Alice the Wanderer

Alice was thrust into the care of the Sacred Order in her early teens. One of several daughters from a poor, minor noble family with no heir apparent, Alice’s parents sent her away to avoid having to find her a husband, and then a dowry to pay him with. lncapable of affording the attention of quality suitors, they saw the Order as a place where Alice would be safe, as well as away from the sons of lesser families. Though it was a decision they made out of care, Alice resented them. Her faith in Lumaya was strong, but she had no particular love for the Order. Once there, her strong character, independent mind, and curiosity gave her a rebellious streak, and she was frequently disciplined for refusing to obey instructions and asking questions out of turn. Alice’s only solace in the Order was the Eternal Citadel’s many libraries and her fighting lessons. The first sated and grew her desire to learn more of the world. Her combat training sweated out her anger and prepared her for all the exciting dangers of Teleria when she would, one day, be able to venture out and experience them. One of the many places Alice learned about was Durham Forest. Huge, impenetrable, full of monsters and predators bizarre and ferocious; it was a land of wonders to her. She longed to see it. What was the best way to see the world? How best to use her talents? How best to live a fulfilling life? These were questions Alice asked herself every day. A life tied to churches and chapels would bore her. The discipline and regimens of being a soldier would restrict her. She wanted to travel, learn, investigate. She chose to be an inquisitor. This decision changed her life in ways she never anticipated. lt set her on the path to hunting the Queen of Hearts, a Knight Revenant she hadn’t heard of at the time. It began with Alice interrogating a K’Lethi cultist with a red heart tattoo on the palm of his hand. His cryptic answers to her questions led her to books, which led her to cultists who led her to more books. She dug deeper when she read familiar family and place names in histories of obscure Kaerok nobility, of incidents of murder and exile, and family trees in crumbling tomes heavy with dust in forgotten, spider-infested manors and archives. Alice cried tears of rage when finally the connections came together. The Queen of Hearts was once going to be Queen of Kaerok but was spurned days before her wedding to the then prince regent. She had her hand in the destruction or ruination of many of her would-be husband’s descendants, as well as family members of his queen. One of those families was Alice’s, ultimately cast out of the court and stripped of swathes of their ancestral lands. Alice committed herself to destroying the Queen of Hearts that day, and over several years devoted herself to rooting out K’Lethi Cultists and their Knight Revenant masters. She burned nest after nest of them and kept hangmen in employment all over Kaerok, but her crimson quarry eluded her. That was until she captured the White Rabbit, a foul-mouthed, crude Demonspawn who served the Queen of Hearts for reasons known only to itself. Alice suspected it was purely out of selfishness. He proved her right. After an embarrassingly short interrogation, in which the leporid Demonspawn bit and kicked, swore and spat and defecated, he revealed that the Queen was in the midst of carrying out a new plan to take the crown of Kaerok she had been denied so many years before. She was heading into Durham Forest, to ally with or steal from the Insect Lords who lived at its heart. Alice’s heart pounded with excitement. Finally. She had never lost her fascination with the forest or her longing to go there. Now was her chance. Knowing through her work to bring down the Queen of Hearts that Durham Forest had played a vital role in the Cult of K’Leth’s dark origin tale made delving into its shadowy depths even more enticing. Alice had no idea what to expect, and that only made the adventure even more exciting. Durham lay but a few week’s march to the north, and she set off at once, her fluffy, long-eared prisoner strapped to her back.