Lucinda: Hierarchy - Demisa Shimrastri

"Let me tell you a story of a simple, pretty elven girl. Intended to follow Aeridin by her staunchly anti-human parents, she instead found herself hanging out with the local nutty wizard. Every spell she learned whetted her appetite for more'every invocation, every glamour, every augury. Her powers increased daily, and over time she became very fond of her magic. Very, very fond. So fond that she began to take her gifts for granted. She began to demand rather than ask and used her abilities to ensure she got what she wanted.

For years, her beauty gave her leeway with her power backing it up. Until she made demands of the wrong person, underestimating his power and her own abilities in the raw arrogance of her youth. She coveted spells this quiet, dark-eyed mage could cast; powers that let one see into the mind of others, even plant suggestions there. She asked, then pleaded, then commanded the man to teach her. And teach her he did; although, it was not a spell but a lesson. For after she attempted the first incantation he gave her, she found herself unable to speak.

Days turned into weeks and her voice did not return. No spells! No magic! No power of the Al'Noth flowing from her fingertips at her command! She pouted, she flung things, and she curled into a fetal position and cried. After a year, the young woman began to accept. She looked around her empty house and realized her last century of spoiled indulgence driven by her powers in magic had left her alone. There was no one to cry to.

Oh, she had all that she could want'beautiful things, books to fill a library, and scroll after scroll of spells that she could no longer cast. She walked twice through her home, thoughtful, picking up those things she had scattered in her earlier rage. And then she went out, for the first time looking at the world around her, and gave away many of those lovely things. Just gave them away. She spent some time helping families displaced by a band of madmen, and before she'd counted, another year had gone by.

She had let go of her magic by now. She was content though, for perhaps the first time in her life. She had friends. She had things to do that did not revolve around her. It was by chance that she was on the street the day a herd of mad boar charged down the road. On reflex she cast the first spell that came to mind, not one of the most powerful that she had bent and broken rules to get, but a simple one that had stood her well before the lust for power took her. And that spell worked. Her voice came, not clear and loud as it would in a novel, but rusty, cracked, painful; but speak she did. From that day, her speech remained with her.

That girl, that young woman, that middle-aged elf stands before you now to remind you that there are consequences for your actions. Be wary of those who live to extremes, be wary of those who would hurt you, be wary of many things; but most of all, you who bathe in the power of the Al'Noth, be wary of yourselves." -Demisa Shimrastri

Golden brown eyes, hair the color of rich old oak, a soft high tenor with a velvet purr, Demisa is a lovely example of the elven race. She has led the Reaching since it was founded, an eyeblink to this 430-year-old elf. She tells one story at the weekly Reaching Council. In ten years, she has not repeated herself.