High Inquisitor
Abefire Sphering is recently returned from Soul Anchor where he ended up during the Shadow War hunting heretics in the name of his Goddess. This was nearly an end for the legendary figure at the heart of the Church of Ekimelahw but fortunately this was not to be. He is, however, an ancient being who is, undoubtedly, nearing the end of his natural span and has begun the search for a successor which progresses slowly. Whoever is chosen or steps forward to take his place is going to be replacing a man who has lived a long life and committed many deeds in the name of Justice and despite the actions of folk like Inquisitor Frost the shoes that they will be filling are undoubtedly bigger than many imagine.
Sphering was born in 1790 in a village called Kursk in the North of the Western Marches at the foothills of the Razorback Mountains. His family had come down from the Mountains two generations earlier as outcasts and pariahs for standing against the Five Rings , and organisation that plays a heavy role in the government of the Low Kingdom. They were well received by the villagers and settled well despite the suspected curse that soon fell on them. Breshik Sphering, who had taken the name Sphering from the name of a woodland that his family had travelled through when completing their exile had become deeply sick. His wife did not show signs of the aberrations that he had developed; milky eyes and spasms in his limbs that none from the local area could identify or cure.
Several generations passed between Breshik and Abefire and along that line several were born with stunted limbs, poor vision or damaged organs. The community continued to support them but could still find no reason behind the families continuing illness and degeneration down the lines. Then in the 1500’s a powerful young man was born who was named Henghist after one of the human villagers who had shown much kindness to the family. He grew rapidly and fervently and had a great wanderlust to leave the village which he did around his 30th year making the journey to Haven over the course of several weeks. Here he became the first of the Sphering family to enrol in the Academy where he excelled in physical combat and the doctrines of the faithful, passing out in the early 1600’s into the Church of Ekimelahw.
Henghist would go onto become one of the Legendary three Judges of Greenlakes who preserved the reputation of Ian Stone and returned the Knifespire Amulet to the Elestrom of The Deep Woods. Eventually he gathered the name of Henghist Souleye, for no truth could be hidden from him: He literally had the ability to see the truth of a persons soul. So honoured was he that the Goddess herself guided him on a spiritual quest through the Mountains back towards his spiritual home in the Mountains where he recovered his families Ancestral Weapon. From that day onwards he carried the weapon, whose name was the forgotten and unspeakable name of his family, against those that were enemies of the faith and became perhaps the greatest Cavalier of all time living well into the late 1700’s before he passed on to continue his work in Soul Anchor.
But he was not the last Sphering to walk the halls of Ekimelahw and in the final days of his life he heard of his nephew’s birth to the family. His Sister was over a hundred years his junior and had finally sired a child after many years of trying naming that child Abefire and calling on her brothers blessing. Too weak to return home he left a will for his nephew that he should take up the legacy that he left behind, axe and role as a Cavalier included when he made his way down from Kursk. When this news reached his Sister she despaired for his death and for the request that he had made for Abefire was born with but one eye and his left arm was slightly deformed, his hand nothing more than a ruin and as with the rest of his family he was unable to be cured, the curse striking again. It seemed that the legacy of Henghist Soul Eye would end with his death but as with the rest of his family and the continued love and support of the people of Kursk Abefire was to prove them wrong.
Abefire entered into the Academy with some very big shoes to fill and a great desire, need and with the ability to do so. The Academy gave him no quarter for the position of his Uncle leaving him two years past the point of usual entry into a guild and still unable to pass the combat instruction that would allow him to go on to become a Cavalier. His faith was never in question nor his dedication, he had few friends save his instructors and they only because they helped him further his ambition and convictions. Eventually however he had to admit that he could never be a Cavalier but with the results that he had achieved in combat he could scrape through as a Peacekeeper and as such he entered the Church of Ekimelahw to much applause, which he cared nothing for and stoically ignored as he prepared for his first missions.
For the first decade of his time as a Peacekeeper he served under Inquisitor Adam Grace, later High Inquisitor, who was one of the few PSI Judges to serve the Halls of Justice. Effectively Abefire was Grace’s rookie who then became a full time Peacekeeper and later attained the position of District Judge to the Bitter Vale. His progression as a Peacekeeper was slow but persistent, he was not the most effective combatant lacking natural aptitude as well as the limitations presented by the curse to his family line. Despite spending much of his time recovering from wounds sustained in the field he gained a reputation for perception, information gathering and most importantly an unwavering ability to hold and stick to the law of the land and of Ekimelahw. Indeed during only his 10th year of service he was awarded the honouree rank of Eye of Ekimelahw according to his work with uncovering the three “Slave Lord” barons of the Bitter Vale.
In that tenth year Grace was made up to High Inquisitor and their partnership was dissolved but only after Sphering was killed in combat during the Slave Lords encounter. Despite his resurrection the order came down from on high that he was to be suspended from his duties as Peacekeeper, this not being his first death and that he was instead being moved into the echelons of the Inquisitorial ranks with the rank of Lord taking him from Pilgrimin one swift step. So Abefire left the field of battle and felt a deep sense of shame at having completely failed his Uncles legacy and the name of Souleye that he would now never truly inherit. By his own request he became a member of the secretarial division following the direction of the Arch Angel Desallian through Bureaucracy and paperwork his name all but forgotten.
It was almost 50 years later that the concerns of Xectros struck the Church of Ekimelahw and a now aging Grace called his once companion out of retirement. Long had he tried to bring him back to the fold and failed but everything that he had tried to combat K’Kegnihothe and failed and now called upon his old friend. It took Abefire a few days to get up to speed but once he rejoined the game he felt the old desire for justice burn in his blood. He was instrumental in bringing down the first infiltration of the church and this spurred him into new action, within days he was back in the field and moving unseen through the streets and bringing the scourge of the Underworld to heel but this was not enough to slake his thirst to serve his mistress and soon he took up the mantle of Faith for Grace seeking combat against more supernatural threats that challenged the Divinity of Ekimelahw and the other powers of the heavens.
By the time Grace passed from the world in reverence Sphering had defeated creatures such as K’Kegnihothe, Wishspring and several Devourite Angels alongside instilling a wave of terror through the criminal organisations of the Royal Basin and beyond. Still he could not bring the full bearing of his brilliance against the enemies of the faith, the wicked and the corrupt, this was apparent to all within the echelons of the Church and it was an easy decision for the Inquisitors to make. Abefire was given full control of the Church giving it new life and new direction as his beliefs and his drive pulled the Ekimelahwians back from a damaged reputation after the time of the Xectros incidents and the corruption that had bled into their facilities.
Abefire has cut an impressive figure since that time and has become, like Soulfire, an extension of the Goddess upon the land. During the Shadow War he discovered that his Uncle’s Soul had been working in Soul Anchor to track down rogue Soul Traders and other creatures but had been missing for many years. He took the step to pass into the world of the dead to seek and aid the Cavalier of days gone by; there he encountered many evils, more than he would have imagined and witnessed the birth of the Mountain. His Uncle however could not be recovered and he was returned to the world unsuccessful and full of fear for what existed in the afterlife and combating it and finding his Uncle and what he knows have become his priorities as he himself comes to final tenure of his many years of life.
Holly Goodall
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