Aerin Penna Seleratus
12-13-08, 02:31 PM
Date unknown
Althanas Invitational Tournament Arena
Carefully-trimmed nails rattled out a bawdy-sounding tune on the countertop partly out of feigned boredom and partly out of curiosity about how far she could go into the song until someone pitched something at her or asked her to stop. Her eyes were alive and active as she glanced about, her clarity tested by her first ever portal trip, giving her mind the sensory ‘boost’ that she normally only got from a smoke of Mist. The only thing lacking was the dry mouth and intense internal heat from the ‘odd tobacco’ – well, truth be told, there were other missing side effects as well but she needed to keep her mind in the game – which was not a sensation that she particularly missed or desired.
Besides, she was here as a representative of her home world, of the city of Citadel, and (most importantly), as at least one representative of the Rocky Island Guild. She was here to make Mistress Ashari proud, as always. She stopped tapping her nails and lowered her hands to her stomach, giving a small tug on the bottom of her tunic, one that had cost her a reasonable sum to have designed and sewn by the famed Audrey. Aerin had seen the outfit in a dream once and loved, the front and back of the tunic held together by palm-width expanses of crisscrossed straps, allowing onlookers a hint of the smooth skin which lay below, while still maintaining modesty. She smoothed the cloth and checked the skirt, her eyes continuing down as if she expected her legs to be malformed or backwards. Fully trusting the portal would take time, no matter what the man she had nicknamed ‘Snotty’ had told her before she stepped through.
“I am here for the tournament.” She announced suddenly, lifting her eyes back to the person or persons behind the counter with the same glimmer within them that she had held when she had nearly choked Langredoc to death with the power of her mind alone, her dark crimson curls dancing across her shoulders as her smile followed those eyes in the lift. “Name is Aerin Penna Seleratus, of the Rocky Isle Guild…” she finished announcing, blood calling out to her in her own way, the murderess looking forward to possibly being able to kill with full license or, at the very least, leave a few marks for others to remember her by.
Character ported from Tazlure. Please comment on changes necessary in PM.
Name: Aerin Penna Seleratus
Age: 21
Sex: Female
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 135
Hair Colour: Red
Eye Colour: Green
Occupation: Mage/Companion
Personality: Upon first meeting, largely dependent on the situation, she will appear as an introvert while testing the waters. She loves to laugh, however, and a smile and charm tend to make their way through her shields quicker than anything else. Due to past issues with men, she is seldom trusting of matters of the heart and slow to make alliances which 'stick'. She hates oppression (ironically unless she is the oppressor) and those who try to 'preach' religion to her. She can be a bit rough at times in both her manner of speech and sense of humor. She is also a thinker, her mind chewing up and processing anything that she sees or hears for later or immediate use.
Appearance: Exotic crimson flows curl gracefully around a seemingly angelic face as jade eyes flecked with slate gaze this way and that. The lines of a dancer mixed with the curves of a succubus draw themselves neatly to lightly-sandaled feet which peek precociously from beneath her skirts and ample - but not overwhelming - swells of flesh threaten to burst upward toward her gently sweeping neck from within her corset.
Her face is somewhat heart-shaped with well-proportioned eyes which hang above tiny starburst patterns of freckles on her cheekbones. Her nose is smooth-sloping at the bridge with a dainty rounding at the tip and her nostrils are narrowed. Her lips are full and welcoming with a slight pout in the lower lip.
Weapons: Besides her body, magick, and wit, Aerin carries upon her person two steel daggers which have been custom-built to give anyone that they puncture a fairly bad day. They are twin double-edged weapons and have slots within the blades and edges which do not just go in a straight line, but rather jut out in teeth, dips, and vicious curves, the weapon more prone to causing multiple lacerations and hanging on meat on both insertion and extraction than simply causing a single ‘clean’ wound. In addition, it is Aerin’s common practice to twist the blade upon full insertion before drawing back, causing more damage internally.
Armour: She wears sparse armor, mostly consisting of leather cut to look like ‘common’ street clothes, her favorite being a sleeveless leather tunic over a white blouse (or bare skin depending upon the weather, a treat for onlookers, since the sides are ‘open’, the front and back held together with black cord.), a matching split skirt which reaches mid-thigh, leather knee-high boots, and leather bracers which attach to the hand via a small studded triangle which goes across the back of the hand, connecting to the middle finger with a loop. Her preferred color for this armor is a light doeskin brown.
Skills and Abilities:
Mundane Skills:
Con Artist – The art of confidence, the art of the ‘true’ lie – she has been trained to trick and mislead, all while giving the charms and airs of someone whose story is wholly believable. She knows when and how to relax or add to fabrication, as well as how to judge fairly well the tells and signs of others who may try to con her.
Inner Calm – Aerin has learned to keep her thoughts as the eye of a hurricane in stressful situations, allowing a rational mind to prevail where many others would become a cloud of scattered thoughts and emotions. This is especially true when it comes to the cold acts of torture and murder, as those two acts are like gardening to others – calm times of relaxation and enjoyment.
Interrogation – Interrogation is the skill of being able to successfully question an unwilling subject in order to glean either hints or full answers despite the subject’s opposition. It also involves knowing what questions to ask, when, and how to read the signs of success or failure.
Intimidation Thuggery – Much like Interrogation, this is the art of gaining answers or items from an unwilling target. However, Interrogation is purely mental while Intimidation Thuggery is mostly physical. This art involves the use of pain (real or implied), threats, and outright torture which can range from mild to inhumane, all to coerce the target into compliance in order to end suffering. Aerin, personally, considers this a true art form and will often use different tools and methods to gauge her own creativity and the subject’s reaction.
Literacy [Reading/Writing (Human)] – An often overlooked skill, this is the art of reading and writing which Aerin prizes, not only as a mage, but also as a Companion, for her suitors may want different things from her that she could learn faster from a book than experience. Plus, it helps to be able to read things that some of her peers would find to be just useless gibberish and no comparison to their swords.
Seduction / Woo – What would a Companion be without the ability to talk a man (or woman, as she is comfortable with both) out of both clothes and secrets? Although a bit stone-hearted and hedonistic herself, Aerin sees this as the ‘soft form’ of Intimidation Thuggery or – at times – foreplay to get a subject defenseless and in a compromising position before switching to the ‘hard form’.
Streetwise – Streetwise is the skill of not looking like one is ‘out of place’ on the streets, being able to go with the flow, look like one belongs, and being able to avoid most minor ‘common’ dangers such as dark alleys, seedy dives, and pickpockets.
Magick Skills:
Manipulation of Energy: Sorcery – “My magick is a garden full of both flowers and thorns.” Aerin’s Sorcery is much like her mundane skills as it is focused on the ability to torture or kill as opposed to simply attack – ‘called shots’ if you will. Listed below are a few of her favored spells, all are mental in the aspect that they are unseen/intangible. She 'sees' them as visualizations, but the manifestation is psychosomatic and thus the mind thinks the body is being attacked and so the body reacts. (as opposed to just a mental attack/illusion) The spells are best fought via mental shielding and/or physical shielding via magick.
Spell – Nettlethroat: She uses plants as a form of visualization and will use this spell to give the target the feeling that thick, thorned nettle vines are lodged and growing within their throat and airways, choking the victim from afar. No verbal or material components are needed, but the spell is accompanied with a grasping motion with her hand or hands. The tighter the grip, the thicker and more prolific the vines. Opening the hand fully ends the spell.
Spell – Vinewall: This is a potent shielding spell from attack, with absolutely no energy put into offensive gestures and is centered upon the caster. No verbal or material components needed, gesture is arms crossed at the wrists, hands are fists.
Spell – Thornwall: A tad weaker than Vinewall, Thornwall gives offense capabilities as a side benefit and is centered on the target, manifesting as an invisible column of woven vines adorned with razored and irritating barbs which slowly constricts upon the target, containing their attack somewhat while attacking back simultaneously, constricting movement, causing a sharp stinging sensation on the skin despite armor, and inflamed itching at the 'puncture sites' that lasts for about twenty to thirty minutes after the spell has ended. No verbal or material components needed, gesture is arms crossed at the wrists, hands open like claws.
Spell – The Kudzu’s Root: Another intangible ‘plant’ spell, the Kudzu’s Root is one meant to draw energy from a living being and deliver it back to the caster. No verbal or material components are needed, gesture is index and middle fingers together, other fingers loosely gripped as if encircling a tree. Spell is more efficient with physical contact and although contact is not necessary, potency does decrease with range, becoming ineffective at the range of 15 feet.
Spell - The Willow: - The Willow is an energy-sapping spell much like the Kudzu's Root, except it has a greater range and higher potency due to the fact that, unlike the Kudzu's Root, it does not feed the stolen energy back to the caster. The result is typically equal to the feeling of being physically and mentally exhausted, as if the target had just put in eight hours of backbreaking labor in the few minutes of the spell's duration. No verbal or material components are required and the gesture is the same as the Kudzu's Root, only mirrored with the other hand and then the two hands clasp, holding the pose. It is a short-duration/heavy hit spell, but it does leave the caster pretty much with their 'hands tied' during the spell's manifestation.
Spell - Flesh puppetry – This magick began life for Aerin as the crude, simple art of grabbing a corpse’s jaw and manipulating it as one would do with a ventriloquist dummy, making it speak in her voice. Time and study of a bit of necromancy have changed that. She cannot glean information from a corpse, but can, via this spell, animate a corpse and have it communicate in its voice, saying whatever she wants it to say. It is, for the most part, a novelty spell strictly for her own amusement.
Weapon/Fighting Skills:
Smaller Blades – She has trained well with the use of daggers and knives, mostly focused on her custom blades. With such a short point of impact, she has been taught certain weak points to aim at like soft tissue (underarms, gut, throat, etc.,) and how to maximize damage in a short amount of time. She was trained to be somewhat ambidextrous with the weapons, but is right-handed and so she tends to favor that blade.
Close-Quarters Melee – Being a knife fighter means having to get close to an opponent to ‘get the job done’ and getting close to cause damage also implies getting close enough to BE damaged. As such, she has been trained in the art of evasion and light grappling/blocking in a brawl-type manner.
History: Aerin was born in a small settlement on a farm outside of Murrelbuck. Her father was a devout follower of Dominicus and a man of the earth, spending most of his day outside of the house tending to both crops and livestock. Aerin’s mother was, for the most part, a farmer’s wife although she grew more and more weary of the life she was leading with every passing child, her attention going to some of the harder spirits that Tazlure had to offer near the beginning of Aerin’s teen years. Due to her father’s frequent absence and her mother’s drunkenness, Aerin found herself acting as a surrogate mother to her siblings on top of her required studies of the teachings of Dominicus.
Her father, refusing to believe that his dear, sweet wife could voluntarily succumb to alcohol addiction, determined that something else must be the cause and, without hesitation or conference with his eldest daughter, gifted her with a stack of tomes on anatomy and alchemy, convinced that his daughter could – one day – heal her. Yahren passed and the young redhead matured, entering the very last of her teen years with no sign of a husband or any sort of life other than that which her father wanted her to lead. Her father, a man who knew no magic, kept postponing her advancement to the University of Magic due to her mothers unchanging health and the younger children still needing a caretaker.
"Besides, them books is magick, girl - yer jus' not learnin' good enough."
One fateful night, a young man calling himself "Rat" came calling - not as any sort of Prince Charming kind of way, but to convince either of Aerin's parents, via thuggery, to pay her outstanding bill owed to the spiritsmith. Aerin's father was away at the time, tending to business, and her mother was passed out beyond the point of waking and clarity, so Aerin foolishly offered herself to "Rat", as he called himself, in leiu of her mother's bill. "Rat" entertained the offer, seeing potential in the young farm girl and whisked her away to the 'big city' of Murrelbuck, where he paid her mother's bill in full.
Aerin rode on the fence separating slavery and paid service for a yahren, happy to have not been pressed into prostitution but rather into training by Rat and his men to be 'bait' for their small organization, luring people who Rat called 'marks' into secluded ambushes. Aerin only saw a few of these ambushes to their conclusion, admiring with deep interest the brutality of some of them and noting that violence had an arousing effect upon her, the snap of bone or a spurt of blood clouding her vision with a euphoria that was indescribable. Using her leverage with Rat, she convinced him one day to allow her to pull a full contract from seduction to payment, and he allowed it, neither of them realizing how far it would go. That same tide, Aerin was on her way back to the family farm with blood on her hands (figuratively - the literal blood had been washed away) and the loss of Rat's respect. She had tortured and killed the mark, among other things, and was no longer welcome in their circle.
Aerin returned home and saw that nothing had changed in her absence and so, with a heavy heart, she packed her meager belongings, grabbed a small bit of money, and made her way to the Citadel to try to attend the University of Magic on her own. Once she arrived, she set about looking for work and found it in a cafe called Simple Pleasures. She looked into the University of Magic as well but, although she found favor from the Professor of Alchemy, Aerin found that University training was still out of her reach unless she went through the Temple of Pecunia (Citadel) and, thanks to her father's overbearing nature, Aerin wanted nothing to do with any temples of any kind.
Determined to enjoy herself, despite the odds, Aerin purchased Cicero, a small performing monkey, as a pet and retired to her room at the Burpin' Dragon. The next morningtide, she arose and wandered near the rubble of the Red Banner where her curiosity led her to help Morgan Scrylock and Becca Acerbi excavate a section of the ruins. Aerin had no idea what the other two were looking for and never received instructions as to what she was to do, so she preoccupied her time within the ruins dabbling in cannibalism, pilfering small objects, and dresses. Joining up with the other mages in what she considered to be the 'treasure room', Aerin aided Becca further with opening a door at the back of the room which turned out to be a dead end - literally - for Fauna, whose corpse fell through the opening. Deciding that there was nothing further that vould be done or found, Aerin swiped a couple of handfuls of what she thought to be tobacco (really White Myst) from some bales in the back, bundled them into some stolen dresses, and left, happy with at least a little gain for some smelly work.
Her next 'grand adventure' was a social event that went down in flames...literally. Never having been in a city the size of the Citadel before, and certainly never around royalty (that she knew of - Lord Raphael Terrel had never let on to the fact that he was anything more than a common thug), Aerin prettied herself up nicely and decided to attend the big coronation party that everyone had been speaking of so fondly. One thing, however, which had eluded her fantasies of rubbing elbows with the elite was a little thing known as an invitation - or lack thereof. Dejected, Aerin began walking back toward the Citadel's inner ring, toward no destination in particular, following a young girl and her "date" from the palace at random.
Suddenly, there was a commotion and the young girl, her companion, and Aerin began running toward a red-orange flicker on the horizon. It was a building that Aerin would later find to be called the Red Rose Guild which was, ironically enough, a place which taught young commoners like Aerin how to become Companions to the very elite who had unknowingly snubbed her. Had she known its purpose, she might have felt her heart shatter at its loss but, as it was, she felt her left hand shatter in its stead as she tumbled and fell, trampled below the crowd - a fat merchant in particular - as her motherly side urged her to give what aid she could. Her power over magic, particularly mindcraft, was non-existent but, when the young girl used her spell on the crowd, both stilling them and making them move toward the flames in moth-like appeal at the same time, the stubborn redhead ground the bones of her freshly broken hand together to break free of the control.
This is when the young girl made notice of her, offering Aerin power like that which she possessed. Aerin was both confused and astounded, agreeing readily through the thick haze of smoke and pain, and rushed off at Ashari Gywien's command, she showed both remarkable self-sacrifice and stupidity as she ripped at the remaining tatters of her dress, exposing herself to the crowds in an attempt to grab their attention, nearly getting herself arrested in the process before entering the Temple of the Mother (Citadel) for a night of rest and basic medical aid. The next morningtide, she met once more with Ashari and helped the woman recover the remains of a fallen student, a Swanmaiden named Aeris who had an eerily similar name to Aerin's own, a sore spot early on for Ashari to be sure as she initially had called the living redhead by the dead girl's name.
Undaunted, Aerin once more asserted that she wished to be Ashari's student, especially after the younger girl explained what she would be teaching in further detail. Happy at last, Aerin moved into Thalas Manse as full-fledged student of what remained of the Red Rose Guild where she took to trying to prove herself worthy of being a student, her initial attempts not without their pitfalls, the largest of which being when Aerin sat down to have a cigarette after a morning bout of cleaning, discovered that the "tobacco" she had pilfered from the Red Banner was not tobacco at all but a powerful, uncut drug which turned the already playfully promiscuous farm girl into little more than a rutting animal who all but raped an elderly guest of Ashari's. To make matters worse, Ashari walked in on them mid-coitus and the shock was so great for the odd couple that Aerin's body clenched and refused to let him separate from her while he began to suffer a heart attack of his own. Only by sheer luck, Aerin feels, were the three of them spared any true tragedy although it gave Aerin and the old man a twisted humor within their friendship wherein he dangles her accidental attempt at erotic assassination over her head.
Aerin tried to redeem herself later that same day while out running errands, the main errand being replacing her city pass which had been lost during the "bosom exposing incident", crossing paths with Yelena Kintessia and Trevyn at the gates and finding them to be interested in the freshly-destroyed guild. Seizing opportunity by the forelock, Aerin made arrangements for them all to meet at Simple Pleasures later where they were quickly joined by another prospect, Paige. After coffee, brownies, and an informal interview, Aerin took them to Thalas Manse where she gave Ashari an apology for nearly killing a beloved friend in the form of "fresh Roses".
Aerin was the eldest in the house, but probably the most immature of all of them and so she set upon herself the task of maturing quickly, swearing off men unless required for missions like the one Ashari had sent her on to bait out one of Michael Crane's thugs in what turned out to be a failed assassination attempt, resuming her job as a waitress at Simple Pleasures and quietly watching those around her, including the increasingly pregnant Ashari. Being the eldest of a large family, naturally, Aerin recognized the signs, but has yet to let Ashari know her suspicions, keeping silent on the issue out of respect for Ashari's privacy.
As of late, her thoughts have turned to those of murder, what with bodies from other killers being found almost daily. She thinks that she could do it just as well or better. That it will bring her peace of mind. That it will be as arousing as it has been in the past…
Familiar: A Tufted Capuchin monkey named Cicero. Feeling a tad lonely her first few days in the Citadel, Aerin embarked upon a quest via a local shopkeeper to garner a pet who appeared in the form of Cicero. Previously, Cicero had enjoyed a fun, simple life as a performer, doing little dances and collecting coins in a cup for a kindly old man who, as luck would have it, was not as kindly as he seemed, for he had also trained Cicero to do petty pilfering via subtle hand signals or tongue clicks. Cicero has also learned to work with other hand signals as well, as he has entered into the role of familiar for the young mage.
Althanas Invitational Tournament Arena
Carefully-trimmed nails rattled out a bawdy-sounding tune on the countertop partly out of feigned boredom and partly out of curiosity about how far she could go into the song until someone pitched something at her or asked her to stop. Her eyes were alive and active as she glanced about, her clarity tested by her first ever portal trip, giving her mind the sensory ‘boost’ that she normally only got from a smoke of Mist. The only thing lacking was the dry mouth and intense internal heat from the ‘odd tobacco’ – well, truth be told, there were other missing side effects as well but she needed to keep her mind in the game – which was not a sensation that she particularly missed or desired.
Besides, she was here as a representative of her home world, of the city of Citadel, and (most importantly), as at least one representative of the Rocky Island Guild. She was here to make Mistress Ashari proud, as always. She stopped tapping her nails and lowered her hands to her stomach, giving a small tug on the bottom of her tunic, one that had cost her a reasonable sum to have designed and sewn by the famed Audrey. Aerin had seen the outfit in a dream once and loved, the front and back of the tunic held together by palm-width expanses of crisscrossed straps, allowing onlookers a hint of the smooth skin which lay below, while still maintaining modesty. She smoothed the cloth and checked the skirt, her eyes continuing down as if she expected her legs to be malformed or backwards. Fully trusting the portal would take time, no matter what the man she had nicknamed ‘Snotty’ had told her before she stepped through.
“I am here for the tournament.” She announced suddenly, lifting her eyes back to the person or persons behind the counter with the same glimmer within them that she had held when she had nearly choked Langredoc to death with the power of her mind alone, her dark crimson curls dancing across her shoulders as her smile followed those eyes in the lift. “Name is Aerin Penna Seleratus, of the Rocky Isle Guild…” she finished announcing, blood calling out to her in her own way, the murderess looking forward to possibly being able to kill with full license or, at the very least, leave a few marks for others to remember her by.
Character ported from Tazlure. Please comment on changes necessary in PM.
Name: Aerin Penna Seleratus
Age: 21
Sex: Female
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 135
Hair Colour: Red
Eye Colour: Green
Occupation: Mage/Companion
Personality: Upon first meeting, largely dependent on the situation, she will appear as an introvert while testing the waters. She loves to laugh, however, and a smile and charm tend to make their way through her shields quicker than anything else. Due to past issues with men, she is seldom trusting of matters of the heart and slow to make alliances which 'stick'. She hates oppression (ironically unless she is the oppressor) and those who try to 'preach' religion to her. She can be a bit rough at times in both her manner of speech and sense of humor. She is also a thinker, her mind chewing up and processing anything that she sees or hears for later or immediate use.
Appearance: Exotic crimson flows curl gracefully around a seemingly angelic face as jade eyes flecked with slate gaze this way and that. The lines of a dancer mixed with the curves of a succubus draw themselves neatly to lightly-sandaled feet which peek precociously from beneath her skirts and ample - but not overwhelming - swells of flesh threaten to burst upward toward her gently sweeping neck from within her corset.
Her face is somewhat heart-shaped with well-proportioned eyes which hang above tiny starburst patterns of freckles on her cheekbones. Her nose is smooth-sloping at the bridge with a dainty rounding at the tip and her nostrils are narrowed. Her lips are full and welcoming with a slight pout in the lower lip.
Weapons: Besides her body, magick, and wit, Aerin carries upon her person two steel daggers which have been custom-built to give anyone that they puncture a fairly bad day. They are twin double-edged weapons and have slots within the blades and edges which do not just go in a straight line, but rather jut out in teeth, dips, and vicious curves, the weapon more prone to causing multiple lacerations and hanging on meat on both insertion and extraction than simply causing a single ‘clean’ wound. In addition, it is Aerin’s common practice to twist the blade upon full insertion before drawing back, causing more damage internally.
Armour: She wears sparse armor, mostly consisting of leather cut to look like ‘common’ street clothes, her favorite being a sleeveless leather tunic over a white blouse (or bare skin depending upon the weather, a treat for onlookers, since the sides are ‘open’, the front and back held together with black cord.), a matching split skirt which reaches mid-thigh, leather knee-high boots, and leather bracers which attach to the hand via a small studded triangle which goes across the back of the hand, connecting to the middle finger with a loop. Her preferred color for this armor is a light doeskin brown.
Skills and Abilities:
Mundane Skills:
Con Artist – The art of confidence, the art of the ‘true’ lie – she has been trained to trick and mislead, all while giving the charms and airs of someone whose story is wholly believable. She knows when and how to relax or add to fabrication, as well as how to judge fairly well the tells and signs of others who may try to con her.
Inner Calm – Aerin has learned to keep her thoughts as the eye of a hurricane in stressful situations, allowing a rational mind to prevail where many others would become a cloud of scattered thoughts and emotions. This is especially true when it comes to the cold acts of torture and murder, as those two acts are like gardening to others – calm times of relaxation and enjoyment.
Interrogation – Interrogation is the skill of being able to successfully question an unwilling subject in order to glean either hints or full answers despite the subject’s opposition. It also involves knowing what questions to ask, when, and how to read the signs of success or failure.
Intimidation Thuggery – Much like Interrogation, this is the art of gaining answers or items from an unwilling target. However, Interrogation is purely mental while Intimidation Thuggery is mostly physical. This art involves the use of pain (real or implied), threats, and outright torture which can range from mild to inhumane, all to coerce the target into compliance in order to end suffering. Aerin, personally, considers this a true art form and will often use different tools and methods to gauge her own creativity and the subject’s reaction.
Literacy [Reading/Writing (Human)] – An often overlooked skill, this is the art of reading and writing which Aerin prizes, not only as a mage, but also as a Companion, for her suitors may want different things from her that she could learn faster from a book than experience. Plus, it helps to be able to read things that some of her peers would find to be just useless gibberish and no comparison to their swords.
Seduction / Woo – What would a Companion be without the ability to talk a man (or woman, as she is comfortable with both) out of both clothes and secrets? Although a bit stone-hearted and hedonistic herself, Aerin sees this as the ‘soft form’ of Intimidation Thuggery or – at times – foreplay to get a subject defenseless and in a compromising position before switching to the ‘hard form’.
Streetwise – Streetwise is the skill of not looking like one is ‘out of place’ on the streets, being able to go with the flow, look like one belongs, and being able to avoid most minor ‘common’ dangers such as dark alleys, seedy dives, and pickpockets.
Magick Skills:
Manipulation of Energy: Sorcery – “My magick is a garden full of both flowers and thorns.” Aerin’s Sorcery is much like her mundane skills as it is focused on the ability to torture or kill as opposed to simply attack – ‘called shots’ if you will. Listed below are a few of her favored spells, all are mental in the aspect that they are unseen/intangible. She 'sees' them as visualizations, but the manifestation is psychosomatic and thus the mind thinks the body is being attacked and so the body reacts. (as opposed to just a mental attack/illusion) The spells are best fought via mental shielding and/or physical shielding via magick.
Spell – Nettlethroat: She uses plants as a form of visualization and will use this spell to give the target the feeling that thick, thorned nettle vines are lodged and growing within their throat and airways, choking the victim from afar. No verbal or material components are needed, but the spell is accompanied with a grasping motion with her hand or hands. The tighter the grip, the thicker and more prolific the vines. Opening the hand fully ends the spell.
Spell – Vinewall: This is a potent shielding spell from attack, with absolutely no energy put into offensive gestures and is centered upon the caster. No verbal or material components needed, gesture is arms crossed at the wrists, hands are fists.
Spell – Thornwall: A tad weaker than Vinewall, Thornwall gives offense capabilities as a side benefit and is centered on the target, manifesting as an invisible column of woven vines adorned with razored and irritating barbs which slowly constricts upon the target, containing their attack somewhat while attacking back simultaneously, constricting movement, causing a sharp stinging sensation on the skin despite armor, and inflamed itching at the 'puncture sites' that lasts for about twenty to thirty minutes after the spell has ended. No verbal or material components needed, gesture is arms crossed at the wrists, hands open like claws.
Spell – The Kudzu’s Root: Another intangible ‘plant’ spell, the Kudzu’s Root is one meant to draw energy from a living being and deliver it back to the caster. No verbal or material components are needed, gesture is index and middle fingers together, other fingers loosely gripped as if encircling a tree. Spell is more efficient with physical contact and although contact is not necessary, potency does decrease with range, becoming ineffective at the range of 15 feet.
Spell - The Willow: - The Willow is an energy-sapping spell much like the Kudzu's Root, except it has a greater range and higher potency due to the fact that, unlike the Kudzu's Root, it does not feed the stolen energy back to the caster. The result is typically equal to the feeling of being physically and mentally exhausted, as if the target had just put in eight hours of backbreaking labor in the few minutes of the spell's duration. No verbal or material components are required and the gesture is the same as the Kudzu's Root, only mirrored with the other hand and then the two hands clasp, holding the pose. It is a short-duration/heavy hit spell, but it does leave the caster pretty much with their 'hands tied' during the spell's manifestation.
Spell - Flesh puppetry – This magick began life for Aerin as the crude, simple art of grabbing a corpse’s jaw and manipulating it as one would do with a ventriloquist dummy, making it speak in her voice. Time and study of a bit of necromancy have changed that. She cannot glean information from a corpse, but can, via this spell, animate a corpse and have it communicate in its voice, saying whatever she wants it to say. It is, for the most part, a novelty spell strictly for her own amusement.
Weapon/Fighting Skills:
Smaller Blades – She has trained well with the use of daggers and knives, mostly focused on her custom blades. With such a short point of impact, she has been taught certain weak points to aim at like soft tissue (underarms, gut, throat, etc.,) and how to maximize damage in a short amount of time. She was trained to be somewhat ambidextrous with the weapons, but is right-handed and so she tends to favor that blade.
Close-Quarters Melee – Being a knife fighter means having to get close to an opponent to ‘get the job done’ and getting close to cause damage also implies getting close enough to BE damaged. As such, she has been trained in the art of evasion and light grappling/blocking in a brawl-type manner.
History: Aerin was born in a small settlement on a farm outside of Murrelbuck. Her father was a devout follower of Dominicus and a man of the earth, spending most of his day outside of the house tending to both crops and livestock. Aerin’s mother was, for the most part, a farmer’s wife although she grew more and more weary of the life she was leading with every passing child, her attention going to some of the harder spirits that Tazlure had to offer near the beginning of Aerin’s teen years. Due to her father’s frequent absence and her mother’s drunkenness, Aerin found herself acting as a surrogate mother to her siblings on top of her required studies of the teachings of Dominicus.
Her father, refusing to believe that his dear, sweet wife could voluntarily succumb to alcohol addiction, determined that something else must be the cause and, without hesitation or conference with his eldest daughter, gifted her with a stack of tomes on anatomy and alchemy, convinced that his daughter could – one day – heal her. Yahren passed and the young redhead matured, entering the very last of her teen years with no sign of a husband or any sort of life other than that which her father wanted her to lead. Her father, a man who knew no magic, kept postponing her advancement to the University of Magic due to her mothers unchanging health and the younger children still needing a caretaker.
"Besides, them books is magick, girl - yer jus' not learnin' good enough."
One fateful night, a young man calling himself "Rat" came calling - not as any sort of Prince Charming kind of way, but to convince either of Aerin's parents, via thuggery, to pay her outstanding bill owed to the spiritsmith. Aerin's father was away at the time, tending to business, and her mother was passed out beyond the point of waking and clarity, so Aerin foolishly offered herself to "Rat", as he called himself, in leiu of her mother's bill. "Rat" entertained the offer, seeing potential in the young farm girl and whisked her away to the 'big city' of Murrelbuck, where he paid her mother's bill in full.
Aerin rode on the fence separating slavery and paid service for a yahren, happy to have not been pressed into prostitution but rather into training by Rat and his men to be 'bait' for their small organization, luring people who Rat called 'marks' into secluded ambushes. Aerin only saw a few of these ambushes to their conclusion, admiring with deep interest the brutality of some of them and noting that violence had an arousing effect upon her, the snap of bone or a spurt of blood clouding her vision with a euphoria that was indescribable. Using her leverage with Rat, she convinced him one day to allow her to pull a full contract from seduction to payment, and he allowed it, neither of them realizing how far it would go. That same tide, Aerin was on her way back to the family farm with blood on her hands (figuratively - the literal blood had been washed away) and the loss of Rat's respect. She had tortured and killed the mark, among other things, and was no longer welcome in their circle.
Aerin returned home and saw that nothing had changed in her absence and so, with a heavy heart, she packed her meager belongings, grabbed a small bit of money, and made her way to the Citadel to try to attend the University of Magic on her own. Once she arrived, she set about looking for work and found it in a cafe called Simple Pleasures. She looked into the University of Magic as well but, although she found favor from the Professor of Alchemy, Aerin found that University training was still out of her reach unless she went through the Temple of Pecunia (Citadel) and, thanks to her father's overbearing nature, Aerin wanted nothing to do with any temples of any kind.
Determined to enjoy herself, despite the odds, Aerin purchased Cicero, a small performing monkey, as a pet and retired to her room at the Burpin' Dragon. The next morningtide, she arose and wandered near the rubble of the Red Banner where her curiosity led her to help Morgan Scrylock and Becca Acerbi excavate a section of the ruins. Aerin had no idea what the other two were looking for and never received instructions as to what she was to do, so she preoccupied her time within the ruins dabbling in cannibalism, pilfering small objects, and dresses. Joining up with the other mages in what she considered to be the 'treasure room', Aerin aided Becca further with opening a door at the back of the room which turned out to be a dead end - literally - for Fauna, whose corpse fell through the opening. Deciding that there was nothing further that vould be done or found, Aerin swiped a couple of handfuls of what she thought to be tobacco (really White Myst) from some bales in the back, bundled them into some stolen dresses, and left, happy with at least a little gain for some smelly work.
Her next 'grand adventure' was a social event that went down in flames...literally. Never having been in a city the size of the Citadel before, and certainly never around royalty (that she knew of - Lord Raphael Terrel had never let on to the fact that he was anything more than a common thug), Aerin prettied herself up nicely and decided to attend the big coronation party that everyone had been speaking of so fondly. One thing, however, which had eluded her fantasies of rubbing elbows with the elite was a little thing known as an invitation - or lack thereof. Dejected, Aerin began walking back toward the Citadel's inner ring, toward no destination in particular, following a young girl and her "date" from the palace at random.
Suddenly, there was a commotion and the young girl, her companion, and Aerin began running toward a red-orange flicker on the horizon. It was a building that Aerin would later find to be called the Red Rose Guild which was, ironically enough, a place which taught young commoners like Aerin how to become Companions to the very elite who had unknowingly snubbed her. Had she known its purpose, she might have felt her heart shatter at its loss but, as it was, she felt her left hand shatter in its stead as she tumbled and fell, trampled below the crowd - a fat merchant in particular - as her motherly side urged her to give what aid she could. Her power over magic, particularly mindcraft, was non-existent but, when the young girl used her spell on the crowd, both stilling them and making them move toward the flames in moth-like appeal at the same time, the stubborn redhead ground the bones of her freshly broken hand together to break free of the control.
This is when the young girl made notice of her, offering Aerin power like that which she possessed. Aerin was both confused and astounded, agreeing readily through the thick haze of smoke and pain, and rushed off at Ashari Gywien's command, she showed both remarkable self-sacrifice and stupidity as she ripped at the remaining tatters of her dress, exposing herself to the crowds in an attempt to grab their attention, nearly getting herself arrested in the process before entering the Temple of the Mother (Citadel) for a night of rest and basic medical aid. The next morningtide, she met once more with Ashari and helped the woman recover the remains of a fallen student, a Swanmaiden named Aeris who had an eerily similar name to Aerin's own, a sore spot early on for Ashari to be sure as she initially had called the living redhead by the dead girl's name.
Undaunted, Aerin once more asserted that she wished to be Ashari's student, especially after the younger girl explained what she would be teaching in further detail. Happy at last, Aerin moved into Thalas Manse as full-fledged student of what remained of the Red Rose Guild where she took to trying to prove herself worthy of being a student, her initial attempts not without their pitfalls, the largest of which being when Aerin sat down to have a cigarette after a morning bout of cleaning, discovered that the "tobacco" she had pilfered from the Red Banner was not tobacco at all but a powerful, uncut drug which turned the already playfully promiscuous farm girl into little more than a rutting animal who all but raped an elderly guest of Ashari's. To make matters worse, Ashari walked in on them mid-coitus and the shock was so great for the odd couple that Aerin's body clenched and refused to let him separate from her while he began to suffer a heart attack of his own. Only by sheer luck, Aerin feels, were the three of them spared any true tragedy although it gave Aerin and the old man a twisted humor within their friendship wherein he dangles her accidental attempt at erotic assassination over her head.
Aerin tried to redeem herself later that same day while out running errands, the main errand being replacing her city pass which had been lost during the "bosom exposing incident", crossing paths with Yelena Kintessia and Trevyn at the gates and finding them to be interested in the freshly-destroyed guild. Seizing opportunity by the forelock, Aerin made arrangements for them all to meet at Simple Pleasures later where they were quickly joined by another prospect, Paige. After coffee, brownies, and an informal interview, Aerin took them to Thalas Manse where she gave Ashari an apology for nearly killing a beloved friend in the form of "fresh Roses".
Aerin was the eldest in the house, but probably the most immature of all of them and so she set upon herself the task of maturing quickly, swearing off men unless required for missions like the one Ashari had sent her on to bait out one of Michael Crane's thugs in what turned out to be a failed assassination attempt, resuming her job as a waitress at Simple Pleasures and quietly watching those around her, including the increasingly pregnant Ashari. Being the eldest of a large family, naturally, Aerin recognized the signs, but has yet to let Ashari know her suspicions, keeping silent on the issue out of respect for Ashari's privacy.
As of late, her thoughts have turned to those of murder, what with bodies from other killers being found almost daily. She thinks that she could do it just as well or better. That it will bring her peace of mind. That it will be as arousing as it has been in the past…
Familiar: A Tufted Capuchin monkey named Cicero. Feeling a tad lonely her first few days in the Citadel, Aerin embarked upon a quest via a local shopkeeper to garner a pet who appeared in the form of Cicero. Previously, Cicero had enjoyed a fun, simple life as a performer, doing little dances and collecting coins in a cup for a kindly old man who, as luck would have it, was not as kindly as he seemed, for he had also trained Cicero to do petty pilfering via subtle hand signals or tongue clicks. Cicero has also learned to work with other hand signals as well, as he has entered into the role of familiar for the young mage.