Atlas | Artifacts | Bestiary | Calendar | Classes | Factions | Faiths History | Language | Myths | The Games | PBeM | Psionics | Spells
PCs NPCs Maps Calendar Post Archive Old PBeMs: The Darkening The Game	Something Stinks! I think It's Kale. The Player Characters Myriam Walker Follow for more information on Tokiwa-Dai. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, one would think that Myriam Baeker had everything. She did, but that also included the nightly beatings from her father. Starting almost at a time when she was too young to remember, they began. YOU DIDN'T EAT ALL YOUR FOOD! YOUR ROOM'S A MESS! THAT'S NOT WHAT I TOLD YOU TO DO!... Myriam felt small, and the smaller she made herself, the easier life became. She learned how to walk around the house without making a noise, shrink into the shadows in a little ball to avoid being seen by her drunken father, and take what she wanted/needed without being noticed by the others. Her mother was her only source of comfort, but Myriam hated her mother too, for never stepping in and stopping the abuse. At the age of 13, Myriam was married off to a business partner of her fathers', Bengt Strom. She was so happy that she was finally out of that household she actually broke down into tears (which her father later beat her for, misunderstanding her happiness with displeasure at his decision). Things were fine in the beginning. Then, slowly, measures of control were added to her life. The desk with the extra spending money was locked up. She had no key. Her good clothes were all locked in the closet until she was told what to wear. All of the books were stored behind the locking screens of the office bookshelves. Her husband would leave, sometimes for several days at a time, and lock her in the house for her own protection. It was when the beatings started that she began to get desperate for a way out. She began to plan a way to escape. In her husband's absence, she learned how to open the locks in the house to get what she needed. Before the books were all locked up, she had started to teach herself to read. After they were locked up, she continued her self teaching. The day she was planning on leaving her home, her husband came home early. She thought she had all of her supplies hidden, but evidently, she did not. At dinner that evening, her husband confronted her as she was bringing the dessert to the table. She doesn't remember much at that point. All she remembers is fear, pain, anger, and the awful cry of a human burning alive. The cherries a flambe must have fallen on him and he caught fire. She ran to the door, out into the night, and never went back. She feels horribly guilty at the death of her husband, and she believes (rightly or not) that the law is chasing her down. Over the years, she's been a beggar, part of the beggar's guild, sold to a whore house, a whore (that didn't work well as she nearly killed the man who tried to touch her), semi-adopted by a warrior woman who liked the kid's spunk, and a trail cook for a caravan duty the warrior woman worked on. All through her adventures, she's tried to keep an eye out for how her mother was doing. When she finally heard of her mother's death (an accident at the house) she snuck into her old estate and robbed her father blind. This is how she managed to afford the equipment she now has. All the left over gold she had stolen, she gave to everyone who had been nice to her along the way...leaving little packages inside their doors, on their beds...with just a note saying thank you. The only thing she kept from her father's was her mother's old ring. She knows it's dangerous to keep it, but she want's something to remind her that she will not just sit quietly and let a man ruin her life. Since then, she calls herself Myriam Walker, because she's managed to actually walk away. Myriam's caravan stopped at a small village in the mountains. She was glad to have a break from cooking and even more happy to get further away from her father's domain. Her mistrust of men wasn't helped much when four drunk villagers decided to have the cooking wench and followed her past a dark alley where they drug her in and attacked her. She fought well, but was outnumbered and overpowered. To her rescue came a charp looking wemic, half-man/half-lion, who succeeded in scaring them men away without so much as drawing his swords. Myriam was angered that she had to be saved form men by another man, or male anyway, but relieved she wasn't harmed. She stared into the eyes of the wemic for only a second, and knew he was a creature of honor. She ran away, leaviong the town behind, into the wooded area around the village. Barely a day later, she saw the group of men who attacked her, along with a horse of others, hunting for something in the forest. Afraid it was her, she kept hidden and outsmarted them while they searched. feeling good about herself, she soon realized that it wasn't her they were after, but the wemic! They captured the creature and set up campf rot he night, getting drunk to celebrate and speaking harshly about what they'd do to the lion-thing. That night, as the men got drunk and slept, Myriam crept up to him and freed him, smiling a shy, yet knowing grin and running off into the night with the wemic. She learned his name was Taro, and he swore to protect her whenever need be. The two decided that, at least for the time being, it was advantageous to travel together, at least until they were far from the men of that village. Several days later, as the two travelled southwest, they came across a large group of people, some humans and elves, a dwarf, a gnome and a minotaur, among others. One man seemed to be performing a spell on the body of a fallen comrade. The morning was rainy and the group didn't seem to notice the two as yet.