Editing Blood and Darkness Xirhys (section)

==Background==
Xirhys remembers the first day of her life. Thin and wan, naked on her hands and knees, covered in slime and vomiting amniotic fluid, clawing at the underspire's black floor. Being seized by one of the wracks and dragged, helpless and struggling, through the cloying halls of Aerandioch's birthing-chambers, surrounded by translucent chambers of half-formed 'siblings.' She was given a shawl and sold into slavery to a would-be lordling at the base of the Warren Spires, Dracon Leyraugh of the Shulz'Ben Kabal. She still thinks about that day, from time to time. It reminds her of just how much she has to lose.

She always had big dreams, even when she could barely think through the hunger and Thirst. She'd look at the glint of one of the stolen suns, and imagine the revenge she would someday take against her captors. As it turned out, she'd never have the chance; Leyraugh had big dreams, too, and when Kah Berahk found out about them, he said three little words without even raising his voice. Xirhys escaped in the confusion of Shulz'Ben's destruction, and found herself among the Parched, the starving and dispossessed, crowding around scenes of violence and bloodshed for a hint of pain.

From there, there was nothing but the slow and agonizing crawl through the City's ranks. Her first kill was another scavenger, fighting over a slowly expiring Reaver who'd literally fallen from the sky. The corpses could be sold as slave-food, and she could find corpses enough to buy some real blades. With the weapons, she could join a gang, and earn enough for her first splinter pistol. The pistol she used to kill a Hellion and steal his board. Paranoia, treachery, murder, and sheer bloody luck to claw her way off of the streets and corridors and toward the heights of the spires, rung by agonizing rung.

It's worked. She proved herself, secured a place in the Ebon Razor's warriors, something aspirants would kill for (and do--it's mandatory, in point of fact). As a successful raider, a ruthless negotiator, and a more than able killer, she was eventually elevated to the rank of Sybarite. It's a thrill, for her, to give orders to the warriors under her command, knowing that any of them would rather replace her than obey her, if only they could.

Of course, her position is far from secure. She never was one for temperance, which has left her with a long list of bad habits, enough that it might leave her dulled at the worst of times. She's badly overextended herself, during her rise and since, and is badly indebted to absolutely merciless creditors; of course, her best chance to pay them off is the riches of a realspace raid, which is unlikely to include a pauper begging from austerity, so she drives herself further into debt. Complacency and failure are likely to be equally lethal, so her choices are simple: she can keep climbing, or she can fall.