Every living being is able to find something to keep him busy in Praya - you can fight for what you think is right, chase the most profitable bargain, become the master of art - pretty much any type of art, from visual art to magical one.
Speaking of Kaya, she has always seen herself in only one craft - dueling. Her ancestors dedicated her life to this art: her father, her uncle, her granddad, her cousins. Since she had a few brothers and sisters, Kaya could choose the desired occupation herself, while her older siblings were obligated to follow the path chosen by their parents. Her father, an old yet respected man, allowed his precious daughter to train with him. Born with a great talent, the girl managed to become a popular and respected specialist in her craft.
Known as Rapier to her clients, Kaya has fought with grace and a great deal of passion. She won over many opponents, who exceeded her in strength, with cunning and agility. However, one day, luck has turned its back on her. Kaya was injured - and it wouldn’t have been so bad, if only the injury was made anywhere else, but to her sword arm.
The wound was deep and it didn’t wish to heal up. Healers told Kaya that the weapon she was hit by was made of some mysterious material, which destroyed the whole nature of tissues in her arm. There was no healer who could help her.
Ex-duelist was not ready to make peace with what had happened. She could not bear the idea of losing a hand. The money she earned with her craft helped her start the journey in the search of a miraculous cure which could help her. Rapier met both charlatans and miracle workers, but none of them could offer her real help. And only the simple folk of Praya helped her stay out of depression with their kind words, free drinks and allowance to stay in a tavern for free.
One day, Kaya met an engineering student, who was believed to become one of the greatest minds of this generation. He offered Rapier not the most pleasant, but an effective method of helping her out - to amputate her hand and replace it with a special prosthesis. The woman was scared of this option since the mechanic arm needed Prime to work properly. She didn’t want to become dependent of this substance, especially after what she had been told in Praya’s villages by different odd grandmas and grandpas. They told her Prime will turn her into a monster, however the student tried to convince her otherwise. In any case, she would have never gotten brave enough to agree on the operation, if only her hand didn’t become to turn black.
Kaya remembers only pain, a faint smell of burning and a quiet engineer's whisper.
Everything else remains a mystery to her till this day.
It took her a few weeks to learn how to use her prosthesis. The mechanical arm caused a furor in the scientific community of Praya: the student got the attention he deserved, and Rapier received a limb which worked even better than her own hand made of flesh and blood. She did miss any coin she left the engineer to thank him for the operation.
Prime granted the ex-duelist new unusual powers, and Rapier decided to redirect her attention to other matters in the world. While travelling, she got so touched by the ordinary folk’s stories and lives, that she decided to fight on the front line and take contracts to kill different aggressive Touched.
Battles outside the Castle walls granted Kaya the feeling that she had finally found her place in this world. And all those useless intriguing skirmishes of lords she previously fought for did not cost a dirty coin in comparison to the battles for a real cause. Since then, she has never left the rows of the most dedicated warriors and mercenaries of Praya.
