Seika "The Seeker"


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Her name is Seika, but she's the Seeker, trying to find the rocks that are blocking the stream. Her discipline is meditation and combat, which are the same thing to her. She is hesitant and gentle until she starts fighting, then she doesn't waste a moment! She keeps her head shaved and doesn't eat meat and wears the cleanest robe in all of Helios!

Seika is (was) a monk in the order of Kro Ga Na (The Water Bear). The order of Water Bear follows the princeples of the aspect of peace and tranquility (water) through controlled agression (bear). In this respect they are a quiet and unassuming people who use violence only to "remove rocks that block the natural flow of the stream". They are strangers to hate and fear - this trait, combined with their fighting skill makes them distrusted by commoners and bourgeious alike. High priests of the Kro Ga Na are few but feared, if not for their deadly abilities, the fact that they commit deadly feats with little apparent effort or emotion.

Seika was born into indentured servatude in a small county on the very edge of the big white toothy mountains whose name i forget right now. Her family works for the local magistrate who was moved from the city to this, the farthest edge of the princepality because of the King's distrust of him (why he was moved and not excecuted has been the subject of much debate with theories ranging from him being a bastard brother to some element of blackmail). Seika was trained as a gardener from a very young age. At the age of nine her mother became sick rather quickly and died. Afterwards she spent almost all of her time in the magistrates gardens alone with her plants. At the age of 14 her father came to the garden from the direction of the magistrate's house. His shirt and hands were covered in blood and he was shaking. He said only one word to Seika. "Run".

Seika took refuge in the woods nearby. She hid in the shadows and learned which plants to eat and which to avoid (often she learned the hard way). She would not have lasted long, but was found ematiated and half conscious by a band of elvish Druids of the Bear Clan (kir'set in elvin). These druids showed her what to eat and taught her a little of their ways. Seika, however was too introverted to become truely ingratied into their society. They allowed her to journey with them and often tried to intrest her in their ways. She came to love them too, but did not find peace in their mystical ways.

When winter came, the druids of the Bear Clan traveled to the Hibernation Festival where they met with their brother and sister organizations, the Kro Ga Na and the secretive - almost entirely unknown Clerical Order of the Paw, made mostly of outcasts of Dwarven societies.

Seika felt an affinity with the Kro Ga Na. She understood their solitude. She felt she understood their ways before it was even explained to her by the kir'set. She could see it in their eyes.

She approached Loaz, high priest of the Kro Ga Na about joining their order. He explained that women were not right for the order. They do not understand the need for silent contemplation, nor are they able to control their agression. With women, he said, aggression was always too much or too little. Never even like the flow of the water.

Seika left with the kir'set and finally tried to join their clan, but her heart wasn't in it. She spent her days tending her own gardens and cooking food for the Kir Set.

When Seika was 20, she left th kir'set and in the earliest hours of the morning, shaved her head by the riverside. She bound her breasts up in some fabric and made her way towards the temple of Kro Ga Na.

The Temple welcomed and knew her as "Seeker", who they believed to be a boy of 15. She learned the ways of the water bear in the guise of a male and was not discovered for her true self for four years.

Around the time of her 24th birthday, she went to the Hibernation festival, thinking that the kir'set who knew her would be traveling elsewhere as per their calander. As it happened, they had fought some errant drow and had a change of plans. When they saw her they embraced her and asked about how *SHE* had been.

It didn't take the Kro Ga Na to put two and two together, and she was asked to take her own life or leave the lands.

Undecided, Seika traveled towards the sea to make her decision when she arrived. She felt that when she arrived at the water's edge she would know whether death or bannishment would be her destiny. She felt the water would tell her. She caught a ride with a fish oil merchant who was heading back to the city.

The merchant leaves her at the docks, where she thanks him.