Vera Meri

## BACKSTORY

Born in a small camp deep within the forests of Xian, Vera was born into a clan of human warriors that came from a long line of honor and skill. She lived an extremely humble life.. Helping her mother and father chop wood and hunt for food for her first 10 years of life, which got her used to living in the wilderness, and hunting animals, as well as training her to learn how to properly swing a weapon whilst chopping down trees. At the age of 13, as per her clan's proper tradition, her training to be a proper fighter began.

She was given a longsword, which she still uses until this day. The weight of the sword was a bit heavy for a 13 year old, but with enough training on how to hold and swing the damn thing, she was able to control herself. First, she began using wooden sticks to spar against her fellow young trainees, where sure, she got her ass beaten a few times, but after enough bruises and cuts, she was able to develop her own style. She used her body weight and sword technique to overpower her enemy, using her front foot to hook around the knee, dead-legging the enemy, and defeating them as they fell.

This caused the whole camp to dislike her for a while, as it wasn’t seen as an honorable way to fight. She explained her way of fighting to her trainers and fellow trainees, and it was soon accepted, as it would give an upper hand without reaching forbidden levels of instantly winning, as you’d have to be in the perfect position to finish the fight.

As she grew more and trained even harder, eventually finishing to the point where she went under her clan’s trial of becoming a proper warrior, as well as a proper grown woman. She was knocked out, taken by horse and carriage, and dropped off in the outer reaches of the forest, and forced to find her way back to the camp. As she woke up with a bumped head, she used her barebones land navigation skills, using the sun, clouds, and moss on trees to find her way onto a game trail that her clan used. There, she used a pretty sturdy branch she found as a blunt weapon in case of any encounters she would have.

As she entered 2 of 3 allowed days of her trial, she encountered a beast that was a bit larger than her, with nothing but her blunt branch, she dug in, and readied herself for battle. The beast was almost like a bull, charging at her. Seeing as she was without any armor or her sword, she’d have to get creative. She’d then get ready to swing the branch back and go for the beast’s knees.. And then- BIFF! She was too late to react, getting sent flying into a river, landing

within the murky waters. The current then swept her away, and she was forced to cling onto the floating branch for survival. She would float for hours as her extremely bruised rib cage healed, occasionally blacking out, coming inches from going underwater multiple times.

At sundown, she found herself hitting the shoreline right outside of her camp… She stumbled to her feet, slamming down the branch behind her as she climbed out, holding her bleeding side, stepping into her camp’s grounds.. That was only the first part of her trial. Now, she had passed, yes, but.. The clan had to decide who would get the priest’s blessing, using only what they found in the forest. So, seeing as she was only able to use her hands, she and the rest of the trainees undergoing the trial went into the shallow parts of the river. Whilst she had her hands, the other three had branches, and one even had a spear of sorts. As the fight began, she ran off to grab a stone, using the strength of her muscles, and a damn rock. Soon, everyone was going at it. The male with the spear rushed her, trying to jam the spear into her torso. But, Vera wasn’t having any of it. She took the stone and threw it at the male’s head, knocking him out cold, seeing as she didn’t have any intentions to actually kill the boy.

She grasped onto the spear, watching the two others slam branches into each other, one cracking the skull of the other, unfortunately killing the trainee on the losing end.

Now, it was a one on one.. She had a spear, and the female in front of her had two sharpened sticks, which were basically wooden swords. She was then attacked, clearly having the lower hand with only one weapon. She tried to block, which was successful, but then got smacked in the liver with the other, causing Vera’s body to just collapse with pain. She landed in a deeper part of the water, being carried away about 5 feet, before she stumbled back to the coastline.

This sparked her anger, and her desire to survive and fight. So, she rushed through the rushing waters of the river. She was then soon within inches of her opponent, swinging the spear as if it were a club, slamming it into her enemy’s head, causing her to collapse in a daze. She then lifted up her spear and spiked it into the ground, a hair away from her opponent’s head.

At the age of 18, she was then given her armor, blessed by the priest and sent on her way.

After a few years of sitting around and helping with minor jobs, Vera has grown tired of sitting around, and is now starting her own order at the age of 27.