Oneshots, ideas and rejects.

1. A Dungeons & Dragons character backstory.

Aasimar - warlock
Patron: Tharizdun

Myrcella, Mercy for short, hadn't always been alone with the darkness. In fact, for a long time, everything in her life seemed to be touched by the very same light of the heavens from which her forefathers came.

Mercy grew up with her parents in the city of Rexxentrum. Her childhood was fairly normal, she suffered no real hardships and no resistance whatsoever from the universe.
Her mother and father both worked as well respected, and well paid, teachers at the Soltryce Academy, so as you might have already figured, Mercy spent most of her time there with them, roaming the halls, satisfying her wanderlust and exploring the library in search of an adventure, while they taught their classes.

However, not too long after Mercy's 20th birthday, everything changed. It started when her parents left the town to hold a small lecture in Druvenlode, a city approximately a hundred kilometers south of Rexxentrum.
Mercy received word the next day that her parents' carriage hadn't shown up and that a team had been sent to search for them, though they'd probably just been delayed by the bad weather and slept at some inn on the way.

But Mercy wasn't going to sit around and do nothing while some strangers searched for her parents. So she rented a horse and decided to methodically search the road she knew they'd driven.

It had been less than four hours when a black column of smoke caught her eyes, not too far from the road, by a small orchard of trees. A horrifying trail of off-road wheeltracks led her to the scene that would be ingrained in her memory for years to come.

The charred horse carriage was on its side, arrows littering the back and the horses, or what was left of them, was spread out over the small area like morbid and bloody decorations. Inside the carriage Mercy found her parents, burned, their remains stuck in the positions in which they'd spent their last seconds, holding onto each other, their faces stuck in grim grimaces of agony as the flames had swallowed them whole.

And there, in the black patch of grass and remaining embers of the fire, Mercy fell to her knees and screamed as loud as her vocal cords would allow her. She cursed the universe that had once treated her so kindly, asked it why it had suddenly turned it's back on her, and to her surprise the 'universe' answered.
At first it was only a feeling, a feeling that she wasn't exactly so 'alone' anymore, something she greatly appreciated, so she named it her 'angel'.
Later it manifested as noises in her head, weird markings on her skin, lucid dreams, and lastly as magic powers.

Over the next two years, Mercy nurtured her newfound powers and angel patron, and pulled further and further away from the life she once had. The small apartment in Mosaic Ward she'd received as compensation, she'd lived in for less than a year, before she left it in favour of the roads. There she worked as a sword for hire, protecting weary travellers from trouble, like her parents should've been protected.

It sounds very gallant and brave, right?

Well, in truth, Mercy simply enjoyed the thought of killing the same type of monsters that had killed her parents. And she relished when she made them suffer for the wrongdoings done by their kindred.