Ash Silari

## Affiliations

### Place of Birth

True place of birth: Nibenay (but to others, often believed to be some unknown village)

## Personality

Ash (any pronouns) is generally a selfish person who learnt to prioritise survival, freedom, and independence above all else. She also is skeptic towards any form of kindness, believing that there is some unseen downfall. But due to their job as a merchant, they acts polite and respectful (no doubt learnt from her Nibenay mother) to get into people's good graces. While he believes honour can be an useless sentiment that often result in death, she is respect that some others believe it's a way of life. Regardless, Ash will never understand what it's like to fight for more than themselves and his life.

Ash isn't an evil character, she doesn't act in menace but at the same time, if it doesn't impact them, he doesn't believe it's worth stepping in to help. Only for those Ash values and consider worthy of trust. It just happens that there's only one person who qualify and that his death mother.

She know that lying to gain the advantage is a very quick and easy way to gain enemies. Thus, she will stay to their words and promises except that he will attempt making loopholes to gain the advantage. Trading with Ash becomes a game of wits. However, there are times when Ash know when to obey, such as the 7 Principles of The Merchant Code. Similarly, Ash tends to be netural in politics, often showing disinterest. This is the same attribute towards slavery, they will never want to own a slave purely because of her determination to be self-dependent.

## **Backstory**

Former name: Arni Myisila (she/her)

Current name: Ash Silari (any pronoun)

### Family history (+ childhood)

Arni only knew of her human mother (Vola Myisila) and nothing about her elven father. As a product from a one night stand, she knew that her mother didn’t care for the father either.

Vola was a Nibenay citizen through and through. She was an excellent dancer (as dance was the Nibenay way of language for common folks) and was already in a polygamous marriage (as she was married off for to increase her family’s standing). As she wasn’t the primary spouse with the ‘master of the marriage’, she was effectively left unnoticed and enslaved within her own marriage. Perhaps, this is why she kept Arni as her own act of rebellion, a way to feel some sort of power.
Growing up, Arni felt her mother’s powerlessness which created a lasting belief about her own freedom for the rest of her life. As a bastard child and as a half-elf in a family of humans, Arni always felt isolated from others. She only cared about her mother. As another consequence of being surrounded by human customs, she never cared about her father or any elven culture.
Vola worked as a merchant of the Shom House where she worked as a regular agent. This, too, is another form of power Vola felt regardless of her low status within the House. Despite her kind and polite demeanour, Vola is bitter and vengeful towards everyone. She despises the hand fate gave her and taught Anri how to act the same way in the name of survival. How to value her freedom and independence above all else. Looking back now, Ash knows that Vola didn’t suffer an abusive life (neither did she live an indulgence life either) and for all of her anger, she remained mostly compliant to the rules.

### Teen life

But Arni didn’t learn the practice of artificer from her mother. Instead, she observed a mercenary (who was often hired to help protect the small amount of Shom’s caravans left) who tried to hide his artificer work. As a growing teenager who started to tail behind her mother’s merchant work, Arni was interested with this mercenary who rising his life practicing the feared magic. Whenever Arni (and Vola)’s work overlaps with the mercenary, Arni observed him in secret. One night, Arni got caught watching him to which the mercenary threatened her life. With ease (as Arni never planned to sell him out), she agreed to not say a word.

At the end of the ‘discussion’, Arni asked, “What’s so important about *this* that worth risking your life? Others will behead you for this.”
The mercenary paused his steps and sharply laughed, “This evil thing? It’s what saved my life. The earth’s already dying, but I’m still alive.”
Arni’s teen life continued in this manner until her mid 20’s. The mercenary eventually left in search for other hires, his fate left unknown. Arni officially became apart of the house and worked with her mother to help protect and carry the goods for the trade.

### 'Ash'

One day, after days of especially bad weather, the caravan got attacked by desperate raiders. The aftermath of the attack left the caravan destroyed while some of the raiders got away successfully. Arni was badly scarred on her hand (where there was an encounter where she had to physically stop the blade) and suffered slashes. She was knocked to the ground during the fight and didn’t get back up until the raiders left. After ripping up clothes as a temporary bandage to stop the blood loss, she discovered that if there were any other survivors, they must have fled already. Arni must have been left for dead. Much to Arni’s dismay, her mother was dead.

After taking Vola’s playing cards as a keepsake, she buried Vola and did her best to follow Nibenay’s funeral tradition by acting as a mock priest. After gathering up the leftover resources (from the other corpses and the caravan itself), she headed to a small town she recalled seeing before.

Upon arrival, she recovered in the town in exchange for some of the caravan’s leftover resources. It was here that Arni made a decision. Where could she go? Back to Nibenay to report her failures? Or perhaps, she could start anew. From here onward, she took upon the name Ash and hid her ears to pretend to be human. Arni died with her mother that day while Ash is reborn. If Ash learnt anything about the attack, she needs get stronger in any way possible. She never been as close to death until that blade.

### Village life

After asking for directions to other settlements, Ash decided to head to a small village (not usually found on maps) called Nuna. After a day of walking, they arrived and settled in. In exchange for shelter, she will help out by gathering food and in her off time, do woodcarving which she can sell at the trade town (the same town that was a day worth of travel away). Any money he makes is often contributed to the town’s money though secretly she takes some for herself beforehand. In secret, she practices the way of an artificer at night, away from the town. For ingredients, she either buy them with her money or steal from the town (small enough to be seen as inconsequential). As an outsider and out of care to not be caught practicing magic, she never grew attached to the town or anyone there. Ash never planned to stay for long as to him, there’s nothing worth staying here.

A few years later and it’s clear to Ash that there’s no future left for Nuna. The land is slowly becoming unhabitable (which was admittedly accelerated by Ash’s magic regardless of their attempts to go out of the village to practice) and raiders/monsters attacks were too constant for Nuna to fully recover. When the townsfolks started turning against each other, Ash knew it was time to leave. As a foreigner who never made a lasting impression, he knew it would be far too easy to turn them as a scapegoat for survival.

Thus, overnight, Ash left with all of their things and head to the trade town. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for a trade caravan to arrive. There, Ash offered to come along to join their house in search of employment. She only wanted to come back to the merchant life as it was the only lifestyle she knew.

### M'ke House

When the caravan arrived back at Raam, Ash’s help during the journey back was seen useful enough to be employed as a regular agent. To the M’ke House, Ash was another village folk who wanted to be a merchant to escape their village. 9 years later, Ash still work in the M’ke House while secretly practising magic as an artificer.