barefoot_

Yothac grew up isolated from his people, having only his parents and siblings (17 total) to socialize with. His parents were strange folk, twisted by greed entirely. They decided long before Yothac that they would pursue the rarest minerals at any cost, having children only to help them labor towards that goal. Before they went on this journey, they lived in the city of Kal’Nerroth, with Yothac’s father spending most of his life mining. He was relentless; to him, there was nothing more precious than tunneling and finding hidden ore. One day, though, he decided he had enough. He decided he had worked far too long, for far too little. So, he set out with his wife, leaving Kal’Nerroth behind. He wanted to find a land untouched by others, where he could mine freely and take all the glory. While searching, they found an entrance to a cave, seated at the side of a mountain. They explored it a bit, and they were very satisfied. It seemed to have endless corridors, never-ending. They had decided, “We will settle here”. So, they went deep into the cave, and then they went deeper, and then they went deeper. And they kept going, eventually building transportation from the entrance to the deepest point, in the form of mine-carts and railways. They permanently settled into a very large “room” within the cave complex, and made it their home. But, that was only the beginning. Then, the real work started. Mining day and night, day and night, making new tunnels, going even deeper and deeper into the land. They found only mediocre success, and it wasn’t enough for either of them. They wanted true riches, true wealth, unwilling to settle for mediocracy. What was their solution? To have children. They thought of the idea and saw free slave labor, in essence. So, they went on to have 17 children. These children were worked to the bone and developed incredible resilience, knowing little of comfort or the outside world. Their parents however, were incredible satisfied. They had finally found what they wanted, they started to see an abundance of riches (in the form of raw minerals). There was such a vast mining system between the family, going day and night, working and working. The parents? They had practically had gone mad. They became twisted by their success, and hoarded the materials, wanting more and more. You’d think they’d just retire, right? Wrong. They didn’t want anybody to know about the fertile land they’d come across; they wanted everything they could possibly get, and they wanted it all for themselves. Well, growing up in such an environment, the children became extremely twisted as well. Full of anger, full of sadness; there was no point to life. Eat, sleep, work. Eat, sleep, work. They mostly were very stunted in development, knowing only the fundamental things necessary to fulfill the unquenchable desires of the parents. But, there was one that was different; his name was Yothac. Sure, developmentally speaking, he knew basically nothing of the world, or of normal life. But, he had a very, very sharp mind; he also had an unbreakable resilience. Hoping one day, things would be different. Unlike many of his siblings, he never gave up on that hope, and he fought through every day, trying to survive til that one “magical day” that things might be different. And just as he had hoped, the day had finally come. His parents very, very, very rarely ever left the mines, but sometimes they’d just have to leave out of necessity, to get supplies and what-not, having the children continuing to work in their absence. This was one of those days, when they were going out for supplies. Now, he didn’t understand what it meant to leave the mines. His parents never told them where they were going, nor what they were doing. As you can imagine, they were kept “in the dark” about such things. But, out of curiosity, he followed them this time. He was very careful to make little noise, and to trail a good ways behind them as to not be seen. Eventually, they all made it back up to that great room where they had first settled. See, his parents would store the supplies there, and live deeper into the land, inside of the mining tunnels. It wasn’t unusual for them to go up to that room, but it was very unusual for them to leave the mine completely. As he watched, he saw them getting into the mine-cart and rolling along the rails towards the surface. He decided himself that he would follow the rails, walking barefoot ((you saw my name, you knew it was coming lol)) along the tracks until he finally reached the mouth of the cave, seeing daylight for the first time. It was there, that his journey begun.

((Hope you liked it, pulled this story out of absolutely nowhere, took about 2 hours to write this xD)) 

((Just saying, I’m not trying to use this story as an excuse to power-game, although naturally he’d have resilience from surviving something like this, I won’t overplay it at all, if ya get what I mean))