Role

Chapter 1

Viera is the daughter of two fire giants, Mahar and Nerah. When Viera was
very young, her merchant father threw his lot in with a young and promising
upcoming leader in a district of Kiadana. The young leader was wise and
clever, and his machinations led to a slow but steady increase in the
strength of his district. He improved food supply, sanitation, security,
and even education. For a trader like Mahar, it made sense to support such
a leader. For a while Mahar's family prospered, and Viera looked set to
live a life of comfort and privilege.

But fire giant society being what it is, another young leader arose to
challenge the first. This new leader was brawnier and defeated the
incumbent handily in physical combat. Thus by the One Law he became the new
leader. The previous leader was ousted, but he had many fervent supporters,
Mahar included. So the first step the upstart took was to discredit and
exile the supporters of the old guard. And so it was, by a stroke of an axe,
that Mahar's family fell from grace. They never quite recovered, since they
lacked connections in other districts. And soon enough they became members
of Kiadana's ever-present underclass, labourers toiling in the volcanic
depths.

When a ship from the Seaport arrived in Kiadana, Mahar and Nerah sold
themselves into indentured servitude in exchange for payment. Viera, for her
part, was sent to a boarding school cum orphanage in the Imperial Lands
not far from where her parents toiled in a mine. She was so young as to be
merely on the cusp of puberty.

Most fire giants spend but four years in school, learning to count, read,
and write, and indeed many do not succeed in even just that. The Imperial
schooling system is brutal but efficient, and the children are put through
their paces both academic and physical. Those under-performers are not
given a second chance to prove themselves. The Imperial Education Bureau
found that statistically-speaking, untalented children seldom turn around
and prove otherwise when given second chances. Viera, by some twist of fate,
inherited both her father's cunning and her mother's strength, and was even
considered pretty amongst fire giant girls of her age. And thus it was that
some faceless bureaucracy changed the fate of the family of three.