[i]”Beauty before me.
Beauty above me.
Beauty below me.”
~Prayer to the Grandmothers

Estelle was born as the daughter of the noble Lord Fortimir, who held the rank of The Head Bard of one of the city-states of Talia, Vakyria. As the only daughter in her family, she was excessively doted upon by her father and her childhood was filled with stories of nature that her father would tell her. Not surprisingly, she became fascinated with the tales of the spirits and the warriors who bonded with the primal world. Even though she was young, she came up with lofty dreams to inherit her father's position as the Head Bard, keeping these eternal stories and history for future generations to come.

But then, the Phoenixfire Wars happened. The forests of Talia were plagued by greedy invaders, who sought the natural riches of Talia. Although the Talian forces were smarter, had unique magicks and weapons, and knew the land far better, the only thing that mattered were sheer numbers. Soon, nearly all of Talia fell under the control of these invaders. It took a blasphemous spell by a druid Erimus to repel the invaders, but the price of this spell was a great blight that spread across Talia. Where Talia formerly had the problem of earthly warriors, there now stood undead and hellspawn.

Talia was a mere 14 years old when the Phoenixfire Wars ended after a year of fighting. The carnage of battle and the cost of victory made a great impact in her mind. If the forests of her homeland were so fragile, then it needed heroes and warriors to protect it!

After the Phoenixfire Wars ended, many people returned to a normal life, but a few warriors saw that there were threats still in the world due to the aftermath of the Phoenixfire Wars. They banded together to form the Order of the Oaken Aegis and established a new heirarchy of slayers to erase the blight from the Silvae Forests forever. Estelle already knew some swordplay from her father's teachings, so upon hearing this, she entered training to join their ranks.

[i]”Foolish little human...you tread on my domain under the pretense of cleansing it...I strip the skin from your body and eat the soft, man-meat within! Yes, that would be a most fitting end to you, little girl, ehehe....”
~The Corrupted Spirit of Elkit to Estelle.

As the years wore on, Estelle became powerful enough to join the Order and she proved herself as an accomplished slayer. But while she and the rest of the Order made steady progress in slaying the evil that had spread throughout the forests, their efforts were not enough to prevent further corruption throughout Talia. Even many of the lesser spirits fell under the blight's influence, causing them to become twisted mockeries of their former selves. Those spirits lost their sense of reason, attacking all that approached them all while shouting ravings and corrupt ideas.

On a stormy night, Estelle and a few other slayers reached Eaglis, the city-state where Erimus originally cast his blasted spell. Her squad's mission was to report on the town's status, since communication to the town had become scarce after the great blighting spell. She had been there as a child and remembered that it was a bustling town full of people and life, but as she wandered the empty tree-roads, it was clear that this town was not the same as it had been. Corpses littered the streets, with crazed, wild animals flocking around each body to get its share of the meat. Villagers shut their doors and allowed no one in, in hopes of warding off the berserk wild. And where vibrant jade-colored trees once stood, black withered trunks stood instead. Death and decay had become the new standard here.

Estelle's group was supposed to return back to her hometown after scouting the area out, but Estelle's commander was a veteran with a big head and a few accomplishments to feed his ego. He believed that the group could handle the situation and waiting to act would only allow the blight to spread further. So  Estelle and the others took up Eaglis as a base of operations and began to work to clear the blight, while only sending a mere two scouts to return and report on the state of Eaglis.

Weeks passed. The group was making little progress into clearing the blight and, worse yet, the Order was not sending reinforcements. Because of this, Estelle's group thought that the original scouts were killed on the way back and they tried to send a few more, but to no avail. Casualties began to mount and soon, Estelle was the only remnant of what was formerly a proud squad of slayers from the Order.

Under normal circumstances, a person caught in Estelle's situation would have ran. But with a brave heart and faith in the Grandmothers, Estelle wandered deep into the blighted forest to seek a solution to her predicament. It was in this way she found one of the blighted spirits that inhabited this cursed land. Estelle tried to reason with it, thinking that it would perhaps come to its senses and help protect the people of Eaglis from the insane wildlife. But one look at its bloodshot eyes and she could tell that there was no reasoning with such rage and corruption. She had no choice but to slay the spirit, to put it out of its misery.

The battle raged on for many hours. Against a spirit of the wild itself, Estelle knew that she had little chance and that, in the spirit's madness, she would likely be devoured upon her defeat. But she could only fight and only survive. It was already too late to run, it was already too late to regret her actions, and she had the purity of nature on her side. “The Grandmothers will protect me...” she thought to herself. It was with this faith in her guardian spirits that she finally prevailed over her adversary, as she took the spirit and ran it through.

But at the moment of contact, she felt something evil enter her.

There's a saying in Talia, that all evil has a mind of its own. When the blight saw that its host spirit was about to be defeated, it took residence in Estelle's body and began to corrupt her. When she returned to her home, she fell gravely ill and bedridden. It was perhaps only with the blessing of the Grandmothers that she did not grow mad, but regardless, no matter how hard the healers worked, no one could cure Estelle. The corruption grew all over hreer body and slowly strangled the life from her. Her death was inevitable.

[i]”Have you not learned from Head Druid Erimus' error? Can you not understand what dark, unnatural powers you are dealing with? Because of you, your daughter will come to bear the curses of undeath for centuries!”
~Advisor Quin to Lord Fortimir, before Estelle's resurrection[/i]

But Estelle's father, Lord Fortimir, had one option left to save her daughter, an option that was as cursed as the blight that spread throughout Estelle's body.

The Fortimir family had many secrets wrapped into its past, of which the biggest one was that they were one of the original Vrylokan families. Long ago, nobles who wanted the secret to life made a divine pact to gain the power of the vampires while still preserving their mortal living shells. The result were the Vryloka. But in exchange for long lives came a thirst for blood and a certain madness, leaving those affected more vampire than human. Their kind were abhorred, so much so that they hid their lineage behind well-crafted disguises and double lives. But over time, their curse faded and after a few centuries, Vryloka began to give birth to normal humans. In an event that nearly wiped out the bloodline, the humans of the Fortimir family gathered and slew all of those that were awakened to their Vrylokan state. They thought that by doing so, they would be erasing their cursed blood from their noble lineage and from the world.

But amongst the human faction were a few stragglers who respected and worshiped the Vrylokan power, one of them being a Fortimir. Although they recognized that although the current Vrylokans were too dangerous, there was hope that the Vrylokan curse could be used to prolong the lives of many. As the Vrylokans died out, those humans found the last writings of those Vrylokans and, within, a ritual for Vrylokans to turn humans into their kind. The price for such long life was too great now, but these humans saw the potential in leaving these writings intact and building upon them the ideal Vrlylokan spell. So they passed these writings on secretly from generation to generation, with each child of those houses adding their own research onto the writings in hopes of making the Vrylokan state stable, perhaps in hopes of perhaps finding the true secret to long life. Such research was done in secret and at a slow pace, because of Talia's long-standing natural traditions, but progress was slowly made from generation to generation.

Like every one of his ancestors, Lord Fortimir was familiar with these writings and he even contributed to the spell's research himself. He also knew that the spell was not usable yet. But Estelle was slowly dying to the curse that the blight spirits had left upon her and Lord Fortimir could not bear to see her pass away. As the blight finally claimed Estelle's life, Lord Fortimir had a mere moment left to decide his daughter's fate. He chose to resurrect her with the Vryloka spell, raising her as one of the cursed half-undead.

[i]“Even if my body may mock the cause I serve, my soul still burns with faith and hope...both for myself and for this world.”
~Estelle[/i]

Now raised as a Vryloka, Estelle earned nothing but the scorn of her peers. Even though she slew a corrupted spirit, which was no easy task, the Order banished her from their ranks, eternally branding her as a cursed being. Soon after, the Talian city-states also judged her unclean and banished her from their country forever. They deemed her unfit to return until her vampiric curse was erased from her body and that she was a pure human again. With little choice, she set out into lands unknown, preparing for a pilgrimage all over the continent.

But the Grandmothers saw her battle with the spirit and saw her faith and devotion to the spirits of the wild. Estelle was a true guardian of the wild, through and through. So one night, Estelle received a vision from the Grandmothers, telling her to take the chance and adventure to Ral Shaereth. The continent needed her services, they said. Estelle could also find a cure for her curse there, as well, and perhaps return to her home clean again. Knowing full well that a message from the Grandmothers held much weight, Estelle heeded these messages and ventured off onto a lands unknown...