Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Seril Thickfoot has no past to speak of. There are some distant, hazy recollections of a family, but he is no longer sure if they are actually memories, or just a happy dream concocted on one of the many nights he spent starving and freezing in one of the alleyways of Baldur's Gate.

For as long as he has known, he has been completely and utterly alone. His earliest memories are of him being beaten by older human children, usually after he tried to steal some rotted bread scraps from them, but sometimes the older children beat him just because he happened to be at the wrong place. Seril was the only Hin living on the streets (that he knew of) and tended to draw attention.

Every day was a struggle, with Seril creeping at the fringe of the homeless society of drunkards and wayward children, looking for some sustenance and warmth. The lack of nutrition drastically stunted his growth, reaching only three feet and weighing a meager 60 pounds in his adult life.

Before the end of his first decade (Seril guesses it was around the age of five or six), he committed his first murder. While much of Seril's early life is a blur of starvation, fighting, sneaking, begging, and lying; he remembers his first kill vividly.

It was freezing. Having not eaten in roughly two weeks, Seril slowly trudged through the alleyways, looking through trash bins and gutters for food. Despite the unbearable hunger, he could only move a few paces at a time, his body unable to maintain any activity for long. Wearing only a severly tattered piece of canvas he found at the docks, unable to feel his feet or hands, he lumbered along, eyes attuned to the ground.

He sees some movement in a deep shadow. Peering closely, he determines it is a human child. The human is curled in a ball, trying desperately to stay warm while he slowly chews something. Seril stops, trying to get a glance at what the human is eating. When the human sees Seril, the boy quickly rolls over, trying to hide his meal. Seril, however, got a look.

It was a rotted rat, probably dead from old age or disease, and the boy was attempting to eat it raw. Seril watched the boy's back as he bit and chewed the rat's tail. At first he was revolted (one of the rules of survival were to not eat already dead vermin), but as he watched the boy munch on the rat, the pangs of hunger were tearing Seril's innards, demanding his attention.

With a labored breath, Seril moved closer to the boy, ready to try to beg a piece. The human child had no intention of sharing however, and delivered a swift kick to Seril's ankle, causing the halfling to fall.

As Seril lay in the filthy alley, clutching his bruised ankle, trying to summon the will to crawl away and trying to subdue his hunger through will alone, he noticed an odd reflection just a few short inches away from him. Crawling forward, he slowly grabs it, looking around to ensure the human child wasn't still watching him.

It was a piece of shattered steel, only a few inches long, but the end tapered into a sharp point. Clutching it tightly, Seril slowly stood and turned to face the boy. Summoning all of his nerve and energy, the hafling hobbled as quickly as he could to the human.

The boy heard his approach, and attempted kicking Seril again, but this time Seril was ready, the Hin throwing his weight forward to collapse on the boy.

Seril brought down the piece of steel repeatedly into the boys face, frantically trying to kill him. Only through sheer luck he landed his final blow into the child's throat.

Exhausted and terrified, Seril simply laid silently, trying to absorb what he had just done. Curiously enough, he did not feel guilty. The only thing that worried him was the thought that the other human children would discover it was him who performed the killing.

Summoning the last bit of energy, he quickly grabbed the half-rotted, half-eaten rodent, and tried to pry the bit of steel from the boy's throat. Between the weakness of starvation, the numbness in has hands, and the slippery blood, he couldn't extract it. Giving up, he trudged further down the alleyway until he found decent shelter in a doorway.

Collapsing to the ground, he slowly brought the rat to his mouth, and numbly began to dine on his reward.

A little bit after his first decade (Seril guesses around age 12 or 13), Seril is doing much better for himself. Apparently another child witnessed his murder of the boy, and word quickly spread that Seril was insane. The other children feared and loathed him, and tried to avoid him at all costs.

Seril did nothing to try to allay their fears. All he knew was that he was able to walk the alleys without fear of being beaten by the humans, and he relished the fact that when he turned down an alley where other homeless kids were scavenging, they quickly cleared out, leaving whatever scraps they were collecting.

Seril, now surviving, began to grow stronger. He started focusing on skills that would earn him food. He learned to muffle his footsteps, look someone in the eyes and lie coolly, and how to work his way around the cheap locks that the temples used to ward drifters from storage closets.

Seril was getting along.

One particularly bitter night, Seril found himself breaking into what appeared to be a run-down house. What he discovered inside, however, shocked him. It appeared to be a warehouse, but there was a large intricate shrine adorned with a mask.

As he wandered around, looking for food or something he could trade for food, a hand suddenly gripped his arm and threw him roughly on the floor. Before he could react, Seril was pinned by someone.

"Not too rough, now!" a deep voice exclaimed. "I think we could use this one. After all, he did shimmy the lock."

Seril tried to see who was speaking, but his movements where met with solid crack on the back of his head. Darkness followed.


When he came to, Seril was lying in a warm bed with a pounding headache. He immediately started to rub his temples to try to alleviate the pain.

"Good, you're up," said the same voice from before. "You've got some nerve, Hin, tryin' to rob the Lord of Shadows."

Seril focused on the voice, and spotted an ancient human sitting on a chair beside a roaring fire. Not knowing what to say, Seril just stared.

"Luckily for you, Mask don't mind a bit of daring. Unless, of course, you get caught," said the old man, grinning. "What's your name?"

Seril continued to stare, refusing to speak.

Sighing, the old man leaped from his chair with surprising agility and slapped Seril harshly across the face.

"You're name. Now."

His head reeling, Seril replied, "Seril."

The old man slowly moved back to his chair, and smiled.

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Urias. You're probably wondering why in the hells some old man put you in a bed after catching you trying to steal."

Seril tries to interrupt him, but Urias holds up his hand, motioning for silence.

"Well, boy, I have a use for you. I'm getting too old to keep up me trade, and I sure as hell ain't going to let my little shrine keep me from turning a profit."

Seril cautiously nods his understanding.

"You run my favors, and you get a decent bed and fire at night," Urias continues. "It's a simple deal, and I'm guessing you don't get too many of those."

Seril nods again.

"Good. For now, rest a bit more. I'll set you up with an errand to run tomorrow."

Seril rolled away from the old man, but couldn't rest. His mind was a frenetic mess of questions. Is this man serious? Who the hell is "the Lord of Shadows?" Where am I? How can I get away?

As it turns out, Urias was the resident keeper of a small shrine to Mask, where he also operated a small-time fence and smuggling operation. For five years, Urias tutored and beat Seril into a proper theif, teaching him the finer points of fighting, stealing, lying, and moving about unnoticed. Urias also taught Seril his numbers and letters, as well as common trade languages and cant.

In the fifth year of his arrangement, Seril woke to find that Urias was dead, apparently having died peacefully in his sleep. After a quick search of the house, Seril found a small stash of 1,000 gold. Without a pause or second thought, Seril left his home for the past five years, with his dead teacher left unceremoniously in his bed, to find an opportunity.

In Seril's rough, nearly impossible to read script:

I've got a job. It's small-time, but it'll get me out of the city for a bit. Some old man wants me to kill wolves. So I did. Not a bad amount of jink, considering. I ran into some bandits out there as well. They don't seem too well organized, just a bunch of thugs that attack whoever is near. I cut them down easily.

There were two bandits, however, that were different, and seemed to go about trying to shake me down smarter than the others. They were in a cave I went in to check for loot. One had a crossbow, and the other was weilding a rather large sword. They demanded a fee for passage. Naturally, I stuck one of them for trying. Killed the crossbowman. The sword guy knocked me out though.

They were idiots to stop me, but they were idiots to try it the way they did. The bowman should have been hiding out of sight, ready to attack. Instead, that moron was standing next to me, making silly threats. I must remember that if I get the opportunity to run my own bandit group. I should probably find out what competing groups there are for such a business. Urias may have taught me how to gut and sneak, but he was a hermit with few contacts, and didn't impart much to me in the way of politics.

In Seril's ragged script:

I happened upon a potential business deal today. A wizard named Kadri was looking for an escort into the Banite temple. Apparently she was looking for some rare book. I gave her a quote (I believe it was 200 gold per hour), and she laughed at me. I am quite comfortable with a bit of negotiating, and I quoted her high expecting some haggling. Then this fool, Khalil (stupid name.) undercut me massively. Of course, the mage accepted his terms.

I got them back, though. As that idiot Khalil was busy blindly killing gnolls outside, instead of focusing on the simple task of looting a temple, I snuck in and stole everything. I'll be damned if that bastard will take business away from me.

In Seril's ragged script:

My mother? Is it possible that the woman I met was telling the truth? She mentioned that it was my father's idea to abandon me, to force me to become strong.

I don't know what to think. I mostly want to cut out her lying tongue, but what if she is telling the truth? If she can prove it, then I'll kill her only after I learn more about my parents.

Apparently my father is some kind of well-respected thief in Gullykin. The woman claiming to be my mother instructed me to go seek her out. I will at the first opportunity.