Rhemic Empire (2)

Nano

A small but cozy apartment in a house that wasn't the most luxurious, nor the most dilapidated, in a part of a moderately populated imperial city that wasn't the most successful, nor the poorest; a school attended equally by boys and girls from families of artisans, petty traders, and modest officials; her own bald, short, pot-bellied father with a mustache who worked with financial papers for one of the local minor aristocrats—these ordinary things made up the young life of Melissa Maywin.
At school, she was part of a track and field club, which she attended several times a week, teaching young novices, training herself, and participating in competitions with other educational institutions. At home, she did all the housework so that her tired father, returning late in the evening from service, could always count on a hearty dinner and healthy rest. In her free time, she socialized with friends, went shopping and to cafes with them, visited nature and the beach, loved music and drawing, and never refused to help kind neighbors when same was needed, and they were always ready to return the warmth.
"What do you want to do when you finish school?" her teachers and other adults would sometimes ask. Melissa would bashfully lower her gaze and answer that she didn't know yet. She studied diligently, but lacked talent or a drive for specific sciences. One day, she raised this question in a conversation with her father, to which he smiled, gently patted his daughter on the head, and said that she was young and would soon find the answer herself—she only needed to listen to her heart.
"Perhaps that is not a very profound thought. But I am incredibly glad that I have such a wonderful daughter and that I have the opportunity to provide her with a full life and freedom of choice; I am sure that your mother, wherever she may be now, is looking at us and is also very happy," his voice trembled, and a tiny tear separated from the corner of his eye and rolled down his cheek. "I love you, Dad, please don't cry..." Melissa herself became emotional and hugged the old man tightly.

That was the last warm family moment she ever experienced. In a matter of weeks, the lives of millions of imperial people changed irrevocably, and the tiny Maywin family happened to be among those who were least fortunate. Melissa's father began working himself to exhaustion—coming home in the dead of night, hardly eating, hardly sleeping, leaving before dawn. He did not let his daughter into the problems despite her cautious questioning, simply brushing it off by saying there was a huge backlog at work. She noticed how he would stand by the window for long periods or sit in an armchair and blankly stare at a point in space.
This continued for some short time until one day he didn't return home at all. The next morning, his daughter learned that her father had been arrested and detained by the men of the nobleman he served. He was accused of incredibly large financial machinations and sentenced to death. Melissa did not understand what was happening; she could achieve neither justice nor even the right to meet with her father. A few days later, she was dryly informed as a matter of fact that he had been executed, and that his property and real estate would be confiscated in favor of the state.
In such a simple manner, the young girl found herself thrown out onto the street with a minimal amount of means for survival. She was, of course, expelled from her decent school as the daughter of a thief, corrupt official, and fraudster, but by then it no longer mattered. Her friends turned away from her—some of their own volition, others by the will of parents who feared that their children's ties to the daughter of a crook would put them under the magnifying glass and heavy hand of those in power.
Having lost all her loved ones, her accustomed life, and any hopes for the future overnight, she did not know what to do next—beg, steal, sell her body, or perhaps even throw herself under a train? The last option became particularly acute when some strange-looking villainous people approached her, practically dragging her by force from the street into a gloomy building in a bad neighborhood of the city. There, bald thugs and scarred two-meter-tall women subjected her to an intense interrogation, shining lamps in her face and forcing her to drink an unpleasant, burning alcoholic beverage. Melissa indifferently told her ordinary story, clutching the mug in weakened hands and not raising her eyes from the tabletop. After she had told everything she could, she was placed in a room with boarded-up windows and locked in. As she fell asleep, she was mentally prepared to wake up either in slavery or on the table of a maniac surgeon.
But the truth turned out to be simpler and more banal, resembling a twist of fate from any average adventure novel popular at the time—the suspicious gang of eerie types went by a pretentious name and represented some kind of guild for providing selfless aid to ordinary people. "Quite implausible, such a thing cannot exist in real life," Melissa thought, listening to the explanation of a rude, grey-haired brute with sad eyes. She sat impassively on the floor, not believing a single word he said, but this facade wavered when he began to speak about her father. Having conducted its own investigation, the guild found that the aristocrat for whom old man Maywin worked was not entirely clean and, falling under the steamroller of reforms, cut off all undesirable ends as best he could, framing and throwing his own treasurer into the maw of the state machine. By the end of the story, the girl, shaken by sobs, curled into a fetal position; one of the two-meter women comforted her and patted her shoulder, while the grey-haired man, embarrassed and stammering, asked "for her own good to abandon the idea of revenge," apparently realizing himself how ridiculous those words sounded at that moment.

She was not the first nor the last person whose life collapsed during those hard years. Representatives of the "league" offered her help in finding housing, work, or even relocation to another city, but she refused. After what she had been through, she realized how fragile the illusion of a prosperous daily routine actually was—an illusion that only yesterday seemed completely unshakable. She mourned her father, despised the scoundrels who destroyed both her life and the lives of other unfortunate souls, and felt neither confidence in the future nor the moral strength to return to the carefree ranks of ordinary citizens at the snap of a finger. Gathering courage and audacity, she asked the grey-haired boss to accept her into the organization. Many of those present tried to dissuade her, mocked her, reproached her for stupidity and youth, and frightened her, but their sad old commander sensed something painfully familiar in her story, tone, and gaze, and approved the decision.
Melissa took a new callsign—Nano—and spent the following year and a half in the ranks of the "Free League." She gained a place she could call her own, work she could consider useful, and people she could consider her new family. Despite their fierce appearance and affected cynicism, most of her comrades turned out to be pleasant and deeply sympathetic people who both supported each other and helped any person in trouble.
At first, they pitied and protected her, giving her lenient assignments; the grey-haired boss practically hovered over her as if she were his own daughter or granddaughter, but this period ended quickly. There was plenty of work and contracts for them, mostly harsh ones, and there weren't enough people, so the girl managed to prove herself, demonstrate the seriousness of her intentions, and justify the responsibility she had signed up for. The final frontier before adult life was training in weapons ownship. The boss and colleagues did not want to train her until the very end, not believing that a fragile former schoolgirl had a place in armed combat where she would be swept away by a single blow. Then someone, laughing and shrugging, suggested trying "the ephemeral"—"it won't hurt to have her underfoot, maybe she'll be useful for something." Two weeks later, a small group including Nano carried out a foray outside the city with the goal of destroying a pack of some disgusting monsters threatening the residents of the suburbs. Information was very scarce, and the degree of danger was greatly underestimated. The guild members won a bloody victory and returned heavily wounded but without losses—thanks to the skill and determination of Melissa, who was the only one to emerge unscathed, if not counting her hands, burned and rubbed raw by endless shooting and reloading. And another month later, she was able to run a training obstacle course with traps, hitting all targets right in the bullseye without thinking for a second. Some of her colleagues, previously considered sharp shooters, shook their heads distrustfully and could not accept reality. In the end, they expertly agreed that these days, drilling in a sports club at an ordinary imperial school makes a person an absolute devil.

Eventually, Nano grew accustomed to such a life and fit into it well. She loved her comrades and was happy to help an ordinary unfortunate person with a problem that the state—whose authority and foresight had dropped to the level of dirt in her eyes after everything she experienced—would not solve for them. With special zeal, she took on those cases whose nature was similar to her own experienced misfortune and helped however she could. Most people did not remain in debt, and although funds were sometimes tight, the "league" in her city lived and operated. Until a certain point.
The exact background of the political events was unclear, but life became worse over time: assignments and requests took on a truly depressing character, families were left with nothing, people died in conflicts between savage Factions, fellow guild members died or retired, and finally, some bigwigs from the local government—unable to do anything useful—decided to play at authority and took the "problem" of the "league" seriously. A raid was carried out on the building, activities were suspended, and members of the organization were put on a city-wide wanted list. The few remaining free friends and colleagues of Nano set off to seek luck in different corners and cities of the Empire, some together and some alone. Some of them suggested that the girl join them, but she gently refused.
For some time now, one beautiful and lofty dream had not given her peace, having completely unexpectedly struck her heart. Half a year before the outcome of all these events, she happened to attend a business conference where she served as a bodyguard for her employer. And there she saw the most beautiful thing in her life—the appearance of an angel in human form. A young girl of dazzling grace and beauty, reading boring financial indicators in a honey-sweet voice, captured an unthinkable number of eyes and ears and mesmerized the audience so that several hundred people, as if on command, held their breath, feeling they had no right to obstruct this miracle, and Nano was among them. "Ipomea Phlox," her client later explained. "Once a dark horse, now an absolute business genius. Eh, where are my twenty years? I'd go to her for a high salary, and even have an office on the same floor as the lady."
Melissa Maywin entered the service of "Citrus" at the end of winter 765. And remembering her father's unoriginal advice, she realized that there was wisdom in it.

Strength: 25
Intelligence: 15
Will: 5
Agility: 35
Perception: 40
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 25




- Eagle Eye
- Roll
- Sprint
- Wanderer

Equipment: heavy revolver, telescopic baton, cartridges—ordinary and armor-piercing, modern armor, protective goggles, "Free League" emblem, suggestive photo of Ipomea Phlox, weapon care kit.