Full Name
Nora Elizabeth Belenko
Race
Human
Gender
Female
Age
Twenty-six
Occupation
Former Royal Artificer, now using her skills to do odd jobs for local freedom fighters.
Her manner of dress is conservative, to say the least, although it could be argued that it helps keep out the cold weather. Her attire seems to be supplemented by gauntlets and greaves, along with other small pieces of light armour protecting vital areas.
Thankfully, life as one of the queen's growing number of vassals was not too bad for the people of Kalda. They had been introduced to technology more advanced than the town had ever seen, and their relatively isolated location ensured that the queen wasn't breathing down their necks as often as towns that were closer to the capital. In time, Eirik and his wife had a daughter, Nora.
From an early age Nora was simply fascinated by technology, much like others of her generation. With the resources her father had access to, she was able to learn how it all worked. Showing much promise in building machines, Eirik sent her off to an academy at the capital by the time Nora was eighteen so that she could further her education. Nora's willingness to learn, coupled with her status as a noble, eventually caught the eye of the queen herself after a few years at the academy. This soon led to Nora, at the age of twenty-one, being offered to join the queen's Royal Artificers, a group of the best and brightest minds working on designing and building new inventions for the queen.
Her first year or so with the Royal Artificers was spent as an initiate, working under one of the more experienced members of the organisation. After that, she was considered a full member, free to work on whatever she desired for the queen. While Nora had helped design a modest number of inventions in her career, it was only during the winter months of the second year that she found the inspiration for a project of her very own. Over the years she worked on it in her free time, and only when she felt that it was ready to begin work on a full-scale prototype did she request a private audience with the queen to show her work thus far. The queen's reaction was... eager, to say the least, which gave Nora a slight cause for concern. However, as she was busy overseeing construction and going on a personal investigation would have been too conspicuous, Nora had no choice but to seek out some hired help in the form of a woman named Jackie. Jackie didn't ask about pay too much at first, but she seemed fine with having Nora build her a little gadget on the quiet.
Construction of the prototype went by with little to report, until a few days before its estimated time of completion. Jackie had managed to... "find" a modified copy of the original blueprints that had been in the ownership of the queen herself. The additions made it clear what the queen had planned, and Nora had to put a stop to this without delay. In the dead of night, she broke into where the research was being kept with Jackie's help and put it all to the flame, though not before Nora grabbed some of the blueprints first. It was sad enough having to see it all go, and the inventor was not about to let it all have been for nothing.
Having committed this act of arson, there was nothing for it but to run. Packing up what possessions she had, Nora left the palace later that night. The fire did its job in destroying the research, although the queen saw to it that the truth behind why the fire started never left the palace walls. Meanwhile, Nora continued to request Jackie's help, both in finding a place to hide out, and later the whereabouts of a group calling themselves the Corsair Knights...