"I'm afraid I don't think much of anything, Master. If it doesn't concern my child, it doesn't concern me."

Woman. Heiress. Bastard. Mother.

These are the four words that sum up the life of Claire Appleton, the daughter of a small but prominent offshoot of the Appletons. Her parents went out to the mountains to start up a new orchard and meadery along the slopes after some rather extensive testing on their famed apple cultivars, and for a short, brief moment, Claire was raised in a nunnery to further her education and keep her away from "the village boys".

Granted, more than half of said boys were rowdy men that didn't know a thing beyond their parents' trades and the occasional odd-job as low-class adventurers, so her parents were reasonably justified. As the orchard grew alongside the meadery, many of the villagers filled in positions as secretaries, field hands, and guards. It didn't take long for the village to become a small town, and though the Appletons were offered the position as the first mayors; they declined to better manage their business.

So the township of Bounty Heights was established, and in quick time Claire moved out of the nunnery to return to her family. A governess was hired not to teach her the ways of etiquette and education (the girl's celibate life had ensured that), but rather how to manage and eventually inherit the company. That governess was from the main branch of the Appletons, a jealous woman that had relatively little success compared to her cousins. This governess eventually began to run the household when Mrs. Appleton went off on business trips with Mr. Appleton, and in time began to envy the very girl she taught.

At the same time, Claire began to meet some of these "village boys", and at the ripe young year of 14 had something of a relationship with one of the most experienced of labor hands, a charismatic charmer 8 years ahead of her age. At such an inquisitive and curious time, it was practically inevitable that she began to experiment with herself and her dear friend. Her aunt/governess made sure to record these sorts of incidences, and went so far as to actively encourage the young lady to progress further into her lust. 2 years passed in relative peace and happiness, before a string of tragedies occurred.

The governess, with some of the money she saved and pilfered from the Appleton estate, hired some of the labor hands to join the Appleton bosses on their next business trip with the intent to make them disappear. They did their job well, seeing how their complaints could not be satisfied so easily with their masters absent so often and so long.

In addition, the governess rallied a group of favored workers to stage a few assaults on the estate. The house fell into disarray as windows were smashed and the property was vandalized, and little Claire was terrorized on almost a weekly basis.

This escalated when the governess finally won the favor of most of the labor hands. Claire's lover only escalated the relationship, and while the Appleton heiress planned to announce to her parents of her lover, her and her lover were tied up and forced upon each other. She would then be taken by dozens of others in the following rape, and with the leverage of the majority of the town against her, Claire would be branded a harlot by the very town her family had built.

Ashamed, her lover left the town, never to return.

Claire tried to stay, to at least provide for her child the wealth that the estate brought her, but her tarnished reputation would prevent her from properly managing the orchard. She left Bounty Heights penniless and pregnant, at only 16 years of age.

She eventually moved into the city, very unlike the place she used to live in during her years in the convent. In addition to the inhospitality of the inhabitants, worked seem to be lacking, and her pregnancy made her ability to work rather dubious. For a short time, she was to be a ghostwriter for the postal office, but as soon as she mentioned the notion of a maternity leave to her boss, she was given a resounding "no". The autumn months demanded that she would be available to sort, send, and receive all kinds of mail and parcels.

So in her leisure time, she tried to find another job that would sustain her and her child up to and beyond birthing. She couldn't get into a a solid relationship with another man; they reminded her too much of that fateful night. But her place at the postal office was temporary, and she needed the money to ensure she could enroll her child into some form of education just as she had been in.

To that effect, she tried sleazy cartels and other unsavory organizations. Her pregnancy, 8 months in by then, was too much of a liability to get her hired anywhere on short notice, and so she desperately begged one of the brothels to let her in. While they couldn't let her work for fear of the child, she was allowed lodgings until she could find a job.

Her search became frantic, and so she began to go door-to-door for a job. This is where she would meet the eccentric necromancer. Upon being pressed, she stated that she was literate and practiced in the arcane, pointing to her life in the convent as proof of her proficiency. From that point on, she was allowed to become the attendant of the queer character, and was paid enough coin to get her child (she found to be a boy) the care of a wet-nurse, and tutoring soon after. As the months passed by, Claire became increasingly more immersed in her Master's work, and eventually took it upon herself to study the material in secret.

It didn't take much to realize her Master was a necromancer, but given the fair treatment given to her, she didn't report it to the Church or any other authority. In fact, the studying was relaxing for her, as it had reminded her of her more peaceful days back in the village. She was caught raising a few rats for fun, and was rewarded handsomely by becoming part of the Master's experiments. She was, after all, at the mercy of this man, and she still had her child to worry about. As she learned from her master, and her master learned from the experiments concerning her body, Claire became a necromancer in her own right. Granted, neither were nowhere near the prowess of the terrifying Death Lords of antiquity, but she knew she had a knack for magic.

The authorities, at this time, eventually got around to sniffing for the whereabouts of profane magic, and so she and the Master left quietly to the mountainside to hide. She didn't anticipate on returning to Bounty Heights, but considering that she would live in a cave overlooking her hometown, she found herself to be incognito. Bounty Heights, by then, had become a flourishing town under the Mistress Appleton, and sported everything from an adventurer's guild to a well-established inn. She would join the adventurer's guild in between experiments with her Master, and picked up fencing as a guard. She would always wear heavy armour to hide her identity, claiming her scars as the reason she would hide her face all the time.

Her child, at 3 years of age, was just starting to get tutoring as well. The convent had become something of a cathedral, and as the Church became more militant, so too did the opportunity to raise young boys into paladins arise. As the Paladins were known to be equivalent to nobles in status, Claire thought it best to commit her child to the Church, and life seemed to sort itself out.

But the Master demanded that she do one last experiment. So begins our tale.

"I said I love the fantasy of being great; actually being great requires a great deal of work."

Man. Thinker. Wayward. Free.

Jack Cunningham is all of those things at heart, as he was born through-and-through a nomad under a band of traveling performers. His mother : a witty lyricist. His father : a practiced laborer, and a career burglar. As such, Jack was raised without a sense of proper ownership and common sense, seeing how he found it more fit to take from whoever he thought didn't deserve whatever they had and share with people he liked.

While his streak of creativity and judge of character would have lent him a great future at running a company or being an inventor, his immediate dislike and misunderstanding of authority would prevent him from functioning properly in any normal sort of schooling, much to the chagrin of his parents that wanted to settle down. His younger siblings all turned out much more tame than he was, as they were raised with kind uncles and aunts and all sorts of friendly adults.

In spite of these issues, though, Jack did find a niche to fulfill. In one of his adventures outside the town of Bounty Heights, he stumbled on a cave where he found a sorcerer of sorts, which he mistakenly labeled as a wizard. Though he was initially threatened by the mage, he stuck around, and his inner curiosity got the better of him. As he had neglected to read and write in his earlier years, the young 12 year old stole a few scrolls to study, and he eventually picked up the alphabet, words, and grammar with some minimal help.

This was, in fact, how he learned how to write a spell before he could his own name. Seeing the potential, the mage decided to become his Master, and Jack Cunningham soon became an apprentice to the necromantic arts. His lack of discipline and rigor, however, barred him from anything beyond copying a few scrolls and rewriting older documents from texts of antiquity. His progress only became slower as his writing skill was noticed by his parents, and after much arguing with them, was forcibly enrolled to be a ghostwriter for the Adventurer's Guild. He fit in well enough, but was barely worth the amount of trouble he caused ditching his job.

When Jack became 15, his father was found guilty of stealing from the Guildmaster, so as to sell information off to rival guilds. The money was, of course, for Jack's younger siblings and their continued education at the Church, so Jack had to step in while his father was incarcerated at the City. Soon, he took up adventuring himself at the age of 16, and learned how to fight with a longsword.

A year passed before Jack received news of his father's death, due to an outbreak of some sort of plague in the city. His mother became recluse, and disappeared into the mountainside the following year at the exact date of her husband's death. While searching for her, Jack found his Master's cave, and his mother as well. While visibly shook, she was safe, though his Master was paranoid that someone else had discovered his hideout. Jack decided to continue keeping his promise as thanks for keeping his mother safe, and his mother recovered under the support of the Church and the friendly convent there.

Mrs. Cunningham eventually became a nun, leaving Jack with the house as his siblings went on to become Paladins (1 boy and 2 girls). Jack left the guild and returned to his Master, so that his body would be used in experiments as compensation.

Four years pass, and Jack was but a distant memory to Bounty Heights. He had become a mercenary to continue to provide for his aging Master, and continued his pursuits of magic and Necromancy so that he could further his predecessor's work.

Fate, however, had other plans.