Post by Aerion on Oct 25, 2011 10:16:03 GMT 1
Growing up in Magnimar - she often claimed to hail from Wolf's Ear, one of it's holdings, though the truth of that might be questioned given how she usually stuck with the vague 'Magnimar' when sober and only told tales of lychantropic Wolf's Ear when drunk, often in the tone of someone trying to tell a scary ghost's tale - Shuala was a merchant's daughter of trade during her childhood, expected to eventually learn to make deals, keep accounts, and judge the 'currents of trade'.
First, however, she had to learn to be a sailor, which was quite enough work for a child without learning economics as well.
'Course, if you believed her father, then he had mastered the art of trade by the time he was old enough to go out on sea - Shuala didn't believe him.
Her mother was a Healer of sorts, studied in the arts of medicine and using herbs her husband picked up in far lands to solve problems of health - or sometimes simply comfort - in the village.
But, since she wasn't meant to take over that trade - that was left for one of her younger siblings - she only learned enough to know the value, and the occasional cure against common sea-related problems.
As far as she knows - her father is the only one who has been to the foreign nation where he got the name from, and she always took what he said with a grain of salt - her given name means 'Fox', chosen in the hope that it will grant her the cunning of said totem, though time would show she seemed to get more than just the cunning of a fox but also its mythical trickery and mischief.
The last name she gives when asked - Ulfsdottor - who not everyone trusts is real ((Unless you want it to be fake for plot, it IS the true last name, Shuala is just not known for telling the truth. Speaking of making up stuff, the following story is a story, use it for plot-hooks if you want - and if you figure out how, nothing strikes me - but I intended it merely as a story that should help me get into character and you get insight into what she considers a good 'idol')) is one she claims refers to something that happened in a time long past, where one of the werewolf couples living in Wolf's Ear had a child - only, it wasn't a lychantropic child, instead it appeared as an entirely human girl.
The couple did their best to raise the girl, though, and found to their surprise that as she grew older, she could match the boys in their play-fighting - even the lychantropic girls usually couldn't (not so much for lack of strength as lack of desire for violence) much less a human.
In fact, she was stronger than most, and the stories tell of a personality that resembles that of wild wolves more than the actual werewolves do, and she rarely spoke except to order one of the younger kids to do something for her - when she did speak, she was described by those who met her outside the village as sounding like she was always growling.
So, the other villages quickly learned the face of the 'Wolf's Daughter', or as the old tongue said, 'Ulfsdottor' - the human girl with the spirit of the Wolf in her blood - usually staying clear of her and giving her good prices - Her haggling methods were less than civilized, and after one village told of being kept awake by howling the entire night when they arrested her, not to mention that she supposedly bit the sheriff, she had some leeway with the law as long as she didn't blatantly break it.
Time came where the ulfsdottor - if she had a name, it has been lost since the first telling of the tale - grew into a young woman, and her parents feared she would not find a man capable of taming her wild spirits, and several suitors - both humans and some of the werewolf boys she had grown up with - were turned down when they did not manage whatever feat the ulfsdottor demanded of them, until a rather scrawny youth happened to pass by and heard of this girl that no one could tame.
Through clever interpretations of her words, and some wise insight into her behavior, the youth succeeded at not just one, but three different tasks put forth by the girl, and for the first time anyone could remember, the ulfsdottor smiled, declaring that she would keep her word and let the boy take her hand in marriage.
And it is the blood of that 'Daughter of Wolves', as well as the boy who could tame her, who Shuala claims she descended from.
She has later played up her name by giving her Eidolon canine-ish features - fitting both a fox and a wolf - figuring no one will understand her first name anyhow, nor believe her last, but we'll get to the Eidolon in a bit.
She never liked being ordered about by her parents, but none of the other kids liked having to do as their parents said either, except for the rare few prodigies that enjoyed it for the praise they got with minimum effort.
In fact, they eventually, when she was getting into the later youth and into her most rebellious, even pulled a few favors from friends to let her try her hands on other professions to see if she would enjoy them more.
But when she also seemed to dislike working under a smith, a store clerk, or even a librarian, they lost all the pity they had for his apparent plight - their ears deaf to her 'childish' statements that she did not want to "serve as someone's tool to order about as they wished" - and forced her to work harder than ever at being worthy to take over her father's work.
Some time passed, Shuala clearly growing more restless by each passing year, until her parents feared she would not be allowed to apprentice on a ship in fear of instilling unrest and/or disrupting the work - it didn't help that she was a half-elf, a race already marked as social outcasts in the region, suffering for the 'sins' of their parents.
Throughout the talks, they dismissed her suggestion that she could get the money for her own ship somehow, so that she didn't need to work under anyone, asking her - in patronizing tones of course - how she was to pay for this supposed ship, and crew, and trade-goods, and dismissing her as a foolish child when she was unable to think of a way. Never mind the fact they gave her no time to look for such a way.
Eventually they did find someone willing to take her on, a captain known for being stricter than most, who promised the parents he could teach Shuala discipline.
This was worse than anything she had imagined - spending the entire Apprenticeship, and possibly Journeyman time as well, under someone like that seemed worse than the local church's version of the Abyssal/Infernal dimensions - Even Devils tended to let you suffer in peace when they were done with you.
So, the day before the 'Big Day' - after a LOT of begging and pleading over the time in between - she went to bed at the normal time, after cursing loudly at said parents in Abyssal of course (she'd learned it from her friends' Big Brothers), and by morning she was no longer in her bed.
This was especially strange as she shared a room with a sister, and said sister knew not where she had gone.
Living on the road, so to speak, was far harder than what the stories make it out to be.
What little stuff she had packed quickly proved insufficient, and she had barely even made it past the outer farms when thirst was sinking in - she hadn't thought to pack any water, being accustomed to having it nearby when she wanted it - and the cold of night was setting in.
And she saw another aspect of the harsh reality when she tried to sleep in the hay of one of the farms to keep from freezing to death during the night, only to be abruptly awoken in the early morning by a farmer who had come in to see her there, beating her up as a 'lesson' and chasing her off his property without giving her time to get her stuff - she did later go back for some of it, but the food was useless by that time.
'Course, she then snuck into the larder of the farm and took what she could carry of bread and smoked meat, but the farmer did still chase her away with no thought to how she was to survive.
This was her second lesson regarding 'Don't fight fair if you want to win' - her first was, of course, the tale of the first ulfsdottor, where the boy got the girl by essentially cheating and twisting her words, though she did have to admit she would probably have declared him the winner too.
Eventually she did get to a proper city, though, where she managed to find a place to sleep that she could actually afford - most of her father's money was hidden, precisely so the children wouldn't take it, but she had found some during the preparations to leave.
After looking around for work in the town, both asking and literally looking for opportunities, the rest of her money went to a fishing rod and bait - there were clear signs of fish within a distance she could reasonably walk to and from each day, and the price of fish in the marketplace was far higher than it needed to be.
At first it was hard, as anyone starting out on their own would know, Shuala mostly living off of the fish she caught and trading what's left over for a place to sleep and the occasional used article of clothing when she couldn't get into the old.
As the years passed - and as a half-elf she did have quite a few years, that's one of the things the other youths tended to mock her for, as she was immature for her age in all respects. She simply aged slower though, it wasn't her fault - she grew better at it, learning tricks of the trade - such as realizing she didn't need to hold the rod all the time, which opened up for a lot of new techniques - that let her catch enough fish to actually pay for such luxuries as an occasional bath - it wasn't that she went multiple years without washing before that, but bathing in the cold water of the streams wasn't very fun - and shoes without holes in them.
This was all the easier when she heard someone accuse an innkeeper of watering down the ale, and an idea sprung into her head - it wasn't the first time someone had accused an innkeeper of that, but she hadn't thought long about it before - She could 'water down' her fish.
Not the way she was doing it, of course, but by cooking the fish and selling it as warm soup or stew in the cold and windy marketplace, she could replace a lot of the meal with cheaper ingredients without it being too noticeably on the taste.
And one shouldn't underestimate the use of contacts.
She wasn't sitting around entirely alone during the years of learning to live on her own, she talked to some of the other homeless kids in the city.
They weren't friends, you wouldn't need to keep one hand on your money-pouch at all times around friends, but they were more fun than the fishermen and sailors telling tales of great adventures that Shuala couldn't go on - oh how she wanted to go out on the sea, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
And occasionally they helped each other out, her casually talking about what merchants seemed to be doing well, and they happening to have the occasional item to spare for a cute girl all on her own - there wasn't any correlation, of course, it was purely a coincidence that the homeless kids consistently got one sweet-roll too many from the grocer, or got a pair of gloves that turned out to not fit them, or any other such excess, shortly after she had a particularly intriguing conversation with them.
But, even though her life was starting to be bearable, possibly even enjoyable, one can only admire something at a distance for so long - the siren call of the sea was starting to get to her.
Just fishing from the shore wasn't enough, and she would rather die than work under some bossy fisherman.
At first, she did what she could to save up for a small row-boat, it didn't need to be large, she just had to start somewhere.
But every time she had a silver or two saved up, she would need new clothes, or people would stop buying her stew for a while, or she wouldn't get any fish, and she would be back to the beginning.
And it seemed impossible to succeed at anything she tried to do to improve the profit - she was no merchant. She was barely a fisher. All the more reason to get out at sea.
Next, she saw how the adventurers that occasionally stopped by her make-shift stall for a bite - her stew might be only part fish, but it was still better than most of the stuff the inns served, and no one had ever gotten food poisoning from it. That'd be bad for business, and give the guards reason to harass her - were all filthy rich, practically glowing from all the magical stuff they wore.
Heck, the wizards could earn a gold a week in tips from just performing their so-called Prestidigitation.
Compared to Shuala, who had to stand in the salty winds all year round to earn enough to get by.
So, in the hopes of finding some secret ability, she spent some of the time by the shore practicing sword-fighting, and trying her best to mimic the words of power spoken by the wizards - she wasn't alone in this, the previously-mentioned kids all tried the same, some less seriously than others.
This actually did bring forth results, as she managed to bring together just enough magic to mend her shoes - she was trying to change their color, as she had seen the wizards do - A few other kids figured out a talent or two, most of which involving slings or swords, but for most of them it was a disappointing situation.
It wouldn't help her much, though she did improve her income a little by adding fixing minor rips and cracks to her services, but it put her o the road to her proper abilities.
Skip forward a few more years, and she has figured out how to call forth small animals, though she had never actually heard of summoners.
What she had heard of was wizards who could call upon forces from other dimensions, and she did obviously have a talent for that, so that's what she had been studying in her little spare time - usually 'borrowing' books on the subject to read while fishing.
Until one day a particular attempt at summoning stronger beings - most of her attempts failed - actually worked.
Well, half-way.
She hadn't so much summoned something extra-planar, as called its essence to herself.
The form of what she would later learn was called an Eidolon was surrounding her as a translucent second skin, its form rather featureless back then.
To this day she does not know why she suddenly decided to do so, but she stripped down and leaped into the water - forgetting all about watching the rods - and found that she seemed to move exactly how she wanted, with hardly any effort.
She wasn't a bad swimmer before, but this was something else entirely, it felt like whatever was surrounding her was meant for the water.
It wasn't a fish, or if it was then it didn't let her share its gills, as she clearly still needed to breathe, but she didn't need gills to enjoy soaring through the water as though she was part otter.
Best part was, when she finally climbed back unto the shore, her clothes were still dry, given the 'suit' she had summoned.
Over time, she found out how to master this strange form she could summon, learning that she could change its shape if she consistently pictured it a certain way, though it was hard to 'unlearn' what she could see in the mirror every time she had it summoned.
In the end, it ended up looking like a tall, but clearly young, woman with a canine tail and ears - pretty much how she pictured the Wolf's Daughter, even though the tales said she looked entirely human.
"Her spirit, then", was Shuala's usual retort.
Life got a lot better after that.
Still, the water was cold - potentially fatally so in the winters, and the magic didn't protect against temperature-loss - and she wouldn't be earning a lot of money chasing down fish one by one only to then need to swim all the way back to shore with it.
She still needed a boat.
About a month later, it just wasn't enough to swim until her lips were blue - and her savings were slowly diminishing as well, as she wasn't spending as much time catching fish and mending items.
So, she did something rather foolish: She trusted a bunch of thieves.
Getting into contact with the new head of them - it was usually the older kids who were 'king' of the gang, and the older kids usually found a better way to live at some point, so there was a lot of change of leadership - she revealed what she could do, and made a deal with them
They would obtain a boat for her, and she would use her new-found swimming skills to get unto one of the merchant ships without being seen, grabbing a chest she knew they were planning to sell for a significant amount to a particular noble in a few days - though she didn't know how significant, she only knew what she had heard 'on the wind' so to speak.
After all, she couldn't sell that herself without getting caught, but she knew the kids had always had their ways to turn goods into silver or the rare piece of gold.
It went rather well, all things considered.
She got unto the ship by taking a deep breath and swimming down far enough that the darkness hid her from the surface, then getting up into the ship.
She even found the goods and got off the ship with them.
And while she seemed to be spotted just before she jumped off and hid underwater again, it seemed no one had seen her clearly as everyone talked about a ghostly werewolf being the thief.
In fact, she even made the trade, and got a working boat - a bit shoddy, but it'd do.
She only found what a fool she had been a few days later, when she came back from trying out a new technique of just swimming down with a net - it wasn't working very well, but it had been worth a shot.
By where she usually set up her stall, a pair of guardsmen stood, approaching her when they saw her get up from theboat - she cursed herself for not dismissing her Eidolon, but it always felt safer to wait until she was safely unto solid ground first, especially as she hadn't swam with her own hands for quite some time and wasn't sure she even knew how anymore.
While she did her best to smile friendly and co-operate - it was somewhat strange talking through the translucent shape, it had its own voice it seemed - it was revealed that the new 'king' of the kids had sold her out (literally, the merchant had offered a reward for clues as to the thief) and that she was standing there looking rather much like the 'ghost wolf' that everyone talked about, so Shuala mumbled something along the lines of 'just a moment', pretended to bend to secure her boat, grabbed her bag, and jumped into the water.
She had no idea how far she swam, but it took her several days before she felt she wasn't going to be chased anymore.
Every time her body ached from swimming, she would crawl into some dark hiding place to curl up, shivering in the night air, then spend just enough of the morning by a fire to get back feeling in her body before she continued on her way, always by sea.
Eventually, somehow, she ended up in Riddleport, where it seemed she would be able to shake her pursuers.
And she did, quite easily - she wasn't even entirely sure they followed her all the way there, given how she had been acting on paranoia since she had spotted pursuers at the end of the first day - she had been sure they would give up after less than an hour, what it was that she had stolen that was so important she did not know.
Fishing opportunities seemed rather weak around there, she hadn't seen much in terms of fish while swimming, so it would seem she would need a new profession should she...
Wait...
Did she just hear someone talk about a pirate captain wanting crew?
They really did that kind of off-the-tavern recruiting in the real world?
She had been sure it would have been one of those things the bards made up.
Though... Why not? She still remembered what her dad taught her of being a sailor and more - that's what daydreaming about being a world-famous captain does to one - and surely she'd have a bit more freedom on a pirate ship than on a law-abiding one?
Otherwise she figured no one would want to be a pirate.
First, however, she had to learn to be a sailor, which was quite enough work for a child without learning economics as well.
'Course, if you believed her father, then he had mastered the art of trade by the time he was old enough to go out on sea - Shuala didn't believe him.
Her mother was a Healer of sorts, studied in the arts of medicine and using herbs her husband picked up in far lands to solve problems of health - or sometimes simply comfort - in the village.
But, since she wasn't meant to take over that trade - that was left for one of her younger siblings - she only learned enough to know the value, and the occasional cure against common sea-related problems.
As far as she knows - her father is the only one who has been to the foreign nation where he got the name from, and she always took what he said with a grain of salt - her given name means 'Fox', chosen in the hope that it will grant her the cunning of said totem, though time would show she seemed to get more than just the cunning of a fox but also its mythical trickery and mischief.
The last name she gives when asked - Ulfsdottor - who not everyone trusts is real ((Unless you want it to be fake for plot, it IS the true last name, Shuala is just not known for telling the truth. Speaking of making up stuff, the following story is a story, use it for plot-hooks if you want - and if you figure out how, nothing strikes me - but I intended it merely as a story that should help me get into character and you get insight into what she considers a good 'idol')) is one she claims refers to something that happened in a time long past, where one of the werewolf couples living in Wolf's Ear had a child - only, it wasn't a lychantropic child, instead it appeared as an entirely human girl.
The couple did their best to raise the girl, though, and found to their surprise that as she grew older, she could match the boys in their play-fighting - even the lychantropic girls usually couldn't (not so much for lack of strength as lack of desire for violence) much less a human.
In fact, she was stronger than most, and the stories tell of a personality that resembles that of wild wolves more than the actual werewolves do, and she rarely spoke except to order one of the younger kids to do something for her - when she did speak, she was described by those who met her outside the village as sounding like she was always growling.
So, the other villages quickly learned the face of the 'Wolf's Daughter', or as the old tongue said, 'Ulfsdottor' - the human girl with the spirit of the Wolf in her blood - usually staying clear of her and giving her good prices - Her haggling methods were less than civilized, and after one village told of being kept awake by howling the entire night when they arrested her, not to mention that she supposedly bit the sheriff, she had some leeway with the law as long as she didn't blatantly break it.
Time came where the ulfsdottor - if she had a name, it has been lost since the first telling of the tale - grew into a young woman, and her parents feared she would not find a man capable of taming her wild spirits, and several suitors - both humans and some of the werewolf boys she had grown up with - were turned down when they did not manage whatever feat the ulfsdottor demanded of them, until a rather scrawny youth happened to pass by and heard of this girl that no one could tame.
Through clever interpretations of her words, and some wise insight into her behavior, the youth succeeded at not just one, but three different tasks put forth by the girl, and for the first time anyone could remember, the ulfsdottor smiled, declaring that she would keep her word and let the boy take her hand in marriage.
And it is the blood of that 'Daughter of Wolves', as well as the boy who could tame her, who Shuala claims she descended from.
She has later played up her name by giving her Eidolon canine-ish features - fitting both a fox and a wolf - figuring no one will understand her first name anyhow, nor believe her last, but we'll get to the Eidolon in a bit.
She never liked being ordered about by her parents, but none of the other kids liked having to do as their parents said either, except for the rare few prodigies that enjoyed it for the praise they got with minimum effort.
In fact, they eventually, when she was getting into the later youth and into her most rebellious, even pulled a few favors from friends to let her try her hands on other professions to see if she would enjoy them more.
But when she also seemed to dislike working under a smith, a store clerk, or even a librarian, they lost all the pity they had for his apparent plight - their ears deaf to her 'childish' statements that she did not want to "serve as someone's tool to order about as they wished" - and forced her to work harder than ever at being worthy to take over her father's work.
Some time passed, Shuala clearly growing more restless by each passing year, until her parents feared she would not be allowed to apprentice on a ship in fear of instilling unrest and/or disrupting the work - it didn't help that she was a half-elf, a race already marked as social outcasts in the region, suffering for the 'sins' of their parents.
Throughout the talks, they dismissed her suggestion that she could get the money for her own ship somehow, so that she didn't need to work under anyone, asking her - in patronizing tones of course - how she was to pay for this supposed ship, and crew, and trade-goods, and dismissing her as a foolish child when she was unable to think of a way. Never mind the fact they gave her no time to look for such a way.
Eventually they did find someone willing to take her on, a captain known for being stricter than most, who promised the parents he could teach Shuala discipline.
This was worse than anything she had imagined - spending the entire Apprenticeship, and possibly Journeyman time as well, under someone like that seemed worse than the local church's version of the Abyssal/Infernal dimensions - Even Devils tended to let you suffer in peace when they were done with you.
So, the day before the 'Big Day' - after a LOT of begging and pleading over the time in between - she went to bed at the normal time, after cursing loudly at said parents in Abyssal of course (she'd learned it from her friends' Big Brothers), and by morning she was no longer in her bed.
This was especially strange as she shared a room with a sister, and said sister knew not where she had gone.
Living on the road, so to speak, was far harder than what the stories make it out to be.
What little stuff she had packed quickly proved insufficient, and she had barely even made it past the outer farms when thirst was sinking in - she hadn't thought to pack any water, being accustomed to having it nearby when she wanted it - and the cold of night was setting in.
And she saw another aspect of the harsh reality when she tried to sleep in the hay of one of the farms to keep from freezing to death during the night, only to be abruptly awoken in the early morning by a farmer who had come in to see her there, beating her up as a 'lesson' and chasing her off his property without giving her time to get her stuff - she did later go back for some of it, but the food was useless by that time.
'Course, she then snuck into the larder of the farm and took what she could carry of bread and smoked meat, but the farmer did still chase her away with no thought to how she was to survive.
This was her second lesson regarding 'Don't fight fair if you want to win' - her first was, of course, the tale of the first ulfsdottor, where the boy got the girl by essentially cheating and twisting her words, though she did have to admit she would probably have declared him the winner too.
Eventually she did get to a proper city, though, where she managed to find a place to sleep that she could actually afford - most of her father's money was hidden, precisely so the children wouldn't take it, but she had found some during the preparations to leave.
After looking around for work in the town, both asking and literally looking for opportunities, the rest of her money went to a fishing rod and bait - there were clear signs of fish within a distance she could reasonably walk to and from each day, and the price of fish in the marketplace was far higher than it needed to be.
At first it was hard, as anyone starting out on their own would know, Shuala mostly living off of the fish she caught and trading what's left over for a place to sleep and the occasional used article of clothing when she couldn't get into the old.
As the years passed - and as a half-elf she did have quite a few years, that's one of the things the other youths tended to mock her for, as she was immature for her age in all respects. She simply aged slower though, it wasn't her fault - she grew better at it, learning tricks of the trade - such as realizing she didn't need to hold the rod all the time, which opened up for a lot of new techniques - that let her catch enough fish to actually pay for such luxuries as an occasional bath - it wasn't that she went multiple years without washing before that, but bathing in the cold water of the streams wasn't very fun - and shoes without holes in them.
This was all the easier when she heard someone accuse an innkeeper of watering down the ale, and an idea sprung into her head - it wasn't the first time someone had accused an innkeeper of that, but she hadn't thought long about it before - She could 'water down' her fish.
Not the way she was doing it, of course, but by cooking the fish and selling it as warm soup or stew in the cold and windy marketplace, she could replace a lot of the meal with cheaper ingredients without it being too noticeably on the taste.
And one shouldn't underestimate the use of contacts.
She wasn't sitting around entirely alone during the years of learning to live on her own, she talked to some of the other homeless kids in the city.
They weren't friends, you wouldn't need to keep one hand on your money-pouch at all times around friends, but they were more fun than the fishermen and sailors telling tales of great adventures that Shuala couldn't go on - oh how she wanted to go out on the sea, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
And occasionally they helped each other out, her casually talking about what merchants seemed to be doing well, and they happening to have the occasional item to spare for a cute girl all on her own - there wasn't any correlation, of course, it was purely a coincidence that the homeless kids consistently got one sweet-roll too many from the grocer, or got a pair of gloves that turned out to not fit them, or any other such excess, shortly after she had a particularly intriguing conversation with them.
But, even though her life was starting to be bearable, possibly even enjoyable, one can only admire something at a distance for so long - the siren call of the sea was starting to get to her.
Just fishing from the shore wasn't enough, and she would rather die than work under some bossy fisherman.
At first, she did what she could to save up for a small row-boat, it didn't need to be large, she just had to start somewhere.
But every time she had a silver or two saved up, she would need new clothes, or people would stop buying her stew for a while, or she wouldn't get any fish, and she would be back to the beginning.
And it seemed impossible to succeed at anything she tried to do to improve the profit - she was no merchant. She was barely a fisher. All the more reason to get out at sea.
Next, she saw how the adventurers that occasionally stopped by her make-shift stall for a bite - her stew might be only part fish, but it was still better than most of the stuff the inns served, and no one had ever gotten food poisoning from it. That'd be bad for business, and give the guards reason to harass her - were all filthy rich, practically glowing from all the magical stuff they wore.
Heck, the wizards could earn a gold a week in tips from just performing their so-called Prestidigitation.
Compared to Shuala, who had to stand in the salty winds all year round to earn enough to get by.
So, in the hopes of finding some secret ability, she spent some of the time by the shore practicing sword-fighting, and trying her best to mimic the words of power spoken by the wizards - she wasn't alone in this, the previously-mentioned kids all tried the same, some less seriously than others.
This actually did bring forth results, as she managed to bring together just enough magic to mend her shoes - she was trying to change their color, as she had seen the wizards do - A few other kids figured out a talent or two, most of which involving slings or swords, but for most of them it was a disappointing situation.
It wouldn't help her much, though she did improve her income a little by adding fixing minor rips and cracks to her services, but it put her o the road to her proper abilities.
Skip forward a few more years, and she has figured out how to call forth small animals, though she had never actually heard of summoners.
What she had heard of was wizards who could call upon forces from other dimensions, and she did obviously have a talent for that, so that's what she had been studying in her little spare time - usually 'borrowing' books on the subject to read while fishing.
Until one day a particular attempt at summoning stronger beings - most of her attempts failed - actually worked.
Well, half-way.
She hadn't so much summoned something extra-planar, as called its essence to herself.
The form of what she would later learn was called an Eidolon was surrounding her as a translucent second skin, its form rather featureless back then.
To this day she does not know why she suddenly decided to do so, but she stripped down and leaped into the water - forgetting all about watching the rods - and found that she seemed to move exactly how she wanted, with hardly any effort.
She wasn't a bad swimmer before, but this was something else entirely, it felt like whatever was surrounding her was meant for the water.
It wasn't a fish, or if it was then it didn't let her share its gills, as she clearly still needed to breathe, but she didn't need gills to enjoy soaring through the water as though she was part otter.
Best part was, when she finally climbed back unto the shore, her clothes were still dry, given the 'suit' she had summoned.
Over time, she found out how to master this strange form she could summon, learning that she could change its shape if she consistently pictured it a certain way, though it was hard to 'unlearn' what she could see in the mirror every time she had it summoned.
In the end, it ended up looking like a tall, but clearly young, woman with a canine tail and ears - pretty much how she pictured the Wolf's Daughter, even though the tales said she looked entirely human.
"Her spirit, then", was Shuala's usual retort.
Life got a lot better after that.
Still, the water was cold - potentially fatally so in the winters, and the magic didn't protect against temperature-loss - and she wouldn't be earning a lot of money chasing down fish one by one only to then need to swim all the way back to shore with it.
She still needed a boat.
About a month later, it just wasn't enough to swim until her lips were blue - and her savings were slowly diminishing as well, as she wasn't spending as much time catching fish and mending items.
So, she did something rather foolish: She trusted a bunch of thieves.
Getting into contact with the new head of them - it was usually the older kids who were 'king' of the gang, and the older kids usually found a better way to live at some point, so there was a lot of change of leadership - she revealed what she could do, and made a deal with them
They would obtain a boat for her, and she would use her new-found swimming skills to get unto one of the merchant ships without being seen, grabbing a chest she knew they were planning to sell for a significant amount to a particular noble in a few days - though she didn't know how significant, she only knew what she had heard 'on the wind' so to speak.
After all, she couldn't sell that herself without getting caught, but she knew the kids had always had their ways to turn goods into silver or the rare piece of gold.
It went rather well, all things considered.
She got unto the ship by taking a deep breath and swimming down far enough that the darkness hid her from the surface, then getting up into the ship.
She even found the goods and got off the ship with them.
And while she seemed to be spotted just before she jumped off and hid underwater again, it seemed no one had seen her clearly as everyone talked about a ghostly werewolf being the thief.
In fact, she even made the trade, and got a working boat - a bit shoddy, but it'd do.
She only found what a fool she had been a few days later, when she came back from trying out a new technique of just swimming down with a net - it wasn't working very well, but it had been worth a shot.
By where she usually set up her stall, a pair of guardsmen stood, approaching her when they saw her get up from theboat - she cursed herself for not dismissing her Eidolon, but it always felt safer to wait until she was safely unto solid ground first, especially as she hadn't swam with her own hands for quite some time and wasn't sure she even knew how anymore.
While she did her best to smile friendly and co-operate - it was somewhat strange talking through the translucent shape, it had its own voice it seemed - it was revealed that the new 'king' of the kids had sold her out (literally, the merchant had offered a reward for clues as to the thief) and that she was standing there looking rather much like the 'ghost wolf' that everyone talked about, so Shuala mumbled something along the lines of 'just a moment', pretended to bend to secure her boat, grabbed her bag, and jumped into the water.
She had no idea how far she swam, but it took her several days before she felt she wasn't going to be chased anymore.
Every time her body ached from swimming, she would crawl into some dark hiding place to curl up, shivering in the night air, then spend just enough of the morning by a fire to get back feeling in her body before she continued on her way, always by sea.
Eventually, somehow, she ended up in Riddleport, where it seemed she would be able to shake her pursuers.
And she did, quite easily - she wasn't even entirely sure they followed her all the way there, given how she had been acting on paranoia since she had spotted pursuers at the end of the first day - she had been sure they would give up after less than an hour, what it was that she had stolen that was so important she did not know.
Fishing opportunities seemed rather weak around there, she hadn't seen much in terms of fish while swimming, so it would seem she would need a new profession should she...
Wait...
Did she just hear someone talk about a pirate captain wanting crew?
They really did that kind of off-the-tavern recruiting in the real world?
She had been sure it would have been one of those things the bards made up.
Though... Why not? She still remembered what her dad taught her of being a sailor and more - that's what daydreaming about being a world-famous captain does to one - and surely she'd have a bit more freedom on a pirate ship than on a law-abiding one?
Otherwise she figured no one would want to be a pirate.