Orka Balmung... the Story Behind the Hero
I guess when you’re going to tell a story, it’s best to start at the beginning. Since this is my story, it all begins with me. We won’t go into what my parents named me; it was very embarrassing, and I told them that every opportunity I got. So how I rejoiced when I was allowed to choose my adult name! Then, the tale of Orka Balmung really begins.
My family is rather large, although it didn’t seem so to me, at least when I was little. The twins, Konami and Bandai, as well as Gringo, had already grown up and left home by the time I was born. Gringo is a full twenty years older than me, and the twins nearly fifty (gloamings live a long time, and so a spread out family like ours is not unusual). Then my parents, Homsar Runner and Neltatex, began breeding like cave rats, and you got my batch of siblings, or like Iluna liked to fall us, the Fab Four.
Technically, I’m in the middle of all the kids, but I’m the oldest of the cluster of the youngest, so I always felt like the oldest. And boy, did being the elder suck rothe dick. I was always different from the rest, and when my folks kept telling me I needed to be an example for my siblings, I always reminded them that might not be such a good idea. I was always wandering off; I preffered the wilds of the Underdark to the city of Sphur Upra. That little predilection got me into some rather nasty messes, but I to this day don’t ever regret it.
Iluna Taily, our sister, and the only girl in the whole group of the Runner kids, was born after me, and she probably is the sibling I was closest too. In the harsh world we lived in, Iluna was a beacon of beauty and kindness. She was always doing nice things for all of us, her brothers and her parents. I saw in her something rare and wonderful, and protected her like she was made of solid gold. She had several ex-suitors who went home with few non-broken bones when they treated Iluna less than optimally while I was around.
Nanoo was next, and he shared some habits with me. He liked being alone, although he wasn’t attracted to the wild like I was. He would read book after book, and he was very smart. I think that if our parents had let him, he would have loved to go to a mage academy somewhere. I’m certain he would have thrived there. But his temperament got him picked on by our peers, and once again, I got in trouble for picking fights in defense of my siblings.
The last of us was Rix-Rac-Room. Of all of my brothers, even the older ones, he was the one I liked least. From the day he was born, there was just something about him that I thought wasn’t right. He always seemed pretty morbid to me, and I didn’t spend much time with him. Looking back, it seems ironic that he was the one to have survived. Orka and Rix, the last free gloamings of the Fab Four.
Of all the relatives that visited us, and they were many, I enjoyed two the most. The first was Father’s grandfather, John Woo. He was old, and had long stopped his gallivanting, but he still had a spark that I saw, a feistiness that stayed with him until the end of his life. He would tell us tales when Mother wasn’t around, tales of him hunting a creature called a vampire. I had never heard of such a thing, and it gave the others horrendous nightmares of their own kin hunting them through the darkness to drink their blood. They were only fuel for my active imagination, the prey in my imaginary hunts through the shadows around our city. Mother would always stop him if she was around, telling him to leave children alone with such morbid stories. But then our aunt, her sister Jillian Decker, would wander home, and Mother and Father had a whole new set of issues to deal with. You see, Aunt Jillian didn’t hunt some imaginary undead monstrosity; she stalked dark elves, drow, a small but growing murmur in the community of a looming threat. She had seen them, seen the wickedness of their heart, and had killed countless of their number. My parents always told her that the drow were not an issue, that we had nothing that they could possibly want. But I listened to Aunt Jillian, had her tell me tales of her exploits, and now I’m glad I did, for more than once something she told me has paid off. I would like to find her again, to be able to compare notes with Crazy Aunt Jillian, but I never had picked up word of her in my travels. If only she could see her nephew now, the nephew that people said was insane just like her.
Looking back, it was my love of the wild that saved me. I was off, chasing cave lizards or some shit like that, when it happened. I came home hours later, sweaty, tired, and hungry, to see my house burning to the ground. Something fled me then, my innocence, my childhood, whatever you want to call it. It was on that day that Orka Balmung stopped being a child and became the hardened bastard I am today.
Searching the burnt out husk of our home, I found the bodies of my parents and Nanoo, all relatively untouched by the fire. Which of course means that something else killed them. Nanoo was missing all his fingers, and both of his eyes were gone as well. Father had simply been stabbed through the heart, but Mother…
After I had buried my family, and searched all over for Iluna (and Rix as well, although I’ll never admit it), I talked with the other survivors of the Sphur Upra raid. It was indeed a drow attack. My aunt was right. The dark elves were a very real threat, and the gloamings could not ignore them any more. I gathered together what provisions I could and set out, searching for my missing kin, although really I looked for a balm for my broken heart. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t die during that time, a lone gloaming, inexperienced and still naïve, wandering the Underdark. But survive I did, much to the detriment of more than a few drow.
Eventually, I found myself in Undrek’thoz, the Segmented City. It’s actually a series of cities, although I couldn’t tell you which one I was in at the time. My mind wasn’t working well at the time, and my memories of before this event are pretty blurry. Anyways, here I was in Undrek’thoz, surrounded by a race that I despised, despairing that I would never find my sister or a way to enact the revenge I so desperately craved. I stood in that deserted ally, fighting back tears, glowing like a fool, until I saw my salvation. Lying, sprawled amongst the garbage, was a drow. He may have been Houseless, or running from some angry Matron, I don’t know nor do I care. At the moment, my hatred for the dark elf race was channeled through him and him alone. As I stood there, above the passed out wretch, I didn’t think anything. Rage had so overwhelmed me that I was beyond the point of reason. I was going to kill this fool with my cobblestone, crush his head like a ripe cave melon, and Lolth herself couldn’t have stopped me. Then I looked up, through misty eyes, and saw it. The very symbol for what my short little life has become. It was a wanted poster. And it had this bastard’s face on it.
I still couldn’t speak their language, but somehow I managed to get some of his kin to show me how to find my way to collect the reward. I don’t know if this guy had pissed off the wrong people, or if it all comes down to the cruelty of the drow. It doesn’t matter. I made my way to the collection point, and as I waited for my money to arrive, I heard the beginnings of his torment. Then and there I knew that nothing I could do could punish these people as much as they can rip themselves apart. The Matron actually spoke the language I did, which is now known as Undercommon. She was a beautiful but cruel person, somewhat like the snake which I have taken as my totem. She liked something about me, and offered me more work. I don’t know if she was playing with me, or seriously thought I was up to the task. Regardless, I took the job. What a fool I was. That mark was way over my head, and if I hadn’t met Irae, I would have died.
Irae was a drow, but she was also like me. She hated her own kind, and she preyed off their petty rivalries to her own gain. She must have seen something in me during those days that she liked, because she took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. Irae belongs to a handful of drow I haven’t wanted to kill, a prestigious honor indeed. During that time, I learned to temper my hate with pragmatism, and Irae led me on to greater heights.
I spent several years with the drow woman, and we were quite a team. I made a lot of money, and slaked the thirst of my vengeance against her people. Then her past caught up with her, and it all came crumbling down. I don’t know what she did, but as soon as the lizard shit hit the cave twister she told me to back off. I wanted to help her, but she pushed me away. She was showing me kindness, of a sort, and didn’t want me to pay for her own supposed crimes. I watched her get hauled away in chains, destined to a miserable existence supplied only on the whims of her vicious kinfolk. I almost wept, for the loss of the closest thing to a friend I’d had in years. Almost.
After I lost Irae, I wandered the Underdark, collecting bounties and doing the odd job here or there, sometimes alone and sometimes with a temporary partner. I hated the drow, but couldn’t dispute the fact that they paid well. Then, the life I’d left behind found me, in the shape of my long lost brother, Rix. He was crazier than before, driven mad by his time as a slave and, later, a wanderer. But he was family. And if I had learned to work with drow, then certainly I could work with my nutso little brother. Blood ties are stronger than business ones, and together, we began to take our vengeance one job at a time. Then we met Drisinil Lhalabar, and the world went to hell.
What started as a simply escort job spiraled into a House war, and we all found ourselves tossed through a portal into a crappy crystal maze. Me, Rix, the half-way descent drow Zegal, and the drow that epitomizes everything I hate about the race, T’qual, wandered around in this dimly glowing pit for what seemed like forever. We met a tiefling monk, and a big, strong, dumb orog named Mohg. Finally, we made our way to the center of the maze, after fighting a metal badger, a strange mist that tried to kill me, and dozens of fish-cat things, we made our way to the middle, avoiding the eye tyrants and the freshly killed dragon. There, we heard about the birth of a new drow goddess, who begged us to kill her mother, the Spider Queen.
Somehow, we made it home, and Rix and Mohg have helped me start our business, the Dark Angels Mercenary Corporation. Business is a little slower than I’d like, but it’s picking up. Life is good, better than it’s been in a long time. I’ve picked up this hag that decided to follow me home, but at least she can magically change her looks so I don’t vomit at dinner. I also have some kobold outcasts who help me manage the citadel, and Drig is very lucky I haven’t fed him to Yaxx’tuarl, the hydra, yet. Rix helps us keep a healthy amount of paranoia about, and Mohg provides the muscle for those marks who just refuse to go down. I found a new partner as well, whom I call Khal’abbil. I think it’s ironic that I call a viper bigger than I am the drow word for “my trusted friend.” But the snake is a valuable ally, and more than once has his poison proved vital in stilling the struggles of an unruly mark. I still keep an ear out for news of my little sister, hoping that I can save her sweet soul from whatever hell it lays trapped in now. I can’t bear the though of her in the hands of the drow, and heaven help the dark elf I find with his clutches around my little sister.
But every night, I have the same dream. That young goddess’s words ring in my skull, and I dream of the ultimate vengeance: the death of the Lolth. The idea of fighting a goddess scares the shit out of me, but my thirst for revenge is too great. When the time comes, will I be able to follow my wits and stay out of it, or will I get sucked in, falling to my venom infused doom? I don’t know, but I need to have some kind of end. My story can’t continue on like this forever…

- posted by heavyweather @ 11:00 PM