Chapter 1

========SAPPHIRE=======
Chapter 1
Hunting spear

My name is Devlin Alvarez, I used to be a married man, used to work as a photographer for a local magazine, until the day the lights permanently went out. As it became increasingly dangerous to live in places with lots of people due to the rise of crime, my wife and I decided it would be best to move away from the general populace if we wanted to avoid killing for our food and basic needs. My wife an I found a shack just 10 km south of Drekton, being far from the city, we don't enjoy the "protection" provided by our most graceful defenders. We survive by hunting deer in a nearby woodland a few km's away from our home. Angelica, my wife is a simple woman, she loves to cook and she loves to hunt, one day she wasnt able to come with me on one of our weekly hunts since she's feeling a bit under the weather.
"I'll be fine, you go get us some meat and I'll make us some stew, it's getting increasingly cold these past few nights." my wife said as I went out to hunt for our week's supply of deer meat.
The land was a bit stingy today, either the local wildlife are starting to get exhausted, or they already realized that someone keeps on shooting arrows into their buddies. I barely managed to find one big enough to last us at least 4 days. Bagging my prey, I picked it up and lugged it back home, the trip home was pretty uneventful, it was already starting to get dark when i spotted our shack on the horizon.
"Were gonna need to find a new hunting spot dear, our usual spot is beginning to decrease its yield..."
"How are you feeling?" I yelled...
No answer... a sharp chill quickly went up my spine and I immediately took off towards the direction of our bedroom, I didn't notice that the place looked like a complete mess, I was too focused on getting to our room as fast as possible to check on my supposed resting wife. I reach our room....blood was on the floor, the room was trashed, our meager matress was all slashed up and blood was spalshed all over it... I checked the other side of the bed and found the thing I feared the most. Angelica's body, bloodied and wounded, a stab wound on her back still bleeding a bit was easy to see, she was facing the floor holding her hunting spear in her right hand. I didn't realize it right away but somehow in mind I knew... Angelica was dead, murdered... word's couldn't explain the sadness and the anger I was feeling inside, "I shouldn't have gone out, I shouldn't have left her alone, I shouldnt have..." but it was futile, it was too late... the love of my life was taken from me and what's worse I couldn't do anything to stop it, I swore to her that I would protect her, I swore to her that we would grow old together... but I failed her.

I was distraught, I thought of driving that spear through my throat right then and there... I mean what was I supposed to do now? The whole reason i still wanted to survive this desolate hellhole was because she was there, with me, through everything. Tears flowed like a river down my cheeks, I didn't see my face but i knew that if anyone had seen me right there, they would see the face of an extremely broken man... I shook her body, hoping that she would wake up, I stroked her head, kike I always do to wake her up in the morning to wake her up...it didn't work. I screamed, my whole body shaking with both fear and anger... I passed out..maybe it was because of shock or maybe because i was tired but whatever the reason, my consciousness just failed..

I wasn't sure for how long but when I woke up, it was already bright outside. I quickly looked around to see if maybe i just had a bad dream last night. I was wrong... Angelica still laid there, lifeless.. I was still alone. Our shack smelled of blood . I stood up, still in a daze still not sure what the hell im supposed to do now. I saw Angelica's spear on the floor, must've fallen off her hand when i carried body to our bed last night... Looking at her spear, it hit me, I couldn't just ignore this... she deserves better than this. I wont let whoever did this to her to walk away from this. Despite my depressed state, I decided to look around a bit for anything that can provide answers.

I looked around, hoping to find something that could tell me what the hell happened while I was gone, something that can help me avenge her. As I scanned our bedroom, I noticed signs of a huge struggle, typical since Angelica wasn't a defenseless maiden, she was always the better hunter, the better tracker and the faster runner. I don't even think I would've survived long after the power went out if I wasn't married to such a strong woman. I thought that if she wasn't feeling unwell today, her attackers would be the ones lying on our floor and we would've been clearing the mess together. Tears involuntarily streamed from my eyes down to my neck as I recall her "battle face". But I couldn't get emotional now, I had to find out who was behind this. Upon exiting our room, I had full view of the rest of the shack, I noticed a piece of leather just below me, picked it up and took a closer look, it had a symbol, a wolf with sabertooth teeth, my general knowledge told me that this was the symbol of the Black Ookami, the only faction who rivals Koutetsu in strentgh and numbers.
It was pretty obvious... a random scout group mustve happened along our shack and took interest in it. Knocked and my wife thinking it was me opened the door and was surprised to see strange men waiting outside, im not sure how many but Angelica was alert enough to grab her hunting spear behind the front door and managed to put up fight before finally falling to a backstab in our bedroom.. It was 2 or more men, they didn't get what they wanted since we don't really have anything of value anymore, they didn't want to leave empty handed so they thought of maybe kidnapping my wife so they can sell her to slave traders, they didn't expect she would put up a fight so they overwhelmed her with their numbers and killed her. They will pay.
I buried Angelica in a nice patch of land behind our shack and drover hunting spear to serve as a landmark, I tied both of our wedding rings to the shaft and offered my respects.
"I will not rest until I find out who did this to you and make them pay"
Afterwards, I packed my bow, some iron arows and my hunting spear. Walked towards the direction of Drekton. I figured a city as corrupt and depraved like Drekton can probably point me in the right direction in finding my wife's killers.