Amber Banehollow

https://www.deviantart.com/francotieppo

### Appearance

Amber is 7 and a half feet tall with pale skin, brown eyes and long, messy black hair. She constantly looks tired with heavy bags under her eyes. Her usual outfit is comprised of a red turtleneck underneath a black double-breasted coat, black dress pants and leather riding boots. She also wears a pair of black leather gloves and wears a wide-brimmed black hat on an especially hot day.

Underneath her gloves, several scars cover her hands from years of working with various knives and small tools.

### Personality

Most people wouldn't be able to tell you what Amber's personality is like, as she tends to stay away from groups of people. Those that have had the chance to speak to her would tell you that she looks like she's constantly on the verge of falling asleep, the heavy bags under her eyes and slurred speech only reinforcing the notion. Despite this, she is actually almost constantly on high alert for danger, spotting things that would easily go under most people's radar.

She is also very blunt, often causing offense to those around her with how plainly she tells them, without a shred of remorse for what she says and how she says it.

She is also very meticulous, always making sure that anything she does is done to the best of her ability, never going for shortcuts or going the easy route to hasten the process of anything.

### Early Childhood

Amber was born and grew up in a wealthy family in the city
of Cloudcross, a city where the wealthy sectioned themselves away from the
crime-infested lower levels of the city, and where her remarkable intelligence
and ability to read people made it easy for her to get accepted into the most
prestigious of schools. Her mother, Eleanor Banehollow, is the owner of a
wealthy merchant business while her father, Aggron Banehollow, is a retired
soldier who spent his spare time hunting animals in the outskirts of town.
Amber spent most of her time around her father while her mother was off
working. She grew to idolize him, and when she was old enough to tackle the
responsibility, her father showed her his study, which was decorated in rows
and rows of badges. On the walls were swords, and in cases below them were various
knives. To the young Amber, this was the coolest thing imaginable. Amber loved
her mother, but the few times she'd visited her at work, she was bored stiff.
When she wasn't supervising the different branches of her business, she was
being rudely addressed by unsatisfied customers with a shockingly poor grasp on
manners and etiquette. Amber would gladly choose her father's lifestyle over
her mother's any day on the week.

                On her
13th birthday, despite her mother's visible look of disapproval, her father presented
her with her very own knife. It was a small balisong, but she cherished the
admittedly dangerous gift. Her father made sure to meticulously teach her how
to properly and safely use and maintain it. Amber listened to her father's
lessons attentively, the information easily seeping into her mind. She was
excited and eager to use the thing, but she saw the value in how best to avoid
losing a finger when flipping it open. For the rest of the day she was admiring
her new gift, trying to find excuses to use it, whether to open a parcel or to
cut some twine. By the time she was 14, the knife had been nicked and scratched
in a thousand places. And Amber was so talented with it that she would show off
to her friends at school, doing elaborate flips that made the knife seem like
it was flying in the air. Not only did this trick impress her peers, Amber
could very easily deduce that it was also why she was never bullied in school.

                                Sometimes,
when her father was out on his weekly hunts, she would sneak into his study,
fiddling with the lock of the cabinets and taking out one of his many knives in
order to examine them up close. Some were simple and incredibly sharp, while
others were elaborately designed ceremonial daggers. Each blade was amazing in
their own right in her eyes. She was almost caught by the house maid a few
times, but her quiet feet and steady mind ensured that she would be safe from
detection.

                At 15,
her father took her out on her first hunt. And although she wasn't yet ready to
take a beast down herself, her father was impressed with her ability to sneak
through the brush undetected. Amber would help her father spot the game, her
eagle eyes easily finding their hiding spots. Then, after his father's precise
and lethal shot, they would carry it home together. His father taught her how
to use the knife to skin the animals, putting every part of the animal to use.
Much like any other activity that required the use of a blade in hand, she took
to it quickly.

                A year
later, her father returned home with an odd item. It had a smooth, shiny barrel
that led to what looked like the handle of a crossbow. In her curiosity, she
asked her father what it was. He explained that it was a gun, a very uncommon
but highly useful weapon when subtlety has gone out the window. It was a gift
from an old friend of his during his time in the army, mostly for decorative
reasons as he admittedly had no idea how to use it. Amber, however, had
different plans. She poured over countless texts and manuals she managed to
scrounge up from the public library, spending many nights forgoing sleep in her
absolute fascination with the weapon. After what felt like a long and fruitless
endeavor, it finally clicked to her. The surprise on her father's face when she
took the buck down with his gift was worth the reprimanding she received
afterwards. But after a thorough talk between the both of them, her father
eventually relented and allowed her to use the firearm under heavy supervision.

### Joining the Academy

As her schooling came to an end, she sought to follow a
similar path to her father. And although her parents wanted her to choose a
career in business in order to pick up the family business, she instead chose
to join the guard due to her insatiable desire to enforce the letter of the  law. And while she did prefer physical
endeavors, she also excelled academically.

                Her
time at the academy was largely uneventful, until one day during her final
year, she was taking a shortcut through an alleyway after sneaking out for a
night of drinks. She could hear footsteps behind her. They were loud, clumsy steps.
Whoever was following her was fueled by adrenaline, and was doing a poor job of
containing it. She turned and was confronted by a very big man with a knife in
his hand and a mask covering his face. The knife was filthy and covered in
rust. Any man who took such poor care of his weapon was equally poor at
wielding it. Amber didn't bother to raise her hands in fearful surrender. She
stared at the man, holding eye contact. The man moved the knife closer to her
in an attempt to intimidate her, and his voice grew more aggressive but also
more panicked as he ordered her to raise her hands. Amber moved her gaze to the
man's knife, she only needed it to be a few more inches closer. And when it
did, Amber thrusted out her hand and twisted the would-be mugger's wrist which
forced the knife to drop from his hand. He then reached into her own pocket and
took out her balisong, flipping it open with one hand. And by the time the man
could have the chance to exclaim in pain, he felt the cold steel of a blade
against his throat. Amber informed him in a calm and measured tone how easily she
could kill the man by pressing with only the slightest amount of extra force in
order to drive the knife into an artery and then nothing in the world would be
able to stop him from bleeding out within a matter of minutes. A puddle started
to form under the coward's legs as he begged for his life. Purely out of disgust
of the man's display, Amber decided to let him free. And as the man ran away in
fear, she merely took his knife and wiped the sweat off of it with the sleeve
of her jacket before sneaking back into the barracks.

### The Death of a Partner, and her Subsequent Penance.

And not long after the incident revolving the attempted mugging, she graduated from the
academy with flying colors and finally became a part of the guard. She was very
sincere about protecting people, but not long after she was stationed in her
area, she realized her job had a lot of contradictions. Though the guard risked
their lives to protect the people, the people were not grateful, always trying
to get out of punishments and sometimes even accusing the guards of not doing
their job. And even the criminals who have been put away by the guard could
easily be released if they had enough money.

                One
night while on patrol, she came across a man working with a prostitute. The man
said that he and the girl were just trying to help the girl's father repay his
debts, and quietly handed Amber some money as a bribe. She was conflicted as to
whether or not he should have accept the money, but reasoned with herself that
the streets were full of people like him and even if he did send the man to
jail, he could have easily paid off the lawyer and judge to get out, and that she
was still protecting the streets by accepting the money.

                A few
nights later, a thief was reported breaking into an old man's house. Amber and
his partner arrived on the scene and split up to try and trap the thief. As she
entered the house, she stumbled upon the thief who was trying to escape through
a window. It turned out the thief was the same man Amber had accepted the bribe
from. The man recognized him and tried to reason with him that if she let him
go, the man wouldn't cause any more trouble, but Amber was adamant that he was
arresting the man. The man said that if Amber arrested him, then everyone would
know that she accepted bribes. As he talked, Amber became more and more swayed
by his reasoning, not knowing that the man began to unsheathe a knife, the
first time her keen senses failed her. Before he could stab Amber, her partner
burst in, slashing the man across the chest, but also getting stabbed in Amber's place. Soon after the death of her partner, she retired from the guard, unable
to cope with her partner's blood on her hands.

                Soon after, she became a
private investigator in order for her to earn a living and to support her alcoholism. She now takes odd jobs from random people who need something or someone found. That or spending countless nights at bars drinking her problems away.