Baltoris

## Background

Baltoris was born into an elf village and as a young boy developed an excellent skill for hunting. As he grew, he was eventually trained as an elite hunter for his village, the Nest.  One day neighboring villages began wandering into the nearby forests of the Nest hunting the wildlife that lived there. There was a famine across the land, but the Nest and forest was an untouched reserve for wildlife.

The elves made a long-standing deal with the humans that they could hunt in their forests as long as dues were paid each hunt and an elite hunter from the village accompanied each hunt. Baltoris was among the most frequently used guides, upholding his duty of helping the men find food and preserving the game from overhunting.

Gradually, the influence of the humans crept into the politics of the village, the fees for hunting and using land were reduced, humans were permitted to make nearby settlements, and the number of hunts doubled.

There were whispers that a strong human Druid had been influencing his kingdom to advance into the forest for his own personal reasons, and that the nobility of the Nest was pocketing wealth from the human influence.

One day Baltoris returned from an abnormally long hunt to find the Nest completely in ruins, no trace left of it's attackers except for a strange talisman hanging high from the village central fountain.  There was a black taint of char on every structure imaginable. It was if some almighty fire rained from the heavens with such force to obliterate everything in the blink of an eye.  Without a plan or understanding of what happened, Baltoris wandered off to Land's End in search of clues of what decimated his village and his family.

## Around Land's End

### Specter of Flame

Baltoris gained consciousness, again, startled and gasping in the middle of the night. He fell to his knees, sweating with his eyes wide open, and frantically clutches for the gilded Emblem hanging from his neck. As his eyes adjusted to the walls of the dark cellar, vivid and viscous thoughts replayed through his mind. "It was her, again... Why her?" Baltoris thinks to himself, still struggling to catch his wind with each passing moment. Ever since this gilded Emblem of the Nest fell into his possession, he has been plagued by visions of his home. Night after night, it seems like he takes one more step toward in a retelling of the Downfall of the Nest. Tonight's vision was the most vivid and painful of all. In a slight panic his gaze shifts to his hands, and to his surprise, they are unburned. Just moments before, they were clawing through rubble in his home to the sound of a young girl's voice.

\*\*\*

In the vision, he returned from the weary hunt, just as he did that fateful day. It was miles ago when he first smelled the smoke, but nothing seemed amiss quite yet. "It seems that the council is holding a royal feast... again. I can smell the ovens even from here. This is getting ridiculous, we just held a feast for 'important guests' last week." When Baltoris came within a mile, a chill shot through his spine as the path ahead became obstructed by a gray haze, it was the smoke. This is not smoke from cooking, not smoke from a celebration, this is much denser, it smelled of scorched earth. Baltoris' picked up speed and trudged to get back home, terrible possibilities running through his head. It was then that he could feel it, the temperature around him rose significantly. The air he breathed in made his nose burn. For only a moment, it was if a giant wave of hot air from a furnace was blown into his face, and he covered his face with his arms to shield himself. After a few seconds, the air around him became cool and still again, the blast disappeared as quickly as had come. Baltoris began to run in a full sprint, dropping his pack, readying his bow with an arrow.

As the outline of the Great Gates of the Nest neared in view, he could hear most troubling sounds, an anthem of pain. There was hissing of flames, deep rumbles of crumbling brick, and above all he heard what sounded like enormous, devilish bird taking flight. With each pulsing whoosh of air met his ears, an accompanying blast of heat blew past him a moment later. As he arrived at the 50 feet tall Great Gates of the Nest, he noticed that the gate was completely blown off, he heard a loud screeching, and one last giant blast of hot air knocked him directly on his back, sending a wild arrow flying fruitlessly behind him. Baltoris had his wind knocked out, gasping as he regained his balance. The anthem of pain had suddenly lost it's monstrous melody, everything was quiet, nothing left but the steady percussion of the inferno that now engulfed his home before him.

In disbelief, Baltoris looked for a way into the town, but unbelievably there was none. The flames scorched so high they topped even the Great Gates. The decimated entrance looked like a portal into hell, a giant hateful wall of flame. Now in a full panic, Baltoris came to a full sprint scaling the edges of the wall, looking desperately for an entrance. In that moment, he heard a woman's scream for help. His heightened senses instantly could feel it's origin, a giant pile of rubble just outside the mighty, fallen wall. As he approached, the scream intensified, "I'm coming, hang on," he replied. He reached the pile, and began digging through the rubble. He ripped the sleeves off his shirt, wrapped them around his hands, and dug as quickly as he could. Each stone was nearly molten, and in a complete frenzy, Baltoris was unaware of the horrendous damage that his hands were sustaining. Suddenly, she was visible.

"What, wait, how?" He thinks to himself, as he instantly recognizes her as the young wood elf that he met in the chamber of the dread titan, the one he promised to save. She was a poor slave girl then, but is dressed as elvish nobility now. The last time he had seen her face, she looked at him exactly the same. Her eyes are pleading for salvation, but her face is calm nearly accepting of her grim fate. "I'LL SAVE YOU, JUST, HANG ON!" he screams in elvish. With all his might, he pulls at the great rock that has her legs pinned, but it's too large. He looks at his hands, and even though he had made an attempt to protect them, they're badly burned, blistered, blackened. She notices the terrible wounds on his hands, and determined not to let her panic, he whispers "Shh, it's okay, everything's okay, we're going to get out of here."

Suddenly Baltoris' gaze is disoriented, as the sunlight around him seemed to disappear. With a loud screech that seemed to come from the heavens, he looks upward fearfully. In an instant, all sunlight completely vanished. A giant figure flew above so large that the entire sun was obscured. An absolute blind rage overtook Baltoris, he picked up his bow again, pulled back an arrow the best he could with his horribly shaking hands. "YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS YOU DEMON SPAWN. I'LL SEND YOU BACK TO HELL," he screams and releases his arrow. The arrow moves two feet in front of him, but stops in mid air, twirling around it's central axis, but making no progress toward it's target. He knew that was the last of what he had. He knew he couldn't kill that monstrosity, he knew he couldn't save her. He fell from the pile of rubble, and when his head smashed the ground, he came to consciousness in Land's End.

\*\*\*

"Who is she? Do I know her from somewhere? Why does she haunt me? Why can't I save her?" Baltoris curls up into a ball in the cellar of the Kraken Head's bar, and tries to steady his breath and wrestle down the guilt that plagues his every thought. "I will kill it, I was too weak to save you, but I'll gain the strength to avenge you," he whispers over and over again like a mantra, slowly easing back to a relaxed state.

Baltoris decides to spend some of his spare time inquiring throughout the town to anyone who may have heard the tale of the Downfall of the Nest, or who may know of the wood elf girl that haunts his mind.