Far away to the north of Ayrilia, there lies the state of Estica, a country that has a relatively high area-to-population-ratio and is filled with many flat areas that are used as farmland.

This country is in a stark contrast to Ayrilia, the birthplace of the Altwald family:

Even though Ayrilia uses a strongly established variant of monarchy as their government method, Ayrilia is still considered to be one of the worlds leading countries in the fields of morals, education and the valuable freedom of identity. As such, many concepts such as discrimination due to race ethnicity and social standing are a lot less established in this country than in others. Of course, seeing things from the perspective of Chansa village, this might not seem that way, but Ayrilia truly is a country that is more developed than most of its pears. On the other side, this mentality of the country has over the years fueled the patriotism of its citizens resulting in a high participation rate in the military service, even though the enrollment was rarely made compulsory. In other words, the Ayrilian military force was quite formidable. The developments of this country could largely distributed to two historical factors:

1) The third Ayrilian king Kermal Rainwald, who was hailed as the wisest of the passed kings, was the one that abolished many laws and tribulations in favor of the wide public. It was he, who made the education of everyone a national goal, which has had consequences that influence the country to this day.

2)In the Ayrilian history, there have been many separate instances, where a man, who is presumed to be a descendant from the sage of the forest, Rakdal, has interfered with the countries development and veered it into its current direction.

On the far opposite side of the spectrum lies Estica: While Estica is a country, that is governed by a monarchy on the surface, the reality shows that it is not the royal family dictating the countries future but instead the noble faction of Estica. Over the years, there have been many instances, where the country was in military disputes with other neighboring ones due to the aggression-policy from one of its previous kings, Estarossa Lotskau. It was a strategy that was based on both economic interests as well as ethnic disputes with its neighbor Ayrilia. Since the aforementioned Ayrilian military has always had a high amount of power, the war between the countries consumed Estica's national funds enormously leading to a national crisis multiple times. At that time, many different nobles of the country made many separate deals with the king that promised him weapons and monetary compensation in exchange for a stronger influence on the government of their country. The foolish king agreed and through a pact that transcended generations, the noble faction gained a level of influence that basically robbed the royal family of its power. The result of the war ended up as a peace-treaty between the countries and after the war, Estica changed its policies into ones that began favoring the nobles and disadvantaging the normal citizens. Nowadays it is hard for them to make ends meet and most families are living their lives as farmers, who have to regularly give a tribute to their local landlord as a price for using their fields to grow their crops on.

In this country, the nobles are able to do anything they want. This doesn’t mean that the lower class people live a terrible life: Though their livelihood is very dependent on their local noble family, the nobles have formed a council that ensures at least a minimum amount of comfort as they too realize the need of a satisfied lower class in order to strengthen their family’s position in the future.

Basic hygienic goods as well as basic trade with reasonable tax-rates are possible as well as a certain amount of freedom of speech and actions as long as it doesn’t go above a certain threshold. The villagers are even allowed a certain amount of education under the condition that they pay a certain amount of money.

Nevertheless, inhumane occurrences still occasionally occur in this society: Slavery and abduction as well as violence are topics that happen, though rarely.

A short excerpt from the book “Over the seas, under the water, around the world” from the mysterious explorer Marco Tamil.

The location is the village of Minoborgo, a small village in one of the northern mountain areas of Estica. The sun is currently hidden behind a small storm-cloud, that has brought a downpour on the people on the streets. Most people try to look for cover or hurry for their homes to dry themselves up.

Within a small marketplace stand for agricultural utensils, there is an older man around the age of 35 carrying a bag of fertilizer on his back. Unlike his peers he is taking his time while walking home and enjoying the rainy weather for a change and even begins to hum a sweet tune on his way. The person in question is a farmer called Hyoran Astaros. He currently is the supervisor of a small piece of farmland. At some point, he was a married man but through a divorce he has been left there by himself, so there are no people he could rely on to finish the work for him. Even then, he tries to make the best out of his situation by keeping a positive outlook on live and living everyday to its fullest.

Currently, Mr. Astaros is planning to plant his new batch of crops. It was the right time to rotate out the corn-crops, he was currently growing in exchange for a variant that was more suited for the cold period that was likely to begin in a few months. He had already prepared a batch of Barley to grow in its place.

While thinking if he should try adding more variety to the things he grew, the man notices something while turning around and looking at a person, that just passed by him.

In front of him, he sees a boy, wet from head to toe, casually walking through the rough weather.

From the looks of it he seems to be no more than 7 years of age.

The boy is wearing a tattered top-piece and some decently durable pair of pants. The thing Mr. Astaros didn’t notice earlier was the boys shoes or rather the lack thereof. His bare feet were scraping over the ground. Through the mud and dirt they had even changed in color in a way, where it was hard to recognize them as feet if one didn’t take a second look at him.

The old man was saddened by the sight and called out to the boy.

<<Hey, boy!>>, he calls out.

The boy stops in his tracks and turns around. At that time Mr. Astaros notices the young persons facial features: He has sharp and small features making him look like a cornered mouse or a predatory cat. It is hard to tell which is more appropriate of a description. The boys eyes shine in a red light that is as beautiful as a red moon. Once the two make eye-contact, these eyes seem to contemplate him, as if he was sizing the old man up, evaluating whether he was worth talking to. It was only for a moment though; before the old man could think twice about his gaze, the young boys sharp eyes and mimic quickly inverted into a shy and fearful look, showing a pair of round droopy eyes making the man confused, whether he had only imagined the earlier expression.

On a closer look, the boy has the appearance of a malnourished Uzunku youngling. The Uzunku are a race of humane creatures that are signified through their longer ears and secluded attitude as well as their herbivorous dietary tendencies. The youngling's long and pointy ears show that the Uzunku-blood in his veins is fairly dominant.

Anyway, the most dreadful thing about his current state could only be seen from a frontal perspective. The boy is malnourished to the point where through his tattered clothes, one can see his thin skin and under the skin in the area of his rib-cage, even the patterns of his bones under the skin are faintly visible.

<<I am sorry, do you need anything from me to have approached me?>>, the young boys question shakes the old man out of his thoughts. He has been staring at the boy for a few moments and must have scared him because of that. But before he gets a chance to feel guilty about his behavior, he gets confused first.

How did this kid learn to speak in such a fluent way? He gets more questions by the second but decides to just directly ask the boy about his current state. Mr. Astaros coughs for a second before trying to make a comforting and calm face and asking the boy

<<Say, boy. Where are your parents?>>,

he never has been the most elegant with words, so the old man decides that directly asking him would fasten the conversation so that he wouldn't

drag out the child's time while standing in the rain. If the boy answers as he expects him to, he will just take him to his house and make the child some proper meal. While thinking about that, Mr. Astaros relaxes and focuses on the child’s answer.

The boy cocks his head before looking at him with a curious expression and pointing one hand down to the ground

<<Dead. They were sentenced to death after trying to steal food from our master.>>

Mr. Astaros is shocked. The thing that shocked him however is not the situation that the boy painted in his head through his words. No, the gist of his answer corresponds with the. Based on the boys claims and his manner of speech, it was highly likely that his parents had become indebted to their landlord because of insufficient crop yields or another reason such as that and they were forced into slavery. He had heard of such a situation before. In fact, only one year ago another family, with which he was on good terms with, had a similar fate and they had their children taken away from them on the pretense to become their “personal caretakers”. On that note, the boys story makes sense and under normal circumstances he would have felt compassion for the young child’s situation but he currently wasn’t thinking about that.

However under the current situation the dominating feeling he had was a sense of bizarreness. The young boy was seriously talking about a terrible thing happening to his parents without even the slightest warp in his expression. Did something terrible happen between him and his parents? No, that’s not the problem. The way he was talking was so detached and cold, it seems like he was deliberately trying to detach himself from reality as a coping mechanism in reaction to a past trauma of some sorts.

Mr. Astaros doesn’t know how to respond to the boys state.

<<Excuse me. is there anything else, you would like me to tell you? The rain is getting stronger and I still have a shelter to find for the night.>>

It seems that he is getting slightly impatient but the old man doesn’t notice his faintly elevated tone of voice. Instead he focuses on the boys statement about not having any shelter for the night. He hurriedly smiles and tells him

<<I have been meaning to ask you about that. If you don’t have any place to go to, then how about resting at my place for the night?>>

The boy squinted his eyes and hurriedly took two quick steps back from this suspicious old man.

Once again, Mr. Astaros was terrible with words. He didn’t even notice how his behavior actually contributed in increasing the boy’s caution. Fortunately, the boy seems to be a decent judge of character. He understands the old man’s intentions and doesn’t immediately flee from him. Still, a little caution won’t hurt. He straightens his back and replies

<<Do you have a corner, where I can sleep for tonight?>>

the old man is happy, that the boy was cooperating this easily. If he hadn’t accepted, he wouldn’t have known what to do with him. But talking about sleeping in a corner when being invited as a guest? That won’t do.

<<No need to worry, little boy. You can sleep in my bed for tonight!>>

Then I will sleep on the floor. If you want to stay for longer, then we can build a proper bed for you.

Unfortunately, he didn’t actually say the last part. This caused the boy to nearly double the distance from him, confusing him at the same time.

<Am I really sure about going with this guy? For the first time, I am doubting my instincts.>, this was the first thought, the young boy had.

Mr. Astaros was misinterpreting his actions as urging him to hurry up and get into the dry.

He started laughing and said out loud

<<Haha! I see you are as giddy as I am! Then let us depart, my boy!

Oh, that reminds me. My name is Hyoran Astaros, but you can call me Uncle Hyoran! What is yours, little boy?>>

This time, the boy just let out a sigh. He quickly grasped the old man’s character.

<<You know, I shouldn’t be saying this, seeing that I am the one receiving help from you, Mr. Astaros but I in my life, I have never seen someone be as bad with words as you.>>

The old man looked at him in a perplexed manner before suddenly starting to laugh.

<<Oh my, you really are something, little guy! I am sure, we are going to have a great time together!>>

<Sigh, what the hell did I get myself into>, he mumbled under his breath before shouting out

<<Imogyeran!>>

Mr. Astaros looked up at him

<<My name is Imogyeran Ashenwald. It is… special meeting you.>>

Thus, after a terrible first meeting, the two of them hurry to the small shed, that Mr. Astaros is living in and the young Imogyeran is able to take a small amount of rest under a dry roof.

Well, if he hadn’t been so cautious about the old guy talking about helping him taking a bath, he might have even been able to sleep…

Anyway, thus began the story of Imogyeran Ashenwald.