Soren (Alosrin Rivaelyn)

## Soren

Soren, formerly known as Alosrin Rivaelyn, is a mercenary and criminal formally trained in the art of infiltration, espionage, thievery, and assassination in service of a mysterious, and seemingly nameless, organization that many colloquially referred to as "The Order of Shadows". While Soren has many regrets about actions he was involved in while in The Order, Soren has no issues with breaking the law or murdering someone so long as the target deserves it. This makes Soren somewhat of a vigilante who judges his targets against what he considers to be moral and right and often acts as Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

## Childhood

Soren grew up in the small elven village of Arethneas on the edge of The Whispering Woods in Southeast Fentelle. He spent much of his youth in Arethneas with his parents (Vesryn and Amisra), and his sister (Ashera). While the vast majority of Soren's family was content with staying in their home village forever and very rarely ventured out beyond the village, Soren was very curious about the world at large and would often disappear for days at a time while he explored what was beyond their village.

## The Order of Shadows

### The Recruitment

While on one of his adventures, Soren travelled to Naporia, close to the Brevany border, where he met a dragonborn named Ershid who was offering coin to those who could complete his unique challenges, and a special reward for those who complete them all. These challenges varied but mostly involved stealth, deception, trickery, and investigation. Soren made quick work of Ershid's challenges, completing them with relative ease, earning a few pieces of gold for each that he completed, and eliminating several challengers with each challenge along the way ... leaving only the final challenge left.

The final challenge had Soren and the remaining challengers go into Naporia to locate an orb that Ershid had hid within the town. To complete the challenge, Soren would need to locate the orb, take it without being detected or discovered, and return to Ershid with the orb. The challenge was difficult but in the passing few days Soren completed the challenge before any of the remaining challengers could even get close to locating the orb. Ershid was extremely impressed and offered Soren the opportunity to join the organization they belonged to, promising treasure and riches, an opportunity to travel the world, and a chance to help them root out evil across the land and fight against those who would harm the innocent, the offer was everything Soren had wanted and he could not refuse. The only catch being that Soren would need to leave his village and his family, and due to the secretive nature of their organization, he could not tell anyone where he was going or who he was working with .... a difficult decision for Soren, but one which he ultimately agreed to.

### The Training

Upon joining The Order's operations in Brevany, Soren was given further tests and challenges to determine their skillset as well as any strengths and weaknesses they might have. With this information, The Order can organize new recruits into one of eight distinct groups within the organization, each providing a different function and role within the organization. Based on Soren's ability to move unseen and find ways to find creative ways to gain entrance to areas that others could not, he was placed into the Infiltrators group within The Order under the guidance of The Order's Spymaster (Nyx). As an Infiltrator, Soren was trained in the art of stealth, sleight of hand, thievery, espionage, and deception ... all of which Soren took to without much complication and with a few years of practice quickly became one of The Order's top Infiltrators.

### The Job

As a member of the Infiltrator group, the majority of the tasks assigned to Soren involved the assassination of government traitors, smugglers, traffickers, corrupt leaders, and those who threatened to harm the Royalty and People of the Kingdom of Brevany, the retrieval of stolen artifacts and treasures to be returned to their owners, the collection of information on individuals and groups who seek to do harm to the Kingdom of Brevany, and to locate and rescue individuals unjustly imprisoned by corrupt officials and those who abuse the power bestowed upon them.

After 15-20 years of working with and for The Order and completing every task asked of him with no questions asked, Soren was assigned the task of assassinating a corrupt government official who was found to be smuggling materials banned by the Kingdom of Brevany, and the kidnap and trafficking of Brevany's citizens. Soren's role in this task was simple ...

1. Identify any possible locations of intel regarding the officials operations for The Order's Collector and provide them with methods of ingress and access, so they can collect the relevant information and provide it to relevant parties for review and potential further action.
2. Survey the target and identify any patterns in movement, habits, and any individuals they are close with and provide this information to The Order's Cleaner so they can provide an alternate explanation for their death and ensure that no one close to the target has any suspicions.
3. Assassinate the target privately while remaining unseen
4. Escape unseen and ensure that the remaining on site individuals have a clean method of egress upon completion of their tasks

### The Complications

The assigned task was against a time table and The Order's Collector and Cleaner were delayed, making it extremely difficult to accomplish the assigned task before the target was out of reach. So Soren improvised and seized an opportunity to gain access to the target's home, office, and private safe to collect any relevant information in the Collector's absence and escaped without leaving a trace of their presence. While reviewing the information they had collected though, it became clear that this target was not engaging in the smuggling and trafficking operations that The Order claimed, but had actually began to uncover those operations in the area and was working to identify the individuals responsible for these operations in an effort to shut them down.

This caught Soren's attention and he quickly realized that The Orders information must have been incomplete or incorrect, so he notified The Order and requested the task be altered, stating that the parameters of the assignment had changed and that the target was not responsible for these operations. Soren's request was denied though and he was instructed to carry out the task as assigned. Soren followed this by requesting additional time to further investigate the information he had uncovered, which was also denied. While he felt conflicted about the response he had been given, Soren ultimately decided that The Order must have information that he does not, and carried out his tasks and eliminated the target as requested. Upon completing his task Soren still couldnt stop thinking about the information they had collected and felt very conflicted about it. The following day when the Collector and the Cleaner arrived, he provided them the required information and made sure to inform them that their delay threatened mission failure, so he needed to improvise and that they would need to act quickly before the target's absence is noticed. Soren handed the Collector most of the papers and information he had collected, keeping a few key documents detailing the target's investigations into the smuggling and trafficking operations. They thanked Soren and made their way into the city while Soren made his way away from the city.

### The Lie

On his journey towards his next task, Soren set up camp and began reviewing the documents he had kept from the Collector. He had some time before he needed to complete his next task so he decided to do a little investigating into the smuggling and trafficking operations to see what information he had missed that The Order had and how they were so sure that the target was responsible. Within a week or two Soren was able to identify the location of these operations and quickly uncovered the movements of the operation and those involved. Upon further investigation Soren uncovered that the individuals running these illicit operations were members of The Order and carried the same insignia that he did. Soren could not believe it and thought these individuals must be there to tear down the operation following the death of his target, but before long it became indisputable that this smuggling and trafficking operation was actually being led by operatives belonging to The Order. Soren was extremely upset by this and began to question all the other tasks he had been assigned and began to wonder how innocent people had he targeted over the years via the many tasks and assignments he had carried out without question. Infuriated by his inability to learn of this sooner and his involvement in many atrocities across Brevany, Soren vowed to uncover The Order's involvement and to dismantle them from the inside.

### The Escape

It didnt take long for The Order to notice Soren's prying and investigations into the organization and their operations, and Soren could not collect much information about The Order before he was found out and forced to make a quick escape. While he did manage to escape and disappear into the night, The Order continued hunting Soren for several months following his abrupt exit, coming close to locating him a few times, but ultimately were unable to secure his capture. As time went on, The Order was no longer capable of maintaining the resources necessary to continue the hunt for Soren and eventually had to pull most of those resources onto other projects, but The Order does continue to monitor for sightings of Soren and continue to wait in the shadows ready to pounce whenever Soren surfaces.