It was raining that night.

Amalia Alcott was eleven years old at the time. Even today, over three years later, she remembered the patter! of the rain vividly. The wheezing, too. It wouldn't leave her head. Rather than dulling as time passed, those sounds only seemed to etch deeper into her memories.

For five years her Father had been ill. His robust and sturdy frame, gained from years of diligent training, had turned into a sunken shell of its former splendor. His healthy bronze complexion was replaced with a sickly white that was far less easy on the eyes. It all happened gradually, yet at the same time felt so abrupt to the girl.

Perhaps those close to the family had just slowly accepted such a state of affairs. After all, everything ends sooner or later. They all watched the man's slow decline over months and years. But for the young Amalia, she noticed every little detail—every last wheeze and cough and hack—with frightening clarity. Their frequency was ever-so-slowly increasing.

Amalia was no doubt smart beyond her years. She'd been forced to mature quickly, after all. In her jade eyes burned a ferocious intellect and passion eerily similar to her Father's in his younger years—years when he was still healthy, a time when he was still a Knight Captain, and back when he could still swing a sword without violently retching and gasping for air.

Now, he hadn't touched a sword in over a year.

Regardless, the former Knight Captain, precisely one Dirk Alcott, was still waging a battle of his own. One much more difficult for him than any monster or undead or even human he'd fought previously. It was a war of attrition. And he was losing.

His fears could only propel him so far forward. His determination could only endure such before faltering. And his body—well, even with his training, it should have given out much sooner.

When Dirk was younger, he was forced to travel frequently. While out east in the plains and deserts of Capria, he'd met a woman. She was a woman who infuriated him at the time. Dirk's group needed a guide for an investigation and she had ended up being hired for the job. That woman was snarky, bad at taking orders, whimsy, and proud. It was ironic that the very same woman who had given him countless headaches and caused numerous arguments eventually went on to become his wife.

He cherished her and all her wit, fire, and beauty. He loved the way the light reflected off her auburn hair and danced across the dimples on her lightly tanned cheeks. But after 5 years and 7 months of marriage, she was gone. The love of his life passed away due to complications from childbirth coupled with a foreign illness that struck shortly after. Her name was Randgris.

Normally, such an event would darken or outright break a man. Yet his wife had left him a reason to bury his grief and soldier on. That reason was a charming daughter who was slowly growing up to look every bit like her mother.

... Well, except for the color of her hair.

Rather than a light auburn that lit up like fire, Amalia's was much darker, bordering on a black like the ashes of smoldering coal. It was a deep and rich red similar to some wines. Dirk was simply glad she hadn't inherited any of his rough and manly features. Had she grown up with his crooked nose and bushy eyebrows, the man might have wept for her.

For the first half of Amalia's short life, things had been well. The Alcott family was minor nobility. Dirk was a well-respected knight and gentleman, and due to good management, they had ample finances and investments for such a small household. Had things continued on for another 10 years uneventfully, life would have been wildly different for the two.

But it would seem disaster haunted the halls of the Alcott house once more. Shortly after his daughter's 6th birthday, Dirk Alcott took ill during a particularly cold winter. The symptoms were very similar to his late wife's. Fevers and chills, insomnia, difficulty breathing, poor Mana and blood circulation.

They called the disease 'Stranglehold', for once it festered inside a person, it rarely let go until it 'strangled' all life from the individual. While not native to the country of Brita, it wasn't completely unknown. It was said there may have been better treatment for such an illness to the far east. Such a journey would be perilous and exorbitant in cost. Dirk wasn't getting any younger, either.

The Alcott family may have been secure in their finances, but they were not rich. Dirk would not squander away Amalia's inheritance and risk dying in a foreign land, chasing after some uncertain cure. He chose to rely on what he knew and do his best to beat this illness on his own. In hindsight, perhaps it was unwise. Or perhaps not.

The local healers did what they could with magic and medicine and prescriptions. Dirk did what he could to maintain his health with diet, exercise, and rest. Unfortunate that like many things, it never appeared to be enough.

So on that fateful night in the middle of Fall, with great regret festering in his chest amidst that sickness, Dirk Alcott finally lost his grip on this world. It was a long time coming, yet countless tears were still shed afterward.

Memories had faded, but Amalia would always listen to Dirk's stories as she grew up. He told her of his many adventures, his job as one of Brita's Knight Captains. He spoke of numerous wonders of nature and narrow escapes from certain death in jungles and sand dunes and mountains and caves, embellishing every detail and filling the girl's head with admiration and excitement. Amalia always wanted to be like her father in those stories, a brave and strong knight. A hero.

Now that Amalia had lost her hero, she was vulnerable and alone. The vultures descended.

Amidst minor nobility, with all the laws and regulations on inheritance and succession, an 11-year-old girl wasn't safe in such an environment. Dirk had prepared the legalities as best he could. ... But there was a problem. Some might even call it a loophole.

Amalia was lawfully born out of wedlock. Her mother was a citizen of Capria, the land of numerous species of 'beastkin' and the mighty Lizardfolk known as Slyvains. Marrying anything besides a dwarf, human or elf was not permitted in Brita.

The legality of marriage to dwarven-kind was passed with mostly financial motivations, while the acceptable marriage of elves was primarily for political and militaristic reasoning. The north-western dwarves were a strong trading partner and the northern elves were wise and fearsome opponents best left alone. Regardless, such unions were still scarce. Too much prejudice and too many differences.

Through common law, a beastkin may become something similar to a 'life partner' should they reside in Brita with their assumed spouse for 10 years, thus obtaining half-citizenship. And through the same common law, a half-beastkin or such child would gain full citizenship if their parent had fulfilled that condition, or if they aged 16 and had lived the majority of their life in Brita.

Amalia failed to fulfill either of those conditions, and Dirk was no legal scholar. Such topics were barely documented due to the infrequency of such cases. The plans Dirk laid were quickly torn asunder under the discerning eye and greed of the court.

Amalia had few animalistic features save a set of sharp wolf ears atop her head and a lengthy tail covered in bushy fur. Her finger and toenails seemed destined to grow into points but were otherwise unremarkable. She also grew a bit faster, thicker, and taller than pure-blooded human girls her age. Still, when she wore a dress you'd be hard pressed to notice much aside from the irregularity of her ears.

Those ears were enough to damn the girl amidst this society.

There had been numerous wars and land disputes in the past between the human kingdoms and the south-eastern races. While not as violent as the wars against orcs and goblin-kind, there was still some bad blood left over. People didn't trust beastkin or lizardkin. Hells, they barely trusted the dwarves or the elves.

To sum up events til this point rather simply, the law failed Dirk's hopes and expectations. Amalia was the victim of legal and political maneuvers and was appointed a steward to manage her estate. Within 2 years, she was homeless, penniless, and cast away.

As Amalia soon found, limited few would employ a homeless, 13-year-old half-beastkin girl. For food, she was sometimes given old and hard bread from the bakery stores that took pity on her. When that failed, the girl was forced to steal from stalls or attempt foraging outside her hometown's stone walls. She often slept in hunger. Several months passed, and after a joyless and cold birthday, she turned 14.

After one failed sleight of hand, the girl was jailed and then expelled from her hometown with only a few meager possessions. She had her identification plate, a short sword that was passed down by her father, and a locket that had belonged to her mother. The letters R.A. + D.A. were engraved on the back.

Her clothes had been in tatters from a month of traveling in the wild. Like her father, her figure had wilted. Malnutrition had firmly set in. Her periods were irregular and spotty, her muscles sore and weak. Migraines assaulted her a few nights, causing her to find shelter and curl up with tears in her eyes until they'd passed. Even with all the girl's resourcefulness and wit, the roads and wilderness weren't a place for a child to travel alone.

Amalia scavenged and scoured the best she could, but hunger always seemed to be a danger. Even more so than the occasional goblin, wild boar, or other animals. A goblin or two could be scared off with a vicious snarl and a flourish of the short sword she possessed. A boar could be avoided or sometimes killed depending on its size. At worst, Amalia had been forced to flee up a tree until the beast left. As for other animals, ... she was just glad she hadn't run into any wolves or dire bears.

Her sharp green eyes had dulled, her lips were dry and cracked, her clothes dirty and tattered. The girl had various bug bites and scratches, a few of which seemed to be healing poorly. She'd traveled south from Kulve on foot for the longest time, hoping to travel first to Berich, then east to Fort Eigach in the hopes of enlisting with the militia. If she could survive two more years, there was still hope.

'Just two more years', the girl often thought to herself as a form of brittle reassurance. But this was, of course, assuming they'd even take her in. It was a bold assumption.

Despite her young mind, Amalia knew her options were limited and the chance of success low. She'd discussed much with her father and made many preparations for living on her own. But not like this. She knew well the pain of her mother's heritage. She just hadn't expected it to haunt her so.

It was a cruel fate to thrust on a young woman, but that was the hand she'd been dealt. It was either go to an orphanage in one of the bigger cities, enlist in the military and hope they'd accept a half-blooded beastkin without 'proper' citizenship, or find someone to take in an indentured servant for menial tasks.

For the daughter of the late Knight Captain, it was an easy choice. That very same choice led her on a path she would have never foreseen.

It is often said both luck and death come in threes. And from Amalia Alcott's point of view, that certainly seemed to be the case on that fateful night.

"Haa! Haa! Haa!"

A slender figure ran during the dead of night amidst light rain. Even with her sharp and well-adjusted eyes, visibility was poor. Thunder crackled and boomed overhead, the lightning that followed providing occasional illumination.

"She went this way!"

A man's loud voice hollered from behind. She had pursuers. Two of them.

Amalia Alcott was on the run. Chasing her was a beast much worse than any monster or dire bear. Humans.

"Catch that little bitch!"

Earlier in the night, Amalia had been perched up on a tree while sleeping to avoid many of the potential dangers associated with sleeping alone on the ground. While things such as snakes or some rare avian monsters capable of flight were still able to assault her, a stable tree was preferred. Every night, her rest was light and plagued with noises that startled her.

While she had been safe so far, disaster struck one night when one of these rogues had spotted her while she slept. Upon seeing what he believed was a beastkin child in the wilderness, the man's thoughts soon turned lascivious and to other profits. Slavery and indentured servitude were legal in the Kingdom of Brita, after all. An undocumented or illegal person such as this girl would fetch a decent purse.

As such, by the time they'd knocked the girl to the ground and wrestled a Slave Shackle on her ankle, she was already raring to go and had sunk her teeth into the arm of one of the men. One now-very annoyed man.

The purpose of a Slave Shackle was simple. A small rune was etched into the cold steel that enabled the slave's master to locate them at all times. In addition, there were more expensive shackles that could provide features such as electric shocks, auditory monitoring, and a myriad of other 'delightful features'.

These devices generally worked via a runestone that was able to track the direction of the shackle whenever Mana was channeled into it. It also functioned as the key. As such, Amalia knew that even should she evade these two men and somehow managed to outpace them, she still wouldn't be safe unless she somehow removed it.

And so, she ran.

Hurried footsteps beat upon the ground. A young girl's panting could be heard. Despite her efforts, the distance continued closing.

Thoughts flew around her mind. Her fingers gripped her short sword. She had some experience with it, but not enough. No, not against two grown men in these conditions. It was already a miracle she'd managed to escape their grasp once but now she lacked the element of surprise.

Heavy, lumbering footsteps were catching up to her. Her heart beat in trepidation of what was to come. Was she going to be sold off like a slave? Beaten to death? Raped? She didn't want this. Indignation welled up within her chest, but such feelings were futile.

She ducked and weaved and sped forth as much as her diminished stamina would allow. Perhaps if she were in better shape she may have been able to lose them. Perhaps ...

A hand grabbed her wrist, its grip tight as a vice. Her shoulder nearly popped! from the sudden halting force. Her hand unconsciously let go of the sword and sheathe she'd been carrying as pain assaulted her.

She dug her free hand into the man's wrist with a loud snarl. The hand recoiled suddenly, causing her to lose balance. On the ground now, she frantically looked around in a vain attempt to form a plan. Her mind blanked.

Nothing could be done. She crept away from the man, crawling backward on the ground while keeping him in sight. An ugly snarl was on the man's face as he cradled the lightly torn flesh on his wrist. His beady eyes were locked onto her.

"Ghh! Stupid wench. May as well be a rabid dog!" he barked in a gravelly voice.

A lightly panting man sauntered up to him, speaking in a nasal tone, "Finally caught up with her, eh? Quite the chase. Think it got me blood pumpin' jus a lil bit. Ready to take her back to the boss, or should we 'play' first?"

At the mention of this 'boss' figure, both of the men grinned. It was a wicked smirk, showing off their yellowed teeth, dyed from tobacco, poor care, and alcohol. Neither of the men were terribly attractive with their unkempt hair or poorly fitted clothing, though they seemed in relatively good shape.

The girl bit her lip. As Amalia backed up, she soon found her back against a tree. It seemed she was at the end of her rope and all she could do was lash out in frustration.

She growled at the men in her dry and hoarse voice, "Kill me then, you bastards!"

Had she still her sword, she would have at least made a vain attempt to plunge it into these fellows' heart or stomach. With a bit of resolve and courage, perhaps she might have considered suicide. She knew well what was coming. Almost better to die here than dishonor herself further.

There was a throaty laugh, "Kill you? Do ya think we'd bother so much if that's all we'd planned for ya? Stupid mutt!"

The men advanced, kicking her fallen sword behind them and completely out of reach.

The thinner, nasally man spoke, "Bitch like you's worth more alive than dead. Blame yerself for being stupid enough to come round these parts alone, mutt. Gonna make sure no one misses you."

Tears were threatening to come forth from Amalia's eyes. Frustration had built up. Injustice had built up. All these negative feelings were distorting her vision and thoughts.

'Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong?' she thought to herself.

There wasn't a good answer. It was simply how things were in this world.

As she looked up at the two men with teary eyes, she grit her teeth sharply. She wanted to rip these men into pieces. They were the antithesis of her father's ideals—of all the things he taught her. Yet she lacked the strength to stand up to them. She was only 14, after all.

In the dark forest underneath that tree, Amalia stared at those two men with hate in her eyes. She could make out the silhouette of their figures amidst the faint, clouded moonlight.

As they got within several feet of her under that tree, she closed her eyes and accepted her fate. She prayed one day she might be able to escape. Until then, she would survive. It was her bittersweet and singular resolve.

Yet for some reason, those hands never came. There was a wet splatter against her face, followed by a thump! and then a muffled scream. She brought her fingers to her face and felt the wet liquid before a metallic smell assaulted her sensitive nose. She looked up.

One of the men lay on the ground, with what appeared to be her very own sword lodged in his head, its silvery steel sticking out of his mouth. The other was currently clawing at his very face. Some sort of dark sludge was on it. A violent spasm wracked the man's body as he clutched his chest.

Before she could process just what was happening, a loud crack! was heard as the man's neck was snapped. He too fell upon the dirt ground.

Amalia's mind froze. The two men that had been ready to torment and senselessly ruin her life lay dead before her very feet. Yet that roiling mass of shadow before her inspired even greater fear than she had experienced before. It would seem that she was indeed destined to die this night.

For a moment, she thought it ironic. A twisted sense of humor assaulted her as the light faded from her eyes.

She thought quietly to herself, 'Ah, so it ends like this.'

There was a wet squelch! That mass had gone over to the first man and a sick noise emanated from his head. No doubt, it must have been crushed. She stood no chance against such a monster.

Yet what happened next was beyond her expectations. There was the muffled sound of metal hitting grass and dirt beside her, causing her vision to trail back to the source. Her sword lay to her right.

That dark ooze was directly in front of her, holding out a tendril of shadow. It was almost like a hand. The fact that thought even entered Amalia's head confused the girl, but she didn't have time to reflect.

I need you. Will you become my empl- ... no, my knight, child?

A divine message, similar to the ones from the Gods when she'd gained expertise before, clouded Amalia's vision. A woman's gentle voice seemed to be pervading her very mind when she read those words. Amalia's thoughts turned hectic and disordered. She didn't understand this rapid turn of events.

'Need? Need me?' she thought.

Some may say it is human nature to dismiss that which cannot be explained. Amalia soon found herself doing just the same. Instead, she tried to figure out just what this message meant. While a wizened person may not have been confused by this turn of events, she was still inexperienced and disoriented. Her mind focused on one word in that message.

Knight.

—It must be said, there were a lot of things Amalia didn't understand in life. Why her parents had to leave her. Why she'd been born in such an often cruel world. What she'd done to deserve such things. What to do next with her life.

Those thoughts and fears plagued her for months on end, gnawing at her vitality. Were it not for her father's stories and teachings, she may have even given up much sooner.

And so, as the tension finally left her body, a few barely audible words escaped her cracked and dry lips.

"Ahh. I want ... to be ... a knight."

Pact Accepted! You are now a member of (n/a)'s Royal Guard!

Reconstituting body and granting suitable Title . . . .

It was at this point, she finally let go of her fears and closed her dimmed, tear-stained eyes. Amalia Alcott let exhaustion take her and slipped gently into unconsciousness.

World Map (WIP)