Millard Howlett

**Millard Howlett** (ハウレット・ミラード,*Hauretto Mirādo*) is one of the main protagonists in the on-going series. *Sin & Virtue: Rise of the Runelords.* Introduced in Chapter 12, He has served as the resident physician and medic of The Spears of Septimus, but after the events of The Betrayal at Ryuudenji, he walks alone.

## Biography

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Since he was a young boy, Millard Howlett was infatuated with the world around him.

“He wanted to be like the people from his books,” Scott Howlett said. “He wanted to learn. He loved history. He loved to read. He would read something five times. It was really his passion.”

Robert Howlett, 30, said his brother’s passion for learning was obvious to him and to their friends.

“He didn’t know how to read when he was a kid,” he said. “He was one of those children that learned by how he was educated.”

For the Howletts, Millard was a force to be reckoned with — he was a great student and a wonderful son.

“They had a very harmonious home,” said Brad Howlett, who lived with the family before moving to Slovetzia.

Robert Howlett said his brother was a generous person who didn’t think twice about asking friends and relatives for a few coins.

“Millard would pay for everyone in the house to go out for dinner,” Scott Howlett said.

If there was one aspect of his personality that Millard never changed was his humor.

“He was a funny kid,” Scott Howlett said. “He had a real dry sense of humor. If he was upset about something, it just came out of him. He would just go off on some tangent. It was a great source of entertainment.”

It was his humor that brought his friends, Mark Wenzel and Marty Marshall, to visit him when he was in hospital.

“He had me almost in tears laughing,” Marshall said. “He was the funniest man I knew.”

Mark Wenzel said his favorite memory of Millard was when he would tell jokes about “things that no one would talk about.”

“When he would tell these stories, I would laugh so hard I would cry,” he said. “I could tell Millard was really enjoying himself. He really enjoyed making people laugh. It was part of who he was.”

When his disease progressed, Scott Howlett moved to be with his brother.

“It was a living hell,” he said. “My mom has been very sick. She needed me to be with him.”

The older brother recalled one of the last times he saw his brother laughing and joking about something.

“He was in there, dying,” he said. “He was trying to make his last days of being alive as good as possible.”

Robert Howlett remembered his brother as an adventurous child who climbed trees, made forts and played in the woods.

“He was a little bit of a trouble maker as a kid,” he said. “He had a real knack for exploring.”

Then the fateful day came. Millard's Disease had finally come to claim his life.

Then an unknown man arrived with a cure.

Bogdan Stoica was 17 years old when he discovered Millard’s disease, which is rare and curable. He said it's one of the rarest diseases in the world.

Millard Howlett, an affectionate, mischievous kid, was kind and gentle,” Stoica said. “He was one of those people who when they walk into a room, you just gravitate towards. He had a real soft heart.”

Stoica said doctors warned him that people with the disease usually lived in a wheelchair and then passed away before they reached age 40.

Stoica’s research provided Millard with the treatment he needed to beat the disease.

From this day forward, Millard Howlett dedicated himself to science.

Howlett became an expert in everything from physics to cosmology. Howlett worked as a physicist at the **High Academy of Physics and Literature of Brittany** and collaborated with researchers around the world.

“He had a wonderful and innovative mind,” Stoica said. “He was a real trailblazer for science.”

The two would discuss science, technology and other topics for hours.

“It was just a fascinating intellectual conversation,” Stoica said. “My respect for him grew and grew. He was like an encyclopedia to me.”

In his free time, Howlett enjoyed reading and writing short stories.

“He was a great writer,” Stoica said. “He could convey complicated concepts and research in simple and enjoyable forms. People with no knowledge in the field could pick up one of his books and understand, while still retaining academical value to learned professionals.”

Robert Howlett said his family and friends are glad Millard is now at peace.

“This is probably one of the best things that could have happened,” he said. "While we certainly haven't seen much of him since he applied himself to academia, We are all grateful that he is not only alive, but has found his calling."

After making enough money to found his own publishing company, Millard sought more. He had written a great deal about the physics that made up the world around him, but he had never written about the world itself.

Millard set out with a small amount of his fortune, to set out and chart the strange land to the east. He left his Publishing company, "Howlett Prints" in the capable hands of his secretary, "Erminia Cowan".

This is where Millard enters our tale. Trekking to the easternmost port in aenwall, walking between the snow topped trees. As the sun began to go down, Millard noticed a cloaked figure, running from a group of greenskinned beasts.

## Abilities

Millard Howlett is the support of his group, though he can survive alone if he needs. His abilities include:

Stimulant Injection : A concoction found by Millard in his studies, While it does not strictly repair the body, it gives the body the feeling of repair, while strengthening the muscles. This combination allows one to push themselves beyond their normal limits, and to take more punishment without falling.

Crossbow Training : Having written a book on the development and design of the devices, Millard happens to be quite skilled in using one, while he hasn't had a huge deal of combat experience with it, in the words of his book, "The skill and effort needed is merely to point and fire, with at least a reasonable knowledge of physics, one can be quite a formidable combatant with such a device".

Basement Thievery : Able to destroy heavy and expensive metal and stone that is at low elevations.

Cartographer's Devices : As his journey was made with the sole intent of studying the land he currently resides in, Millard has a suite of cartography and mapmaking tools. While not all to useful in a combat situation, having knowledge of your location, position and environment can be invaluable.

## Relationships

Mose Miniri
"My ally, My friend. I joined the group by saving his life. After that act, he took it upon himself to secure me a place among them. We have nearly been killed so many times, and were even paralysed together, but he never broke."
"When I left my home in Albion to see the world, it wasn't really a choice. I don't like staying in one place, and the eastern lands interested me. In truth, the first real choice of my life, was risking it against those green beasts to save a stranger."
**"I truly hope that choice was not a mistake."**

Phineas B. Ritchie
"After we lost Gorald and the child, we mourned together. Neither one of us wanted to accept that my choice had killed them both... He couldn't accept they were dead, while I couldn't accept my decision had killed them."
"Now I know better. Phineas is no fool, and neither is Mose. They came telling stories of mutual magical dreams, claiming that Gorald and Rukodir were alive... I believe they planned it together, to keep me from blaming myself."
**"After their mutual betrayal, and my professors information, I see this "Dream" story in a new light. Was it a plan to keep me from blaming myself? or to keep me indebted to them? I can't see them doing something like that to me, but I also can't see them abandoning me as they did. Troubling."**

Gorald Jirvi
"The unspoken leader of our group. While he gives no commands or orders, he is the one we look to for the hard choices. He has talked me out of fatal mistakes, and shown compassion to those who deserved none. While I find him distant and hesitate to call him a friend, he is the one I trust the most.
**"Was my complete trust in Gorald a sign of his just nature, or had he the darkest heart, and he fooled me completely? Regardless of this new information, I simply cannot see Gorald as an evil man or an enemy. I will remember him as the man I knew, not as what he might have been."**

"Rukodir"
"The Lizard, The Trickster, The Child. The strange boy mystified me. I believed that leaving my own country to see the world alone was risky, but this child stowed away on the ship of strangers, alone. He was hidden for weeks, stealing our food and supplies until Gorald found him. We traded away our belongings to keep the boy alive and he followed us from that day forward. Rukodir... Did things. Unexplainable things. Dark things. While his mind and body is that of a child, I daresay he might have been capable of killing the whole crew had we not begged them to spare him." "His... Abilities however, did nothing to spare him from his fate. The image of him being mauled and eaten by those beasts still haunts my dreams."
**"Regardless of his crimes, his real past or his real crimes, Nobody deserves to die as he did. Is it wrong of me to hope I was tricked? To hope my professor's tales are true? If they are all murderous, treacherous brigands, then perhaps this one was not a child, and lived a long life before that day... I will mourn him all the same."**

Ianus Salvador
"I feel the most guilt over this member of our group. When I met him, I believed I was seeing a man at his lowest point. The bags under his eyes, the age on his face. The man rarely smiled. All he seemed do was blame himself or feverishly bury himself in his books. I was wrong. Ianus Salvador would fall much further before my eyes." "The storm. I begged him to stop, I told him he would surely die if he went on deck. He gave me this look. He understood my words, and accepted them. But he still went. I wanted to believe his decision and sacrifice was the reason we survived. But I'm a pragmatist. His sacrifice meant nothing. The only thing his determination and sacrifice caused was Mose's near-death."
"The shell that was Ianus after that day is seared into my memory. I helped feed and take care of him, but I am reminded of those empty, hollow, sightless eyes in my dreams constantly. I hoped one day that he might wake up. I made a gift for him. A strange artifact I had bought to study, wrapped in tar-soaked rags in consideration of his ailment. A gift for the man Ianus Salvador used to be."
"Then came my "Sacrifice". We snuck behind these would-be assassins, to take them by surprise. They had taken Ianus's shell hostage, and we found him there. When we entered the room, Mose warned us that we had triggered a trap, and the room would soon blow. They both left Ianus there. But I couldn't. The man had suffered enough. I couldn't let anything else happen to him, so I tried to pull him out. I failed. I almost died that day, I still have the burns to prove it. I want to believe my Sacrifice had meaning. But I know I am just like Ianus. The Gorald and Mose I know would never have abandoned Ianus like that. They never said anything to me, But I know. I never checked the room, didn't have to. The trap would have disarmed if I had left. My "Sacrifice" was just like Ianuses. Pointless.
**"I hear now that Ianus Salvador was possibly the worst man I have ever met.**
**That his list of sins were longer than even the gods could read. If this is true, was Ianus Salvador's "Sacrifice" merely an attempt to end his own life?**
**Had Mose risked his life just to unknowingly prolong the man's suffering? Was the mistake that haunts me actually the best thing I ever did for the man?**
**Did my mistake kill an innocent man, or give a monster the sweet release of death?**
**I don't think I'll ever know for sure."**