Ages ere, close enough to count but too far to matter just how long, a strange old wizard toiled in his study. His name was lost, for no record had kept it, not even his own. When whispered about by those who saw his stone house on its great stilted legs of iron that would scuttle creaking through the wood, he was called The Wizard of the Walking House. By those who gave nasty names to things they feared, he was called Acid, and those sort warned their children never to get too close to him. 

It was unclear of what stock he had come, or from where, or even what manner of creature he was, or had been before he was the wizard Acid. He looked something like a man toting a long white beard darkened with soot and grime from how it reached all the way down to his feet and swept along the ground with his layers of robes, but near every other feature told a differing story—short dark horns, a snake-like tail, piercing eyes of all-yellow framing slashed pupils. 

Whatever he was, he had been so for longer than any living memory, the beginning of his tale lost to time. 

Any who knew his name knew also his quest—he sought eternal life, striving beyond even the vulnerable immortality of the fae or the elementals. He wanted to find a way to escape death entirely, to slip beyond the distinction of mortal, idir-mortal, and immortal and live forevermore. Many had heard he sought the fountain of youth, using dangerous spell after enchantment after curse to prolong himself until he found it. This much was true, though the exact means were never known, as Acid was as secretive as he was strange, and those who entered his walking house seldom came back out again. 

Despite his continuation, time took its toll on the wizard, his body made frail by all he had sacrificed in his experiments and too weak to continue being his own test subject. His strength was waning, and he was growing desperate. He resolved to seek out the strongest mortal from shore to shore and to imbue their soul with indefinite life, heightening their strength and heartiness, and then planned to devour the imbued soul to gain its power. 

He searched long, hosting tournament after tournament to discover the strongest mortal. When finally he found a champion, a warrior named Cathal and titled kempe for her belovedness, he stole her back to his walking house under the guise of celebration and immobilised her with a potion, then got to work. 

The process was gruelling and agonising, but Cathalkempe’s strength sustained her. By the time the spell was finished, Cathalkempe’s had screamed her voice away and her breath barely stirred her broad chest, but she was still alive. 

Delighted, Acid put his work immediately to the test and slayed Cathalkempe upon his work table with her own broadsword. She could manage only a whimper as blood sprang from the wound in her core and in a quick moment her body went still. 

Acid’s delight turned to frustration and he did everything to revive her, but her body was dead and would never again stir. The wizard raged, scrapping all his efforts on the endeavour to focus on another experiment, considering the previous a bitter failure. 

What Acid did not know, however, was that his spell had worked—in a way. Cathalkempe’s soul had been given strength enough to evade the reach of death when her body expired, outpacing the psychopomps that were to deliver her soul to the world of the dead, and taking up residence in a new infant mortal body to begin life anew. 

Not all of the warrior Cathalkempe remained in this new life, however—the new body inherited her strength and endurance alongside her battle skill and agility, functioning as disposition and instinct. Her memories, however, were lost, and her personality, her manner, her inner world, became malleable, melting back down to liquid ore and reshaped by this new life. Even so, pieces lingered—a fierce spirit, a call to violence, a longing itch like no other, a longing for a past they could no longer remember, for a wrong done to them they could not right, for a purpose they did not know. 

But, even more than for most, there was no choice but to live.