Artemy was born the youngest of two children to the local Kin Menkhu (physician, surgeon, and spiritual leader) Isidor Burakh by way of young weaver woman in town. Unfortunately, Artemy's mother passed away during his birth as the second child. Both Artemy and his older brother Ersher were raised with dual identities, and were exposed to the native Kin culture from their father's side and the provincial Russian town from their deceased mother's.
During his childhood Artemy was friends with a number of young children around his age, Grigory Filin (better known as Bad Grief), Lara Ravel (nicknamed Gravel) and Stanislav Rubin (more often called Stakh). They used to disappear for weeks, enjoying their freedom in a way that children of the Town normally aren't able to in the present day, according to Khan, traveling along the Gorkhon long before it became far too toxic to swim in and spending nights out in the grasslands without fear.
In his late teens, Artemy's brother Ersher passed away suddenly due to an accident, leaving Artemy to take up the mantle as next menkhu in the bloodline. He rigorously studied steppe lore and medicine under Isidor's guidance, learning the fundamentals of surgery and herbalism, all closely tied to the Kin's perception of the world through the concept of the Lines - connections between things both of physical and spiritual nature.
It wasn't long, however, before Isidor came to a conclusion that it would do his son well to seek knowledge outside of the limits of the Kin and the Town, so he sent young Artemy away to study medicine in the Capital (a bustling city of modernity). Artemy left his hometown for several years, and in that time he grew distant from his roots as a man of the Kin. He spent his time studying surgery for some time until the war broke out, taking away his chance to graduate. He spent a good deal of time as a combat surgeon and feldsher, lopping off limbs and treating dying men.
While on the war front, Artemy received a very delayed letter from his father. In the letter, Isidor expressed great concern, urging Artemy to return to the Town. Artemy stowed away on a train, and, in the middle of September, arrived in his hometown, only to find it changed almost beyond recognition.
Not long after stepping off that train, Artemy was attacked by three men at the station who believed that he was responsible for the murder of his father. Finding his reputation crushed and everyone in town believing him to be a patricide—one who murders their own father—except for the trust of a few old friends, Artemy was lost. Through the help of a few allies and with some unexpected aid from less-than-respectable means, Artemy was able to restore his reputation and reconnect with his Town to conquer the true problem at hand.
While in Town, Artemy went to see his father's body in the Cemetery for his burial only to discover that the Earth would not accept Isidor's remains, meaning that there was a debt still owed. As Isidor's successor by blood and trade, Artemy was to take on the burden of his father's legacy unto himself and fix whatever was keeping Isidor from being buried. At the funeral, Aspity, a family friend, spoke with him of his birthright and of several children his father took care of. Artemy didn't know why his father picked these children, and he also couldn't figure out why a strange Steppe symbol called the 'Udurgh' was among his father's list.
While some of the children were in places Artemy could not reach, he was able to speak to a girl and mystic named Capella, who told him that she believed Isidor thought the children on the list were to become the Town's future and that was why he taught and protected them. It then becomes clear that the burden would fall on Artemy's shoulders to continue to watch out for these children, doing all that he could to keep them safe - a task that would become more difficult once the Sand Plague outbreak began not long after this discovery.
Thus, it became Artemy's responsibility to use his Menkhu knowledge, passed to him from his father, to aid in stopping the Sand Pest outbreak. With the aid (or not so much) of a Capital dandy and famed thanatologist, Daniil Dankovsky, and a girl who proclaimed to perform miracles with her bare hands, Clara, the three would be thrust into a very dark 12 days where a dangerous disease known only as the Sand Pest, would ravage over a thousand lives in this very small town along the Gorkhon.
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