Life was not as he thought it would be... His already meager funds ran out within a month, and he turned to thievery to scratch out a living for himself. Soon he was taken in by an older thief, Mersyn Olan, who seemed kindly at first. Mersyn soon turned out to be a harsh taskmaster, and Louras became just one of Mersyn's modest band of thieves. but he learned quickly and so fared better than many, having a natural talent for the trade.
Mersyn became increasingly brutal however, and after some time it came to pass that louras failed him in a task... he was beaten near to death for this failure... After this Elmerth decided to work his revenge, using his talents as a thief to help the local watch to catch Mersyn.
Worried about the safety of his family and the few friends he had made on the streets, he decided for the first time to assume a disguise. He worked on the disuise and mannerisms to go with it for weeks, until he felt he had them perfect, during this time he also developed a completely plausible background for the disguise. Then Zadoc the bounty hunter went to the local constabulary with the knowledge he had accumulated about the local thieving ring.
The next morning found the thieves returning to their hideout after a night of dark deeds only to find Zadoc and the watchmen waiting for them. almost the entire thieving ring was captured, though Mersyn Olan was among the few to evade the watch.
Elmerth fearing revenge against Zadoc, and worrying about Mersyn realizing that Elmerth was not captured decided to assume another guise, this time one noone would suspect. Thus the identity of Silas Bostitch was created.
As Silas he managed to find work as a porter, loading and unloading caravan wagons. Though the meager wage was barely enough to keep him alive, the reward he had taken for turning in the band of thieves was more than enough to live on for several months.
In his spare time he practicd and perfected his new found skill at disguising himself. By this time he was 15.
Despite the fact that he lived frugally, he again ran low on funds after about a year. he needed money, and decided that there must be a need for his talents somewhere. After some consideration he decided that the regular pay of working for the rulers of the city would be the best option.
He spent weeks watching a close friend of the Lord Maanax, head of the city watch, and then spent even longer working on the disguise and perfecting the manerisms. When he was done there was naught left to do but practice, work and wait for everything to fall into place.
Then one day when Lord Maanax's friend was elsewhere in the city, Elmerth disguised himself as the lord's friend and made his way through the palace.
with little complications he made his way past the guards and finally into Lord Mannax's office. entering he asked lord Mannax if he could dismiss his guards, as he had something of vital import to discuss, something that could risk no other ears. After a little coaxing Lord Maanax was convinced to dismiss his guards.
as soon as he was sure that the guards were safely out of earshot, Elmerth took a horrible gamble. Shifting to his normal voice he asked if there was anyway the city could use his talents, removing the disguise as he did so. Of course Lord Maanax called for his guards as expected, but then he did something totally unexpected. As the guards entered he merely sent one of them to fetch someone/ Despite the guards quizzical expressions, he gave them no explanation whatsoever.
Sometime later a a man entered, whom Maanax introduced to Elmerth as Savril, before telling the guards to leave them once again. Maanax told Savril that Elmerth seemed to be looking for someone who could use a man with his talents at disguise and impersonation. He told Savril that the lad seemed to be a likely candidate for Savril's school. Savril then asked Elmerth to tell him who he was, to which Elmerth, being suspicious replied Louras, making up a name on the spot.
After some thorough questioning Savril agreed to include Louras among his pupils but, informed louras that he knew he was lying about his past. But as long as he left his past behind him he would be accepted. Louras was then taken too Savril's school, which turned out to be a small spie's guild. Louras remained at the school for over a year, learning and refining the skills he would need. During this time louras built up a sizeable roster of identities he could assume, all with plausible backgrounds, to be used in times where a new identity would be needed. In addition, magical alterations were made to his body, to make it easier for him to assume a wider range of disguises, he was made bald, for easier use of wigs, his eyes were changed, so that special lenses could be used, he was even made paler and more androgynous, so that he couldmore easily assum guises of different races and sexes, these alterations were permanent. Then one day Savril decided that louras was ready for his first assignment.
It was too be a relatively minor assignment, Louras was to go as Halardas Kelso, a coldhearted crimina,l to the Citadel of the Damned, the kingdom's prison for those who had not earned a death sentence but were simply too dangerous to keep in an ordinary dungeon with lesser criminals. Savril had found out about a possible revolt in the citadel, one that had not yet occured but was being planned and orchestrated by an unknown leader. Louras was to simply get in under the premise of being a ruthless thief and smuggler, who had been caught smuggling slaves. He was then to slowly work himself into a position of trust... setting things up so that another, more powerful agent might gain enough trust to find out who the leader of the revolt was...
Unfortuneately, things were not destined to work out that way, the leader of the revolt turned out to be Darian Rhom, the former head of a powerful criminal organization (actually still the head). What no one knew was that Rhom was actually a powerful psionicist, he could actually come and go as he pleased, but he wanted to free some of his compatriots, and was hoping to use this revolt as cover for their escape. Louras suffered from very poor luck, in coming across Rhom fairly quickly just by happenstance. Rhom always paranoid immediately probed the new stranger's mind, and found out everything he needed to know.
Seeing an opportunity to add to the chaos he dimension doored into Louras' cell late that night. Rhom attacked Louras mentally, and then worked at shattering his mind, separating him from reality and his past.
Rhom then convinced Louras that he was Halardas, that Halardas' past was real.
When the other agent later tried to contact Louras in the identity of Halardas, Halardas sent him on the wrong path. During the revolt many of the prisoners escaped, Halardas was among them.
He fled the kingdom and travelled for some time, through many kingdoms, his shattered mind clinging to the only things that were left, the well rehearsed and researched identities. He was cut off from reality, his past lost to him. He spent greater and greater amounts of time in each identity, until at last his mind started to assume some form of stability. Each identity knew about the others but assumed that it was the true one, even if it was illogical. Eventually a stronger persona arose, but this persona was that of Louras, who has no past to speak of, fictional or otherwise. Eventually Louras even managed to come to the conclusion that he had not forgotten his past due to some accident, but that his past was really hidden among all the other identities, that he wasn't the true one. He has decided that it may be best not to try to decipher it, that it might not be safe, or that he may not want to find out.
Louras adventured for some time, selling his services as a spy, or even sometimes as simply a hiresword. It was during these adventures that he earned the gratitude of a dwarven hero, who gave him his Gauntlets of Ogre Power in thanks after Louras risked his life to dig the dwarf from under a pile of rubble, right in the middle of a battle with a dragon.
Eventually his travels brought him to the kingdom of Cadwy, where he soon became enbroiled in the politics of a war. The kingdom was in dire need of advenurers, for they were facing a foe unlike any they had to face before, one that came from across the oceans, from a country so far away that none had ever heard of them, with magic unlike anyone had seen before. The kingdom had almost no naval force to speak of, at least not one that could face this foe. A neighboring kingdom, that had more merchant interests and therefore more ships sent out its fleet to meet the raiders, but they were sunk only a few days out of port, by a mysterious storm. Soon that country was overrun by the raiders, they had no way to stop them. Cadwy fared little better, they had their entire army turned to protect their flanks or cutting timber to build a navy. but they knew it would not be in time... they instead hired as many adventureres as they could to seek out an item that was foretold to have protected the kingdom from all trangressors, in days long past.
Many were the adventurers who signed up, and each adventurer in turn was assigned to a company of their fellows..each company lead by a loyal countryman. So it was that Louras found himself in such a company. After a lengthy quest trying to find out where the item might be located they finally found out where. An island complex known to be the home of a black dragon, among other creatures, formerly the stronghold of an archmage that had vanished.
Travelling to the island they entered through the dragons lair.. by going in a back waythat entered the cavern behind a waterfall that cascaded into the cavern. Despite their best efforts at stealth the dragon discovered them befopre they found their way through it's lair and into the wizards complex.
Several of the heroes nearly perished in the subsequent fight with the dragon, and even then the dragon was not slain, they merely escaped into the complex. The danger was not over however, instead things got worse, after fighting past many old guardians of the complex, including golems and guardian yugoloths, they eventually won their way to the deepest crypts, ands there found what had become of the ancient wizard that had once lived in this complex, when they encountered his demilich remains, several people were slain when that force was unleashed, or had their sould trapped within it's gem teeth. But they won past yet again.. and found the ancient artifact. A cap of an unkown metal, silver in colour and devoid of adornment except for a runes carved in some unkown language around it's rim.
The cap was tried on by the psionicist accompanying the party, that was when it revealed itself.. the cap had the magical ability of powering up any magic of the wearer tenfold, including magical spells of both priests and wizards, as well as psionics. Everything about the magic is increased tenfold, range, damage, duration amd area of effect. A fireball cast by a tenth level caster would have an area of effect of 200 feet radius, and 100d6 damage.
In the hands of the psionicist it afforded the group a quick way home.. he simply used his Wormhole power increased large enough to bring the party home.. quite by accident, as his home was the landlocked capitol city.. Caer Cadwy. The artifact has some side effects which make it quite dangerous to use but the party did not retain it long enough to suffer these, as it was promptly turned over to the King, who entrusted it to be used by the Royal Court Wizard.. and then only infrequently.
The groups adventures were not over however, they continued to adventure together, even going so far as to battle the avatar of the god of disease, who was acting on the prime plane. They then returned home to their still war torn nation. Though the tide of the war had turned it was not over. The home town of several of the party had been overrun by the raiders and was still under their control. So it was that the party led a small army of the King's soldiers to the woods across the valley from the small port town.
Not knowing what exactly awaited them in the town louras decided that it would be best if he did som reconnaisance. He clad himself in the disguise of one of the raiders and slipped toward the town.
He had in mind the central inn in toiwn which before the occupation had belonged to the brother of one of his comrades. He made it there quite easily, and managed to get a fairly accurate count of the number of troops in the town, but then things went wrong for him. When he entered the inn he walked right into a planning session between the officers and the leader of the raiders.. the officers took no notice of him but somehow the leader saw through his diguise instantly. He was captured, held by the leaders magical will.
It was during the hours of brutal torture and worse that followed
that the leader revealed himself as an ancient shadow dragon. He broke
Louras several times, each time bringing him back from the brink of death
by magic. He tormented, tortured, and even had his men molest Louras, but
Louras' fragmented mind in the end proved to be his salvation, the Louras
persona shrank back into the depths and other personas bore the brunt of
the damage, and they did not have the knowledge the dragon sought. The
dragon frustrated eventually decided to use Louras as a warning to his
allies, knowing that some allies must be around to send a spy into the
town. Louras' broken but living body was strapped to a horse and sent out
into the night.
His compatriots found him, broken and unconscious. When he came too he warned them about the great evil that resided in that town, but his warning did not have the effect either Louras or the dragon desired. Instead it fired the parties anger. Louras was beaten and afraid, he did not want to go back.. but the party would not be swayed. But the warning was enough to cause the adventurers to prepare properly. And Louras' knowledge of the troops strength inside the town was invaluable.
Amazingly, after a long session with the party priest and the psionicist louras was able to get past his terror and disgust, and he entered the town with the attacking army, many entering through the psionicist's Wormhole. After a long and hard fought battle, the dragon seeing that his army might lose revealed himself. The party was ready though, and they managed to drive the dragon off and win the town free.
As a result of these events louras now has a strong fear of dragons black in hue, and he doesn't relish adventure as he once did. He decided instead to take the title of knight offered him by the crown as a reward for his services and the land that went with it, and then proceeded to take much of his hard won treasure from years of adventure and buy up sizeable areas of property within the town where his friends resided, as well as in various cities and towns around the kingdom, all under assumed identities except for the knight status and the land grant that came with it. He then started two different enterprises, separate but linked. He visited with the King and a few select advisors and petitioned them to allow him to start a spy guild in the kingdom, loyal to the crown and in the crown's service, to train young men and women to function as the eyes and ears of the king, both within the kingdom and abroad. Secondly, Louras invested the remainder of his wealth openly, to set himself up as a merchant prince, something he has done quite successfully. He now runs his merchant interests from the tower attached to his inn, the Inn of the Weary Watcher. He is tired of adventure, having quite enough fame, wealth and hardship for any one man. He has had quite enough for now unless he again is called to action by dire events, but he will not seek out danger.
