What can I say about my life so far? Lots, I suppose! Again, I'm really flattered you'd want to write about little old me of all people. I'm not even that big of a deal, well, except for that whole dragon-seed reagent discovery, but really, that wasn't all my doing anyway.

Let's see, I was born in a small port town off of the coast. My parents were a baker and a fisherman. I get my lovely pink fur from my mother and my sea legs from my papa. 

There’s nothing quite like waking up in the morning for freshly baked goodies that came out of mama’s oven. With the trade that was busy going in and out back then, there was always something new to try, and the fish were plentiful and delectable—we never did want for much, at least when it came to stuff like basic living.
As for me, I guess you could say I was always a bit of trouble for them. My birth was long and difficult labor for mama. I think I was just too stubborn to get up and get into the world, even when my brothers and sisters popped out quickly. How strange how people change over the years, don't you think? Now, I'm up and raring for adventure whenever the opportunity arises.

I suppose you could say my first inkling of curiosity came from my schooling. With so many people coming and going, I got to hear tales of all sorts of exotic locales throughout the Inner Sea Region and beyond. My pack of friends and I had our own little adventures, to be sure. You know, kid stuff… sneaking into old abandoned buildings, poking wild animals with sticks, and seeing what treasures nearby grottos held. The most danger we had around town was maybe sticking our faces in snakes’ nests, to be perfectly honest with you.”
But I was bitten by something else at a young age—the call for a real adventure. It all began when a party arrived in town, making a big fuss as adventurers tend to do. The stuck-up paladin tried to ask us some questions, but being the mischievous sort, none of us would tell him nothing.

We would only budge, then, when the mage arrived. The halfling woman produced for us a show of tiny puppets dancing without the use of strings. They pantomimed a scene of their previous adventure, lost deep in the Darkmoon Vale, fighting off werewolves and making friends with the fey.
The images were so real, and it was from that little show that I realized the real power of magic. I eagerly asked her what else she could do, and the mage shot fireworks into the sky, filling the evening with light and my heart with wonderment.

I was never the same after that. Our old kid adventures were boring, and my daily schooling mundane. I wanted, no, needed to learn more about the world beyond first hand. I needed to find out the secrets of magic and become able to do incredible feats just like that adventurer.

But my old home held nothing for me. My parents provided for my siblings and me, but there was no place nearby for me to learn this new craft with any degree of success. There was an old witch in town, but he didn’t get his magic from learning, and instead got it with a deal with some power. That didn’t quite sit right with me, so I looked long and hard at my options.
Just across the sea, in Absalom, there were many prestigious schools of magic. I knew that I needed to go there, but I also knew that I couldn't let my parents pay for the journey and the tuition. Despite just being an adolescent, I had shown myself to be of a reliable stock that the Abadar bank gave me the loan I was looking for. With a hefty sum of debt, I was ready to head to the city at the Center of the World and learn myself the ways of wizardry.

Once in Absalom, I took to the life quickly enough, though I had not seen so many people at once before. Sure, I knew about all the different races of the Inner Sea, but to see all of them at once from all over the region was amazing! I could have gotten myself lost in all the wonders Absalom held, but I knew I must join one of the guilds and learn at one of the schools of magic, or I would never become the adventurer I was born to be.

My first year of school, I met my longtime friend, Nibbles. We became fast friends studying magic together. I suppose, though, that would be a story for another time, yeah?

What I would really like to talk about is just how grueling the work was. Back home, I had not a care in the world. But at the guildhouse and college, there was never a moment of free time that first full year. I would have to wake up early to perform the basest of chores—fetching water even though the wizards could conjure some up on their own, sweeping the laboratories, despite spells being able to snap them into cleanliness, and ridding the place of various pests.

But I didn’t have time to do all that work all at once—oh no. I had to apprentice, and I had to study. While wizards of rank just above me studied whatever they liked, they prided themselves in teasing the new girl. It was a bit of a tradition, you see, to weed out the riff-raff. If a neophyte couldn't make it past the hazing of the previous years' freshmen, well, they wouldn't have what it takes to unlock the lore and secrets. You may think it petty revenge on a future generation, but realize that magic is serious business. Sure, I may make up some fun potions, but if I slip up just one arbitrary step, then the effects could be not fun at all!

When I wasn't doing chores or wasn't working with the other wizards, I was doing my own study, reading the wealth of tomes they had available at the library, and sneaking in my meals and sleep between reading sessions. At first, I was really interested in illusions so that I could present stories just like that traveling illusionist could, but there was just this frustration involved with it. The level of complexity that wizard showed was something far greater than what I could ever pull off, at least at that stage, and I was always so tired after working all day, that I couldn't get much practical practice in.

That's where Nibbles comes in. Nibbles was working on the same things as I was, and had to deal with all the same harsh treatment. We would talk to each other as we swept and caught the vermin. We would tell each other of our plans for the future and for our magical endeavors, and we would recall tales of our times back home. She was always fascinated with the quiet village life I had. She was a city mouse, through and through, and I admired that about her. She had a much more solid grip on what it was like to live in such a busy, work-heavy environment, and that helped me keep my head on straight.

Well, it helped me keep my head on as straight as it could be, after evenings of discussing our shared tastes led to nights of us sharing feelings of each other. I never expected that I would fall in lust with someone, but Nibbles was a friend, through and through, and she helped take the edge off with the things she could do with that tail of hers.

But, of course, apprenticeship had to end, and I had to enjoy my journeyman days starting out small. I didn't journey too far, at first. I kept doing odd jobs around the city, but never too far from my apartment. Years of college life trained me well in rat zapping quests and helping dock workers lift things twice their size. My magic was limited back then, and the funds even more scarce, but I kept going, making myself a little nest egg for future research.

My fortune changed when a job got thrown on my lap. A wealthy merchant was looking for a party of adventurers to lead him out across Avistan. Despite his vast wealth, my patron was adamant in hiring lower-skilled adventurers—ones that wouldn't cost him a fortune, but ones who would readily do whatever he wished for the coin he was offering.

Seeking adventure and fortune myself, I signed up immediately and said goodbye to the island of Kortos and hello to my very first adventuring party! We were a well-rounded bunch, consisting of an elven archer, a rogue, and another mousefolk named Luna.
While Nibbles and I may have fooled around a bit in our college years, I well and truly loved Luna. At first, I found the fighter to be a bit gruff, but she too grew up in a small village, much like my own. We had a very similar upbringing to each other and found many things in common as we took our voyage across the inner sea.

As our relationship grew, so did our skills together. We journeyed with our patron, fighting off wolves and bandits and making significant coin along the way. Our party leader decided that we worked well together, and Luna agreed, opting to continue adventuring with them. I wanted to return home with my new-found earnings and return to my studies, but curled up with Luna in our camp that night, she asked me to stay with her and join her in a life of adventure. I could not say no to my beloved, and so, our merry band continued our adventures, seeking more treasures deep underground in the dark dungeons of yesteryear.
My infatuation with Luna became full-blown love, hand-holding, and everything. We were inseparable, her and me, and so were the other members of our party, but for more platonic reasons. We tackled deep dungeons and gained skills beyond I had ever thought possible. Together, we were unstoppable.

That is, of course, until we ran afoul of the Necromancer…

Tournbult the Dead was a necromancer of some renown. He fancied himself the second saint of the Whispering Way if you could believe such a thing. While he may have had lofty goals, he certainly had the power to back them up. He claimed to have found the mythical Dragonfall, and from there, took the bones of a great wyrm alive during the infancy of Azlant. Such a powerful being brought back to unlife at a necromancer's call would be quite terrible indeed. So, together, we decided that we would take the invitation to defeat him. If not to save the world, but to obtain the sizeable bounty that was on his head.

Turns out that his claims weren't just bluster. When we battled through rooms of dangerous traps and deadly enemies, we stumbled upon the tail end of the necromantic ritual. Hate-fueled orbs of red filled the hollowed husk of the dragon's eyes, and the ravenous skeletal thing rose from the grave, bellowing out a roar of tremendous and terrible magnitude.

I was just a girl from a simple village, a little mouse who wanted to learn to weave spells because it looked like it would be fun. I had been through life-and-death scenarios before, but here, in this forgotten tomb deep underground, I realized just how small I actually was.
Our party fought valiantly, but as my reserves of weaker magics ran dry, I knew I had to call upon more powerful spells-but they could be dangerous. I had never practiced them, as my free time was spent in the company of my lover. But, as I saw her charging head-first towards the dragon, beaten and bloody and enervated from spells that drained life, I knew that this was my only opportunity to save her, no, all of us.

I channeled the magical energy through me, taking on nearly mythic reserves of power from my years of study, and I filled the room with a sheer force of power that would destroy even the most formidable of the undead. Yet, such powerful necromancy cast in such a place was overwhelming to my tired little body, and so once I was done, I collapsed.

When I awoke, there was not a living nor unliving soul present in the summoning chamber—just the remaining clothes and tatters from all involved, and ash heaped up past my ankles.

I was left alone in that place of death and regret, with only the treasures heaped by the Necromancer in his quest for power. While my pockets were filled, my heart was empty. Ashen in both my expression and my fur, I returned back to a town filled with jubilation and thankful townsfolk, though their cheers were drowned out by the realization of what I had done.
I drowned my sorrows in all I could afford, but none of it mattered. My love for adventure was replaced with a passion for my lover, and she was gone—gone by my hand. It was then that I decided that would be the end of it.
I hung up my spellbook and lived off of the riches for a while, securing a hermitage as I healed my heart, but eventually, I needed to return to the world once the prize was drained, and so, I turned towards alchemy, a much more steady science, to be sure, and slowly, my heart was mended. I had a love for my students and for my learning, and I became a teacher of renown, cultivating the curiosity of young minds while sating my own from the comfort of a lab.

Do I regret leaving the adventurer’s life? No. I’ve discovered quite a bit and made many great friends, and even though I’m a mouse and my life is short, I feel there’s a lot more left of it to live just waiting to be put into another book one day. After all, in science, when one makes a mistake, one has to go back and try again, learning from the past to create an even greater future!