Three Young Women…
Cherylynn Anne Downry
Cheryl had a promising life ahead of her.
Born in Kyovkret and largely disconnected from the Great War, she enjoyed a degree of innocence in her life as a kid. It didn’t take long for that to change, though; she stumbled on strange invisible tears soon after her ninth birthday — a new world, a mirror world, would be opened up to her, one she would dub the ‘nightmare’. It made for a great way of dodging chores, avoiding her school bullies, and otherwise allowed her to gain longer moments of respite, but the longer Cheryl spent in this place the less innocent it seemed. None of her friends or family understood what she meant when she tried to explain her discovery, and so she kept it to herself.
Next came the actual nightmares. Cheryl soon found herself troubled by dreams, consistent ones, about the Great War. They repeated, bled into one another, left her sleepless and stressed. She soon found herself anonymously confiding in her church’s Confessor.
With a devout Spiralist family and strong ties to the local church, she and her sister were practically waiting to be handed a legacy.All they needed to do was continue on in Dowens’ Rest.. But waiting for life to come often allows other elements to blindside you, and Cheryl was hit far harder than she could’ve anticipated.
All of the faith in the would couldn’t stop the Rizen Union’s steady encroachment into Kyovkret, and no amount of prayer would hold back the Goddess they worshipped.
Marie Lea Nowak
Marie was born in the village of Lissi in the nation of Savo’s dense mountain range. She never trusted the Rizen Union. She never trusted their tithing, never trusted their empty words, and never trusted their fake smiles. She never trusted their prophesying about “Saintbloods” or the stories they told of the Great War. Her family, however, had ample trust and ample money.
It didn’t take long for her family to fall for their spell, the local Confessor putting in ample effort to show them their devotion would be ‘rewarded’. It started with her parents’ switch from the then-crumbling Spiral faith to its newer, stronger counterpart: the Rizen. It didn’t take long for Marie’s family to “redirect” their savings; it didn’t take long for Marie’s belongings to vanish.
This, combined with her hometown’s slow suffocation by the newly-strengthened Rizen Union, led to the slow but steady isolation of Marie from the few connections she had.
Now Marie struggles to balance her deep family troubles with other, more alien problems. Her ongoing nightmares of the Great War were one thing, but a new discovery, one she’s spent her life trying to ignore, will only rip her further from comfort.
Fiona Mason
Born in the nation of Vostek, she was relocated early on and raised within the sturdy but isolating walls of her family’s manor. Fiona was provided everything: education, endless books, food of any kind — everything except one thing: freedom.
That never stopped her, though. Fiona stumbled into what she would coin the ‘dreamscape’ while trying to sneak out of the manor, and her dreams had instilled far more of the outside world than any books could. She knew there was more out there, and she knew she would only find it if she searched on her own terms.
Fiona’s family rarely exposed her to the outside world, though they warned her repeatedly of a nebulous danger that lurked just outside. Fiona never took them seriously, her curiosity overriding her parents’ wishes, and so she continued, and came across Wellbay.
From here, Fiona would find herself steeped in the real world, one no book could have adequately described. With every upside, of course, are downsides, and Fiona wouldn’t see them until they hit her.