Trolsk

Stardust Sap Lamp Trinkets A specialized lamp that uses sap from birch trees in the Starwood Strand. It emits an eerie blue flame. 41

Trainer of exalts Ex-practitioner of dangerous Arcane magicks Physical fighter Advisor to Verronica Paternal figure to the Clan

Level-headed Reliable Protective Secretive Conservative

Once upon a time, a dragon found magic. There were many types of magic in Sornieth, but few of them were as unharnessed as the fiendish magic. It was a soul-stealing magic, a type of magic that gave you the power of those you killed, but eroded your soul the way rivers broke down stone walls, until you were nothing but an empty shell ravenous for magic. Because of its corrosive potential, the gods had long sealed away this type of magic, hoping that the mortals would forget it and that its very existence would be buried by history. But secrets, especially those concerning such a powerful incorporeal force, had a way of persisting until the right dragon came along and uncovered it again. This was the case for fiendish magic, for as it dwelled, locked away in an ensorcelled cave, it called out softly and luringly. And it was answered.

It was a young Skydancer dragon who responded to the call. No one knew where he came from, who he was, or why he had been able to hear the hushed call of the fiends. He broke into the forbidden cave and saw scrolls inscribed with lost knowledge. And being of Arcane descent with an abundance of curiosity, he did the only natural thing for his kind -- he read the scrolls.

It so happened that this particular Skydancer had long been seeking more powerful magic. It was not that he wanted the end of the world, nor did he wish to conquer it. It was simply a pursuit of knowledge that led him on the chase to find better magic. But his initial goal was lost as he pored over scroll after ancient scroll, for fiendish magic was the rare kind of magic that had no good in it. You cannot do good with it, and you cannot be called good if you knew it. It was the quintessence of pure evil, a force so uncontrollable, all that attempted to conquer it fell under its spell.

This was the case for the Skydancer, and blinded by a fiendish desire to acquire more power, he used the forbidden spells -- first out of curiosity, then with purpose.

He started by using the fiendish spells to absorb the magic of mages long dead. This gave him a significant amount of power, as the mages of the past were historically well-known as being much stronger than the mages of the present. But fiendish magic could not reach its full potential simply by imbibing in the dead, and so the Skydancer turned to the living.

He did not start out to kill. His first kill was an accident, for despite the knowledge he gained from reading the forbidden spells, he did not know that there was backlash from the fiendish spells, nor did he know that everything the spells were casted upon were doomed to a horrible death. The first dragon he casted a fiendish spell upon -- a proud Imperial -- he did not stay to see the latter's death, but only heard of it after. His second kill happened before his eyes, when he casted one of the forbidden spells on a road robber and put the dragon out of his misery. Slowly, the kills built up, and while they weren't significant enough of a number to spark public outrage, the Skydancer changed with each kill. Spell after spell, what humanity in him diminished like a flame in the wind. And soon, he killed purposely, knowing very well what his spells would do, but doing it anyway.

It seemed that he, like all those before him, would be completely consumed by the fiendish magic. And perhaps he would've had he not met a young dragon who brought him back to his senses.

Her name was Sunshine. She was barely a full-grown dragon, really, but her eyes were bright as the stars and her inquisitiveness stirred up an old memory within the half-corrupted Skydancer. He remember his initial curiosity -- the same that had led him to fiend magic. It was a small flame, but it sparked realisation within him. Slowly, he regained his benevolence, and slowly, he began to realise the horrors of the fiendish magic. He promised himself to never use it again.

But corrosive magic did not listen to such promises, nor was it bound to any vows. Inside of him, the fiendish magic had already accumulated a massive amount of power from his kills -- enough power to overwhelm the willpower of the Skydancer.

Yet he remained oblivious.

To the young Skydancer, it seemed to him that he had turned away from the dark side and back to the light. With Sunshine beside him, he toured the territories of the eleven flights, enjoying what sights there were to see and occasionally helping his wayward companion out of trouble. Peace and happiness drove away the shadows of his past, but could not truly destroy it. And shadows that weren't destroyed always came back to its owner.

It happened on a clear day, in an ordinary little town. The Skydancer had been purchasing food for their next journey when Sunshine's sharp cry rang across the bustling market. Immediately he was up and away, searching for her, and he saw her as the victim of a gang of Mirror dragons. He tried to reason with them, but the Mirror dragons did not want reason. They want material payment in exchange for the life of his young friend.

Perhaps out of folly, perhaps believing the Skydancer himself to be in danger, Sunshine dared attack the Mirrors. She fought them, but was easily beaten, and before anyone in the market could react, the Mirrors were upon her. Outmatched and outsized, the young dragon was torn and ripped until she was barely recognisable. Before the Mirrors could deal the death blow, however, the Skydancer was on them.

He fought like a demon, using all the skills that came naturally to him. One by one the Mirrors fell, and it was not until his final opponent crumpled to the ground in a bloody heap that he realised what he had been using -- fiendish magic. He was horrified, but before terror could be fully rooted in his mind, he heard the gasp of Sunshine. He rushed over to her, and purely out of instinct, casted a healing spell upon her.

Too late -- he had not realised how powerful the fiendish magic had grown inside of him. It had eaten away the core of what magic he originally had, contaminating all his spells. The spell of healing, which he had never failed to save a life with before, failed, and before his eyes -- before the eyes of so many other, the corrupted spell struck the final blow.

Stunned silence. Then, like ebbing tides, the whispers came. The Skydancer could only stare at the dying eyes of his young friend as the murmurs of murderer and fiend rose and fell around him. Terrified, he turned to the crowd, and they fled before him like fish from a stone. Movement from his dying friend brought tears to his eyes, and he rushed over to her, unable to do anything, for he knew not what the fiendish magic had corrupted within him, and by then, there was no magic that could save her.

But she did not cry, nor was she angry. Her gaze was understanding, and perhaps a little sad as well.

"It's --" she gasped, trying to smile. Her tiny chest fluttered as she struggled to speak. "D-Don't...cry. I-t's fi...fine." She shuddered, voice faltering. Her gaze met his, and she smiled one last time, before Death stole her breath away.

Heartbroken, alone and mad with grief, the Skydancer disappeared before the crowd in a flash of dark magenta, never to be seen again.

---

There are many rumours as to where the mysterious Skydancer mage vanished off to after that day at the market. Some said he left Sornieth altogether, while others whispered of his defeat in a duel with the Shadowbinder. Still others murmur that he'd left to continue his research on fiendish magic.

The Skydancer, in fact, was doing none of those things. After Sunshine's death, he'd found shelter in an obscured corner of the world, where he thought hard about what he'd done, and what he should do in the future. Ashamed by the magic he'd sought and the power he'd wrongly gained, he decided to leave the path of magic and train himself to function without it. Skydancers are magic-born dragons, so naturally it was not an easy process. But he would remember the terrors of his magic, fear it, and use such a fear to point him towards what he hoped was the right path.

No more, he thought to himself. No more magic.

I owe her that much.

Years passed.

The Skydancer crept back into the outside world.

It had changed, despite the change being very little, and he was relieved that no one seemed to remember or recognise him. He wandered the land for months without a purpose, seeking for something to do, but unsure what it is that he wanted. He was a skilled fighter now, and bandits would take one glance at him and decide to live to steal another day. No on dared cross him, and none attempted to speak to him.

The Skydancer ended up in the Starfall Isles, where he was quite surprised by the dangerous magicks that existed there -- magic that the Arcane dragons happen to be very lax about, which is not necessarily a good thing. It was during his time in the Starfall Isles that he ran into a small Arcane clan vigorously devoted to serving their wayward father, the Arcanist. It so happened that this clan was also not very concerned about the consequences of harnessing the hazardous magic that floated about in their home. In fact, the Skydancer had to save two of its members from turning themselves into fluffy pink moths, upon which they invited him to visit their clan as a way of showing thanks.

Arriving at the clan, the Skydancer felt something that he hadn't felt for a long time -- a sense of coming home. He did not know why this was, and he tried to ignore it, pushing away the thought and telling himself that this clan would not want him, as so many others had not want him before them. Even as he told himself this, he found himself telling the surprised Arcanites how to weave spells without disabling gravity, and felt a queer desire to help the young dragons struggling to learn how to fight. Eventually he began helping with the training, telling himself that he was only repaying the kindness of his hosts, no more. But the more he helped, the less inclined he felt to leave. And so when the clan leader offered him a spot within the clan, he was not one to refuse it.

"So, what is your name?" The clan leader asked. "You've been here for so long, surely you know all of ours, yet we still don't know what to call you."

The Skydancer thought for a moment. He thought of the darkness of his past, and how even within the midst of shining others, the shadows still clung to him, washing in aura in a dark haze.

"Trolsk." He said finally. "My name is Trolsk."

---

A paternal figure of his clan, Trolsk is known to be both calm, levelheaded, and reliable. So if your clanmates have set you on fire and you're running around in circles burning to death, this is the dragon you go to for a bucket of water. Trolsk has an infinite amount of patience, which one might say is essential when you're dealing with descendants of the Arcane Flight, and to the relief of the clan leaders, he's not much like the rest of them. He's wise, he's a problem solver, and he knows the solutions to 99% of the magical problems that crop up around the lair.

Despite being a magic-born dragon, Trolsk prefers the role of a physical combatant during battles. He is also one of the trainers within the clan, teaching younger dragons the art of combat so that they may serve their deity well. Though Trolsk had not initially started out a religiously devoted dragon, his clanmates have rubbed off on him, resulting in his unshakable commitment to the Arcanist -- something he passes down to all those who learn from him. His clanmates occasionally regret having preached to him, for his commitment has doubled his already pre-existing serious nature and made him extremely sensitive to the topic. A single sarcastic "Thanks, Arcanist" will get Trolsk knocking on (and probably down) their door.

Aside from being serious and analytical, Trolsk is also extremely protective of his clan. If a hostile intruder visits upon the clan, Trolsk is the first to greet them, and also the first to send them away with tails between their legs, assuming that they still have both their tails and legs. Ambushers from the Beastclans have learned to steer clear of this Skydancer, for fear they end up in the clan's soup cauldron.

Rumours say that Trolsk dabbles in dark magic, though the sort of magic he's using is unidentified and unknown even by the most experienced of mages. Some dragons say that it's the legendary ultra-arcane magic (which doesn't exist. Yet. But we can hope) while others say it's divine magic used only by the gods. A few of his bolder clanmates have approached him and asked, but Trolsk would merely smile at them and send them away with even more questions.

Some days Trolsk can be found on the highest peaks of the Crystalspine Reach, eyes closed and facing the sun. Sitting there, alone with wings drooping; his tears, like liquid diamonds, would fall and disappear into the sea...