Dark Elf Hunter [Obsidian-ranked Adventurer]

Among the black sheep of Elven kind, those whose ancestors swore fidelity to the Demon Lord and subsequently followed the same path, a Dark Elf who did not follow the Demon Lord was an even greater outcast than their brethren. The common people did not trust the Dark Elves and had no way to truly tell apart one who served the forces of chaos and who did not. It was common enough knowledge that their kind came to be after serving the Demon Lord, and with very few turning away from that path there were never enough exceptions to even begin challenging that rule.

The Adventurer's Guild, however, didn't care about one's origins. As long as there were those willing to pay for their services and those willing to provide said service, they had very little reason to refuse anyone or turn them away. So having a Dark Elf in their employ was no more stranger an addition to their rank than any other non-human, although the rareness of their joining was comparable to their High-born cousins.

One such Dark Elf joined the Guild half a year ago, in a frontier town close to the ocean. Born to a standard Dark Elf couple, a young boy was only a few years old when a lesser noble's forces razed the village he was born in. All the villagers who took up arms were slaughtered and left to rot in the open. The rest were immediately enslaved under the noble's rule. Among the man's collection of slaves, even they were particularly reviled and despised, used for the jobs and tasks that even the lowliest of human slaves were not subjected to by the cruelest of masters.

Of the 30 or so survivors, almost all of the men and children died less than a month in "service". The women, those not **** into hard labor, only survived longer as outlets for the lust of the noble's soldiers, subjects, and even the other slaves. But after 6 months, only one Dark Elf remained. He was not, however, unscarred by the experience. The noble, finding the boy's survival an offense just as great as spitting in the face of the Gods, regularly tormented the youth in any way that would be called barbaric. At least, if the subject was considered "human".

The result was the young Dark Elf losing an eye, a good portion of an ear, several fingers on one hand, and an entire foot cut off an inch above the ankle. His body was also covered in a great deal of scars of varying shapes, sizes, and kinds. Scars from stabbing, cutting, burning, and other sources adorned his back in a manner that left very little of it unblemished. The rest of his body, while covered in many similar scars, did not come close to rivaling the sight on his back.

At the age of 15, he had finally made a move against his "lord" after years of careful observations and planning. It was perhaps luck alone that ensured it remained a success, for so much could have ended his life with a single misstep during the night he set fire to the noble's castle. But when everything was concluded, the lord lie dead in the **** chambers with a makeshift knife stuck in his throat and many of his men (servants, slaves, and soldiers alike) trapped within a burning castle that claimed most of their lives.

The remaining villagers suffered from many hardships as a result of the young Dark-Elf's escape for many months until their village was destroyed by an invading horde of Goblins. But by then, the child was long gone and living in the wild where he remained for the next three years.

He would not live in the woods alone, however.

After about a week on his own, the 12 year old encountered a Blind Huntsman. The Huntsman was quite old for a human, but that did little to handicap him with his profession. Being blind, he had no way to tell that the young boy who began living in his preferred hunting grounds was a Dark Elf, he easily picked up that he was non-human. Not that he cared either way.

In combination of respect for the youth's solitary lifestyle and self interest in keeping the kid from unintentionally interfering with his own life style, the Huntsman decided to teach the forest's latest addition enough for him to live off the land on his own efforts. Although "teach" might be too strong a word, as most of the hunter-to-be's education consisted of watching the old man do something without explanation at any given point and be expected to mimic it on his own shortly afterward. Considering that the Huntsman rarely ever went out of his way to provide anything for the Dark Elf, it was almost constantly a sink or swim struggle to adapt.

And no, the Elf did not try to take or steal things from the old man: he learned that lesson rather painfully the first time. He liked his arm better when everything moved the right way, thank you very much.

Beyond that, the Dark Elf held a begrudging respect for the Huntsman and the fact that he was never cruel just for amusement. Sure, the Huntsman got a sick riot out of how he once got his (thankfully fake) foot caught in a trap, but the old human himself was rather off and got a laugh out of just about any self-inflicted misfortune no matter who the victim was. What the man did not approve of, however, was causing misfortune on others simply for the sake of one's own amusement. The boy never bothered, or cared enough, to learn why.

The Huntsman had tolerated the Dark Elf in his woods for 3 years before exclaiming that he'd learned enough and he was no longer welcome in the woods before being chased off with several well placed arrows that only narrowly avoiding inflicting a killing blow.

Three days after being shot off, the Dark Elf learned that the woods had caught fire. And the Huntsman was likely plenty dead by that point.

Unsure whether to make out the act of the Huntsman chasing him off as one of compassion or not, the Dark Elf Hunter simply shrugged the matter off feeling that it ultimately didn't matter why the old man did what he did. The Huntsman, despite the manner he went about it, ended up saving his life. That alone was worth a feeling of gratitude and a few minutes spent in a gesture of something resembling a prayer for the old man to find peace.

From then on, he spent most of his time moving from village to village, doing whatever odds and ends he could to get by. Since a great deal of villages couldn't afford to hire Adventurers for every little thing that required an extra hand or two, the young Hunter was rarely without some form of work no matter where he went, although it was more than a tad annoying how most would promise payment but not own up to it. The worst offenders denied him anything at all, leading him to take his rightfully earned compensation by ****. Very few payed him the full amount, and the best he could hope for was often half of what he was promised.

After enough travels, he had picked up word of a newly established (as in a scant few years ago) Guild sending out word to attract new recruits to their ranks in response to a sudden quest requiring as many hands as they could get. The reward offered for such a quest could easily afford 2 dozen Silver-Ranked Adventures, but the Guild lacked that many Silver-ranks and was **** to try making up for the loss with numbers. Even then, they felt they didn't have enough and put out a call for others to join in and become an Adventurer with what promised to be a decent payout for everyone involved.