Tania Cayce

Tania Cayce was the white-haired apprentice of potion-master Donner Rus. A position she did not always enjoy, as Rus was stern and vain, and not above placing his apprentice in mortal danger in order to get certain ingredients.

Vaan's challenge
One day Rus was approached by the Pixie Vaan, who wanted him to help kill the dragon that had enslaved Vaan and his people. After Vaan insulted Rus by suggesting he was too old to accept such a job, Rus went along, pretending to accept the challenge. During their trip, it was Tania who figured out that the morose Vaan was hiding something, leading to the revelation that he was under a geas that prevented him from divulging too much information about his draconic master.

Rus had never really meant to go kill a dragon though: he thought that those who tried were doomed to fail. So when they had nearly reached the dragon's lair, he put the members of the group, except for him and his apprentice in a deep sleep with certain herbs, and sent Tania into the lair, planning on getting out of the region as fast as possible, after she had gathered some rare ingredients, such as dragon scales, claws, and teeth, from the lair. But it all went very wrong for Rus. Not only was the dragon awake, but it turned out to be a Mak Fawa, and thus none of the spells and poisons he had prepared would work. Tania was saved by Vaan and came away with only a few broken bones, but Rus himself was incinerated. Vaan brought her back to the group of would-be dragonslayers, where the druid Kula healed her wounds, and Tania told them of the mechanical nature of the dragon.

Although she had no desire to go along, Kula placed a headband of magical wood on Tania's head, which the druid could tighten at will, and forced her to go along. The group fought hard, but could not defeat the dragon. But Tania figured out, upon seeing it sparkle while the mechanical dragon repaired itself, that the old dragon skeleton inside the dragon's treasure chamber was linked to it. When Vaan was mortally wounded, the geas that was placed on him slipped, and he could tell Tania the truth: the dragon they were fighting was a merger between the Mak Fawa and Zumaki of the Bottomless Pool, and he could not be defeated unless both its mechanical body and the skeleton of Zumaki where destroyed in one stroke.

Upon learning this Tania took the Hand of Righteous Retribution, a magical sword that Captain Hask had used to inflict grievous, but non-lethal, damage upon the dragon. Using its power, she seemingly managed to destroy the dragon and the skeleton it was linked with but was knocked unconscious by the blast of the spell.

When Tania awoke, she was being carried by Kula, one of the few other survivors. Kula offers to train Tania in the ways of the druids, but Tania decided that she's not really looking for a new master after what Rus made her do.