiosity. Ganodon took him to the elder, an ancient but still sharp-minded elf who possessed great knowledge.
- Your name? - he asked.
- Rotterdam.
- Family name?
- I... don't know. I lived my whole life in the city and had no surname. My mother's name was Ahrivael.
A malicious grimace twisted the elder's face.
- Do not dare utter that name! I know who she is. She betrayed her people, fleeing with some human ragamuffin with whom she spent a night. He was dying of wounds on the edge of our forest; we picked him up, healed him and nursed him back to health, and he bewitched her head with his tall tales of wealth and adventure. We placed your mother's name on the blacklist of names and called her the Black Widow. What am I to do with you now? - the elder stared sternly at Rotterdam.
- Was she... carrying a child before she left? - he asked sadly.
- No, - suddenly the elder softened. - Well alright, I see no reason why you should answer for your mother. You may stay with us if you wish. We are always ready to shelter a representative of our people.
And Rotterdam stayed in Blackleaf. Ganodon took him into his garrison, taught him archery and fencing, but Rotterdam could not master these skills. The sword would slip from his hands, and the bowstring would release without an arrow. Other elves laughed at him and said that a city-bred bastard raised by humans was incapable of such crafts. Rotterdam grew upset, sighed heavily, and engaged in tedious scouting, covering kilometers around the forest. Sometimes he stumbled upon wolves and bears and ran away in terror, but they caused him no harm, perhaps because of his elven, albeit not purest, blood.
Over time he settled into Blackleaf and even began dating the beautiful Shivanniel Fire Cat. As it turned out, she had set her sights on him from the moment of his arrival; she was the elder's daughter. A year later they married, and everyone was merry and happy. However, the morning after the wedding night, Rotterdam appeared in horror on the elder's doorstep. No one came to his ghastly screams that echoed all night through the mysterious forest to save him from the monstrous things perpetrated by Shivanniel Fire Cat. The elder was outraged, shouted that marriage is sacred and the laws of Blackleaf forbid its dissolution, branded him as the spawn of a traitor, and bound him in chains. To show he wasn't joking, he ordered the guards to break both of Rotterdam's legs, and they did so with laughter, asking him if he had wondered why the elder's young and beautiful daughter was unmarried?
He would have perished in an elven prison if hopelessness hadn't pushed him toward strange actions. To his luck, a little squirrel lived in a tree visible from the window. In despair, shedding tears, he prayed for her help, and oh miracle! She obeyed him and stole a ring of keys from a drunken jailer who was sleeping a dead sleep, freeing him from that terrible cell. On elbows and teeth, like some monstrous crab, Rotterdam left the awful village under cover of night. He understood that he couldn't get far on his own, so he opened the pen where elven steeds were kept, piled himself onto one like a sack of stones, and rode into the night. A whole herd followed him, and he later sold them profitably in the first human city.
He spent two months recovering, but his poor legs healed crookedly, and he became forever possessed of a clumsy, bow-legged gait. With the money earned, he spent a great deal of time traveling through nearby shabby towns, drinking himself into a stupor, visiting brothels, and taking chemicals. His mother betrayed her people, and his own people betrayed him; everything comes full circle. As a bitter irony, he took for himself his own family name—Forest Spider. He cheated and stole, borrowed and didn't repay; his shoulders bent under the weight of thoughts and years, his face withered, wrinkles furrowed his skin, and sloping shoulders contrasted miserably with a small belly. Every person has laughed at least once at how Rotterdam crawls despondently on all fours through the mud from a tavern to a wretched lodging house.
He didn't know what to do, where to go, or what to strive for, and one day decided to return home to Brabant. But he found no mother in the brothel, nor did he find himself. The former cheerful establishment had become an ancient, crooked, dilapidated building where homeless people found refuge. Then Rotterdam went where he truly belonged.
"And here I am!" - he smiled. The smile echoed with pain in his beaten face. - "What on earth did I do wrong?"
Spitting, blowing his nose and relieving his bladder, Rotterdam dusted himself off as best he could and slowly limped down the street. A minute after he left, someone from the second floor poured a basin of soap scraps onto the spot where he had been sitting.
Equipment: old torn cloak.
Additional skill: earth magic.
