Amie

Amie is a pure-blooded Doppelgänger, a battle mage of the Duskblade Sect, and Dominic Wavemates's craft assistant and assigned bodyguard. Her petite, adolescent appearance conceals decades of assassination work and an innate shapeshifting power that remains active even under antimagic restraints. In Wistover, she turns that experience toward monster suppression, rescue, intelligence, magitech production, and the protection of Dominic's family, eventually becoming a trusted guardian and tutor to Katerina.

Biography

The Duskblade Sect and Monster Incursions

Amie approaches Dominic's forge after the Duskblade Sect settles in Wistover, ostensibly to observe his gunsmithing and help with clay preparation. Her blood-red Trade Skill Core and strength are the first signs that the fragile-looking girl is neither as young nor as harmless as she appears. Dominic initially worries that she will carry military enchanting secrets back to her Sect, but the concern dissolves when Amie reveals that Duskblade already knows how to make Mana Oil. Their knowledge is complementary: she understands conventional magical materials and sect practice, while he has discovered an unorthodox immersion process that produces repeatable enchanted weapons. Amie chooses to stay, performs most of the slow preparation, and converts a guarded demonstration into an efficient working partnership. (Chapters 372–374)

The forge also gives Amie equipment suited to her body and a new reason to work beside Dominic in the field. Standard revolvers are too large for her hands, so he makes a smaller five-shot pair whose Rare, level-twenty enchantments add fire damage and speed. She recommends saving the remaining weapons for royalty because she understands their market value better than he does, but eagerly accepts the debt attached to her own pair. The arrangement is not merely acquisitive. Amie insists on joining the monster operation, identifies herself as a Duskblade battle mage, and treats the weapons as a way to maintain pressure while casting rather than as replacements for magic. The Sect's unease around her convinces Dominic that his apparent apprentice is an experienced and dangerous operative. (Chapters 374–381)

During the monster campaign, Amie becomes Dominic's most effective mobile partner. She layers Explosion and Firebolt into pistol shots, uses barriers to conceal movement through storms, senses nearby casters, adjusts portal destinations, and repeatedly detaches from larger formations to assassinate the mages sustaining enemy forces. Her small size lets allied ranks fire over her, but her contribution depends on judgment rather than novelty: she separates summoned monsters from their controllers, identifies portal beacons, and knows when the pair need reinforcements. Their weapons partially compensate for limited mana, yet neither mistakes that advantage for invulnerability. When a powerful blood ritual is protected by a barrier far beyond their combined ability, Amie admits the limit and shifts from destruction to containment and observation. (Chapters 381–412)

The discovery of a class of child mages exposes the moral pressure beneath her profession. Amie is enraged that the girls have been taken for Goblin breeding, slips past the fighting to rescue them, and sends them for treatment before returning for the surviving boys. She is initially willing to kill corrupted students, but accepts Dominic's decision to deliver the frightened survivors to the Duskblade Sect for assessment and rehabilitation. The episode shows that her contempt for humans does not erase a specific loyalty to exploited children. Her later revelation that she has spent decades baiting and killing child traffickers gives this rescue a personal and professional continuity that is not yet visible to Dominic. (Chapters 407–410; 547; 603–604)

Back in Wistover, Amie turns battlefield collaboration into durable infrastructure. She brings Dominic to the Sect's magitech specialist, creates the precisely cut gems needed for experimental orbs, tests amplified barriers, and arranges Duskblade labor when producing every orb personally would take too long. Her political caution narrows the first run of royal shields so Wistover will not appear to be equipping foreign guards at another crown's expense. She then continues fighting beside Dominic during attacks on the city, equips trolls with fireproofing, and uses transmutation for stoves and other practical work. By the end of the incursions, she is no longer a visiting observer: she is the bridge between Dominic's forge, the Duskblade tower, and Wistover's field forces. (Chapters 416–450)

Refugees, Conspiracies, and Provincial Power

As Wistover fills with refugees, soldiers, and marriage candidates, Amie is assigned to household security. The Sect makes her wear a red-and-black party dress rather than robes or armor, a choice she resents because a formal costume lacks the operational purpose of her honey-trap disguises. Guests mistake her proximity to Dominic for romantic ambition, but she remains his irreverent guard and diverts strangers without competing for status. When an enemy force arrives by portal, she appears at his side, identifies the uniforms and probable mages, opens the response route, and fireproofs the troll vanguard. Her role has expanded from killing targets to recognizing which political and military threat Wistover is actually facing. (Chapters 451–493)

The flood in Dagos makes that judgment a matter of survival. Amie traces Dominic after an explosion throws him through a portal and finds him in a noble manor he has cleared while partially feral. She refuses to let his relief at surviving obscure the consequences: she checks the dead for evidence, searches the rooms he missed, and discovers captive children in basement cages. Amie frees them, moves them above the rising water, sends accurate reports so enemies cannot exploit rumors of Dominic's death, and seals the manor with stone and displaced rubble. When tornado-force winds strike, she maintains the main barrier until Dominic feeds it external mana, accepting his greater endurance without surrendering control of the defense. (Chapters 520–530)

Amie also prevents the emergency shelter from becoming another massacre. She monitors radio traffic and distant movement with senses beyond an ordinary human's, evaluates the boats and refugees approaching the manor, and pushes Dominic to finish the investigation and return to Alexis. After contacting Axbridge and a necromancer force, she opens the portal home and gives Dominic space to face his wife's anger. Her dark humor makes the mission look casual, but her choices are consistently corrective: find the overlooked victims, preserve proof, establish outside contact, and keep a powerful dragonkin from deciding that every uncertain person is an enemy. (Chapters 525–535)

That combination of disguise and restraint makes Amie useful in the political crises that follow. She accompanies Fahad to Albroles because her earlier mission against a child-trafficking ring gives her knowledge of the city, then vanishes from a guarded group and reappears as an unnoticed maid inside a royal office. Later, she locates Prince Kaizon's force, opens the approach route, binds the captured prince so he cannot move, cast, or use transport magic, and portals surrendered soldiers away before he can rally them again. She is not the public negotiator in either operation. Her contribution is to make escape, substitution, and renewed violence much harder while leaving the visible decisions to royals and governors. (Chapters 547–579)

Once Stansia's new administration is assembled, Dominic introduces Amie as his personal assistant and Duskblade specialist. She then tells the advisors what he has never pressed her to reveal: she is a pure-blooded Doppelgänger who does not age, has worked as an assassin for decades, and was assigned as his bodyguard while learning blacksmithing and magitech. Childhood nerve damage limits her body to forms of roughly forty to forty-five kilograms and restricts her mana growth, but does not prevent precise facial changes, claws, or lock-picking keys formed from her fingers. Naming those limits changes her place in Wistover from useful mystery to acknowledged professional. She remains dangerous, but her danger now belongs to a defined network of duties, colleagues, and people who know what she is. (Chapters 602–614)

The Royal Joust and Regional Alliances

At the Royal Joust, Amie moves easily between technical work and emergency response. She recognizes that a safety lens could protect riders from shattered lances, supplies a sample, and immediately anticipates demand for Duskblade-made versions. When a field alert arrives, she opens a portal for Dominic, joins the rapid fight, carries official correspondence, and then retrieves Alexis from her own monster hunt in time to resume ceremonial duties. Her portal skill lets Wistover host a continental spectacle without leaving its surrounding settlements undefended, while her practical eye turns hazards noticed in the stands into products and procedures the Sect can actually provide. (Chapters 626–636)

The same event requires quieter security. Dominic sends Amie after a disguised servant during a poisoning attempt, and she returns with information concealed beneath an ordinary food cart. She knows Wavemates hand signals, can move through service spaces without attracting royal attention, and understands when a visible portal would itself reveal too much. This work does not depend on shapeshifting alone; it uses timing, cover roles, hearing, and an ability to read what other staff are expected to do. The public sees an insignificant young assistant while the household uses her as an intelligence officer able to cross boundaries between nobles, servants, soldiers, and mages. (Chapters 640–648)

Regional expansion gives Amie more constructive work as well. She teaches Dominic Create Gem, helps forge weapons, assesses foreign spell gems, and routes valuable patterns to the Duskblade Elders for copying. Her understanding of spells lets the duchy redirect battlefield magic toward roads and agriculture rather than treating every acquisition as a weapon. When Alexis travels to the capital while pregnant, Amie assumes the cover identity of the Baron of Skipton River's daughter and wears a harmless blue Mage Core over her own blood-dark one. She admits that trolls and witches are slowly helping repair her old injuries, giving her a prospect of broader transformations even though no formal advancement is established. (Chapters 675–704)

Heirs of Wistover and the World Dragon

Amie's duties remain outward-facing as Wistover's alliance system grows. She escorts food and equipment convoys, secures portals into Albroles, scans delivery sites for deceit, and prepares Wings of Light gems for new patrol units. Back home she spends most days in the forge developing her own craft. When a captured offender needs to disappear into long confinement without inviting revenge from his former associates, Amie uses an alchemical transformation to destroy the usefulness of his familiar face, then portals him directly to prison. The action is severe, but it reflects her established operational purpose: prevent a known threat from using identity, movement, or social connections to escape the confinement ordered for him. (Chapters 705–746)

Her craft begins to stand on its own instead of remaining only assistance to Dominic. Amie makes a Mythril-alloy staff ring while experimenting with Earth to Aluminum and a Quality Upgrade orb, casts a still-imperfect Storage Ring effect on it, and enchants carved boxes as storage items. She then uses the Skipton River identity to represent Alexis among young nobles, making an intentionally charming impression while quietly keeping Dominic's visit under control. When his bounty against a criminal organization threatens broader chaos, she contacts the Sect and arranges action against its ranking members before the surviving enforcers can regroup. Wistover increasingly relies on her not merely to perform a disguise, but to coordinate the people who act behind it. (Chapters 745–761)

Amie becomes part of the governing household without acquiring a public title. She fetches tax officials, portals agents, duplicates documents, and serves as one of the battle mages available when Alexis's Paladins are absent. More importantly, she tutors and guards Katerina. The child knows Amie's innocent appearance is a weapon, demands magical instruction from her, and later uses her as an escort at the palace under the Skipton River cover. Amie shadows Katerina from bookshelves and service areas where conventional guards would be conspicuous, giving the young dragonkin freedom to move without leaving her unprotected. By Katerina's adolescence, Amie's recovered control is broad enough that she can imitate the princess's size, though the corpus does not show a complete cure of the childhood damage. (Chapters 774–807)

At the endpoint, Amie remains at Wistover while Katerina leaves for Chip and Alexis considers following. She warns Dominic that the household workload will fall back on him and jokes with the family's younger sons about which parent is truly frightening. More than a century later, the final chronology focuses on the aging Wavemates family; nothing states that the non-aging Doppelgänger has died or left their service. Her latest explicit position is therefore the one she built across the preceding decades: a permanent-seeming craft partner, bodyguard, intelligence specialist, and family confidante whose loyalty is expressed through work rather than rank. (Chapter 810)

Appearance and personality

Amie's usual form resembles a flawless, fragile human girl in her early teens. She stands about one hundred forty centimeters tall, has small hands, and remains light enough for allies to lift her behind a rider. The appearance is deliberately misleading: she is much older than she looks, does not age, and is strong and fast enough to keep pace with adult battle mages. Duskblade robes are her preferred working clothes, while formal duties place her in simple red-and-black gowns or the fashionable dress of her Skipton River persona. (Chapters 372–380, 481, 576, and 603)

That form is neither an illusion nor her only face. As a pure-blooded Doppelgänger, Amie can alter features, apparent age, posture, fingers, and other bodily details while remaining within the volume imposed by her injury. She demonstrates a gaunt street-orphan face, bone claws, and fingernails shaped into ten different keys. The change remains possible under an antimagic restraint, making physical search and magical suppression unreliable ways to identify or confine her. By the later chapters she can alter her size enough to resemble Katerina, evidence of partial recovery rather than proof that the earlier weight limit has vanished entirely. (Chapters 603–604, 684, and 802)

Amie's personality is practical, irreverent, and comfortable with violence. She disregards titles, delights in well-made weapons, and uses dark jokes to puncture both Dominic's excesses and aristocratic ceremony. Her attachment to precision is equally visible in the forge and on missions: she understands prices, cuts gems accurately, notices overlooked evidence, and dislikes suffering that serves no purpose. She has little demonstrated romantic interest and meets most men with disdain, so gossip about her proximity to Dominic consistently misreads a partnership based on work, trust, and shared danger. (Chapters 372–379, 427, 472–482, and 520–535)

Her cynicism toward humans coexists with fierce concern for people exploited as prey. Decades of honey-trap assignments have made traffickers her specialty, and she is particularly enraged by abused or captive children. She can contemplate killing corrupted students and exterminating a criminal leadership without remorse, but personally frees prisoners, arranges treatment, and keeps Dominic from overlooking civilians during feral or politically volatile episodes. Wistover does not make her gentle; it gives her violence a stable protective purpose and surrounds her with people willing to trust her judgment. (Chapters 407–410, 520–535, 547, 756, and 795–801)

Magic, skills, and craft

Amie's power comes from two overlapping sources: innate Doppelgänger traits and level-fifteen mage ability. Her species fixes the effective level of her ordinary spells near her innate level, while her Duskblade training supplies a broad repertoire in portals, battle magic, barriers, assassination, and magical fabrication. Childhood injury limits both shapeshifting volume and mana storage, so versatility and preparation matter more to her than unlimited output.

Doppelgänger physiology and shapeshifting

Amie is a pure-blooded Doppelgänger who does not naturally age. Her shapeshifting changes her body rather than relying on ordinary spellcasting, as demonstrated when an antimagic strap fails to suppress it. She can refine facial age and condition, imitate a noble daughter or disposable street child, produce bone claws, and reshape individual fingernails into keys. Those changes support infiltration, escape, close assassination, and ordinary cover identities. Her missions also demonstrate that a convincing role depends on timing, researched behavior, and social performance rather than appearance alone. (Chapters 547–548, 603–604, 684–704, and 745–758)

Nerve damage suffered in childhood prevents her from freely changing volume. For most of the story she limits forms to roughly forty or forty-five kilograms, leaving her with the stature of a young girl even though she has lived and worked for decades. The same injury restricts expansion of her mana storage. Troll and witch treatment later helps her recover enough size control to imitate Katerina, but the corpus never confirms that full species-typical range or mana growth returns. Her latest demonstrated state is improved, not cured. (Chapters 603–604, 684, and 802)

Her body also supplies physical advantages whose exact mechanics are not fully enumerated. Amie is stronger than her build suggests, crosses battlefields faster than Dominic, has hearing good enough to isolate distant radio traffic, and can recognize odors or magical traces other humans miss. Some of these effects may combine species traits, mage enhancement, and trained mana sensing; the text does not assign each one to a named ability. They are best treated as demonstrated capabilities rather than a complete physiological catalogue. (Chapters 372, 401–405, 525, and 529)

Mage level, mana, and spellcasting limits

Amie identifies herself as a level-fifteen mage and says her Doppelgänger innate level causes the spells she knows to cast at approximately that level. This gives ordinary techniques substantially more force than her apparent age suggests and lets her use a level-zero amplification orb to push Area Barrier above the level-twenty threshold. She can force a few stronger spells, but doing so exhausts her. The corpus does not show when she attained either level or a formal change afterward, so the numbers describe her established state rather than a narrated progression. (Chapters 374, 419, and 603–604)

Her mana capacity is the principal limit on sustained combat. Repeated Explosion or Fireball enhancement drains her after only a few volleys unless she uses a pistol that regenerates mana on hit. During the Dagos storm she can maintain a powerful barrier, but relaxes when Dominic channels external mana into it because his reserves and endurance are greater. Amie works around that disparity with short decisive casts, magitech weapons, prepared gems, and division of labor rather than attempting to overpower every problem directly. (Chapters 384–410, 419–423, and 528–529)

Portals, barriers, and control magic

Portal magic is Amie's most important utility. She can open routes for individuals, armies, prisoners, and supplies; adjust destinations; trace a known person or location; and keep the opening positioned for a tactical approach. Accuracy depends on a usable destination or location lock. Severe magical interference during the Dagos storms prevents even a small portal home, and tracing a place in another world does not give her the power to reach it. These limits keep portals from being universal escape or travel spells despite her unusual proficiency. (Chapters 397, 493, 520–535, 547–578, 630–645, and 710–746)

Her defensive and control repertoire includes Area Barrier, wind-muted concealment barriers, fireproofing, stone and water manipulation, and a binding spell. Area Barrier protects groups or structures but consumes mana under sustained pressure; fireproofing protects the troll vanguard without making Dominic willing to treat cannon and mage fire as harmless. Her binding on Kaizon simultaneously prevents meaningful movement, spellcasting, and transport magic, making it suited to a dangerous royal prisoner. The corpus demonstrates these effects but does not specify maximum duration, range, or counters beyond mana pressure and environmental interference. (Chapters 390, 419, 493, 523–530, and 577)

Combat magic and assassination

Amie casts offensive spells through magical firearms, stacking Explosion, Firebolt, Fireball, or similar effects onto mana bullets. The weapon supplies speed, penetration, and sometimes mana recovery, while the spell supplies elemental or area damage; neither component should be mistaken for the other. Her accuracy is good enough to fire close to allies and assassinate enemy mages under battlefield pressure, but even an enhanced shot can fail against armor or a strong barrier. She alternates pistols, a borrowed Ogre rifle, barriers, and movement according to target and terrain. (Chapters 381–410, 401–405, 441–442, and 712)

Duskblade training makes her more than a ranged caster. Amie infiltrates as a maid or noble girl, disappears from guarded formations, recognizes portal beacons and blood rituals, and uses hand signals to coordinate without exposing the plan. Her Doppelgänger body can defeat locks and antimagic precautions at close range, but her real advantage is patience: trafficking targets believe they have chosen a powerless victim and do not identify the threat until she is inside their security. She has used that method for decades, and the confidential mission record implied by foreign recognition confirms repeated professional experience rather than a single improvised deception. (Chapters 407–412, 547–548, 603–604, 647–648, 684–704, and 745–761)

Gem craft, magitech, and forge work

Amie begins as a knowledgeable assistant rather than a blacksmith. She prepares clay and castings, explains standard Mana Oil practice, identifies how Dominic's process differs, and contributes her own magic to materials. Her fine control makes her particularly good at creating precisely cut gems and components for magitech orbs. In the Royal Guard shield project, she makes gems, measures amplified barriers, catches design and political problems, and arranges the Sect labor needed for production. The completed shields are collaborative objects: Dominic shapes and enchants the metal, a Duskblade Elder designs the advanced orb system, and Amie supplies technical testing, gems, coordination, and manufacture. (Chapters 372–379 and 416–429)

Her craft later becomes independent. She teaches Create Gem, copies and sorts spell gems, helps adapt magic for farming and roads, makes storage enchantments, and experiments with Earth to Aluminum and Quality Upgrade. Her personal staff ring successfully carries a Storage Ring effect even though she has not fully mastered the spell, while identical-copy magic lets Wistover complete administrative paperwork faster. At the endpoint she still works in the forge and serves the government, so her latest state is that of a capable magical fabricator developing beyond assistant work, not a source-confirmed formal blacksmith rank. (Chapters 610–611, 675–683, 745–750, and 774–810)

Relationships

• Dominic Wavemates: Dominic begins as Amie's suspicious teacher and equipment supplier, but their shared appetite for dangerous experimentation and direct action makes them unusually effective partners. She becomes his assistant, bodyguard, portal specialist, and corrective voice when his feral instincts or ignorance of politics creates risk. Their intimacy is professional and familial rather than romantic. (Chapters 372–450, 520–535, 602–614, and 745–810)
• Alexis: Alexis accepts Amie's danger because the Duskblade Sect vouches for her and because Amie's work protects both Dominic and Wistover. Amie helps equip Alexis's guards, retrieves her from the field, serves in her household, and later represents her through the Skipton River identity. Alexis in turn provides the disciplined authority that keeps Amie and Dominic's more destructive partnership tied to public responsibilities. (Chapters 379, 416–429, 481–535, 635, and 684–810)
• Katerina: Amie becomes Katerina's magical tutor, covert escort, and one of the few adults who understands how an innocent appearance can conceal overwhelming danger. She shadows the princess at court and supports her movement through spaces where an obvious guard would attract attention. Katerina admires Amie's disguises and lethal reputation, sometimes more enthusiastically than her mother would prefer. (Chapters 789–807)
• Elder Manif: Manif belongs to the Duskblade leadership that assigns Amie and negotiates magical instruction with Dominic. His caution around her weapons makes clear that the Sect knows how dangerous she is, but he trusts her loyalty and allows her to serve as the practical link between the tower and Wistover's forge. (Chapters 374–380, 416–423, and 602–604)
• Fahad: Fahad relies on Amie as a covert guard during the Albroles investigation, where her knowledge of the city's trafficking networks and ability to replace a servant give his small royal party protection without an ostentatious escort. Their cooperation continues through alliance travel and Wistover's royal gatherings. (Chapters 482, 547–549, and 684–712)
• Pops: Pops is the senior smith around whom Amie and Dominic's forge partnership develops. Amie respects his practical standards and works alongside him without pretending that her magical fabrication makes her a fully trained smith. (Chapters 372–380 and 416)

Items

• Dragon Breath Revolvers of Swiftness: Dominic customizes this pair of Rare, level-twenty mana revolvers to Amie's small hands. They add fire damage and attack speed, and become the principal weapons through which she delivers stacked combat spells. (Chapters 378–410)
• Shield of Avenging Might: Amie helps develop the shield family by creating gems, testing Area Barrier amplification, coordinating Duskblade orb production, and warning against politically excessive distribution. Her relationship is that of collaborator rather than owner. (Chapters 416–429)
• Shield of Frozen Vengeance: The ice-aspected shield made for Alexis emerges from the same collaborative project. Amie helps test its component system, recommends it as the princess's gift, and arranges the additional orbs required to reproduce related shields for the Royal Guard. (Chapters 419–429)