The Saga of Nadia bint Al-Safra
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Character Name: Nadia bint Al-Safra
Account Name: UlyetiaAnkhapur - City of Opportunity! Its pearls famed throughout Faerun for their quality. Ankhapur - Its Noble Houses blessed by the Lady of the Lanceboard, gifted in local politics. As with all cities, there are the fortunate and wealthy. There are also those less fortunate, and less wealthy.
Nadia and Nafisa, born to parents unknown, and sold for scraps of meat and a small helping of eggplant and legumes to Henrik the Cunning in Ankhapur just east of greater Calimshan. The merchant and his wife were happy to have such pleasant children as the twin girls, and their lives looked to be more promising for a few years.
The Cult of the Crimson Blades, a small sect formed of followers of the Red Knight obsessed with training a perfect mortal weapon, got wind of Henrik's twins, thinking them ideal test subjects. The cult split the twins up, taking one to be trained under their fist, molded by their "nurture", the other sent into the far east, followed by a minder but left to her own devices to let "nature" run its course.
That is when the girls last saw one another, as Nadia was put on a caravan headed east, and that is where their paths diverged...
--- Heading East ---
The caravan ride went on for what felt like years, along the roads from Ankhapur to Kagarr, to the Golden Road and down to Innarlith just north of The Shaar. Across the northern edge of the Firesteap Mountains to Hardcastle, and a sudden turn up into Unther finally stopping an Unthalass.
The minder dropped her off here, and just disappeared into a crowd of people. There she was Nadia Bint Safra, a young girl of 6 years of age, left to fend for herself in an unknown place. Forced to steal from merchants on the streets to survive.
One day, she saw chance to smuggle herself onto a ship in the port, not knowing the destination, but assuming that anywhere had to be better than there, she hid behind a crate marked eggplant, she knew that she would be safe there given how cheap eggplant was and how nobody would care enough to steal it should they be boarded by pirates.
The boat left port and she fell asleep, only to be awoken by a lick of heat at her face. Her eyes shot open and that is when she saw it, half the ships hold full of water lapping up from a massive rock that had penetrated through the hull, the other half, ablaze with fire, as it burned from the deck down. She screamed for help, but heard nothing but the roar of the flame and the crash of waves outside the boat.
Instinctively, she started bashing at a cracked board in the hull next to her, not knowing what she would find on the other side. The board cracked open a small enough hole for her to see the ship had run around, and a group of wizards adorned with thick red robes and shaven heads were using it as targeting practice, cackling from the cliffs as they tossed fireball after fireball at the boat and the floating corpses of its crew.
She continued to bash at the hull where she had weakened it, only to feel the flames creeping closer and closer behind her. Lapping at her clothing, she could feel the fibers of her torn rags beginning to flicker alight. She screamed louder as her clothing began to burn, burning her skin. Suddenly, the flames seemed to part and a man clad in orange plated armour strode down what was once the staircase, now bent metal. He leaned down, and picked Nadia up, her skin now gnarled and burnt from the neck down. It was all that she could do to spy the necklace around his neck before she passed out from the pain. A twining red flame held on a golden chain wrapped in red silks.
--- 10 Years later ---
A now grown Nadia, a Sister of the Purifying Flame, finds herself running the streets of Bezantur, eyes follow her wherever she goes. Not because she is overly attractive, not because she is overly unattractive, but for the ornate flamed tattooed body from her neck down. Tattoos that seem incredibly intricate and precise to the untrained eye, but to those with an eye for art, would notice are drawn over what seems to be burn marks covering her whole body save for her face and head.
She runs from alcove to alcove, following a hooded figure with whom she has been sent to negotiate terms with. He seems to duck between groups of people in the street, behind food stalls, under caravans, the hallmark of an assassin following their prey. The hooded figure wearing white robes tied with a red roped belt, and a necklace with a twining flame hanging around their neck.
Suddenly the hooded figure stops and spins around, Nadia ducks into an darkened alcove, peeking out to see the figure had disappeared. Poking her head out fully, she comes face to face with a mangled face, one eye blind with cataracts and the other a brilliant blue. A snarl across its lips as it says “Do you not know it is impolite to follow someone through the streets?”. She looks him over and now notices the white robes with the red roped belt, and the symbol hanging around his neck.
“I am as sure as I am devout, that I was not at all following you, sir. Kossuth as my witness” she stammers out as she attempts to lie to him. He smiles ever more grimly to her “As you should know child, Kossuth teaches one should not allow others passion to consume them, only fuel them, I can sense that your passion flows strong that it consumes you. That lie is going to hurt you!” He launches with a blade mounted to his wrist at her.
She deflects his initial blow with her hand, however when his other arm swings around revealing a second wrist mounted blade, it cuts across her forearm, putting a gouge into a particularly intricate tattoo of a man burning from the eyes, with a burned handprint on his chest. She screams out in pain, and reels back spinning a kick around and striking him on the temple. Doubling up with a second strike with her fist, shimmering with energies. The mans eyes crackle and he crumples to the ground.
As soon as the man hits the dusty ground, a second cloaked man rounds the corner and says one simple thing “The Sword summons you”.
Their initial training complete, the Cult of the Crimson Blades moved their experiment to field testing in the northern wastes of Narfell. And that is where our story begins...
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reviewed, rewarded
