Ariel

Ariel, a ghoul, haunts the ruined council chambers of Old Thera within the Griesly family manor. She is eternally bound here, pacing aimlessly before the skeletons of Theran councillors past, her near-completely severed head dangling behind her from a few intact vertebrae.

Ariel was the beloved mayor of the original town of Thera. Like most other residents, she perished when the town was razed to the ground with fiery meteors channeled by bird-thin magelords, allies of the Vertani, in the year 386 A.F.

The requiem for Ariel was small and quiet, held in the ruins of the Theran cemetery. Her body was laid to rest in a stately blossomwood casket made from one of the fabled trees of Thera by Enfrin, the woodcutter. The ceremony was attended mainly by citizens of Thera's allies, some of whom offered words of remembrance and symbolic gifts to the departed mayor.

At the close of the funeral, a remarkable sight presented itself: roots burst forth from a bouquet of alpine blossoms left on the ground, extending down into the earth. The bouquet grew into an emerald-green ivy that spread abundantly over the cemetery, its alpine blossoms transforming into Theran ones.

At the town centre, where Spring Lane and Summer Street intersect, a statue of amber-gold metal and pink-veined white marble pays homage to Ariel. A slender blossom tree sprouts behind the monument of the former mayor as she sits upon a bench, leaving her awash in a constant shower of petals.