Name: Auz von Kilinger
Epithet: Sir Auz the Undying
Age: 462, but only about a youthful 28 in appearance.
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 165 pounds
Race: Human, Semi-Immortal
Weapons and Equipment- *Steel cuirass, chainmail tunic, tassets, greaves, open face helm, and 4 1/2" bladed gauntlets. The works.
*120 centimeter, magically indestructible straight sword known as the Mord Sword, a unique weapon with a razor sharp pommel and extra width and weight at the base of the blade.
(The Mord Sword)
*Narrow steel buckler with three 6" blades.
*Two steel knives, a stiletto with a 7" blade and a gauche dagger with a 12" blade.
Appearance- Auz is slender but sturdy man, with a light blonde bowl cut and yellow cat's eyes rimmed in red, as if he rarely gets good sleep. He has cruel eyebrows and usually wears a fittingly leonine expression, that of a man ready to fight to the death for shits and giggles. Over his heart is a black tattoo of an ouroboros.
Abilities/Skills- Auz is an aggressive, calculating swordsman who employs techniques from the German School of Fencing, as well as irregular moves of his own design. He's highly versatile and creative with his long sword, able to use it in just about any way that can be imagined. Additionally he's skilled with his two knives and at using his buckler as a weapon, and has no qualms about utilising any part of his body to fight.
Physically, he's got a heavy lean towards speed over strength. He's frightfully fast, a sort of Bruce Lee among fencers, so to speak. Naturally it's not possible to swing your sword as wantonly as your fist, but regardless most warriors that encounter Auz for the first time are utterly taken aback by his diabolical swiftness, unforgiving reflexes, and vicious intellect. With a dagger in hand, he can swipe so quickly that an untrained opponent wouldn't even register the blade passing before their face until they felt the blood running down their chin.
He can sprint at 21 MPH, throw a punch at 47 MPH, and at full swing the last five inches of his sword can reach speeds in excess of 115 MPH.
Auz is unable to physically age past 28, and has a total of nine lives to expend against any single opponent, hence his epithet. He's considered dead when either his heart stops beating or his brain permanently ceases function. His body will resurrect no more than thirty feet of where he died, and no closer than ten feet after a period of one to nine seconds, his corpse quickly fading into a crimson glow that vanishes and then reappears in a random spot, instantly forming into his fresh (and fully equipped) body. Every time Auz dies to an entity separate from himself, he becomes 25% faster than he was in his previous body for a period of twenty-four hours. His body does indeed become tougher and stronger in order to withstand the greater speeds, his thought processes improve so he can react at his current speed, and yes, Auz can commit suicide and return to life, but it won't benefit him in the same way as getting slain by an enemy. Auz can kill himself and respawn using his nine lives every twenty-four hours, but he won't gain any speed from it, rather, it becomes a way for him to heal himself. When he uses his lives for suicide, it won't decrease how many lives he has against an opponent, thus, it is more efficient to call them 'suicide lives', independent from his 'battle lives'. Obviously his tolerance for pain is more or less redundant, as could be expected from someone who has spent hundreds of years dying horribly.
In addition to his semi-immortality, Auz wields a number of magical powers.
*Regeneration- Auz can heal minor flesh wounds in mere seconds, and completely mend broken bones, ruptured organs, and torn muscles in around a minute. He cannot recover new limbs if one gets chopped off.
*Blood Channel- Whenever Auz spills the blood of an opponent, their blood will instantly revert into intangible streamers of magic as it leaves their body, traveling towards Auz at 400 fps. If the blood reaches Auz, the mass of the blood lost by the opponent will turned into needed tissues and fluids where Auz needs it most, determined by the severity of his wounds.
*Hasty Heal- Auz can concentrate his magical power within himself to increase the potency of his regeneration. He needs five seconds to gather the magic required to double his healing rate for one minute, and ten seconds to triple it. Auz cannot pause his magic charging, and when he reaches ten seconds of magical accumulation, must use it or lose it. It's impossible for him to hold onto that much magic at once. Furthermore, he can't charge multiple spells at once, and must know which one he wishes to use before he begins charging. Whenever he's charging up Hasty Heal, faintly visible tendrils of red mana rise from his body.
*Undying- By gathering magic for one to ten seconds, Auz can then activate this power, manifesting as an aura of coiling whisps of luminous yellow steam. Depending on how long he's charged, say for five seconds, he can then use Undying, which for the next five seconds will prevent him from losing any lives if he dies. That is to say, he can charge Undying for ten seconds and then throw himself into battle without worry of expending lives for ten seconds. Yes, if an opponent kills him while Undying is active, Auz will still gain a 25% increase in speed over his last life. It's a real bitch of a power. After using Undying, Auz cannot charge any mana for half the time he had used Undying due to it's residual black magic disrupting his control. Ten seconds of charging, ten seconds of immortality, five seconds without mana control.
*Mana Traction- Eventually when you become fast enough, your steps sink into the ground or propel you into the air. Very inconvenient. With Mana Traction, Auz can move at virtually any speed without losing his footing, magic continually concentrated in his feet allowing him to both stick to the ground when he needs to, and at the same time killing any excess kinetic energy that would damage the ground and disrupt his motion. The power of Mana Traction depends on how fast he currently is. An Olympic sprinter can unleash around 300 joules per stride when moving at 25 miles per hour. Were Auz that fast, it'd take a little more force than that for an enemy to move him when at rest.
Personality- Auz is cutting and sardonic, his dark wit (the man enjoys his one-liners) born from pessimism. He cares not for status or friendship, being a solitary soul in search of nothing but that which gives his life meaning; war. He doesn't like alcohol or other substances, and only enjoys the company of women after a battle. His solemn, irreverent mentality isolates him, but he's not necessarily a "bad guy". He fights for the underdogs when he can, and doesn't partake or suffer the killing of the helpless. That being said, he doesn't care for hostages. Should an opponent try to use another life as a bargaining chip, Auz would just as soon tell his adversary to go ahead and see how much worse of a death they'll get.
Background- Auz was born in the age of Germanic kings, a paladin trained from a young age whose lineage was thrown into obscurity. From the moment he could walk he was trained by royal paladins to become a holy warrior, versed in healing magic. War was his love, bloodshed his life. He killed his first opponent at seventeen. He was knighted at 20. A year later he left to seek his own path.
When he was 22, he encountered a Swiss witch that promised him a form of immortality in exchange for his eternal soul. He agreed, and she bestowed a tattoo of power upon him, that of an ouroboros, the serpent that endlessly eats its own tail. That power became a part of Auz, regardless of whether or not the tattoo remained on his being. It took only a quick look in the mirror for Auz to realize he was no longer a holy warrior. The black magic had given him the eyes of a cat and just as many lives. Fittingly, he from then on declared himself a Curse Paladin. What had gone through Auz's head to make him accept the bargain? Simple. He made up his mind that when he died, as all things inevitably do, he'd lay down the hurt on every single infernal entity that stood between him and the soul he'd sold, laying low demons and devils until he got it back. Not a likely outcome, but who can question the will of a resolute warrior until it's put to the ultimate test?
He spent his adulthood mastering his trade, devoting himself to the way of the sword as he cut down foe after foe. Old Auz was a regular Musashi, and soon other fighters started seeking him out, desiring to make a name for themselves. The only names they got were those carved on their grave markers.
little else can be said of Auz. There were no dramatic affairs, no arch rivals nor emotional conflicts. He traveled, he fought, he did the hokey-pokey, and he absolutely, undeniably, died many, many times.
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