Edna Higgins

Edna Higgins was older than dirt and she had absolutely no compunctions about the idea of reminding anyone. If the remains of her snowy white hair and gnarled, arthritic fingers weren’t enough to announce it to any passers-by, she was also never seen anywhere without her worn old walking stick, leaning heavily on it as she made her way from one end of camp to another.

Oh, she seemed nice enough on the surface. She’d had a great many years to perfect the art of being old. She could pull out a smile as bright as a midsummer’s day, the creases in her face doing much to add a sense of kindliness to the expression. She seemed too, to have a knack for knowing which of the young, impressionable lads in the crew would bend the easiest under such a smile; which looked at her and saw a mirror of their own granny or their mothers, gods help them. Which she could cajole into “helping” with whatever task it was she thought them most suitable for. And the rest? Well, there was nothing quite so fearsome as a wise old crone wrapped in icy anger or worse—one seeking revenge. There was more than one tale circulating around the edges of camp describing what sort of creatures a woman like Edna could turn you into for refusing a request.

Age had great advantages for those who chose to embrace them.

The old woman who totters about camp will often give a shake of her head or a shrug of her shoulders if asked about her earlier years. She’ll claim not to remember them all that much or sometimes she’ll feed those who ask too many question the most outrageous of tales in response. The truth of it, though, is that Edna remembers very well how she got her start in this world and her experiences over the years have taught her the value of holding her cards close to her chest.

It’s not all that surprising, really. The eldest of eight mewling brats, Edna was thrust into the role of responsible adult far too early in life to come out of it unscathed. Her parents and two of her siblings suffered early ends in a very messy raid on the settlement they called home just outside of Daggermark’s borders some time in her twelfth year, leaving her responsible for five young mouths to feed and very few options for how to get that done. A harsh winter and a couple wet summers killed her already-pitiful chances at breathing life back into the farm and left her impressionable young mind desperate for solutions. Desperate enough to pack up and head for the city in hopes of finding more readily accessible coin.

It was something of a minor miracle that Edna hadn’t ended up in a whorehouse or a tavern in the end; a stroke of fate, perhaps, that led her to exactly the right place at exactly the right time. She’d been foolish enough to try and set up a stall in the beggar’s market in the slums of Daggermark, selling teas and shoddy little salves and tinctures of the kind often used in the farming community. It was, at the time, the only skill she thought she had that anyone in the city might be willing to pay for and though her goods weren’t nearly high enough quality to fetch any decent amount of coin, they were enough to catch the eye of one of the lower ranking members of the Poisoner’s Guild, which became the turning point in Edna’s life.

It was there that she met Vernon Hylia, a half-elf alchemist of some skill who saw in young Edna the drive and determination to excel. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly out of the goodness of his heart to take in what was barely more than a child-apprentice when he knew that it would lead her into a life of questionable morality but Edna was the perfect balance between eager and desperate and her youth made her imminently mouldable. It was a match made in heaven—or perhaps in hell, depending on who you asked. Vernon was only too happy to claim Edna as apprentice and Edna was only too happy to soak up every little bit of knowledge he tossed her way.

For many years the two of them plodded, slid and plotted their way up the ranks until their working relationship eventually fell apart over Edna’s accusations that Vernon was withholding trade secrets that she ought to have known and Vernon’s disapproval of over her willingness to use her fair face and feminine wiles to pull the wool over on the odd merchant or other herbalist. Vernon firmly believed in maintaining a sort of thieves honour and Edna felt no such restraint was really necessary in pursuit of whatever it was she wanted or needed. By the time she was thirty, Edna had struck out on her own into the wilds of the River Kingdom in search of more knowledge than what she felt Vernon was possible of giving her. Her intent was to search out one of the local elven tribes and learn whatever they would share of herbal lore and alchemy and then return to Daggermark with secrets of her own.

Secrets she didn’t intend to share.

It went rather better than she’d dared to hope. Edna found her way to the village of Mimere, in the heart of the territory belonging to the Hymbrian elves where she managed to seduce her way into the good graces of their best alchemist, Ruvyn Faelar. It was—in hindsight—perhaps not the wisest decision she made. Seduction was, as she learned later, better used on those one wasn’t actually attracted to. It did lead to some of the happiest times in her admittedly difficult life. Ruvyn and Edna were well suited for each other as far as anyone could tell. Both loved their work, spending weeks and months at a time out in the woods gathering ingredients and sharing their knowledge freely back and forth. The cracks didn’t really start to show until her elven lover started to suspect she was selling poisons to the trade caravans that came through Mimere, even against his wishes and the laws of his people—using his recipes. In the end, her own dishonesty destroyed any hope of continued welcome in the area and forced Ruvyn’s hand when she was ordered to leave. He chose his people over the woman who had been his closest companion for nearly a half dozen years.

A return to Daggermark seemed in order; a safe and familiar place in which she could lick the wounds left by twisted love gone wrong and so Edna returned to the guild only to find Vernon now sitting at the right hand—and in the bed—of the current guild-mistress. Her return was a quiet thing, Edna making do with a much lower position in the guild hierarchy than her skill level would have suggested. It was enough. For a while. And when she became bored and angry at her lack of position she began to undercut her competition. It was a subtle thing at first, careful not to draw too much attention to herself or make too much use of the skills she’d learned from the Hymbrian elves. In time she grew careless, pushing for power within the guild that drew resentment from those above her.

In the end it cost her nearly everything. The guild threw her out into the cold for her political and financial meddling and Edna found herself back in the wilds of the River Kingdom, hawking her wares in every flea-bitten hamlet from Daggermark to the outskirts of Liberthane where she ended up doing brisk business with what started as a small band of outlaws just inside Embeth Forest. They were forever in need of poultices, bandages, tinctures and potions and Edna was only too happy to supply them—for generous compensation, of course. It wasn’t long before the bandit camp was pretty much Edna’s only significant source of income—and a lucrative one, at that—and she managed to convince their leader that she could serve better from behind their lines rather than outside. It was a wonderful pairing, in a way. The bandits had secured themselves a healer, alchemist and woman of surprisingly varied skills and in return they gave her shelter, provided her with young legs to do her gathering work when she needed it and a measure of respect that she’d struggled to attain elsewhere.

At least… for now.