Duma
(#24184606)
Tibbit, Psion, Oracle, Chaotic Neutral
Familiar
Paradise Zalis
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Fire.
Female Pearlcatcher
This dragon is hibernating.
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Collapse the dragon details section.
Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
3.63 m
Wingspan
4.85 m
Weight
611.76 kg
Genetics
Black
Iridescent
Iridescent
Tangerine
Facet
Facet
Coal
Smoke
Smoke
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 10 Pearlcatcher
EXP: 21529 / 27676
STR
6
AGI
8
DEF
6
QCK
31
INT
43
VIT
6
MND
7
Lineage
Parents
Offspring
- Frogbah
- Naza
- Talamir
- Nita
- Foxglove
- Moonsing
- Redbud
- Liam
- Nashia
- Vivara
- Skaldi
- Chiari
- Fibrodysplasia
- Kokoriko
- Coalamba
- Bumble
- Sihaya
- Constellaria
- Boundless
- Fire
- Stella
- Illuse
- Kyuu
- asdfbonus
- Ravam
- Rhiain
- Hassaun
- Manon
- Joiya
- Minya
- Exie
- Ember
- Rhune
- Ignaceous
- Caelum
- Mercer
- Chord
- Lantern
- Nimue
- Monte
- Serifys
- Galloway
- Kirave
- Sani
- Ganondorf
- Nixstar
- Karnak
Biography
Duma: Elder Mystic, Mentor of Mara, Oracle
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Shaking her head to clear her thoughts of that place, she instead concentrated on quieting her footfalls and listening for prey. She was on a hunt, remember that. Hunting for yummy mice and unsuspecting birds. But her mind kept getting distracted. She sniffed the air, searching for scent trails. Her ears perked toward a fluttering sound, but it quickly moved away from her, so she went back to using her nose. Her brain, however, would not let her focus.
The new one… Hoodie. She was shifty. From the start, she never even revealed a name. Any name. So Duma had, as Duma does, assigned her a nickname. The most prominent thing was that rather ugly black hood and cloak she wore, hiding her face. So, hoodie it was. Duma could smell that she was similar to the last shifty companion, the one who had been… Duma shuddered, not liking to remember what had happened to her.
They had awoken the morning after the fight with the Mountain to find her gone, and no notes or signs anywhere. Asking various people around the tavern, they learned that a guard had seen a cloaked figure going off to a section of town, and had avoided chatting. They took the only lead they had and searched the area, Duma asking the local cats if they had seen anything. One cat described a “naked woman trying to fly out of that window there”, which Duma could only assume was the crazy cloaked one they were looking for. It was certainly a strange image to follow, but upon telling the others this tidbit (hehe, she liked that word, it sounded like Tibbit, which is what she was!), they decided to go after the house that the cat had described.
It was a bakery, and smelled amazing. The one to greet them was a smallish man who had no idea what was going on, and Minuano took him into a back room to probably intimidate the information out of him. That’s what the samurai do best, in any case. Eventually the main guy came out, a big dude who was apparently in charge. Asher questioned him. After the two bakery guys gave no helpful information, and Minuano and Asher were getting increasingly persistent about their inquiries, the big dude sent his assistant to get the guards. Duma mind linked with Minuano, and followed the smallish guy to either intercept him from getting the guards, or get the guards faster if they found their companion.
About a minute later, after some silence from Minuano’s part (apparently, Asher had found a secret staircase in the house thanks to his knowledge of architecture???), she got a shaken call to come back to the house. Letting the dude bring the guards to the house, Duma turned around and headed back as fast as she could manage. When she got to the house, she found the staircase he’d been talking about and headed down to find the big baker dude passed out… No, knocked out at the bottom of the stairs. He had a distinctly Asher-shaped footprint in his chest.
Looking around the dimly lit room, Duma was horrified to find shackles, cages, instruments of bodily destruction, and bodies all around her. It looked like Minuano and Asher had removed the bodies from their shackles, and laid them gently on the floor. One that they were crowded around was… Arya. Their companion who had disappeared on them. She was dead. As soon as the two noticed Duma, who stood paralyzed at the bottom of the stairs, everything came rushing at her all in one burst. Duma burst into fits of tears as she remembered.
The smells… Smells of rotting flesh, putrid body fluids and diseases, blood… It broke her will momentarily and caused her to flash back to her captivity. Spending years in a small, cramped cage with barely any room to stretch, giving up on grooming herself as cats do, being separated from her family physically, but still being able to see them just a few feet away, in a cage of their own… And the torture sessions. Those she had almost managed to block from her mind.
They would experiment on her. “For the betterment of the people” they would say. “Here’s a new one that a student came up with” or “This one might or might not work” or “A random scroll showed up on our doorstep, I wonder what the spell written on it does”. It didn’t matter what the excuse was, it almost always led to pain on her and her family’s end. They were the lab rats. The guinea pigs. The disposable magical creatures that didn’t have rights of their own as people, and so were used and abused as slaves. Slaves to the horrible sorcerers, wizards, and multitude of other spellcasters that did with her people as they saw fit. Usually they wanted an animal to experiment on, so she would be in cat form. But occasionally they had a spell that required a humanoid, and so she was forced to transform into her human form for this purpose. Because cats were easier to feed and took up less space, though, she was usually in her cat form. The cage was too small for a human, anyway. Even a child-sized human.
The guards came in at some point to secure the area. Minuano and Asher took turns carrying Duma with them as the slaves were rescued and taken to get treatment. Arya’s body was held by the guards, who stated that the price for resurrecting their companion would be a diamond’s worth of wealth, which none of Duma’s companions combined had anywhere close to. It had been a miracle that Asher had been saved just the day before, minutes after the life left his body it had been snatched back as his body was healed. But Arya had been dead for hours, possibly even as soon as she had leaped out of the window the night before.
Shaking with the reminder of the horrible fate that had befallen Duma’s companion, the events of the next few hours were a blur as she recalled the event that had eventually doomed her to a life of solitude, on the run and wary of those who misused the magic potential they had been gifted with.
Duma hated spellcasters for what they did to her and her family. For years she lived in fear, every day, not knowing which day would be her last, but expecting it to come at any time. Then, the accident happened. For Duma it could only have been a miracle, for it had given her the powers to escape. One spell required 5 casters, all standing around an intricately drawn mixture of symbols in a circle. The lightshow began, which was usual for magic, but this time instead of an immediate pain, her body began to be infused with a glowing, invigorating aura. She lay in the circle as a cat, limp, expecting the pain to come as it usually did. The chanting was hypnotic, and she enjoyed the tiny bit of peace and energy while at the same time tensing for the inevitable.
A minute passed, and still no pain. This was new. Duma cautiously stood up, looking around the room, and noticed that all the casters had their eyes closed, concentrating on their spell. In one impulsive moment, she decided to do something she hadn’t been forced to do. She transformed into her human form. Immediately the energy in the magic changed, the invigorating feeling being replaced by one of pure, raw power. And that power was focused on her. She felt the potential, and instinctively probed around to see what it could do. She directed it at herself and felt it flow through and around her. She directed it at the lights, and they flickered madly in its presence. She finally directed it at one of the casters, and his chanting immediately stopped, replaced by a forced gurgling sound as no words formed, breaking the flow of energy being put into the circle. As soon as one part was broken, the energy turned wild and uncontrollable. Duma still directed it a little bit, but it quickly became unruly. She gripped what she could of it and directed it at each of the casters in turn, halting their chanting and making them seize. The lights went out with the force of the unleashed power, and it roared in her ears. She could still see in the dark, and watched each caster crumple under it’s tempest. It roared at the walls, and they shook and trembled. Duma didn’t know what to do with the energy, it hadn’t hurt her yet, but she didn’t want to be in the room with it any more. She gripped what little she could and directed it at the locked door. It screamed in assault and battered the door, knocking it clear off it’s hinges as it roared in triumph. She felt it like a wind rush out of the room and shriek down the hallway.
The room got cold. Very, very cold. Duma was standing nearly naked in the middle of the circle, surrounded by still bodies. Going over to one of them, she examined the body and nearly hurled at what she saw. His limbs were bent at odd angles, skin twisted in some areas, and the face… His eyes were bulging, staring straight ahead and nearly popping out. His skin was skeletal, stretched against his face with barely any muscle between it. His mouth was wide open as if in the middle of yelling, and his tongue lolled out. It looked like he had seen a litch and not lived to get past the initial meeting. He was, most decidedly, dead. Duma didn’t stick around to check the other bodies, and bolted out the door.
It was weird being in the corridor and free to go where she wanted. She liked it a lot, but didn’t want to stop and appreciate this new freedom. Picking a direction, she ran.
They were sitting in a room of the tavern now, Asher and Minuano chatting about their next plans. The guards had informed them of a slaver operation to the south, just a day’s journey from this town. Duma had immediately agreed to quest forth and slay the slavers at once, which slightly surprised her two companions. They didn’t know… They didn’t know the horrors and pains of being completely at the mercy of slavers, captured and eventually broken of the will to live. Accepting that death would come at any moment and welcoming it, for anything was better than the pain of living in captivity.
Of course, not every person she had met during her lifetime of fear was to be feared. There had been one mage that, instead of using magic to harm, had used it to heal. That man had given Duma something that she clung to dearly: hope.
After running for what seemed like forever, she reached an area where the corridor ended and a giant room began. This room was filled with books, tables, and people scrawling on parchment. She screeched to a halt and jumped at the heads turning her direction, confusion and curiosity on their faces. They’ll catch me! I need to get away! She screamed to herself, knowing all too well the tiny cage she would return to. She spun and darted off back down the corridor, turning down another passageway. She was almost to another door near the end of it when a wave of disabling magic made her legs seize, and she fell flat on her face, terror rising in her throat. “Nooooooooo!” She wailed, tears streaming down her face as a robed figure snatched her up, spun her around, and stared at her curiously.
“Little one,” he began, in a wizened yet gentle tone, “Calm yourself, stop crying.” He sat down in the hallway, holding her in his arms until the disable eventually wore off, and she stopped bawling enough for him to speak and be heard. “Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She sniffed and hic’d, tired after all the running and crying. It was way more activity than she was used to. She let the man hold her, for now. “Now, what’s wrong, child? And where are your clothes?” She whimpered, noticing for the first time that it was probably unusual to be dressed in rags while in a place as fancy as this one.
“I…” She began, then coughed softly, “I think I let something bad out…” Her voice was raspy, she didn’t usually have a need to speak to others. Fortunately, she had learned common from her family, when they had been in the same cage together. It was difficult recalling all of the language, though. It had been so long… “It killed them.” She managed to stutter out, not recalling all the words to describe it.
“It’ll be alright, child. Now, what is ‘it’?” He asked calmly, carefully. As soon as she had mentioned it killing, she noticed him stiffen slightly, and his warm gaze was a little colder. She shrunk away from it, much less willing to cooperate now.
“Help… me?” She rasped out, falling into a fit of coughing after all that had happened today, and trying to speak on top of that. The man had pity in his eyes, and his grip tightened as he stood up, which caused Duma to panic slightly, not knowing what he intended to do with her. She didn’t like being at the mercy of someone else, and though this man hadn’t done anything to hurt her yet, she couldn’t trust him at all. She couldn’t trust anybody that wielded magic. She couldn’t trust anyone besides her own family. Tense and coughing, her body racked with chills, the man carried her for a ways before pausing in front of a door. He gently set her down in front of it and she huddled, uncertain and weak, watching as he dug through his robes to bring out clunky, shiny keys. Inserting one into the lock on the door, he turned it and she heard the soft clunk behind the wood. The clunk that meant a lock was there, and he had just unlocked the door.
He was going to lock her in somewhere. That thought shocked her into action, and she abandoned the tiredness in her muscles, the aching of her raspy lungs, the trauma of her terrified mind, and she rolled away from the door. Springing to her feet, she took one step to get away from the man, and passed out as all the blood rushed to her head.
She awoke several hours later and sat upright, staring around. She was in… A bed? She’d only seen a bed a few times before, and had never been in one. It was too soft. She immediately didn’t like it. Pushing the soft blankets away from her body, she jumped as she felt soft fabric brushing against her skin. She appeared to be dressed in a cream-colored robe gown thing, and her rag clothes were gone. Standing up on the bed, she saw it fell all the way to her ankles, leaving her bare feet exposed. Turning this way and that, she admired the way it flowed around her, like a breath of wind swirling around a bar of her cage when the window was open.
Her cage… Was she in some sort of twisted dream that allowed her to see and feel things? Was this the effect of some strange magic spell? Duma wasn’t sure what was going on, but there was no pain… yet. So she was content to enjoy it while it lasted. Her unease didn’t go away, though. Whatever was happening to her, she needed to find out before the pain started again.
This sense of urgency spurred her as she slid off the bed and paced around the small room. There wasn’t much to it, a bedstand with a lamp and a book, a writing desk full of haphazard stacks of papers, and a window underneath a bench. A big window!
Duma clambered onto the bench and looked out. The bright lights made her eyes swim, but the barrage of colors was too beautiful to look away from. She could see white and green everywhere, with brown here and there where a wooden door or tree trunk was. There was a courtyard below her, with all manner of people wandering about, lying down under the shade of trees, or chatting with others. She could see birds flitting through the sky, specks of movement in an otherwise calm expanse of blue and white. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
The door creaked open and Duma tore her eyes away from the sight, the panic rising again as she realized she’d let her guard down. They would take her back to the cage now, and she would sit there for weeks or months, remembering the view from the window and desiring to see it again. And eventually her desire would break, and she would be plunged into despair again knowing she would never see something so beautiful ever again.
These thoughts surged through her all at once and she began crying as the man who had carried her here stepped into the room. In a fit of tears, Duma leaped from the bench and darted for the door, knowing that if she didn’t escape now, she would never get to see the green trees and blue sky again. Her world would return to the dim gloom of her cage and rock room.
“Woah there, little one! You’re not going anywhere until you’ve eaten something.” The man blocked the door’s exit with his leg and closed it gently with one hand. Duma ran into his leg and began sobbing into it’s fabric. He leaned down and patted her head reassuringly, then she caught the scent of something delicious. “Here, this should be easy enough on your stomach.” The man led her back to the bench and sat down, Duma still cowering at the end of his robes, wiping her eyes over and over. He set down a bowl of the delicious smelling stuff next to him and waited for her to calm down again.
They hired mercenaries to help them kill the slavers. A new companion had joined them at the tavern, knowing something of Arya and desiring to bring justice to the slavers as they did. She hired a monk, a calm and kind companion who had THE BEST HAIR in a small patch at the back of his head, tied in a long braid that reached down to his mid-back. They exited the building together, and Duma focused again on what the mercenary man was trying to tell them. Minuano had hired a cleric, who was walking toward them in a shiny, clinking set of dragonscale armor and hefting a mighty big shield. A mace hung by the man’s side. An overwhelming desire to lick the shiny armor arose in her, but when she asked he seemed concerned and requested that she didn’t. She sighed and the armor was not licked.
Not wanting to be left out, Duma saw they had a special warrior for hire who was more expensive than the others, and chose that one. The man slid a wooden tab down his line to let the mercenary know he had been hired, and told Duma that her charge would be waiting outside for her. Excited, she hurried outside and found the monk chatting with the new hoodie. She remembered to ask first, and got to play with his hair, batting it this way and that as he swung it for her and chuckled. Leaping after his hair braid, she didn’t notice a metallic shifting and thumping of something large walking towards them.
The large metal man hissed to a stop as steam left his legs and he spoke to Duma, “I am Vanguard Unit 127. Requesting orders.” Abandoning the swishing braid, Duma stared at the big metal mercenary she had hired.
“You’re so shiny!” She squealed in delight! “Vanguard… Eh, I’m gonna call you Vinny! Hi! I’m Duma!” She waved furiously upward at him. He spoke in monotonous, hollow tones and Minuano called him a robot. To which he corrected the samurai, explaining that he was a warforged.
They followed Hoodie and Cadius (the monk) back to the bar, sitting at a nearby table. Duma was completely enamored with Vinny, perching on his shoulder in cat form and staring around at how small everything seemed from this tall vantage point. Minuano asked Duma to keep her ears on the conversation of Hoodie and Cadius, but Duma was too distracted by the perfect temperature of the warm metal on the warforged’s shoulder that she took a nap instead. Her dreams carried her back to the mage man and how her horrid life had been sparked with beauty thanks to him.
She stayed with him for a week, and he nursed her back to a more acceptable weight for one her size. She sometimes went out for walks with him, and even though she wanted to run away, she didn’t know where she would go or what she would do. So, Duma stuck with this man who cared for her, showed her beautiful things, and never spoke harshly to her. She was fascinated and, for the first time in her life, a little bit happy.
Then, of course, like everything else in her life, the pain began again. One day she was walking though the corridors with the man when a group of robed figures approached them. The man turned and greeted them, and Duma hid behind his robes, peeking out at them as they talked.
“Master Silas, we are from the Judiciary Council. We have been informed that you are harboring a slave and a murderer. The Council requests that you hand her over immediately.” The men state matter-of-factly, but with an intimidating tone.
“Now gentlemen, I’m sure we can have a polite and reasonable discussion about this, Duma is a scared and timid young girl, if she’s done anything wrong like what you accuse her of, there must be evidence. I request an explanation at the very least, and an investigation if you lack evidence. She is innocent until proven guilty. Until then, she will remain in my care.” The man spoke with authority and respect, but held firm and defended Duma. She was tempted to run right then and there, but trusted the man enough to protect her that she stayed, latched on to his robe. The men continued bantering with Silas, her benefactor, for a few minutes before they turned around and walked away. Silas bent down to face Duma with sad eyes and told her that she was being accused of murdering five prominent mages. They hadn’t been able to figure out what had killed them at first, but no body of their experimental subject had been found, intact or otherwise, causing them to ask around for any suspicious cat or little girl. A few people had reported seeing Silas with a child recently, though most had assumed it to be his granddaughter. Her description, though, fit the tibbit they were searching for. Finding no one else who had been in that room when they were killed, they pinned the murder on her.
Silas managed to convince them to set up a trial to see if the aura on the bodies matched Duma’s. It would take some time to prepare, as not everyone could sense auras, so she had until tomorrow and would remain in Silas’ care until then.
Duma wanted to escape. She had no idea if they would find her aura on the bodies, as she had directed the power at them but hadn’t killed them herself. Silas and her sat together for hours that night, and Duma told him what had happened with the experiment, and her life in a cage, and her family that she wanted to see again. He told her of his son who lived a few cities over, who had a 5-year-old daughter. He’d seen his granddaughter once when she was just a year old, and was working hard to get some time off so he could go see her again. They talked late into the night, knowing they might never get to be together like that again. And, they were right.
The trial was horribly one-sided, with most of the people who showed up having heard the story of how this horrible little tibbit managed to kill 5 innocent mages, all of whom held prestigious positions within the councils. The mages’ bodies had been horribly mangled, twisted and grotesque from the force, and those who saw this believed Duma to be a monster. The people knew the names of those she had unwittingly killed, but none of them knew Duma. When she was brought before them, they yelled and jeered and threw rotten fruits, rocks, and other items as well as insults. She cried throughout most of the trial, which probably didn’t help. And, to top it all off, she was indeed found guilty.
Silas vouched for her the whole time, but he was ridiculed for defending this “monster”, some accusing him of helping her murder the mages. Silas fought calmly with his words, but couldn’t dispel all the accusers.
Duma was sentenced to death.
“AWAKEN.” Vinny startled Duma from her sleep, and she nearly fell off him in fright. They were ready to depart at last, to go kill the slavers that had had a hand in killing their companion Arya. Flicking a coin to the gate guards like the rest of the party, they were finally on their way.
About an hour in to their journey, Duma and Hoodie spotted a carcass off in the woods by the road. Going over to examine it, spider bites and webs hung around the fresh carcass, suggesting that they might not be alone in these woods. Everyone drew their weapons and prepared to fight the spiders as Minuano tugged on the webs attached to the trees. Several moments passed.
Nothing happened. Hoodie, apparently growing impatient, pointed to the webs and fire leaped forth, easily catching the webs on fire and spreading rapidly through the trees. “Oops…” She ruffled through her pack, brought out her tiny waterskin, looked at the growing fire, then shook her head and stuffed it back in her pack.
Duma was dumbfounded. The spiders hadn’t attacked them, yet this hooded companion had decided to take the fight to them and burn down wherever they might be hiding. “Your reckless use of magic is going to get us all killed!” Duma exclaimed from the shoulders of Vinny, who was still primed for battle. Hoodie took that as a challenge, and the two exchanged bickering blows before Minuano stepped in to suggest they move on, lest they get caught in the fire.
Begrudgingly, the party continued onward, moving away from the growing fire consuming the forest behind them.
They made camp as the sun began to set, some distance from the fire now. Still shooting glares at Hoodie every so often, Duma collected together a pile of sticks and leaves as her bed. She still couldn’t stand the comfort of beds or bedrolls, as it was a luxury foreign to her. Tired from the argument, Duma decided to sleep now and hunt later, after she’d rested enough. As the others continued setting up camp around her, thoughts of her last night at the mage’s castle brought her back into dreaming.
The night after the horrible trial, as she lay in her cage hungry and cold, Silas came to visit her. He entered the room quietly, the guards outside her door silent as he entered. Crouching down and glancing sadly at her shackles, he slipped a bit of bread out of his sleeve and fed her through the bars. She smiled slightly at him in thanks, then whispered, “I’m sorry for getting you into this…”
“Shh, it’s quite alright child. You’re going to be alright.” He spoke in his gentle, calm voice.
“But the death sentence…”
“They can’t kill you if you’re not here.” Silas winked at her. Duma cocked her head in confusion. “I put the guards to sleep and took the key to your cage. It’s the least I could do at this point.” As he said that, he took a small key out of his sleeve and carefully slipped it into the lock, opening the cage door. Then, he unlocked her shackles. “I hope you never have to see the inside of a cage again, little Duma.” He whispered with mournful eyes, and helped her out. She stood and stretched in the dark room, then gave Silas a big hug.
“Thank you!” She teared up, knowing that they could never spend time together openly again. “You came back for me, but you didn’t have to.”
He patted her gently on the head, “Of course I had to, child. I can’t ignore the injustice that’s been done to you.” They held each other for a moment.
“You won’t get in trouble?” She asked carefully.
He chuckled, “They wouldn’t dare touch me. No one will know I was here, I’ll be fine.” He smiled his big, warm, fatherly grin, and she found herself smiling in response. He was a truly good person.
“Thank you Silas. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Duma squeezed him one more time, then he stood and peeked out the door.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming… You should be able to slip out as a cat.” He turned toward her one last time. “I should be thanking you, Duma. It was fun getting to spend these last few days together. You know, you remind me of my granddaughter. Now go!” As he opened the door, she slipped past him in her cat form. “Good luck out there.” She heard him whisper as she made her way outside.
CLANK, CLANK Duma awoke from her slumber by the loud sound of Minuano banging on Vinny’s body.
“That was… Much louder than I expected. But, at least she’s awake. Thank you, Vinny.” He was about to explain the reasoning for waking Duma so rudely, then noticed that the sound had woken everyone else up, too. “Uh, everyone can go back to sleep, I apologize. I just wanted to wake our little cat friend.” Minuano apologized to the party as they grumbled and rolled over, then turned to Duma. “There’s a… er… Gorilla on the edge of our camp, watching us. Could you establish a mindlink with it so we can ask what it wants?”
Grumbling, Duma stood and followed him to where a very large, very strong-looking gorilla was standing, stock-still, watching them. Duma used most of her power to link with the creature, as he wasn’t a willing target. He started and looked this way and that, startled by the sudden intrusion of a voice in his head. “Hello monkey dude! Down here! I’m the one talking to you.” Duma said, and the gorilla cautiously responded, explaining why he was watching them. When she heard that his home had been burned down that day, and several young gorilla had been killed, she knew that they were in trouble because of the reckless actions of Hoodie. She spoke to Minuano and explained the situation, hoping his quick wit could help them avoid a fight with this large creature. Thankfully, the samurai thought up a story about a hooded lady who had set the fire, then continued travelling towards the city. Duma wiped the sweat off of her brow in relief, glad that the half-truth was believable enough.
The gorilla asked them to help with exterminating a group of mushroom-bodied things threatening what remained of their family, and Duma and Minuano immediately accepted the task, wishing to repay the creature for what their companion had done.
After the gorilla had lumbered away with his answer, Duma ended the mind link and thanked Minuano. They returned to their sleeping places and slept the rest of the night. Duma slept fitfully, remembering the terrible night that the last spark of hope for some good in spellcasters was ripped out of her chest. That was the night she planted the seed of hatred in her that she swore would one day grow to become a tree powerful enough to strangle them all.
Duma watched the cats in the city night and day, learning how to be one of them and fit in. They taught her how to hunt, climb, and run through the city unnoticed by the humanoid population. She gained confidence in herself and her abilities as a cat, and after a few days risked returning to Silas’ room.
There was a tree that grew just high enough to allow her to reach his window, and she climbed it and slipped in. Inside, the room was just the same as when she’d been with him days ago…
Except for his bloody corpse lying in the middle of the floor. She rushed over to his side and turned him over, but it was too late. His eyes were glazed and open, and his face had a faint look of surprise. His guts were spilling out of his chest, cut open by a knife or sword. She turned away, unable to look at the body of the only person who had ever been kind to her. Holding back tears, for she needed to be alert in case anyone came in, she examined the rest of the room.
On his bedside table she found a note that he had been writing. It was addressed to his granddaughter, saying that he’d finally be able to visit within the month to wish her a happy birthday. Duma’s heart rose in her chest, and she cried for the good man who had been slain.
Several hours later, she had cried until the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Though her eyes were puffy, she was able to see well enough to slip down the tree and run as far from the castle as she could. She found a merchant leaving town in the early morning light, and slipped under the blanket that was lashed over his wagon. Curling up, she shivered herself to sleep as the cart rolled away from the city she had lived in her whole life. The place she had grown up, been tormented, and seen the one redeeming man in it killed. She swore revenge on all who had wronged her, and vowed to return and free her family one day.
This fresh reminder of her past hung with her as the camp roused itself the next morning, and Minuano told everyone about the gorilla in the night. Duma was too distracted to do much explaining, and she slipped away to hunt. Yesterday had been a turmoil of remembering and she needed to clear her mind. A hungry belly and a good hunt would help with that… Or so she hoped.
Keeping track of the party in case they started moving, she ranged this way and that, following trails and looking for prey. Since she’d left her city of origin, she’d travelled far and wide gaining new skills and observing people. She discovered some of the powers that the strange magic circle had given her, and felt them growing stronger each time she used them. Upon reflection, she considered her powers a gift given to her to finish what she started. There were 6 mages dead thanks to her, and more would fall as she grew stronger. One day she would be strong enough to come out of hiding and unleash her force on the wicked mages who had put her through hell in her first few years of life. They would die, and her family would be free at last, free like she was.
Several years had passed since she escaped the mage’s castle, and gradually she grew more comfortable with being around people. One day, just a few days ago, she had decided she was ready to stop hiding and observing and join a group of adventurers so she could grow stronger and fulfil her desires. She would become powerful enough to kill them all.
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NOTES
Scries
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Bio By: CityTurtle
Max's Bio Templates
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Duma
Tibbit • Psion • Chaotic Neutral |
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DEITY
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Cat Lord Bahamut ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
FACTION
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Carefree Wanderer ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
STATS
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Health ✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Strength ✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Speed ✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Agility ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ Reflexes ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ Magic ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧ Intellect ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ Charisma ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ Willpower ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧ Luck ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧ ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
RELATIONS
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯MATE: None BEST FRIEND: Vinny FRIEND: Hars FRIEND: Asher FRIEND: Titania COLLEAGUE COLLEAGUE ENEMY: Mage tower of Werecheg ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
LIKES
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯A warm spot by a well-lit hearth. Children ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
DISLIKES
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Careless Spellcasters. Loud, destructive things. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
FEARS
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Being caged, controlled, and experimented on. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
LINKS
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯
Duma is a Tibbit, from the Dungeons and Dragons universe!  X X X X X X X X X |
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Personality
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Duma often acts childish and impulsive, following the natural instincts of her cat side even when she is in human form. Despite the fact that she can blow up the minds of most characters around her, she gives every individual the right to prove themselves worthy of her respect. Second chances, however, are rarely in her interests. Being a telepath, Duma loves studying and subtly manipulating those around her. She prefers to show them challenges to make them better, but often will just play with them for the fun of it. Her childlike innocence is more of an outlet so she can express herself because she never really got the chance to as a child. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
Early Years
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Spending years in a small, cramped cage with barely any room to stretch, Duma was the experimental subject of a group of spellcasters. Her family's ability to change between cat and human form provided them with the perfect subjects for testing on, and they were all kept hostage. They would experiment on her. “For the betterment of the people” they would say. “Here’s a new one that a student came up with” or “This one might or might not work” or “A random scroll showed up on our doorstep, I wonder what the spell written on it does”. It didn’t matter what the excuse was, it almost always led to pain on her and her family’s end. They were the lab rats. The guinea pigs. The disposable magical creatures that didn’t have rights of their own as people, and so were used and abused as slaves. Slaves to the horrible sorcerers, wizards, and multitude of other spellcasters that did with her people as they saw fit. Usually they wanted an animal to experiment on, so she would be in cat form. But occasionally they had a spell that required a humanoid, and so she was forced to transform into her human form for this purpose. Because cats were easier to feed and took up less space, though, she was usually in her cat form. The cage was too small for a human, anyway. Even a child-sized human. Duma hated spellcasters for what they did to her and her family. For years she lived in fear, every day, not knowing which day would be her last, but expecting it to come at any time. Then, the accident happened. For Duma it could only have been a miracle, for it had given her the powers to escape. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
Triva
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Tibbits (also known as catweres) are small, humanoid creatures that have the ability to turn into a common house cat. They arose from felines kept as familiars in ages past. The powerful magic that allows a familiar to gain intelligence and magic abilities slowly filtered from one generation of cats to the next. Whether tibbits evolved from a natural process, divine intervention, or a sudden surge in the magic running through their ancestry, none can say. Tibbits have never existed in large numbers, and their tendency to spread across the world leaves them with a fractured, incomplete racial history. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
Triva
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Tibbits tend to regard other folk with a detached sense of bemusement. Much of their lore and common wisdom regarding men, dwarves, and elves filters through their guise as house cats. Thus, tibbits see how other races act when they think no one else is around. To a tibbit, every intelligent creature is a bundle of secrets just waiting to unfurl before them. ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
Triva
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Duma once stole all 12 candles off of a chandelier simply because they glowed blue. She keeps one of them on her bandolier at all times, believing it may bring her luck. 
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HOARD
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Current
Duma has achieved her ultimate power: Mind Seed. She's managed to transfer her mind and being into another body. The victim of her power has been trapped in her original body but retains it's mental stats while attempting to adapt to the new physical stats of the body it transferred into.
Duma chose to acquire a dragon's form. The dragon's body she switched with was quite physically powerful, posessing much greater strength, constitution, and dexterity than that of her small, transformable tibbit body.
The dragon she chose was not the brightest, having been duped into the transfer. It's form was exquisite, with sparkly black scales and bright orange wings. The dragon, to this day, resents Duma and hunts for her wherabouts, seeking to regain what it's lost and slowly learning how to live in a child-sized, weak body it's very much not used to. It's also coping with a much shorter lifespan, making it's hunt more urgent. Those who knew Duma before the switch are very confused at the change in personality, since the dragon is reluctant to share it's shame and secret.
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Duma has achieved her ultimate power: Mind Seed. She's managed to transfer her mind and being into another body. The victim of her power has been trapped in her original body but retains it's mental stats while attempting to adapt to the new physical stats of the body it transferred into.
Duma chose to acquire a dragon's form. The dragon's body she switched with was quite physically powerful, posessing much greater strength, constitution, and dexterity than that of her small, transformable tibbit body.
The dragon she chose was not the brightest, having been duped into the transfer. It's form was exquisite, with sparkly black scales and bright orange wings. The dragon, to this day, resents Duma and hunts for her wherabouts, seeking to regain what it's lost and slowly learning how to live in a child-sized, weak body it's very much not used to. It's also coping with a much shorter lifespan, making it's hunt more urgent. Those who knew Duma before the switch are very confused at the change in personality, since the dragon is reluctant to share it's shame and secret.
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Job Description
Find stuff! Eat stuff! Play all day! Maybe collect more treasure! Go on an adventure! Eat more stuff! Sleep! Watch people! Have a tea party! Freak out Asher! Follow Titania around! Poke Dann then run away! Sleep again!
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯Find stuff! Eat stuff! Play all day! Maybe collect more treasure! Go on an adventure! Eat more stuff! Sleep! Watch people! Have a tea party! Freak out Asher! Follow Titania around! Poke Dann then run away! Sleep again!
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Day in The Life Of Duma
Duma strolled through the forest, reflecting on the past few days and her new companions. She couldn’t call them friends… Well, not all of them anyway. Minuano was alright. He was a tricky fellow, but usually had good intentions. He let her mind link with him, so that was cool, especially when she just wanted to roam as a cat and not have to interact with everyone in her human form. She swore she hadn’t spent this much time in her humanoid form since… Well.. She didn’t want to think about that time. That had been a very bad time.Shaking her head to clear her thoughts of that place, she instead concentrated on quieting her footfalls and listening for prey. She was on a hunt, remember that. Hunting for yummy mice and unsuspecting birds. But her mind kept getting distracted. She sniffed the air, searching for scent trails. Her ears perked toward a fluttering sound, but it quickly moved away from her, so she went back to using her nose. Her brain, however, would not let her focus.
The new one… Hoodie. She was shifty. From the start, she never even revealed a name. Any name. So Duma had, as Duma does, assigned her a nickname. The most prominent thing was that rather ugly black hood and cloak she wore, hiding her face. So, hoodie it was. Duma could smell that she was similar to the last shifty companion, the one who had been… Duma shuddered, not liking to remember what had happened to her.
They had awoken the morning after the fight with the Mountain to find her gone, and no notes or signs anywhere. Asking various people around the tavern, they learned that a guard had seen a cloaked figure going off to a section of town, and had avoided chatting. They took the only lead they had and searched the area, Duma asking the local cats if they had seen anything. One cat described a “naked woman trying to fly out of that window there”, which Duma could only assume was the crazy cloaked one they were looking for. It was certainly a strange image to follow, but upon telling the others this tidbit (hehe, she liked that word, it sounded like Tibbit, which is what she was!), they decided to go after the house that the cat had described.
It was a bakery, and smelled amazing. The one to greet them was a smallish man who had no idea what was going on, and Minuano took him into a back room to probably intimidate the information out of him. That’s what the samurai do best, in any case. Eventually the main guy came out, a big dude who was apparently in charge. Asher questioned him. After the two bakery guys gave no helpful information, and Minuano and Asher were getting increasingly persistent about their inquiries, the big dude sent his assistant to get the guards. Duma mind linked with Minuano, and followed the smallish guy to either intercept him from getting the guards, or get the guards faster if they found their companion.
About a minute later, after some silence from Minuano’s part (apparently, Asher had found a secret staircase in the house thanks to his knowledge of architecture???), she got a shaken call to come back to the house. Letting the dude bring the guards to the house, Duma turned around and headed back as fast as she could manage. When she got to the house, she found the staircase he’d been talking about and headed down to find the big baker dude passed out… No, knocked out at the bottom of the stairs. He had a distinctly Asher-shaped footprint in his chest.
Looking around the dimly lit room, Duma was horrified to find shackles, cages, instruments of bodily destruction, and bodies all around her. It looked like Minuano and Asher had removed the bodies from their shackles, and laid them gently on the floor. One that they were crowded around was… Arya. Their companion who had disappeared on them. She was dead. As soon as the two noticed Duma, who stood paralyzed at the bottom of the stairs, everything came rushing at her all in one burst. Duma burst into fits of tears as she remembered.
The smells… Smells of rotting flesh, putrid body fluids and diseases, blood… It broke her will momentarily and caused her to flash back to her captivity. Spending years in a small, cramped cage with barely any room to stretch, giving up on grooming herself as cats do, being separated from her family physically, but still being able to see them just a few feet away, in a cage of their own… And the torture sessions. Those she had almost managed to block from her mind.
They would experiment on her. “For the betterment of the people” they would say. “Here’s a new one that a student came up with” or “This one might or might not work” or “A random scroll showed up on our doorstep, I wonder what the spell written on it does”. It didn’t matter what the excuse was, it almost always led to pain on her and her family’s end. They were the lab rats. The guinea pigs. The disposable magical creatures that didn’t have rights of their own as people, and so were used and abused as slaves. Slaves to the horrible sorcerers, wizards, and multitude of other spellcasters that did with her people as they saw fit. Usually they wanted an animal to experiment on, so she would be in cat form. But occasionally they had a spell that required a humanoid, and so she was forced to transform into her human form for this purpose. Because cats were easier to feed and took up less space, though, she was usually in her cat form. The cage was too small for a human, anyway. Even a child-sized human.
~~~
The guards came in at some point to secure the area. Minuano and Asher took turns carrying Duma with them as the slaves were rescued and taken to get treatment. Arya’s body was held by the guards, who stated that the price for resurrecting their companion would be a diamond’s worth of wealth, which none of Duma’s companions combined had anywhere close to. It had been a miracle that Asher had been saved just the day before, minutes after the life left his body it had been snatched back as his body was healed. But Arya had been dead for hours, possibly even as soon as she had leaped out of the window the night before.
Shaking with the reminder of the horrible fate that had befallen Duma’s companion, the events of the next few hours were a blur as she recalled the event that had eventually doomed her to a life of solitude, on the run and wary of those who misused the magic potential they had been gifted with.
Duma hated spellcasters for what they did to her and her family. For years she lived in fear, every day, not knowing which day would be her last, but expecting it to come at any time. Then, the accident happened. For Duma it could only have been a miracle, for it had given her the powers to escape. One spell required 5 casters, all standing around an intricately drawn mixture of symbols in a circle. The lightshow began, which was usual for magic, but this time instead of an immediate pain, her body began to be infused with a glowing, invigorating aura. She lay in the circle as a cat, limp, expecting the pain to come as it usually did. The chanting was hypnotic, and she enjoyed the tiny bit of peace and energy while at the same time tensing for the inevitable.
A minute passed, and still no pain. This was new. Duma cautiously stood up, looking around the room, and noticed that all the casters had their eyes closed, concentrating on their spell. In one impulsive moment, she decided to do something she hadn’t been forced to do. She transformed into her human form. Immediately the energy in the magic changed, the invigorating feeling being replaced by one of pure, raw power. And that power was focused on her. She felt the potential, and instinctively probed around to see what it could do. She directed it at herself and felt it flow through and around her. She directed it at the lights, and they flickered madly in its presence. She finally directed it at one of the casters, and his chanting immediately stopped, replaced by a forced gurgling sound as no words formed, breaking the flow of energy being put into the circle. As soon as one part was broken, the energy turned wild and uncontrollable. Duma still directed it a little bit, but it quickly became unruly. She gripped what she could of it and directed it at each of the casters in turn, halting their chanting and making them seize. The lights went out with the force of the unleashed power, and it roared in her ears. She could still see in the dark, and watched each caster crumple under it’s tempest. It roared at the walls, and they shook and trembled. Duma didn’t know what to do with the energy, it hadn’t hurt her yet, but she didn’t want to be in the room with it any more. She gripped what little she could and directed it at the locked door. It screamed in assault and battered the door, knocking it clear off it’s hinges as it roared in triumph. She felt it like a wind rush out of the room and shriek down the hallway.
The room got cold. Very, very cold. Duma was standing nearly naked in the middle of the circle, surrounded by still bodies. Going over to one of them, she examined the body and nearly hurled at what she saw. His limbs were bent at odd angles, skin twisted in some areas, and the face… His eyes were bulging, staring straight ahead and nearly popping out. His skin was skeletal, stretched against his face with barely any muscle between it. His mouth was wide open as if in the middle of yelling, and his tongue lolled out. It looked like he had seen a litch and not lived to get past the initial meeting. He was, most decidedly, dead. Duma didn’t stick around to check the other bodies, and bolted out the door.
It was weird being in the corridor and free to go where she wanted. She liked it a lot, but didn’t want to stop and appreciate this new freedom. Picking a direction, she ran.
~~~
They were sitting in a room of the tavern now, Asher and Minuano chatting about their next plans. The guards had informed them of a slaver operation to the south, just a day’s journey from this town. Duma had immediately agreed to quest forth and slay the slavers at once, which slightly surprised her two companions. They didn’t know… They didn’t know the horrors and pains of being completely at the mercy of slavers, captured and eventually broken of the will to live. Accepting that death would come at any moment and welcoming it, for anything was better than the pain of living in captivity.
Of course, not every person she had met during her lifetime of fear was to be feared. There had been one mage that, instead of using magic to harm, had used it to heal. That man had given Duma something that she clung to dearly: hope.
After running for what seemed like forever, she reached an area where the corridor ended and a giant room began. This room was filled with books, tables, and people scrawling on parchment. She screeched to a halt and jumped at the heads turning her direction, confusion and curiosity on their faces. They’ll catch me! I need to get away! She screamed to herself, knowing all too well the tiny cage she would return to. She spun and darted off back down the corridor, turning down another passageway. She was almost to another door near the end of it when a wave of disabling magic made her legs seize, and she fell flat on her face, terror rising in her throat. “Nooooooooo!” She wailed, tears streaming down her face as a robed figure snatched her up, spun her around, and stared at her curiously.
“Little one,” he began, in a wizened yet gentle tone, “Calm yourself, stop crying.” He sat down in the hallway, holding her in his arms until the disable eventually wore off, and she stopped bawling enough for him to speak and be heard. “Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She sniffed and hic’d, tired after all the running and crying. It was way more activity than she was used to. She let the man hold her, for now. “Now, what’s wrong, child? And where are your clothes?” She whimpered, noticing for the first time that it was probably unusual to be dressed in rags while in a place as fancy as this one.
“I…” She began, then coughed softly, “I think I let something bad out…” Her voice was raspy, she didn’t usually have a need to speak to others. Fortunately, she had learned common from her family, when they had been in the same cage together. It was difficult recalling all of the language, though. It had been so long… “It killed them.” She managed to stutter out, not recalling all the words to describe it.
“It’ll be alright, child. Now, what is ‘it’?” He asked calmly, carefully. As soon as she had mentioned it killing, she noticed him stiffen slightly, and his warm gaze was a little colder. She shrunk away from it, much less willing to cooperate now.
“Help… me?” She rasped out, falling into a fit of coughing after all that had happened today, and trying to speak on top of that. The man had pity in his eyes, and his grip tightened as he stood up, which caused Duma to panic slightly, not knowing what he intended to do with her. She didn’t like being at the mercy of someone else, and though this man hadn’t done anything to hurt her yet, she couldn’t trust him at all. She couldn’t trust anybody that wielded magic. She couldn’t trust anyone besides her own family. Tense and coughing, her body racked with chills, the man carried her for a ways before pausing in front of a door. He gently set her down in front of it and she huddled, uncertain and weak, watching as he dug through his robes to bring out clunky, shiny keys. Inserting one into the lock on the door, he turned it and she heard the soft clunk behind the wood. The clunk that meant a lock was there, and he had just unlocked the door.
He was going to lock her in somewhere. That thought shocked her into action, and she abandoned the tiredness in her muscles, the aching of her raspy lungs, the trauma of her terrified mind, and she rolled away from the door. Springing to her feet, she took one step to get away from the man, and passed out as all the blood rushed to her head.
~~~
She awoke several hours later and sat upright, staring around. She was in… A bed? She’d only seen a bed a few times before, and had never been in one. It was too soft. She immediately didn’t like it. Pushing the soft blankets away from her body, she jumped as she felt soft fabric brushing against her skin. She appeared to be dressed in a cream-colored robe gown thing, and her rag clothes were gone. Standing up on the bed, she saw it fell all the way to her ankles, leaving her bare feet exposed. Turning this way and that, she admired the way it flowed around her, like a breath of wind swirling around a bar of her cage when the window was open.
Her cage… Was she in some sort of twisted dream that allowed her to see and feel things? Was this the effect of some strange magic spell? Duma wasn’t sure what was going on, but there was no pain… yet. So she was content to enjoy it while it lasted. Her unease didn’t go away, though. Whatever was happening to her, she needed to find out before the pain started again.
This sense of urgency spurred her as she slid off the bed and paced around the small room. There wasn’t much to it, a bedstand with a lamp and a book, a writing desk full of haphazard stacks of papers, and a window underneath a bench. A big window!
Duma clambered onto the bench and looked out. The bright lights made her eyes swim, but the barrage of colors was too beautiful to look away from. She could see white and green everywhere, with brown here and there where a wooden door or tree trunk was. There was a courtyard below her, with all manner of people wandering about, lying down under the shade of trees, or chatting with others. She could see birds flitting through the sky, specks of movement in an otherwise calm expanse of blue and white. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
The door creaked open and Duma tore her eyes away from the sight, the panic rising again as she realized she’d let her guard down. They would take her back to the cage now, and she would sit there for weeks or months, remembering the view from the window and desiring to see it again. And eventually her desire would break, and she would be plunged into despair again knowing she would never see something so beautiful ever again.
These thoughts surged through her all at once and she began crying as the man who had carried her here stepped into the room. In a fit of tears, Duma leaped from the bench and darted for the door, knowing that if she didn’t escape now, she would never get to see the green trees and blue sky again. Her world would return to the dim gloom of her cage and rock room.
“Woah there, little one! You’re not going anywhere until you’ve eaten something.” The man blocked the door’s exit with his leg and closed it gently with one hand. Duma ran into his leg and began sobbing into it’s fabric. He leaned down and patted her head reassuringly, then she caught the scent of something delicious. “Here, this should be easy enough on your stomach.” The man led her back to the bench and sat down, Duma still cowering at the end of his robes, wiping her eyes over and over. He set down a bowl of the delicious smelling stuff next to him and waited for her to calm down again.
~~~
They hired mercenaries to help them kill the slavers. A new companion had joined them at the tavern, knowing something of Arya and desiring to bring justice to the slavers as they did. She hired a monk, a calm and kind companion who had THE BEST HAIR in a small patch at the back of his head, tied in a long braid that reached down to his mid-back. They exited the building together, and Duma focused again on what the mercenary man was trying to tell them. Minuano had hired a cleric, who was walking toward them in a shiny, clinking set of dragonscale armor and hefting a mighty big shield. A mace hung by the man’s side. An overwhelming desire to lick the shiny armor arose in her, but when she asked he seemed concerned and requested that she didn’t. She sighed and the armor was not licked.
Not wanting to be left out, Duma saw they had a special warrior for hire who was more expensive than the others, and chose that one. The man slid a wooden tab down his line to let the mercenary know he had been hired, and told Duma that her charge would be waiting outside for her. Excited, she hurried outside and found the monk chatting with the new hoodie. She remembered to ask first, and got to play with his hair, batting it this way and that as he swung it for her and chuckled. Leaping after his hair braid, she didn’t notice a metallic shifting and thumping of something large walking towards them.
The large metal man hissed to a stop as steam left his legs and he spoke to Duma, “I am Vanguard Unit 127. Requesting orders.” Abandoning the swishing braid, Duma stared at the big metal mercenary she had hired.
“You’re so shiny!” She squealed in delight! “Vanguard… Eh, I’m gonna call you Vinny! Hi! I’m Duma!” She waved furiously upward at him. He spoke in monotonous, hollow tones and Minuano called him a robot. To which he corrected the samurai, explaining that he was a warforged.
They followed Hoodie and Cadius (the monk) back to the bar, sitting at a nearby table. Duma was completely enamored with Vinny, perching on his shoulder in cat form and staring around at how small everything seemed from this tall vantage point. Minuano asked Duma to keep her ears on the conversation of Hoodie and Cadius, but Duma was too distracted by the perfect temperature of the warm metal on the warforged’s shoulder that she took a nap instead. Her dreams carried her back to the mage man and how her horrid life had been sparked with beauty thanks to him.
She stayed with him for a week, and he nursed her back to a more acceptable weight for one her size. She sometimes went out for walks with him, and even though she wanted to run away, she didn’t know where she would go or what she would do. So, Duma stuck with this man who cared for her, showed her beautiful things, and never spoke harshly to her. She was fascinated and, for the first time in her life, a little bit happy.
Then, of course, like everything else in her life, the pain began again. One day she was walking though the corridors with the man when a group of robed figures approached them. The man turned and greeted them, and Duma hid behind his robes, peeking out at them as they talked.
“Master Silas, we are from the Judiciary Council. We have been informed that you are harboring a slave and a murderer. The Council requests that you hand her over immediately.” The men state matter-of-factly, but with an intimidating tone.
“Now gentlemen, I’m sure we can have a polite and reasonable discussion about this, Duma is a scared and timid young girl, if she’s done anything wrong like what you accuse her of, there must be evidence. I request an explanation at the very least, and an investigation if you lack evidence. She is innocent until proven guilty. Until then, she will remain in my care.” The man spoke with authority and respect, but held firm and defended Duma. She was tempted to run right then and there, but trusted the man enough to protect her that she stayed, latched on to his robe. The men continued bantering with Silas, her benefactor, for a few minutes before they turned around and walked away. Silas bent down to face Duma with sad eyes and told her that she was being accused of murdering five prominent mages. They hadn’t been able to figure out what had killed them at first, but no body of their experimental subject had been found, intact or otherwise, causing them to ask around for any suspicious cat or little girl. A few people had reported seeing Silas with a child recently, though most had assumed it to be his granddaughter. Her description, though, fit the tibbit they were searching for. Finding no one else who had been in that room when they were killed, they pinned the murder on her.
Silas managed to convince them to set up a trial to see if the aura on the bodies matched Duma’s. It would take some time to prepare, as not everyone could sense auras, so she had until tomorrow and would remain in Silas’ care until then.
~~~
Duma wanted to escape. She had no idea if they would find her aura on the bodies, as she had directed the power at them but hadn’t killed them herself. Silas and her sat together for hours that night, and Duma told him what had happened with the experiment, and her life in a cage, and her family that she wanted to see again. He told her of his son who lived a few cities over, who had a 5-year-old daughter. He’d seen his granddaughter once when she was just a year old, and was working hard to get some time off so he could go see her again. They talked late into the night, knowing they might never get to be together like that again. And, they were right.
The trial was horribly one-sided, with most of the people who showed up having heard the story of how this horrible little tibbit managed to kill 5 innocent mages, all of whom held prestigious positions within the councils. The mages’ bodies had been horribly mangled, twisted and grotesque from the force, and those who saw this believed Duma to be a monster. The people knew the names of those she had unwittingly killed, but none of them knew Duma. When she was brought before them, they yelled and jeered and threw rotten fruits, rocks, and other items as well as insults. She cried throughout most of the trial, which probably didn’t help. And, to top it all off, she was indeed found guilty.
Silas vouched for her the whole time, but he was ridiculed for defending this “monster”, some accusing him of helping her murder the mages. Silas fought calmly with his words, but couldn’t dispel all the accusers.
Duma was sentenced to death.
~~~
“AWAKEN.” Vinny startled Duma from her sleep, and she nearly fell off him in fright. They were ready to depart at last, to go kill the slavers that had had a hand in killing their companion Arya. Flicking a coin to the gate guards like the rest of the party, they were finally on their way.
About an hour in to their journey, Duma and Hoodie spotted a carcass off in the woods by the road. Going over to examine it, spider bites and webs hung around the fresh carcass, suggesting that they might not be alone in these woods. Everyone drew their weapons and prepared to fight the spiders as Minuano tugged on the webs attached to the trees. Several moments passed.
Nothing happened. Hoodie, apparently growing impatient, pointed to the webs and fire leaped forth, easily catching the webs on fire and spreading rapidly through the trees. “Oops…” She ruffled through her pack, brought out her tiny waterskin, looked at the growing fire, then shook her head and stuffed it back in her pack.
Duma was dumbfounded. The spiders hadn’t attacked them, yet this hooded companion had decided to take the fight to them and burn down wherever they might be hiding. “Your reckless use of magic is going to get us all killed!” Duma exclaimed from the shoulders of Vinny, who was still primed for battle. Hoodie took that as a challenge, and the two exchanged bickering blows before Minuano stepped in to suggest they move on, lest they get caught in the fire.
Begrudgingly, the party continued onward, moving away from the growing fire consuming the forest behind them.
They made camp as the sun began to set, some distance from the fire now. Still shooting glares at Hoodie every so often, Duma collected together a pile of sticks and leaves as her bed. She still couldn’t stand the comfort of beds or bedrolls, as it was a luxury foreign to her. Tired from the argument, Duma decided to sleep now and hunt later, after she’d rested enough. As the others continued setting up camp around her, thoughts of her last night at the mage’s castle brought her back into dreaming.
The night after the horrible trial, as she lay in her cage hungry and cold, Silas came to visit her. He entered the room quietly, the guards outside her door silent as he entered. Crouching down and glancing sadly at her shackles, he slipped a bit of bread out of his sleeve and fed her through the bars. She smiled slightly at him in thanks, then whispered, “I’m sorry for getting you into this…”
“Shh, it’s quite alright child. You’re going to be alright.” He spoke in his gentle, calm voice.
“But the death sentence…”
“They can’t kill you if you’re not here.” Silas winked at her. Duma cocked her head in confusion. “I put the guards to sleep and took the key to your cage. It’s the least I could do at this point.” As he said that, he took a small key out of his sleeve and carefully slipped it into the lock, opening the cage door. Then, he unlocked her shackles. “I hope you never have to see the inside of a cage again, little Duma.” He whispered with mournful eyes, and helped her out. She stood and stretched in the dark room, then gave Silas a big hug.
“Thank you!” She teared up, knowing that they could never spend time together openly again. “You came back for me, but you didn’t have to.”
He patted her gently on the head, “Of course I had to, child. I can’t ignore the injustice that’s been done to you.” They held each other for a moment.
“You won’t get in trouble?” She asked carefully.
He chuckled, “They wouldn’t dare touch me. No one will know I was here, I’ll be fine.” He smiled his big, warm, fatherly grin, and she found herself smiling in response. He was a truly good person.
“Thank you Silas. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Duma squeezed him one more time, then he stood and peeked out the door.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming… You should be able to slip out as a cat.” He turned toward her one last time. “I should be thanking you, Duma. It was fun getting to spend these last few days together. You know, you remind me of my granddaughter. Now go!” As he opened the door, she slipped past him in her cat form. “Good luck out there.” She heard him whisper as she made her way outside.
~~~
CLANK, CLANK Duma awoke from her slumber by the loud sound of Minuano banging on Vinny’s body.
“That was… Much louder than I expected. But, at least she’s awake. Thank you, Vinny.” He was about to explain the reasoning for waking Duma so rudely, then noticed that the sound had woken everyone else up, too. “Uh, everyone can go back to sleep, I apologize. I just wanted to wake our little cat friend.” Minuano apologized to the party as they grumbled and rolled over, then turned to Duma. “There’s a… er… Gorilla on the edge of our camp, watching us. Could you establish a mindlink with it so we can ask what it wants?”
Grumbling, Duma stood and followed him to where a very large, very strong-looking gorilla was standing, stock-still, watching them. Duma used most of her power to link with the creature, as he wasn’t a willing target. He started and looked this way and that, startled by the sudden intrusion of a voice in his head. “Hello monkey dude! Down here! I’m the one talking to you.” Duma said, and the gorilla cautiously responded, explaining why he was watching them. When she heard that his home had been burned down that day, and several young gorilla had been killed, she knew that they were in trouble because of the reckless actions of Hoodie. She spoke to Minuano and explained the situation, hoping his quick wit could help them avoid a fight with this large creature. Thankfully, the samurai thought up a story about a hooded lady who had set the fire, then continued travelling towards the city. Duma wiped the sweat off of her brow in relief, glad that the half-truth was believable enough.
The gorilla asked them to help with exterminating a group of mushroom-bodied things threatening what remained of their family, and Duma and Minuano immediately accepted the task, wishing to repay the creature for what their companion had done.
After the gorilla had lumbered away with his answer, Duma ended the mind link and thanked Minuano. They returned to their sleeping places and slept the rest of the night. Duma slept fitfully, remembering the terrible night that the last spark of hope for some good in spellcasters was ripped out of her chest. That was the night she planted the seed of hatred in her that she swore would one day grow to become a tree powerful enough to strangle them all.
Duma watched the cats in the city night and day, learning how to be one of them and fit in. They taught her how to hunt, climb, and run through the city unnoticed by the humanoid population. She gained confidence in herself and her abilities as a cat, and after a few days risked returning to Silas’ room.
There was a tree that grew just high enough to allow her to reach his window, and she climbed it and slipped in. Inside, the room was just the same as when she’d been with him days ago…
Except for his bloody corpse lying in the middle of the floor. She rushed over to his side and turned him over, but it was too late. His eyes were glazed and open, and his face had a faint look of surprise. His guts were spilling out of his chest, cut open by a knife or sword. She turned away, unable to look at the body of the only person who had ever been kind to her. Holding back tears, for she needed to be alert in case anyone came in, she examined the rest of the room.
On his bedside table she found a note that he had been writing. It was addressed to his granddaughter, saying that he’d finally be able to visit within the month to wish her a happy birthday. Duma’s heart rose in her chest, and she cried for the good man who had been slain.
Several hours later, she had cried until the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Though her eyes were puffy, she was able to see well enough to slip down the tree and run as far from the castle as she could. She found a merchant leaving town in the early morning light, and slipped under the blanket that was lashed over his wagon. Curling up, she shivered herself to sleep as the cart rolled away from the city she had lived in her whole life. The place she had grown up, been tormented, and seen the one redeeming man in it killed. She swore revenge on all who had wronged her, and vowed to return and free her family one day.
~~~
This fresh reminder of her past hung with her as the camp roused itself the next morning, and Minuano told everyone about the gorilla in the night. Duma was too distracted to do much explaining, and she slipped away to hunt. Yesterday had been a turmoil of remembering and she needed to clear her mind. A hungry belly and a good hunt would help with that… Or so she hoped.
Keeping track of the party in case they started moving, she ranged this way and that, following trails and looking for prey. Since she’d left her city of origin, she’d travelled far and wide gaining new skills and observing people. She discovered some of the powers that the strange magic circle had given her, and felt them growing stronger each time she used them. Upon reflection, she considered her powers a gift given to her to finish what she started. There were 6 mages dead thanks to her, and more would fall as she grew stronger. One day she would be strong enough to come out of hiding and unleash her force on the wicked mages who had put her through hell in her first few years of life. They would die, and her family would be free at last, free like she was.
Several years had passed since she escaped the mage’s castle, and gradually she grew more comfortable with being around people. One day, just a few days ago, she had decided she was ready to stop hiding and observing and join a group of adventurers so she could grow stronger and fulfil her desires. She would become powerful enough to kill them all.
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NOTES
Scries
Bio By: CityTurtle
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