Creature Story: The Marpen – She was a cute rare small marpen that got out of her village when she was young. Since marpens lose their memory once they leave their village, she doesn’t remember parents or any kind of family Just that she had to survive. Being black was making easy for her to hide from strangers and as a marpen, or should I say as a cat, was flexible enough to roll and hide. She was only 16 years old when a wondering old bard found her and raised her as his own child.
She learned many things from him, but her voice wasn’t as good as his so she was mostly doing the performance. She lived for dance. Dancing and hiding were her best abilities. She wondered with Brook, her “father”, to many towns. Some of them friendly, others not so much. In some towns they were welcomed by the people and they were making much money by performing at the streets or for some rich people. Nice hotels, warm food and many stories were waiting for them at these towns. Rumors and legends from all over the known world were told to the bards, to make epic songs for them. In other towns though they could hardly get any jobs at all and people were trying to get rid of them. Poor hotels, rotten food and hate was there for them. There were rumors to some places that bard were capable of learning huge secrets by getting you drunk and they were stealing legendary items. The m ore hate they would found, usually the more dark and scariest secrets the people were hiding.
After 20 years Brook died cause of old age. The small marpen, small even for her kind, 1.26m tall, was left alone in the world again. Unfortunately marpens and humans don’t age the same. Only way for her to survive was to get accepted to some kind of community or become to be a mercenary. Cause of her skills and size, she was accepted to a small thieves clan. Not a great place to be but she did learned the basics of stealing, hiding and walking silently in the dark. She worked 3 years for them but everything was too easy for her. She had to evolve her skills and become better.
She moved to another, bigger town, not so famous for her safety. Thieves and assassins were freely walking around the town. She managed to get into one of the top three clans. There among others she learned the art of assassination. Small little lethal cuts ware her signature. As the years went by the cut became bigger, since she learned how to use scimitars. She never thought she would become an assassin. In her heart she was always the little performer that was fascinating the crowds with her singing and dance. Now she was a performer with two scimitars that could take a giant down by dancing with her lethal blades.
After 14 years in the clan she was trusted or should I say feared by most of them. Only 6 people were not afraid of her, the Leader and the 5 commanders. Fearful men who would do anything they could to get what they wanted. One day they were assigned with a mission to steal legendary weapons from another town. They couldn’t get into the room of the divine ones but they manage to get very good weapons from the room before it. One of them was “Dominic”. A legendary bard’s harp that it was said no one had ever revealed its true power. It was standing at the right far end of the room, close to a window. The light of the moon was giving it a divine form. Dark and light blue merged together to combine one of the most wonderful harp the marpel had ever seen. She knew that weapon had to be hers no matter what. After they took the loot back to their base she immediately asked her Leader to get the harp. His reaction was to give her one small dagger shaped bookmark and told her she had yet to prove herself to get a harp like that. She stormed out of the room in anger and pain for being told that after 14 years she was not worth of having a better weapon. She looked at the moon and promised she would get the harp even if her only weapon was a dagger shaped bookmark.
Later that night they had a feast. The music was wonderful and the food plenty. Everyone was happy about the loot they got and they money they would get once they would sell them. She put on her nice clothes and joined them. After a couple of hours everyone was drunk and full of food. That’s when she started. She got in front of the boss, in the middle of the room, and started dancing. Exotic, erotic, seductive dance. No one could escape. She start singing too. A song no one had ever heard before. After a while most were sound asleep and the rest so tired and fatigued they could hardly move. That’s when she made her move. She cut the throats open of the guards next to the Leader and went next to him. Then she whispered in his ear “I’m capable of killing you with just a bookmark, but I won’t”. She put the bookmark in his spine, broke the little bones and run. Went to the safe room, got the harp and run away under the light of the moon.
She only had the harp, her ornaments, her scimitars some gold and of course her bookmark. She used most of the gold to get new clothes and disappear to next town. After travelling through towns she managed to get to Marna. She had to get into a ship either as a mercenary or hide in one of them since she had no money left. With no money at all, and only her fear for the leader following her she would do anything to get into one of the seven ships that would depart that day.
Author: Optexy
