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Vasilli Pavlichenko was born in Bemmea to two loving parents. Her childhood was typical and full of contentment.

In her late teens, fully immersed in her studies at the Ascott’s Academy for the Warding and Defensive Arts, she ran into her childhood friend, Casandra in a class. They shared many memories of days spent frolicing on the shores of Bemmea. Casandra was on a straight path of studying wizardry. Vasilli envied her focus, as she was tempted by travel and curiosity of what lays in the land beyond her childhood paradise of Bemmea. After a particularly uninspired session at school, she packed her few belongings and bid farewell to her parents, unsure where her wanderlust would take her.

Her journey began with a year on ships, as she shore and sea hopped down to Capeleon. Hungry to create a home, after a year of journeying, she wished to settle in Capeleonl. She found work as a scribe for a shipping merchant who imported and exported goods from Capleon. The merchant, Sid Vicious, had a grumpy demeanor, but was kind and generous to those he favored. In his line of work, people were often trying to take advantage. He was a master of intimidation and persuasion. These skills were intently observed and soaked up by Vasilli.

It was during her year in Capleon that she first met Griffin. He was a lowly guard for a convoy that is constantly traveling, moving imported goods across the land. Griffin’s boss was an affiliate of Sid Vicious. They met at work, and realized they shared a love of the Leroy Jenkin’s novels and travel.They spend many weeks together before Griffin’s convoy departs. His leaving, stirs her wanderlust, and she bids Sid good-bye and heads north towards Valera.

Along the way to Valera she had the opportunity to meet many other travelers, she soaked up their stories and added to her list of places she wanted to visit. Her studies continued, but more organically than in academy, which suited her better. She learned scraps of defense, read countless books, talked to scholars, and beggars alike, learning bits from all.

She stopped in Valera for a time, because she needed to replenish her funds. She found a job as a barmaid at a rowdy pub. One evening at the pub, Vasilli received a sending spell from her childhood friend, Casandra. Casandra sent her condolences, as she had heard Vasilli’s parents died in an explosion at an apothecary. Vasilli was gobsmacked. She had left Bemmea with hardly a goodbye to her parents, thinking only of the adventure ahead. Now they were gone.She wondered what would become of her childhood home. Should she return to Bemmea to collect her parents’ possessions? They were not a poor family, but material wealth had meant little to her folks, and their home was a modest worker’s home. Material possessions would weigh down her travels,and there was not other family with whom to mourn. She was feeling very broken hearted and alone.

A week later, in the midst of her grief, Griffin happened to appear in her pub.

After their marriage, Vasilli traveled with Griffin on his convoys. The ended up in Zobeck, and she loved the energy of the city, and the diversity of its population. This is where they decided to settle, and start a family. In the course of the next few years, they had two babies. Fern was their shy little girl. Then Copper was born a year later, a red headed, boisterous contrast to his sister’s seriousness.

She found work as a night guard at a smithy, because she could work opposite Griffin’s day job. He had become a city guard.

On Copper’s 4th birthday, he fell ill. It quickly spread to Fern and Griffin. She remained immune. Their health deteriorated to the point that they were bedridden, and in and out of consciousness. Their illness was a mystery. The priests were stumped. She thought if she only had more money, she could find her family better care, or a cure. Ironically, she had to use the last of their money to hire a nurse to care for them. Because, to cure her family, she felt the only option was to become an adventurer.

She began to seek an adventuring party who had similar needs. -=+=-)(This is a out line)(-=+=-

It's been so hard as of late, so many new refugees flooding into the city. So many mouths, so many souls, so many bodies to be consigned to his glorious global body. Now that i have Git by my side it has helped...seems like Ani is just a bit to high and mighty to take pity on those lost souls. But even with Git it has been a tough go. The money doesn't go as far as i'd like. The beggars guild has been an asset but they do not have the money to share either and Boras is always very keen for his cut (as is his right). To add to my troubles it appears as if Tyla has run off. The orphans have either been as clueless as I or rather tight lipped. I know how to pry open a jaw but their secrets are their own. All i was able to glean is Tyla had 'something he needed to take care of'. Knowing how precious his circus is to him I cannot imagine what could tear him away from his prized waifs. But Mortis does not give more responsibility than one can handle. I know need to seek out more wealth to sustain my flock and the orphans. After all, it's all about the rilks to a baby. Or something like that, never really understood the sentiment. Maybe this is just what the church needs to grow, maybe the additional eyes and ears and arms and teeth are what we need to protect ourselves in the months and years ahead. I wish Tyla well, and i may wring his neck when he returns, but in the meantime i will consider this a blessing.

Valindra enjoys her time spent in the humans’ war camp, and not just because it offers respite from the travails of battle. She likes to take time, especially in the evenings, and wander away from King Cuthbert’s pavilion at the center of camp. She can spend hours in the wonter dusk, strolling among the tents, wolf’s fur mantle and bearskin cloak drawn tightly about her slender frame. She loves the sights and sounds, the smells even, of the camp and the easy comradery of soldiers that has sprung up among them all. She knows many of them having stood with them in battle from the common farmer summoned to the fyrd by his lord to grizzled veteran of many campaigns.

Certainly, the mood in camp has improved remarkably over the last month. Their astonishing victory over the bugbear horde at the Battle of Tamworthig and then their defeat of the Mother Grushenka, the bugbear’s patron demon, have raised spirits considerably.

As she walks among their tents, the men look up from their dicing games or meager suppers of bread and hard cheese to gaze upon her. They grow hushed or cease their conversations as the elf glides by. It puzzles her, the awe with which the troops regard her and her companions. Of course she understands that they regard her and her mates as heroes, and she imagines that they indeed are. But Valindra has no desire to be revered by anyone, and she is made uncomfortable by the high regard with which the humans in camp hold her.

The camp bustles at this hour. Soldiers are lighting the cook fires. Nearby, a Sergeant dresses down a spearman for some infraction, the warrior’s head hanging low under the withering objurgation of his superior. A bard sings a mournful elegy for the dead from somewhere close. A trio of young women, sloven in appearance, jostle past Valindra mumbling apologies as they go. Camp followers, wanton rampallions most likely, seeking to earn some extra coin among the bedrolls. She smiles at the thought. At their youth.

It’s funny. Not so long ago, Valindra regarded most humans with utmost detachment and disdain, seeing them as clumsy, inelegant boors, short-sighted and vulgar in both temperament and philosophy. But now, walking through their camp in the chilly gloaming, smelling the wood smoke of their cook fires, listening to their songs and rough japes, she feels otherwise.

She has fought beside these humans, stood with them in the shield wall against a terrible foe. She has seen them vomit and shit themselves in fear, and she has seen them stand together in the red madness of battle to kill the enemy with steel and with fire. She has seen them at their worst and at their best.

She hopes the war will end soon so she may return to her forest and her life. Often she yearns for that future. To spend her days in quiet devotion to the Great Oak, tending a sacred grove in the heart of the forest, living a solitary existence but for the company of Helgi, Ursor, and Sasha. And the wind and the trees, and the earth. Yes, that will be a good life someday. But that day is not today. There is much to be done, and in fact, tomorrow they must begin their parlous mission into the hills to the north. But as she walks through the camp, she realizes that for the moment, she is home.

The fireball blast had nearly blinded poor Rara. Now, the air was heavy with the smell of burnt flesh and smoke hung in a haze that partially obscured the glowing red pentagram on the floor. Another goddamned demon appeared, yearning to sow chaos into this world.

Rara stared at the stretched skin with red vein-like tendrils seeping across the sides of the demon’s swollen belly, reminding her of an eyeball. It pulsated as it grew, mutating and stretching, overhanging the demon’s knees. Thick, ugly scars from previous births, gangrenous and purple with age, stretch to the point of bursting.

As the flesh splits, crimson liquid pops from the fissure and seeps away from the growing rupture. Fingers emerge from the gash spreading across Mother Grushenka’s belly. Thick beads of gore etch red streaks down her belly, between her legs and splatter onto the floor.

Fiends, conceived from filth and carnage, hemorrhage to the ground, the demon’s abdomen squeezing out all its contents. The pentagram is lost to the gush of red. The pool of clotted blood evokes a slaughter house floor.

Eight hairy, feral goblins, soaking in ichor and green gelatinous discharge, uncurl to their full height, towering over Rara at seven feet tall. Slime drips from the sharp points of their claws, each a huge and grotesque mockery of a bear’s.