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Sorcha had always missed her own mother. She was born in winter, in the mining town of Diamond Lake, as an only child to a single father; a smith who worked the forge long and hot, and finished tired in the evening, and thus rarely had the time or the energy for the girl during her formative years. After Sorcha's 10th winter however, something changed. Father wanted to spend more time at home, and powered through exhaustion to make time for her. He feared what little time he had left before she became a woman grown, although she did not understand, nor question his newfound proclivity for doting on her. Whatever he must have felt infected her too, and she offered to help him at the forge. After performing various tasks that built up her strength, Father acquiesced, and offered to teach her how to wield a blade between orders.

The old man was not her only source of attention. Apart from a few playmates, armed men began coming around to make trouble for him, making demands that seemed unreasonable to him, and at times made threats that she didn't understand at first - at least, not until after the next winter. That was when the famous wizard couple, Johan and Marie, came into town looking to settle down, and ended up becoming the impromptu defenders of their new home. It turned out that Father had two problems: the outlaws who came sniffing around and money, owed for getting his business up and running, and he and Johan became fast friends after the latter had solved both. Their families would end up growing closer as Father offered Sorcha to mind their newborn infant after she was born, and even later when Sorcha joined the bill for one of the mining companies as a paid guard. The wizard came around to scare off thugs from a rival trying to break in and steal, sabotage, or otherwise undermine her employer's assets, saving her job in the process. Sadly, the town would not reap the benefit of a guardian sage for much longer, as John's progeny had begun to show promise according to him, and he chose to set off adventuring with the tyke in tow. Even so, the peace of mind that they brought to the town would last for a few precious years. The usual troublemakers were reticent to rear their heads should Johan deign to return.

No, a new kind of trouble would look upon this peace from without, and relish the opportunity to shatter it.

Undead! From the cairns up on the hills to the north! A shamble of the slavering fetid cannibals could quench their hunger on the desiccated remains of burial mounds no longer - and so they loped down toward Diamond Lake, her people trapped between the ancient cemeteries and the water, and fell upon their cognizant prey with soulless abandon. The clergy of the chapel to Saint Cuthbert claimed that the only way to stop them was to return a stolen idol to its resting place. Sorcha and Father were among the volunteers to protect the holy man leading the effort, but the defenders suffered horrendous wounds, and some could not be healed from the brink of death - Sorcha's own father among the unlucky ones, bidding farewell and departing the mortal coil in their last tearful moment together. The smith's daughter had always missed her own mother. Now, she missed her father, too.

A week later after that horrible night, Sorcha received a letter. In it, she read the tragic fate of Johan, the godsent adventurer who had left them only a few years prior. She had been declared his daughter Jessica's guardian in the event of his untimely passing. With a heavy heart, she packed for a journey to the great city of Greyhawk to collect the youth.