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Name: Damon Vicous
Nickname/Alias/Etc: “Lieo”
Gender: Male
Age: 31
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 109 lbs, but when he’s… full...
Home District: None; he’s from outta town.

Appearance

Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Amber
Ethnicity: Canadian; he’s really got German and French in him though, with some Czechoslovakian.
Physical Appearance: He has a somewhat slouched posture during relaxed, casual occasions, but can stand up straight with shoulders broad at 6'0” when the situation calls for formality. The man’s build is average; he isn’t athletic and he doesn’t have chiseled abs – fairly lanky, and is carting around something of a belly a man gets when he ages and doesn't exercise just often enough. Damon’s complexion is rather poor, what with the occasional blemish or inflammation caused by irritation of the skin and the occasional blotches of scar tissue. It contrasts with his dark brown (nearly black) short cropped hair with a subtle widow's peak. One thing that an observant person would notice about him is that his fair skin usually doesn't show. His hands are usually tucked in his pockets, his neck is wrapped in a white bandana with black design, so all you can really see of him-him is his face, which is free of holes, and his hands; and maybe the top of the back of his neck.

His face, which, if he was working, would appear stern and his brows creased in concentration and forethought. Or in some cases he could be smiling, which shows off the dimples in his cheeks. Most often though, if you were to find him on the streets, he would look wary. Almost jumpy, even. Just by looking at him you can tell he isn’t a murderer or a crook though. More like a man with a terrible secret, a burden that weighs him down with every step he makes. He gives the impression that he is at peace with what he does, but this appearance of peace also comes with the appearance as though he's enjoying a guilty pleasure. He doesn't seem one hundred percent comfortable in his own skin or with his method of getting by no matter how hard he tries to convince someone. Even in his white smiles, there’s something lost and sad about it. Like the smile doesn’t reflect in his eyes. If one’s senses were acute enough, you could barely make out the odd aroma of honey near him.

Attire: He has a worn down, brown leather jacket that appears to be riddled with holes, and beneath that is a simple white t-shirt, also appearing to have many holes in it. In fact, almost every piece of his clothing appears to have holes in it, even the stolen black designer jeans. The only exception there seems to be are these rough looking brown leather boots, steel toed. He also seems to have a white bandana with black print that’s tied loosely around his neck. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t appear to be there for any purpose other than just being there. It could be for style, comfort, or act as a shield against encroaching eyes.

Personality

Personality: Generally analytical and serious in his workplace, he is oblivious to the world around him, nothing but pure concentration channeling into whatever he is doing. His intellect practically radiating off of him as his fingers blindingly zip around the keyboard of his computer. In this train of thought, he has an air of authority that he could never achieve on his own conscience. Almost as an alter-ego of his real self, while he's around company, he comes off as a kind and gentle man, somewhat meek and reserved, which contrasts with the way he dresses. If young people are in danger, kids even, he'll do what he can to help without ceasing. He becomes slightly more hesitant however if there's actually someone or something threatening them. He has a soft spot for the outcasts or those stricken by poverty after having lived the experience when he was younger - and even now. He can be talkative among those he likes and is liberal in his values and beliefs.

Damon is in fact introverted, rather having to sit back whilst in a group or in the company of peers, which are few in between. However, he hides this with the mask of a positive disposition. He lacks a kind of assertiveness while in casual interactions and has one or maybe two friends (if he’s lucky) that he can feel comfortable around. He feels haunted by his past and he isn't proud of what he does to earn money, but he doesn't regret his actions - what he regrets is the accidents that have occurred that led to him being hunted down in the first place. As a result, he is also afraid of getting close to people or getting into dangerous situations that he cannot control. It's out of fear of harming someone again and losing himself in the process.

He’s very much restrained and has an absolute loathing for his “power”. After all, it is what ruined his life from the beginning and still continues to do so. He feels invaded, violated, his power and control being stripped away from him to the benefit and hosting of others, of aliens and strangers - demons. As such, he is very against using it even if it is to his own advantage. In fact, there exists even a fear for the swarm inside of him and a fear of losing control, lest that swarm domineers him. He has also seen what his power can do, and he has no desire to inflict that kind of gruesome fate onto any mortal man, woman, or child.

His intelligence is an outstanding factor. What he lacks in physical aptitude, he makes up for being a tech wiz. He even made his own computer and rigged a mobile wifi hotspot, which allows him to cruise the internet as fast as a roadrunner. While on the run, he has gotten by only because of a side job that he had (along with stealing occasionally). He is capable of hacking into computers and software, creating and deleting Trojans and even spikes, as well as USBs and data chips to give to people. Technically, this is illegal. Despite what the upstanding citizen may think of him, he does have a great deal of morals and he does his best to abide by them. He has managed to go this many years without harming someone again, after all.

Among all the deals he made with people who you could easily assume to be part of the Kennedy shooting if you didn’t already know that it would’ve been too many years ago for that to be a feasible possibility, he is very familiar with sketchy people. He has the basic gist of how they operate and how they intend on extorting him or bargain with him. As such, Damon has develop a sort of social savvy - in the sense that he cannot be easily bargained with or persuaded. Not that you’d know it, of course. These sorts of people don’t like being said “no” to. So Damon works out a social nuance in which he can appease his “associates” without actually letting them in on anything. He doesn’t directly say no, or refuse, or disagree. He feigns an interest and bargains on his own terms with the illusion of a compromise that is more heavily suited towards the other guy. Of course, these deals work in Damon’s favor and original plan in the end. He doesn’t dish out special favors for strict business customers.

Hobbies/Interests: He hasn't had a lot of time in his youth to explore his hobbies, though he has come to enjoy working with computers. He has also come to appreciate a great invention called coffee and enjoys the age old tradition of laying on a couch and watching movies. He usually just enjoys all of the little things in life due to not being able to do so before.

Skills/Talents: Programming, networking, hacking, updating, developing, repairing - he can do wonders with computers and has a natural inclination to understand them, though most of it was learned from practical tinkering. He has no college education that taught him how to do what he does. He, while not typically an outstanding speaker or even a social individual, his livelihood kind of depended on getting through on his transactions on his own terms. He’s not a superb fighter. Not while he’s sober.

Prized Possession: That laptop that looks like a piece of junk? Yeah. He made that. It’s a fucking brick. And worth more than you are. Any idea how expensive the parts he had to steal were? It’s the Frankenstein of high-quality ingredients and runs like an angel.

Quote(s): “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Yeah, I know it pretty well. It’s a tragic story.”

History/Bio: Well, he was brought up in Canada until he was five, and then they moved to Chicago where he stayed until he was fifteen. That is when the bees started to follow him everywhere and burrow in his skin and turn him into a freak show. He was then a homeless, disowned child hiding back in the alleys where people (namely other kids) would throws rocks at him. When he moved into old or abandoned buildings, it was a matter of time until a cop found him and sprayed him with pepper spray. He has never had it easy, honestly. Damon's luck ran so dry he was even once forced to be on the run from law enforcement because of: a. his mutant status, and b. a run in he had a long time ago when he was 19. An accident occurred then that involved the maiming and death of a man that had jumped him in a back alley. Damon snapped, and the screaming that came afterward prompted an emergency call from a bystander. Which is the one memory that still haunts him to this day.

When he was younger though, he was already pretty damn good with technology. When he was orphaned, he happened across a sociologist trying to emulate the Indian Hole in the Wall study, and there were computers outside the building. He would, at night, sneak out when no other kids or other homeless people were around and study the computers carefully. Over time, he got better; and he liked it. It brought some hope to his bleak world, and after years went by, he learned how to bypass most of the systems and firewalls. He learned the shortcuts and how to upgrade its capabilities. By the time he started getting chased, he had accumulated enough knowledge to steal a fancy computer from a store and a wifi router and upgrade them himself when he found time to obtain the parts and how-to information. After years of self-teaching and Dummy books, he has since hacked sites and made trojans and spikes for people in exchange for payment. He’s still running even now, and ended up in all sorts of places. He’s a bit lost at the moment, trying to find his way up to pass the border into America, but ended up getting tangled in the affairs of a particular, mysterious woman.

Family: Damon’s been disowned.

Relationships

N/A

Abilities

Power Class & Rating: Super System & Cerebral
Power: Damon is a living hive. Africanized bees infest his body, unbeknownst to the people around him. Inside of him are what could be hundreds upon thousands of bees, and they’re even crawling about in his clothes, which are the cause of the holes his clothes that he has tried desperately to replace, but new holes keep being torn open to allow easy access. He has since given up. It’s also the reason why he wears so much clothing in the first place to cover his skin. Littered upon his body are holes. It’s like an underground system, from within his abdomen, his legs, his back, his arms, and even in the palms of his hands. The bees, since their initial occupancy, have ravaged much of the internal organs of Damon’s body to point of non-functionality. What remains is most of his circulatory and digestive systems (which damaged much of his nervous system), and his head remains free of infestation. His reproduction system (due to the bees inhabiting most of the abdomen) has been damaged to the point that any actual reproduction would be impossible.

How could such a man survive? A very nuanced power seems to be very particular in how it affected him. He doesn’t have many requirements for survival and most of what he does is done out of habit. As it turns out, as long as he has a mind and that his brain is intact, Damon will live. Even without a body, he can survive on as a mere conscience exacting what will that it can. Damon isn’t fully aware of this, just that he can go on without eating or drinking for a long time. And while someone trying to choke him to death is painful and agonizing, it doesn’t really shut him down. All of his nerves are still active and he can still feel, so he is just as receptive to pain.

Damon has, to the slightest extent, extrasensory or telepathic abilities that allow him control over the insects that dwells within his body. The bees follow every one of his demands like a mindless robots, like pawns on a chessboard. He also releases a specific pheromone that appeals to bees in the surrounding vicinity and lures them to him, and it also negates the pheromone that the queen bee has that keeps other female bees from reproducing. So, if allowed, he could be surrounded by a colossal mass of writhing bugs with pointy stingers. Minor communication is possibly, but it is mostly an exchange of information. He can send a drone ahead and learn about what is around the corner. Having a massive swarm at his disposal, he can possess an omnipresence in the city. He could theoretically see everything as long as he has a set of eyes there. Try as you might, if you make an enemy out of Damon, you will be hard pressed to escape him (unless you swat the bee - in that case, they can’t report to the hive… but dead bees do give off a particular pheromone that alerts the others of danger, attracting more).

Since he is full of bees, he can adopt certain properties of them. Insects have a natural strength in comparison to size, so he could be a little stronger. He could command them to hoist him into the air and allow him to fly - his body has been hollowed out and is very light. If he wanted to, and I doubt he does, he could shoot a stream of bees at the landing skids of a helicopter and send it crashing into the ground (reference). So, depending on the situation, he is capable of being a badass. Obviously, this ability is a mixed bag.

He also has very minor regenerative abilities. Honey is a natural anti-oxidant and, naturally, them bees are gonna need a place to store it. While Damon isn’t full of it, some honey does line his insides… though mingled with it is blood and flesh, so don’t eat that.

Weaknesses/Drawbacks: A big down side is that his body and mind is deteriorating. Body is obvious, with those holes in his body and all. They got into his body by literally eating him. They ate holes into his body and carved out a hive. It was incredibly excruciating - torture, even. If he survives long enough, his whole body will deteriorate and he will be dead for good (only when the last of his brain is eaten up, however). The bees, at a certain point, planted themselves along the central nervous system and at the very edge of the brain stem, and the pheromones affected him in such a way that the damage the bees do no longer harms him. Think really hard about what that might turn into. Although he practically has complete control, there are some “incidents”, so to speak, that can occur.

A great deal of stress, anger or endangerment to his life can cause him to crack and make him go batshit crazy for a minute or so. This is his Mr Hyde: a persona created by the manifestation of the hive self-named “Lieo”. Lieo is a hive-mind and is utterly ruthless and with no inhibitions holding them back - an abominable bastard that will hunt you down with Terminator-style pursuit predation, assuming you manage to escape his clutches. Lieo is essentially the entire swarm and hive itself working through Damon’s body, but could also simply be Damon with the mind of a swarm, that he is “one of them”. It’s a curious state that warrants attention, but is a very real danger to anyone around him. Even Damon. The lack of inhibitions causes damage to the body if he were to exert too much, and Damon will feel it afterward. In addition, using the power itself - controlling the bees - puts him on the fine line of sanity and breaking into Lieo’s persona. To control the hive, he has to put himself on the same level of communication by inserting his will and thoughts via a mild form of telepathy. This, if put off balance, can tip him over the edge and can cause the swarm to dominate his mind.

Any means of telepathy or mind reading against im also upsets the bees in the body which generates stress on Damon as well. So psychic powers can make him crack as well. Although this protects him from mind reading and telepathy to some extent, it is an uncomfortable experience that everyone would wish to avoid. Further, these are just bees. Fire and pesticides are his bane, or at least to the hive residing in him. However, Damon does have a record of being conniving (enoughly so that he can get away with a lot of crimes to survive), so these aren’t sure-fire ways to get rid of him. You’d still have to chase him down. Given the number of alleys and rooms he’s familiar with, he can be capable of ambushing you or, with the swarm, swarming you in a moment’s notice without any warning. And of course, a bullet to the head. That’ll stop most things in their tracks. There’s also the matter of his personality restraining him from using this ability to his full advantage - and in doing so, also accelerates his degeneration.

Lastly, his ability to command the swarm is limited. The code to protect and protect, and live within the security of the hive is hard-wired into each and every member of the swarm’s brain like a robot. It is a failsafe system that ensures the hive’s safety and the safety of the swarm. To this extent, Damon cannot just send the swarm and keep them away from him forever. Such commands they were carry out only to a certain extent before they are ignored. Even if it was something these mindless drones were capable of carrying out, the matter of Damon’s pheromones still exists, and therefore they will always return to the safety of the hive. Damon’s life is essentially on count-down.

Basic Information

Name: Peter Brooke
Nickname/Alias/Etc: Pvt. Brooke, Dr. Brooke, Richard Cox
Gender: Male
Age: 41 years
Height: 6'5" ft. (1.98 m)
Weight: 409 lbs. (185.5 kg)
Status: New "student"

Appearance

Hair Color: N/A
Eye Color: N/A
Ethnicity: A mix of German, Polish, Irish and French - which is another way of saying white/Caucasian.
Physical Appearance: He is nothing like any person has seen before and appears to be a Hollywood CGI construct. He stands at a daunting 6'5" height, which in itself is quite a height even for a grown man, and he weighs at least four hundred pounds. You see, his body is made of a titanium alloy with stainless steel and platinum. The sound he makes when struck, if a person was ever brave enough to do so, is peculiar because it sounds hollow (though to what extent is unable to be discerned). His solid body is smooth, sleek, shiny and it looks as though it was sculpted by an artist - he lacks any kind of hair at all and he is "muscled". Expanding upon this, he has broad shoulders, he has a toned abdomen, toned back, toned legs, arms - ah, excuse me - arm. He only has one arm. His left one. His right shoulder ends right there and there isn't even so much as a stub where his right arm used to be. In fact, even his genitalia appears to be missing, and what now replaces it is nothing more than a smooth curve that suggests nothing was ever there to begin with. While we're on the topic of missing, he doesn't have eyes either. All there is where his eyes should be are indents that would indicate eye sockets, but with nothing there as you would expect. He does have ears and a nose, but due to his body being metal, aren't things that have practical functions anymore. He has a mouth, but the sounds he makes when he tries to speak? It sounds as if metal is being bent or warped. It'd take practice, but given time, a lot of patience and effort, and with a little help from other aspects of his power, he learned how to speak. His voice sounds "hollow" for lack of a better term, and it sounds as though it echoes through his body. His body has no corrosion, rust and is free from marks that could even be comparable to a skin flaw. The platinum traits keeps him looking keen as always.

Attire: With his body turning to metal and the loss of his genitals, there's little need to seek out modesty in clothing. He could walk "in the nude" in front of children and still be perfectly acceptable. However, old habits die hard. He always wore his lab coat even before the change, as he rarely ever left. Under neath the coat would be a simple white button-up and black dress pants, along with shiny black dress shoes. He always did wear rather formal attire in his lab while performing research, and Peter rarely ever left his lab. He has little in the ways of casual attire except for perhaps a thick black jacket for whenever the harsh Maine winters rolled along, but that is hardly a necessary article of clothing for him anymore, and Peter is all about practicality.

Personality

Outward & Innate Personality: Peter is a troubled individual, but he is ambitious and well-meaning. He pushes forward through his hardships with admirable tenacity and the intelligence to make his plans work and come together. He has few relationships with others, as he is very much a recluse and prefers the solitary life, but doesn't make him any less capable of working with others. He is quite adept at teamwork as his experience would indicate and is willing to compromise lesser goals for the sake of greater progress. His self-reflection is modest. He has enough pride and confidence to push forward and believe in himself, but periodically falls into moods of depression and senses of desperation should his progress in his research come to a plateau. However, he is true to himself and others and despite his willingness to compromise, he will never give up his core beliefs and values regardless of the situation at hand. This, along with his research, are things that appears to be an obsession of his. So as selfless as he may appear at times, he does have his own motives and agenda, and if helping another person risks that, you can be sure he wouldn't lay a finger to help them. He has an eerie sort of level-headedness that is almost unnerving, and is alarmingly difficult to anger (unless you know what he's highly protective of) and has an apparent lack of sense of humor; these in conjunction with his wit and the mind of a thinker, he seems to talk in such a way that it sounds as though he knows something that you don't, but doesn't display the arrogance that usually comes with such a trait.

Fears: His obsession over his research is almost admirable even to paranoid schizophrenic. His work is locked up tighter than a high security prison, and if it was ever lost or damaged or stolen or if anything was done to compromise it, he'd be lost. And he'd do quite a bit to get that work back. It's not just for the sake of himself either, but for anybody who has also had to endure his condition. Otherwise, he isn't afraid of much. Being a soldier kind of beat that out of him with a club. However, explosions or depictions of explosions makes him uneasy. That is how he lost his arm after all.

Hobbies/Interests: Before Peter went overseas, he had a healthy interest in medicine and chemistry. Chemistry extended to a variety of things, and he dabbled a bit in cooking so he could watch the food cook carefully and think about all the changes that occurred that caused it to look and taste differently (his friends and family often commented about he took the soul out of cooking). He enjoyed track while in high school. But much of his hobbies and interests have become a blur in recent years since the rise of his obsession. There isn't much he looks into beyond his own research into stem cell development.

Skills/Talents: Peter is a talented doctor, and even has Ph.D in medicine before becoming a licensed medical engineer to create medicine. He has spent the last few years of his life researching stem cells and stem cell production and replication. His college experience gives him a good deal of book smarts, and he knows a fair amount of chemistry and other physics-like topics and is generally a good study. Answering interviews and whatnot gave him some experience in talking properly to other people, and just enough political speak to answer as vaguely as he can while on topic, as to not give away too much information before he published his work. He was also once a soldier, so he would have received the standard training including maneuvers and combat training and marksmanship - survival, tactics, and so on. The rigid schedule disciplined him so he can adapt to routines and strict rules.

Prized Possession: His stem cell research is locked up tighter than Alcatraz.

Quote(s): "I don't want to be an idol, or a hero. Or an example. I just want to finish what I started and give hope to people like me."

History/Bio: Peter came from a very poor family from Maine. He was smart, and could get through school like a breeze. He had very little trouble in his childhood aside from the challenges that came naturally when living as a lower class family. As expected, when he graduated from high school, neither he nor his family had the funds to put him through college and he wasn't considered qualified for scholarships - apparently a lower class kid interested in medical engineering wasn't good enough of an investment. So Peter was forced to look towards other areas to make college life easier. So he enlisted in the United States military when he was nineteen for both the pay and college benefits it would provide. After training, he was finally sent to Saudi Arabia to repel Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. His very first mission out, the vehicle Peter was riding in hit a land mine. The explosion and shrapnel tore up his right arm and killed everyone in the vehicle except for him and one other. He was later rushed for medical treatment and the only alternative that was available to him was to amputate the arm entirely. No longer being a serviceable soldier, he was forced to retire without having done anything but lose an arm. He was at least provided monthly compensation and the opportunity to go to college as a disabled veteran.

It was basically mockery from the Gods, he always figured. And he never did get over that incident. In fact, he grew to become fervorous over it. He did eventually earn his Ph.D through college, as difficult as it was with all the post traumatic stress nightmares and the crippling disadvantage that came with having only one arm. He became a doctor and pursued medical engineering as previously planned. In a short period of time however, medicine research shifted to stem cell research. In fact, the loss of his arm was nearly tormenting to him. He grew obsessive over his research of stem cells and managed to get quite a bit of work done on it, but was by no means famous for it. He answered a couple of interviews on his progress, and he felt he was getting quite close to the answer. He pursued stem cell research for twelve years. He figured a couple things out, ran several tests and experiments, but nothing so groundbreaking as the regeneration of a whole arm. Not to mention the entire pro-life community kept him from getting the necessary amount of funding.

Peter never knew he was a meta-human though - he was a late bloomer. So he woke up one morning and was unable to feel the soft, plushy cushions or blink away the curtain of darkness that veiled his eyes. He felt as though all of his senses were deadened, and screaming in despair resulted in nothing but an ugly moan that reverberated throughout his metal body. He no longer required food or water, and so he remained for another month or two unable to continue his research, or get a feel for his environment. He talked to himself incessantly - or tried to - and eventually managed to get it down somewhat. The third month he discovered the other part of his power. He always felt the fuzzy feeling inside of his head. When it surged through his body and gave life to all of his senses, it was, pardon the pun, quite the shocker. It took even longer months for him to practice them well enough and effectively navigate his environment without frying some electronics, but when he did and was able to control the amperage amount, he returned to his research in a frenzy and reviewed all of his notes. During that time of practice, he had difficulty coming to terms that his body was metal, and that he would never get his arm back. He only managed to accept himself once he came to the conclusion he would finish his work for the sake of others like him.

It was also during that time he developed an addiction to electricity. And it wasn't just because he could regain his senses and had reflexes as fast as lightning, but once he learned that once he had enough, he could channel the voltage into a condensed arc of crackling electricity into the shape of an arm. He made himself a right arm and was able to move it as he normally would and more, able to reach places and bend in ways a normal arm would otherwise be unable to do. But it wasn't the improvements that psyched him, it was just the fact he had an arm again. Granted, it took a lot of energy, and it was something he could only keep for ten minutes before the arm died away. That time had been one of the few times since the accident he felt true joy - euphoria, even. Unfortunately, his already sub-standard funding became worse once people learned he was a meta-human.

Family: Father: Sylvester Brooke (deceased); Mother: Roberta Brooke (deceased)

Relationships

Relationships:

N/A

Abilities

Power Class: Anatomical/Biological

Power: There is little left of Peter's original body other than its shape. His body is made completely up with a shiny, sleek, non-rusting and non-corroding metallic skin strong enough that it allows him to be very much capable of withstanding beatings that would kill most other people. Further, this metallic body appears to be simply a boat for another ability: his brain is a generator. It produces generous amounts of electricity of which he is capable of controlling. He can control the flow of the current through any part of his body, keeping the current in place in his head or in his hands, and even arcing the electricity into the environment around him. This allows him incredible reflexes normal humans aren't capable of reaching, since the transfer of electricity through the metal alloy is faster than the electric signals sent from a standard brain to the neurons in your typical nervous system. However, his perceptions of sight and sound as we know it had been eradicated completely, and is seemingly vulnerable to the world around him. Fortunately, there's a method for him getting around this. Arcing low-voltage currents of electricity into his surroundings allows him to know where the current stops or where it is interrupted, giving him a sense of where things are. Interactions with this current creates a sound that "resonates" back to Peter, and sound waves causes a similar form of interaction. The change in sound waves also changes the sound Peter receives, so is capable of understanding speech. Similarly, interaction with this static sends his metal body a message allowing him to perceive something akin to a sense of touch, though the force or texture of such doesn't change the sensation. He can channel large amounts of electricity to form straight-up lightning bolts or controlled energy where he can condense electricity and form it into shapes - thereby creating an arm for his right shoulder which he can control.

Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks: I know what you're thinking, and I'm telling you now that it's wrong: water does not fry him. Short-circuiting occurs in a circuit-board. Point A carries 5 volts to point B. Point C carries 10 volts to point D. When water gets into the circuit-board, it gets everywhere and there are no longer any channels. So 10 volts from point C gets sent to point B, which is only capable of handling 5 volts. Point B gets fried, along with various other points, and the whole circuit shuts down. Peter doesn't have circuits. His entire body is an electrical boat. Now with that lesson out of the way, I will say that water provides complications regardless. For starters, he can't swim. He's too heavy. Water is conductive because of the minerals it carries, so water can mess up the direction and degree of control in which he can send the electricity. To clarify, let's take an obscure scenario so it gives you an idea what water does: a ball of water is suspended in the air. Peter's hand is in the water. He points out his finger and tries to shoot lightning. But it goes nowhere and nothing really happens. That's because the conductive water interrupts the flow of electricity and conducts it. Of course, lots of electricity creates lots of energy which can cause the water to evaporate, but it's still like an insulator. Being in water can still get you killed. Being in water can suck away the electric charge in Peter's hollow metal body. Rubber blocks electrical currents, of course. And quite frankly, strong electrical attacks like bolts and whatnot actually require a lot of electricity for Peter to use, which he must accumulate enough of through his natural generator (which will take a long time), or redirect a current to him by grabbing wires or something. Being struck by lightning or being overloaded wouldn't kill him, but it would cause stress on him if he doesn't dispel it. Peter lacks any form of regeneration and all damage is permanent provided there isn't someone capable of creating repairs through means of manipulating metal. Fortunately, he's pretty durable as is, but he is not indestructible.

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Name: Wizzlebee de LaShtüp
Age: 160
Gender: Male
Species: Gnome
Kingdom of Origin: Ostracus
Physical appearance: At a daunting and considerable 3'01” (har har), LaShtüp is something of an out-of-the-ordinary gnome, if only for a few more reasons than being an inch above the average height. Perhaps in his youth he bore a rosy-cheeked smile with a fine complexion, but as he stands today, he looks too worn down to manage more than a stroll through the woods. Not that this is something he'd lend on, as even for his age, is surprisingly spry and energetic, but nothing like he was back when he was a young'n. His face has garnered wrinkles and age has pronounced his laugh lines. His large trademark nose, a distinguished feature among gnomes aside from its beak-like curvature, has done little in the ways of following his shriveling skin and receding hairline, allowing it to stick out from his face as his most noticeable feature. One of the biggest peculiarities howe'er, lies in his resemblance to humans. Have no doubt that he is a proud gnome, but replacing a gnome's childlike features is a bolder, and more pronounced face.

In addition, unlike most gnomes as well, LaShtüp's skin color lacks as much pigment that contributes to the gnomes' copper skin. His own skin is quite pale in comparison, but manages a similar hue if nothing else. If there is one thing that LaShtüp shares, it is his slicked back widow-peaked black hair. Then again, that could just be dye, because there is nary a gray hair to be found on top his head. As you would expect, he is not very strong, even by gnome standards. He weighs about 65 lbs soaking wet, and is a feeble old gnome reading books as large as a human's memo pad after all. Despite his kind usually have a short and stocky build, his limbs are pretty thin. There is not a tremendous amount of meat or muscle that sits between his skin and bone, but he has a gut that many a hearty gnome would be proud of. In this respect, he isn't as thin and weak as he could be. Given how many years he's pushing, he considers himself pretty lucky. LaShtüp has long, brittle fingernails that has turned black through a particular use of magic, but nobody would ever know, because they've been painted mint green.

Attire: Our favorite gnome dresses to impress. As a first layer, black silk vestments adorn his body, and over that, a black vest. This vest has been trimmed with gold leaf and three brass studs are on either side of his color. Three large buttons go down the center of the vest. Over this, he wears what appears to be a sage green toga, where the sinus that drapes over his left shoulder is held together by golf-leaf coated brass clasp. This particular article of clothing is what indicates him as his city's alchemist, so that he is not mistaken for any priest or sorcerer, but it does not detract from his appearance of a noble. Were it not for his short stature as a gnome in a human society, there'd be no telling what he could get away with.

He has a few accessories on his person. Like the aforementioned painted fingernails. He wears a pair of black formal slippers, with white cotton socks. While they ease right on and off of his feet, they are fairly secure around them and is difficult for them to fall off by accident. However, it is not uncommon for him to relax with his feet free, and then, there you would find that his toenails are painted a similar color to that of his fingernails! And unlike his fingernails, appeared to be kept in good shape. He has a number of rings, many of which contain secret compartments for certain herbs or powders for emergency alchemical improvisation. He has one gold loop earring on both his ears.

Personality: The eccentricity of gnomes is not lost on LaShtüp – that is to say, he is no exception to that rule. He, during the early years of his life, had shared the race-wide suspicion that had made up a great deal of their quirkiness, but as the years had gone by, that attitude tempered. He was already unlike many gnomes as he stood, and he was aware of the global view of gnomes and this had brought forth some embarrassment. This has influenced his perception of other races a little bit as he came to realize that it was the gnomes who were considered to be the absurd, different major race among races. This had half to do with luring him out from his homeland and to travel through the major kingdoms, eventually stopping at Nepharie, the largest kingdom, as it had exposed him to more of the world's culture than any other place, and where he got to meet the most people from all over. Since moving in, he's been regarded as generous, insightful and fun. At heart, he is a very dedicated and studious individual that doesn't stop when he sets his mind to a task.

As a gnome magi and alchemist, and all of his years of experience, there is no denying Wizzlebee's brilliance and creativity. As far as others are concerned, his most notable skill is his practice on the alchemy bench, where he develops some of the most refined potions a man has ever seen. However, his eccentric personality can distract others from that aspect of him. He is ridiculously cheerful, almost to naïve extremes. His mind-numbing optimism makes him appear almost oblivious to the world around him and to all of the issues plaguing the world or his own situation. He comes across as a sensitive old gnome whose feelings can be easily crushed if taken the approach of pure and unadulterated evil, but otherwise, playground-esque meanness would simple inspire him to coddle you.

Further undermining his actual intelligence is his apparent inability to grasp the bartering system in Nepharie. It doesn't help that there are different languages and cultures for every race that passes through, but the dominate bartering system was such an extreme learning curve for LaShtüp compared to how it was back home at Ostracus. He is, what has to be, the worst barter in the kingdom and has screwed himself out of so many deals without even knowing. His relationship with the locals is strange as well, as they don't seem entirely aware of the methods of gnomish flirting. Especially among the humans, specifically the men, they're not quite sure how to respond to an old gnomish man whose going on and on about how they should compare their wardrobes. The day and age of this land isn't entirely receptive to his sexuality just yet.

There does seem to be something else about the gnome, though, that sets him off from the others. An abnormality even among gnomish eccentricity. He proclaims an ethical and moral code, but there is almost something there to suggest that he doesn't entirely mean it. It could be possible that he does, and that he simply doesn't take matters of injustice or controversy very seriously, but there is an air of secrecy to him. It is something difficult to pick up, but it is there. Where he gets his ingredients from, what ingredients he actually uses, where he got his training, and how good at magic he is. He never gives a direct answer, and he seems to talk as though he knows something you don't. At his worst, LaShtüp can be narrow-minded and selfish.

Hobbies/interests: As an alchemist, botany is a no-brainer. Studying plants and flowers and their alchemical properties has always been an interest. Just figuring out how life works. The study of fungi and their spores is also a topic of interest. Fashion and jewelry are staples for a luxurious life, and he knits in his spare time, although he isn't any good at it. However, here we get into dubious matters where the ethics become taboo. LaShtüp also possesses an interest in death and undeath. The inspection of corpses and fresh cadavers are made, inspiring him to consider the possibility of becoming a mortician, but figured his current position to be a better guise for his suspicious practices.

Skills: An exceptional alchemist, though he sells only potions and non-lethal poisons, there is just a few recipes outside his reach. Though his skill in alchemy is not to be ignored, the power of his potions also lends credit to the ingredients he uses, often harvested from the dead in secrecy. His willingness to tread where others dare not even speak of gives him an edge in the potency of his product, as well as his flexible capability. He is also good at braiding hair. He can usually sense the motives of others, but very rarely applies the knowledge he gains to his advantage.

Backstory: LaShtüp must have been born under an odd star or something, to have differed so from his cousins. An only child among gnome households was an absurd circumstance, and to be the only child of a Ostracian noble house would be to doom him to a life of upholding standards and expectations. As would be predicted, his nose was pushed to the grindstone in regards to his formal education. The goal, as it were, would be to direct LaShtüp to the head of house and to wed a gnome gal and continue the bloodline. The actual reasoning for pressing such a matter is to be the LaShtüps' trump card. The house itself was Machiavellian, unscrupulous. They also held a close relationship to the royalty. Enhancing Wizzlebee's education to prodigious levels would allow him the skill and know-how to create awe-inspiring potions that would make history. Revolutionizing the alchemy scene would lend credit to the family and their newfound favor would put them next in line to the royal family. The next step was to stage a disaster.

Hiring mercenaries, the next part of the family plan was to have the royal family assassinated and pin it on the Nepharian military. His human-looking face would perhaps allow him to make more effective diplomacy and ally agreements with Talbor. This in turn would appoint the LaShtüp family as the new ruling bloodline and Wizzlebee would have been appointed the new royalty, and Talbor having Ostracus' back when Nepharie retaliated. Wizzlebee himself never found out about this plan, but the pressure of all the burdens and expectations placed upon him became too much and he escaped Ostracus at age 60 before ever performing such alchemical feats. As a result, the Ostracian monarchy expatriated Wizzlebee and renounced his citizenship. Without a home to go back to, Ostracus never bore witness to his future feats of alchemy and his family never got to hire the assassination that would bring the LaShtüp house to be the ruling bloodline. Never to return, and the house never bearing another child, the LaShtüp house had died off, ending a thousand years of history. Talbor never went into war with Nepharie.

Wizzlebee's path was unclear. He decided it was best for him to follow the road into Nepharie and settle the Nepharian and Ostracian rivalry the best as he could, and to become a respected member of their society. There he could perhaps set up shop in alchemy and help its poor. Over his black and gold clothing he wore a sage green toga to exemplify his new beginnings as an artisan, or skilled labor, but kept his black and gold vestments as an indication of his noble roots, since history was something that should be embraced. Irregardless, the fact stood that nobody in Nepharie appeared to understand the color coded indicators of his old status and simply took him for a noble by the way he had dressed so nicely, which in itself was erroneous and became problematic when people were asking him for lower taxes.

His first experiences in Nepharie was complicated in several other regards, such as the human bartering system that was dominant in the city. For some reason, Wizzlebee just could not wrap his mind around it and ended up giving high-grade potions and elixirs for nearly free, from a few copper pieces, to a couple silver pieces, and sometimes he completely drove away customers by demanding too much. Much to his chagrin, his lack of awareness when it came to barter was taken advantage of for a period of time before a local bill was passed that kept him, and merchants and artisans like him, from being taken advantage of to such a degree. This didn't stop everyone though. Even to this day, he still struggles with the trade, but he has gotten better with it than he was before.

His skill was often credited in making potions, and that much is true to be sure, but there was a lot more behind the scenes than his patrons realized. The unscrupulous house in which he was raised did a lot in order to make sure his potions were of the highest quality. Refined. Devoid of impurities. This is, of course, nearly impossible, but he has reached a small percentage of impurities in his potions. Skill was important, but so were the ingredients – and the trick was to use life around one to create a truly wondrous elixir. He was brought up without the moral constraints of “respecting the dead”. He took body parts from leftover cadavers and corpses, received deliveries from agents who had gone into the morgue and harvested body parts. The quality of potions that occurred after was astonishing, thus spearheading his interest in the nature of the dead, and the alchemical properties of the organs of mortal creatures. A heart was ideal if one wanted to create an exceptional healing elixir.

He got to staying in that city for quite a while and built up his own reputation as that “skilled but quirky alchemist down the alley”, managing to hide that taboo secret of alchemy of his from the locals when he learned that they respected their dead, and that grave-robbing was punishable by execution. A couple years in, and somewhere between 90 and 100 years of age, he began practicing his magic some more. Some time during that ten years, he made a raw trade with some shady looking fellow for a couple of valuable potions. The item he received was an old tome, as the binding itself was starting to come apart and the pages were turning green with mildew. He was assured that the book was worth the price, and Wizzlebee naïvely believed him. What he discovered in the book was nearly illegible, a language he had never seen before. During that ten years, he spent countless hours collecting other books and tomes from other cultures filled with different language, trying to cross-reference the grammar. As he began to learn, the old tome he had traded with appeared to be the root to many of these different languages such as human english, orcish, elvish, but did not include his own gnomish tongue. He came to identify a word that helped to explain a lot of the tome's origins: Fairfolk.

The Fairfolk were not unheard of, and they certainly exist in this day and age, but a book of such age and of such origin was absurd. An unfamiliar word came out of a phrase, “complex element”, appearing to reference to the pre-existing four as the prerequisites for this element's mastery. An unfamiliar phrase: aether, or the “quintessence”. It was described as the element that had filled life and the surrounding universe. It sounded queer to even the strange little gnome, but it was something he had to at least try. His practice in light magic was already exceptional, he himself already powerful, but his abilities fell short of mastery. Wizzlebee devoted much of his magical practice to studying this supposed fifth element, despite his short comings in the other elements. As the tome predicted, studying the nature of life without fully understanding its container would bear to be fruitless. This did not trouble Wizzlebee one bit though. He sought to break the boundaries of the container, or at least, see through aether's nature without its container being the defining or influential aspects of his study. He felt he knew enough about the other elements to at least supplement his understanding of quintessence.

Thinking outside the box, like gnomes are wont to do, Wizzlebee realized he had resources in which he could study this more directly: the magical effects of potions. Half of it was science, of course, but it contained magical properties that, as Wizzlebee realized, did not actually connect with earth, fire, air or water, or even the emotion-based power that dark magic stemmed from. It affected life directly, thus, responded to aether. Using rats and guinea pigs, he observed the magical effects that took place. Eventually, whether through hallucination by repetitiveness and exhaustion, or getting high off the created fumes (really, it was difficult to tell), the gnome could practically see the effects being taken place and the energy that affected his test subjects. Controlling invisible energy is exceptionally difficult, this presumably goes without saying. The old book mentions only a few wizards capable of controlling aether, even fewer mastering the element. The fact that this gnome, who had hardly considered himself a master in anything, was able to touch upon this element, it brought great pride to him... but never did he share this knowledge with anyone. He doubted most people would be able to begin to understand it, but he did acknowledge the potential power the magic of aether. Letting it get into the wrong hands would be disastrous.

The first aether spell he had ever performed was leading the life forces through his body, letting it pass through him in waves with each breath, then letting it occupy his mind – the resulting effect would be the ethereal glowing of his eyes, and through his eyes, Wizzlebee could see the aether. Like wisps filling and encapsulating every life-form, keeping everything bound together. It was like seeing what made up a person's or creature's spirit. And speaking of spirits, this spell was what led to his first discovery of them. However, as it stood, communication was impossible until Wizzlebee later learned how to “read” the aether, as the energy fluctuated according to expression and behavior.

Talking to spirits had contributed greatly to his interest of the dead, and he sought to learn much from the nature of death from these spirits, as well as history. As he took his first steps into aether magics, it inspired him to take his interest in death to the next level. We're now talking about the next decade or so, 110-120 years old, so he's about middle aged and has seen his fair share of experiences. Having stepped into the realm of aether magic and his own power of enchantment, death became to appear as a subjective topic. Using his enchantment powers to create golems, vessels, and using the littlest amount of aether to supplement his power, Wizzlebee has been able to – wait for it – raise the dead. Granted, without a soul, this was mindless undead. A corpse that is simply being animated and controlled by the puppeteer's will. His power alone wouldn't work on flesh, but with aether, necromancy, which was once thought impossible, became the gnome's reality. His interest in death and undeath was bolstered, and so he sought to look into aether magic some more. Less to control the world around him, but to delve further into the forgotten taboo art of necromancy.

The following thirty years has been quite a roller coaster. It was difficult hiding his experiments and rituals, his necromantic art. Though risky, it was found the best location was in the cellar beneath his alchemy shop, where he was best able to control who goes in and out. Recycling and reusing the bodies became the regular. Animating the dead also made it easier to harvest choice cuts and organs from the cadavers. The basement was filled with sage and lavender to hide the smell. At 150 years of age, Wizzlebee came into contact with a spirit that claimed to have been a noble defender of the public, and wanted to come back to enrich and impart his knowledge of the history of those of this day, and to use his power to aid those in need, and the little gnome fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He agreed to use the spirit's aether to animate a corpse. This was, of course, his first time doing. In retrospect, using a skeleton wasn't the best idea, since then the defender couldn't go out and impart his wisdom unto others. Not that it mattered; as it turned out, the spirit had lied. The spirit actually had belonged to his father, and Wizzlebee had gone and used his spirit to ensoul a skeleton.

Bartleby de LaShtüp also happened to be the grand master of the LaShtüp house's plot to becoming the new royal house. Of course, now being a live skeleton, Bartleby was unable to go anywhere or do anything by himself without risking getting caught. Despite his unfathomable plotting and unruly behavior, Bartleby was indeed proud of his son's accomplishments. Why, he might have not yet made a miracle potion, but he raised the dead for goodness sake. That has to count for something.

The past ten years have proceeded little. He raised the bar on his alchemy as he learned how to get access to more “special ingredients”, and he became more attuned to aether, though nothing close to mastery. He came into contact with a young minotaur. A warrior by heritage, a thinker by heart, and heard his story of his affliction. Wizzlebee intends to devote the rest of his remaining life to coming up with a cure for this debilitating ailment, but he worries that his years are beginning to run short. At 160 years of life, a gnome doesn't have much left to go on. Even if this minotaur does not survive that long, the cure could at least be made for future sufferers of this magical poison. His father, Bartleby, on the other hand, has accepted his condition and grew quite accustomed to being an undead skeleton. He often makes fun of Wizzlebee and the predicaments he finds himself in, and takes every opportunity to find a bone or skeleton pun. Hey, you gotta amuse yourself somehow when you're spending eternity in unlife.

Family:
Father, Bartleby de LaShtüp – 155 (deceased)(undead)
Mother, Glenna de LaShtüp – 172 (deceased)
Uncle, Bao de LaRouge – 112 (murdered)
Cousin, Trish de LaRouge – 54 (murdered)

Relationships:
| Bartleby de LaShtüp| Reconciling | Father | “As an undead skeleton, pappy doesn't have much to lose. He's a vulgar old man and doesn't hold back on his snark. We've been working out our differences, though. He still holds a grudge about how I brought him back as a human skeleton”. |

| Calder, the Minotaur | Concerned | Once-customer | “I've only dealt business with him before, but I did learn of his condition. Quite odd, really, yes. A weird magic infected him, I am still looking into it. I will probably be looking at it until I die, but I might as well try. I hope I can find a cure before, uh... the worst happens.” |

| Tooth-In-The-Sea | Good | Part time supplier | “A little odd, but, shucks, I suppose I'm not in any position to talk about that. Sweet lizard sells me ingredients for my alchemy! Sometimes I get rare stock from him too. Always has something interesting in store for me. He gives me good prices for them... I think...” |

Weaponry: Large weapon: A willow wood staff; Medium weapon: light magic, specializing in gnomish enchantment and aether; Small weapon: blowgun with needles, oft coated in a home-brewed concoction.

Abilities: Wizzlebee, in almost all circumstances, would avoid combat at any cost. He's a pacifist as heart, you see. If combat cannot be avoided, he'd more like shift the responsibility onto another while he fled for his life. Which in itself is hard for an elderly gnome to do. If there is no one around, then he could raise one or two undead from the ground and use them to cover his escape. Mindless undead will often fall over after enough distance between them and their conjurer has been made. Ensouled undead are considered intelligent undead and will remain as long their conjurer remains alive or if their body stays intact.

Despite Wizzlebee's reluctance to fight, if he really applied himself, the little old gnome would be an awe-inspiring adversary when you consider that his potions are top of the line, and remember that, despite his clumsy appearance, he is also an outstanding wizard. Even without aether, he holds a degree of control over the elements that would at least put other prodigy wizards at odds with his own skill. And when you consider his penchant for aether, that alone gives him an edge since others have likely never heard of the lost fifth element. He applies this element in indirect methods, but assuming he gives it a shot, he could probably perform a good deal of damage using it as an offensive ability.

Weaknesses: As an eldery little gnome, he doesn't have much physical prowess going for him. Nor can he run with ease. He'd rather avoid fighting if he can help it, and while he is powerful in his own right, he isn't actually a master in any field. He is also allergic to eggs.

Companion: Bartleby de LaShtüp, a bitter and pun-making skeleton. Also happens to be Wizzlebee's father.

Other: Wizzlebee is hella gay.

Name: Kane Bounevialle
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Kingdom of Origin: Talbor

Physical appearance: With the stature and body of a soldier, and the disposition and appearance of a noble, it is a little difficult to put a finger on Kane by appearance alone. A life of hard work has done well for him and his growth. Kane stands at a solid six feet in height and weighs in at about 160 lbs. A good deal above the average human height, he finds himself looking down on most people in the literal sense. Pair with his height a variety of sharp features such as his jawline, high cheekbones, squared-off chin, blond hair, and dinaric nose, his overall appearance is striking. His aforementioned blond hair is a pale color, and is cleaned and well-kept. It is of medium length as the hair does not fall below his shoulders, but is still long enough to curtain and frame his face, although it is generally combed back in a wind-blown style.

Constantly on duty, his face is often stern, maintaining his official status and regal appearance. His skin lacks the tan a man would usually have if he spent all day under the sun like he does, but his naturally pale skin has at least since darkened in tone, and sits in-between those shades. These colors provide little contrast with one another, but blends, and amber eyes contribute to that. Sharply-angeled eyebrows frame his eyes, and with his often stoic expression, gives him a cold and calculating appearance in the presence of his warm color scheme, especially when those eyes trail your every move. Even the sound of his voice, unexpected of a soldier, sounds cool, clam, and collected. Though as a soldier, he is still capable of conjuring the booming force and projection of an officer.

Devoting his life to the sword and liberty of the people, in addition to his early days of farm-work, his physique is sublime, even if it falls short of peak human conditioning. His grueling days of training back when he was a cadet was thorough: crunches, push ups, leg training, being pelted by rocks – every part and aspect of his body was pushed in the training to be a Knight of the Ram. As expected, his body, hands, and feet are riddled with scars, but there is nary a scar to be found on Kane's face. He was of the opinion that a knight's acceptance was affected by charisma and presentation, as it would be his face that'd be leading his people.

Attire: In the most basic of adornments, Kane wears an off-white linen shirt with sleeves down to his wrist and the neck left unstrung. A similar color of linen pants is paired with it, along with woolen socks. Over these are leather boots that are strung up to the calves. Only in the most humble and modest of situations are these worn among others. In more formal advents are more presentable clothing pieces donned. A black leather saberist jerkin, for instance. The jerkin itself is sleeveless, allowing Kane's white sleeves to feed through. The buttons on the jerkin are entirely on the left side of the article, and can be buttoned all the way up, or save a couple to leave a flap – which is entirely for the sake of fashion (the latter is more frequently done to reflect Kane's “proper” appearance). In unison with this, breeches – or more often, jodhpurs – are worn. The wool breeches are gray whereas the jodhpurs are a black leather. The dark color scheme contrasts heavily with Kane's brighter, natural colors, but is there for the sake of making dirt and such to be less visible, and a leather outfit provides at least some protection in the event of an emergency spur-of-the-moment conflict.

In preparation for battle or duty, however, the color scheme returns to bright and noble colors. The suit of armor Kane dons is shined and polished, detracting from the scratches that decorates the armor. The suit of armor is heavy and bulky. We're talking full-on plate armor with chainmail lining wherever there are joints, with an aketon underneath the suit. The breastplate and backplate are of course large plates of armor that protects most of Kane's organs, and are sleek in their design. The breastplate and backplate are actually divided into two separate parts. Two plates of armor overlap, allowing the knight to breathe with his chest and move his chest around. The armor plates slides against each other and is so close together and tied tightly enough that a sword slipping through the plates would be highly improbable. In addition, a couple pieces of armor are in place that retracts the need for a full gorget. The pauldrons he wears are large. The cover his shoulder down to the middle of his biceps, and there is an extension to the top of the pauldrons that raises up and flares out to protect his neck. On these pauldrons, there is a gold leaf trim where they flare up around the neck and three gold-leaf coated studs on the armor where the flares are bolted to the pauldrons. There is a half-sized gorget that acts as little more than a throat guard. The gorget itself is highly decorated in what appears to be a design resembling a fleur-de-lis, which is entirely coated in gold leaf.

That is all there is for the most notable aspects of his armor, where the rest are greaves on his calves, cuisses on his thighs, and so on. The only other areas of his armor trimmed with gold leaf is around the fan-plates over his knees, the top of his sabatons, and along the vambraces of his gauntlets. Kane opts to forgo his helmet, a fluted armet, most of the time as he often finds himself planning and leading a charge, and consequently needing to get a good view of the field and more effectively calling out his commands.

Personality: The core of Kane's motivations is “the sake of liberty and law for the people”. Truly, he embodies the principles and ideals of soldiers and guardsmen, and has upheld these ideals since the beginning of his aspirations. While many people become knights and guards for the esteem, the money, or for the thrill, Kane has wanted to do good and protect others back when he was a boy. Those ideas were attributed to and represented by knights and guards and soldiers, which thereby inspired him to follow that path. He, amidst his virtues, recognizes he is not without flaws, and works hard to compensate for those negative aspects of his character. He has a soft spot for the vulnerable and poor, but he has little tolerance for domination, prejudice, and corruption. He even goes as far as to root it out from wherever it may be hiding, for the sake of protecting the greater good. At his best, Kane is selfless, loyal, and compassionate.

Despite his altruism, Kane's disposition is something of a hindrance to those who wish to approach him. He is a highly disciplined knight after all, shaped to a soldier's protocol. As a rule of thumb, is not allowed to become emotionally invested lest he lose his cool demeanor. Keeping a level head is crucial in being a Talborian Knight of the Ram. His discipline, however, also lends to him a degree of tenacity quite unlike the typical soldier or guardsman. This stubborn rigidness gives him the “never give up” code and quick-to-act reflexes he carries with him even to this day. Kane has often been credited among his troop that, should they ever have to fight one another, he might win just by outlasting them all through sheer willpower. Granted, he is also credited to being the biggest stick-in-the-mud of the team, and very rarely does Kane drop the sense of duty and stoic temperament.

The knight is also intelligent and carries with him a certain charisma. The intelligence is due to the education that he had received in his training to be a knight, since no respectable high-ranking soldier can serve the royal court and be deemed a fool or moron. His intelligence is well applied to practical use. Among his cadet class, Kane was among the top ten percentile for strategy and tactics. His charisma factor is a different story, and has very little to do with his training. It is a sort of noble selflessness that Kane has held close to heart since he was a young teen. His capability for empathy and his devotion to others allows him to carry the flag of command and inspire others, or calm the angry. Being a talented fighter and strategist, he can be very calculating in the midst of a fight or spar. This calculating behavior influences other aspects of his life as well.

However, his charisma is not all that it is cracked up to be. Despite being able to inspire in the heat of the moment, Kane still possesses the predisposition to be intellectually oriented. The aforementioned calculating behavior detracts from his appearance as being compassionate. He comes across as unmoving and stoic; cold and uptight. You would think the man has never had the heart to live it up some, as one could see when considering that Kane regards music as a distracting novelty, and being overall oblivious and unmindful in the area of romance or sex. Also, one of the quirks that was often made fun of back at the barracks was how picky of an eater he was. If he looked at the plate of food and thought he wouldn't like it, he wouldn't eat it – or even touch it. Granted, if he were starving, this would change, but he'd accept it reluctantly. While he is generally open-minded, he can be a little black and white if he sets his mind on one thing for too long. At his worst, Kane can be distant, stubborn, and evangelical.

Hobbies/interests: As a knight-turned-guardsman who is very much dedicated to his duty, he has little time to do or think about much in the ways of hobbies or interests. As he was once a knight of the highest prestigious order, he got somewhat involved in the political field. While he is by no means talented in the area, he possesses a mild curiosity in politics. If he were to lead, and lead effectively, this is surely something he should look into, right? He has a natural curiosity when it comes to people as well. He seeks to protect them,their freedom, and their ideas, regardless of what they are. When Kane has nothing to do and cannot sleep at night, he writes unaddressed letters.

Skills: Kane was once a farm boy, so he has a natural inclination to perform any farm activities with little struggle. He worked specifically on a grape vineyard, which in itself is a little different from other produce, but he'd likely get the hang of it. He has an understanding of survival techniques and therefore can get by in the wilderness for a period of time and set up a camp. And while nothing exceptional, being a picky eater forces him to learn how to cook for himself. As one a Knight of the Ram cavalry, he is an expert on horseback and understands basic animal husbandry when it comes to horses. Being an inspiring captain and field commander, Kane is an exceptional orator. He happens to be something of an amateur calligrapher due to his nights of aimless letter writing.

Backstory: He was born on a Talborian vineyard to a pair of farmers. They were by no means from any noble bloodline, and their ancestry can be traced down to nothing more than a couple of men and women with a patch of dirt to their name. However, the acres of land under Bounevialle's name has proliferated since those days. The Bounevialle vineyards are by no means the largest vineyard, nor are they the most expensive. Their vineyard was just a few twelve acres or so on a small patch of fertile soil in the midst of the rocky, mountainous region. The end product was a mid-price concord grape, and was difficult to find in most breweries and taverns. When Kane became of working age, and as his father and mother were wearing down, he'd spend most of his days tending the vineyard and harvesting the grapes. This often brought him home with hands bloodied by the thorns and littering them with scars and calluses. While the Bounevialle family were considered what was essentially middle-class, they were still too short on money, and especially too short on time to invest in Kane's education.

Kane has a sister six years younger than he, and with her birth, brought on the early stages of his protective side. When he'd come home from laboring a long day in the vineyard, he'd come home and watch over his sister while his parents went off into the market. He'd cook her and himself some supper, often a potato and carrot stew, with small chunks of meat floating about in the broth. It was nothing fancy, but it was easy to please a toddler as long as you assured them it was something tasty. They never had grapes available though. What couldn't be locked up in a barrel was taken to market to sell. Almost always there was a buyer, and on those super rare occasions that there were grapes leftover, there wasn't much left that could be put into a crepe, but there were almost always some blueberries to put in that could supplement the lack of grape filling.

In between those years and the day he left home, he'd find himself fighting bullies that were harassing his sister. It almost seemed like every other week – it didn't matter how outmatched he was, Kane always fought them. An angry big brother who spent his days working on farms was usually enough to at least chase those kids away.

Years pass, and at the age of 14, Kane brought up the prospect of becoming a knight. Not just any knight however, but a Knight of the Ram, in direct service to the country. His parents agreed to his requests, of course. It was a noble calling, and Kane's sister was old enough to help with farm work. In fact, looking up to Kane all her life had inspired her to help him pick grapes even when she was little. The thorns never scared her off. Kane had walked off to the Talbor capital of Maceron a couple miles off and stopped the castle barracks front door. They had initially turned down his request to enter as a squire, as he was already far over the age of 10 and was ineligible to become a page, but he didn't so much as walk five feet away. Not wanting to walk home as a failure, he stayed there. He'd ask again and again, every time the door opened. It was a “no” every single time. Kane still remained there, and squatted in that spot for two days without anything to eat or drink. At that point, Kane was desperate and resorted to begging. When the head of the order, Sir Fallon, found a starving boy groveling near the steps, he took him in and fed him. Gave him water. A bed for a night or two. Then he turned him back loose.

Kane repeated the process. This time, he was out there for three days, asking to be made a squire. It was less easy to sympathize with an illiterate farmboy the second time around when he starts begging. Sir Fallon resigned and permitted the boy to walk into the barracks. After his recuperation, he'd begin his days as a squire where he will first be educated and then he will perform his duties in his services for the the Knights of the Ram.

His days as a squire were not easy. He first had to receive an education if he were to become of such a noble order, and he crunched hours day in and day out taking in as much as he could. He learned how to read and to write, he learned arithmetic, some science and chemistry, and of course, extensive lessons in history and the finer arts, such as dance. It was expected of a noble knight, as strange as it was. It took a while in all of that, but with hard devotion, he got it all done in two years, putting to rest all doubts amongst the order that there'd be no hope for a teenager that didn't even know how to read yet. At sixteen, his real chores were only beginning.

As an arming squire, he was appointed to a knight and was required to perform all duties and services the knight requested. His knight's name was Sir Raleigh Cruz. A simple if not humble man, and surprisingly modest for a noble. This duty involved taking care of the knight's horses and his armor, dressing the knight in his armor, running chores and messages, waiting the knight's table, guarding him as he slept, and even accompanying his knight to the battlefield. There hardly seemed to be more time for anything else, but amidst all that, he was expected to train in the use of weapons, including marksmanship, exercise to develop their bodies, climbing, athletic, and swimming skills, and horsemanship. He was also required to learn the code of chivalry and rules of heraldry if he were to become a knight. It was also his duty to enter the social life of the castle and learn: courtly etiquette, jousting, music, and dancing.

All of this had a huge impact on Kane's discipline and triggered him to form rigid schedules that left little to no time for himself. At the end of these hard and trying days, when he would stay awake to watch his knight's sleeping hide, he'd write letters. Given the amount of time available to him, he'd write slowly and carefully, allowing him the time to pick out the best words possible and write in the best and neatest way possible. He'd begin writing letters to his little sister. Letters that she'd never read because the family wasn't literate. Still, every night he would do this, writing a letter for his sister, finish it, and then stare at the end product for a while and sigh before he puts it away in his strongbox. There are countless letters in his box, and it has gotten to the point where Kane's handwriting is among the finest and neatest in the castle.

Martial training was something Kane thoroughly enjoyed whenever his knight would allow him to spend the day training instead of accompanying him, but it was exceptionally harder than anything he ever had to do on the farm. With the thin mountain air, he often found himself on the verge of unconsciousness. Amidst that, he learned how to use swords and shields, he learned how to carry his armor and how to wear it properly, he even learned crossbow shooting. Though it was one of the more difficult skills for him to learn, proper aim was still important to learn as a knight. During his spar sessions with the other squires, often using dulled swords or wooden swords, he found himself best suited when both were using only longswords. Contrary to popular belief, these fights did not last very long. It doesn't take a long time for someone to land a hit on the other person, and in the case of sparring circles, the squire who won the match must get into position as the next squire in line entered the circle comes in to replace the loser. Among the squires, Kane landed in the top fifteen percentile for martial skill.

There was also the thinking side of military training. The squires had to practice tactics and strategy extensively if they were going to be any more useful than disposable fodder. While a steadfast and protective fellow, and by no means a slouch in the physical department, Kane truly shined in the area of tactics and strategy, and it was where his introverted nature functioned at its best. He wasn't a prodigy among his peers, but what he did have over the others was his determination to succeed and his devotion to the cause of knighthood. He developed a strategy in one of the board games, inspired by a type of polearm, like that of a corseque, or ranseur, or even a spetum – a triple spearhead. It was similar to that of a spearhead assault. The problem with spearheading an assault is that is leaves a risk for being taken advantage of and being flanked. With the triple spearhead, it takes advantage of that risk, and eliminates flanking enemy units, and also acts as two smaller spearheads on either side, further separating the hostile army.

Among the squires, Kane landed in the top ten percentile for strategy.

Top twenty percentile for history.

He, however, suspiciously did not make it into the top twenty percentile for comprehension of the code of chivalry and courtly behavior. It was outrageous to him! To consider all the years he has spent devoting himself to chivalry and acting accordingly amidst the goofing and playing of the other squires. His serious disposition offered contention to dissenters. An explanation was later provided to him that an earlier accusation made against a court noble after alleged corruption via acceptance of bribery – and that, to maintain favor with the court, was forced to remove Kane's score from the board regardless of the truth. Kane begrudgingly followed his knight's word.

His squire training and duties was supposed to last seven years, as it does for all squires. Considering how he crunched years of education that was supposed to be learned as a young page in two years, and started his training and duties at age 16, this would mean he wouldn't become a knight until he was 23 years old, 2 years after some of his class had already become Knights of the Ram. At the age of 19, three years into his training, a castle watch guard sounded the alarming signaling for an impending bandit raid. All of the guardsman and even the Knights of the Ram were awakened in the dead of night to prepare. The raiding party was still a bit far off and provided time for planning. However, with most of the real strategists off abroad, there was none in the immediate vicinity that could think clearly just minutes after being awoken. As Kane was strapping Sir Cruz's armor on, he pitched his idea: the triple-spearhead. There were objections to using an untested tactic, of course, but Kane continued. The present Knights of the Ram would lead the initial charge and spearhead the raiding party, as they were the most skilled and experienced and could fend off the majority of bandits and outlaws. The following two waves would follow, consisted of soldiers and guardsmen, and would cover the knights' flank and assault two other sections of the party.

There were still some dissent among the present party, but with no time to waste, a couple of the knighthood agreed to his strategy and thereby pulled the support from the remaining soldiers.

When the defense relocated outside the gate, the got into positions. Kane was mounted on Sir Cruz's horse along with him, riding right behind, armed with a spear. Here, his equestrian skills were tested. Mounted on the horse's flanks, holding a spear, right behind Sir Cruz who bore a sword and shield. The shield gave cover to both him and and Kane, and the sword to eliminate close threats. He and the Knights of the Ram, along with their squires, led the charge, with their relief force on standby and prepared to follow in pursuit. As soon as the knights broke through the raiders' charge, the relief force began their own charge. The Knights of the Ram, the undefeated Talborian cavalry, pierced into the heart of the enemy army and plowed all that stood in their way. Before they had a chance to come around and swallow them in a flank, the second wave of soldiers cut down the barbarians while their backs were turned. It has later been referred to unofficially as the hurricane tactic, where a devastating wave would sweep in, and the enemy would falsely consider that the defense - the eye of the storm - and then another wave returns.

In the following battle, Kane had shed his fair share of blood, and ended a couple of lives by his own hand. Not a single Knight of the Ram had perished, and there were but two casualties among the soldiers. Kane's tactic had caught the enemy off guard, resulting in five decimations of the raiding party and the total unconditional surrender of the remaining attackers – a decisive victory.

A ceremony the next day celebrated the bravery and skill of the Knights of the Ram and the Maceron guard. Kane received an honorable mention and, as a reward for his bravery and instrumentality to defeating the enemy with minimal casualties, was permitted to ascend into knighthood early. Shaving two years off his years as a squire, he'd be a Knight of the Ram along with any other passing squires.

Two years later, he was knighted as a Knight of the Ram as Sir Bouenevialle by nobility themselves. Most knights were knighted and serve either a lord or a king, but in Kane’s case, a lady. He was knighted by Lord Ericur Tolkien (an androgynous noble with massive pastures filled with sheep) and was to protect their land, and as a full-fledged knight of the order, he himself was now considered of noble blood. Quickly sending royal servants to the Bounevialle vineyard to help his family and to give his little sister an education that she wouldn’t have otherwise received. There is, suffice to say, a little more Bounevialle wine on the tavern shelves, but it was still a rather rare kind of wine when you compare it to the likes of the cheap Chardonnay or the finer, more expensive wines. Regardless, Kane was granted a plot of land of his own. Given his inclination to be working within the city and sleeping in the barracks and Knights of the Ram headquarters, he aimed that grant toward the Bouenevialle family. While the day of his knighthood was a day of celebration, his true hardships were only beginning.

Work started the next morning, bright and early. He was deployed along the Talborian border to assess the conditions of the nearby forts, and to assist in whatever way he could. With the Wilderness in the north, Kane often engaged in border control, often with only one or two guards to accompany him. Most of the trouble was the occasional skirmish of bandits, brigands, and outlaws. With the many hard years of training, the martial skill of wild men looked to be child’s play. This was often his job, patrolling the border, escorting trade caravans, and escorting nobles, ambassadors, and diplomats. Staving off highwaymen and assassins alike, it felt as though the childhood nightmares of mean men on the countryside had been turned upside down, as they were but small babes wielding toys in comparison to him. The longer he remained a knight, the less important he felt his role, as his duties were summed down to be a glorified bodyguard. Even in the presence of nobility, standing amongst the court in official business, he didn’t quite feel like he was serving the common people as he expected to be.

These were just small missions. As a newly inducted Knight of the Ram, and with less time of training than the other squires, they were still testing Kane’s reliability. His flawless execution of his appointed tasks assured his superiors of his skill. The missions he took up were gradually bore greater and greater risks and higher reward. The tasks themselves, more prestigious. As a knight, another part of his duties was to administer justice. Missions included personal requests from his lord and barons, and on rare occasions, the king Draco Ferdinand. During peacetime, this often involved plundering bandit camps, rescuing hostages, or investigating kidnappings. This also meant patrolling around the crime-ridden capital of Maceron itself, with a blue and gold tabard dressing his armor, on top of a high horse. This in particular he was especially recognized for, as he did not only just subdue perpetrators - as many knights and guards did not due whether out of apathy or laziness - but also took those shifts as an opportunity to engage with the people. He took their pleas upon himself, whether it was talking down a lord from raising a poor family’s land tax, or paying a broke farmer’s debt off with his own. From settling disputes, tackling pickpockets, to escorting nobles and engaging in battle or honorable combat, Kane was respecting by the people he served. He was the only one that defended them even against other guards and knights… a risky action in itself.

Despite his preference to not get involved, he took part in tournaments to maintain and hone his skills. These tournaments were often international, and Kane was one of the few Knights of the Ram to take part in then. As a particularly trained and undefeated noble cavalry, as was expected of his order, his mere presence was enough to unnerve his competitors. Having won each of his matches - as mere soldiers and regular knights were mildly challenging at best - he took his winnings and invested them in public affairs in Maceron. Of his many opponents, that most challenging had to have been a king’s knight from central Nepharie, a senior glacial knight from the Northlands, and a peculiar camel-mounted orc from Jikari - though the challenge of the latter likely had much to do with his height advantage of sitting on a camel’s hump. It made jousting with him… interesting, to say the least. His experiences in tournaments provides him with insight in dealing with different kinds of obstacles, and has helped him learn to be adaptable.

One of the biggest events in the career of his knighthood was another, yet very different, and much more sensitive hostage situation: rescuing one of the barons. The cause of the event was unclear, but what was certain was that they were holed up in an abandoned fort and demanded two hundred thousand reon, which in itself would damage a huge chunk of the country’s coffers. So it was a decision between agreeing to their demands, or risking the life of a baron, which in itself would reflect badly on him and of the rest of the knighthood - in the long run, it would damage the welfare of the people. It challenged Kane’s stance of not compromising with outlaws. Kane was nothing if not honest, but in a circumstance such as this, there were perhaps people that did not deserve his honesty. With that conclusion, Kane formulated a strategy that’d show the world that Talbor does not compromise and that its people are not to be trifled with.

Through courier, it was established that it was a one-sided negotiation. They were not interested in dead-drops, debts, foreign currency, or anything of the sort. Cold, hard reons are to be delivered in person or the baron gets a scarlet neck tie. The business was to be made inside the fort. The fort overlooks the jigsaw river by about twenty feet at the base of the main tower. Kane agreed to their terms and brought a caravan carrying sacks upon sacks filled with reons, escorted by only himself and two guardsmen. As a show of faith, he appeared without his armor; just his boots, jerkin, and jodhpurs. There was his sword, of course, as it was customary for any noble or knight to carry it with him anywhere, but it was tied to his sheath with a strap of leather. After carrying the sacks of gold into the fort himself, and the guardsmen inconspicuously leaving the field in which the abandoned fort stood, going back into the forest some distance away. The bandits weighed the reons with a scale - it matched what they had expected from the ransom, according to their math. They returned the baron, who fled outside and mounted the horse provided to him.

With Kane and the baron riding away in the caravan at full speed, the baron couldn’t help but point out a peculiar smoke pillar rising from the forest. The sound of several wooden clunks followed, and with a sharp whistle, a giant, flaming, tar-coated boulder flew from the forest at great distance. Unyielding, Kane rode the baron and himself through the field, and the projectile had struck the tower at perfect trajectory with an explosion of dust, rubble, and fire behind him. With the caravan penetrating the treeline, they stopped at the side of the road and took a detour through the forest where Kane had met up with the two guards he was with before. With them, a giant trebuchet, already reloaded with another boulder coated in gooey, black tar, and a torch in one of the guardsmen’s hands.

“How’s our aim, sir?” One of them said smugly.

“Perfect.” Kane assured. “One shot was all it took. But while you’re at it… destroy whatever is left of the fort. We don’t need it anymore.”

“Yes sir.”

Another launch, and the fort walls went crumbling down. Another few and all that would remain is a pile of gravel. Kane and the baron returned to the caravan where he will return him to safety. Thus goes the story of one of the most successful critical-risk missions ever completed. In one fell swoop, a Knight of the Ram rescued the baron and maintained Talbor’s uncompromising image to the world. It was at the cost of a large chunk of the monarchy’s coffers that ultimately went to nobody, but with the stunt pulled, surely there’d be no one stupid enough to risk Talbor’s anger again. The rescued baron honored Kane’s bravery and cunning, and among the three hundred cavalry in the Knights of the Ram, he had been issued a captain at 25 years of age.

He was in command of his own regiment, a team of four skilled knights. Among them were: Sir Sten Vellen, a pretty abrasive man, sarcastic, generally mean, but his motivations and heart are all in the right place. He was particularly skilled with crossbows. There was Sir Oscar Gene, who had the heart of bard more than he did a knight. Numbingly cheerful, he loved dancing and music, but was also the phalanx among them - his armor was heavy, and he bore a tall tower shield, a lance, and a gladius. Sir Alexander Xerxes, a half-orc, and was a particular curious case among the Knights of the Ram, as they often took only humans. His martial skill was incredible though, and paired with two war axes and a tall morningstar, only Oscar seemed capable of defending against his strength and fury. The fourth was a fresh knight, new to the order, Sir John March. He appeared naive and humble at the surface, much like a young boy, but the truth is that he became a knight earlier than many did, at the age of 20, because of his own skill and bravery. Put what looks to be a shy young man on the battlefield, and you’ll see him taunting and laughing at his opponents as he gave in to the thrill of battle. He bore a classic shield and longsword combo and was an exceptional jouster.

Despite the absurdly diverse team of knights at his disposal, who Kane himself contributed to with his stern and uptight demeanor, they came to be more like brothers than they were his subordinates. An inseparable team that, when working together, seemed to be unstoppable as they played upon each others strengths and weaknesses. Further, as miracles would have it, they all shared the same aspirations as Kane. These four knights in particular seemed to have been inspired by Kane’s oaths as he entered knighthood, that they too took up the ideals of liberty and justice, performing duty and services for the people and the people alone. Only on one drunken night of revelry did they admit that, if ever given the opportunity, would work with Kane. The miracle of being paired up with men like himself appeared a little less magical at the discovery that this arrangement was made out of requests, but it was heartwarming to realize that the superiors agreed to it.

Years later, after countless missions and adventures, and patrolling the city making a name for themselves as the knights of the people, things took a turn for the worse. On a lone night patrol through the city of Maceron, he stumbled upon candlelight emanating from inside a warehouse. Peering through the window to investigate, he spotted the baron he had saved from years ago in a conversation with a noble, and couple of other dirty men; shady types. He became alarmed when he noticed two orcs covered in rags, scarred and gagged. Slowly and carefully, he moved the window until there was but a crack and he could hear what they were saying.

To sum up what’s been heard, the noble employed mercenaries and slavers. The two orcs on the ground were supposedly warriors from Jikari. The baron himself was being bribed to allow the noble’s activities to continue - a process which had been going on for quite some time. From the sounds of it, even years. With the involvement of the baron and a noble, Kane feared the worst. He left the scene before he was discovered and returned to the barracks where the Knights of the Ram were stationed to talk to the headmaster of the order, Sir Fallon.. Sharing his concerns, about his fear of corruption in Talbor’s government. Fallon appeared solemn. For a few minutes he was speechless, but finally returned to Kane with a grave warning: to keep his nose out of business that didn’t concern him.

Kane, mortified, returned to his quarters as well as the quarters of his men. He shared everything he learned about corruption among the royalty and the nobles, and even Sir Fallon of the Knights of the Ram. His men instantly rallied behind him and began attempting to figure out a plan about how they were going to handle this. They all knew what had to be done, but none wished to say it aloud. A coup d’etat was in order, but the five men, Knights of the Ram or not, weren’t capable of doing it alone. So their goal was to risk going around and talking to the other knights of the order and try to persuade them to follow their cause. Kane, concerned first and foremost for the people, didn’t want to involve them in anything that might result in their harm. Perhaps, in his heart, Kane always knew there was something wrong with the monarchy. The people were said and distrusting of the guards, nobles, and knights.

Unfortunately, their coup didn’t go far. Foiled in the early stages of their plan, one of the contacted knights had contacted the Sir Fallon and told him about the stratagem Kane’s regiment was up to. The next time when the team was together, the Knights of the Ram stormed around Kane’s regiment with spears and swords circling all around them. The headmaster followed after, and informed Kane and his crew of his awareness of their scheming. They were taken away, tossed into the dungeon, and was scheduled for execution the next day. There were no words between the five men that night. Just solemn, dismayed glances and broken spirits.

The next morning, they held true to their word. His majesty, King Draco Ferdinand, had been buttering up the crowds and the people with words of their treachery and selfishness. When the priest of Adreal sung his prayers, Ferdinand asked Kane for his final words. He shouted into the crowd claims of corruption. About how he found the baron and nobleman, and the slavers and orcs in the warehouse the previous night. How the nobility was unscrupulous and corrupt, accepted bribes and perpetuated slavery. He shouted his experiences with the people, about how the nobility took advantage of the poor, and the number of debts Kane had repayed for them, the inordinate taxes he relieved them of. His reminders of all the things he has done for the people seem to have hit the crowd’s soft spot as indicated by how their demands for his execution and yelling traitor died down to nothing but silence. His noble actions apparently went unaware to even Sir Fallon, who solemnly looked away from Kane as he issued his last words.

Without so much as a suiting final phrase of goodbye, Kane went silent and accepted his fate. Instead, Ferdinand waved his hand for the executioner to stand by. He responded to his last words hesitantly. He expressed his shame in this misunderstanding. While Kane’s skill in oration served him well here, Ferdinand has had more experience in doing so - but even then, Kane could tell his words were insincere. The misunderstanding, he explained, had much in part to do with corruption among the nobles. A cunning choice of words on his behalf, as admission of fault made the argument more credible if one would willingly proclaim something that made a bad appearance of himself. He explained how he didn’t have full control over the land’s nobility. He explained that Kane must have misheard the conversation at the time due to his anxiety over the situation. That they had in fact rescued those two orc warriors from another noble’s control and were already released to return to Jikari.

In fact, that nobleman’s execution was scheduled to follow Kane’s and his regiment.

Guards escorted a well-dressed man up onto the headsman’s platform, cuffed and gagged. As a boot pushed him to kneeling onto the platform, he turned to face Kane wide-eyed with fear. This nobleman was, in fact, the same one he saw from last night.

The king continued. As a result, he would pardon the regiment as a token of forgiveness and understanding. Their goals, after all, were noble and for the welfare of the people. They could not let something as a coup go off so easy however. Each knight involved in the attempted coup were stripped of their knighthood and were demoted to simple guardsmen. But because of their skill and talent together, they will be permitted to work together as a separate division of the guard, G-2, of which Kane will be the captain. Kane and his men were subsequently released, and as they had done so, the headsman swung his gargantuan axe, and decapitated the nobleman’s head.

“Slavers,” the Ferdinand said, “and all those who tread on the rights of others… do not have the right to any last words.”

The crowd cheered wildly, and Kane and his men were escorted to their old quarters to pack all of their things, get proper food and rest, and then move to the new barracks where they will be stationed for now on. As Kane and king Draco Ferdinand went their separate ways, they met each other’s gaze. There he saw the truth. The stern expression and eyes of the cobra met Kane’s indignance, and amber eyes shone ferocity like a mongoose. It was at that moment they both knew that this battle was far from over.

It has been three months since that day.

Family:
Horace Bounevialle, Father, 50, location: Bounevialle Vineyard
Amelia Bounevialle, Mother, 45, location: Bounevialle Vineyard
Irene Bounevialle, Sister, 22, location: Unknown (traveling)

Relationships:
| Sir Fallon | Traitor | Ex-master | “I used to respect and admire this man. When I was a boy, I aspired to be like him. Honorable. Chivalrous… but he is a traitor to everything we are supposed to stand for, and I’ll never find it in my heart to forgive him for his treachery.” |

| Morag-Nog | Respected | Honored citizen | “This woman is a highly talented inventor. Orc or not, I am honored to have such an individual within the walls of Maceron and it is my pleasure to serve such an artisan. I only wish I could do more to curb the prejudice her kind faces within Talbor." |

Weaponry:
Large weapon: A spontoon, otherwise known as a half-pike, is a 6-7 foot spear. Kane's in particular is almost 7 feet in length, and has the spear-head of a pike.
Medium weapon: A bastard sword, otherwise known as a two-handed longsword. The length of the sword is such that, while capable of being used one-handed, and also has a long handle, so its capabilities are maximized when used with two hands. Kane's in particular has a black leather grip on the handle, a conical shaped pommel, and a long blade. The sword itself is about 4 feet in length.
Small weapon: A dagger. The dagger that Kane possesses is nothing special or extraordinary. It is simply an emergency back-up in case he has been disarmed of his other two weapons. He keeps it hidden in his boot.

Abilities: As once being a Knight of the Ram, Kane possesses martial prowess equal to that of ten soldiers. Capable of carrying out missions and objectives single-handedly that’d normally take a squad of infantrymen to perform. His technique with a wide variety of weapons lends to him a flexibility that’d be useful in most combat situations, though his greatest prowess comes from the use of spears, pikes, and swords, keeping his enemies at a distance while taking the advantage of his superior reach. Even if the enemy gets around his reach, he can use his spear much like he would use a staff and use the shaft of his weapon to pummel the enemy away. He is exceptional with his bastard sword, a two-handed longsword. His skill with the blade, maneuverability, and strength are acknowledged by his peers and would outmatch any adversary without extensive training in combat. He also carries his armor well, and knows how to shift his weight just so, that he can maneuver in it to compensate for his lack of speed inside it. He is an expert equestrian.

His training has done more for him than just his skill in arms and armor. Extensive training exercises and workout routines in the Knights of the Ram are some of the strictest and most rigid to be found. The order of undefeated cavalry also train up in the mountains where the air is thin. So not just their muscular strength, but their endurance as well, is tested to absurd extremes. Pelted by rocks and struck by wooden swords has risen his pain tolerance to a degree where anything short of being slashed by a real blade would do little to slow him down. Being a knight, he also wears his heavy plated armor on a regular basis - where I will leave you to simply wonder how strong the man is.

In addition to his physical attributes, both knights and noblemen receive excellent educations. This means that Kane probably knows a fair deal more than the common man or woman. He knows his history, is literate, understands mathematical skills and applications, taught extensively in politics and courtship, and other fields of education befitting of a noble (such as dance). While not necessarily an ability, Kane does possess a leader’s charisma. Whether or not he is everyone’s favorite person isn’t the issue, but he can inspire and encourage others under his banner. It is a combination of good will, passion, and sincerity that garners the trust of others and makes people want to believe in him.

Weaknesses: Naturally, Kane is only human. He shares all of the same mortal weaknesses as we do. We don’t necessarily like hot or cold environments, despite our ability to adapt to it. We’re pretty squishy without armor, our strength pales in comparison to the likes of orcs and minotaurs. Kane’s particular weaknesses does come from the fact that he does wear armor. Despite him moving very easily in full-on plated armor, it still slows him down, which would mean an unencumbered opponent can take advantage of that. Being skilled in all sorts of weapons makes finding a duel that is weighted in his adversary’s favor something of a challenge, and while he is exceptional using his sword and spear, he isn’t a master swordsman nor is he a master with a spear.

His biggest weaknesses have nothing to do with physical flaws, or flaws in his skill however - he excels in those areas, and he is also a strategist. The best thing to do is to take advantage of his character. This does often involve delving into unscrupulous territory, but it does get the job done. Kane, being naturally self-sacrificing and altruistic, will put himself on the line for others. Taking advantage of that will put him at risk at either injury or death, for instance, jumping in front of an arrow or trading the custody of an innocent with himself. Even in non-combat circumstances, this can be taken advantage of if you wish to take someone’s money within the law.

Always wanting to see the good in everybody and believing most people are capable of redemption, that can be taken advantage of. But Kane does have an intuition for sensing motives, so if not of Kane, then his mercy, as it has given you another opportunity. You can definitely take advantage of the people around him since people tend to believe in his word. He also abides by honor and the code of chivalry. Work outside of that for an unfair advantage. The best way to combat him and undermine him is to target his allies. If you apply the pressure and don’t give him time to think or strategize, and demand quick decision making, he can either cave in to your requests/demands, or he may lose his clear head and become sloppy.

Companion: Kane has a shire horse as his steed; a tall, strong, dark brown shire horse with its signature white fur flaring around her hooves and a black mane. This tall and mighty horse is named Edna. Along with Edna, Kane is the captain of the elite G-2 “outcast” regiment of the Talborian guard, all of whom were once Knights of the Ram like himself. He has 4 men under his command: Sten Vellen, Oscar Gene, Alexander Xerxes, and John March.

Other: It's really important to me that you understand that this guy can bust some sick moves on the dance floor.

Name: Hungwar
Race: Gnoll
Class: Barbarian
Level: 3
Background: Outlander

Attributes:
16 STR
16 DEX
16 CON
8 INT
12 WIS
10 CHA

HP: 21(?)
AC: 16

Skill Proficiencies:

Athletics (+5)
Intimidation (+4)
Perception (+5)
Survival (+5)

---

Features and Traits:

Ability Score Increase - +2 Dexterity and +2 Constitution (Already allocated)

Skill Bonuses - +2 Intimidate, +2 Perception

Languages - Can speak and read Common and Gnoll, can understand Abyssal

Size - Medium (6'5")

Speed - 30 Feet (Average)

Scent - Can detect opponents within 30 feet by sense of smell. If the opponent is upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at triple normal range. When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range. The creature can take a move action to note the direction of the scent. Whenever the creature comes within 5 feet of the source, the creature pinpoints the source’s location.

Bone-Crushing Jaws - You gain a bite attack that does 1d6 damage and you are proficient in it. If used in a full attack round, it can be used as a secondary attack, and you add your BAB -5, and the damage bonus is half of your Strength modifier rounded down.*

Claw Fighter - Use vicious claws as weapons with 1d4 damage each. Consider them light blades for the purpose of powers and feats. You are proficient with them. If used in a full attack round, it can be used as a secondary attack, and you add your BAB -5, and the damage bonus is half of your Strength modifier rounded down.*

Rampage - Upon reducing an enemy to 0 health, you may use a bonus action to move up to half your speed and make a 1d4 bite attack.

Carrion Eater - Even buried corpses and bones can satisfy a gnoll's appetite. You gain a +4 feat bonus to saving throws against poison and to Constitution checks against disease.

*At the expense of missing out on some Barbarian starting equipment:
• (a) a greataxe or (b) any martial melee weapon
• (a) two handaxes or (b) any simple weapon

Barbarian Features and Traits:

Unarmored Defense - While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit. (Already allocated)

Reckless Attack - You can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly.
Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.

Danger Sense - You gain an uncanny sense of when things nearby aren’t as they should be, giving you an edge when you dodge away from danger. You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see, such as traps and spells. To gain this benefit, you can’t be blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.

Rage - In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action. While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armor:

• You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
• When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
• You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging. Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action. Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages colum n of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.

Path of the Totem Warrior - Beast Sense (Ritual Spell), Speak With Animals (Ritual Spell)

Spirit of the (Wolf) Hyena - While you're raging, your friends have advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you that is hostile to you. The spirit of the hyena makes you a leader of hunters.

---

Lore: "I was born in Musclegore's last litter, the pack leader of one of many nomadic clans of the Butcher's Brood, gnoll clans that worshiped the demon prince, Yeenoghu. I was the youngest pup of one of the most powerful gnolls in the rolling plains. Not many gnolls survive infancy, because after just a few days of being born, we pups fight and devour one another until there's no more competition for food or shelter. In most litters, there's the victor, and there's always at least one runt... but in my case, every pup I shared the litter with, I gobbled up! I impressed Musclegore! He gave me a namesake from "hunger" and "war", hoping that I would eventually lead the clan to great hunts and slaughters. My four elder brothers from past litters, Ygrash, Manglemane, Rakdr, and Festerchew, all victors, were ignored because of the promise that I, the youngest, showed for the good of the pack. I guess you'd say they were jealous!

They raised me like any other gnoll in the clan, but more was expected of me. I don't blame them. If I could distract the pack leader so much as a pup, then I damn better not show signs of weakness. The Brood likes fury and chaos, savagery and brutality. Any mercy and nice things, and they exile you or kill you... but there was one night when everything went wrong. I dreamed, and my dreams were filled with blue butterflies, everywhere! Then they eventually still and make a bare-skin's face, and it spoke. It said it was a voice of Desna. Said it was The Great Dreamer. A goddess of freedom and luck. It said she brought liberation, revolution, and exploration. It's breath smelled like a fruity odor and it kept speaking. Said she wanted to reclaim the domain of beasts from a... I then awoke, not remembering the name. But I also felt something strange. It felt like it forced change in me. Something was different. Nothing since then was the same.

I was less brutal and Musclegore blinded himself to it in light of my strength, but my brothers noticed things. At first, things were little. Little things like hunting alone, and bringing back prey with little struggle marks. They were quick kills, bites to the neck. No chunks of flesh missing. I was only hunting, not trying to make deer suffer. No point. Then it got bigger. When I'd challenge a pack mate's strength sometimes, I'd tell them that they'd kill the clan's slaves because they were too weak to keep pace with the pack. And we'd fight, and I'd beat them, but I let 'em live. I claimed it wasn't mercy, but a greater victory to let them live humiliated than killing 'em! My brothers would come and kill the loser, say there is no room for weakness. But the greatest crime they saw me commit, was when a slave insulted me to my face in private, and I did not punish it. I walked away.

Despite the mantra, "for the good of the pack," my brothers stalked the camp and invaded Musclegore's space and slaughtered our father and pack leader in his sleep out of revenge and anger, because he gave me special treatment, and they think I'm a disgrace. They said they punished him for weakness. But pack mates who followed me, who believed in my strength, called my brothers weak. If they told the truth, then why did they not try to kill me instead? Prove my weakness and not Musclegore's? Pack mates that follow my brothers claim they also saw my weakness. It was my brothers who let me choose between exile and death. Ygrash, the new self-made pack leader, knew that my numbers split the clan and threatened "the good of the pack", but though I was strong of body, they refused me because they said I was weak of heart. I accepted exile and denounced the Brood, say they're disgusting for their traditions. Some gnolls left me after, but what few stayed were still loyal to strength and did not worship Yeenoghu very strongly, and fewer still with brains. But we migrated to Plain's Edge where it touched the forests, and we made it our hunting grounds.

I wanted to create a new pack that defied the traditions from the Brood clans. We are predators, that will not change. Gnolls will forever love to hunt and track, but we will not slaughter. No attacking villages without being provoked. We'd hunt beasts over civilized creatures. We could even trade and maybe barter our service, though I don't care much for the bare-skins. That was a big change next to the style of life we were used to, but as long as I could keep to the pack's hunting tradition and keep 'em in line, it should have ended well for us. We would've shown that we were stronger not just in body, but heart too, if we could swallow our savagery. But that never happened. My brothers came with a hunting party in the dead of night and tore my clan to shreds. We were deceived the day we were exiled into thinking that the clans could live without ever seeing each other again, but we were tracked down and slaughtered for our betrayal.

I barely escaped with my life that night. My old clan devoured the one I just made, and then took me prisoner, made me a slave. Clapped me in irons and whipped me until my old Brood clan was ready to watch me die. They gave me a choice: true exile, if I survive the pit. They starved me first, and my first fight was against two hyenas. Cruel, that, to have me kill our own companions. They wanted to prove myself a traitor and exile in their slaughter. I did kill them, and then they walked out their strongest dire hyena, and I killed it too and claimed its head. But the last round was one of the pack itself. Manglemane was one of the strongest, second to Ygrash. Either they didn't want me to live, or they'd first make me kill my own brother before I was exiled. I felt no love for the bastard, and my heart wasn't so weak that I wouldn't rip out his neck and eat him at first chance. I killed my brother. Left no body - I ate all of him. Then I limped away into exile to lick my wounds. I vowed to return eventually to finish the job, to destroy my other three brothers and the rest of the Brood.

Nowadays I bide my time. Explore world, be free! Eat food, hunt! *I* think I'm fun. I laugh and I know what I want. Make things exciting. A little *ruff* around the edges, maybe, and I don't respect bald-skin authorities much - too controlling. But I made some allies, and I treat 'em like my pack. My first pack with non-gnolls, but they manage it okay. Bare-skins make great drinks, but they can't hunt or track worth dung, so I must care for them like runt pups... but I... appreciate them. They understand what I have to do one day. I don't want to set 'em bad examples, but they are small bare-skins to me, and I'm not a tall gnoll."

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Aries’ story begins along the far western coast of High Rock in the affluent city-state of Daggerfall. This begins her saga on a rather bleak note, though it is not clear on the surface, because indeed – the city’s luster and splendor knows no bounds. Fabulously wealthy and ripe with trade, even the impact of the Corsair Republic’s takeover of Wayrest, the seat of the Breton’s High King should such a day ever come again, is but an inconvenience to the economics of Daggerfall Castle. The comings and goings of grand merchant ships have stopped at the edge of the Iliac Bay and has perhaps even cemented this grand city’s monopoly on sea trade. One of the city’s major competitors were knocked off the global stage for a short time.

It's a peculiar and rather convenient consequence, one which many noble families tried to take advantage of.

One such noble family was that of the Machellas. The family tree bore the fruits of two faithful sons following in their father’s footsteps as soldiers, ready to take up the sword and live and die by the Empire, and a daughter, who was instead urged towards politics. Indeed, though, womanhood in the knightly orders were no rarity, a noblewoman’s preservation was of the utmost importance in the name of marriage alliances and keeping an heir who was not eager to die upon another’s blade. The mother and father, Esther Machella and her husband Florentius, was one such marriage.

Esther of the Machella family was nobility. Her family possessed a disgusting amount of wealth and has been cozy in Castle Daggerfall’s court for as long as she could remember. Florentius Machella, originally a Vindicari, wasn’t born as nobility, but he was a high-ranking member of the Imperial Army and had friends and connections that led all the way to the advisors of Imperial government. The Machellas have been a family loyal to the Empire for a long time, using its influence and favor to its advantage, so it was no surprise that one of them eventually married an Imperial captain.

The family itself has produced a notably high number of daughters over the years, Esther herself had three sisters, one of which, Janelle, wedded into the Lariats of Shornhelm, and there was Belle who had a gay marriage with a Bridwell. Catherine was out making her own living through trade in Camlorn. Yet most of the Machellan women remained the determinators of their own lineage, and often led to the men being forced to change their names. As influential as they were, they rarely met with disagreement as simply wearing the name Machella guaranteed a successful and lazy future. At least, this used to be the case until Esther’s father gambled half of their fortune away through a bad deal with the noble Motierre family. Half of what was left was spent on alcohol in his attempt to forget his failures before his wife, Esther’s senile mother, stabbed him to death. This meant that Esther had to step up to the plate and take control of the Machella family’s future. Even in her capable hands, they didn't have the same power and influence they once held.

When the time came for children of her own, first came the first-born son, Gabriel. An oddity to be certain, breaking the long-standing trend of first-born daughter. He was often the one most level headed and had the tendency to think ahead with remarkable insight and empathy for others, even if he could sometimes get carried away and become laxadacious in nature. That trait would not last long however, as a year later, Esther became pregnant again, and gave birth to her second-born son, Stefan. Now it was certain that whatever genes that Florentius had, it had provided the Machella family with sons that they had not seen in years. Stefan was much more serious than Gabriel, though more gullible. He didn’t have the same kind of critical thinking and skepticism that was prevalent in most Machellas, taking after his father in this regard. It was a foreboding trait, given the fate of his maternal grandfather. Last, but not least, came a daughter three years later. Florentius never knew his own mother, who perished in childbirth. He wanted to give their daughter an Imperial name after her grandmother: Aries.

Though she bore an Imperial name after her paternal grandmother, she was a Machella and was as much a Breton as any girl came. That is what Esther systematically drilled into her daughter’s head for years.

However, as the years passed and her daughter grew into her personality, it became clear that she was a little more spirited than she let on as a toddler. Entitled? Of course, like any child is and then some, considering her pampered upbringing. Aries found it suffocating. Familiarity bred resentment, and the lack of privacy and freedom afforded to her made her lash out in ways not before seen in her brothers, Gabriel and Stefan. Though truthfully, it was mostly directed at the maids and servants, for the busy political lives of her parents often kept them away from their homes until the end of the day -- busy playing and maneuvering through the game. When they arrived home, they would typically coddle the young girl and give her everything she asked for except for the freedom she wanted. However, the attitude she directed toward the servants and towards them was unbecoming of a lady and would not be tolerated for long.

The School of Julianos usually only took in those who were worth the investment. Distinguished mages or promising students were provided with an unrestricted learning experience unlike anything the rest of Tamriel could offer outside of the Crystal Tower in Summerset Isles or the Arcane University in Skyrim. However, you did not simply refuse a Machella when one arrived at your doorstep. It is difficult to say how swollen the coin purse may have been, but it was certainly enough to cinch an early and comprehensive education for the young Aries. It was a way to discipline the young lady and to keep her babysat, but here she wasn’t being coddled like at home, she was going to be taught. They couldn’t possibly start with magic, oh no, they’d have to start with arithmetic, language, and the sciences; the “general education requirements” so to speak, before they could even touch upon the subject of magic. However, the colorful, dramatic, and arcane displays of their magicka was enough to captivate the young noblewoman and the promises of how “one day, you could do it too” was enough to keep her rapt attention during her lessons.

Every now and then, her own parents made the time to attend her lessons and teach her what they knew as well. Florentius shared what he could, mostly strategies and tactics, and taking Aries out for a few training sessions in dueling with a blade like he did with her brothers. He valued the ability to defend oneself, especially in the snake pit of Daggerfall, though this concern was lost on Aries who only saw this as a fun recreational time that she got to spend with her father. She spent countless hours with rapiers and sabers; swords that used her grace to her advantage instead of the brute strength she lacked. What her mother had to offer on the other hand was something she couldn't easily teach to her martial-minded sons: she was a master of speechcraft and a shrewd politician. She could aptly manipulate other people by using their ideas, preconceptions, and emotions to direct them down a path as she saw fit, while also remaining mindful of cultural influences and her own sex (and how that would impact others' perception of her). The subtleties, nuances, ironies, and paradoxes of some of her lessons were mind-boggling and well above her level at the time, but repetitive lessons eventually drove them home whether she liked it or not. One of her first lessons was that every lady must have her own secrets to keep.

By the time she began understanding the political intricacies at the tender age of fourteen, the school was already prepared to teach her magic. It was an incredible accomplishment to be certain, but it was born out of opportunity, and it was hardly an opportunity she deserved. Being bought the finest education at a young age and receiving such careful attention and special treatment, this process of streaming and differentiated experience eventually made her a legitimate prodigy. So, when they first began teaching her the fundamentals of magicka, she absorbed it like a sponge. This is what she had been waiting years for! This would be worth suffering through all her mother’s boring lectures! The Daggerfall sect of the School of Julianos was the premier branch for battlemages, so the best type of learning they could provide the young Aries was in Destruction. The other schools they could teach to a lesser degree; illusion, they thought, would be a reliable defense that would also come in handy in the political minefield that awaited her.

Unfortunately, her father wouldn’t live long enough to witness Aries cast her first spell.

On Sun’s Dusk 23 4E 193, returning home to the family estate, Aries was met with her mother sobbing over a draped coffin. No word was sent to her, so she was completely blindsided by the discovery of who exactly it was resting peacefully inside. The soldiers adorned in Imperial armor held their salute and stood as still as statues, patiently allowing the family as much time as they needed to grieve before the ceremonial preparations could be made. Esther was of little comfort to Aries, seemingly too swept up in her own grief to properly console her daughter. It was a night of seemingly endless weeping until the tears ran dry.

Aries did not have a proper way of coping with these feelings. This was the first time she ever had to deal with any kind of loss, and her first experience being one that was so overwhelming, she cut herself off. After a sleepless night of ceaseless crying until her eyes were dry and couldn’t cry anymore, she cut herself off in some form of forced dissociation so that she could do better to process and face her father’s death as logically as she could. She turned to her mother for answers. Why did this happen?

Her answers were brushed off for now, urging only that now was the time to study and to study hard. Aries, now angered, refused. How was she to focus on her studies now, immediately after her father’s unexplained death? Her intense line of questioning aimed at her mother caused Esther to give in. She said it was the fault of the Motierre clan. Florentius was not careful enough in navigating through the politics in High Rock and this is what it got him. This was why she wanted Aries to study more, to study harder. Aries thought this meant that her mother wanted her to be safe and sound, protected from the cutthroat politics of the city, but all she could think about was revenge.

So, the young noblewoman hit the books with a fervor not before seen. Her education, Aries felt, was now more a tool of survival and self-defense than anything else. If she were to compete on the same level, on the same political stage as the Motierres and the other nobles. She had to think ahead of them, outmaneuver them, do whatever she could to have an edge over her opponents. Her mother constantly reminded her that with the Montierre clan’s decisive power looming over the other castes in Daggerfall, literally anybody could have been paid to eliminate competing houses or find ways to reduce their power and influence, and if the time ever comes that Aries just so happened to slip up, she had to be prepared to defend herself. So, they both looked to her instructors to teach her all they could of the Destruction school and then some.

She was not a self-made prodigy; perhaps money had done much of the legwork for her, but there was no doubt that it was her own drive that made the most of all the opportunities before her and made her a prodigy nonetheless. She became a capable mage in record time; fire and lightning could flow interchangeably between her fingertips Illusion spells also became a part of her repertoire thanks to the defensive utility they provided, and a few lessons in the school of Conjuration promised her a worthy defense if she suddenly needed a weapon, which she supplemented with further swordsmanship training through her brothers. They were difficult to use at first, but quickly learned that the weightlessness of a bound sword complemented her swift and precise style. In addition, the multiple lessons from her mother meant that her education was finally sufficient enough at this point that she could begin gaining practical experience in Daggerfall politics at the meager age of seventeen.

There was one more important lesson she received in politics before she entered the fray as Esther dolled her up in a beautiful dress and laced up her bodice: “politics is as much about making the peasantry happy as it is about maintaining your power among the other nobles.” Peasants are ubiquitous; if you ignore the peasantry, you’ll be worrying about them more than the other nobles. If you have them on your side, then you don’t have to worry about them being used as a weapon against you. A people-first campaign was the best way to ensure your own safety and undermine your opponents who had no problem with taking advantage of them. The lesson wasn’t about being nice to those who were less fortunate, but about taking advantage of the different social structures in place and using socioeconomic status as a leveraging tool. It was the synthesis of two fundamentally differing ideologies.

One of Aries’ first experiences in the public eye as a full-fledged lady occured when she attended court with her mother. There she saw the lords and ladies of the other houses, including the Motierres. She watched her mother meander through the court, setting an example to Aries as she approached the other nobles to engage in conversation. As she did so, Esther told Aries to find out everyone’s names and remember their faces. They certainly wouldn’t forget her’s.

Lorelei Motierre. Eleanor Julliard. Marquis Tariat. Bellamy Bridwell. Mirabelle Tarys. Laurent Bellamont. Gale Wickerman -- these lords and ladies and plenty more were scattered across the court, and by day’s end, she seared their names and faces into her mind. She personally met King Guilliot in a brief introduction and was quickly drowned out by the sea of sycophants, but it was a productive day. She got her foot in the door, and now she just had to make her entrance. The following year was spent essentially shadowing her mother. It was one thing to learn what it was like to be a lady and another thing entirely to be practicing it and watching all the other masters at work, but she was able to pick up on it quickly. More disturbingly, she was perturbed by the number of gross old men who couldn’t keep their lecherous eyes off of her, but her mother convinced her to tolerate them for now. Being born a woman by coincidence meant she had the opportunity to use it to her advantage. So she would pretend to be at least slightly interested in these men, give them what they want; the idea that a future with her could even be remotely possible. It wasn’t.

Within the next year, the Hawkfords, an aristocratic family, invited the noble families of Daggerfall to a ball being hosted at their own estate. They themselves weren't nobles and it was for that reason that Aries could see through the charade -- it was a ploy to cozy up to the people who had power, but Esther was able to convince her to attend anyway. It was as much an opportunity for her as much as it was for the Hawkfords, and her argument was supported by the number of rumors of who would be attending the ball. Among them was the young lord, Fontaine Motierre. Aries then realized that this ball would be her ticket into undermining the Motierres.

Arriving at the ball in an elaborate gown, it was clear that she wasn't the only one with her sights set on Fontaine. Aries was of the mind that it was her family’s tumultuous history with the Motierres that would lure him in to her over the others. It would be a great success for the Motierres if they could quell the bad blood between the two houses and take the Machellas off of their list of enemies. It would be one less angle from which to expect a stab in the back. It was perhaps for this reason that Fontaine was receptive to Aries’ approach and blew off the young Hawkford girl.

“A father’s wealth doth not a lady make,” she remembered him saying. So instead he danced with Aries. Though Fontaine led the dance, Aries led the conversation by leading it away from her personal life. She didn’t share much of it, only enough of her personal feelings to allude that there was perhaps little to glean from the Machella family or that she knew too little of her own family’s affairs to take advantage of. She played her deception well, but Fontaine on the other hand seemed quite proud of his heritage and had little to no problem bragging about how far the influence of his family’s name reached, how significant the power they held truly was. He was trying to impress her, of course, but he also clued her in on the ripples she could make if she played her hand right. He told her that a Motierre was on the Elder Council. Their family also acted out of Chorral in Cyrodiil. How else could their family wield so much power?

She left the ball that night with Fontained wrapped around her finger. He asked for her hand in marriage, to unite their houses and to invite Aries into the most powerful family in High Rock, perhaps in all of Tamriel. She made no promises, though she entertained him with the idea of an Aries Motierre, the first ever Machella woman to change her name. Fontaine thanked her for the dance, and she thanked him too, and they went their separate ways for the night. The young Motierre thought he had her hook, line, and sinker, but Aries didn’t tell him that she really thanked him for the inspiration. It was thanks to Fontaine that she now had a new plan: she wasn’t just going to undermine and destroy their house, she planned on ascending. To meet them on the same level if not utterly surpass them. If a scumbag Motierre could reach the Elder Council, then why not her?

That’s what she prepared herself for in the following four years.

It wasn’t enough to be conversant in the politics of Daggerfall and High Rock. She had to immerse herself in Imperial politics as well, study Imperial history and Imperial law, as well as the relationship between the Empire and the Bretons of High Rock spanning as far back as the First Era when St. Alessia became known as the Slave Queen. The politics between the Empire and the other provinces; becoming conversant in the politics of all the major power was crucial. It was also in the time that she became a frequent visitor of the Motierre estate. Her relationship with Fontaine looked to be a budding one, but she was careful to play it slow, being ever mindful of her endgame.

Speaking of her mother, all that Aries had done in the four years following the Hawkford ball did not just comprise of study and warming up to the Motierres. She was not wed to Fontaine and therefore did not owe them her allegiance, but their acquaintanceship seemed to have created a sort of tentative bond between the houses that promised a shaky political alliance. Not wanting to jeopardize the potential rewards it would yield, it allowed the Machellas to become more active without the threat of the Motierres quashing their efforts looming over them. Esther and Aries were able to cash in on their family’s investments and Aries’ brothers, Gabriel and Stefan, acted as a sort of muscle or enforcement for the family.

They were trained soldiers, which provided them connections to the Daggerfall army and the authorization to oversee safe transport of trading goods within their family’s interest. They didn’t study politics like Aries did, but Gabriel was at least savvy enough to spread some influence among their ranks. With this connection, Aries suggested that they leaned into their supportive stance for the throne, its military, and the Empire as a path back to power. Whatever skepticism her mother might’ve had for her daughter’s plan was quelled when she brought up the Motierres again. Any action they made against them at that point was unlikely; they already arranged a sort of cease-fire, and any action in undermining them may very well be acting against the interest of the Empire and of Daggerfall, provided the Machellas got far enough.

Her strategy came in the form of redirecting investments into mines, quarries, blacksmiths, and lumber mills. Not only did this support the local businesses in the region, but also given the Empire’s fragile state after the Great War with the Dominion, the best way to make quick friends with a weak Empire is to support the recovery efforts of their infrastructure. Investing in stocks and reselling them to the Empire at a discount price only turned out a marginal profit, so the other half would be sold to kingdom of Daggerfall itself. Eventually however, their support for the local business allowed those businesses to grow and increase production. With increased production meant a greater share for the Machellas, and with a greater share to sell to the Empire, the Imperials began sending their own ships to retrieve the building materials in bulk, which took the cost of shipping off her family’s shoulders. Later in the third year, the Empire wished to renegotiate their trade deal with the Machellas.

The deal entailed less gold in exchange for the resources, but they offered shipments of Skingrad wine in exchange with the bonus of being sold at a slightly lower cost in hopes of her family’s continued support and lasting relationship with the Empire. Aries, knowing that her mother detested gambling, knew she would never accept the offer. So she accepted the offerwithout informing Esther and, through a few of the family’s retainers, sold the wine to Castle Daggerfall and to taverns throughout the city and even to neighboring cities. Although it was a gamble, the family’s income had never been higher, prompting Esther to question her daughter after the numbers in her ledger weren’t adding up which ended up in a massive, heated argument. Still, since Aries’ actions had reaped their intended benefits, there was never any real resolution to their argument.

The year Aries turned twenty-two years old, Skyrim’s High King Torygg was killed by Ulfric Stormcloak, breathing new life into their civil war. This barely affected Daggerfall in a significant way, but Aries knew that it wouldn’t be long before the city would feel the strain of a weakening Empire. They’d have to divide their resources to handle the situation in the North, meaning that their current trade agreement could be strained. The tension between her and her mother had been slowly but steadily rising ever since their first argument as Aries had been making decisions of her own accord, so with that still fresh on her mind, she took a moment to swallow her pride and confront her mother with her new idea. She knew that there might be repercussions of significant enough impact to warrant discussing them with the matriarch.

In order to anticipate the Empire’s strain, Aries pitched the idea of preemptively modifying their trade agreement with the Imperials and organizing support within Daggerfall for the Imperial army in Skyrim, campaigning on behalf of the Empire. Especially with news of a cave-in blocking one of their only routes to Skyrim, auxiliary forces from the West would be a boon that they couldn’t refuse, and hopefully, the payoff would mean less long-term profit loss from their trade agreement and the increased support of a grateful Empire. Earning a little less now was better than losing the entire deal later or being undercut by a much more significant margin. Though Esther was hesitant, she was grateful for her daughter’s disclosure, and tentatively agreed to her suggestion.

Only, Aries didn’t disclose everything. She didn’t disclose the fact that she had been talking with the Motierres about them taking a similar course of action. She hid just enough of her family’s finances from them that she put them under the impression that the Machellas couldn’t perform this maneuver on their own, and if they did so anyways, a less powerful family was doing more to aid the Empire than the most powerful noble family in Daggerfall who also had an Elder Council member among them. What would that look like? And why on earth would Aries want to marry into a family that didn’t support their own? Not only did she preemptively negotiate a better deal with the Empire and began organizing support for Imperial troops, she manipulated the Motierres into funding her campaign efforts. Most of the Daggerfall public didn’t seem to care much for the conflict or felt like they had a stake in the war to the East, but some loyalists or those desperate for a wage signed up and slowly, troops were being sent eastward towards Solitude.

Barely even a year later, while Aries was attending a banquet at the Motierre estate and buttering up the lords, ladies, and their sons, one of their personal couriers had delivered a newspaper. Its headline was emblazoned across the front: “EMPEROR TITUS MEDE II, MURDERED!”

Amidst a room of startled gasps and crocodile tears (for she thought she knew that none of them cared for anything outside of themselves), she excused herself from the Motierres’ table, returned home, and began organizing movements to be made to send gifts of condolences to the Mede family.

It wouldn’t be long after the death of the Emperor when the civil war in Skyrim reached its end. General Tullius brought the fight to the gates of Windhelm with the aid of the Dragonborn, but it left an Empire in a fragile state with a weakened province and depleted resources at their disposal. The war had left the land in dismay, infrastructure destroyed, and lives shattered and displaced. After a brief affair of correspondence between herself and some Imperial financers deep in Cyrodiil, Aries sought out her mother to discuss one of her biggest gambles yet: she planned on visiting Skyrim personally, stationing herself in Solitude, and using her own personal funds to aid in the reconstruction of a bridge and a roadway to reconnect Skyrim to High Rock and Skyrim to Cyrodiil. Her mother immediately refused.

If Aries didn’t keep a presence in Daggerfall, Esther argued, her influence would weaken, and her name would mean nothing. On the other hand, Aries argued that a Machella personally had to be there to serve as emissary and to discuss and sign a deal. Showing investment was the best way to catch the attention of the Empire. Her mother was exasperated with her and didn’t understand why she had such a fixation on a weak Empire that barely did anything for them in return. Only then it was revealed to her why Aries was trying so hard to appease them – the Motierres. Aries admitted that she knew Amaund Motierre was an Elder Council member and hoped to show that a Machella could reach the same level as well, but to do that, she felt like she had to take advantage of the Motierres and play the game better than they could just to get there. Only then did Esther finally understand what was driving her, and she admired her daughter’s ambition.

She gave her daughter some crucial advice: stay home. True, it would be helpful to be there personally, but it would be harder to manipulate the Motierres if she was gone for as long as it took to oversee the reparations of Skyrim’s infrastructure. Furthermore, if she spent all that time trying to fix another country, her status back home in Daggerfall would plummet. She should visit, yes, but only for as long as it took to sign her name on a deal. As soon as that was done, Aries’ brothers could move in to represent their presence. There was plenty of dirt to be found on the Motierres, Aries just had to dig deeper to find it. Simple dinner parties weren’t going to cut it.

So that is what happened: Aries organized a trip to visit Solitude in a horse drawn carriage and a small caravan of horses. She was being escorted personally by Gabriel and Stefan, the two who would be the most reliable means of defense. Along the journey was filled with awkward chit-chats which eventually broke down into humored and long-winded conversations. It had been some time since she had been able to talk to her brothers on a personal level. The few times they were actually home, Aries had so often been either studying or in the middle of her own work, playing the stuffy political game, that it had probably been years since they interacted like real siblings. For a while, her brothers had thought their baby sister had gone all stuffy on them, but after a day or two of travelling on the road, they had managed to find each other once again and all her plots and worries had temporarily ceased to be. Though admittedly there wasn’t much talk about the good old days since they were far and few between, but some of the attending retainers were caught quite off guard by the laughter and laid-back display Aries was openly displaying in her brothers’ company. It was quite nice to have her first vacation in a very long time; she didn’t have to hide herself here.

They were also caught off guard by a sudden bandit ambush a few miles past Camlorn, and perhaps equally as much when Aries proved herself capable of defending herself by setting fire to the trees in which their archers were hiding. A sudden, eruptive display of blinding flame was enough to breed fear in those remaining who weren’t immediately charred to a crisp and cause them to flee. It was the first time she had used her magic for self-defense, and for some reason, she always thought that her first time would’ve left her jarred and shocked. It didn’t. Yes, the adrenaline pumping through her comprised the fine tuning of her control, she used a bit more fire than she needed, but she didn’t feel remorseful about what she did. She didn’t feel haunted, she just did what was necessary. The amount of foliage burning hid the smell of burning flesh, and as she assessed the aftermath with a curious passiveness, her brothers looked at her as though a dragon had just swooped down. Partially, they felt useless, but mostly they felt a little intimidated and even a little disturbed. They knew she had studied magic, but not to such a degree. Neither did they know that their baby sister could be so ruthless.

Aries seemed eager to return to business as usual, but her brothers seemed to step more carefully around her from that point onward. It wouldn’t last, however, as eventually her caravan passed through the rest of High Rock and crossed the Skyrim border, rested her horses at the local Smallwood Stables, and met with Imperial officials at Castle Dour. The deal was quickly agreed upon, as it was weighed heavily in the Imperials favor, but organizing the logistics of the deal took hours and Aries wanted to make sure that every step of the plan was precisely calculated before she signed her name on any parchment. Once they figured out approximately how many stone bricks would be needed by number per few meters of road, where the road was going to be laid, it’s approximated mileage, and the schematics of the bridge, Aries didn’t have any qualms with signing her name on the dotted line. After spending a day or two to rest, she embarked on her return journey to High Rock with her brothers. After a long and tiring journey, her brothers would stay for a short while to rest before taking the journey once more, and that time they would stay until the project was complete.

In the meantime, however, Aries would be hard at work in her infiltration of House Motierre. If she wanted dirt, then she’d have to go deeper. Become more involved. She attended all the dances with Fontaine, slimy a man though he may be, spoke publicly in favor of their House, and for years, do whatever else she could do to get in their good graces. She found that Amaund had joined the Elder Council almost thirteen years ago, but beyond that, very little. They were a careful sort. They were so good at keeping secrets that there was no wonder they’ve reached the heights they have. She must’ve spent a couple years of fraternizing with the Motierres, for her brothers had finally returned home following the completion of the rebuilt road and bridge in Skyrim, with an official written recognition of House Machella by the Elder Council. In addition, her brothers Gabriel and Stefan were formally inducted into the Knights of the Dragon by King Guilliot in acknowledgement of their faithful service and ability – though it had more to do with their status, than anything. Regardless, it was a momentous occasion and the ceremony was wonderful, but the Council’s recognition meant little if she couldn’t achieve her objective in Daggerfall.

The only thing that Aries could do to punch a hole through the Motierres’ defense was to reopen the discussion of marriage. The Motierres weren’t in the same position as many other families though, the groom this time would have no need to change his name. So, when Aries broke tradition by suggesting the possibility of changing her own surname, that was something of an achievement that the Motierres didn’t want to pass up. Petty and relatively insignificant it may be, but House Machella was one of the long-time contesters to their power and having one of their daughters – one who was intelligent and powerful – join their family, it cemented their position in Daggerfall society. It would cement their position.

It left them open is what it did. Made them soft. Complacent. They were overconfident in thinking that they had her in the bag already, were planning the largest and most extravagant wedding that Daggerfall had never seen, and for some reason that made them think that it was time to treat her like she was family. Honestly, who thought it was okay to let their fiancée in on their family’s financial affairs? To help in their budgeting and financial planning? To be fair to them, she was quite good at it, and for a couple months, Aries helped them streamline their process and provided insight on big financial gambles… but it also gave her direct access to their ledgers. There were a few nights where she felt she could comfortably slip out of bed and wander through their lengthy, empty hallways and find the Motierre ledger in their office. Some nights she spent staying up studying the ledger. Where did they get their money? What did they spend it on?

She noted the additions and subtractions, the totals – and then she double-checked her work. Triple checked. Something wasn’t adding up. There weren’t nearly enough deposits to meet their total sum. Invisible money was being added from somewhere, they were laundering money from somewhere and it wasn’t being listed in this ledger. With a spare parchment from the desk, she grabbed a quill and began working backwards to find the value of the missing variables. It was like she was back in school practicing arithmetic all over again. She found that the first value was at least eight hundred septims, but then the next missing value was different. She found that the missing values weren’t consistent, the invisible numbers were constantly changing. She figured it was probably in the event of being found, someone couldn’t just plug one number in and multiply it by the number of invisible deposits. The only question now was where the gold is coming from. She went as far back in the dates as she could to see if she could find when they first started receiving this gold; 4E192 – almost thirteen years ago, around the same time Amaund joined the Elder Council.

The Motierres have been siphoning money from the Empire for over a dozen years now, no wonder they were so well off. She finally found the dirt she was looking for! It was so strange, she thought as she took a moment to reflect, that the Motierres found their fortune around the same time the Machellas fell into their rut. Not long before her dad…

Her dad! He was the reason why she set out on this crusade in the first place. How did he factor into everything? She was told for the first time so many years ago that the Motierres were responsible for his death, reminded so often since then, yet she still ended up losing sight of her purpose in the shadow of her ambitions. She looked through the ledger again, scanning for the day her father died a year later. The date itself didn’t have any transactions listed on it, but the surrounding dates did see the handling of large sums of gold with generic descriptions of the transactions like “human resources”, which seemed out of place amidst the specificity of the other records within the ledger.

Guided by candlelight, she scoured the office looking for where they kept their history of correspondence until she found a wooden cabinet with stacks upon stacks of folded letters. They were organized by date. She looked as far back as she could – it was about midnight by this point – found old letters, likely kept as proof of business and transactions between parties, but all the letters she could find on or surrounding the date of her father’s death had nothing to do with her family. Curiously, there was few to no correspondence at all from Amaund Motierre. She looked back even further, her eyes glazing over the dozens of tax papers, only mildly intrigued by the personal communications between the Motierres and other parties, until finally she found mention of a Machella in one letter sent by a Bellemont.



Looking back through time and seeing the mention of her parents was a haunting feeling. Yet she knew that wasn’t likely to find the evidence she needed here; any correspondence implicating them of wrongdoing would’ve been burned. It was still a promising sign, and even through the early hours, she continued skimming through pointless mail received through the surrounding dates, no longer looking for mention of her family’s names. At this point, she was just looking for anything that could give her a hint. It must’ve been another hour of searching until she came across an odd letter will very little written on it and with very plain, stylized handwriting.



The letter wasn’t dated, but it was located between letters written on Sun’s Dusk 6, 4E 193 and Sun’s Dusk and Sun’s Dusk 10, 4E 193. It would’ve been written somewhere between those times, from the seventh to the ninth. It was a long shot, but the mention of “a noblewoman’s man” raised red flags in her mind… and there was no way anyone would spend five thousand septims on a diamond unless the diamond mentioned was a codeword for something. She cross referenced the ledger – Sun’s Dusk 13, 4E 193, 5,000 septims were withdrawn. Three days later, there was another invisible deposit equal to 5,000. A week later would’ve been Sun’s Dusk 20, 4E 193. Her father died three days later that year.

On hand, she felt like she was so close to the truth, but on the other hand, it could’ve been coincidence. It wasn’t like it was mailed the same day or anything. She sighed and returned to the pile of letters. Perhaps she could skim through and look for more letters from whoever this “K” person was. Flipping through a few more, she found another barren letter.



Wayrest? But Wayrest was under control of the Corsairs at the time and three days away—

Oh Gods.

It took everything from Aries to keep herself from burning down the Motierre manor. For second, she had a fireball in her hand that was ready to bring the building down, but she controlled herself. She extinguished the flame and instead gathered the letters together and took with her the entire Motierre ledger. She was racing against time now, as it was a matter of when they would notice its and her disappearance. She dashed through the streets of Daggerfall barefoot and in a silken nightgown, tightly clutching a large book and several papers to her chest towards the Machella home. There was something she needed to check on before informing her mother. Much like the Motierres, her mother also kept a long stack of correspondence in her private office. She’s been in the room many times, and she studied her family’s history, but she never thought to investigate it. From the sounds of that “K” person, they were also in correspondence with her mother at the time. So was an L. Bellamont. She had to make sure.

It was easy enough to find. Her family didn’t receive nearly as much correspondence, and she already knew what date range to look for.



It only took a minute for Aries, with her arms full of papers and books, to march towards her mother’s bed chamber, toss the ledger and letters at the foot of her bed, and abruptly light a wall sconce with the fire of her destruction magic. She confronted her and demanded to know the full truth of her father’s death, and it wasn’t long before the footsteps of her brothers came rampaging through the house, only to arrive in the room brandishing their swords with confounded expressions on their faces as they saw Aries fuming at their mother. She demanded again, in front of her brothers, the full truth of their father’s death… so they got it.

Esther had a plan to use the Corsairs to raid rivaling trade vessels – namely, the Motierres. If she could take them out of the picture, the Machella family would practically be second to only the King of Daggerfall himself. She felt responsible for staying home in Daggerfall to manage business as usual and behooved Aries’ father to go in her stead. She supposed that he didn’t know how to properly manipulate the situation, but the Corsairs backstabbed her metaphorically and Florentius literally, as well as stealing the money they originally offered them.

Aries revealed that Esther wasn’t just backstabbed, but outmaneuvered, and revealed to her the evidence she found in the Motierres’ estate. This didn’t mean she forgave her mother, though. Aries was furious, but she found herself in a rather unique predicament. She had the power in her hands to send her mother to the dungeon for a very long time, and the only reason why the Motierres didn’t do it themselves is because they were hopelessly tied to the situation and would’ve incriminated themselves in the process as well. However, she also had proof in her hands that the Motierres’ were not only responsible for the murder of her father as well as captain of the Imperial army, they paid for it using the money that they were stealing from the Empire. She didn’t even need her mother’s letters to incriminate them. They were just bonuses.

So Aries gave her mother an ultimatum: step down as matriarch of House Machella and make her the inheritor of the title, passing down all deeds and right to her, or to be imprisoned in the Daggerfall dungeon, making Aries the matriarch anyways. This was her punishment for being partially responsible for the death of her father and being stupid enough to leave a paper trail of evidence behind her. Though there was a hint of disappointment in Esther’s eyes, and a lifetime of guilt, she looked upon her daughter with a proud smile. Though she wished to have been succeeded in a more dignified way, her daughter outplayed her, and she wouldn’t have any reason to worry about her career as a politician in her retirement. She agreed to Aries’ demands.

The room went quiet for a few moments and the air was still. Esther looked at the old Motierre letters and looked at Aries expectantly, who nodded in understanding and then told her brothers to find Laurent Bellemont and kill him. The snake knew far too much about House Machella’s dirty laundry. Though there was hesitation from her brothers, everyone eventually concluded that their family would be torn apart again if they didn’t do what they could to preserve it.

In the meantime, Aries knew exactly where she was going next. Though she had a long night of little to no sleep, it was nearly sunrise when she personally marched into Castle Daggerfall and demanded one of the palace guard to see the captain immediately, as well as alerting the steward, on grounds of conspiracy. Upon their summoning, they were directed to a private room, and though they were sleepy, they were quickly awakened by the news Aries shared. Cross referencing the history of written correspondence with the ledger and the date of Captain Florentius Machella’s death strongly suggested a link to the Motierres. Also, with the help of the captain and the steward, tearing pages out of the ledger and dividing up thirteen years of money laundering since the induction of Amaund Motierre into the Elder Council, the total average of money estimated to have been stolen from the Empire was 127,660 septims, five thousand of which was spent to kill one of the Empire’s own high-ranking officials. If the steward was drinking coffee, he would’ve spit it back out.

Though it would be challenging to pin the murder on the Motierres thanks to their ability to play the system, it would be incriminating enough to get the public to turn on them and there was no possible way they could weasel their way out of the laundering and corruption charges. Perhaps on another day they could’ve bought their innocence through bribery, but the conspiracy was far too big to risk their own heads when the Elder Council launches their own investigation into the issue. When the patriarch of House Motierre, Roswell Motierre, was summoned to the court of Castle Daggerfall by King Guilliot, he was accompanied by his son, Fontaine, and his wife. Though the proceedings resulted in no one being tossed in a dungeon cell and their noble status remained (likely through what remaining influence they had), the fines were exorbitant and steep, and many of their titles and holdings were seized as punishment. Though there was not enough evidence available to hold them accountable for the murder of Imperial Captain Florentius Machella without Esther’s own correspondence, the heavy implication of their involvement was enough to damage their public perception. They couldn’t drag Esther down with them without damning themselves, either.

Aries and Esther Machella both demanded for them to seek out and interview Laurent Bellemont as a witness and confirm their involvement in Florentius’ death. Laurent was found dead in his home. Too little evidence was left behind in the wee hours of the morning to trace who had done the deed, and though there was no evidence that the Motierres did it, they seemed to conveniently benefit the most out of his death. There was one murder implication stacked upon another. The Motierres cried out for justice, accusing House Machella of foul play and conspiracy, but they had no ground to stand on and no evidence to prosecute them with. Then Fontaine Motierre came forward, hurt and betrayed. In his rage, he invoked his right to a duel in the defense of his and his family’s honor, and challenged his ex-fiancee: Aries. Under the eyes of the Divines themselves, it would be in the hands of fate who would be deemed innocent.

Gabriel and Stefan both jumped to offer themselves as her champion, but she turned them down. Though warned that the Motierres may have likely poisoned their blades, she insisted. She knew Fontaine well, so she knew that he did not have very many hours of practice with a blade. In addition, she also knew that his mind would be clouded by revenge while her’s was steel cold. After finally putting her years of swordsmanship practice to practical use, her duel was over in seconds. She publicly embarrassed Fontaine in front of King Guilliot himself and the Motierres were found guilty on counts of fraud.

Many of the trade agreements the Motierres had were revoked by their business partners to severe their association with the family. The king seized some of their holdings and their trading vessels. This left open many opportunities for not just the Machellas to take advantage of, but other houses too, inadvertently rebalancing the power of the noble houses in the kingdom. Claiming their property, the city-state itself would find itself prospering a little more. The invisible money income dried up, ending the siphoning of gold from the Empire, which over time, will be reimbursed what was stolen. Only a few days later, a newspaper spread around Daggerfall; Elder Counsel member Amaund Motierre was forced to denounce the actions of his own family and issued a public expression of gratitude to House Machella for their faithful loyalty to the Empire and their pursuit of justice.

It was an enormous victory for House Machella after a long twelve years, but now it was more important than ever to remain diligent. The Motierres were backstabbed and lost an immense amount because of Aries, so they were going to be gunning for them in the future. They gave a lot of money to Castle Daggerfall to buy their protection and between the money, the influence that her brothers have been spreading among the ranks, their status as Knights of the Dragon, and the years of support that House Machella has shown the guard, they were assuredly all but in their pockets.

They could afford such an expense because the trade and holdings the Motierres once had were up for grabs, and the money being returned to the Empire meant that they were able to afford fairer trade agreements and the rebuilt roads through Skyrim gave them better access to their resources. House Machella was seeing an economic surge.

Though protected, Aries’ mind seemed to fall back on the Motierres quite frequently as the months passed. They were without a doubt trying to plan something and they had to stay ahead of the curve. The reason the Motierres lost everything is because they became complacent. The Machellas had to work to keep them from trying to regain too much power. On that same note, the other houses were steadily gaining power too. What Aries would probably do, if she was in their situation, is to recover their reputation and try to use the surrounding houses to quickly elevate themselves by association. If she did that first, it would rob the Motierres of that opportunity, as well as giving her own house enough influence to be virtually untouchable… and she had two dashing older brothers to do it with.

It took as little as a couple weeks to organize a proper dinner with the Julliards and the Wickermans. She had already spoken to her brothers about the importance of being wed – their duties and responsibilities has already stolen away so much time from them, they deserved a bit of happiness, yes? From women of Houses deserving of them, of course, not from some common tart. She was forthcoming with her brothers that yes, her intentions are politically motivated, but her reasoning for them to be personally invested wasn’t flawed. She personally knew the daughters of the other houses, and she guaranteed that they would be happy. She wouldn’t dare give her brothers anything less.

So they had their dinner and her brothers met the families and talked to their daughters. Gabriel hit it off with Chey Julliard and Stefan with Matilda Wickerman. Aries talked to their fathers – she expressed her wish to support them and, in turn, be supported by them. Their daughters will lead happy and fulfilling lives with her brothers as their husbands. At first, they laughed at the idea of a sister arranging her own brothers’ marriages, as it was usually done by their parents, but there wasn’t any humor in the offer itself. Though the Machellas had been working hard for years to get where they were now, to the other houses, it looked as though they had cut down House Motierre in one fell swoop and suddenly became one of the richest houses in Daggerfall. Having the Machellas on their side would be highly beneficial. So, they agreed to her offer.

In as quick as a month, and in the span of a week, twice could wedding bells be heard from the chapel. Through marriage, Houses Julliard and Wickerman allied themselves with House Machella.

Aries was only the matriarch of her house for a year when, during her time in the court of Castle Daggerfall, an Imperial arrived with the accompaniment of an armored guard. The nature of their armor resembled the armor her father used to wear, but it was brighter and adorned with golden filigree and red paint. Horse hair was sticking out like a mohawk from the top of their helmet, and their discipline was absolute as they walked robotically alongside the man they were escorting. The Imperial introduced himself as a diplomat of the Empire, and pulling out a parchment, he read aloud an official invitation on behalf of the Elder Council to Aries Machella to become an ambassador of the Empire in recognition of her dutiful and steadfast service, political and diplomatic ability, and history of working for the betterment of the Empire.

She was allowed as much time as she desired to mull over her decision and the diplomat will remain in Daggerfall until she has given her answer. In truth, her decision was made right away. The few days she spent before accepting the offer was in preparation of her absence, discussing trading plans, plots, and other topics of intrigue. She talked with her mother about all these things to make sure that they would be well suited in her absence, and later renamed her the matriarch of House Machella in a public announcement during the same speech she made it known that she accepted the Empire’s offer to become an Imperial Ambassador. She took the ship to Cyrodiil where she would begin the next leg of her journey.

The seafaring journey was long and tiring, and Aries didn’t have her sea legs yet, but the sight of Anvil lighthouse on the Gold Coast of the Abecean Sea was a beacon that heralded promise beyond it. The rested in Anvil and took a carriage up the Gold Road, and from miles away, The White-Gold Tower came into view. She crossed the Talos Bridge, entered the Imperial City – she was met with a detachment of Imperial Watchmen who escorted her through the Talos Plaza District and directly to the Imperial Palace. She stood before the Elder Council, taking in each and one of their faces, looking for Amaund Motierre among them. They didn’t hesitate in getting to the point and beginning the process right away, at least by Breton standards. The process was expected to last a few hours for what was essentially just an interview and personal assessment, but if it was easy, then everybody would be an ambassador.

They began with introductions, and the High Chancellor personally discussed the history of observation of her actions and how they have benefited the Empire, hence the cause for this proceeding. Other Chief Councilors have given additional context, lacing their segments with humor as they mentioned that they may have extended the invitation sooner had Chief Councilor Motierre sooner agreed to have her here. He apparently had changed his vote to invite Aries not long after denouncing his own house. One of them mentioned that it was refreshing to see the objective good of the Empire being prioritized over politics.

Moving on, Aries anticipated that although the answers to their questions mattered, it mattered just as much as how she responded to them. They were critically reading her every movement and gesture. A passing comment was made on the impeccably clean streak she has had over her career, and when Aries so much as breathed, another councilor would pounce.

One thing Aries noticed during the proceeding is that they seemed to be focused on Chief Councilor Amaund as much as they were on her. Surely, he had some burning questions of his own, but he made no mention and asked no questions of her involvement with House Motierre. When he was finished with his segment, a Nord councilmember asked why he did not address the mammoth in the room, Amaund said dismissively that the matter of the Motierre house in Daggerfall has already been concluded.

By the end of the proceeding, Aries had answered every question tactfully and directly. She was sure not to dodge any of their questions in any way, knowing that they would catch it and call her out on it immediately. They asked what felt like a hundred questions about the history of the Empire and its current relationships with the neighboring sovereign powers. When it seemed clear that she had a clean record, had a working knowledge of the world, and was totally devoted to the betterment of the Empire, they held her ceremony where she recited an oath of loyalty.

The next couple of months was spent learning about the job from other diplomats and ambassadors inside the Imperial Palace and spending a disgusting amount of time on study and research of current events and the history of Imperial relationships with the other powers. It introduced her to an entirely different world by exposing her to information that wasn’t otherwise shared with the public. If she had enough free time in the week, she would spend a day to walk around the Imperial City with the escort of a city guard, hoping to familiarize herself with the beautiful city and its people, because she knew it wouldn’t be long before her real job would begin and take her away from it all.

The next two years of her career had her hard at work. In some ways, it was a transformative experience. It had been far too long since she was in a position of servitude. It took some time to transition from being at the top of the pecking order to serving the Elder Council, but she kept reminding herself of perspective. No matter who she was before, or who she thought she was before, she was less than she is now; an ambassador was far more important than the leader of a noble house. Aries was sent off from place to place, namely where there were still Imperial interests, such as Skyrim, to see how the reunification process was going.

However, the real focus over the course of her career is the relationship between the Empire and Hammerfell. The Great War and the White-Gold Concordant placed a massive wedge between the two powers, and the fact that Hammerfell defeated the Thalmor invaders had likely only reinforced their decision. Her efforts over the past two years have mostly been working towards attempting to negotiate an alliance with Hammerfell – not as a province of the Empire, but as its own sovereign power, with hopes that it would one day lead to Hammerfell once again becoming an Imperial province (of course, though, she left that part out.)

In some ways, she had made great strides. She broke the ice with the locals through displays of humility and a willingness to understand their culture and history on a personal level. She wasn’t too enraptured in the hubris seen in past diplomats -- as a woman who’s political experience was outside of Empire, she had that advantage, and was better at hiding her shortcomings. She made headway through trade deals and a willingness to support parts of Hammerfell that weren’t exactly lucrative, but in hopes that a divide and conquer strategy would help raise support for the Empire among the majority of people if not the rulers themselves. She wore their clothing, ate their food, and followed their customs, showing that merely the respect for their traditions goes a long way to developing a meaningful relationship between people.

However, all of it seemed to have come crashing down with the arrival of the dwemer. She couldn’t believe her eyes as massive ships sailed through the sky and occupied the once noble and proud Redguard of the Alik’r under the threat of massacre, still too weak from the aftermath of the Great War. The initial invasion force was sudden and ruthless, characterized by a display of power, superior resources, and callous tactics. They cut down the defense force of Sentinel with little difficulty, and like the palace, the Imperial embassy also found itself besieged. It’s soldiers and Aries’ own guards were being overwhelmed, and their resistance would’ve been meaningless if Aries stood idly behind them and allowed her forced to be routed.

A controlled arc of lightning bounced between the dwemer’s armored foot soldiers, that electricity contracting their muscles long enough for Aries to summon an ethereal sword through her conjuration magic and personally leading her men in the charge against the squad of dwemer. With her men at her back, Aries showcased her years of swordplay practice. Her footwork was measured and meticulous, her precision with the blade was unprecedented given her status as an ambassador. To the redguards who had witnessed the scene as her and her bodyguards cut a bloody swathe towards the palace, who valued strength and swordsmanship so highly in their society, her prowess, though not on an expert level, was a demonstration worthy of respect.

Unfortunately, their plan to hole themselves in the palace proved fruitless when they discovered multiple centurions upon their arrival. With few other options left, Aries decided to retreat from Sentinal. With the help of her bodyguards, they found some camels and began riding south with the dwemer following close behind. One by one, they picked her guards off from afar with their rifles until she was accompanied by only one. By that point, they were too far into the desert for the dwemer to follow.

They had since traveled from village to village, spreading the word of danger. It would seem that not long after their arrival, the dwemer would soon follow. When they could finally reach the next major city, they found it already occupied by the dwemer. After spending some time undercover in the new city, Aries was able to ascertain some of the current events over west. The Empire had fallen and the White-Gold Tower was under Dwemer control. News of the Dominion moving in to take advantage of the chaos had also spread. Now stranded in enemy-occupied Hammerfell, without her vast wealth and influence, Aries vowed vengeance against the Dwemer. She now operates out of the shadows, covertly attempting to sabotage the dwemer and the Dominion, and trying find a way to defeat them and recover the Empire. She hopes to stoke the flames of rebellion in Hammerfell and rekindle their faith in the Empire through joining forces against their mutual enemies. Under the guise of a merchant woman, she made her way southbound to meet her contact in Gilane.

Mary began her life under the stars of the Tower and in the Kingdom of Jehanna, located in northern High Rock. A society of both Bretons and Nords surrounded by Wrothgarian Mountains on one side, the Reach on another, the Sea of Ghosts on its north side, and Skyrim only spitting distance away, it has come to develop a strong warrior culture. What it lacked, however, was a center of faith. Most High Rock kingdoms, city states, and principalities had a temple of some kind. The Benevolence of Mara and School of Julianos, for instance, had presence in the rest of High Rock, but Jehanna was barren of a spiritual center for some time between years of defending themselves from vagabonds and conquerors alike and most who practiced only did so the privacy of their own homes. To establish a center of faith and spiritual and moral fulfillment is what the House of Trifection hoped to accomplish.

The Trifection was result of a joint effort between priests and priestess of Mara, Stendarr, and Julianos. It was intended as a model of moral perfection: love, mercy, and wisdom. Scholars of Julianos were seen as overreaching by outsiders at first, since they weren’t supposed to preach any moral philosophy, but they pushed back by maintaining that fighting against the sin of ignorance and complacency has always been their objective. Idle hands were the daedra’s work, after all. Together, they believed that through love, mercy, and wisdom, life's most challenging obstacles could be overcome. It was this doctrine and model of moral perfection that appealed to the natives, and the newly named Order of Trifection was allowed to come together and build the House of Trifection, a temple where people could be wed, counseled, seek forgiveness, and learn. Indeed, it was as much a place of learning as it was a place of worship, but one side effect was that their learning curriculum was heavily tied into their religion. As this temple gained in popularity and became a focal point around which to gather, it's influence grew.

As it grew, so did the influence of the more militant of Stendarr’s followers, who believed that justice should be preached as much as mercy. As this movement among that sect of the temple grew, the rest of the House conceded, and appealed to the king of Jehanna. The kingdom would then agree to outsource local cases to the House of Trifection, whereas more complex and political cases will be managed within the court. The House then became a place of worship, a school, and a courthouse all in one, and each of the three governing clergies came to represent a principle of reasoning; Mara’s clergy embodied emotional appeal, Stendarr’s embodied ethical appeal, and Julianos’ embodied logical appeal. As often happens with centers of law and justice, the House began to train their own holy warriors and merciful defenders of justice. This is where Mary finally fits into the picture years later

She came from a small family - a mom and pops with not much to their name other than a few sheep for shearing and a small plot of land for vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and cabbages. However, the Trifection offered its services for free since they were fueled mostly by donations, avoiding tax, and government grants. Although she inherited her parents’ kind hearts, they were poor and low in the caste system, conditioning them into being intimidated by authority and power. This meant they lacked the assertiveness to raise their daughter with concerted cultivation, but still wanted to provide her with as many opportunities as possible; one of them was to send her to the House of Trifection for schooling when she was 10 years old. Stendarr’s mercy also kept the Julianos sect from being too picky with their applicants.

As a result, Mary’s life was positively enriched. The day before she was just a farm girl, but now? They've expanded her mind beyond her horizons. They helped her to think outside of the little box she was trapped in, introduced her to a world that was once leagues above her place in society and full of magic. Though it only provided the fundamentals of magic, and the House’s schooling program was mostly aimed towards a generally educated public, the fundamentals of magic that they did teach happened to set the groundwork for Mysticism. Perhaps even more profound than that, however, were the Divines. Sure, she has heard of them before. She got the general idea of what they were all about -- but they covered Stendarr, Mara, and Julianos in such intimate detail that Mary found herself virtually in love with the gods and was thoroughly convinced of the Trifection’s message: it was the model of moral perfection. “Forgive those thou cannot love, understand those thou cannot forgive, and love those thou cannot understand.”

Mary spent most of her time at the House the next couple of years, learning and worshipping, helping the temple from cleaning to performing errands, as well as helping those who were new or unfamiliar with the temple. She was, for all intents and purposes, one of their acolytes in all but title. The House created a sense of unity in a society that was once so combative, and Mary was sure that they were the best thing that ever happened to Jehanna. When the time came for the House to call forth the young and faithful to volunteer to do work for the Divines, the ever faithful Mary, at 12 years old, jumped and pulled at the bit for the chance. She was one of the few that they accepted with open arms. However, before she could do the work that they would have her do, she had to go through a few years of training. It was to make her an irrepressible force for good; the type that would go out into the world to save lives, seek justice, and dispel evil.

However, justice without love or understanding wasn't truly justice. How can one pass judgement upon the wicked if one was innocent? What could they possibly know about justice? In order to understand wickedness, you had to cast purity aside. The back rooms for these initiations would remain hidden for years to come, and even now Mary is still fuzzy on the details, but she remembered being told that it was alright to have been a dirty sinner. Stendarr forgives all who repents. This was also meant to be hidden. She was to be trained for the role of a House Templar and part of the role was to embody their model of moral perfection, and the reveal of her initiation would strip her of that honor. To study Julianos was to understand this contradiction and embrace the Theory of Mind. Through this process, the immoralities committed by the House itself was used and lorded over Mary like a show of power. It wasn't said at the time, and Mary didn't understand it -- she was effectively brainwashed into believing that the House was innocent and that she was doing the right thing -- but they used the evidence that could be used to incriminate them as a way to keep their initiates in line by making them believe they held power over them. They believed that their secrets were in the safe hands of the House of Trifection when it was in fact the opposite.

That would’ve been the end of that, though, for the next few years would be devoted to their training. The initiates either forced themselves to forget or forgot in light of what lies ahead. Mary and the other initiates would spend hours upon hours in training session with Stendarr Crusaders from other Temples in the region, and their sole purpose in Jehanna was to train the House’s first generation of templars. Their days were filled with practicing swordplay with wooden practice weapons, learning proper footwork, and donning armor. Their ability to defend themselves had to be up to par if they were going to be defending anybody else. Then their nights were filled with more in-depth study; of magic, restoration, and yes, the gods.

Their magical studies was built upon the fundamentals they’ve learned, but it was less about the actual use of magic, but the understanding of magic. There were many monsters out there in the world, and the worst of them were capable of bewitching and cursing innocent people, so the goal was to being able to identify their condition, recognizing the magic, and to know how to dispel it as well as protecting themselves against such magic. The study of controlling the ebb and flow of magic itself was known as Mysticism, a school that’s long been cast aside by most of Tamriel. The School of Julianos saw the abandonment of such knowledge as sacrilegious, and chose instead to preserve its history.

Similarly, learning Restoration magic from the Maran priests and priestess was essential for saving lives. One would be hard pressed to call themselves a templar if they couldn’t heal wounds, whether it was their own or someone else’s, and the light magic it used to destroy the undead would be similarly instrumental. Due to the nature of the school, it was often taken and related to the Divines, so the lessons were often two in one. As a templar, your faith must be unshakable, so they regularly tested their faith in the Divines and their belief in the Trifection’s model. Mary’s harsh and rigid training routine with her fellow initiates -- now seen as brothers and sisters -- would continue for eight years, even after Mary reached adulthood. Each templar’s training was mostly the same, but each one had their own skills and talents, so each one’s training was slightly tailored to their style.

Mary found her strength in a balance between offense and defense. With a shield in hand and donned in lightweight chainmail, she’d wait for her opponent to strike first before deftly closing the distance with her shield and sword. She wasn’t the best of the initiates; Carlisle’s strength and skill with the greatsword was far too great for her to defend against, and her reputation among them in hand-to-hand intimidated her from getting too close, and Fontaine was clever enough that he was able to take what limited knowledge they taught them of Mysticism and figure the rest out on his own. Jorgr was a fantastic healer who took to Restoration like a flea would take to a skeever -- but Mary’s generalism allowed her to outwit all of them outside of their preferred grounds, and nobody would ever think of questioning her loyalty to the gods or to the House. As a twenty year old Mary took her Oath of Devotion, she recited every word passionately and etched them into her heart.

The templars were armed with enchanted silver daggers, and the next four years of her life was spent doing work for the temple. She was a protector of the house, an enforcer of law, and a defender of the innocent. She performed her duties diligently, tackling down thieves in the streets with non-lethal force, settling drunken arguments in the tavern diplomatically -- she loved the people of her hometown and had no desire to harm them. The templars effectively became the public face for the House the more they were seen throughout the city. Their benevolence reflected back on the House, which in turned heightened their reputation. Then the House collected reports of disturbances aimed their templars toward the countryside of High Rock, hoping to put their years of training to the test. Mary was sent southwest toward the Duchy of Gastemarch where the report of an older gentleman had gone missing from his cottage for a few days. After some time spent on tracking, she found herself in the middle of a fen and face to face with a hideous hagraven. Her shield protected her from its claws, and her light armor kept her light enough on her feet to avoid the creature’s devastating spellcraft. After an intense fight with the witch, crippling but failing to kill the creature with her sword, she finished it off by slitting its throat with her silver dagger.

The old man was found as a captive in the hagraven’s cottage, who was paralyzed by some magical concoction that was forcibly fed to him which Mary was able to dispel with her magic. After some time, she nursed him mostly back to health with Restoration and carried him back home on her back before returning home to Jehanna. The other templars were apparently just as successful in their missions. Carlisle in particular seemed rather popular, for word of her work in the Reach had gotten around -- her driving away of Forsworn raiders had dubbed her the name of Carlisle the Adherent. She didn’t like it. Apparently people thought that dubbing her the opposite of their sworn enemy meant something. Much to Mary’s own embarrassment, her friend apparently thought of her, since that title sounded like one that Mary deserved more than she did. As word of Mary’s deed got around town, people started wanting to call her Witchbane; ironically enough, they both joked that perhaps they should’ve traded jobs.

It was for the best, though. Mary found it hard to stomach the idea of killing other people.

The deeds of the templars reflected back on the House of Trifection, and soon enough, the officials of Jehanna began calling upon the House to continue performing these deeds throughout the kingdom. During the next four years, the templars had found themselves being little more than contracted heroes. Mary didn’t mind it so much, though. She enjoyed the hero work, almost feeling like a real knight. For the next four years, she scoured northern High Rock, the Reach, and Wrothgarian mountains, helping all she came across and slaying all manner of foul monsters and beasts. Whether it was undead, vampires, trolls, werewolves, or even Forsworn and bandit raiders (as much as she detested it), she was up to the task -- but she became especially proficient in taking down hagravens. Though as dangerous as they were, her first experience taught her a lot about how to deal with them, as did each subsequent time she had to face one.

In fact, it was after one of those hunts for a hagraven far south of Jehanna did Mary stop to rest at Evermoor in the Kingdom of Ephesus -- they did not stop her, since the four years worth of braided favors hanging from her belt esteemed her as a local do-gooder. With a drink in hand the latest news in the paper, she learned of the fate that befell the House of Trifection back home:

“Jehanna Temple, the House of Trifection, was shut down by the order of King Darion following multiple allegations of sex related scandals with children. All leaders and officials are to be investigated and those found guilty will be tried and punished by means of--”

Mary couldn’t bring herself to read anymore. She had spent more than a decade fervently believing in the model of moral perfection that the house had preached to her. For more than a decade she had repressed the memories of her initiation to the point where she can barely even recall them now, but now she just felt an overwhelming sense of shame and disbelief. She couldn’t believe that the temple she devoted so much of her life to grew to be a corrupted sham. She was associated with them, and as much it pained her to think it, she didn’t want to be. Her world was suddenly turned upside down and she didn’t want to think about it anymore, so she turned her back on High Rock. She never returned home to Jehanna after that day, and crossed the treacherous Druadach Mountains separating the Breton homelands from Skyrim.

For the next year, she chose to preoccupy herself with doing what she’s been doing: helping people, being a hero; that part never changed. She still had an oath she had to uphold, even if only part of it was still relevant. For the next year, she took on jobs like a common mercenary might, but only those that she felt was morally just. With it having only been a short while after the country resolved its civil war and dragon crisis, there was plenty of work to be done in Skyrim. Eventually however, her travels brought her south into Cyrodiil and as she closed to distance towards Chorral, she happened across a flier nailed to one of the country’s many road signs:

“To all whom it may concern…”