Ghera Quietseam - Crystal Harvester of Emberveil

Introduction

Emberveil does most of its work sitting down. Names are whispered into bowls of warm ash. Relics are mended by lamplight. Scrolls are written in script that does not smudge, and the mist outside the doorways swallows sound so completely that a visitor can stand in the middle of the village and hear nothing but chimes of bone and glass and cooled lava turning in the damp. It is a quiet place and it is proud of being quiet. Then, every few days, somebody comes up the dirt path from the northeast with her sleeves rolled, her forearms shining with fresh scald, and a wooden frame on her back packed with straw and moss and something inside it that throws faint light through the weave. She does not sit down. She drinks about two pints of water without speaking, sets the frame on a bench, and goes to wash. That is Ghera Quietseam, and she has just walked five hours back from the Emberflow Springs carrying the only thing Emberveil sells that has to be taken by force.

Profile

Name: Ghera Quietseam
Race: Genasi (Earth)
Gender: Female
Alignment: Neutral Good
Role/Class: Crystal Harvester of Emberveil
Challenge Rating: 1

"The ground never hands you anything. Whatever you have, you took. Be honest about that, and be quick about the cutting."

Appearance: Ghera is broad through the shoulders and short in the leg, built low and heavy the way a body ends up when its working posture is a crouch. Her skin is the deep wet grey of river stone, threaded all over with hairline seams of pale mineral glass that catch lamplight and give her the faint, disconcerting look of something that was broken once and set well. Her hair is coarse and black, hacked short with a chisel edge because heat ruins anything longer, and her eyes are flat dark with no visible whites, the sort of eyes that do not hand a fire back to you. The scalds are what most people actually notice first: pale glassy patches across both forearms, the backs of both hands, and one long stripe up the left side of her neck, healed smooth and shining. She dresses for the springs and not for company. A sleeveless leather over-tunic gone stiff with mineral salt, thick canvas beneath it, a folded ashcloth wrap at her throat that she pulls over her mouth without breaking stride, heavy padded gloves hung at her hip. On her feet are sole-boards, slabs of hard wood strapped over her boots and worn through in the middle, for standing on ground that would cook leather. She smells of sulphur, wet rock, and the bitter green of steeped bloodleaf.