Spoopy Scary

The Elder Scrolls: City of Anvil

@Kassarock I'm giving Velyn a friend!

Garil Mavos, the Real GM

" G A R I L M A V O S "

_{"I be just a simple farmhand, sera, though I may sell you my services if that is what you wish."}

══════ C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T ══════ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ═══════ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y ══════ "Garil Mavos" _______________________________________________ 55 | ♂ | Dunmer _______________________________________________ Farmhand, Mercenary, and Impersonator ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Lean and athletic; built for dexterity. ► Skin Color - Ebony, with mild hues of dark blue and ashen grey ► Hair Color - Black, with grey strands. ► Eye Color - Deep red. ► Other - Body is littered with scars from small cuts and labor. ▼ D O S S I E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Birthplace - Presumably Cheydinhal in Cyrodiill. ► Birthsign - The Ritual ► Biggest Regret - Garil would have you believe that it was his inability to seize ripe opportunities and rise above his humble origins, as well as cutting ties with his family. Also the fire, he feels pretty bad about that. ► Garil's Goal - To perform great, honorable deeds that would make his ancestors proud. Maybe make him a little famous. Fame and fortune, really. Maybe not fame. Probably fortune. Power and wisdom? Seeing the world, definitely that. Garil's goals are as protean as the Dunmer himself. ▼ F A V O R E D A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Personality ► Agility ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Speechcraft - Adept ► Acrobatics - Adept ► One-Handed - Adept ► Conjuration - Apprentice ► Stealth - Apprentice ► Athletics - Apprentice ► Smithing - Apprentice Technically, all the rest of the skill tree would be in the Novice category anyway, but these three are those of which he employs somewhat regularly without proficiency despite the fact: ► Alchemy - Novice ► Pickpocket - Novice ► Hand to Hand - Novice ▼ S P E L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Conjuration - Conjure Dagger, Conjure Sword, Summon Ghost ▼ E Q U I P M E N T ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Weapons - Three knives, though they look to be more for utility than anything else. There's a skinning knife with a gut hook, a filet knife, and a silver cheese knife. ► Armor - Nothing but the clothes on his back. ► Containers - A satchel which hangs from his shoulder and a 32 oz. waterskin. ► Food, Drink, Potions - A cheesecloth pouch filled with two pounds of assorted nuts and seeds, dried fruit, and dense preserved bread. Two large and round bottles with cork stoppers, and are filled with sujamma. ► Miscellaneous - Two small wooden bowls and two small clay bowls. Tightly packed in the satchel are small, folded mats and rugs. Assorted trinkets and mementos from past lives. Strangely enough, a bundle of scrolled documents.

══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════ Garil is as unassuming as a dunmer can get: he dresses modestly with threadbare clothing, he's clean shaven, and he carries himself with such a humble and passive disposition, so obviously trustworthy, that the only thing keeping him from being conspicuously unassuming would be his impressive height -- 6'2". Though his build is somewhat lanky, and not at all like one would would expect a soldier or mercenary from, he is still lean from what he claims to be years of hard farm work. Knicked and scratched by numerous petty scars across his hairless body, too few of them appear to be from life-threatening injuries by blade or creature, either lending credibility to his skills or undermining his integrity. He walks, stands, and sits with a slight hunch, and often rocks his jaw from side to side when in contemplation. He also tends to gesture his hands quite often when talking, and has a distinct tell whenever he's lying, where he cranes his head in as if to invade your personal space and his tone becomes suggestive. Curiously, he's quite acrobatic and has an impeccable sense of balance. He doesn't seem to have much reason to be as adept as he is, and any questioning is answered with a shrug and a blasé, "I like to climb things. I guess I just have good balance." He walks with a peculiar grace and sense of purpose, as if he has a clear destination in his mind's eye, a gait which other dunmer familiar to him have insultingly referred to as monkey-like. You can occasionally catch him looking over his shoulder or staring at other dunmer. Watching Garil swing a blade, on the other hand, he doesn't seem so great at it. There's almost a hesitance or uncertainty as he cuts the air -- no confidence -- but a trained eye can find his perfect grip and footing, and figure out pretty quickly that he probably picked up a couple of lessons. His angular features are somewhat striking. His cheekbones are high and pronounced, almost jutting from his face and combined with the gauntness of his cheeks, this quality being particularly highlighted. His chin is long and comes down to a point. However, he also has a wide jaw, which adds to the strength of his facial features. Almost out of place upon his face are a pair of a thick lips, their shade a darker hue than the rest of his face. He's almost always munching on nuts or seeds, swelling his jowls as they fill with food, rocking his jaw side to side as he chews. His mouth sits beneath a long, hawkish nose that may have once been broken in the past if the vertical crookedness is not just another sharp facial feature on a long list of sharp facial features. His ears, low on the sides of his head, flare out quite a bit like two dishes waiting for signals. His peripheral extremities, his arms and legs, are quite spindly though not without lean muscle; you'd be forgiven for underestimating the strength in his figure due to his light toning, but even so, the dunmer is more agile than he is brutish. His black hair is long and well kept, also undercut, and behind his neck you'll often find residing loose, frizzy hair. He prefers to keep his hair tied back and usually does so in the shape of the bun to keep the hair off his neck and back while he's working. Overall, Garil is a dunmer that seems very conscious of his personal hygiene despite his humility and humble occupation. Of course he has no qualms with getting himself dirty, but with as often as he seems to mock pride and vanity, he seems quite content to preen himself with the beginning and end of every day. That said, he is not so self-conscious either that he'd remove the gray hairs growing on his head. In fact, he seems quite fond of them. He is at least self-aware enough to acknowledge his contradictions and hypocrisies, though it's almost as if he occasionally forgets he holds such values. There aren't many accessories on his person. Little holes sit on his ears where there were once piercings, and as mentioned before, what little clothes he has appears old, weathered, and quite obviously favoring warmer colors such as reds and oranges -- they compliment his eyes, he says. What passes for a shirt is actually more like a red blanket or a shawl, which he wraps around his torso to cover himself during the day in a Nibenese-esque fashion. It's not uncommon to see him using the toga wrap to use as an arm sling after a long and tiring day of work. The pants he wears goes down to his knees and are held up by a leather cord, and his calloused, leather-like feet have not the luxury of proper footwear beyond a pair of sandals, which he occasionally forgoes in favor of the cool sensation of morning dew upon the grass. ═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════ All around a peculiar person, Garil enjoys his privacy and does his best to appear unassuming and inconspicuous. This is best done when minding his own business, which he does successfully for the most part, but he's also irrepressibly curious. While he might do what he can to keep his hands and mind busy, such as sweeping or mopping the deck, overhearing a conversation will pique his interest enough so that he might pay undue attention to whomever he may be eavesdropping on. To others, he could very well just be some random, nosy s'wit, which in turn can -- counter-intuitively -- direct even less attentions towards himself if he can push others away. No one wants to be around somebody who can't mind his own business, and that's the genius of it. If he can convince others he's not worth paying attention to, then it makes his goal of staying inconspicuous even easier. He watches and listens, preferring to have the edge over others, just in case it's better to be safe than sorry.

Getting to know Garil is not necessarily a bad thing though. He's quite an amiable fellow, if a tad odd in his habits and mannerisms. He has the ability to read people and read them well, a skill he's developed over years of people-watching and questioning. Kindly and well-spoken, he's not at all the judgmental type, as if there was nothing you could say that could startle him and he'd accept you for who you are. If anything, you might pique his curiosity and he'd harry you with more questions without fear of looking dumb or naive. His lack of judgement also shows itself through his liberal approach towards sexuality, thinking very little of the different races and genders of Tamriel intermingling with one another and uses flirtation as a brand of humor regardless of who he is talking to, only reinforcing the stereotype of sexual deviance often foisted upon dunmer. This is an unfair characterization, he feels, since his attitude as a lover is actually rather conservative in the sense that he reserves the action of touch for truly intimate matters. Otherwise, he is content to sit calmly and converse with his loved ones, and it is because of his liberal approach to sex that he doesn't hold it in such a high esteem, as he'd rather sit in candlelit silence and enjoy the calm and peace. Much of his personality, in fact, is reflective of the endlessly infuriating duality of the Dunmer mentality. And yet, he is still one of the most amiable of his kind and gets along worse with other Dunmer.

He has a complicated relationship with spirituality however, as he speaks very little of his ancestors and is a critic of both the Reclamations and the Tribunal saints, all while disregarding the Divines as powerless lesser deities. This does not exactly translate into being a logical individual, as he does have his fair share of superstitions. He regards matters of superstition and spirituality as private affairs, though that hardly seems like a profound statement considering he regards all of his affairs as private. Privacy is his primary value, and the invasion of which is one of the only ways to stoke the even-tempered dark elf's ire. Even then, you'll typically only be met with indignant irritation. He is not the type to explode in rage and anger, and even if the worst of his secrets should come to light, he would merely react to it as one would to any threat of danger -- run. He doesn't consider himself a murderer or dangerous mer -- or, if I may be so bold, a merderder -- and he only resorts to such extremes if there is no other choice. If bandits are intent on killing him, then he'll defend himself, but even in a fight he is more inclined to rely on his rationality than his emotions.

Overall, his company is very calm and welcoming even if it is a bit foreign and bizarre, but he invites others to learn, inquire, and critique, to become curious about the world around them as he is. He frequently refers to himself as a parched, informational sponge. This reflects the fact that although he has no traditional education, he has a very keen mind that is quick to pick up on information and make practical use of it. He's a clever, patient, and resourceful mer if one can't find anything else kindly to say about him, and he takes insult and injury with a saint's grace. One of his most notable talents is his ability to perform impressions, which might sound quite tame in a world where magic exists. Which to be fair is true, but even so, his keen eye and ear can have his constant people-watching pay off with impressive vocal reconfiguration, enabling him to mimic the sound of someone's voice. Aside from vocal impressions, he also has a knack for physical impersonations as well, and can even copy other people's handwriting once he gets a good look at it. Eventually, this skill of his becomes creepily uncanny. However, he hasn't ever used this for wrongdoing and only for the sake of entertainment. He is not totally scrupulous however, as he in his youth was something of a charlatan, liar, and gossip-monger, and the only reason he doesn't continue this way of life is that he was caught too many times and he learned that it wasn't a safe way to make a living. Such skills still remain with him.

Garil is notoriously meticulous and methodical, almost to the degree of neuroticism. Part of his nightly rituals, even at the end of particularly long days, is to lay his possessions out before him and to keep track of everything he owns. If there is a list of chores that needs doing, he'll go down the list one by one even if he is capable of striking multiple things off at once. He has an impulsive desire to see every task through to its end. On one hand, this reassures his employers that he is not one to shirk responsibility and that he'll complete his duties with no mistakes left behind, but on the other hand, this can annoy everyone else to no end if they are impatient and prefer shortcuts, or if they find those specific tasks as arbitrary. His inclinations to obfuscate the truth whenever the opportunity arises, and his appreciation for ambiguity, makes him a mysterious sort. This can sometimes be alluring, but it can also make him an unreliable narrator despite his known collection of rumors and hearsay. He's like a font of information that only rewards those capable of outwitting him, and that can make him threatening to those who don't see the allure in his mysteries. The dualistic nature of the dunmer people is best represented by one of the best known paradoxes which transcends cultural borders: danger can be sexy, but sex can be dangerous. At his best, Garil can be wise and dutiful, but at his worst, Garil can be secretive and selfish.

_{═══════ B A C K G R O U N D ══════}

Garil's story is a simple one, as he says: a first generation Cyrodilian born in Cheydinhal after his family fled Morrowind near the end of the Arnessian War. With the southern side of Morrowind being assailed by argonian guerillas and Queen Barenziah abandoning her country, it no longer felt safe. So, they moved to Cyrodiil, a place where they would be mostly accepted and, more importantly, not a target of war. Garil grew up under kind, yet strict parents that had high expectations of him for living in a land ripe with opportunity and less hostile than the rugged ashlands of Morrowind. Garil calls himself a suitable family disappointment for repeatedly failing to rise above his parent's own humble occupations of tiler and trading in buttons. Instead of becoming a respected warrior or accomplished mage, he instead found himself working other people's land for pay, or even sharecropping. Sure, he picked up a few tricks, a couple of prestidigitated bewilderments... nothing impressive though. He has no claim to power, status, or to land of his own, and though he has received no formal education of his own -- working hard only to help his family put food on the table and putting down payments on a nice, future Dunmer fusion house for future generations to live in -- he's always had been the wise sort. He is more keen to listen than to speak, and absurdly well-spoken despite his humble origins by listening and eavesdropping on the conversations of more noble folk and practicing to himself their manner of speak when he was by himself. Stories from his parents and stories passed down from their parents always helped to put things into perspective. Then when all else failed, a jaunt over the eastern mountains and into Deshaan, a journey that could last a week or more, he could find the cairns of his ancestors there. Communing with them, albeit a dreaded affair given his lineage of very accomplished and very disappointed mages, offered some contrived wisdom or another that his parents never provided. Of course, that would only be as soon as they were done admonishing him for never rising above a meager farmhand.

For reasons he chooses not to disclose, he has not visited his ancestors in some time. Not since the farm he was working on had burned down. In fact, he seems to address them with some measure of resentment that is almost childish in nature, like refusing to speak to one's parents after a petty injury done to one's pride. Interrogating him on the story seems to turn up no correlation between his resentment of his ancestors and the fire, which in itself was a mysterious circumstance. Anyone who has ever met Garil can attest to him being one of the most orderly and organized people they have ever met, hopelessly methodical and infuriatingly meticulous in how he arranges and categorizes his (few) personal possessions and running down the checklist of his responsibilities. The very idea that the fire was the result of an accident -- an oil lantern left burning or a candle left lit -- is inconceivable as long as Garil was around to tend to the farm's affairs. Everything from harvesting the wheat, repairing the barn or wagon, to defending the grounds from hungry and predatory animals and men alike, he was always a dutiful sort that never would've let anything adverse happen to anyone or anything that was under his care. Perhaps, then, it was done in the dead of night as a form of reprisal against the farm's owners for one reason or another.

Perhaps.

He fails to mention that he was partly to blame for the barn's destruction, though perhaps for the reason that he does not feel at fault for it. Garil has a complex relationship with undead, necromancy, and his own people. He is not immune to the dominant Imperial influences either. He felt himself feeling a cognitive dissonance between both his family and culture's coinciding values of respecting the dead, but also embracing the undead in the form of his ancestors' ghosts. And dunmer mostly only cared about necromancy as it pertained to their own ancestors, but generally didn't care if it happened to others. What was the difference between a righteous, ritual necromancy and the evils of philosophical necromancy? Alienation from his people and being constantly spited by his own family drove him to travel many days into Morrowind and into his family's crypt in Deshaan under the pretense that he was setting out to pay his respects, so that he could set the entire cairn ablaze and be free of his ancestors' haunting. Without no one at the scene, he returned thinking it was a fool-proof plan: the fire was a tragedy that must've occurred after he left. He did not think that at least one of his ancestors would remain tethered to Mundus and seek retribution. Indaryn Sadras was a particularly fickle great-great-uncle of his even before the arson, and in the ghost's attempt to incinerate Garil in his sleep for his descendant's transgression, he ended up burning down the entire barn instead.

After escaping, Garil payed a pretty sum to a discreet member of the local Synod chapter to keep his affairs under wraps while asking for a brief lesson in binding spirits. With the help of a Breton mage and a few overnight cram sessions in Conjuration magic, they were able to summon the unbound spirit of his ancestor to the confinement of a ritual circle where they were able to bind Indaryn to a phylactery. This phylactery would be available for Garil to carry on his person, being small enough in size, and its magical inscriptions made it sturdy enough to be mostly adventure-proof. Inscribed upon the phylactery were daedric runes that compelled the spirit to obey his descendant's will and forbade him from uttering any information pertaining to his great-nephew. Though the affair was costly in more ways than one, Garil supposed that this technically made him some kind of mage like his family originally wanted, and that sort of left a bitter taste in his mouth.

However, the affair also left him without a job. So, in his attempt to move on and forget the fire ever happened, he began going around working odd jobs for people around Cheydinhal and relying on various short-lived paramours. His charm was only such that he could only couch surf for weeks at a time, and his air of intrigue and novelty shortly wore off the more his bummish behavior grated on them. He had also taken to a buy-sell formula of making money, buying cheap stocks of clutter from the local stores and selling them at markup, and even going so far as to sell fish oil as miracle elixirs. He was also something of an eavesdropper and gossip-monger, and for a cheap price, was willing to share with anyone the local rumors or the gossip he's overheard. This made him a few friends with some of local burghers, but also a few enemies. Complaints to the local guard had brought him bruises and threats of being thrown out of town. Garil eventually learned that it was probably best to keep such businesses practices less in the open. The odd jobs he had picked up here and there since then had gone from fixing leaks and scrubbing floors to dredging the sewers and exterminating rats, so Garil was able to salvage his reputation as an untrustworthy miscreant to a somewhat reliable if quirky and gossipy handyman.

Yet, from the fruits of his labor arose another problem: his labor was cheap and people took advantage of that. Before long, some of the jobs he began to take were beginning to steal low-level contracts from the local Fighter's Guild. After a thug or two from the guild confronted him in an act of intimidation, he backed down and decided it was best for him to start traveling the road. For a few reasons, really: among them was his new taste for mercantilism, the farm was no longer tying him down, he finally had an opportunity to see the world and perhaps rise above his meager station, and he thought has gotten pretty good with a blade. Good enough to encroach on Fighter's Guild territory at least, so he thought to himself "How hard can adventuring be?" Besides, it would've done him no good to keep living where his next door neighbors were a band of blooded mercenaries whom he had slighted and armed guards who were less than enthused with his eccentricities. He would've bade farewell to his family had they cared to see him again, but his place as the family disappointment was alive and well.

Eventually, after about ten years of adventuring and surviving off of odd jobs or mercenary work, he managed to build up a resume. He's proven himself a fairly capable bodyguard, exterminator, private investigator, ruin explorer, tomb-raiding, or an all-purpose handyman. He learned that his ancestor would be a useful tool to exploit if nothing else, much to Indaryn's chagrin, and relied on his great-uncle's destruction magic to clear out many a dungeon for him. Of course, Garil also learned that his great-uncle was aware of what was going on outside of his phylactery pretty much all the time, and that he was a bitter old ghost each and every time he was summoned. Sometimes it was worthwhile to summon his ghost, and other times... not so much. The two hated each other, and at least that much was clear. Still, his discreet use of summoning a ghost gave him something of a reputation to his employers as a one-man army when in reality he often relied on his ancestor to do much of the heavy lifting. All the while, he was peddling his treasures to merchants or selling them by auction, putting his mercantilism to decent use. Adventuring was easy, and sometimes even lucrative. His penchant for spinning yarns and impersonations also helped him sneak into and out of places that he otherwise had no business being in, but only if such roles called for a dunmer. He tried passing for a sickly Breton once. No one bought it.

Much of the loot Garil collected was basically junk, save for the rarer finds such as valuable jewels and tithes of gold. Oftentimes they were pieces of antique furniture or ceremonial displays, things that would be more interesting to historians and eccentric nobles than any general merchant. What he can say, at least, is that his travels took him to many different places, like High Rock and Hammerfell, boats from which brought him briefly to port in Auridon before making way to Elsweyr, and he even traveled into Black Marsh -- only to high-tail it out of there after a few weeks when he got chased by some of the more rabid tribes of argonians. He managed to pick up a lot of skills along the way as well, being a sponge for information and fascinated by other cultures. High Rock helped him hone his speechcraft and magic, Hammerfell taught him how to better swing his sword and sneak past their tomb sentinels, Auridon taught him that high elves were pricks, some Baandari in Senchal taught him some of their dances and to always watch his pockets, and Black Marsh taught him that not all cultures are created equal.

Eventually he found himself in Anvil, ready to explore the region of the Gold Coast. His many years of travel has accustomed him to violence, of which there are several varieties: bloody violence, the violence of dramatic action, or the violence of change (albeit not yet desensitized to such violence). Yet, in doing so, he has built his proficiency in both swordplay and mental resilience. He has come to the realization that his claim of being a mere farmhand might now be a lie, though he has no intent on changing that. Though an old sailor he met once told him a thing or two about Anvil, he still isn't quite sure what to expect even as a native Cyrodillian. Still, as long as it was nothing like the customs agents in Black Marsh, he felt pretty secure in being here for the sole purpose of selling his wares at the market or town square.

At least, that's what you're all made to believe.

---

_{"Truth is a fickle creature. I may be no farmhand, but does my harvest not reap life in service of life? Were my services not for sale?"}

---

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

The Eve of Blood

_{ft. @Hank}

Reyna made sure to watch the crowd of the meeting leave the tent before leaving Isobel to herself, with the exception of Beordan’s company. There were some who lingered, whether to talk amongst themselves or talk to Isobel directly. She would linger longer, of course, to keep an eye on them before leaving herself, her eyes like a painting on a wall that would seem to stare at you no matter where one walked. Her gaze was a penetrating menace that sought to see through the barriers of flesh to seek their intent, to manifest her anticipation as lightning coursing through her veins. It was all to keep sure Isobel remained guarded--that which she felt was her responsibility. While the woman she held in such esteem had Beordan’s more than capable company at her side, who Reyna has personally witnessed destroy all those who entered his arena with him, it only takes a moment for things to change. Only a moment for someone to die. If Beordan wasn’t prepared for that single moment, or isn’t able to react fast enough for it, then she would be. At least, that was the idea.

The night had already fallen, her assigned patrol already over and the resolution of the meeting hallmarking the eve of blood, a name that was beginning to circulate around the camp. Some of the rebels were former militia members who would be invading and ransacking their own homes, but mostly farmers. They had a connection which tied them to this struggle, whereas Reyna fought out of loyalty to a debt. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like for them. Her own home is long gone, and any place she was otherwise “raised,” to be as liberal as possible with the term, she would be delighted to see crumble beneath smoke and fire. She thought about it often, and so she wasn’t quite so sure that it was delight she’d be feeling, no; it’d be anger. Anger fulfilled and appetite whetted, and when it's very memory invokes pain and rage, one can only help but think of crushing the hot coal that’s been used to poke and prod and brand you in your bare hands and the satisfaction you get from its destruction even when the burns and pain continues to linger.

Would these people feel that? Would they feel a painful satisfaction in burning down their own home, or would they seek to preserve it? How would they do that? And how would they react if what they fought to defend was taken from them? It was a dark thought perhaps, one that was birthed by the orcs and seeped into her own brain like venom, but it was a tactic that Hruldan could employ nonetheless: burning down his own city. Would that take away their reason for fighting, or simply replace it with what Reyna had? It was hard to say. Some of them seemed too weak and she herself was no philosopher, not like some of the other so-called “warriors.”

She returned to her own tent: a small, pitched thing that only had room for her bedroll, a crate, and a mess kit. She’d undo the buckles and straps of her armor and drop its pieces into the crate and slide her gladius in after it. It was positioned such that its handle was sticking up and pointed in the direction toward the bedroll for her to reach if need be, though she still kept the orichalum dagger secured in one of the tied wrappings of the toga just at her tailbone. The longer left-side of her red toga was now free to uncoil itself from her arm and hang freely in the air just above her knees, her black garments beneath just short and breathable enough to allow some airy comfort in the warm air of the night. The Cyrodiilic chill had little persuasive power over a nord, especially one raised in the Wrothgarian mountains. The pressure of her breastplate and gauntlet still weighed on her body though, its memory imprinting itself upon her skin. She let out a gentle sigh and moan as she rocked her neck and back side to side, making sounds in her back pop like when she would crack open a mudcrab’s leg.

An uproar of laughter from a nearby fire disturbed her moment of peace, replacing it with a moment of bitter and resentful growling, but when her head erupted from the tent flaps, she only saw men. Men with smiles and drinks in their hands, telling stories and jokes and whatever else, as if they had no idea what lies in wait for them tomorrow. It made her mind buzz with confusion, like a swelling of emotion that she couldn’t begin to organize or pick apart—where could she possibly begin? Why drink and dull the senses? Why stay up and tire yourself in the morning? Why make such loud ruckus, possibly letting every hunter and predator and killer nearby know where you lay your head? Why were they so comfortable doing the things she was never allowed? She didn’t have those luxuries, or rather, it is because she avoided them that she’s alive today. What did that mean for these men? What lies in wait for them tomorrow? This must be a mistake.

She’d make one last trip to Isobel’s tent.

It was during the march that she’d walk past some of those who she saw in the tent but did not know personally, or even particularly care for. Folks like Janus and Akamon, some nords and bretons like Quintus and Guifort, and one of the orcs she saw in the distance in the dry, blazing heat of their forge, all until she finally made it to the tent of Isobel Aurelia. She was hesitant to enter at first, remembering from her earliest childhood memories that it was polite to knock before entering someone’s quarters, but having not had to worry about that at all for such a while, she wasn’t quite sure if a tent technically counted. So, she opted for something simple, if still bluntly direct as is expected of her by now.

“Aurelia, I’m coming in,” she said, warning the occupant of her arrival in her distinct, underused voice. The pitched voice of a Nord girl with a similar grumbly inflection to the orcs they worked with. She pushed her shoulder past the entrance and found that only an empty tent awaited her. Not entirely empty, of course -- there were scrolls and clothes and equipment, but no Isobel. Instead, her voice came from outside the tent.

“I’m here, Reyna,” the Imperial woman said, calling out from a dark corner of the camp a little ways away from the tent, where she and the minotaur Beordan sat on a fallen tree, she on the stump and he on the trunk, in shadow and silence. “We were taking a moment to pray,” she explained, “but come. I would like to speak with you.”

“Me too.” The girl replied. She didn’t necessarily care much for or put much stock into praying, and she would’ve scoffed at anyone else who did, but she didn’t feel as if she had any particular ground to stand on in judging the woman who brought everyone together and saved her life. The woman could streak butt naked and croak like a frog for all she cared, if she thought it’d help her find her center. So Reyna paced forward, wading her feet through the cold grass as she went, until they brought her in front of Isobel and Beordan, who she addressed with a respectful nod (though more in a way that suggests “real recognizes real,” rather than any particular reverence). Like old friends. She couldn’t actually bring herself to care about the religion of the Imperial pantheon, or any faith really, but she cared about what Isobel thought and Reyna thought she was good at organizing people, so she found herself wanting to know what she ought to be looking for tomorrow morning.

“Which one is it this time?” Reyna asked irreverently. When the moment came she was given the inevitable look of confusion, she explained, “You pray to nine different people right? Which one are you praying to this time?”

The question made Isobel laugh. “Nine different gods,” she corrected the young woman. “Today it is Talos, who was Tiber Septim in life. He conquered all of Tamriel and created the Empire. He ascended to the heavens when he died and became a god. It seems only fitting to pray to him today, given that it’s his Empire that we’re trying to… protect, I suppose.”

“Repair,” Beordan grumbled.

She ignored him, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then Isobel looked at Reyna more intently. After she mentioned Talos, she found her muttering Talos’ name under her breath, feeling the shape of his name in her mouth, and it suddenly made her seem much more like the nord she was supposed to be. “Who did you pray to, when you were alone in your cage?”

“I prayed to my enemies.” Reyna answered simply. “I prayed that they were weaker than me so I could live. I didn’t know any gods there. Ma and Pa used to pray to gods, I think.”

The implication of the allusion to her parents was clear. She wasn’t placing much stock into gods or things she couldn’t see, and the very word, “god,” seemed to fit uncomfortably in her mouth as if it was too big and unwieldy for her to use, or like she sat tasting it and found the flavor of the word unsettling and bitter. As far as she was concerned, she was alive today only because of dumb luck and her own strength. She found her eyes wandering towards the minotaur, privately suspecting that he was the same and had no experience with or has any need for these gods—even if he was here praying with her.

“Is that why you brought people like the half-breed with us? Because they pray?” Reyna asked. The question may have sounded accusative and aggressive, but she was earnest in her curiosity. She wanted to know what Isobel saw in them that she couldn’t, those who she rated based on what she assumed was their ability to survive conflict. Guifort, the name she could not remember, looked to her as the sort who would not survive very long. He wasn’t alone though; he was among company with the other soft-skinned and untempered fodder of the rebellion. She trusted Isobel's judgement, but she also sought to understand it. That was why she was here at this hour. She leaned in and said, “They’re going to die.”

Isobel shook her head. “Everyone here has their own way of contributing. There is more to war than just fighting. Guifort prays, yes, and in his devotion to his god he finds wisdom, and he uses that wisdom to speak encouraging words that can fortify the spirit. He knows healing magic to keep the wounded among the living, and funerary rites to guide the souls of the dead to Aetherius. You only see the fight, young Reyna, but Guifort sees what happens before, and after, and tends to us then,” she explained. “Reinette is the same, in her own way.”

“Not just them.” She insisted. “Witches who heal... I think I get it, but I’ve never seen it,” she glanced toward her own scars, healing either on their own or with the help of conventional medicine and bandaging. She shook her head as if to shake the memories off of her and continued, “not just them. Even the ones who will fight. No matter how long the lazy one makes them fight the air, they’ll never learn to kill. They’re loud and they’re drinking and they’re laughing… and they don’t know. Not like they should.”

Reyna exhaled a deep breath, unaware of the weight on her shoulders she was carrying previously. She wasn’t sure if she was communicating her thoughts exactly the way she wanted to, and it frustrated her. For the longest time, she only thought of fighting and killing as a means to live, but here she saw only men and women eagerly rushing to their own deaths just so they could fight. What kind of life was that? With a tone of finality to her voice, she added with certainty, “They’ll die. Some will run. A couple might live. Why are they fighting? What’s more important than living?”

“Freedom. Justice. Peace.” Isobel watched Reyna’s face for any changes to her expression and then laughed. “You didn’t grow up in the Empire. Survival is all you’ve known for years. I don’t expect you to understand what I mean. But many people here are fighting to create a better world for their fellow citizens. They fight for a good cause, something larger than themselves, larger than their lives. Hruldan is a cruel and greedy man. As long as he rules Skingrad, the people here will never be treated fairly. All we can do is take up arms for those who believe they are too weak to fight him themselves so that they might learn their own power, because rulers should always be afraid of their own people. And now there’s an army, two-hundred strong, inspired by our example, ready to fight. Ready to die, if they have to. So that their friends and family can know freedom, justice and peace again.” Passion had crept into her voice and she realized that she had leaned forwards while talking. “Sorry,” Isobel smiled and leaned back again, away from Reyna’s personal space when she noticed her muscles tensing up. “I just get fired up when talking about it.” She glanced sidelong at Beordan, but the minotaur was studying Reyna and did not say anything.

“All this air,” she responded, looking all around her, “the space. It’s new. Quiet. Gives me time to think about… things I haven’t thought about before. I don’t know what to do with it—the space—but I’ve thought what if I didn’t have it anymore. If I went back. I fought too hard to live just to die for it, but… I do want to keep my quiet. I think I get what you’re saying, but I don’t wanna choose between life or quiet. I don’t like that choice. I wanna live and have quiet too. I’ve been killing to live so I don’t have to kill anymore... but they don’t know how to kill. They don’t know that choice—not until tomorrow.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Isobel said. “We can show them the way. You, me, Beordan, Ando, Akamon, Janus… there are plenty of experienced fighters here. And I’ve talked to the people. The farmers, the smiths, the tanners. They don’t feel like they’re making a choice to fight. They feel that it’s their duty to fight.” She smiled and pointed at Reyna. “Like you feel you have a duty to me. What you feel you owe to me, they feel they owe to Skingrad and its people. Their sons, their mothers, their neighbours. Do you see what I mean?”

“Not duty. Blood debt. But maybe. We’ll see what duty gets them.” Reyna found this type of… philosophical talk and playing around with words and semantics far too heady and annoying, and it gave her something of a pins and needles sensation across her skin, something that caused her to ruffle her hair with her hands and itch at her scalp as if it was her way of centering herself. A moment later her hair was looking wild again and sticking out in different directions, but there was a laser focus in her eyes, as if she finally committed herself to something, like the doubts plaguing her when she first arrived at the conversation were swatted away. Her focus realigned on Isobel with her composure returned. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something too.”

“Yes, I did,” Isobel said and shifted in her seat, uncrossing her legs and straightening them out on the forest floor, her hands ironing the creases from her tunic, with a look in her eyes that said that she wished she could do the same to all the worries and concerns that weighed on her mind and her heart. “Once Hruldan is defeated and order has been restored in Skingrad, there might be… well, a place for you there, I suppose. Robespierre will be the new Count and he will know all that you have done for him and his people. It would be the perfect opportunity to have your quiet, as you put it,” she explained and smiled. “You could have the life back that was taken from you. Not have to fight to survive. Learn how to read, how to work -- not killing, something peaceful. You told me once you still remember the farm, herding the sheep. Would you want that?”

“I…” Reyna started to speak but she stopped and she stared straight ahead like there was a ghost. Suddenly that composure she fought to reclaim was lost again. Her mind traveled to this suggested land of quiet, of stone walls and bridges wrapping around the thoroughfares of a Colovian hamlet, of the farmlands that covered its countryside. The fires that might light them. The past replayed in her eyes, and for a moment she didn’t seem present. So when her own words were caught in her throat, unsure of how to communicate the confusion and feelings of conflict in her heart, or the terror in her memory, words which threatened to choke her, she did as she always had when she felt in danger, and with no enemy to fight her feet slowly shuffled away from Isobel before fleeing away like wind back to her tent.

Beordan stopped Isobel before she could call out after the girl. “Let her go,” he rumbled. “All she has known is war. You threatened her with peace. It will take time.”

The Imperial woman lowered back onto the stump, having gotten halfway up on her feet. “I wish there was more I could do for her,” she said and chewed her bottom lip. “She fought so hard to survive and to escape and now I am leading her back into another fight? What if she dies tomorrow?”

“Her choice, not yours.”

Isobel hummed quietly and looked at her lap. Beordan sat back and exhaled in content silence, the burst of breath from his nose fogging in the cold night air. When Reyna arrived back at her tent, she was out of breath. Though the distance was not so long for her, it was only then that she realized she was holding onto it, keeping her breath from escaping her burning, rebelling lungs. It was enough even to cause a buildup of cold sweat beading up on her forehead, to which she quickly felt their chill in the cold night air and brought her some sense of comfort. Their icy touch pulled her back to reality, and soon she felt her breathing begin to slow and steady itself. Still, heat welled up in her chest again as she growled and snarled and groaned to herself, at no one in particular, before throwing herself onto her bed roll and clutching the straw pillow to her head, as if she was trying to wrap it around her and so firmly that she nearly ripped it into halves in her hands. She eventually would release a sigh, expelling all that anxious and flustered energy into the air of the tent, and allowing the heat in her chest to climb its way up to her face and cheeks, where she’d wear her embarrassment for the rest of the night until she slept. She put the orichalum dagger wrapped at her tailbone beneath her pillow and firmly in her hand, which would help to cushion that which she nearly destroyed.

Sleep, she told herself. Sleep for tomorrow. She could let it all out tomorrow.

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

Reyna Stromfleur

R E Y N A S T R O M F L E U R

---

_{"That one. Her. The short one with the red hair. Who is she?"
"She doesn't speak much, my liege, but the orcs call her Reyna."
"Good. Good. I like that one. Buy her from them and don't take no for an answer. Have them killed if you must. I want her sent to my chambers tomorrow."
-- conversation between Emperor Thules the Gibbering and Hierem, the day before the slave revolt.}

══════ C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T ══════ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ═══════ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y ══════ Reyna Stromfleur _______________________________________________ 18 | She / Her | Nord / Breton _______________________________________________ Gladiator ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Short, stocky, and wiry. ► Skin Color - Fair, but sun-kissed. ► Hair Color - Reddish ginger. ► Eye Color - Amber. ► Other - Numerous small scars from cuts, scrapes, scratches, and bites. ▼ D O S S I E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Birthplace - Jehanna, High Rock. ► Birthsign - The Warrior. ► Biggest Regret - Could she have escaped sooner? Could she have avoided all of that hardship from the beginning? Or could she have ended it herself? There's otherwise little room for regret in her life when all she was trying to do is survive. ► Reyna's Goal - She feels indebted to Isobel Aurelia and wishes to help her further her goals, as well as seeking revenge against her orc slavers and those in charge of running the Imperial Arena. ▼ F A V O R E D A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Major Speed ► Minor Strength ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Athletics - Expert ► One-Handed - Adept ► Block - Adept ► Medium Armor - Adept ► Light Armor - Apprentice ► Spear - Apprentice ► Hand-to-hand - Apprentice ▼ S P E L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Spell? Spell what? You're making fun of me because I can't read, are you? ▼ E Q U I P M E N T ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Weapons - An Imperial gladius. She also looted an orichalum dagger from one of her orc masters during the jailbreak. ► Armor - Brass-coated steel breastplate with a left pauldron and other armor pieces on her left arm, shin guards, and a hardened round wood aspis with a metal sheet over the front. ► Containers - A 32 oz. waterskin and a small pouch on her right side. ► Food, Drink, Potions - Venison jerky, nuts, and roots. ► Miscellaneous Reyna is noticeably void of many possession aside from what she can carry on her immediate person.

══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════ She's like the lapping tongue of a kindled flame, a stray spark, or the moment when a lone and flittering petal like crimson saxifrage from a spattering plume of blood scatters across the sand. She's small, short, and has a wild mass of short and unevenly cut red hair, as if cut with a sword or dagger, and is full of boundless and anxious energy. In the arena in which she made her home, with her unassuming stature and blistering agility, it is easy to mistake the top of her head from the stands for one of the larger drops and petals of spraying gore in the light of the hot, orange summer sun. It is under this blazing sun where Reyna's dirtied skin has bronzed in defiance of her Nord heritage, taking on the hue of the parched sands that never seems to drink its fill of blood. There are many streaks of color on her skin from scarring; some scars have darkened while some seem to have lost their pigment. Her face is heart-shaped, but the sharpness and width of her jawline seem as though they're constantly clenched in nervous anticipation. The thousand yard stare in her amber eyes seem to have been stuck there for a thousand years, and the dilation of her pupils appear to be a fixed feature, as though always prepared for danger around the corner. Reyna's size is probably her most significant disadvantage as well as one of her greatest strengths. She's stands only at a meager 5'1" and weighs maybe 135 lbs. at most, which is rather impressive anyways because despite having a shorter stature, she's built like a wild animal with wiry muscle and, not exactly being fed the best diet in the world by her captors (usually claiming whatever scraps she could get with ravenous hunger), has very little body fat to pad her out and making her limbs feel rock solid. The way she moves is reminiscent of a cornered animal or, depending on the circumstance, like a predator on the hunt. Each step is usually measured and intentional, as if the floor could give out from under her at a moment's notice. So though the peak of her strength is limited by her size, it is her size and reactionary disposition that allows her to move swiftly and nimbly, get into places others couldn't, and leverage her lower center of gravity. Her voice too, like her steps, is carefully measured as if to avoid offense, but the scowl on her face betrays the more callous purpose of biding her time for an opening. There's a raspy hoarseness to her voice that is hard to tell if it comes from a lack of use or not, but it sounds vaguely familiar to orcish accents. A life such as hers does not lend itself to an extensive wardrobe beyond her arming garments. She's noticeably lacking in any kind of accessories, and back in the Wrothgarian mountains, her attire and armor was mostly leather and piece-meal, but as she was shown off in the Imperial City arena and became a favorite, they were more willing to splurge a bit to make her appeal more to the general aesthetic of Imperial life. Her primary garments are black quilted linen; shorts that only run about halfway down her thighs and are sleeveless, a small reprieve for the northern girl in the much warmer Cyrodiilic climate. She also has a bundle of red fabric that is meant to serve something akin to a toga, though it reaches the same approximate length of her shorts. The toga hangs off of one shoulder, and one side is slightly longer, which she uses to wrap around her left arm to serve as a cushion between her bare skin and the armor she wears for her sword hand while her unarmored arm holds her shield, keeping her reasonably protected and nimble even despite the arena masters' taste for fashion at the expense of practicality. She wears sandals on her feet that are strapped into plated shin guards. The armor running down her left arm to her gauntlet is the same as her breast plate: heat-treated steel but coated in a brass lacquer meant to appeal to Imperial tastes, because apparently it isn't enough to die and bleed for their entertainment if you don't look good doing it. The most of what she carries for utility is a leather belt frog that holds the wooden sheath for her sword and carries her pouches. There is a peculiar function on her gauntlet just below the center of her forearm where there's a short bladed hook jutting out, and in the concave groove of the hook, there's an embedded piece of flint that Reyna can drag her blade across and release a shower of sparks for a flashier display in the arena. As an inadvertent function of flint, Reyna can use it to also sharpen her blades, or use it to lock her blade if she has it to an opponent's neck. It's a bit impractical though considering it's on her sword arm. ═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════ If there has been frequent mention of her likeness to wild or feral creatures, that is because it is not far from the truth. Wild animals are primed for survival; to hunt and forage and defend themselves, because otherwise, they will suffer or even die. When the body and mind are young and learning, and your experiences inform your psyche that the world is bad, frightening, terrible, and dangerous, it does what it can to prepare you for the dangers and trials ahead. So in lacking the healthy development of things such as trust, temper management, or the ability to focus for extended periods of time gives the appearance of a feral child, a creature always dividing its attention between different sources of stimuli and suspiciously trying to assess the threats around them. It also hints to others a predilection for violent and unpredictable behavior, a disposition which radiates from her if you're paying attention, but often conflicts with most people's presuppositions regarding Reyna given her status as a young woman who is barely even a child anymore, and it fabricates an unnerving dissonance in how one should consider approaching her. She rarely responds when spoken to, and most requests or demands are met with a scowling stare as she watches your hands and body to see if you respond poorly to not getting what you asked of her, who is wholly and stubbornly unwilling to perform for others if the other is not willing to take action themselves.

At her heart, her very core, she's a survivor. She's been a survivor since a very young age, and maybe she isn't a survivor in the sense that you could throw her out into the wilderness for a week and expect her to know how to forage for food, but in the sense that she'll make the effort to survive regardless of her knowledge base and in spite of the circumstances. It is as if she holds a deep seated resentment towards death that, despite of all the hardships in her life, there's something that keeps driving her to live, whether its simple instinct or something deeper and philosophical. It may be going too far to say that her survivorship is driven by confidence, because there are definitely some trauma and anxiety ingrained into her psyche, but she at least faces challenges and obstacles with certainty; an awareness that although this trial, whatever or whoever it may be, has stepped its way into her path and although today may finally be the day that kills her, she will at least fight it secure in the knowledge that she has survived more than two thousand days that tried to kill her too.

She is not totally devoid of development or completely ignorant of what it means to exist in civilization, though. There have been a little more than twelve entire years previous to her current life where she lived knowing little of hardship beyond the toil of working farmland and herding little goats and sheep. Of course, life as a farm child in the cold countryside does not make for an educated child, but it does mean she is aware of a life outside of conflict, of a loving family, and of civility--but it is because all of this ended at such a young age, she may not be entirely aware of how social dynamics change with her age, making her come across as younger than she is if she's expecting civil life to be the same as it was when she was twelve or thirteen. Complicate this dynamic further with the influence and conditioning of slave life in an independent orcish tribe's stronghold, and you begin to realize her ability to adjust to different cultures is hampered. Living so long in a place where strength and toughness reigned supreme, her bluntness, callousness, bravado, and cruelty relative to the culture of a cushy Nibenese or Wayrest native can be very jarring, especially when combined with a child's entitlement and expectation for praise or affection.

Treating her as just a child however can be fatal, despite the kind of treatment she seems to angle for. The way you'd typically treat a child are often times the same cues to her that indicate dangers and threats. Whether you're licking your thumb to clean the smudge of dirt off her cheek, ruffling her hair, bending over to talk to her, pitching your voice -- all these things and more, consider what it might mean to her. Your hand is reaching for her face, her head -- a threat. Crouching or bending over, like entering a readying position or like you're reaching for her. Pitching your voice, like a taunt inviting attack, as gladiators are prone to do in their arenas to get you to drop your guard or lose your patience. When for so many years a split second can mean the difference between getting injured or killed, her reaction time is like lightning, and she may not even know what's happening or what she's doing until after its done. Those who are simply sympathetic to children and might simply wish the best for her or look out for her best interests must still remember that she is a ferocious and brutal killer and that some animals, though cute, are still wild, run on instinct, and wield dangerous claws and teeth.

This is not all to say that she is without her qualities. If you respect strength, bravery, and heart, then you'll respect Reyna--she's unflinching in the face of danger. If you admire humility, devotion, and honesty, you'll admire her and how deeply she's committed herself to Isobel and how she's never once been seduced by the allure of glory in the arena. She's accidentally honest, not really knowing any better to lie to others about problems and issues she may not recognize as problems and issues, and the only kind of deception she thinks to use is on the battlefield. If you value freedom, you'll find in her a steadfast comrade-in-arms. Even some of the orcs' positive traits have rubbed off on her, having been raised in their culture for all of her adolescence and identity forming period. She seems to value honor and strength, talks quite a bit like an orc tribal, and uses their phrases and terminology quite a bit. However, unlike them, there is something of a sympathetic streak in her (although she has long suppressed it in the face of the grim "its me or them" conundrum she's always faced with).

Now that she's a fish in a much bigger pond with more room to grow and develop, with more resources around her than she's had for a long time, there's opportunity for an innate generosity to emerge. This may manifest in giving away food or money, firewood, and luxuries that she has already learned to live without, or fighting a battle that is not her own on behalf of someone else. There's a slight cognitive dissonance presence in her mind between her long-standing nature to seek survival and avoiding danger, but with danger present with her for so long, she paradoxically seems uncomfortable in its absence, either not trusting the silence or not knowing how to operate within it. Sometimes she still jumps awake suddenly at night in a panic simply because she's been asleep for too long and immediately expects danger to jump at her as soon as her eyes open.

So she continues to fight, and if doing what she's good at and sharing her strength with others spares them from the nightmares, night terrors, and cold sweats, then that has to be a good thing, right? She's a good person... right?

_{═══════ B A C K G R O U N D ══════}

Born in the northeastern-most region of High Rock, the kingdom of Jehanna was notable for its combined population of both nords and brains, which is where Reyna’s blood comes from. Her mother, a Nord, and her father, the Breton, found each other and planted their roots in a small settlement in the outskirts of the kingdom where they would eventually come to bear a child and with the land in view of the saxifrage fields at the base of the mountains. It was a beautiful home of course, and after a little more than a dozen years, they had an impressive farm and kept their flocks of sheep and goats during the winter months, and their little girl would help them tame the tough, wild land. Unfortunately, there are some challenges of selling so far east where your village is nestled between the Wrothgarian and Druadach mountains. Aside from supply lines being sparse and the animals wild, there is also the frequent problem of raids from the Reach and Orc tribes. Their settlement had a militia of course, and Reyna’s parents were no strangers to defending their land, but there is only so much one small village can do.

So, when an orcish raiding party showed up with a fully grown echatere, the village was stamped out in a night. Those who fought back were cut down and defeated, and those who didn’t it couldn’t were captured. Reyna, being as young as she was at thirteen years old, couldn’t fight back, and since she was captured, her family did—-well, that was the last she ever saw of them, heads rolling before she would be taken back to their stronghold. Her parents always tried to explain to her that just because there were Orc tribes who wanted to hurt people, that didn’t mean that so orcs were bad people, but those sweet sentiments couldn’t have possibly prepared her for this or what was to come. What silver lining in this horrific and bleak situation is that they didn’t violate her or anything. They had a code of honor, however foreign it was to Reyna, but that didn’t save them from her grudge or her hatred of them, and indeed, they didn’t deserve to be spared from it either, for even with their honor they still had nothing pleasant in store for the little girl. Being not an Orc as well, they likely didn’t even see her as a real person.

Eventually, when they got tired of having to feed their new pet or keeping space for her in one of their prisons, they’d escort her in chains to a makeshift arena, a fighting pit, throw in with her a sharpened stick, and released a half starved wolf into the pit with her to fight for their entertainment. They expected to see her get brutally ripped apart by a hungry wolf, an appetizer for the real fights ahead in the schedule, but Reyna was in survival mode ever since the raid began and wasn’t about to keep fear from keeping her from acting. As soon as the wolf lined at her, she held her makeshift spear up, and suddenly the wolf’s weight was on top of her, burger and heavier than she was, and she expected to feel it’s fangs tearing into her neck... but it was motionless and limp. A wet, sticky warmth spread across her abdomen. As she pushed rabid animal off of her, she found that it had unpacked itself on her weapon, halfway down its haft, and it was the blood of the wolf that had soaked her, rather than her own. Half of the spectators were silent, while a few were ranting and raving while others were whooping and cheering for the little girl who had overcome the odds. She was returned to her cell to fight another day.

The next day it was another wolf, maybe the first time was a fluke. Maybe they should have fed it first. Now blooded and determined to survive, Reyna would take that one down to. Next time it was a group of skeevers. Then it was a wild boar. Then it was two wolves. They'd throw all manner of beasts at her, each test preparing her for the next. Realizing that this child had potential to serve as real entertainment, they began to give her scraps of armor and a real weapon to fight with, as they came to respect her growing strength. She was even earning fans in the crowd, and as she got older, the challenges became more difficult. She would live this way for years, each day potentially her last, her only respite being suffering injury so that they'd allow her some time to rest and heal before fighting again at her full strength. There were times when, after slaying so many of the beasts and monsters they had captured and thrown her way, that Reyna had gotten too confident and tried to fight back against her orc captors whenever they would unlock her cell to send her out again, or go to disarm her after the fights, but she was always outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched in power and endurance. These orcs that were independent of Orsinium had the capacity to destroy her, but were simply keeping her around for sport, and it was from this she realized that the only way to survive here was to learn from them.

Four years into this hellish lifestyle, at age 17 in 4E14 -- not that she would remember her age anymore, or know what day or year it was -- she was considered a favorite. At this point, she was no longer the scrawny runt that they would try to kill with animals for their amusement, but an actual warrior, having earned the respect of the orcs as a warrior even if she was still enslaved by them and wasn't considered to be "one of them." As a warrior, they'd watch her fight for their entertainment of course, but they'd watch her to see how she'd move, how she struck, what clever tactics she might employ, and what she might take down her next challenger. The years were hard on her, forcing her to grow up and mature, her body hardened and solid and scarred, barely looking anything like the little girl who was taken from home years ago. They began outfitting her with better weapons and actual armor from the stronghold's forge. With them, she'd slain mountain lions, small bears, lesser trolls, ogres, and dreugh, and at her young age the orcs saw her as having been blessed by Malacath or something, especially since she wasn't even an orc. She was even made to fight other slaves, and after having been through this for so long, killing all manner of creatures, thinking nothing how to survive today ad how to survive tomorrow, she was able to cut them down as well with only a sliver of more remorse than she felt for the animals. Eventually, even orcish gladiators wanted to challenge her. She's still standing.

The style was uniquely hers; she could not possibly hope to overpower the hardened orcish warriors, against many of whom she only stood as tall as their shoulders or their chests, who wielded weapons as long if not longer than her own body, and were sometimes even plated in orichalum armor. While indeed her strength is nothing to scoff at, she depended more on her maneuverability, a trait that the orcs couldn't match. She was faster, wasn't weighed down with as much armor or cumbersome weapons, and her short height made her a smaller target--perhaps even smaller than what they were used to dealing with. When an orc's strength is already such they could likely kill you easily with a small, fast weapon, they were only doing her favors by weighing themselves down with the heavy material and long, heavy constructions. Dodging and weaving, sliding across the ground, moving between their legs, under their arms, in all the nooks and crannies they normally didn't account for, she could find the places where the armor was weakest, or at the very least jump onto their back and stab them in the neck or take their helmets to give herself more openings. When her life is on the line, she couldn't afford to be impatient but neither can she afford to be indecisive.

Orc culture and orc strength also meant that it usually didn't occur to them to fight dirty: throwing sand into their eyes, exploiting weak spots, aiming for joints, biting, and digging her thumbs into her enemy's eyes were all crucial tools in her arsenal. She had become more like the wild animals she had fought for so long. However, one of her weaknesses is one that is relatively common against all gladiator fighters and slave combatants: stamina. Her endurance insofar as taking a beating is impressive of course, but her exercise usually comes in the form of sudden bouts and fights, requiring explosive bursts of energy to end the fights quickly, mimicking the same kind of berserk that orcs could enter when threatened. Most fights and duels rarely last very long, as it usually takes only one shallow cut to weaken an enemy, or one well placed strike to end them, and Reyna never had the space or discipline to trek the same kind of distances and terrain as a regiment of soldiers.

The past five years as of 4E15 have also been a period of transnational turmoil with the Stormcrown Interregnum, an event to which Reyna was completely oblivious and insulated from with her capture and enslavement, in which the Imperial hold over the other provinces completely disintegrated and created instability within the Empire. With the rise of the current Emperor claiming the throne, Thules the Gibbering, the barest semblance of stability returned, but just enough that the orc tribe that held Reyna -- that which she has since learned to be called Clan Luccin, an old clan that had fallen from its former glory -- to take notice of new lands. They had a vested interest in their arena culture, to which Reyna contributed much, and it had come to their attention that there is a new leader to the south that also had a vested interest in what was possibly the greatest arena in the world near the center of the Imperial City. So, wanting more opportunities for glory, they took a caravan of slaves and beasts with them to sell and make to fight--except for Reyna, who they would keep so that she could fight on their behalf along with their own gladiators, representing Clan Luccin.

Not wanting to turn down new blood, the arena's battle master accepted the orc tribe's tributes. They initially laughed at them for wanting to submit a young girl into the arena, but after their side's silence and menacing stares, realized that the orc warriors were serious and allowed it. The match that followed was a four-person free-for-all, and naturally, all three of Reyna's opponents were men of different backgrounds who underestimated her and focused among themselves instead of paying attention to her. Once they were locked in their foray, Reyna took the opportunity to kick up a large plume of sand between them all, blinding all three of them, and cut each of them down one after the other in seconds. Barely a minute had passed and the child stood victorious as three men's blood soaked into the thirsty sand. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the people of the Imperial City had a new favorite to cheer for.

When the cells of the bloodworks became her new prison, the arena would fashion her in a custom-made raiment and armor to better appeal to Imperial tastes, especially to that of Emperor Thules. Heat-treated steel breastplate coated in brass, heavily stylized with one arm armored and the other bare, Imperial-style dress to wear beneath, and an aspis-styled shield to wield alongside a gladius. Sporting the look of a quintessential Imperial gladiator, she would fight in the Imperial City arena for another six months (with two of her orc handlers remaining with her while the rest of the caravan returned home), lasting longer than most given her prior experience over the many slaves and beasts being forced to fight, until one fated day finally arrived. There has always been one woman in the bloodworks, who was probably old enough to be her mother, who has been around probably as long as she has--Isobel. It was through her inspiration and leadership that the gladiator-slaves of the bloodworks, including the grand champion and lord of the arena, the minotaur Beordan, could be rallied and overwhelm the guards securing the dungeon. Reyna slew her two orcish handlers on her way out and followed Isobel's lead, not knowing where else she could possibly go in this strange new land, and where else would she even want to go other than with the only ally she has ever known in a world where has no home?

Reyna Stromfleur is indebted to Isobel Aurelia for the rest of her life as far as she is concerned, since before then she believed that one of these days she was going to die a slave for someone else's entertainment. Up until this moment, she fought and killed for nothing but survival and to fight another day -- it's the only thing she knows -- but thanks to Isobel, she thinks she's beginning to understand what it means to fight for something larger. Though she's still a feral young woman of erratic temperament, she feels the need to pay Isobel back in the only way she knows how, and if that means fighting for her cause and cutting down every person between her and Count Hruldan of Skingrad, then she's willing to do exactly that. Being freed from a life of violent servitude is a massive gesture and has awoken a type of unshakeable zealotry in Reyna that can't be contended with by neither word nor gesture, and it may have very well made her one of Isobel's most stalwart and fervent allies. It has perhaps also awakened an unshakeable irony in that she has traded one form of violent servitude for another, but at least this is one that she gets to choose.

---

_{"Crunzarga -- there's still a blood price to be paid. Ne gesh eb norgimin jur ubatarask!"}

---

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

So Many Dunmer

@Kassarock

gonna punch em

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

Ye we were, was a fun exercise.

To Survive as Chattel

The diluted buzzing of bedlam reverberated through the air, as if its pulse traveled through an ocean between the sold stone walls which separated her from her freedom. A muffled and choked sound, of the scores of faceless people with indistinct voices, like mindless drones climbing over one another vying to be heard and noticed over the thousands of other souls. And they were bloodthirsty. They were hungry and ravenous things, always scrambling and demanding for more, as if the previous meal they had only reminded them of the empty pain that wreaked acidic havoc on their innards, and in resonance with their static tempo was a single dolorous beat. It was distinctly unlike the beating of a heart; it thundered only once, and it thundered slowly. Like a giant mammoth taking slow, carefully measured steps, or like a battering ram crashing down upon the gates of the very fortress that held her. It was undoubtedly the monster of the week, the next thing held in store for her, the next challenge, and the potential cause of her death. They’ve been trying to kill a little girl for years—for many, many, agonizingly long years. The rattling of chains from her comradery barely awakened her from her mortality. They could not distract her. The leagues of human chattel within the bloodworks were like flies on the wall to her, outside of her notice until it was time to eat.

The thundering had stopped.

Far gentler steps came down an echoey corridor from the stairs, though the girl knew that there was nothing gentle about them nor what they had in store for her. A beastly looking man of stony pigment entered the bloodworks, large and barrel-chested, and his deep, grating, and blasphemous voice reached the cell before he did, “it’s your turn, Little B,” and it made the hair on her body stand on end.

“Did you hear me, Little B?” He’d repeat as he turned the corner. “I said your turn is coming up.”

The stony beast-man stared down at the young woman, barely an adult, hugging her knees in the corner of her cell. Her newly gifted quilted clothes clinging to her body didn’t make her look any cleaner or scrub the dirt and calluses from her skin, and she silently stared down her keeper from beyond the bars.

“Little Bitch,” he snarled this time as unlocked the cell and entered. He was covered in leather armor and had blades and a whip at his side, attached to his person. Dirty blood and grime were caked underneath his fingernails. He said again, “Stand up. Get ready for your turn.”

Reyna said nothing—she did nothing, remaining silent and motionless in quiet rebellion. She refused. She waited. She watched. She was testing, her eyes carefully focused on her keeper, alert to a sudden change in movement. As the two glowered at each other, the orc reached his hand down to his whip, his nails digging into the leather, and that was Reyna’s cue to stand. She did so, and the orc took the hand off his whip. This song and dance was one that they were all too familiar with, and one that had physically scarred her too many times. Still, she exercised her will when she could.

The other chattel of the bloodworks would be the ones to touch her, to fasten the buckles of her breastplate armor and her gauntlet, to fit her sandals and shin guards, and adjusting the toga underneath. There was another orc, her other keeper, who would stand on the other side of the gates holding her sword and her shield. They treated her like a wild animal with fangs and claws, letting the expendable human livestock handle her when they could. Their fingertips were like hot irons against her skin, the way it made her want to spin around and scratch their throats out, but the armed guard near her was quick, keen, and all too happy to punish her. Her armor glittered in the torchlight, its fire dancing in the reflection of her brass coating. It was an ugly thing that resembled the pretentious aesthetic of the Imperial people, something pretty on the surface under the glow of the sun, but a faux gold in reality, hiding the blood-stained steel beneath.

“You’re fitted. Go.”

Reyna was escorted up the ramp. The Basin of Renewal she walked past. It was allegedly an important ritual in the past, but now profaned by a pool of blood and pile of limbs. She thought nothing of it as the faint flicker of light approached at the end of the tunnel. It was that, if nothing else, that she lived for these days: the light of day, and as she approached it, the silhouette of her other keeper made itself distinct against the bars of the gate. Her two keepers nodded to each other, as they began to raise the gates, cuing the indistinct buzz and uproar of the crowd. The first of her keepers pushed her onto the hot sand, and the other stared her down wordlessly, tossing her shield and her sword into the center of the arena for her to retrieve. Reyna slowly walked after them, feeling the stares and spittle of the crowd on her back.

“And so here we have it,” shouted one iron-lunged Imperial on a platform that jutted into the arena by a few feet, but even with the power of his voice, it barely whelmed the chorus of drunken cheers and boos filling the seats. “I am pleased to announce that this next match will be viewed by our very own and beloved Emperor Thules! It is my greatest honor that I introduce to him our next contender! Hailing far from here in the Wrothgarian mountains, the young Reyna has carved a scarred impression upon our beloved arena! A feral girl, a child of blood and battle, she’s become more orc than human! But can she survive the strongest and ugliest of Malacath’s children?”

Reyna picked up the sword and shield embedded in the sand, dusting them off. She closed her eyes for a moment and aimed her face toward the sky to relish its warmth upon her skin. The announcer’s voice began to cause the blood to pump through her veins, drumming against the inside of her ears, its speed and intensity increasing every second.

“Reyna—”

She gripped her gladius tight in her hand, and her shield was raised, her eyes lowering down to just above its rim. The blood was growing ever louder.

“—prepare yourself!”

He and the crowd had gone silent in her ears.

“Open the gates!

The gates from across the other side of the arena exploded open as an enraged ogre charged into the clearing with blood caking its body. It wasn’t even armed with a club or weapon of any sort, just using its massive, boulder-like hands to fight and kill, and even one strike from them was surely enough to end her life on the spot. For a few muted seconds, Reyna charged forward to meet it.

It was silence in her ears. Only her breathing and the blood pounding in her ears mattered to her, and as she sprinted forward with explosive speed, she trailed her sword behind her in the sand and left a scar in her wake until she suddenly turned its flat side down and, sliding beneath a swipe of the ogre's boulder-like hand, shoveled a spray of sand into the creature's face and rolled between its legs. Its roar was quiet in her ears as she shouted and cried her own screams and grunts, swiping at the tendons behind the ogre’s knees as she landed on the other side. With a plume of dusting erupting outward as the ogre fell to one knee, Reyna swiveled around and, in one fluid motion, cut through the tissue behind its other knee, and dust erupted outward once again.

The gladiator moved to cut under the arm of the same side, but she couldn’t hear the ogre’s roar that foretold its massive hand reaching around its side to grab her, in response to which she instinctually pulled her shield up. The ogre grabbed it, and long with it her as it raised her high into the air as she hung down from its grip. The guttural snarls and its breath like death from its maw foretold an unceremonious oblivion, to which Reyna swiped wildly at its face to discourage it from taking a bite out of her. It triggered enough hesitation that it reached for her instead with its other hand, and afraid of having her limbs pulled apart, she swiped ferociously at its other hand, nicking its fingertips, and causing the creature to second-guess that option as well. In response, it much more suddenly swung its hand at her, threatening to crush her between its palms like a common fly. Reyna was forced to let go of her shield and fell, a thunderous boom coming from the clap just above her head.

Reyna hit the ground and tumbled forward and not wanting to spend any given moment mired in inaction, swiped ahead of her as soon as he felt solid ground beneath the soles of her feet again—straight into lumbering giant’s blubbery belly. The nicks and rolled edges of her imperfect weapon caught on its flesh at first, but with a shrill and agonizing roar, Reyna poured every ounce of her strength into ripping and tearing the monster’s stomach open. Suddenly she felt the give of its flesh, finally cutting through that last sinewy layer and gutting the creature wide open as the blade of her sword snapped away from its handle, and immediately sprayed and poured a deluge of blood all over her like water from a crumbling dam as Reyna's face hit the sand. Spitting out a mouthful of its viscera and grit, she looked up to see if it was still alive—barely, and in its death throes and impressive endurance, seemed to want to take her down with it.

She threw aside the useless handle and grabbed an armful of the guts that piled itself at her feet before climbing up the creature’s body, and using the folds of fat as footholds or the space between its ribs where the skin sloughed off of them, she leaped up and wrapped the ogre’s own guts around its neck. She had overshot her jump and was dangling behind the creature’s back even as the ogre choke. She dug her nails and fingers into meat of its guts, feeling the fibers tear under her weight, as she pushed her feet against the ogre’s back to tighten her hold on its neck overhead. The arms of the creature had grown too weak to resist, and eventually with one last bloodcurdling scream from Reyna, the monster had toppled over. She had crashed to the ground beside it, her chest heaving for breath and choked out by the rich smell of blood and iron that coated her from head to toe.

She tried to open her eyes but was force to shut them again beneath the radiance of the sun. What was once a merciful warmth was now a punishing heat that was beating her down harder than stones. As her pumping blood slowed, her sense of hearing seemed to as well. She tuned back into the world outside her own to clamoring crowds throwing flowers into the arena, some throwing old food. The announcer man was going ballistic over what he called an unexpected victory. She spat in the sand again at the ugliness of its sound–of course she won. She didn’t have a choice.

Reyna weakly staggered over to where the ogre dropped her shield and picked up again before heading toward the gate where she came from. Her two orc handlers were awaiting her there, standing with their arms crossed, looking proud and smug. She didn’t even have the energy to feel angry or hateful at them for it. They took her shield away and sent her down to be doffed of her armor and washed of the blood. That ogre didn’t land a single scratch on her. If it had, it would’ve killed her immediately. But this? She felt like utter and absolute shit. This was all from demanding too much of her body in a moment, probably straining something in her legs or back, and the shoulder she used to power through its stomach was screaming at her.

As the breastplate fell to the floor around her, she felt like falling with it but her legs refused to budge. No falling. Not today, not ever.

These fights just kept getting harder. Why did they keep getting harder?

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

Ain't no need for that, there are plenty of alchemists in the world and plenty of ways to differentiate them from each other.

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

@Peik Maybe great minds just think alike? ;D

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

Hmm... I'm a little reticent to apply since I don't know all that much about the lore of TES (only game being Skyrim). But I like the concept and I would love to get involved? Debating what sort of character I'd like to play... I notice a distinct lack of a focused 'rogue' type, but I've also been on a bit of a healer kick for a long while.

@CollectorOfMyst

Perhaps a combination of both might join what you like about both archetypes? An expert or adept in stealth and restoration perhaps? Earlier games had restoration spells that allowed you to drain and absorb health, stamina, magicka, and even attributes. If you wanted a rogue type character, I can see how restoration would be useful for silent, merciful takedowns by draining their stamina and endurance to make enemies fall unconscious. It'd be a pretty unique take on a Restorationist too!

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

“Dude, I’m an informant with no one to inform. Do you know that that’s like? Do you have any idea?! Gods, help me.”

The Elder Scrolls: Stormcrown Interregnum

Good luck everybody! I'm looking forward to this!

Reyna Stromfleur

R E Y N A S T R O M F L E U R

---

_{"That one. Her. The short one with the red hair. Who is she?"
"She doesn't speak much, my liege, but the orcs call her Reyna."
"Good. Good. I like that one. Buy her from them and don't take no for an answer. Have them killed if you must. I want her sent to my chambers tomorrow."
-- conversation between Emperor Thules the Gibbering and Hierem, the day before the slave revolt.}

══════ C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T ══════ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ═══════ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y ══════ Reyna Stromfleur _______________________________________________ 18 | She / Her | Nord / Breton _______________________________________________ Gladiator ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Short, stocky, and wiry. ► Skin Color - Fair, but sun-kissed. ► Hair Color - Reddish ginger. ► Eye Color - Amber. ► Other - Numerous small scars from cuts, scrapes, scratches, and bites. ▼ D O S S I E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Birthplace - Jehanna, High Rock. ► Birthsign - The Warrior. ► Biggest Regret - Could she have escaped sooner? Could she have avoided all of that hardship from the beginning? Or could she have ended it herself? There's otherwise little room for regret in her life when all she was trying to do is survive. ► Reyna's Goal - She feels indebted to Isobel Aurelia and wishes to help her further her goals, as well as seeking revenge against her orc slavers and those in charge of running the Imperial Arena. ▼ F A V O R E D A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Major Speed ► Minor Strength ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Athletics - Expert ► One-Handed - Adept ► Block - Adept ► Medium Armor - Adept ► Light Armor - Apprentice ► Spear - Apprentice ► Hand-to-hand - Apprentice ▼ S P E L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Spell? Spell what? You're making fun of me because I can't read, are you? ▼ E Q U I P M E N T ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Weapons - An Imperial gladius. She also looted an orichalum dagger from one of her orc masters during the jailbreak. ► Armor - Brass-coated steel breastplate with a left pauldron and other armor pieces on her left arm, shin guards, and a hardened round wood aspis with a metal sheet over the front. ► Containers - A 32 oz. waterskin and a small pouch on her right side. ► Food, Drink, Potions - Venison jerky, nuts, and roots. ► Miscellaneous Reyna is noticeably void of many possession aside from what she can carry on her immediate person.

══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════ She's like the lapping tongue of a kindled flame, a stray spark, or the moment when a lone and flittering petal like crimson saxifrage from a spattering plume of blood scatters across the sand. She's small, short, and has a wild mass of short and unevenly cut red hair, as if cut with a sword or dagger, and is full of boundless and anxious energy. In the arena in which she made her home, with her unassuming stature and blistering agility, it is easy to mistake the top of her head from the stands for one of the larger drops and petals of spraying gore in the light of the hot, orange summer sun. It is under this blazing sun where Reyna's dirtied skin has bronzed in defiance of her Nord heritage, taking on the hue of the parched sands that never seems to drink its fill of blood. There are many streaks of color on her skin from scarring; some scars have darkened while some seem to have lost their pigment. Her face is heart-shaped, but the sharpness and width of her jawline seem as though they're constantly clenched in nervous anticipation. The thousand yard stare in her amber eyes seem to have been stuck there for a thousand years, and the dilation of her pupils appear to be a fixed feature, as though always prepared for danger around the corner. Reyna's size is probably her most significant disadvantage as well as one of her greatest strengths. She's stands only at a meager 5'1" and weighs maybe 135 lbs. at most, which is rather impressive anyways because despite having a shorter stature, she's built like a wild animal with wiry muscle and, not exactly being fed the best diet in the world by her captors (usually claiming whatever scraps she could get with ravenous hunger), has very little body fat to pad her out and making her limbs feel rock solid. The way she moves is reminiscent of a cornered animal or, depending on the circumstance, like a predator on the hunt. Each step is usually measured and intentional, as if the floor could give out from under her at a moment's notice. So though the peak of her strength is limited by her size, it is her size and reactionary disposition that allows her to move swiftly and nimbly, get into places others couldn't, and leverage her lower center of gravity. Her voice too, like her steps, is carefully measured as if to avoid offense, but the scowl on her face betrays the more callous purpose of biding her time for an opening. There's a raspy hoarseness to her voice that is hard to tell if it comes from a lack of use or not, but it sounds vaguely familiar to orcish accents. A life such as hers does not lend itself to an extensive wardrobe beyond her arming garments. She's noticeably lacking in any kind of accessories, and back in the Wrothgarian mountains, her attire and armor was mostly leather and piece-meal, but as she was shown off in the Imperial City arena and became a favorite, they were more willing to splurge a bit to make her appeal more to the general aesthetic of Imperial life. Her primary garments are black quilted linen; shorts that only run about halfway down her thighs and are sleeveless, a small reprieve for the northern girl in the much warmer Cyrodiilic climate. She also has a bundle of red fabric that is meant to serve something akin to a toga, though it reaches the same approximate length of her shorts. The toga hangs off of one shoulder, and one side is slightly longer, which she uses to wrap around her left arm to serve as a cushion between her bare skin and the armor she wears for her sword hand while her unarmored arm holds her shield, keeping her reasonably protected and nimble even despite the arena masters' taste for fashion at the expense of practicality. She wears sandals on her feet that are strapped into plated shin guards. The armor running down her left arm to her gauntlet is the same as her breast plate: heat-treated steel but coated in a brass lacquer meant to appeal to Imperial tastes, because apparently it isn't enough to die and bleed for their entertainment if you don't look good doing it. The most of what she carries for utility is a leather belt frog that holds the wooden sheath for her sword and carries her pouches. There is a peculiar function on her gauntlet just below the center of her forearm where there's a short bladed hook jutting out, and in the concave groove of the hook, there's an embedded piece of flint that Reyna can drag her blade across and release a shower of sparks for a flashier display in the arena. As an inadvertent function of flint, Reyna can use it to also sharpen her blades, or use it to lock her blade if she has it to an opponent's neck. It's a bit impractical though considering it's on her sword arm. ═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════ If there has been frequent mention of her likeness to wild or feral creatures, that is because it is not far from the truth. Wild animals are primed for survival; to hunt and forage and defend themselves, because otherwise, they will suffer or even die. When the body and mind are young and learning, and your experiences inform your psyche that the world is bad, frightening, terrible, and dangerous, it does what it can to prepare you for the dangers and trials ahead. So in lacking the healthy development of things such as trust, temper management, or the ability to focus for extended periods of time gives the appearance of a feral child, a creature always dividing its attention between different sources of stimuli and suspiciously trying to assess the threats around them. It also hints to others a predilection for violent and unpredictable behavior, a disposition which radiates from her if you're paying attention, but often conflicts with most people's presuppositions regarding Reyna given her status as a young woman who is barely even a child anymore, and it fabricates an unnerving dissonance in how one should consider approaching her. She rarely responds when spoken to, and most requests or demands are met with a scowling stare as she watches your hands and body to see if you respond poorly to not getting what you asked of her, who is wholly and stubbornly unwilling to perform for others if the other is not willing to take action themselves.

At her heart, her very core, she's a survivor. She's been a survivor since a very young age, and maybe she isn't a survivor in the sense that you could throw her out into the wilderness for a week and expect her to know how to forage for food, but in the sense that she'll make the effort to survive regardless of her knowledge base and in spite of the circumstances. It is as if she holds a deep seated resentment towards death that, despite of all the hardships in her life, there's something that keeps driving her to live, whether its simple instinct or something deeper and philosophical. It may be going too far to say that her survivorship is driven by confidence, because there are definitely some trauma and anxiety ingrained into her psyche, but she at least faces challenges and obstacles with certainty; an awareness that although this trial, whatever or whoever it may be, has stepped its way into her path and although today may finally be the day that kills her, she will at least fight it secure in the knowledge that she has survived more than two thousand days that tried to kill her too.

She is not totally devoid of development or completely ignorant of what it means to exist in civilization, though. There have been a little more than twelve entire years previous to her current life where she lived knowing little of hardship beyond the toil of working farmland and herding little goats and sheep. Of course, life as a farm child in the cold countryside does not make for an educated child, but it does mean she is aware of a life outside of conflict, of a loving family, and of civility--but it is because all of this ended at such a young age, she may not be entirely aware of how social dynamics change with her age, making her come across as younger than she is if she's expecting civil life to be the same as it was when she was twelve or thirteen. Complicate this dynamic further with the influence and conditioning of slave life in an independent orcish tribe's stronghold, and you begin to realize her ability to adjust to different cultures is hampered. Living so long in a place where strength and toughness reigned supreme, her bluntness, callousness, bravado, and cruelty relative to the culture of a cushy Nibenese or Wayrest native can be very jarring, especially when combined with a child's entitlement and expectation for praise or affection.

Treating her as just a child however can be fatal, despite the kind of treatment she seems to angle for. The way you'd typically treat a child are often times the same cues to her that indicate dangers and threats. Whether you're licking your thumb to clean the smudge of dirt off her cheek, ruffling her hair, bending over to talk to her, pitching your voice -- all these things and more, consider what it might mean to her. Your hand is reaching for her face, her head -- a threat. Crouching or bending over, like entering a readying position or like you're reaching for her. Pitching your voice, like a taunt inviting attack, as gladiators are prone to do in their arenas to get you to drop your guard or lose your patience. When for so many years a split second can mean the difference between getting injured or killed, her reaction time is like lightning, and she may not even know what's happening or what she's doing until after its done. Those who are simply sympathetic to children and might simply wish the best for her or look out for her best interests must still remember that she is a ferocious and brutal killer and that some animals, though cute, are still wild, run on instinct, and wield dangerous claws and teeth.

This is not all to say that she is without her qualities. If you respect strength, bravery, and heart, then you'll respect Reyna--she's unflinching in the face of danger. If you admire humility, devotion, and honesty, you'll admire her and how deeply she's committed herself to Isobel and how she's never once been seduced by the allure of glory in the arena. She's accidentally honest, not really knowing any better to lie to others about problems and issues she may not recognize as problems and issues, and the only kind of deception she thinks to use is on the battlefield. If you value freedom, you'll find in her a steadfast comrade-in-arms. Even some of the orcs' positive traits have rubbed off on her, having been raised in their culture for all of her adolescence and identity forming period. She seems to value honor and strength, talks quite a bit like an orc tribal, and uses their phrases and terminology quite a bit. However, unlike them, there is something of a sympathetic streak in her (although she has long suppressed it in the face of the grim "its me or them" conundrum she's always faced with).

Now that she's a fish in a much bigger pond with more room to grow and develop, with more resources around her than she's had for a long time, there's opportunity for an innate generosity to emerge. This may manifest in giving away food or money, firewood, and luxuries that she has already learned to live without, or fighting a battle that is not her own on behalf of someone else. There's a slight cognitive dissonance presence in her mind between her long-standing nature to seek survival and avoiding danger, but with danger present with her for so long, she paradoxically seems uncomfortable in its absence, either not trusting the silence or not knowing how to operate within it. Sometimes she still jumps awake suddenly at night in a panic simply because she's been asleep for too long and immediately expects danger to jump at her as soon as her eyes open.

So she continues to fight, and if doing what she's good at and sharing her strength with others spares them from the nightmares, night terrors, and cold sweats, then that has to be a good thing, right? She's a good person... right?

_{═══════ B A C K G R O U N D ══════}

Born in the northeastern-most region of High Rock, the kingdom of Jehanna was notable for its combined population of both nords and brains, which is where Reyna’s blood comes from. Her mother, a Nord, and her father, the Breton, found each other and planted their roots in a small settlement in the outskirts of the kingdom where they would eventually come to bear a child and with the land in view of the saxifrage fields at the base of the mountains. It was a beautiful home of course, and after a little more than a dozen years, they had an impressive farm and kept their flocks of sheep and goats during the winter months, and their little girl would help them tame the tough, wild land. Unfortunately, there are some challenges of selling so far east where your village is nestled between the Wrothgarian and Druadach mountains. Aside from supply lines being sparse and the animals wild, there is also the frequent problem of raids from the Reach and Orc tribes. Their settlement had a militia of course, and Reyna’s parents were no strangers to defending their land, but there is only so much one small village can do.

So, when an orcish raiding party showed up with a fully grown echatere, the village was stamped out in a night. Those who fought back were cut down and defeated, and those who didn’t it couldn’t were captured. Reyna, being as young as she was at thirteen years old, couldn’t fight back, and since she was captured, her family did—-well, that was the last she ever saw of them, heads rolling before she would be taken back to their stronghold. Her parents always tried to explain to her that just because there were Orc tribes who wanted to hurt people, that didn’t mean that so orcs were bad people, but those sweet sentiments couldn’t have possibly prepared her for this or what was to come. What silver lining in this horrific and bleak situation is that they didn’t violate her or anything. They had a code of honor, however foreign it was to Reyna, but that didn’t save them from her grudge or her hatred of them, and indeed, they didn’t deserve to be spared from it either, for even with their honor they still had nothing pleasant in store for the little girl. Being not an Orc as well, they likely didn’t even see her as a real person.

Eventually, when they got tired of having to feed their new pet or keeping space for her in one of their prisons, they’d escort her in chains to a makeshift arena, a fighting pit, throw in with her a sharpened stick, and released a half starved wolf into the pit with her to fight for their entertainment. They expected to see her get brutally ripped apart by a hungry wolf, an appetizer for the real fights ahead in the schedule, but Reyna was in survival mode ever since the raid began and wasn’t about to keep fear from keeping her from acting. As soon as the wolf lined at her, she held her makeshift spear up, and suddenly the wolf’s weight was on top of her, burger and heavier than she was, and she expected to feel it’s fangs tearing into her neck... but it was motionless and limp. A wet, sticky warmth spread across her abdomen. As she pushed rabid animal off of her, she found that it had unpacked itself on her weapon, halfway down its haft, and it was the blood of the wolf that had soaked her, rather than her own. Half of the spectators were silent, while a few were ranting and raving while others were whooping and cheering for the little girl who had overcome the odds. She was returned to her cell to fight another day.

The next day it was another wolf, maybe the first time was a fluke. Maybe they should have fed it first. Now blooded and determined to survive, Reyna would take that one down to. Next time it was a group of skeevers. Then it was a wild boar. Then it was two wolves. They'd throw all manner of beasts at her, each test preparing her for the next. Realizing that this child had potential to serve as real entertainment, they began to give her scraps of armor and a real weapon to fight with, as they came to respect her growing strength. She was even earning fans in the crowd, and as she got older, the challenges became more difficult. She would live this way for years, each day potentially her last, her only respite being suffering injury so that they'd allow her some time to rest and heal before fighting again at her full strength. There were times when, after slaying so many of the beasts and monsters they had captured and thrown her way, that Reyna had gotten too confident and tried to fight back against her orc captors whenever they would unlock her cell to send her out again, or go to disarm her after the fights, but she was always outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched in power and endurance. These orcs that were independent of Orsinium had the capacity to destroy her, but were simply keeping her around for sport, and it was from this she realized that the only way to survive here was to learn from them.

Four years into this hellish lifestyle, at age 17 in 4E14 -- not that she would remember her age anymore, or know what day or year it was -- she was considered a favorite. At this point, she was no longer the scrawny runt that they would try to kill with animals for their amusement, but an actual warrior, having earned the respect of the orcs as a warrior even if she was still enslaved by them and wasn't considered to be "one of them." As a warrior, they'd watch her fight for their entertainment of course, but they'd watch her to see how she'd move, how she struck, what clever tactics she might employ, and what she might take down her next challenger. The years were hard on her, forcing her to grow up and mature, her body hardened and solid and scarred, barely looking anything like the little girl who was taken from home years ago. They began outfitting her with better weapons and actual armor from the stronghold's forge. With them, she'd slain mountain lions, small bears, lesser trolls, ogres, and dreugh, and at her young age the orcs saw her as having been blessed by Malacath or something, especially since she wasn't even an orc. She was even made to fight other slaves, and after having been through this for so long, killing all manner of creatures, thinking nothing how to survive today ad how to survive tomorrow, she was able to cut them down as well with only a sliver of more remorse than she felt for the animals. Eventually, even orcish gladiators wanted to challenge her. She's still standing.

The style was uniquely hers; she could not possibly hope to overpower the hardened orcish warriors, against many of whom she only stood as tall as their shoulders or their chests, who wielded weapons as long if not longer than her own body, and were sometimes even plated in orichalum armor. While indeed her strength is nothing to scoff at, she depended more on her maneuverability, a trait that the orcs couldn't match. She was faster, wasn't weighed down with as much armor or cumbersome weapons, and her short height made her a smaller target--perhaps even smaller than what they were used to dealing with. When an orc's strength is already such they could likely kill you easily with a small, fast weapon, they were only doing her favors by weighing themselves down with the heavy material and long, heavy constructions. Dodging and weaving, sliding across the ground, moving between their legs, under their arms, in all the nooks and crannies they normally didn't account for, she could find the places where the armor was weakest, or at the very least jump onto their back and stab them in the neck or take their helmets to give herself more openings. When her life is on the line, she couldn't afford to be impatient but neither can she afford to be indecisive.

Orc culture and orc strength also meant that it usually didn't occur to them to fight dirty: throwing sand into their eyes, exploiting weak spots, aiming for joints, biting, and digging her thumbs into her enemy's eyes were all crucial tools in her arsenal. She had become more like the wild animals she had fought for so long. However, one of her weaknesses is one that is relatively common against all gladiator fighters and slave combatants: stamina. Her endurance insofar as taking a beating is impressive of course, but her exercise usually comes in the form of sudden bouts and fights, requiring explosive bursts of energy to end the fights quickly, mimicking the same kind of berserk that orcs could enter when threatened. Most fights and duels rarely last very long, as it usually takes only one shallow cut to weaken an enemy, or one well placed strike to end them, and Reyna never had the space or discipline to trek the same kind of distances and terrain as a regiment of soldiers.

The past five years as of 4E15 have also been a period of transnational turmoil with the Stormcrown Interregnum, an event to which Reyna was completely oblivious and insulated from with her capture and enslavement, in which the Imperial hold over the other provinces completely disintegrated and created instability within the Empire. With the rise of the current Emperor claiming the throne, Thules the Gibbering, the barest semblance of stability returned, but just enough that the orc tribe that held Reyna -- that which she has since learned to be called Clan Luccin, an old clan that had fallen from its former glory -- to take notice of new lands. They had a vested interest in their arena culture, to which Reyna contributed much, and it had come to their attention that there is a new leader to the south that also had a vested interest in what was possibly the greatest arena in the world near the center of the Imperial City. So, wanting more opportunities for glory, they took a caravan of slaves and beasts with them to sell and make to fight--except for Reyna, who they would keep so that she could fight on their behalf along with their own gladiators, representing Clan Luccin.

Not wanting to turn down new blood, the arena's battle master accepted the orc tribe's tributes. They initially laughed at them for wanting to submit a young girl into the arena, but after their side's silence and menacing stares, realized that the orc warriors were serious and allowed it. The match that followed was a four-person free-for-all, and naturally, all three of Reyna's opponents were men of different backgrounds who underestimated her and focused among themselves instead of paying attention to her. Once they were locked in their foray, Reyna took the opportunity to kick up a large plume of sand between them all, blinding all three of them, and cut each of them down one after the other in seconds. Barely a minute had passed and the child stood victorious as three men's blood soaked into the thirsty sand. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the people of the Imperial City had a new favorite to cheer for.

When the cells of the bloodworks became her new prison, the arena would fashion her in a custom-made raiment and armor to better appeal to Imperial tastes, especially to that of Emperor Thules. Heat-treated steel breastplate coated in brass, heavily stylized with one arm armored and the other bare, Imperial-style dress to wear beneath, and an aspis-styled shield to wield alongside a gladius. Sporting the look of a quintessential Imperial gladiator, she would fight in the Imperial City arena for another six months (with two of her orc handlers remaining with her while the rest of the caravan returned home), lasting longer than most given her prior experience over the many slaves and beasts being forced to fight, until one fated day finally arrived. There has always been one woman in the bloodworks, who was probably old enough to be her mother, who has been around probably as long as she has--Isobel. It was through her inspiration and leadership that the gladiator-slaves of the bloodworks, including the grand champion and lord of the arena, the minotaur Beordan, could be rallied and overwhelm the guards securing the dungeon. Reyna slew her two orcish handlers on her way out and followed Isobel's lead, not knowing where else she could possibly go in this strange new land, and where else would she even want to go other than with the only ally she has ever known in a world where has no home?

Reyna Stromfleur is indebted to Isobel Aurelia for the rest of her life as far as she is concerned, since before then she believed that one of these days she was going to die a slave for someone else's entertainment. Up until this moment, she fought and killed for nothing but survival and to fight another day -- it's the only thing she knows -- but thanks to Isobel, she thinks she's beginning to understand what it means to fight for something larger. Though she's still a feral young woman of erratic temperament, she feels the need to pay Isobel back in the only way she knows how, and if that means fighting for her cause and cutting down every person between her and Count Hruldan of Skingrad, then she's willing to do exactly that. Being freed from a life of violent servitude is a massive gesture and has awoken a type of unshakeable zealotry in Reyna that can't be contended with by neither word nor gesture, and it may have very well made her one of Isobel's most stalwart and fervent allies. It has perhaps also awakened an unshakeable irony in that she has traded one form of violent servitude for another, but at least this is one that she gets to choose.

---

_{"Crunzarga -- there's still a blood price to be paid. Ne gesh eb norgimin jur ubatarask!"}

---

Sample

The diluted buzzing of bedlam reverberated through the air, as if its pulse traveled through an ocean between the sold stone walls which separated her from her freedom. A muffled and choked sound, of the scores of faceless people with indistinct voices, like mindless drones climbing over one another vying to be heard and noticed over the thousands of other souls. And they were bloodthirsty. They were hungry and ravenous things, always scrambling and demanding for more, as if the previous meal they had only reminded them of the empty pain that wreaked acidic havoc on their innards, and in resonance with their static tempo was a single dolorous beat. It was distinctly unlike the beating of a heart; it thundered only once, and it thundered slowly. Like a giant mammoth taking slow, carefully measured steps, or like a battering ram crashing down upon the gates of the very fortress that held her. It was undoubtedly the monster of the week, the next thing held in store for her, the next challenge, and the potential cause of her death. They’ve been trying to kill a little girl for years—for many, many, agonizingly long years. The rattling of chains from her comradery barely awakened her from her mortality. They could not distract her. The leagues of human chattel within the bloodworks were like flies on the wall to her, outside of her notice until it was time to eat.

The thundering had stopped.

Far gentler steps came down an echoey corridor from the stairs, though the girl knew that there was nothing gentle about them nor what they had in store for her. A beastly looking man of stony pigment entered the bloodworks, large and barrel-chested, and his deep, grating, and blasphemous voice reached the cell before he did, “it’s your turn, Little B,” and it made the hair on her body stand on end.

“Did you hear me, Little B?” He’d repeat as he turned the corner. “I said your turn is coming up.”

The stony beast-man stared down at the young woman, barely an adult, hugging her knees in the corner of her cell. Her newly gifted quilted clothes clinging to her body didn’t make her look any cleaner or scrub the dirt and calluses from her skin, and she silently stared down her keeper from beyond the bars.

“Little Bitch,” he snarled this time as unlocked the cell and entered. He was covered in leather armor and had blades and a whip at his side, attached to his person. Dirty blood and grime were caked underneath his fingernails. He said again, “Stand up. Get ready for your turn.”

Reyna said nothing—she did nothing, remaining silent and motionless in quiet rebellion. She refused. She waited. She watched. She was testing, her eyes carefully focused on her keeper, alert to a sudden change in movement. As the two glowered at each other, the orc reached his hand down to his whip, his nails digging into the leather, and that was Reyna’s cue to stand. She did so, and the orc took the hand off his whip. This song and dance was one that they were all too familiar with, and one that had physically scarred her too many times. Still, she exercised her will when she could.

The other chattel of the bloodworks would be the ones to touch her, to fasten the buckles of her breastplate armor and her gauntlet, to fit her sandals and shin guards, and adjusting the toga underneath. There was another orc, her other keeper, who would stand on the other side of the gates holding her sword and her shield. They treated her like a wild animal with fangs and claws, letting the expendable human livestock handle her when they could. Their fingertips were like hot irons against her skin, the way it made her want to spin around and scratch their throats out, but the armed guard near her was quick, keen, and all too happy to punish her. Her armor glittered in the torchlight, its fire dancing in the reflection of her brass coating. It was an ugly thing that resembled the pretentious aesthetic of the Imperial people, something pretty on the surface under the glow of the sun, but a faux gold in reality, hiding the blood-stained steel beneath.

“You’re fitted. Go.”

Reyna was escorted up the ramp. The Basin of Renewal she walked past. It was allegedly an important ritual in the past, but now profaned by a pool of blood and pile of limbs. She thought nothing of it as the faint flicker of light approached at the end of the tunnel. It was that, if nothing else, that she lived for these days: the light of day, and as she approached it, the silhouette of her other keeper made itself distinct against the bars of the gate. Her two keepers nodded to each other, as they began to raise the gates, cuing the indistinct buzz and uproar of the crowd. The first of her keepers pushed her onto the hot sand, and the other stared her down wordlessly, tossing her shield and her sword into the center of the arena for her to retrieve. Reyna slowly walked after them, feeling the stares and spittle of the crowd on her back.

“And so here we have it,” shouted one iron-lunged Imperial on a platform that jutted into the arena by a few feet, but even with the power of his voice, it barely whelmed the chorus of drunken cheers and boos filling the seats. “I am pleased to announce that this next match will be viewed by our very own and beloved Emperor Thules! It is my greatest honor that I introduce to him our next contender! Hailing far from here in the Wrothgarian mountains, the young Reyna has carved a scarred impression upon our beloved arena! A feral girl, a child of blood and battle, she’s become more orc than human! But can she survive the strongest and ugliest of Malacath’s children?”

Reyna picked up the sword and shield embedded in the sand, dusting them off. She closed her eyes for a moment and aimed her face toward the sky to relish its warmth upon her skin. The announcer’s voice began to cause the blood to pump through her veins, drumming against the inside of her ears, its speed and intensity increasing every second.

“Reyna—”

She gripped her gladius tight in her hand, and her shield was raised, her eyes lowering down to just above its rim. The blood was growing ever louder.

“—prepare yourself!”

He and the crowd had gone silent in her ears.

“Open the gates!

The gates from across the other side of the arena exploded open as an enraged ogre charged into the clearing with blood caking its body. It wasn’t even armed with a club or weapon of any sort, just using its massive, boulder-like hands to fight and kill, and even one strike from them was surely enough to end her life on the spot. For a few muted seconds, Reyna charged forward to meet it.

It was silence in her ears. Only her breathing and the blood pounding in her ears mattered to her, and as she sprinted forward with explosive speed, she trailed her sword behind her in the sand and left a scar in her wake until she suddenly turned its flat side down and, sliding beneath a swipe of the ogre's boulder-like hand, shoveled a spray of sand into the creature's face and rolled between its legs. Its roar was quiet in her ears as she shouted and cried her own screams and grunts, swiping at the tendons behind the ogre’s knees as she landed on the other side. With a plume of dusting erupting outward as the ogre fell to one knee, Reyna swiveled around and, in one fluid motion, cut through the tissue behind its other knee, and dust erupted outward once again.

The gladiator moved to cut under the arm of the same side, but she couldn’t hear the ogre’s roar that foretold its massive hand reaching around its side to grab her, in response to which she instinctually pulled her shield up. The ogre grabbed it, and long with it her as it raised her high into the air as she hung down from its grip. The guttural snarls and its breath like death from its maw foretold an unceremonious oblivion, to which Reyna swiped wildly at its face to discourage it from taking a bite out of her. It triggered enough hesitation that it reached for her instead with its other hand, and afraid of having her limbs pulled apart, she swiped ferociously at its other hand, nicking its fingertips, and causing the creature to second-guess that option as well. In response, it much more suddenly swung its hand at her, threatening to crush her between its palms like a common fly. Reyna was forced to let go of her shield and fell, a thunderous boom coming from the clap just above her head.

Reyna hit the ground and tumbled forward and not wanting to spend any given moment mired in inaction, swiped ahead of her as soon as he felt solid ground beneath the soles of her feet again—straight into lumbering giant’s blubbery belly. The nicks and rolled edges of her imperfect weapon caught on its flesh at first, but with a shrill and agonizing roar, Reyna poured every ounce of her strength into ripping and tearing the monster’s stomach open. Suddenly she felt the give of its flesh, finally cutting through that last sinewy layer and gutting the creature wide open as the blade of her sword snapped away from its handle, and immediately sprayed and poured a deluge of blood all over her like water from a crumbling dam as Reyna's face hit the sand. Spitting out a mouthful of its viscera and grit, she looked up to see if it was still alive—barely, and in its death throes and impressive endurance, seemed to want to take her down with it.

She threw aside the useless handle and grabbed an armful of the guts that piled itself at her feet before climbing up the creature’s body, and using the folds of fat as footholds or the space between its ribs where the skin sloughed off of them, she leaped up and wrapped the ogre’s own guts around its neck. She had overshot her jump and was dangling behind the creature’s back even as the ogre choke. She dug her nails and fingers into meat of its guts, feeling the fibers tear under her weight, as she pushed her feet against the ogre’s back to tighten her hold on its neck overhead. The arms of the creature had grown too weak to resist, and eventually with one last bloodcurdling scream from Reyna, the monster had toppled over. She had crashed to the ground beside it, her chest heaving for breath and choked out by the rich smell of blood and iron that coated her from head to toe.

She tried to open her eyes but was force to shut them again beneath the radiance of the sun. What was once a merciful warmth was now a punishing heat that was beating her down harder than stones. As her pumping blood slowed, her sense of hearing seemed to as well. She tuned back into the world outside her own to clamoring crowds throwing flowers into the arena, some throwing old food. The announcer man was going ballistic over what he called an unexpected victory. She spat in the sand again at the ugliness of its sound–of course she won. She didn’t have a choice.

Reyna weakly staggered over to where the ogre dropped her shield and picked up again before heading toward the gate where she came from. Her two orc handlers were awaiting her there, standing with their arms crossed, looking proud and smug. She didn’t even have the energy to feel angry or hateful at them for it. They took her shield away and sent her down to be doffed of her armor and washed of the blood. That ogre didn’t land a single scratch on her. If it had, it would’ve killed her immediately. But this? She felt like utter and absolute shit. This was all from demanding too much of her body in a moment, probably straining something in her legs or back, and the shoulder she used to power through its stomach was screaming at her.

As the breastplate fell to the floor around her, she felt like falling with it but her legs refused to budge. No falling. Not today, not ever.

These fights just kept getting harder. Why did they keep getting harder?