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From: The Town Cryer, Tuesday, February 10, 1998
Lathiari and Kyrnia
a brief biography
Born fraternal twins to wealthy merchant/scholar parents on the isle of Magincia, Lathiari and Kyrnia showed an uncanny aptitude towards the arcane arts from a very early age. Their mother, Alinae, encouraged them in this direction. She was fascinated by the two’s ability to both speak and read by the age of fifteen months. Their father, Eulin, was too distracted by the day to day affairs of business to take much of an active role.
This suited Alinae just fine, who considered Eulin to only be fit for the execution of the mundane. She was responsible for all financial matters, and the management of all books that were commissioned. Eulin provided (by right of birth) the finances that initially started their venture and managed the day to day shipping schedules. Alinae would not dirty her hands dealing with ship captains.
Their family life remained fairly stable. Lathiari and Kyrnia were brought up as any respectable boy and girl should be on Magincia. They were taught disdain and prejudice towards all peoples of the mainland, constantly had their self image reinforced, and were made to study parchment after parchment of ancient texts. By the age of six, they had stumbled upon the secrets of alchemy. After destroying a small section of the family home, Alinae hired a full time tutor from the Magincian Mage Guild to manage her children’s rapid development.
The tutor was a bitter man named Werl. He would keep the children on a task for up to twenty hours if he felt they deserved it. He administered beatings using a minor version of harm he had developed for the very purpose. This left no marks and ensured that Alinae would never be the wiser. The children learned to despise the authority he represented. Finally, after a long year, Werl disappeared. This coincided with the Children’s new pet mouse. Unfortunately, the mouse was housed in a small glass jar which was accidentally left outside one sunny day, baking in the summer heat.
Shortly after that, a squall destroyed the ship their father was on. Eulin’s body was recovered off the shore of Vesper. At the wake the Children were fascinated by the processes of decay that had rendered their father unrecognizable. They had to be forcibly removed from the proceedings when they attempted to take tissue samples from his corpse. This was the moment that the two became utterly addicted to the unraveling of the processes of death and dying.
Alinae was disheartened by Eulin’s death, yet not crushed. She clung to her children tightly, personally overseeing their development and providing them with a full alchemical laboratory when they turned age ten.
The rest of their childhood was spent working on various experiments. When they came of age the two were welcomed with open arms into the fold of the Magincian Mage guild.
They soon became powerful members of the Guild; known for their groundbreaking research regarding the manipulation of life forces. In particular, they were trying to find a way of infusing an amulet with energies that would magically protect the wearer from physical harm. If minor injuries were suffered, the amulet would detect the disruption of natural processes in the body and route a small portion of its magical energy to heal the break in the flow of life force. If the subject was hit with massive damage and killed, the amulet would (in theory) fully discharge its stored energy and revive the fallen subject. The Magincian council encouraged their research, believing that the nobility and military of Lord British’s realm would be more than interested in providing a large sum for the manufacture of said devices.
However, Lathiari and Kyrnia, consumed by the pride they had been raised with, had no desire to allow the ruling bags of fat known as the Magincian Mage Guild to steal their dream. They would complete this glorious work and determine its fate themselves. Perhaps they would even become the heads of the guild.
This was not a terribly far fetched notion. They had both reached their mid-twenties, and were in position to eventually become part of the guild council. However, their lives would be forever changed. Their mother was stricken with a terrible disease she had contracted after returning from Ocllo. Now matter what they tried, their magic and potions could not reverse the wasting effects of the illness.
On a dark, humid Magincian night, Alinae, in the throes of delirium, cursed her children’s incompetence as they frantically plied her with potions and chants. Her heart beat its last as her children prepared a warded chamber of ice to store her body.
Lathiari and Kyrnia knew no other true companion as their mother. The brother and sister were devastated by their inability to help her. They threw themselves into their work, isolating themselves from the outside world. Their mother’s body hidden, their research now turned to her revivification. As time past and their interdependence stronger, they grew closer than the bonds of Brother and Sister would socially allow. Shortly after, a scandal erupted.
End of Part one
Begin Part TWO!
They were vilified, lost all social status they had gained to that point. The council still kept them in the fold, but their dreams of wielding true power within it faded. Lathiari and Kyrnia sold their family estate to fund their experiments. They built a tower on the coast and hired on two servants to deliver them the supplies they would need. They had no use for the outside world. All that mattered was the work, which they were still unable to make a breakthrough on.
Until a humid summer night, when they happened upon what they believed was the missing element. They removed their mother’s body from the chamber that had guarded her from the elements and began the process. Lips and teeth curled around the words of power as reagents gave up their energies weaving a fine spider web mist around their mother’s motionless form.
With a ragged intake of breath, Alinae opened milky eyes and viewed a world she thought left peacefully behind. Her throat cracked as a scream drug its way from her chest. Lathiari attempted to hold his mother down as Kyrnia spoke soothingly into her ear. To no avail they attempted every means to calm down the furious wailing. Hours passed, and Alinae finally had the means to speak.
With a voice worn rough through years of silence she said, ...My body...my life...thou hath returned none of these things to me...thine pathetic magicks have rendered me thus...a crippled vessel of passions long faded...a pain that every section of my body screams...a death, desperate to reclaim me...how dare thee interrupt such blissful sleep with this mockery of form...thou wilt never taste the glories thine hearts hath dreamt...mine power is ereby resolved to see you cursed...forbidden to walk amongst others...feared, and hated....
Deep sobs left their mother’s body, a wailing mournful sound that cut through their resolve like the hottest steel. Lathiari and Kyrnia glanced at each other, and accepted their destiny. They cut their mother into many pieces, and burned all of them, save the eyes, which they had fashioned into necklaces they wear to this day.
Their mother’s words had renewed their purpose. They wished to see their experiment succeed, be easily reproducible, no matter the cost. Someone would purchase their magnificent breakthrough, the council would have to notice them, and the world would have to respect them. So what if the petty rabble turned their invention to the creation of abominations, the truth is in the act...and the act was now achievable.
As their experiments grew more detailed, and their subjects for vivisection became closer and closer to humanoid, they hid their experiments from the Mage guild. When the guild discovered that the two had been ...researching... on the corpses of fallen soldiers, they were ordered to cease all experimentation.
Appeasing the council by stating they would no longer use human subjects for their experiments, they abandoned Magincia once and for all and moved to a small estate located outside of Yew. All of their prejudices about the mainland were verified; the crowds, the stench, the creatures roaming the countryside. They felt the world would be better off if perhaps the population was controlled as tightly as herded sheep. However, they had not turned their back on their well-intended studies. The bitter pill of their Mother’s death still drove their research forward. It was at this point that they stumbled upon the ancient dark magicks of Necromancy. This proved to be an irresistible shortcut to their goal of providing simple non-intrusive methods of manipulating inherent life forces. {Although this reporter hath never seen Necromancy practiced, I have been told it is the most foul and crude of all the sorcerers arts. May the virtues protect us if it ever comes to common usage in our fine land}.
They continued their research on corpses, but, as the forces of the magicks they worked began to take hold of their impatient nature, they started to capture evil humanoid creatures. This lead to the capture of rogues, then the elderly, then the infirm, and then lost children. Their greed to control life knew no bounds. They began to experiment on themselves, using the stolen life forces of the subjects they waylaid to enhance their own abilities. Their love grew deeper, the body count grew higher, and the blood...well, there was never enough blood.
At long last the Yew council discovered these activities, and received the mandate of Lord British himself to banish these two from civilization. When they went, en masse, to route the pair, they found Lathiari and Kyrnia gone from the abode. Being a relatively superstitious lot, they left the house as it stood. Afraid of the knowledge that might lurk inside. To this day people had heard tales of the Brother and Sister’s return...only now has it come to pass.
Tueday, Feb 17
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