I was just a child when my world became fucked up in an unimaginable way. I used to live on the edge of the Hollow Forest, widely known for its Shadar Kai inhabitants. We lived in a small, two-story house, made from the bark of the black trees that lined the forest; it had just enough rooms for two bedrooms on the second floor, a kitchen, a small gathering room, and two small personal rooms that I wasn't allowed in. My father, who's name I never learned, was half Moon Elf, or so my mom used to say. My mother, Elysen Umbrinil, smelled of morning dew with a light, sweet vanilla, she was a noble Shadar Kai woman who chose my father over her clan and their traditions. Exiled by her own people and mistrusted by my fathers, we were forced to live on the outskirts of the forest. The first and only memory of my father was him leaving us one day; he claimed it was to persuade the Moon Elves and Shadar Kai to leave us in peace, apparently neither mom or dads families wanted to allow us to live as we did. When he didn't return, mom locked his belongings into his study; barely a day had passed before mom's sister came to visit. My grandparents had passed away and my aunt was now head of the family, with my father gone she offered us limited protection from both families. Years would pass, and life would continue in peace for a little under five years.

 During those five years, I wasn't the perfect child, a half breed of an exiled noble. I was too young to have a job and mom couldn't keep up the farm by herself, so I started taking what we needed, no one seemed to pay me any mind, aside from the dirty looks and sneers I got every day. I only stole from those bastards that openly mocked my mom, who were they to look down on us for our situation. During the days I didn't go into town, I secretly spent my free time in my dad's study; it turned out to be a small library with a secret basement that led into a large training area, it stretched underneath the whole house and then some. According to the books and weapons in this area, his family trained as soldiers disguised as farmers, using every day farming tools as weapons. I combed over every page of text for hours on end; I even practiced with all the different farm weapons, only one tool came naturally to me, the scythe. It was like it was an extension of my body when I swung it around; thankfully, we had books on books about the proper techniques for using a scythe as a weapon.

 Everything worked fine for a few years, mom and I got by with what we had, then shit hit the fan. I wanted to show her how much I appreciated her, but nothing in town felt right, as if nothing was good enough for her, then a caravan stopped and checked into the tavern for the night. A queen and her son from a neighboring nation were headed to a council meeting of some sort, I wasn't paying much attention to the words being exchanged, I was busy eyeing the black and blue stone hung around her neck. That night I snuck into their tavern room, being humans, I knew their senses were lacking compared to my own; I knew I could get in and out before they even had a chance to snore, so I grabbed the necklace from a small jewelry box and headed home, most dumbass thing I've ever done. I swiftly moved through the night, arriving home before the sun greets the land. My childish arrogance finally caught up to me; my mom loved it, and I told her I found it in the ruins just a few miles from our home in the woods. She scolded me for the reckless nature of my venture, but she wore the necklace with a soft smile and remarked that it reminded her of a necklace dad had given her when I was born. I wish that moment could have lasted forever. Abruptly, the door was blown away and a group of mercenaries quickly clamored into our home, overpowering us and shackling us together, they knocked us out.

 When I woke up, we were in a dungeon of sorts, with some sort of auction going on above us. Mom and I were dragged onto the stage together and sold to an old human farmer, being only nine at the time, I couldn't do anything but go with him and my mom to his farm. He acted like he was going to be good to my mom and myself; I knew he was lying, the same way all the elves, halflings, and humans back in town used to lie to me, sarcasm and condescension oozing from his voice. My mother was never allowed to be unshackled, she was forced to do all the housekeeping, and I was forced to farm, sunup to sundown, and I slept in the barn with the animals. The only upside to this was being able to practice with his farm tools as I would my own, but only at night in secrecy. Every day, for the three months he kept me, I would see all the bruises and scars accumulating over my mom's wrists and body, powerless to do anything, I knew I just needed to bide my time. Just as quickly as I had been purchased by him, he sold me to two robed figures, who collected me mid trance one night.

 This time, I was taken underground and placed in a shithole with dozens of other people and creatures. They put us all in one big arena, they would experiment on us, testing different spells, potions, poisons, and drugs on all of us. If we ever proved useless or weak, they'd set up a deathmatch, free-for-all and only the few left standing at the end of the day would be allowed to stay and continue through the torture. Many times, I watched as plenty of other slaves would let the beasts eat them, unable to will themselves to fight, knowing, ultimately, it was all for not. It was several years before I was in a deathmatch. I had grown resistant to all but the most lethal drugs and poisons, and I no longer felt pain when they would lash or break parts of me, devoid of emotion and reaction to all of it; the feeling of just being utterly fucking numb to everything. My first time in the arena, I knew I wasn't going to feel any pain even if the beasts mauled me open and dragged my intestines out before devouring me, I was ready to let everything go, but something grazed my senses, an aroma I hadn't consumed in many years, morning dew and sweet vanilla. There was a strange pulsation through my veins as I reflexively held out my hand, calling into existence a scythe, seeming to be made from darkness itself. I proceeded to slaughter every living creature in the arena that day, no hesitations, no remorse, just the sweet scent of blood filling the air as bodies slumped and thudded to the ground one after another, several headless corpses lay around me, and even more had been disemboweled. My owners had taken notice, as this had only happened twice before, but never this gruesomely. 

 I was no longer a simple slave like the other livestock around me, I was ne'er tortured anymore, as I was expected to help enact the cruelty that I had previously been subjected to, onto others. I saw this as my chance to earn their trust and use this miscalculation against them when they least expected it, but first, I needed to learn more, more about their magic and how to utilize it for myself, how to make their drugs and how to hide the evidence it was ever created. My initial awakening was as a shadowcaster, but as I stalked them during testing and research sessions, and I practiced in private, I managed to learn their blood magic. I continued to gain their trust, had I been more naive, I would have thought they had shown me a miniscule amount of respect; eventually, I was doing whole tests and lab cultures on my own, no supervision, no secondary help. Nine years, it had been for me as a slave, first to the filthy shithole farmer, and then to these grotesque cunts, the time for revenge had come. During my studies, I managed to find the perfect drug, Dream Mist, normally inhaled to produce psychedelic effects, placing the subject in a state of euphoria; completely untraceable when mixed into a drink or soup, ingesting causes immediate body convulsions, followed by severe and sudden heart attack and rapid muscular dystrophy. I placed an enchantment of my cup before dinner that night and poured us all a glass of Dream Mist infused ale. Witnessing the violent convulsions alongside their meat bag bodies, withering away to nothing, at the time, it was the most enjoyable thirty seconds of my life. I was free!

 I spent four months and three weeks tracking down my mom and that pig of a slaver. I was going to rescue her, and we were going to go back home, live the way things were before I fucked up our whole lives that night almost a decade ago. I was going to make it right! I had tracked him all the way back to the same goddamn shithole, he never left. I waited for nighttime, it was a new moon, it would be all too easy in that abyss. I made my way to his room and beheaded him with one swift swing of my scythe, but something was missing, searching the house, I found no signs of my mother. I had begun to think, maybe he had finally sold her off too, but, as I stepped out of his house, I spotted a faint light in the barn, as if it was lit by a small lantern inside. The imagery of the scene that night is burned into my skull for eternity; there in that barn, bound and gagged to a support column, completely nude, legs spread wide with the words "cum whole" written on her inner thighs with men of all races and sizes just taking turns, shoving their filthy dicks into her vaginal holes, and ejaculating inside her, a sign hung over her 5 gold per round and underneath those words, tally marks, totaling forty three marks. I dragged my feet and the tip of my scythe across the floor, causing the crowd of men to part in acknowledgement of my arrival. They were silent as I approached, all except for the dwarf standing on a stool, drunk and fucking my mom like it's the only pussy in the world he's ever going to get. I rested a foot on the back of the stool, reached around, inserted my fingers in his pissing drinking mouth, and ripped his head back, launching him over my shoulder and barreling into the ground with a broken jaw. Benumbed, I stared at my mother's used body, semen leaking out of her, a puddle formed on the floor, drugged out of her senses, she smiled at the sight of me, "Lucian, my son, you've come home," she said, causing the rats around me to snicker at her words. One of them placed a hand on my shoulder and rattled some nonsense about waiting my turn for my dear old whore of a mom, at the same time, the dwarf had managed to get up and stumble his way back over to us. It seemed as though he was about to have shit spew out his mouth, but he quickly fell back on his ass, as the heads of all the men around me rolled off their bodies and splashed against the floor at once. He began to scramble backwards to try an escape, but I wasn't going to let that happen; I spun around in chopped his dick clean off him, and then left him to bleed out like the pig he was. Turning back to my mother, I had no words to speak, no thoughts to bear, only sorrow filled my being. She spoke incoherently to me, as my bodily instincts drew my blade from the bottom of her vulva, up and out through her skull, cutting her clean in half as her blood and entrails mix with the bodily fluids of all others that night.

 I buried her the next day and traveled town to town, seeking out those like my slavers, and torturing and then murdering them mercilessly. I would not allow another person to go through what I had in my life, if that meant killing nobles and royalty, then so be it. This was the beginning of my journey, and the events that would lead to my building Spider's Keep.