Upbringing

Nikta was born some 1000 years ago (845), in the shadow plane, like so many of her fetchling brethren. Their ancestors had fled here, an age ago. For 23 years, they lived semi-nomadically, as travelers of sorts, wandering in the hushed valley in quiet lands.

Born to Darius and Mina Hedayat, Nikta spent much of her life travelling from town to town, settling in outskirts of towns, and wilderness outcrops. In the quiet lands, her clan had made a home for themselves, yet not one without danger– an endless abberations and undead, the lost and the lonely, horrid creatures made of shadow and vileness roamed the valleys they called home.

This danger presented itself at many times throughout Nikta's life. On one such foul day, her parent's closest friends, the Sevims, found themselves devoured by a nightshade-led group of undead, orphaning their daughter Nesar. While around the same age (about 13), Nesar and Nikta had never gotten along. Nikta often found her thinking at odds with her Nesar, and many in her community. This was their home, yes, but it's danger claimed so many of their lives. Nikta, even in this time, yearned for a place where the sun might shine, promising a bright future for all of her clan, not just those lucky enough to survive. Nesar, on the other hand, saw beauty and value in even in the darkest and most dire parts of the shadow plane. Yet, as they grew up together, they found a respect in each others differences, a bond through their shared upbringing, and, over the years, they fell in love.

To her clan, her father, Darius, served as a protector, a figure of stability and comfort, whilst her mother, Mina, served as a source of inspiration and hope. With the constant pressure and unreleting danger of undead aberrations, Nikta and Nesar sought to take up her aging parent's mantle, and serve as new respective sources of safety and hope.

Yet, there was one danger she, nor the other stalwarts of her community, could ever have been prepared for: the Kytons. At first, these Kytons were a distant whisper. Echoes of threats in faraway places. Folk had been calling the quiet lands the blood-soaked lands, but the rivers of blood had not reached Nikta's community... not yet.

Invasion

There was no shortage of danger and hardship before the Kytons, but it was nothing to compare to the sadistic cruelty they reveled in. For the Kytons, pain and suffering, joy and beauty were indistinguishable. The world was a tapestry for their twisted torment.

Nikta knew that the Kyton's expansion and increased aggression would only continue; something had to be done. But what could be done? These blood-soaked lands were her home. Their home, even as its lands and people were being twisted and corrupted for the chain devils' pleasure.

At first they tried the temple-city of Kirima, hoping it's high, cliffside walls and denser population would be enough to keep them safe. It wasn't. The kytons preyed on people's desires and fears alike– they promised pleasure and delivered pain. They would drive a society into disarray and then consume it's rotten parts in orgasmic delight. Such is what her tribe learnt, in the hardest of ways. Many of them never made it out of that city, the first of many losses to come.

In the evacuation, her mother, ever the source of hope, had refused to abandon the wounded. Mina stayed until the last moments to heal the injured so they might escape, just as Darius stayed by her side to shield them. The doors flew open, overrun by augurs and cantors. An evangelist hovered in, idly behind.

Go! Don't look back! Be their shepherd! Be their shield !

It was in that horrifying moment Nikta first heard the call of the Changebringer, just as Nesar heard the call of The Lawbearer. She Who Makes the Path promised Nikta a path to change, a road to prosperity, just as She Who Holds the Scales promised Nesar peace and stability. Nikta convinced Nesar that this future lay elsewhere, that they must venture beyond the shadow plane. Nesar, who always had been the better speaker, then convinced their clan to take to the roads, farther than they had ever taken them before. Nikta lead the way, putting her faith in the changebringer, as Nesar and the tribe put their faith in her.

The Changebringer promised Nikta and her people sanctity, freedom, a land away from here, a mirrored land where the sun shone and the birds sang. A doorway visualized in Nikta's mind, a pocket of Hashkanur at the end of a long and winding mountain pass.

Loss

For months, Nikta followed the radiant path The Changebringer laid before her. Traveling soft grounds, opaque lakes, enduring the bite of wind and rain, they marched in silence. And as they travelled, hundreds of miles from the hushed valley, the Kytons were never far behind.

Unbeknownst to Nikta and her tribe, some fifty miles back, Nikta's group had been spotted by a kyton augur– a mutilated sphere of tangled metal and flesh. Now, as they approached the chain of mountains leading to their promised escape, an apostle and their hunting party was waiting for them.

It was this moment, this massacre, this tragedy, where Nikta should have died. Entering the pass, the apostle lowered itself on a long chain from above, uttering foul words in it's abominable speech– words so profane they could tear flesh asunder. Ears split and skulls cracked as the traveling caravan fell to their knees, covered in a sanguine shower from their own veins.

Unthinking, with incredible initiative, Nikta rushed forward with blessed swiftness, tumbling through and driving her spear forward with all her might. Black ichor splattered the blood-soaked scree. The apostle flew back, yanking down from the heavens it's chain which collapsed in the form of a sword. In a moment Nikta's face was split open, her eyes drowning in a sea of her own carmine blood.

She would have perished there. She should have perished there. The apostle whipped it's chain sword into the air, ready to drive it down and slice Nikta in two. Nikta scrambled back, crying out something she never had the chance to say enough, but the blow didn't come. A hissing groan erupted as the chainsword slashed against a sudden barrier. Nikta found herself surrounded, wrapped in a protective embrace.

Seizing the evanescent advantage of the apostle's distraction, Nesar had rushed up behind Nikta, thrust her axe into the kyton's back, and tossed forward her protective cloak. Nikta gazed up at Nesar, their eyes meeting for the last time. The apostle's revenge was swift, the chained segments lashing out again, shredding the upper half of Nesar's face, and she collaped to the ground.

A hurricane of ravening anguish took over Nikta. Nesar could not die in vain. Ravening anguish turned into ravening desperation. Burning sunlight erupted from Nikta's blade as she singled out the apostle, smiting it in the Changebringer's name. The chains rattled to the floor, followed by the thud of its mutilated body.

Nikta rushed to Nesar, barely in time as she coked her last breath. She had given her life to save her. Why?

I saw your light. It was so beautiful. Lead us to it.

Nesar's hand reached out blindly. Nikta placed in it her cheek.

I will, I promise.

I love you.

She never got to say it again.

Migrants

The days were somber. Nesar's loss weighed heavy for many days. Yet hope remained. None had seen such a kyton fall before. The tribe placed all their hope now in Nikta, and this was a weight, bearing heavier still, upon her shoulders.

Thanks to Nesar's sacrifice, Nikta and her clan would make it out of the shadow plane, making it through the mountain pass and crossing a howling desert to an abandoned temple. Deep wthin, a black lake parted no light, save for the speckled dots of a hundred dead stars spattered across its surface. One by one, the tribe stepped through, emerging in its mirrored counterpart in the Ivory continent, on the material plane.

They had found the sun, but it's light offered them no pleasant warmth or comfort. It's harshness blistered their pallid skin. Strangers from a strange land, they were met with suspicion and distrust at every corner. At first, they tried the town of Arcadia, on the bottom edge of the desert splitting the Gesselie province in two. But when they told them where they had come from, they were thrown out and chased away, labeled shadow-spawn and unholy things.

Driven out in dead of night, Nikta could see fires burning to the south. A distant wind carried screams of anguish, whilst the gusts seemed to pull her something. To the north. Yes, to the north she heard the call of change. And so, exhausted, parched, and famished, Nikta's people were forced to brave the desert once more. In this plane, the sun burned even hotter still. Boils sprouted out on fetchling skin, which burnt and split under its unrelenting glare.

Out of food and out and water, the fetchling company's pace had slowed to a crawl. Many died to the blistering scorch. Indeed, they might all have perished there, but Nikta's faith was not for naught, or at least not yet, for out ahead of them came the crawling scarab-city of Izytar. More of a caravan at the time, Izytar was a giant beetle, whose reflective carapace could comfortably provide shelter for several dozen people and their belongings. While they surpassed this amount by some margin, Izytar and his protectors nonetheless fetched the fetchlings and brought them safely north of the desert.

The fetchlings had finally arrived at the northern coast, some fifteen miles from Port-Feraz, seat of power of the Gesselian province. Somewhat fearful of large cities, and remembering the less-than-warm welcome they received at Arcadia the fetchlings hitch a ride further west with some "merchants".

Pirates, indeed, they likely were, at least in the eyes of the draconian paladin-ruler Demeter. Word, indeed, had reached her of strange, pale folk coming out of the desert, conspiring amongst pestilential pirates and outlaws.

Outlaws, they might have been, but to the fetchlings, they showed mercy and understanding. Indeed, by this point, the fetchlings had not a dime to their name, and the outlaws, led by their captain– Lynch Callaghan.

Over the next few days at sea, in Callaghan, Nikta found a much-needed, if ephemeral friendship, a welcome change from all the hardships, and all the losses her journey had wrought. They spent nights talking, sparring, and staring into the unknown ahead. He even taught her to shoot the strange and crude weapon at his hip– an invention of his, or so he claimed– a crude, double barreled flintlock pistol.

If it wasn't for her people, her duty, faith, obligation, and promise– that is to say, in another life– Nikta just might have stayed with him. But such a thing was not in the cards, not even for a moment's hesitation. Nikta would find a home for her people. To this end, Callaghan once again proved his quality– directing and sailing them to the coastal goblin-town of Yam'Nebekh.

Ruin

Arriving at the goblin-town of Yam'Nebekh, hope well and truly began to settle in, for a time. The inhabitants were welcoming, themselves being outsiders and having been shunned throughout much of the Ivory Coast. But even here, life was far from perfect. For over a year now, the goblins of Yam'Nebekh had been besat upon by hired mercenaries, extracting an increasingly exorbitant tithe for the local lord, the voracious August Gesselio.

Hearing of this, Nikta boiled with frustration. After all this hardship, after travelling hundreds of miles, after shifting between planes, the chains of subjugation remained ever-present still. This could not stand. Seeking to earn a place for the fetchling-folk amongst the goblinoid of Yam'Nebekh, to do right by her newfound brethren, she vowed to set things right. Over the next few weeks, she and her tribe helped train the goblin-villagers in self-defense. They put up barricades, sharpened spades into spears, and notched flinted sticks into arrow and dart.

The next time the mercenaries came, the goblin and fetchling folk refused to pay. Intimidated by the bolstered numbers and newfound show of force, the mercenaries were dissuaded, for the moment, vowing to return in a fortnight. And so, in exactly a fortnight, return they did, bolstered in number and supply, with their lord himself in tow, demanding what was rightfully his, by gods-given right of his name and title.

I know a god, and she spits on your title, and curses your name.

A quick battle ensued. Men's bones cracked like falling twigs, their skin shearing like wet parchment. Lord Gesselio's forces fell like rain on stone, a mere trifle compared to the aberrations of the shadow plane.

Nikta declared the village under her protection, and that she would not stand for such flagrant exploitation. Until she saw reason to otherwise, she declared, Yam'Nebekh would pay no tithe, and pledge to no lord. A blubbering mess without his men to protect him, Lord Gesselio fled– and Nikta let him: murdering him, however avaracious and predatory he might be, would have been anathema to her values.

While the village and fetchlings celebrated, Nikta spoke to one of the villagers– Ro'klein, who had been particularly brave during the battle. He told her of a nearby temple to the Changebringer, whom he too was devoted to. Having never been to a temple, let alone meeting another follower of the Changebringer, Nikta and Ro'klein decide to go together in the morning, to offer their thanks for the change she has brought them both. When she returned to the village, Nikta would finally bury Nesar.

Far to the east, in Port-Feraz, word had reached the Duchess of what transpired. The same pale folk, cooperating with a goblin bandit-village to stage a rebellion against her second-cousin-once-removed. She dispatched her most vicious lieutenant, Pauline Trusseau.

Some three days later, Nikta and Ro'klein were on their way back to the village. But something was wrong. A dark smokestack arose from the village, still some hours ahead, and the wind carried with it an ill omen.

When they arrived, no goblin-song nor fetchling-tale echoed throughout the streets. Instead, an eery, deafening silence filled their ears. An inky void of dread swelled within Nikta, as she look around and saw carnage.

Ro'klein rushed to his family abode. Moments later, a cry of loss and anguish. Nikta let out her own, so pained and tortured the very ground seemed to quake beneath the magnitude of her suffering. She collapsed to her knees, and stayed there, unmoving for the entire day. After all they had been through. All she had promised. It had come to this.

They trusted her. They saw her light. Changebringer? Is this the change she was promised? The future her parents died for? The the justice change Nesar died for?

Justice. How was this just? Why is she is the one left alive? The same failure, the same pompous, self-assured fool, blinded by a misguided faith in a goddess that has forsaken her? Whose choices had led her people to nothing but slaughter and ruin ?

But her people would have justice. In change, she had failed them. But she could not stand to fail Nesar again. She would have her justice, one way or another. They all would.

Justice

One by one, Nikta began to bury each of the fetchlings and goblins, their charred and mangled corpses frozen in agony. An agony she caused by being good. She repaired damaged houses, and ruined roads. She burnt the rubble, so it might serve as a calling to whatever butcher had come here. And come they did.

Some three days later, a scout patrol– drawn by the trail of smoke in a village that should have been "neutralized"– found her.

Citizen. This village of outlaw scum has been neutralized. You need not bother yourself here.

Nikta's purpled eyes darkened and yellowed for the first time. The soldiers stumbed back, penetrated by her intimidating glare.

She's one of them !

Without second thought, they attack. It was over as soon as it started. Nikta threw her spear in one, and her throwing knives at two more. They fell to the ground dead. The patrol leader, bearing a heavy shield mustered his courage, proclaiming

In the name of Demeter Gesselio, surrender yourself !

Nikta snarled

I spit on your Demeter Gesselio, and curse her name !

Reclaiming her spear, it began to glow, emitting a burst of radiant flame, eviscerating the patrol leader in an instant. The last scout fled, but Nikta threw her cape– Nesar's cape– which wrapped itself around him, tripping him to the ground. Nikta pressed the spikes of her boots into his back

Tell your Demeter Gesselio that Nikta Hedayat awaits her, and that mine shall be the last face she sees.

And so Nikta continued her work. Burning more rubble. Burying more bodies. All the while, voices of the dead, the dead she had failed, echoed in her mind.

Lead us to your light

What light? A light that burnt and blistered their skin? In a land that traded agony for cupidity?

Be their shepherd

Shepherd? She was a sheep, a blind one that led its fellow mutton to the slaughter. And what a good sheep she had been.

Good. Her goodness made her spare that avaricious lord. Her mercy let him exact his revenge. Her righteousness got everyone that depended on her killed. Her parents. The goblins. Her tribe. Nesar.

These thoughts, at last, were interrupted. the distant shaking of steel boots on cracked mud. Ro'klein ran up to warn her.

They're coming! They're here.

Nikta bent down to face the last person she had left

Run, Ro'klein. Run far away. Run, and never look back. I'm sorry.

Ro'klein protested, until Nikta physically threw him back

RUN ! Get out of here !

And so he ran, until just out of sight. Nikta did not want him to see what would come next, but he did.

When they arrived, Nikta was in the midst of her work. She didn't look at them until they had her surrounded. The work was almost done now. Just two corpses left. One, that had been wrapped in a silken sheet, gently reposed, and carried from another plane. And another, whose death was yet to come.

The mad scorcher of Yam'Nebekh, amongst the fierces lieutenants of the Gesselian dynasty had arrived. A purpled crown glinted atop her head, as long strands of greyed hair covered a gaunt, almost skeletal face.

You've failed. And now, you'll die.

Nikta proclaimed. She looked up, and addressed the dozens of soldiers accompanying their lieutenant:

Is the fear of one sole fetchling so great, to warrant all this? Does the sight of me inspire such tantalizing fear within you you must cower behind an entire squadron?

Her goading was of no effect. Immediately, five soldiers were on her. An instant later, they fell like raindrops upon pavement.

Common soldiery, why die for such a coward who will not even herself fight for your cause? This is a last mercy, for you to abandon this madness and leave, to seek change within yourself.

An acidic pestulance burned in Nikta's mouth as she evoked the word change, and a scowl of contempt overtook her face. The soldiers did not listen. Very well. They had their chance.

Ro'klein! Run !

Blood was spilled unti the cobbled street-stones ran crimson red. Her spear cut through men like a knife through butter. How many, Nikta couldn't say. Their lives meant nothing to her. As each man fell, her eyes remained transfixed on a single figure: Pauline Trusseau, architect of Nikta's ruin.

At last, fear took hold of the scarcely remaining soldiery, and Pauline Trusseau was left with no choice but to engage. Two wooden manequins materialized themselves beside her, before being illusory transfigured into her likeness. All three of them lifted up from the ground, like marionettes on a string. One by one, the strings were cut down, until this deathly dance returned to a duet once more.

They traded blows, as Nikta slowly wore Pauline down– what started as a look of contempt turned into frustration, and frustration into fear– a fear compounded by its complete absence in Nikta, for Nikta had no desire to get out of this alive. Pauline's eyes flared a fickering blue as an arc of lightning rushed forth, charring Nikta's shoulder, just as Nikta's spear erupted in a burning glow, aiming to smite this apostle of avarice. Nikta charged, as Pauline let out an onslaught of flaming bursts, charring and blistering Nikta's hands and arms as she narrowly avoided their blasts. As Nikta finally closed distance, Pauline Trusseau flew backwards, as if yanked on a string. She cackled, out of reach of the desparate Nikta. Nikta threw her spear, and would have skewered the wretch, save for a reactionary shield, shattering the spearpoint and sending the shaft clattering uselessly towards the ground. Pauline Trusseau cackled maniacally.

All around Nikta, the flames crackled and roared. Something boiled, snapped inside her. She reached to her back, arms clasping around the chainsword. She screamed, words foul and abyssal as chained blade-segments whipped out into the air, wrapping themselves around Pauline's neck. Skin and muscle tore straight off the bone as Nikta heaved her corpse down, a now-skeletal-head cracking on the ground.

The few remaining soldiers, who had watched, frozen in fear locked panicked eyes with Nikta. their hands quivered above their swords, as their feet took flight.

They would have attacked me

Nikta told herself, as her throwing knives protruded from the backs of three fresh corpses lying on the pavement. Knowing she had committed murderous anathema, Nikta felt the snap of the thread connecting her to Avandra's light. And in that darkness, she welcomed it.

With the men and lieutenant of Gesselio dead, it was time for Nikta to complete her grim work. No thoughts or voices echoed in her head. Nikta had but a single purpose now. Well and truly alone, she finished digging a final grave, deeper than all the others. She cleaned the chain sword, and lay it within. Standing atop, she clasped the last of her throwing knives. Having failed to bring her people their change, she would give them their justice, one way or another. With her final breath, Nikta held the knife up to her chest, and fell into her lover's grave.

Rebirth

In 1907, Nikta Hedayat is reborn. The millenium that has passed has finished her work for her, and she is fully buried underground. Instinct fights against will, as, against her own desires, she crawls her way out.

Alive? Why am I alive?

she wonders. Her armour is much too heavy for her frame, which has shrunk significantly. Her skin feels... less corporeal than before. The ends of her hair turn into whisps of smoke. She can sense the passage of time, but not how long. There's a deafening silence inside of her. An emptiness. A void. The thread of change that she had severed now seems to have vanished entirely. In its place, a new thread tugs her forward, leading her away to the south. She glances at the grave. The hilt of the chainsword gleams out from the dirt. She leaves it, and follows the thread.

Nikta walks in silence. She doesn't know how long. She doesn't know why. These early moments feel like a nightmare, interrupting a dark sleep she had so willingly embraced. Eventually, the thread brings her to a town, one that is entirely alien to her. As the dream begins to settle into tangible reality, her blood boils. Her existence is anguish. Why was she alive? Could she not have agency, even in her own death? Could her people not have justice? Perhaps justice, like change, was a falsehood. A bedtime story people tell themselves to be able to stomach their horrible reality.

Three bandits suddenly interrupt her thoughts, circling and eyeing her like lions surrounding a piece of fresh meat.

Why, hello there! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes

grunts one of them, the ugliest and most gruesome. The bandits go on to explain that this interaction can be done

... the easy way, where we become friends– isn't that lovely? Or.. the hard way, where we don't become friends. And that one's even lovelier.

The beads of Nikta's yellowed pupils gleam harshly against the vacuous black of her sclera.

I had friends once. I killed them all.

Quite the feisty one we have here. What a pleasure.

Enough words. Dansons, alors !

Death becomes her. Weaponless, she grabs the hands of the first one who tries to stab her, wresting the dagger from his grip and gutting him with it. The other pulls a gun, but she's on him, slicing his throat before he has the chance to pull the trigger. She grabs the gun, chuckles, whips around and pulls the trigger. The third bandit falls dead to the ground.

She glances at the weapon again. It reminds her of Callaghan. A fleeting moment of joyful recollection is quickly soured as, swept away by a crashing wave of anguish, culpability and regret. This can't be real. She must have her agency. She shall not be the one who gets to go on. This is just a nightmare. It's time to go back to sleep. And so, with her final breath, she puts the barrel in her mouth and pulls the trigger.