necromants | history writeup

ZVEI

Zvei suffers from total amnesia. Approximately twelve years ago, he awoke in the forests of Ize-Vti (an isolationist nation that is home to the deimori, Zvei's people) and was turned away from the capital, denied entrance. From there, he journeyed east to the territory known as Western Emirre, where he learned to heal and fight with magic.
While he did retain some baseline knowledge of the world around him, he had to relearn quite a bit. He spent the next several years in a flurry of studying - both to catch up and to try to jog his memories. The latter did not work, but the former did.
As a member of an exploration team, he journeyed throughout the western continent, climbing through difficult labyrinthine structures known as the Aeli's Branches. The Aeli - the World Tree - is the source of all life in the world, but that also includes monsters and as such, the Branches are dangerous and unexplored - so very lucrative to those willing to risk their lives.
Zvei took this opportunity to learn more about magicaeli; magical stones made up of the crystallization of life energies and magic innate to all beings, known as mana. His studies involved a lot of death - both intentionally killing his party members and allowing them to be killed by monsters in order to test his theories. He came to be known as "the Necromancer" because of his association with death and his skilled healing magic.
Word of his research and talents reached a powerful guild in Emirre (the much larger nation on the eastern continent) and he was sought out by Talys, a man from Ruby Dawn. This guild wanted his talents in finding a way to break the barrier around the Aeli, to finally allow people to explore the island it lies on, as it had never been successfully breached before. Zvei was eager to accept and joined up, becoming an Operative of Ruby Dawn, a rank that allowed him tremendous freedom in both his research and funding.
Said funding went toward gathering further types of magicaeli, and while the leaders of Ruby Dawn weren't all that happy with how quickly he was blowing through their money, he did manage to find a way to pierce the barrier around the Aeli, using seven particularly powerful pieces of magicaeli that had been formed from the very tops of the seven Branches.
Ruby Dawn mounted an expedition of the World Tree, with Zvei accompanying them. Though he'd been more than eager to study the magicaeli for his own ends, breaching the Aeli's barrier and gaining access to the World Tree itself was a goal he could work with - after all, the Aeli is essentially one of the gods of his world, and what better way to ensure he could regain his memories than to give himself the power of a god?
So during their exploration, Zvei found a weak point within the Aeli's structure and quite literally merged himself into it using those seven magicaeli he'd collected (and been allowed to hold onto).
One of the few people he'd call a friend, Fiona, stood up against him first. She'd always reached out to him and tried to gently coax him into being a little less weird and a little more of a person, but ultimately here and now she just looked saddened by his betrayal. So he killed her, snapping her neck with the Aeli's tendrils and forcing the others of Ruby Dawn to fight him, with the intention of killing them all.
Lorraine, his other friend, managed to subdue him and yank him free of the Aeli with minimal injuries or damage to the World Tree itself. This was mostly due to just how long he was merged with the Aeli (approximately twenty minutes), as if he'd actually had access to its power for any longer, the very world might have been in danger.
The expedition was deemed a failure, given that several members of Ruby Dawn had died to Zvei or had gone missing even before he turned on them. Lorraine had guards stationed to keep others from exploring the Aeli and had Zvei thrown in prison.
And for five years, that's more or less how things went for Zvei. Lorraine occasionally came to visit for information about the magicaeli or other things that Zvei could help with, but otherwise he was kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to use magic, or do much of anything.
Due to his temporary connection with the Aeli, the World Tree was able to reach out to him and speak with him in his mind - and the Aeli had a worrying message to relay: someone was within the Aeli's core and was attempting to seize it from within, just as Zvei had done. With all the gods dead (accidentally killed by breaking the barrier, something none of them realized they were doing, whoops) the Aeli had no one left to protect it, and no one else could hear them. So they reached out to Zvei, and Zvei reached out to Lorraine, and she reluctantly agreed to investigate. The Aeli insisted that Zvei should come with them, and Lorraine finally agreed to that as well.
Zvei warned her that if given half a chance, he'd try the exact same thing. He wanted his memories back, that much hadn't changed after all this time, and this was still his best shot at reclaiming them. If he could, he'd merge with the Aeli again and finish what he started. Lorraine said she wouldn't let him have that chance.
Ruby Dawn once again entered the Aeli, and this time found that Talys, one of the leaders who was presumed dead after he went missing within the Aeli in the expedition five years ago, was the one behind all of this. He revealed that he knew Zvei would be the key to breaking the Aeli's barrier and goaded him into all of this as a means of destroying the gods so that he could permanently take the Aeli for himself - and unlike Zvei's attempt, he'd accomplished a perfect transformation within the past five years. He claimed that this was necessary - that this world was not the real world and was merely an illusion created by outside forces and that the "real" people were sleeping. Everyone else was simply a fake created for this world. He had no choice but to destroy this world so that he could force himself to wake up in the real world and return to his life.
(Zvei could almost remember something somewhat similar to what Talys was describing... but he's not sure if he believes the man or not. Regardless, it doesn't matter now, does it?)
The Aeli was unable to fight back, so cue boss battle. Though Talys was defeated, he was unable to be fully separated from the Aeli, and was thus cast into the lifestream. The lifestream, the source of all mana in the world that originates through the Aeli, would claim him completely and he would eventually be reborn, but likely without his memories. A victory of a sort, but not a complete one.
While discussing this, Lorraine stabbed Zvei in the back. She reiterated that she wouldn't allow him to betray them again or make use of the Aeli in the same way, and he accepted that he was going to die. The Aeli did not, however, as it had grown some weird fondness(?) for him and brought him into the lifestream as well. Though he did die, his death within the lifestream means that he too will be reborn, though maybe not as the same person he was in this life.

IVILEZLEI

Ivilezlei's origins are unknown. What is known is that he was raised by a deimori in the capital of Ize-Vti who planned to hand off leadership of the Veiled Order (an organization of assassins) to him. Ivilezlei was trained and groomed for this role, which involved heavy amounts of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse growing up.
Not allowed to have any sort of feelings that were considered a detriment to his future position, Ivilezlei ended up both with the empathy of a rock and with an emotional range to match. His stunted emotional growth left him struggling to connect to others, so he mostly served a Ziiral's shadow.
At least until Ziiral stopped showing up for meetings. It was fairly obvious what happened, but Ivilezlei took over the Veiled Order and no one questioned him or his missing father figure. He was around 19.
Only a few months later, he ended up running into one of Ize-Vti's barrier-keepers, Syzi. The man was a cheerful ball of sunshine and an unstoppable force of nature who decided to befriend this weird, feral gremlin in demori form, and somehow the two of them ended up getting along well.
Syzi was patient and understanding with Ivilezlei, trying to teach him about feelings and empathy and morality, and eventually the two started dating. Ivilezlei decided to disband the Veiled Order.
All went remarkably well for around four years, but a malfunction in the barrier brought that to a sudden stop. Monster attacks throughout the city claimed Syzi's life, leaving Ivilezlei lost and unsure of how to move on.
Eventually he did manage to find a way to keep going, deciding to become a better person and try to fill the gap Syzi left behind. He was recruited to serve as a spy for Ize-Vti, gathering information from the surrounding nations to bring back, and he did so for another two years...
Until he suddenly lost his memory, for reasons he can't recall.