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Damora is a small township that lies in the southern region of the domain of Angalon. It is not an especially violent place but it does like upon the sea that the people of Angalon call the Vast and therefore attracts all manners of different folk from around the realm. However, it is mostly fisherman, mariners and whalers.

It can be a lucrative lifestyle for a street urchin, what with the crowds of travelers coming and going, some bound for the nearby cities of Fierabras or Ganelon while others voyage further north all the way to much larger places such as Esclabor or even Viktoron, the grand metropolis where the Queen of Angalon holds her throne.

Angalon is but one region of the continent of Airethe, though it is the most settled and populated, not to mention the most orderly and protected. Far to the northeast, it is said that the last remnants of the faerie dwell in the realm of Mystykar while to the southeast lie the desolate Frightlands that were devastated ages ago by the terrible invading Horogoth.

Into the rather structured society was born Alysandra, who has a tale of her own to tell and this is how it begins:

Alysandra was born to a relatively well off family and was well cared for most of her young life. However at the age of 7 everything she had known changed and the resourceful child was forced to live on the streets of Damora.

Alysandra had been with her friends the day that her parents' ship was lost on the waters of the Vast. It was intended that she should be with them but she had been ill the previous day and her mother believed that she was not yet well enough to join them. And so it was that young Alysandra became an orphan. Normally it would have fallen to her parent's siblings or even her grandparents to care for her but Alysandra had none to speak of. Her grandparents had died long before her own birth and her parents were both the only surviving children of their respective families.

The young blonde was there the day they buried the empty coffins but that was the last day she spent in Damora. She could not stay there any longer, with the pitying looks of the townspeople whenever she passed them. It was time for Alysandra to move on and find somewhere else to call home. For even at her young age she knew that Damora had nothing to offer her. She packed what she could carry into a backpack, some clothes, a necklace belonging to her mother and the maps her father had made of the land around Damora. No one noticed the child as she moved through the streets carrying her backpack, her father's goggles strapped to her head.

The allure of the great capital would surely appeal to any lost child. It is, after all, where wonders are born. Throughout Angalon, such conveniences as sleek steam powered locomotives and dirigible airships are commonplace. In fact, transit between cities is so rapid that most of the populace takes it for granted.

Even so, the majestic clockwork marvels such as the Bastion, a massive clock tower that also serves as the garrison for the fabled Riflemen of VIktoron, rises high above the Viktoros Palace, which is the urban residence of the Queen, and the grand halls of the Cardinal Council, where the many laws of the realm are drafted and ratified.

And Angalon is a land of laws. It is this alone, it is told by those who enforce these edicts, that allowed Angalon to recover after the Horogoth invasion had finally been driven back to the Frightlands and even further from Airethe. Here, those who engage in criminal activity are severely but mercifully punished. There are the Lawgivers, in service to the Cardinal Council, who serve as magistrates and judges to uphold the law while the Oathkeepers, soldiers that bear special blessings by the Council, enforce it. Because of this, the streets of most cities, and Viktoron in particular, are orderly and safe.

Also, boring, as the young Alysa soon found. Oathkeepers have the ability to detect lies even before they are spoken and Alysa has to spend much of her time avoiding them simply to prevent assignment to a work detail to 'teach her the value of the collective good'.

Still, there is a system of sewers and service tunnels beneath the city that are collectively known as the Underbelly but it is a dangerous and horrid place for the fully grown, let alone children. All manners of obscene appetites are allowed there and a pretty girl child such as herself can become easy prey.

In the end it may have been for the best that the Oathkeepers had finally caught Alysa rather than finding her body washed up upon the shores of the River Vayle. She may have been an experienced thief and a clever child but she would have been no match for the foulness that haunts the Underbelly.

Instead, Alysa was sent to one of the orphanage workhouses where children are taught a trade or a craft so they might benefit society. Being very gifted, Alysa was selected to begin training as a Stalker or thief taker.

Stalkers are those who are tasked with tracking and capturing fugitive criminals and it was thought that not only might Alysa put her skills to use in that regard but she might enjoy the thrill of the hunt. Nevertheless, it is her freedom she craves.

Dreward is a retired stalker, now an old man, who patiently guides his students on the path to which he had been assigned so long ago. In his own words, he had been 'a lost child, without direction or purpose' until the Lawgivers had placed him under the tutelage of another whose position he had since claimed as his own when his predecessor had perished.

It is a different art than the charlatan sleight of hand she had learned on the streets of Damora. Yet she excelled at them. The tests would range from Snatch the Rabbit, where she had to capture, alive and unharmed, the frightened animal as it darted around a hedge maze, or Follow the Forgotten Trail, a version of hiding and seeking where her newly acquired tracking proficiency would be employed.

Although the thrill of the hunt coursed through the young girl's veins she longed for something more. Unlike the citizens of Viktoron, her father's blood called to her, a sailor by trade he had spent most of the time she could remember sailing to the many cities along the Vast. It was this life that called to her now, urging her to gain her freedom so that she might travel the realm, ostensibly trading her skills as a Stalker for the relative comfort of the local inns.

It was with this in mind that Alysa became stronger, more adept at the skills that Dreward taught her, always managing to be among the first to pick up on a new skill and execute the required tasks with a swiftness and silence that almost rivaled her mentor. As the six months passed, young Alysa grew and had she remained in Damora it would have been noted that the young woman looked like her mother, long blonde hair with a hint of curl towards its ends, intelligent eyes as blue as the waters of the Vast and a mind like a steel trap, obviously a gift from her father.

Had it been otherwise, Dreward had explained, she might well have been sent aboard a seafaring ship but that, he maintained, would have been a waste of her talents. Asides which, aboard a vessel, discpline must be absolute and there is still too much of a wild spirit within her, he had said, to be a mariner like her parents. When they had been lost at sea, she lost more than her family; she lost her identity.

After half a year as a Stalker, Alysa had been given her first bounty as well as a partner, a rather troubled young man named Jothan. He had not been a thief like her but had, in fact, been responsible for harming other children. His zeal for causing harm notwithstanding, he did excel at his profession as much as Alysa.

Not a more unfortunate pairing could they have been as they were sent along the highways and roads of Angalon to search for those who would rob the honest folk of their coin or ravish any women they found unprotected.

They were furnished with ordinary horses, not the clockwork sort that are the fanciful possessions of the wealthy when they were not traveling by steam carriage. If Alysa proved herself, she could earn a position aboard one of the sleek, silvery locomotives that traveled by track across the rather open and rolling landscape. Until then, she had tolerate a partner whose penchant for cruelty was pronounced and whose boredom at a lack of activity she shared, though their mutual distractions varied wildly.

Jothan is fond of brothels, which are not entirely legal within the more lawful cities but can be found across the countryside, disguising their true merchandise with various other wares. On one occasion, Jothan returns to the inn where Alysa awaits, appearing very somber and rather angry. Not long thereafter, a band of citizens from the village arrive, demanding that he be turned over to their custody for assaulting and nearly killing one of the female entertainers at a local house of ill repute.

Refusing to surrender himself and with his wheel lock pistols in each hand, Jothan awakens Alysa and demands she assist him in quelling this 'filthy rabble what thinks they can arrest a Stalker!' He further adds that she is his accomplice, even if she was not present at the scene of the crime and reminds her 'if I swing, so'll you!'

Awoken by the villagers and coerced out of her bed by her partner's threats Alysa stands and advances , a murderous look in her eyes as she draws her own pistol. She knows that there are laws in place and that she must report Jothan to the authorities, but she also knows that should she attempt to fight her way out of this situation to do so she will hang as surely as he will. She also knows that should she turn on him to assist the villagers in what is surely an honorable pursuit the outcome will be no different for her.

Despite the fact that no matter the decision she makes here she will once again be on the run she knows what she must do. She closes the distance between them, the years of his cruelty ringing in her ears and flashing before her eyes as she presses the barrel of the gun to his chest and pulls the trigger sending a remorseless metal ball into the heart of her former partner.

Leaving him to be discovered by someone else she gathers her things, her pistol shoved haphazardly into her belt as she slips down the stairs of the inn and out the door, avoiding as much as possible the gathering crowd and freeing her horse, the pair taking off like shadows in the blackened sky. The young woman has finally gained the freedom she so desperately craves.

or the crime of executing her own partner, Alysa knows she is destined for the gallows, regardless of how justified the murder may have been. The law that had protected Jothan while he committed his brutal acts would surely not do so for her. Even if she were able to convince the lawgivers that she had litle other recourse and that Jothan had been responsible for a dozen heinous actions, even if she were exonerated, she would simply be yoked with another partner and forced to continue this life of which she wished no part. There would not be any further opportunities for Alysa in this profession and, besides, by this time she had been inspired. So far, they had actually encountered very few engaged in crosstrades on the road and that provides an opening for an enterprising woman of her skills. Perhaps she could earn enough to purchase her own vessel and live the life of her parents but Alysa could prove more ambitious.

Not only did the realm of Angalon boast a fleet of fine maritime ships but also those that sail through the skies, tethered to a great dirigible. The majority of these were used for trade but she had heard tales of airborne pirates and explorers to distant, exotic lands.

Before that could happen, however, Alysa would need to build both her fortunes and her reputation.

The enterprising young woman rode through the night, putting great distance between herself and the scene of her crime, stopping only when her horse could no longer continue without rest. She found herself in one of the large forests that grew between the towns. She knew from her months of hunting the very type of creature she sought to become that places such as these were always prime territory for bandits and it was here that Alysa would set up her empire.

She walked her horse off the road and into the trees, searching for place to set up a permanent camp for herself as she could surely not show her face in any of the towns with the bounty that the lawgivers would place on her head. It seemed as though she was going to have to stay hidden, on the run forever from everything she had ever known and anyone who might recognize her as there was a limit to how much she could change her appearance without attracting undue attentions.

She searched through the woods for a clearing, possibly with a source of water for herself and her horse and that was not too near nor too far from the roads where she would make her fortune. Her dream of a vessel of her own would be her only comfort on the cool nights she would spend here, but for Alysa that would be enough.