------------- Tales of the Silver Gryphon - Shadow Agent

Her father was a great wizard, a hero of his people, but he was defeated by the Gith during the War of Tryskellias, imprisoned and then released as part of the peace accords, or that's what they'd like you to think. In truth, he was captured, tortured, experimented on by the Illithid, and sent home, a thrall to their terrible wills. As a spy and agent of darkness, he fathered at least three children. The mother, poor elven girl, died in childbirth with the last. To have more than one child places a terrible strain on elven women. Two or more is rare. Five or six is all but unheard of. Sooner or later, the poor girl will die.

But I digress. She was the middle child. Her father went back to war and was killed, quite unexpectedly, in a minor skirmish along the border with the Orcs of the Wildlands centuries after the end of the War of Tryskellias. The three children were taken in by an aunt, a woman of no small wealth, who cared for them as her own. They grew to love her, or rather some did. She apparently did little more than tolerate the old elven matron. She was never happy as a child. Her life was always marred by tragedy. Her younger brother, whom she supposedly loved like no other living thing, died under mysterious circumstances. After that, she became sullen and withdrawn.

As an adolescent, she began to develop strange powers. It is all but unheard of until recent years to find anything but a planar that has the ability to tap both magius and psyche at the same time, but here she was, barely one hundred and already casting spells and manifesting psions like a trained apprentice. It was clear she had natural talents, so she was sent off to the towers of magistry in Foxmoor. This was, of course, after they were rebuilt and Glensheim, the Dwelf, had assumed the throne. At any rate, her instructors could barely keep up with her thirst for knowledge and power. And the administrators could barely keep up with her attitude.

Somewhere in her second decade at the magistry, Shang made his move to eliminate all the major threats in his way before launching his main attacks in the Second Orc Wars. She somehow managed to be out of the towers and far enough away to watch his Death Storm level Foxmoor. She was reported lost, of course, but turned up unexpectedly in Southgaard around the end of the war, miraculously, still alive. She was one hundred and fifty at the time. That was nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.

She's been quite active and quite popular amongst the Sylvisan families. She has a reputation as a shrewd negotiator, a brilliant strategist, and a wily game player, but no one has ever accused her of anything criminal,… at least not that could be proven, and none who did lived long afterwards. It was always assumed she had some jealous suitor, or fifty, knocking off everyone who tried to sully her good name. Now we all know better. Now we know the truth. Now we know why the shadows were always so heavy around her.

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