<div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/ff/Musket_lady_by_StreyCat.jpg)</div><br/>Misti Amala woke up before the crack of dawn in her small inn room in Sand Point.  The girl bathed herself, then stood before the polished steel mirror nude and carefully applied subtle makeup, with not so subtle blue eye shadow.  She breathed regularly and kept her focus so she wouldn’t mess up her face, but her palms were tingling with excitement.<br/><br/>Misti was a long lived maiden.  Though seemingly human, it had taken her as long as a dwarf of gnome to come of age.  The elders at the temple where she’d grown up said that this was the gift of an angelic ancestor, and that she would be similarly gifted with long life and abundant health.<br/><br/>Since her step-mother—Sister Amala—passed away in her seventies—Misti had divided her time amongst two of the more long lived members of the temple—an elfkin damsel on the temple guard and a gnomish damsel who taught her alchemy.  Under their guidance, she restored and mastered the use of a musket, and learned the sword.  She’d worked for five years as a temple guard in far off Galt.  She had that lands brandy-sweet accent.<br/><br/>She worked as a temple guard.  Five people requested sanctuary.  They were all charged with various crimes that amounted to being part of the former ruling regime.  They were promised security and a fair trial in the ecclesiastical courts.  A mob threw itself at the temple, demanding their heads, and Misty was forced to fire into the frenzied crowd lest her shieldsisters and shieldbrothers be dragged away and ripped apart.<br/><br/>She’d felt horrible and righteous all at once, knowing she’d done her duty, saved her co-workers, but feeling sharply the loss of those she’d slain.  When three of the five were found guilty of exactly the crimes the mob accused them of, she felt unclean.  Misti decided to travel here, to a harsh frontier land where her skills could be used protecting innocent farmers from monsters and evil giants, not as a pawn in political backbiting.<br/><br/>And here she was!  It was so exciting.  And she was just in time for a new temple to be consecrated.  It would be good to go to church again!<br/>