Onine/Ire

Ire

"Some things one is better off not knowing."

Background

For Ire's childhood as Fuchicco see: Fuchicco

After Zephyr

Without looking back Fuchiccoand Ei Huan left the dead Zephyr Valley behind them and travelled south towards the Scavenger lands. Unable to bear the burden of telling the young priestess the events that lead to Zephyr's destruction the spirit spun an elaborate trail of lies partly so that the young Solar would stay with him and partly to preserve the innocence she exhibited. It delighted him greatly that she manifested none of the terrible urges that her predecessor acted upon and all seemed well once again - for a time.

Naive and amnesiac Fuchicco travelled with Ei Huan, seeking the ships and lands that the god had described to her just after her exaltation. As time passed and the young priestess began to interract with technologies in the Scavenger Lands, the darker aspects of her Solar nature began to surface. And with this power and dark intellect came more efficient and probing quesions presented to Ei Huan about her past. It came slowly at first, but as time passed her episodes became more frequent.

Fuchicco began to struggle with the dual worlds that lived in her psyche, one a past in a bright village with a mother and a father, pets and siblings - a past where she was swept overboard in a storm travelling to a relative's summer cottage. In another a valley of winds and mountains - a memory stained with corruption and death. She would half-remember faces of people she had known long ago, places she had been, things she had done. Persistant were these waking dreams, some were from her time living in Zephyr Valley... and some where much older and deeper. She felt a deep yearning to understand, which was heated by her increasingly short temper and irrational behaviour.

As more of these strange memories surfaced she queried her godly companion. With each lie Ei Huan told Fuchicco's darkness grew as something inside began to eat away at her foundations, supping on her youth, vitality and spiritual balance.

The two began to close with the Seventh Legion City of Lookshy, and despite Ei Huan's desperate urgings Fuchicco was intent on following the trail of a strange air-ship she had spotted days before. At long last a frantic Ei Huan tried to use his powers to stop her. Fuchicco snapped.

After that fateful day Fuchicco fled alone to the only place that would accept the most pitiful of Creation's washed up godlings - Nexus...

The Artificier

So you want to hear about the Artificier eh? Hmmm, thats a tricky one 'slick', I dont think she'd really like gettin' talked about - unless you're a client. There's an apartment complex about three streets up from the riverside districts brothels, thats where she lives... if you can call what she does up there 'living' anyway. As I hear it she goes by the name of Ire, and if you're willing to supply half the coin and the raw materials according to her specifications for what you want built, she can make you just about anything from your wildest dreams. Rest of the coin gets paid on delivery.

My boss Garranthell sent me up there to 'negotiate' a deal with her for some excavator device that he wanted for a client. He gives me the coin, along with strict instructions on how much he was willing to pay, a sheet detailing the specifics of the excavator and sent me on my merry way with one of the hired strong-arms. You know, 'just in case' he said.

Pretty simple deal, and Garranthell has had me do some pretty complex jawing out for him in the past. Seemed a little beneath me, but the fact that *he* was going to *her* instead of the other way 'round just rubbed me the wrong way. I'd never heard of this 'Ire' before, but I didn't think she was going to be a no-body with the way Garranthell was acting.

I took the bodyguard with me (I called him Bricks for the duration of the job. Funny how you remember stuff like that.) and headed down River-side Way. The stench was pretty bad that time of year. The low water level leaves a good few yards of exposed muck and stinking riverbed - riverbed littered with 'very bad' things. Even with the multi-level apartments, the higher you went didn't necessarilly mean better.

The complex she lived in was one of those 'modern' constructions built into the remnants of a first age building. Pretty nice, strong enough to withstand low level flooding and such - that stuff doesn't come cheap. I was nearly hit by an empty alcohol bottle thrown from an upper floor while on the street. The inside of the foyer looked like some sort of a charnel house. Carts of refuse being pushed around by diseased degenerates, lunatics with fake blood streaming from their eyes offering to read my fortunes in tea-leaves or live chickens they were waving in my face. They were all swarming over the foyer of the place like a plague of rats on hind-legs. But you get that sort of thing in that region of town.

Bricks pushed a path through, throwing the fortune-tellers aside with ease. Me baring a bit of steel for good measure helped us make our way to the superintendant's enclosure at the end of the foyer. I asked him where to find the Artificier and gave him a coin when he wasn't forthright. After greasing his voicebox with silver he directed us to the second highest floor, room eleven. Up there the corridors of the place were just as bad as the foyer, but the 'inhabitants' engaged in activities that were less popular in crowds. Bizzare sexual petting sessions, urination and defecation - I even saw a boy in rags younger than my own son skin a rat with a metal fragment and eat unmentionable portions of it. But you get that sort of thing in that region of town.

I wasted no time walking through and found room eleven. I had Bricks knock. He was bigger and louder, seemed right. A little eye slot opened in the door almost the moment he knocked. It was dark inside, but I could still see the red-rimmed grey eyes of the tenant. At first I thought that maybe she'd been crying, but that thought changed pretty quick.

"I'm Karvan, on business from Garranthell. Got work for you." I held up the purse of jade and silver to emphasise the point, but I didn't jangle it too loudly after seeing the human refuse that populated the place. "Can we talk?" I asked, hoping I didn't have to do business through a rectangular hole in the door with the creep show looking on.

The eyeslot closed and the door swung open. The room wasn't more than fifteen or so feet across at its widest. It wasn't what I was expecting - an experienced builder and craftsman I kind of expected... well, a workbench at least. The room had a sleeping mat on one end, a small table made from an upturned box. On it was a meal that was prepared and had not been eaten, and it was swarming with insects and other parasites. The floor was literally covered in work materials, tools and paper schematics of varying condition. The only point on which they did *not* vary was that none of them were in good condition. The walls were covered in grafitti new and ancient, along with some equasions of physics. I know the smell of drugs, and the place reeked of them.

The room's occupant sat on the window ledge leaning up against the wall. The windows themselves had long since fallen off or been salvaged. She had a bottle of alcohol in her hand, the other was simply hanging over the precipice. Three more bottles were lined up on the floor next to the window ledge. I noticed that they were the same type as the bottle that had nearly hit me on the street below.

The woman herself was thin, not much to eat by the look of her, a body wasted away by drugs and hard living. She had that 'dark look' you know? Black clothes and hair, hollow cheeks, skin like wet chalk. Her nose was a bit too pointy for my liking, but in all she was reasonably attractive for a Nexus girl, though she wouldn't have made much as a prostitute. She'd have been gone from disease in no time. Her face was slack and empty, but her lips were curled in a perpetual bitter grimace. She didn't look like an inventer to me and I was rapidly losing my patience.

"You the Artificier?" I asked simply and rudely. This whole job seemed to be turning into a wild goose chase. She took a deep swig of her bottle, emptying its contents faster than most seasoned drunks before tossing it carelessly out the window down onto the street below. I twitched. "Look." I said. "Are you her or not? Because I'm getting pretty-"

"What do you want?" She didn't say it loudly, hell, she didn't even look at me when she said it, but she shut me right up with four simple words. I must have stood there for a long time with my mouth slack, I dont get stymied like that often, nor do I often get the look she gave me. Like I wasn't even really there. I got down to business and handed her the rough guidelines that Garranthell had given me, and I talked her through the basics of it. It didn't look like she was paying attention and she didn't even look at the information I had handed her once. When I finished she was silent for a moment then said. "Half a talent. Two mina straight up and I'll send your boss a list of my requirements within the day." Half a talent was the absolute maximum Garrenthell had told me to offer. She looked at me, her gaze as emtpy as I've ever seen one about to receive a quarter talent of jade in one transaction. She held out her hand. "The money."

I should have haggled her, and at the time I dont know why I didn't. Normally merchants explain *why* it will cost 'x' amount of jade and try to bog you down in details to confuse you into paying their fee. But not her. She just said how much it would cost as if the deal had already been struck and agreed upon and held out her hand. So, like an idiot I handed it to her. She felt the weight expertly and set it down beside her, exchanging it for another bottle of alcohol.

I was stunned. I stood there like a stoned yeddim for a while. "You're done, middleman." She said simply, looking out over the city. And I knew that I was. Unhappilly I gestured to Bricks and we made our exit.

Garranthell got his excavator for no more than half a talent of jade, and from what I hear it worked perfectly for his client. He was pretty angry with me for blowing the transaction, and I dont think he's forgiven me for it, I've done nothing but shake down poor innkeepers for their protection money since then. But I'm not that unhappy about it really. When Bricks and I walked in, I could have sworn I saw a blade made from solid gold under one of the schematic piles. Didn't really think about it untill later, but thinking back it all makes sense.

So whatever you do 'slick', dont make her mad. Good luck and thanks for the ale.

Appearance

Compared to other women in the scavenger lands Ire is tall, a feature accentuated by her extremely gaunt build. Her people (formerly of the northern mountains) tend towards stocky, full and powerful builds to adapt to the realtively frigid climate, and in her teens Ire (as Fuchicco) did as well. However years of living poorly in Nexus, subsisting on terrible food (if at all), drinking prodigious ammounts of alcohol and drugs and a perculiar wasting that has gripped her body in recent times has reduced her weight considerably. Now her arms and legs are slender with ropy muscles, her hips bony below a narrow waist and her shoulders sharp - in contrast to her race she has no curves to speak of.

Her face is hollow, with prominent nose and a strong, angular jawline framing full lips. She has high cheekbones below eyes that appear sunken and constantly rimmed with red. To some she may be attractive, but her pale skin is more chalky and palid rather than the healthy milky white of a northerner and the colour has long since drained from her lips. Along her left cheek there is a small cluster of faint purple bleminshes.

Her chestnut brown hair has darkened from living in the refuse heaped streets of the river city, hanging in stringy dark tressses down to her shoulders. Occasionally she wears it free, but for the most part she wears a portion of it pinned up and secure.

Time and emotional hardship has taken its toll on her. Perhaps it is remains of the seeping death in her body refusing to let go of its roots inside her that drives her body to breaking-point. Or perhaps it is merely the city of Nexus itself that drains her so thoroughly. Hers was a race of men born to feel the fresh cool winds of the mountains on their faces, not the stagnant, constricting fumes of Nexus streets.

Most of the time she wears an expression of listless defeat, however in her grey eyes there is a certain defiance as if daring one to challenge her grim outlook. Ire wears mostly black, purple and scarlet clothing of rough fabric, usually long gowns, coats and dresses. It is rare for her to show more skin than her hands, face and neck. The clothes themselves are well sewn and designed, but time and environment has shredded hems and faded the few colours left left. There are many hap-hazard patches of temporary repair administered by a woman that no longer seems to care.

Character Sheet

Name: Fuchicco Ushelle - Ire
Caste: Twilight
Age: 26
Concept: The last priestess, fallen.
Motivation: Discover the secrets of the strange technology that seems to taunt her.
Anima: Ethereal mechanical parts and clockwork gears that gain substance and come together forming an intricate mechanical clock with an elaborately designed face. This clock is rarely exactly the same twice, and it always shows the correct time - however the method by which it shows the time is often different.

Attributes:Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 3, Intelligence 5, Perception 4, Wits 2
Virtues (Virtue Flaw):Compassion 3, Conviction 2 , Temperance 3 (Methodological Lure), Valour 1
Abilities (Caste or Favoured):Archery 1, Athletics 0, Awareness 2, Bureaucracy 1, Craft 5, Dodge 2, Integrity 3, Investigation 2, Larceny 0, Linguistics 2, Lore 4, Martial Arts 0, Medicine 1, Melee 0, Occult 3, Performance 2, Presence 1, Resistance 2, Ride 3, Sail 0, Socialise 3, Stealth 1, Survival 1, Thrown 3, War 0
Backgrounds:Artifact 1,1,2, Resources 3
MeritsOnine/Flaws (These have been added for flavour at no point cost.): Amnesia, Dying, Throwback

Excellencies:

Craft: 2nd

Dodge: 1st

Lore: 1st, 2nd

Occult: 2nd

Performance: 1st

Ride: 2nd

Thrown: 1st

Charms:

Shattering Grasp (Craft)

Alacritous AssemlblyOnine/Disassembly Discipline (Craft)

Spells

None

Combat Information

Join Battle: 4

Dodge DV: 3

Soak: 3B 1L

Attacks (+ cannot parry lethal damage without stunts)

Punch - Speed 5, Accuracy 2, Damage 2B, Parry DV 4+, Rate 3, Tags: N

Kick - Speed 5, Attack 2, Damage 5B, Defence 0+, Rate 2, Tags: N

Ousters - Speed 5, Attack 8, Damage 8L, Rate 2, Range 60, Tags: T

Social Combat Information

Join Debate: 4

Dodge MDV: 5

Parry MDV: 3/4 (PresenceOnine/Performance)

Intimacies: Ire has a hatred of dragonbloods which could be irrational, however it is linked with her lost past in the Zephyr Valley. She also has a powerful obsession with technology. In addition she still remembers her relationship with the semi-god of her old home, ei-Huan - their relationship is shakey now at best.

Attacks

Cha+Performance: - Speed 6, Accuracy 5, MDV 3, Rate 1

Cha+Presence: - Speed 4, Accuracy 3, MDV 2, Rate 2

Windsongs: - Speed 6, Accuracy 7, MDV (not used defensively), Rate 1

Cha+Performance+Windsongs

Man+Performance: - Speed 6, Accuracy 7, MDV 4, Rate 1

Man+Presence: - Speed 4, Accuracy 5, MDV 3, Rate 2

Int+Investigate: - Speed 5, Accuracy 7, MDV (not used defensively), Rate 2

Other

Essence: 2

Willpower: 6

Essence Pool: Personal 12 / Peripheral 25 (29) / Committed 4

Health Levels: -0 / -1 / -1 / -2 / -2 / -4 / Incap

Belongings

Simple clothing, robes, gowns, cold weather gear.

Old Priestess robes (far too small)

Amulet of the Wind Priestess Order (gold)

Ousters (orichalcum Skycutter)

Winsleeves (two sets) (specialized glider garments to slow falls)

Modified Wind Glider

Scrolltube containing documented schematics

Belt Contains specialized tools and other gear (packs neatly into a belt and pouches)

Enough stock to construct mundane equipment from resources o to ooo

(Stock can be replenished easilly every month with resource oo spending.)

Supply of strong alcohol

Supply of opium and cocaine

Scrolltube Schematics

Weaponry

Skycutter type artifact boomerang

Mundane war-boomerang

Clothing and Armour

Windsleeves, specialized gliding garments

Other Items

Standard wind glider (With half-a-dozen modifications at varying stages of incompletion)