A Brother Terrance Backstory

(For additional information and spoilers: Terrance's Character Sheet)




We start this tale with the story of a woman, an altmer at that. Raised to be healer, but ended up where she is now: Starved to death in a wet abandoned cistern, with fleshfly larva writhing though the flesh that the skeevers had gotten tired of feasting upon. You may be asking yourself: "Why? How did this happen to a young altmer who was trying to become a healer?" Well allow me to regale you in such a tale.

Her family was noble, her friends aplenty, her courtships numerous and abundant in taste. She was no large girl, mind you. A rather normal-sized female altmer, with brass hair and golden eyes. She was not famous nor well known, but happy in her humble little life with her family and community. When it was time to marry, she had the perfect man imagined: Young Raegar. At only 2 years older than she was, a height as tall as the clouds, a build defined by hammer and chisel, and a heart to melt the coldest ice he was the perfect match. But sadly, in these times happiness can never last. They had only been wed a mere 7 years when he was called to battle alongside his kin. He never managed to return, and his greedy family came in his stead to take all which he had owned. All which our protagonist had.

...

The room was filled with brutish men, donned in leathers, claiming to be employed by the family. "Take everything! The vases, the paintings, the food, the gold, dammit even take the fireplace. Clean this place out!"

"Please! This is all I have, you have no right to take it! It belonged to him, not you!" she pleaded

He backhanded her away "Begone, wench! You're naught but the crazed old widow of a dead forgotten soldier. You'll find no sympathy here."

...

She was left with nothing. Well... almost nothing. There was but one thing that kept her from taking her life during that time. Her beloved husband had left her with a final gift before his last departure... A son.

Though even she knew that she could not care for the boy or live on as the healer her family wanted her to, or that she could even reach out for help. And so she, with her last bit of strength, snuck into a ship headed for the Isles and stowed her final possession below deck. She did not know if would survive the voyage, or what would happen when they found him, but she could not do anything else about it. So she was forced to sit there and watch as the vessel with her boy sailed into sea, and her life away with it.

And that, is where our story begins.

On an unmarked vessel, recently landed in Shimmerene.

"I don't want it, you take it." said the hulking she-orc as she thrust a baby altmer wrapped in cloth into the hands of another shipmate - an female altmer deckhand.

"I don't want him either but we've got to get him out of here before the captain finds out. You know what she does to stowaways!"

"She'd never do that to a child, an infant at that!" the she-orc retorted while gesturing to the baby mer in the altmer's hands

"She finds it easier because they break quicker and scream less" the altmer responded with a straight face

The she-orc grimaced and paced for a few moments, before angrily huffing and responding with "Fine. We'll take it to a-a temple o-or an orphanage or something."

Which is where the New Sun dawned. A group of long-excommunicated followers of Auriel who had become quite radical in the belief that it was their duty to cleanse the world of evil. They had already kidnapped another 34 unfortunate children into their twisted "Orphanage" and were about to find their 35th candidate: Tahromir Gaius. Firstborn son of Raegar Gaius, deceased. Under care of Elaneya Gaius, deceased. Given into hospitality of the New Sun orphanage.



Tahromir was given good care for his first few years. He was clothed, bathed, fed, and loved by his caretakers as any regular baby should be for a time up until only after his 3rd birthday.

That is when the trials began.

"Try harder, you dog! They'll never develop if you wimp out on them! Let me see that." *SNAP*




The room was filled with similar sights, and drowned in a deafening chorus of crying babies. The caretakers had found that the youngest of the children had finally reached a suitable size for their methods to begin, and started with strengthening the brittle bones of the children. Mostly by snapping them in half and waiting until they healed. Such a brutal scene could make even the toughest warrior want to vomit, but these fanatics were too hard-set on the future to even think about the scarring they would incur on these infants. Thankfully, most of them passed out early into the trauma, but out of all 50 babies ranging from years 3-5, two of which never awoke. Not having accounted for the situation where one or more subjects would not survive, the mentors did not know what to do with these corpses, and eventually ended up tossing them in some corner under a blanket and ignoring their mistakes.

Another soon died from the breaking of bones, and was thrown under "The Cover" as they called it, for they now began to suspect this occurrence would be much more frequent if the measly children could not even survive this.

The brittle-purge ended when Tahromir turned 6. That was when the kids were given a small break to heal and adjust to their hardened bodies, before the next tests began... The skeletons of the children had already been engineered to perfection, now what they needed was to root out the weak of muscle. Of course these fanatics were not stupid, however. They knew that children could not be trained to gain any significant amount of muscle at such a young age and instead tested them by their inherited strength. Meaning the strength they naturally attained through genetic means, and planned to throw the weaker-bodied under "The Cover" which now had a reasonable size to it. Which also served as a fine warning on the way out to children who thought they could be so smart as to escape.

The first trials ended far more successful than the mentors had ever planned, Tahromir had reached the age of 8 by end of it. Through numerous trials of speed, strength, agility, and might the children were slaughtered systematically one by one until only the most able bodied with most potential remained. There had only been two attempts at escape during this time, and they were both made a horrid example of by being tossed into a larger, more effective replacement for "The Cover" alive. A pit of starving skeevers infested with fleshflies dug deep into the ground in front of the entrance served as not only an effective trap for escapees or lost heroes, but also a fine disposal for the 'weak' as the mentors called them. Next came further, more intense and intellectually intensive training.

The secondary trials ended when Tahromir was 10. The children were older now, and so the mentors only thought it necessary to challenge them to their fullest potential. This included, but was not limited to: Putting candidates into a narrow corridor with one end leading to safety behind their mentors and the other end being quickly encroached upon by a pack of hungry wolves, forcing the children to hold a heavy rock above a wire which when tripped would release a blade to instantly decapitate them, placing the children in a glass tank of water for a set amount of time, gradually increasing each week by 1 second up to a time of 2 minutes, fights to the death (or for non-physical candidates no-sleep nights, which entailed a night of no sleep to 'focus' their minds before intense mental work), and of course unnecessarily rough beatings. At this time the mentors thought that the remaining candidates finally deserved a reward for their efforts. And by reward I mean further trauma and unnecessary scarring.

The rune process finally came to an end when Tahromir was 11. The 'runes' varied person to person, but worked all the same. These 'runes' in all reality were dark ritual done to body to give it protections from the work, by carving magical enchantments ordained individually by their chancellor into the flesh of the child. The bodies of multiple children were forced to endure being carved like pigs "for their own safety", and some did not ever recover from such injuries, as their mentors thought they deserved a few too many 'runes'. Common runes included resistance to poison, disease, fire, fortification of health, magicka, stamina, or a magical art. From now on, they would be graduated from the position of candidate and be referred to as "The Blessed Few" by their mentors. Though they would not be very blessed for long, nor would the mentors, in all reality. For when they summoned upon the chaotic powers of Sheogorath, they failed to realize that they were dealing with an actual God of Madness.

The thorough destruction of the entire New Sun cult was a simple 5 years flick of the wrist from the Mad God. Tahromir had only turned 16 when he finally left that accursed place. Over the course of this five years flick the remaining Blessed were either killed by their mentors, killed their mentors, or killed themselves. Only 5 had remained, one of which finally managed to escape premature to the arrival of chaos in the cult. How you ask? Well through all of this conditioning, the Blessed had eventually lost all hope of escape or salvation and soon accepted their horrible life in this cave. All but one. She had been smart and cunning enough to forever hold a grudge against the mentors for taking her life away that she endured for 10 years in their care and when she in wait to be runed, she set her plan into action and escaped before the mentors were able to finish on their current subject and give chase. Though sadly, she had already been traumatized and marked by this place so her salvation was not in sight and she was alive, so she was still one of the Blessed Few.

The survivors were all given names based on what their purpose to serve the Mad God was. Each was given a challenge in life, all of which were of course impossible to achieve. Orion the Fickle was tasked with becoming supreme ruler of all Tamriel. Craven the Coward was tasked with collecting every last coin in the realm of Tamriel and beyond. Brutus the Beast was tasked with slaying the mightiest warriors in the all the furthest corners in the world, when challenged, he could not deny. Tahromir the Accursed was tasked with giving his fellow Blessed a year of freedom before setting on his final quest: Killing the Blessed Few, which of course included himself. Roselia was never given a task, nor a title, for she was the lucky one. Lucky enough to prolong her life, if only temporarily.

It had been a mere 14 years since Tahromir had been freed from cultist prison, and in that time he had made extraordinary bounds towards excellence. He had been alone for the majority of the time, stealing forbidden books from libraries and keeping to his own studies in hermitage. Strangely though, you would think one studying to kill 5 powerful warriors would train in the art of destruction, perhaps alteration to bolster their favor, or even illusion to cast a few tricks to turn the tides to their favor. Instead, Tahromir had trained even further into the arts of restoration and had even gone out of his way to help numerous travelers who had been down on their luck. He quickly learned that his name, Tahromir the Accursed, was not entirely favored by locals, and so he went under the identity of a common priest: Brother Terrance. Under this new guise people took him significantly more, but more importantly it meant his fellow Blessed would not recognize the name, or at this point the face. He had also learned that his scarred and mangled body was not a pleasant sight to many, and so he covered every inch of his skin in cloth. While this restricted the power of his runes, he found it was worth the loss. And finally, after some time, he had found the location of Orion the Fickle's warband.



"Hop to it lads! These bodies won't burn themselves, ya know!" Said the large man sitting upon his crooked throne over the people he had tyranny over.

"S-scuse me sir?" spoke a rather wilted young man from behind the throne, adorned in the common armor of the warband.

"Wot? Spit it out, lad!" Orion yelled, clearly impatient.

"Oh, er- apologies m'lord. The lieutenant wanted ta speak with ye is all, sir. I can lead ya to him if you should wish?"

"Blasted maggots, all of em! I'll tend the fucka meself, before I slit his throat with me teeth!" The monster said as he stood up and began to Storm off. But he did not make it too many steps past his throne before a sharp metallic sound was heard, similar to the sharpening of steel...

Orion turned around and as he expected, yet another of his followers had smartened up enough to try and stab him in the back. The poor boy looked up to him with wide eyes, in denial that the stories of Orion the Fickle were true: that he had been stabbed in the back so many timed before it had healed to callous as hard as steel. He made quick work of the whelp by snapping his neck and throwing him into the burn pile. "Damned boys will neva learn, I tell ya..." he mumbled as he continued storming off, dead set on killing the lieutenant regardless of his involvement.



Orion's rule was not one of glory, nor infamy or honor. Instead it was a tyrannical rule over the few poor souls who wanted to live longer than they should have. Many easily realized that death at his hand that long ago would've been far preferable to life they had now gained. Due to this constant life of suffering, the warband constantly had rebellions and never grew above a certain size, which also made it very easy for a friendly local healer by the name of Terrance to join and save more lives than had ever been imagined in the place.

Due to Terrance's constant ability to save the lives of his soldiers, he quickly gained the personal eye of Orion. Orion had promoted Terrance to the highest position available after 3 years. A time not many could live through in the warband. And during a personal officer meeting, Terrance struck.



"...and Gart, your team will head along the southern road here to cut off reinforcements, while Ancaril's squad will be ready with bows in the forest to kill escapees and deserters. Do I make myself clear?!" The warlord yelled among the table which was surrounded by his closest and most trusted officers, which had grown significantly since Terrance's arrival.

"Yes M'lord!" The whole table shouted in unison, well... not the whole table. There was one soul who had kept quiet, and for the first time spoke up.

"A question, M'lord?" Asked a large robed altmer aside the table, who had been masked and quiet throughout the meeting.

"Huh? Out with it Terrance, I don't have time for this!" The big boss retorted

Terrance nodded, and began making way over to Orion as he spoke "If we were to instead send Ancaril's team to support the struggle in the north, we would lose a significant amount less of our troops and therefore make the option of killing newcomers available rather than forcing them into servitude, greatly decreasing the required amount of time for the raid as a whole" as he spoke Orion, seemed angered to be questioned at first, but soon saw reason in the change, and nodded in understand. Relaxing himself a bit... Terrance continued "If there really are any who dare to try and escape your wrath the forest will slow them long enough for us the pull out before anything were to happen, and we'll be out of the burnt town by the time of the dawning of the New Sun."

Orion suddenly lurched forward and turned directly towards Terrance, who was right beside him at this point "What did you say?! I would slit your throat right now if not for your-" the grimace on his face dropped as he was interrupted by a blade in the gut. The room stood silent, the other officers did not move, and silently mourned the loss of their best healer for they knew that none could kill Orion. But Orion did not struggle, he did not flail, he simply dropped limp to the ground, spitting up blood and leaking gore from the stomach.

Terrance bent down, a wicked smile on his face and spoke softly "You don't remember me, Orion? I was the one you used to love so much, your brother, your companion, your punching bag, your pincushion. All of those fine memories, yes?" Orion simply responded by spitting up more blood and attempting to weakly crawl towards him with a burning rage in his eyes "So then you do remember? That is good. It's shame you never completed your task, the master will certainly not be happy with that. He will happy with me though, he always has been. That is good." he stood up and smiled down at the bloody pile of flesh that used to be Orion the Fickle, turning to the officers "Burn everything. If you know what's good, you'll burn yourselves too."




And so it was Tahromir that had infiltrated the ranks of Orion's warband was put an end to his tyranny, putting himself closer to the end of his final task.

Next on his list was Brutus the Beast. It was not difficult for him to follow the immense trail of destruction left in his wake. During his travel in this path of death left by the monster, he had already hatched a plan to defeat him. Brutus was tasked with killing the strongest warriors of Tamriel, and would no doubt eventually meet his fate at the hands of one such heroes, but Terrance was not willing to wait that long. He saw that only one able to match the power of Brutus, was Brutus himself. And so he concocted a powerful scroll to summon the shade of Brutus and challenge him, for he knew that Brutus was cursed to accept any duel, no matter to challenger. When he finally arrived at the encampment of Brutus, the man had changed much more than he expected in their time apart...



The Golaith's body was covered in a managerie of magical symbols, clearly brandished out in the open as he swung his battleaxe through the assailants. It would seem a small party of so called local 'heroes' had thought they were strong enough to best this beast. The gargantuan orc stood tall and bursted with muscle and rage as he cut them down like shards of grass. His eyes engulfed in red fury and his shape glowing with runic power as his bloody weapon cleaved around him in a beautiful dance of gore and death. The black-robed and masked mer stood at the sidelines of this battle, watching the beauty of this monstrous creation at work.

After a rather short, but bloody battle, the hulking orc stood triumphant over his attackers. A pool of crimson and entrails decorating his surroundings. He turned and noticed the blackened mer standing on the edge of this red clearing.

"You! You challenge Brutus too?! You small, you be crushed quick! Run away while still have legs!" The beast shouted over at him, though really, Terrance was not all that much shorter than Brutus. Not as bulking sure, but they were almost the same height.

The mer smiled warmly at him "Oh, fear not mighty one. I am not here to challenge you, instead I have brought someone who can truly challenge your skill. Yourself." Terrance pulled out the scroll and summoned the shade of Brutus, a monster that mimicked his every gash and scar.

The shade was a ghostly purple, and was surrounded by a black mist. It spoke simply "I challenge you."

Brutus winced as his thick skull caught realization of the situation and his curse was invoked. His head snapped to Terrance "You not small man! You big cursed one! You no kill Brutus! Only Brutus kill Brutus!" he shouted in rage as the thundering goliath charged the shade.

It was a beautiful sight. A clash of titans, dark and light. The shade sidestepped the charge and attempted a swing of his own, only to be parried by the enlightened giant. Which then counterattacked, and stuck a heavy blow in the torso of the shade. Brutus smiled at his work, but was too distracted to realize the first of his shadow from the side. A loud boom was heard as the first connected with the monster's head and threw him to the ground. He turned up to see the shade's dark axe descending onto him and quickly rolled out of the way, back to his feet. Still dizzied, the titan ran headfirst into the shade, pulling out a sword he wielded like a dagger and stretched his arms out behind the shade, thrusting them back towards him and breaking the spine of the shade, forcing it to become nothing but dust. Unfortunately, his powerful thrust was not stopped by a weakened shade's form, and the blade continued on it's immovable course into the chest of the Beast himself.

Terrance said nothing to him, only watched with a smile as nature took it's course on Brutus' feeble bleeding body.



And so it was Tahromir that summoned the shade that killed Brutus, putting himself closer to his final task