Sherly

notes, will be written up properly later
- born into a strong family of magic-users, but she had no natural magic. for generations, everybody was born with innate magic powers so naturally she was seen as a curse and shunned / isolated by her family. particularly her father, who turned his confusion at her lack of magic into rage and anger and spent his days trying to force sherly into possessing magic of some variant; long, vicious and one-sided training sessions which doubled up as a desperate grab for any kind of elemental connections, alas to no avail
- her mother became heavily depressed and refused to even speak to sherly. she never got angry at sherly directly, more so she was saddened by the situation as a whole. as such sherly still found some kinship with her mother despite her never actually speaking to her
- mother eventually dies of a sickness, leaving sherly alone to her abusive father
- eventually sherly snaps and searches for any way she can escape, veering into the paths of dark magics. coming to the conclusion that any magic was better than none and if she had even the smallest dregs of power she'd be treated marginally better
- she runs away in search of a rainbow dragon; a giant shimmering beast said to give people one of its prismatic scales in exchange for some of their life expectancy. it's an immensely risky deal, because whilst obtaining a scale makes the wielder more powerful than they could ever imagine, obviously their life has significant years removed.
-the amount of years taken depends on your role as a person. if you're pure of heart it may even amount to no years taken, however if you're evil it may completely half it. to get to this point and attempt to obtain a scale, a number of trials must be undertaken in the dragon's name and passage through several strange realms is required.
- it's a scam though, and the rainbow dragon is actually an evil demon posing as something altruistic. it's not immortal, and feeds off of the life it steals from those who wish to earn strength. as finding it is difficult, obviously if someone truly deserving approaches it, who therefore doesn't toll their lifespan, it wouldn't have any benefit to the dragon.
- thus, the trials and territories one must cross are horrible and apathetic, requiring the pursuer to do unimaginable things to meet the dragon. this way, even the kindest of souls will inevitably face some changes in the wake of their journey, so some of their life is going to be sapped.
- but what if this chain was broken?