Charles Henderson II descends from a family of wealthy bankers and financiers who operate within the Red City of Ves, whom at an early age saw academic talent within Charles and enrolled him in a leading academy for financial education. He spent his teenage years many miles away from his parents in Ves, which lead Charles to grow distant from his family whom never visited Charles in his academy dorm during his study there. His parents were consistently busy in the city and insisted they had no time for such trivial visits.
The deprivation from such kindness and love severely affected Charles, leading to a absence of empathy. Even when he was based at his prodigious home in the inner-city, Charles still felt the cold shoulder of his parents, which grew more frequent after the birth of his first sister Mae when he was aged 10.
At the academy Charles was sociable and active in many extra-curricular groups such as Foundation Alchemy Training, Intermediate Merchant & Shop-keeping and Chess. Through these groups, Charles befriended a popular student in his third-year of study named Trelywn. Trelywn was a young High Elf born from even nobler backgrounds than Charles. Like Charles, Trelywn expressed a keen interest in the power of money and nepotism, constantly participating in discussions with Charles of how important wealth and influence can be as well as sardonically debating with scholarship students akin to poorer upbringings. Charles was motivated by what he and his friend discussed, he felt a sense of power and determination to further his fortune into greater wealth which propelled Charles into his studies and further academic success.
In his fifth year of his studies and Trelywn’s penultimate year, he invited Charles to join a private elitist sect within the academy. The sect had no name but members could only be invited by a mass vote from the current members who could only be identified to the naked eye by a golden tie clip that resembled an outstretched arm with a fistful of coiled snakes. This sect had been established over 340 years ago, back to when the academy was developing its own personal image. The sect served the mantra that “Money is power” and the members felt a strong sense of entitlement because of their wealthy backgrounds. Charles was presented with 3 Acts, where he would need to prove himself to other members of the group before he could be formally recognized as a member.
Act I, was sought to prove Charles’ academic ability, gaining entry to the academy was not enough, in addition to this, parents could donate sums to the academy for less academically endowed students to gain admittance. Charles was tasked with the entirety of the sect’s weekly study tasks. In which he toiled day and night for the week completing 12 2,000 assignments, a brief history of the currency: Mina, a speech to be given on tax fraud and a report on the sects spending behavior that term. Charles successfully completed this task although his temper was sparked during dinner on the sixth day where he threw a goblet at the head another student who mocked his tired appearance.
Act II, sought to prove the power of money and wealth to Charles if he didn’t already firmly believe so. The sect planned an outing to pass through Suffonia to a small a mining village located 15,000 steps South of the Academy premises. Although the sect did not travel by foot, instead 3 lucrative horse-drawn carriages took them to their destination. Each had brightly colored cloth trims coating the exterior of the carriage, while the interior was clad with expensive metal trims and decadent silk couches. In each carriage a large sack was found with a large bottle of Elven wine and nuts, at the bottom of the sack there was a small vial which Trelywn gave to Charles, who rode in his carriage. The vial contained a small forestall plant that Trelywn called Shadeleaf, a hallucinogenic plant. Trelywn told Charles it was traditional for the challenger to drink a vial containing essence of Shadeleaf before Act II began, insisting that it would make things more merry and would enjoy the Act much more than his previous task. Charles complied by emptying his vial into his mouth for all in the carriage to see, chants were sung in his name and laughter filled the carriage. One of the members from carriage behind Charles opened the door and leaned out before drunkenly ordering the carriage-driver to begin the journey.
The ride was smooth and soon they found themselves at their destination. They pulled up outside a small bank on the town’s periphery and the members emptied their wine into their mouths before stepping out onto the well trodden path into the town. The members gathered in a circle with their tie clips in hand and raised their hands together until the fistful of snakes was pointing to the sky before pocketing their clips and beginning the briefing. Trelywn hushed the members laughter and remarks about the disgust they felt for this Entrath and its people. Trelywn added that this Act was one to demonstrate their inherent superiority over the people of Entrath through the power of wealth. He then returned one of the carriages and momentarily disappeared before emerging with a full leather sack that seemed to contain a lot of weigh as Trelywn grasped the neck of the back tightly with two hands. He then tossed the bag at Charles, who recoiled from the weight grabbing the bag hastily to avoid it dropping on the floor. Charles looked through the bind at the top of the bag and saw minas, lots of them. With a wide grin on Charles’ face the rest of the members felt the excitement and ushered Charles along to begin the challenge. Trelywn shouted to the drivers to remain where they were for the next 2 hours before catching up with the rest of the group.
Charles was inebriated, hallucinating but ultimately enjoying himself, the members would usher him towards people before proclaiming a task followed by a reasonable sum of money to facilitate such. Charles firstly had a man get down and shine Charles’ boots for 50 minas, then Charles sloppily kissed a married woman for 200 minas and finally Charles broke every window in a small shop selling mining equipment before paying the owner 300 minas and tipping off the local guards 60 minas each, who came to address the loud spectacle. By this point Charles was having wavering hallucinations where he could not even describe the woman that he had kissed, much to the delight of the others who teased him about her unpleasantness. On the way back to the carriage Charles had to stop and empty his stomach, he ran into a long and thin alley and vomited on a window ledge. The others came charging in, cheering and praising Charles, carrying his arms around their necks and walking him further into the alley. The jubilant chants and jeers from the sect were not unheard and a homeless looking half-ling further down the alley slowly came to his feet and began to shuffle away from the group. One of the members spotted this man and loudly beckoned for him to return so they could pay him money for acts of entertainment. The half-ling did not bother to look back and continued shuffling away from the group which angered the group. Charles felt wave of imbalance as some members charged past him knocking him and those supporting his arms against the mossy walls of the alley. When Charles looked up, a few members had caught up with the half-ling and were talking to him in a patronizing manner.
One of the members rushed back to Charles and gleefully told him that the Halfling would be willing to fight him for 100 minas. Before Charles could formulate a sentence, Trelywn took Charles’ arm held it in front of him. He then cast his hand behind his back and seemed to momentarily struggle to find something, in his drunken and hallucinogenic state Charles mumbled incoherent questions at Trelywn before he produced a small dagger that had emerald stones embedded in the hilt. Trelywn gave the dagger to Charles and told him in case anything happens, you can use this for protection. Charles didn’t know what to say as he was mesmerized by the shiny jewels and reflection of the blade. Trelywn beckoned the other half of the group over who in the meantime had been riling the half-ling up for the fight. When Charles could fully make out the dwarf he scoffed and pointed up his finger where he proclaimed he could defeat this half-ling with only one hand. The others seemed to love this idea, encouraging the Charles to begin his attack on the puny man they saw before him. Before Charles could ready his drunken stance, the Halfling charged and knocked Charles to the group where he began to frantically bang his hands down on the chest and face of Charles. The group who were initially in hysterical laughter when Charles was knocked to the ground quickly silenced themselves and rushed over to the half-ling who was still unleashing a flurry of punches down on Charles and grabbed his arms lifting him off the floor and holding him back. Charles took a minute to come around from such a viscous primal attack and sat up staring at the assailant. Charles was bleeding from his mouth and nose but paid no attention to his wounds, he was fixated on this half-ling. Charles began to heavily hallucinate while staring at the half-lings dirty ridden face; he began to see images of his fathers face scowling at him which would then transform into his mothers face laughing at him before shifting again into his younger sisters face which took on the merged voice of the group and began to spout what they were saying “Come on Charles, get on your feet!”,“I knew we should’ve left this boy in the academy”,“Just ******* hit him Charles!”. Charles grew with rage and it was visible, the voices of the members began to slow as Charles climbed to one knee, tightly grabbed the dagger and got to his feet before he hastily walked up to the half-ling being held back by the group and stabbed him straight through his throat.
The members holding the Halfling let go, leaving the Halfling hanging off the ground held up by the impaled dagger still tightly gripped in Charles’ shaking hand. After a moment of dread and silence, Charles lowered the dagger and the halfling slipped off, collapsing onto the floor of the alley covered in blood. Trelywn took the dagger from Charles and sheathed it before calmly but firmly telling him that they must go. The group hastily returned to the carriage convoy, leaving the Halfling’s body in the alleyway. The group made no time for goodbyes and ordered the drivers to set off immediately. The group made a stop-off at local brewery on the way back to the academy and bought more wine for them to celebrate with. While the festivities continued all the way back, the group did not mention the fight or what had happened but appraised Charles for ‘purging of the poor’ as they saw it.
After the incident, the group decided not to impose an Act III on Charles but as a reward for such ‘devotion’, they gave him full entry to the sect and Trelywn gave him the dagger he wielded on that fateful day. It was later revealed to Charles that Trelywn’s dagger was a family heirloom but as it stands he has used it more effectively than he ever had and so Trelywn found it befitting for Charles to hold possession of the blade.
The remainder of academy life was much more quiet for Charles, he still attended the sect meetings and festivities, he was shown admiration and prestige from his fellow peers who saw him with his sects tie clip and he successfully graduated from the academy at the age of 18. Charles never saw the members of the group again as those before him had graduated and returned home to work within their family businesses or even branch out themselves hoping to become successful like their parents before them. Charles chose a different path and spent little time at his parents residence before moving out of their inner-city home and travelling to the city of Helena for pastures anew.
