Ea

Ea is a female tiefling fighter originally from Vanrina, a city in the Kingdom of Groteron. Her parents are tiefling farmers in the outskirt of Kamrpol, where Ea grew up and lived until she joined the city guards at the age of 16. After two years of training and service, she was chosen by the Lord of Kamrpol to serve in his personal guard. Ea received two more years of training, including training in history and geography, before her official service as the Lord's personal guard began.

During the tenth year of Ea's service as a bodyguard for Charles Gustav, the Lord of Kamrpol, a mysterious attack at a tavern left Lord Gustav dead. Since the attackers were never identified the city branded Ea as the perpatrator and had her banished from Kamrpol and Groteron. She was also sentenced to serve a life sentence in the town of Redweald in the Rivellan Union. She was let out without explanation after eight years in the prison in Redweald and handed a torn piece of paper with a cryptic message.

Early Life
Ea was born to tiefling parents in the outskirt of Kamrpol, in the year of 451. Her mother, Rieta, was from a small tiefling community in Nysgrad, where her maternal grandparents were merchants. Her father, Hope, was from a tiefling farmer's family in Nurstad. Ea's parents decided to move to Kamrpol after getting engaged, where there had been no tiefling family. This is a common practice for tieflings all over Aegeron to avoid growing the size of the tiefling community in any city to too large a size that might attract unwanted attention (e.g. construction of a ghetto).

Ea joined the training camp for the city guards of Kamrpol at the age of 16. After two years of service, she was chosen by Charles Gustav, then the Lord of Kamrpol, to serve as one of his personal guards. Ea spent two years in training before becoming a fully fledged member. The training included both fighting skills and knowledge in literature, history and geography.

The Attack at the Tavern
The mysterious attack at the tavern took place during the tenth year of Ea's service. According to Ea, the attack started right after a group of cloaked humans entered the tavern. Thick fog of smoke immediately filled the entire drinking hall,and soon a fight broke out. No clear identification could be made of either the attackers or the cloaked people.

According to Ea, Gustav was found dead after both the smoke and the fighting subsided. There was no clear cuts or any obvious injury that could kill the Lord. However, at the trial of Ea, which took place a week after the attack, the body of Gustav was presented in the court with multiple cuts across the entire torso.

The Trial of Ea
The trial of Ea took place in the court of Kamrpol. Charles Sigmund, the cousin of the late Lord, chaired the court session. Ea was found guilty for the killing of Gustav, as well as of the others in the tavern. Ea was initially sentenced to death by hanging, but the first scribe of the late lord presented an order written by the Charles Gustav himself, shielding all members of the city guard from prosecution while on duty in his presence. As a compromise, Ea was instead banished from Kamrpol and from the Kingdom of Groteron, to serve a life sentence in the prison of the city of Redweald in Rivellan Union.

The parents of Ea were found dead six days after the trial of Ea, they were lynched by a mob outraged at "tieflings getting away with murder". Ea has already been put in a prison in Redweald when she heard about her parents' deaths, upon which she received a copper necklace that belonged to her mother.

Journal
After Ea was released from the prison in Redweald, she started logging her daily life into a journal.

Prologue
I never knew that the Sun had been so bright, until that day.

There was only one sentence written on that torn piece of paper. “''Come. I need you''.” The prison guard told me the name of a city and let me out as if nothing had happened. The memory had been fuzzy. I tried to locate myself but failed. The streets looked strange to me. Had the Sun always been so bright?

I must have looked lost to the guard. “It’s been eight years,” he said and left. Eight years? What was he talking about? Outside the prison there was an open space, with stalls selling all kinds of stuff scattered around. The sound of shouting, bargaining, arguing, and from time to time fighting, overwhelmed me. I then heard the door to the prison shut close behind me. As I turned around and checked, it’s as if the door had never been open. People walked by the door as if the prison didn’t even exist. Shouting. Bargaining. Arguing, and from time to time fighting.

I then noticed that torn piece of paper had been in my hand. I had no idea of what the sentence written on it meant. I tried to remember, but my head started to ache all of a sudden. I closed my eyes and heard the clashing sound of weapon fighting. Must have been the sunlight, I thought to myself and closed my eyes. As soon as I reopened my eyes, the clashing sound was gone, and the bazaar seemed as peaceful as ever. “Are you all right?” An unfamiliar voice came from behind me. “''What could be so painful in Redweald? It’s like a paradise here!” As I turned around and wanted to talk to the owner of the voice, I saw a human girl skipped away while the chiming of “it’s a paradise''” rang and slowly faded out in the air. Redweald? The Redweald in the lands of humans and hobbits?

I had to go somewhere. I collected the pile of what must have been my belongings next to me and set out into the bazaar. Osh Elethiel. What could be waiting for me there?

Day 1
After a fuzzy afternoon, I finally found this tiny inn on the edge of the plaza. With the gold pieces left in my pouch, I had a good night of sleep––first outside a prison cell for however many years! The bazaar was as vibrant as yesterday. It’s as if the noise never let go of this place. I could feel the hesitance in peeks from all directions, but both humans and hobbits in the bazaar seemed too busy for anything else, even a tiefling! Nah. I’d seen worse in people of what they could do when they were frightened. Although I can’t say whether Redweald is a paradise, it is surely a peaceful place.

Right. I remembered I needed to grab a few patches of papers and a pen and ink. After the long night of sleep, bits of memory started coming back to me. I felt the urge of keeping tracks of them. Writing them down might also help me sort out my journey ahead. So here I am. Sitting in front of the tiny table in the room, and before the start of my journey, I need to figure out what happened in the past.

I remember that it all happened in a tavern. The Lord of Kamrpol, whom I had sworn to protect visited the tavern every other night, so it was all business as usual. It was in Kamrpol in the Kingdom of Groteron, so how bad could things be? The kingdom had remained in peace with neighbors, and even with all the rumors of uprising and wars, Kamrpol had been a peaceful place for more than a few decades. Even tieflings like my family could live in peace with the humans in town, with nothing more than quarrels and higher prices we had to pay at the marketplace. The Lord of Kamrpol was kind enough to let my parents farm in the outskirts of Kamrpol, where I grew up until I started going to a training camp for city guards when I was 16. I couldn’t say that all city guards were nice to me, but for reasons I didn’t know, the Lord of Kamrpol took a liking of me, and after two years in the training camp, the Lord took me in as one of his body guards. The body guards received another two years of special training, including reading and writing, as well as history and geography, and I was no exception.

The members of the body guards were not allowed to interact with each other, but from the looking of them, I knew we were all outsiders. There were five of us when I started officially serving on the squad. As a body guard, I received orders directly from the Lord. There were missions to protect the caravans transporting goods into and out of his cellar. There were also missions to protect certain family members of the Lord. Almost all of them went well in peace, except in the earliest few years, there would be false reports of a suspicious tiefling, a.k.a. me, wandering around the Lord’s residence. Ten years went by, and people got used of me. Then the night at the tavern came.

The Lord was loved for how he would enjoy his night at the tavern with the peasants and merchants in Kamrpol. It had been two hours since the Lord started drinking, and it had been five hours since I started sitting on guard in the great drinking hall, when a group of cloaked humans sat down at the table in the far corner. Not long afterwards, smoke started to fill the drinking hall from where they sat. I heard yelling but couldn’t understand what the yelling was about. People panicked because of the smoke, and in it, I started hearing the clashing of weapons. I drew my blades and rushed next to the Lord, who by now had stopped drinking. “I trust you,” the Lord said to me and started walking toward the entrance, and he gestured me to stay in the tavern. If it was me a few years earlier, then I would tell the Lord to stay by me, but after ten years of service, I had learned that once the Lord decided on something, he would never change his mind. I stayed standing next to the table where the Lord had been drinking, and the smoke had gotten thicker and thicker. I couldn’t have known that it was only the beginning of a long night.

I had never killed anyone, but when the first slash came from behind me, I knew I had to. The attacks came from all directions, and I was able to fight them back in the beginning. After a while, I started moving toward the entrance, while looking for the Lord between fighting. But more and more people came attacking me, and the fighting continued for I didn’t know how long. “Guards! Guards!” I tried to call toward the entrance. The regular city guards usually stayed just outside the entrance when the Lord drank, but I couldn’t see any of them coming in through the smoke. The fighting continued on.

A few minutes, or a few hours later, a loud explosion broke out in the back of the drinking hall. I turned around, and all of a sudden, the smoke was gone. In front of me was what a hell could have looked like. Piles of corpses, some of them with familiar faces I’ve seen in the tavern, lying around between turned tables and stools. Blood stains could be seen across the floor and the bar counter. The cloaked figures were nowhere to be seen. I started walking toward the entrance to look for the guards outside when I saw the Lord lying dead on the floor. I suppressed my anger, quickly went over and checked through the Lord’s body. There was no obvious cuts that would kill the Lord, and as I recalled, the Lord might have even been smiling. Then I was knocked from behind and lost my consciousness.

I can’t remember much of the next few days other then a scene at what the Lord had set up as the court, where the Lord had promised to try everyone by just laws. At the chair sat the cousin of the Lord, whom I had been ordered to protect once on a mission, and there were peasants and merchants whispering in the audience. “Silence!” The cousin of the Lord gestured at the guards, and the dead body of the Lord had been brought to the center of the court. To my disgust, the body was slain open with cuts all over it. “Atrocity! Atrocity indeed! The devil’s child betrayed the trust of my dear cousin, and look at what we get when we allow the devils to live among us!”  The audience shouted in agreement. “I hereby sentence the devil to death by hanging!” The audience cheered on.

“Wait!” A familiar voice came from the audience. It was the first bookkeeper of the Lord. “I have an order written by the late Lord himself which pardons all members of the body guards, currently serving or not, from all legal penalties pertaining matters in the past and in the future.” The audience’s excitement died down a bit. “If this is still a court of laws, then I propose the body guard on trial here be banished and served a life sentence outside of Kamrpol and outside of the Kingdom of Groteron.”

A hood was put on me, and I can’t remember much of the rest. The next thing I remember is the cell I came out from. In the pouch there is my mother’s necklace with a word inscribed on a bronze piece attached to it. “Love,” it says in infernal alphabet. I remember how Dad will tell me the story of how he and Mom got engaged, and Mom would blush while Dad boasted about how happy Mom was when he gave her the necklace.

I need to find out what happened.

Day 3
I have to move, as soon as possible, and it is not the easiest thing in this peaceful land which seems vibrant yet mindful only of their own business. After two days of rest, I managed to find a human merchant whose regular business involves trading between Reibore and Redweald. He was kind enough to let me travel with him. By dusk, we have arrived at Acornfield.

Acornfield is nothing more than a few houses and a cluster of ranches and farmlands. The merchant didn’t seem to care much to waste any minutes in Acornfield, and according to him, traveling at night seems safe enough in the heartland of Rivellan Union. But for a body that has been recently released from eight years of prison, it had been a long day. I found a inn with a modest sign that says “Emerald Dragon Inn” and decided to stay for the evening.

This is where I met Rayne, a bard who’s trying to catch up with a caravan going west and a tiefling like me. It is always nice to meet another tiefling on the road. Imagine two tieflings appear in a hobbit in at the same time! She seems like a good traveling partner to me.

There is also Ny, a half-elf warlock who got instructions from a monk or whatnot and somehow ended up in this tiny village of hobbits! He seems to have his own story as an outcast of the society, and that’s probably why he doesn’t seem afraid or upset being in the same room with two tieflings. What a weird company. I’d never imagine that I would meet a tiefling and a half-elf in a village called Acornfield!

The hobbit owner of the inn seems… hobbit-y. The ale he offered was weirdly good. I feel so tired. I can’t believe that eight years of imprisonment would turn my body into this…  I need to get some sleep.