Location: Plains of Wakeful Slumber, Neurosthenia
Time and Date: Shortly after rising of the main sun, 23rd of Flamerule, 1085 of the 2nd Era
'Get a human drunk enough, and he will sleep with anything...' Such was often the excuse used or believed when it came to Ishmal. Being an oddity that is the result of an aurum imp and a human mating that he is, and likely the only known half human, half imp, often times led to strange stories about how he could even come to exist.
The truth of the matter though is perhaps stranger and way darker than even the wildest story imagined. Ishmal's mother, Ga'lea was a typical aurum imp female, though perhaps more ruthless than some. Aurum imps, as they are, had always had the strangest obsessions to treasures, or to whatever they considered to be their treasure. For Ga'lea, her treasure had been a cosmopolitan boy by the name of Mikael. Mikael, at the young age of ten, had come to her rescue when she was trapped within a hunters snare just outside the town of Phobos. Ga'lea had been running from a pack of domorean fangral, until she herself got stuck in the hunter's snare. The taller human child who was traveling with the hunter, his father, saw the strange creature, and only wishing to know some form of happiness in the very chaotic wildlands, he pulled her out and begged his father to spare the creature.
From that moment on, Ga'lea had proclaimed the boy to be her treasure. She stuck to him like glue, even more so when Mikael lost his father to the creatures of the Rampike. After that tragic loss, Ga'lea and Mikael grew even closer. Mikael's single widow mother was concerned, but when she saw that her boy was not only smiling, but also that the imp protected him from the various predators that often preyed on the young, the mother came to accept the aurum imp and eventually allowed her to live with them. Ga'lea and Mikael were inseparable. They went everywhere together, played games together, and when Mikael was threatened by addicts, thieves, creatures, of the wild, and those with undeniable hungers, Ga'lea met them with deadly force. To Mikael, Ga'lea was his closest friend and the only bright spot in his suffering life. She kept him safe and kept him company, and her odd ways and strange speech helped to take his mind from the reality of things, from the long hours his mother must work, from the tricks she must play, and from the gradual worsening of her health. For Ga'lea, Mikael was her most special treasure.
Things took a change though when Mikael turned 15. In Ga'lea's small mind, Mikael was no longer a boy but a man. She had stayed away from the other imps that dwelled within the wilds of Neurosthenia for so long now, and thus she had no suitors and was coming close to beyond the age of reproduction. Her treasure would have to do. So one night Ga'lea awakened Mikael from his slumber when she proceeded to rape the youth. He screamed in protest as she had her way with him, but Ga'lea did not understand the screams and persisted. By the time Mikael's mother had busted into the room, the deed was done. Ga'lea was so frightened by the raging mother and her screaming treasure, that she thought to quickly dismount and swing behind the boy for protection, but her claws caught the youth's jugular. As she saw her treasure bleed to death and choke on his own blood and the now berzerked mother rushing towards her, dagger drawn, Ga'lea had no choice but to flee. She quickly escaped through the window and scurried away out of town into the many wind caves of the Bellows.
Ga'lea remained forever distraught about what had happened to her precious treasure, about what she had done. When her baby came, she sought out the house to give the child to the mother who's child she had taken, only to discover that she too had died not long after. Distressed beyond belief, the imp mother left the child on the doorsteps of the St. Taal Orphanage, an orphanage well known for taken in the forgotten youth who were strange and different. Ga'lea then returned to the Bellows where she took her own life.
The boy, half aurum imp and half human, was named Ishmal though no surname was ever given. He was generally accepted and treated well among the orphans of the not-so-normal. In time, he came to age and left the orphanage where he quickly learned of the strange tinkerer, Assegai. Though Ishmal had enough human traits and proper upbringing to not be so swayed by his aurum imp desires, he was infatuated by all the neat treasures the tinkerer possessed. Week after week he would bring Assegai something 'shinny', hoping that it would please the tinkerer. Most times it was garbage, some times it was stolen goods, a couple of times though he'd bring Assegai something of at least some value to the strange tinkerer. And such was their relationship, tinkerer and a very unorthodox treasure hunter who only ever sought to impress and to befriend the other. His life outside the orphanage was never as good, often ridiculed, or even ignored. But the tinkerer never did such things. For Ishmal, perhaps, Assegai had become his treasure of sorts, and the half imp would never desert him.
Except this time.
It wasn't just yesterday when Ishmal had accidentally broke something which Assegai treasured. Ishmal knew he treasured it, above all of his trinkets. It was something called urn that was filled with a strange dust. Ishmal knew not the significance of the treasure, but knew that treasure was meant to be protected above all costs. So, seeing the urn crash on the hard wood floor, shattering and the special dust spilling everywhere, Ishmal did the only thing he knew to do. He ran. He ran far and fast, until he was standing way out side of Phobos, perhaps farther than his feet have ever traveled.
Looking over the horizon, hearing the strange animal wailing in the distance, for a moment Ishmal was afraid. But the half-imp straightened his back and his resolve, "No!" he announced to the world, "Ishmal not run. Ishmal find shiniest treasure, then give to friend Assegai."