Ultek Glorzuf - Backstory

• Posted by Andrew Roberts April 28, 2012 - 850 views

  I grew up in Bravil with my father Muzgnok Glorzuf, he was once a mighty Orc and fought as a mercenary against the Dominion but was wounded when they took the Imperial City. He was taken to Bravil where he met Narol Uzuk an Orc healer. They spent many months together before Narol fell pregnant. I was born the following year and they named me Ultek. The White-Gold Concordat was signed later that year and my father went into a rage, claiming his chance for revenge had been taken from him. He blamed my mother for not healing him quickly enough and went into a depression.  He began to spend most of him time and gold at the Silverhome on the Water drinking himself into a stupor and getting thrown into the castle dungeon every other night for brawling.

  When I was four winters old my mother was called away from Bravil to one of the farming villages nearby where a fever was taking many of the villagers. She was gone for three days when someone came knocking on our door looking for her, apparently she never arrived at the village. A search party was sent out, everyone thought it must have been bandits or goblins but no sign of her was ever found.

  With my mother gone my father became a shell of his former self, prone to bouts of rage or melancholy. Over the next few years he scraped a living by doing odd jobs and occasional grave robbing. On two occasions he even managed to get work as a caravan guard leaving me behind to fend for myself. By the time I was seven I’d managed to get myself an apprenticeship from the blacksmith Fjorkvar Heart-Fang a Nord who brooked no nonsense. If I damaged a weapon or piece of armor it came out of my wage, I became very careful very fast.

  I tried to hide my apprenticeship from my father and managed to do so for almost a month by occasionally adding a few coins to his purse so he’d stay drunk that bit longer. It worked great until he caught me at it and beat me for trying to steal his gold. When I confessed that I was putting in extra gold as I’d gotten a job he beat me even more, claiming that since I was his son and lived under his roof all of my gold was rightfully his.

  Over the next few years I learned my trade under Fjorkvar’s watchful gaze and my father gave up all pretences of work. He took most of what I earned and spent it on Skooma and Ale, the rest I spend on food and was forced to cook whatever my father fancied. If we didn’t have what he wanted to hand or couldn’t afford to buy food because he’d spent all our gold on Skooma he would beat me. If we had leftovers he would beat me for spending too much on food.

  By the time I was ten I was almost as big as my father and his beatings were becoming less physical and more verbal. He limped on his right leg now and needed a walking stick after losing a bar fight. It had almost cost him his leg but one of the Priests of Mara had been passing by and managed to save it with magic. If he had only let the priest work his art and not punched him in the face for interfering he wouldn’t even have the limp. As it was though he now carried a stout stick which he would swing vigorously if he didn’t get his own way.

  Things stayed much the same way until 4E 188 when a power struggle between the two large Skooma traffickers in Cyrodiil starts to boil over in Bravil. I remember my father becoming worse as the Skooma supply began to dwindle due to the siege.  Then one day in Heartfire there was a knock at the door and when I answered it Alisanne Drupe was standing outside. I’d never spoken to her before but knew she was not to be messed with. I remember standing there staring like a simpleton as one of the most powerful people in Bravil entered my house and walked over to my father.

  He stared angrily at her as she approached him and looked ready to shout some obscenity at her when she threw a small sack at him that clinked as it landed in his lap. My father growled at her, put his hand into the sack and instantly froze. A look of joy I hadn’t seen in years passed over his face as he pulled out three bottles of Skooma, undid the stoppers and downed all three right then and there.  Dupree told him she wanted to higher us to help guard her home against looters as a pair of Orcs, even a young one and a cripple would make people think twice about breaking into her home.  She told him she would give him all the Skooma he can drink if her house was kept safe until the end of the siege and offered a bottle a day plus gruel if we helped guard the house during the night. My father didn’t even pretend to think about it, he just smiled and nodded dumbly as the Skooma started to take effect.

  It started off quietly, both of us just standing around looking menacing but by mid Frostfall things had gotten so bad that we had been forced to defend Dupre’s house several times and on two occasions killing some of the attackers. I was battered and bruised but nothing I wasn’t used to, I also found out quickly how much I enjoyed a good fight. “It’s the Orc Blood”, my father would say, “it craves violence”, I tried to convince myself that wasn’t it but inside I knew he was right.

  One night when I was resting a Khajiit approached my father and offered him thirty bottles of Skooma to just walk away. Again my father’s lust for Skooma won over and he agreed but unfortunately he never bothered to tell me. I awoke to the sound of hushed voices and grabbed my axe and shield thinking my father had fallen asleep on his watch. I crept up on the intruders and quickly dispatched them taking only minor wounds.

  When I dragged the bodies outside my father was standing across the street with the Khajiit, a look of horror and rage on his face as he saw me drag out the bodies. The Khajiit looked to be giving out to my father and waving his arms around franticly before finally spitting on the ground and stalking away. My father stared at me with hatred in his eyes, unsheathed his sword and limped towards me.

  It took me only a second to realize the men I’d killed had been the Khajiit’s and my father had made an arrangement with him which I had obviously ruined. Panic gripped me as I realized my father now wanted to kill me. I stood there, frozen to the spot as my father approached me with death in his eyes. My mind raced and I felt fear, shock, and then suddenly anger. An anger that had been building for year gripped me as all the beatings he’d given me seemed to flash before my eyes. I could feel myself shaking as I clenched my fists till my knuckles popped, the shaking became worse and all of a sudden I felt a rush in the back of my mind. A shout that seemed to come from the depths of my sole ripped from my mouth and my father was knocked back a step by the force of it. The world went red and before I knew it I had leapt from the top step at him, hands outstretched, weapon and shield forgotten on the porch behind me.

  I landed on him with a crash and we both fell heavily on the cobbles. I grabbed his helmet and smashed his head into the ground, the sound of iron cracking could be heard as I slammed his head down again and again and again. Somehow he managed to get this good leg under me and kicked me off him. He got up, pulled off his now split Iron helmet and lunged at me, fists striking my face and chest. I could feel the blows but there was no pain, I laughed as he hit me repeatedly, then grabbed his ears and smashed my forehead into his nose, he recoiled in pain with blood running down his face.

  He stumbled and fell landing on his backside one hand holding his nose the other held open towards me. I slapped his hand away and kicked him full in the face knocking him flat on his back. As he struggled to move, blood oozing from his nose and mouth I leaned down and he whimpered like a child. The rage inside me seemed to flair and I grabbed him by the tusks and hauled him to his knees, then still gripping his tusks and using all my strength I began to pull my hands apart. He screamed and flailed about scratching at my face and bashing my chest weekly as I tore the tusks from his mouth. With a loud, wet ripping sound my arms flung apart sending him flying up the street. My left hand went slack as I lost my grip on him but my right remained clenched and in that fist I held one of my father’s tusks.

  I heard a gurgling from my left and looked up to see my father weekly trying to crawl away. Looking back at the tusk in my hand I got up and walked towards him. I don’t know if he tried to say something or simply scream but all I heard was a gurgle as I knelt down and stabbed him in the throat with his own tusk. He thrashed for a moment then collapsed lifeless on the ground.

  I stared at his body for a moment before the red drained from my eyes and the dark colours of night came rushing back. As I stared at him I realized what I’d just done and though I thought I should feel sorrow, all I actually felt was relief… I was free.

  I heard a noise from behind me and realized that the Khajiit had used his time well and there were now people inside Dupre’s house looting. I knew she’d be furious and that I’d bear the brunt of her rage now my father was dead. I only had one option, I had to leave Bravil but with the siege it wasn’t going to be easy.

  I went to make my way home and was stopped by the Khajiit I had seen earlier.  He told me how he could use someone like me if I was interested. I told him to get me out of Bravil I’ll do whatever he wanted. He smiled at me then and told me to follow him. We’d gone maybe ten steps when I felt something hit me from behind and darkness took me.

  When I came too I was in a cave. The Khajiit I’d seen earlier along with too more and a few Nords were also there.  One of the other Khajiit introduced himself as Ri’Zaymar and told me I was to go with the Nords and help them beat his money out of some customers who hadn’t paid in a while. He told me how I could make a lot of gold working for him and also how he would make what I did to my father look like a slap on the wrist if I ever tried to cross him.

  I didn’t really have a choice so I went with the Nords and spent the next few years learning the finer points of extracting money and information from people who didn’t want to give it up. I quickly discovered that most of our information gathering was done in Ale houses and other assorted drinking establishments. I had my first taste of Mead later that month after leaving Bravil and found that unlike Ale which tended to make me sick-up I quite enjoyed Mead. The Nords I was travelling with tended to drink quite a bit and it wasn’t long before I became all too accustomed to drinking large amounts of alcohol.

  I learned much those first few years, like how to beat someone so it wouldn’t mark their skin and on the other hand how to inflict the most pain with a few quick punches. It wasn’t until my third year as one of Ri’Zaymars bully boys that I was assigned to a Dunmer named Nelso Thalor. She didn’t look very impressive and was short for a Dunmer but when I mentioned how her name sounded a lot like Thalmor I almost didn’t live to regret it. She was a master swordsman and an adapt in Restoration magic. She trained me to use my shield and axe properly and over the next seven years managed to teach me a basic Healing spell, although I still can’t always get it to work. I was moving up the ranks and was now working as an Enforcer seeking out and eliminating rival Skooma dealers in Cyrodiil.

  During 4E 199 we were sent to check out the rumour that a mage named Rodore Aurelie up in Bruma had discovered a way of creating Skooma using discarded Skooma bottles and magic. It took a few months and a lot of work to discover that he was hiding out in an abandoned mine up in the hills near Bruma. When we discovered his hiding place and confronted him he confessed that he had managed to recreate Skooma but it was an inferior product. Nelso decided that we would tell Ri’Zaymar  about this Breton but not mention the fact his goods were not up to scratch, instead sending some of the Skooma we currently had hidden in Bruma as an example of his work. We’d take the commission for finding Rodore and have him create as much of his fake Skooma as he can for us. In exchange we would let him live.

  The ploy worked very well, and Nelso managed to convince the local bully boys that we were to guard Rodore as he was of high value to Ri’Zaymar. We still received regular shipments of Skooma as we had told Ri'Zaymar the magic was a difficult thing, prone to failure and when the shipments arrived we would replace about half the stock with the inferior Skooma thinking most Skooma heads wouldn’t notice the difference and then sold on the rest ourselves keeping all the profits.

  It wasn’t until early Suns’Height of 4E 201 that we realized we’d been discovered. We were attacked by a member of the dark brotherhood. He was an amazing fighter and managed to kill Rodore Aurelie before we even knew he was there. He may have gotten us too only Nelso spotted him as he was sneaking up on me and managed to jump in and deflect his blow just in time. We were both badly wounded in the fight but we did manage to kill him in the end. It was only after checking his person did we discover it was Ri’Zaymar who’d paid for our lives to be taken.

  With the mage dead and a price on our heads we knew we’d need to leave Cyrodiil. Nelso healed us and after a long discussion we decided Skyrim would probably be our best bet since Ri’Zaymar had now power there. With any luck we’d be able to lay low there for a few years till things blew over.  So late the following evening we started our journey over the mountains to Skyrim and our new lives.