Iorrjaer

Prologue

Yophiel, a girl that has just seen her sixteenth birthday, has blond hair that she messily ties back into an attempted braided ponytail, stands in front of a set of white and gold armour complete with a sheathed, glittering sword. She had enlisted in the Inglegaard - the King's military force - and had gone through a rigorous two days of training. She was the first cadet to finish not only cadet training but become a fully-fledged Paladin within those two days.

She returned home to her mother's estate to celebrate her triumph. Torasia Civlew was that mayor of Ockburt, where the main training Barracks for the Inglegaard was located, and her husband was the one and only Commander of the Inglegaard, Taphthartharath. A dwarven fighter that had single-handedly seen to the decisive and winning battle against Scarlett and her rebelling Wildlings.

Scarlett's rebellion was supposed to have cleared the way for outcast soldiers that brought malice into the ranks, disgraced knights that used their position to exploit and extort the common folk, unwanted farmer's children, illegitimate bastards, and retired paladins that had fulfilled their oaths to their deity and been released from service but were not able to afford accommodations in the city. Feeling betrayed and unwanted, an excommunicated Cleric of Chami herself, Scarlett and her wildlings felt that the King of Khico owed them for their suffering and mistreatment.

Taphthartharath and a shaky alliance of men and dwarves stood against Scarlett and drove her and her forces back. Having succeeded in holding the line and preventing Scarlett's takeover of Ockburt and opening Scarlett up to negotiations with the Royal family, Tapht was rewarded with the rank of Commander and marriage to Torasia, who was at that time, already a powerful dignitary from Khico. Together they had enough influence and money to reshape Ockburt into the primary command post for the Inglegaard, serve as a bastion for the youth that wanted to join the Inglegaard ranks, allowing Ockburt to become a prospering city of its own.

Torasia had just given birth to a daughter from her previous failed marriage and she brought her baby with her to raise and Tapht welcomed her and her baby happily. Yophiel had been a bright and curious child, always wandering around their estate and adored by all that watched over her. The maids loved to play hide-and-seek with her, read stories, and share their culture with Torasia so that she could incorporate lessons from all around the world. Yophiel grew quickly and loved all of her lessons and learnings of the maids around her and even her father's dwarvish stoicism and stubbornness when it came to discipline and rules.

In her beginning adolescent years, Torasia welcomed a man named Graphiel into her service to act as a bodyguard for young Yophiel. This was around the same time that a young woman also came into their estate. Where Graphiel was tall and serious, Aina was small but amazingly athletic and bubbly. Yophiel became friends with Graphiel and Aina quickly but doubt was starting to creep into her mind. She was having troubling dreams, a voice was trying to talk with her and it was sharing things about the world that she did not understand.

She wanted to talk to her friends about it, but she was finding herself saying things that were alienating her from those that she had grown up with and she also started to see the elvish maids, the halflings and the dwarves as nuisances, spying on her and her mother. She started to demand their removal but Torasia ignored her and then started to get angry.

Taphthartharath did his best to bring her back around, but her rhetoric had grown quickly and was causing their staff to leave due to the abuse and constant insults.

To humour Yophiel, they gave into her demands and then at sixteen, she demanded to be allowed to enlist into the Inglegaard and to be made a Paladin outright. This sparked several debates that led to lots of yelling between Torasia and Tapht. Tapht was refusing to even consider humouring the prospect of Yophiel crying her way into anything more. She had already convinced Torasia to cut their staff down by half because she did not trust anything non-human - all wear and tear from the so- called dream voice.

The demand to be allowed into the Inglegaard and her immediate initiation into the ranks of Paladin caught the attention of Bne, the Paladin Prime, who was the one with the ultimate say in who made into the Paladin ranks. He had been there with Tapht when he held the line against Scarlett and had stayed on to be Tapht's second-in-command and the Paladin Order's official in Ockburt.

After many long days of conversations and negotiations, they convinced Yophiel that she was allowed to enlist and go through training but had to follow the normal progression of soldier to Knight to Paladin because it was through these stages that she would learn what she needed and gain the favour of a deity, who she would have to convince that she was worthy of that deity's favour. Yophiel was still not satisfied and told them that she was already in contact with Chami and already had Chami's blessing.

Bne and Tapht agreed to allow that fact to help expedite Yophiel's progression, but she would still have to progress normally. She agreed but the dream voice was not pleased and her dreams were racked with visions of horrors of a world without a Champion of Chami - a world overrun with unsavory creatures like the short and annoying Halflings, hairy and curt Dwarves, smug and arrogant Elves, and the worst of all, Orcs. Filthy, ugly, vile, and evil orcs. Orcs that wanted the world for themselves and were going to kill everyone to get it.

Yophiel's mind took it all in and believed it. She was so distracted by it that her training failed and she returned home to find that her mother had gone ahead and gotten her armour and a sword anyways. She did not have to continue with that annoying training that was not teaching her anything, all that she needed was to don this armour and she would be a Paladin without having to get Bne's permission or go through any of those stupid rules.

Tapht returned home to see Yophiel in her armour and sword at her hip and he knew that he had lost his position in this ongoing battle. All he could do was treat Yophiel as she wanted and make it clear that the consequences for her were even more important to understand. He laid them out as such: fail to uphold your oath - you are no longer welcome at the estate. She would be stripped of all connection to Torasia and would be no more than a farmer's child.

This hit Yophiel in the heart and there was a piece of her that understood that this was what she had been begging for so it was only fair that there be some kind of ultimatum. However, Tapht did not stop at expulsion from the family, he continued: now that she was a Paladin, she was beholden to all of the laws and regulations that came with being a Paladin. Breaking any one of those would mean exile. She was expected to uphold the peace and do the civic duties that all Paladins were required to do. Failure would mean excommunication and exile. She was not a rogue agent, allowed to claim Paladin as a means to take a shortcut through life, there were expectations from her now and she had to meet them. If she did not or refused to do what her new position required, expulsion.

To further drive the point home, as it was apparent that Yophiel was emptily agreeing to Tapht's threats, he and Bne agreed to allow her a trial run at command. Bne had assembled a provisional team of adventurers to act as her bodyguards to Ockburg. There were disturbing reports of cultish behaviour and Tengu occultists being spotted flying to and from the town. The most disturbing and the most troubling was that life was returning to the old ziggurat that had once been a seat of celestial power.

Who knew what the reactivation of the ziggurat meant? Who was behind it? What were the Tengu occultists after? Yophiel was tasked to lead the escorting team to Ockburg to find out and was warned that any report back that painted her command as less than satisfactory - exile.