Name: Elizabeth Solomon
Alias: Emma Shaw, Eliza O’Connor, Eli Mannings
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Nationality: English, Irish Descent
Appearance: Elizabeth is a relatively unassuming figure. She is slight, stands at 5’9 feet tall, with red hair that borders on ginger, and pale eyes. She is fair skinned, with a smattering of freckles, but dresses conservatively. A turtleneck sweater, or a long coat and warm jumper are what she prefers, with perhaps a pair of jodhpurs or bush pants for comfort and much-wanted pockets. Finally, she wears a pair of rather hipster-ish glasses, which she cleans religiously. Her teeth aren't quite meticulous- they're a slight off-white colour, and whilst they were clearly straightened in the past, they've partially reverted a little, and are almost imperceptibly crooked. Her nails are almost never painted, although they're neatly trimmed and cut, and she has minimal blemishes apart from her freckles- certainly no acne scars. Her ears are pierced, but it seems to be almost entirely random as to if she wears something in them, and she's a fan of minimalist, but apparent, makeup.

History: “Oh dearie, you want to know more about me, do you? Well, I am quite a private person, but I suppose I can make a little bit of an exception for you. Don’t stop me now, or I might not get started again.” Elizabeth lets out a lilting laugh, before continuing. “I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I still remember the Troubles, you know. They ended when I was... Oh, I must have been six when they ended, so I don’t remember them that well. My family was well off enough, I suppose. My mother was a university lecturer, you see, and my father was in the IT business. A bit before the curve, but there you go, that’s pa for you.” She seems a little wistful, before shifting in her seat, clearing her throat, and going on. "Middle class through and through. My grandpa fought in the war... World War Two, that is, and afterwards he had gone into the electronics business too. IBM. Ma... Now, ma, like I said, she was a lecturer."

"She taught Irish Studies at Belfast. Not a wildly popular course, but she had enough students every year and she found it fascinating. Plus, she loved the work you see. She would have home-schooled me if she hadn't had her own work to do. A bi of a shame, but ah well. Instead I went to a normal primary school. When I was young, I was unremarkable, but that changed. Oh yes, that changed. Of course, it took a little bit before I would change, but that's how things go. Nobody changes overnight... Except when they do." Her face changes for a split second, and then she goes back to normal. "That's not relevant to the story though, not in the slightest. Rapidly returning to the subject... We moved to England when I was ten. England proper, that is, the country south of Scotland, because we were technically already within Great Britain." She clears her throat a little bit, and adjusts her necklace, which is a simple thing.

“I studied hard. I was motivated, I was driven then. I wanted to be the best, the very best. So, I threw myself into my work, and I earned the grades that I rightfully deserved." Flying colours in my GCSEs, flying colours in my A levels. A* in English Literature, History, Latin and Classical Civilisations. Yes, I did four A levels. Cambridge university awaited me- my family was very pleased. Middle class Irish girl, and I was dressing up and going off to Cambridge! Next prime minister, that was me.” Another laugh, this one with a bitter tone to it. “Then I found something. Something that would change me. I found a book. A very curious book, written in a Latin dialect.”

“I’m sure you know of the stories and stereotypes about what could be in that book.” She leans in now, her earlier mirth entirely evaporated from her voice. “I spent weeks locked up in my dorm, barely eating anything, trying to decipher that book. The dialect was basically another language, and I found it infuriating. There was no way I was going to let someone else steal the victory that came closer and closer to being on the tip of my tongue away from me- I had to tear that book apart myself. Sure enough, that was what I did. I pried the information from it, dissected it like a rat in a lab until I was left with the raw information.” She leans back now, and offers another smile, the seriousness gone once more. “It was a rather interesting book.”

“After that, well, things went oddly. I dropped out of university, largely lose contact with my folks, shook things up a little with my life, and I ended up doing a little bit of backpacking around the world. Linguistics, I found, I had quite a talent for. Not just mortal tongues, too. Never mind that though. I’ve revealed more than I’m comfortable with already.”

Sin: Superbia- Pride: "I work hard. Every day of my life I work hard. Does this not place me above those who waste away their time in petty pursuits and meaningless questions? When I study the occult, in the curtain of knowledge that so few have torn aside... To imply that I am the same as the common student.
Virtue: Diligence- "I have nothing further to say about this. I work hard. Very hard. My past shows this. I don't think I need to promote myself further.

Personality:
Determined. Calculated. Calm. Elizabeth will fixate on an end goal and reach that end goal. She's constantly curious, but tries to hide this curiosity behind a veil of disinterestedness. A very private person, she likes making sure that people don't know even the most basic information about her. She considers her studies into the eldritch to be the pinnacle of research, and woe betide those that disagree with her.

Skills:

• Linguistics. Elizabeth is a brilliant and talented Linguist. Her mother tongue of English, as well as Gaelic, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Arabic and Farsi all languages she is fluent in, and she has a passing familiarity with Hebrew, Cantonese and Mandarin.
• Analysis. Elizabeth is the sort of woman to walk into a room and tell the builder things he wasn’t aware of. She focuses on details, and often odd ones at that, marking them all in her mind. She has occasionally turned this into something of a ‘Sherlock scan,’ although this has its own flaws.
• Tidiness of mind. This doesn’t perhaps sound like a useful ability, but to Elizabeth, having a mind as organised as hers is how she functions as well as she does. Every scrap of information she could need is disseminated and catalogued into a mind as orderly as a hospital ward, allowing her a clarity of thinking and a way of repressing memories that is unsurpassed.
• Teaching. When it comes to describing things, Elizabeth always knows the words for the task at hand. Be it a lecture, a rushed detailing on eldritch script, or how she made the morning tea, she’s a keen educator.

Spells:

• Clairvoyance: Elizabeth selects one item or person she knows with reasonable detail, within a 100-meter-radius of her, and knows his/her/its exact location at the time of casting the spell.
• Glimmerken: Elizabeth pressed her thumb, index finger and middle finger to her forehead for a brief moment whilst casting. Afterwards, she can see near-perfectly for around ten metres in pitch blackness, and a further 30 metres as if it was dimly lit. The spell lasts for 1 hour. Elizabeth cannot determine colour using this spell, only shades of grey. Gllimmerken also allows to see items that have been touched by magic, such as focuses, or items that have been enchanted or cursed.
• Recollect: Elizabeth can recall memories with eidetic precision. These can be any memories, from any period of time in her life, and she keeps them permanently, to be recalled at any time. These memories have to be self-enclosed, so that they have a defined beginning, middle and end, and cannot last for longer than an hour.

Focus: The book. A plain, black-leather bound thing, with gilt edges and a scarlet red ribbon divider. Small enough to tuck into a pocket comfortably, she never reveals the contents to anyone.
Equipment: An inflammable bottle of cleaning spray, a handkerchief designed for cleaning spectacles, a notepad and several ballpoint pens, a small portable phone charger, a small length of paracord, a packet of tissue paper, a mint-condition zippo lighter, a small pack of playing cards, a packet of Marlboro cigarettes and a packet of ‘extra tuff’ mint chewing gum.

Other:
“I walk this path alone- for who would walk it with me? I stride among the souls who cannot see, for their knowledge they let could their vision, let it cloud not clarify and cause their damnable minds to be ignorant of what they could know.”

Molly was born the fifth son of a staunchly Catholic family of fisherfolk and construction workers. The family had lived in the same ramshackle house for generations.

School was rough for her; the abrasion of ideals between those of her upbringing and those upheld by her school, and a lot of the other students, led to the butting of heads. However, eventually she became less violently opposed to differing ideals, as she grew older, and she realised things about her family and herself that she had been supressing or ignoring. Home life became uncomfortable after that, and any attempt she made to question her family was met with scorn, and, on more than one occasion, the cane.

Instead of joining the family trade, Molly’s academic promise landed her on a biology course in a university over two hundred miles away. By then, she couldn’t leave fast enough. It was a freeing experience. At last, she was surrounded by open-minded people, not just in class, but in the dorms too. It was somewhat of a rebirth, though not nearly as extreme. During this time, she met her first and, to date, only boyfriend. He introduced her to a lot of interests Molly still maintains, and shared many defining moments with her, and she loved him. At the time she thought she must have simply been gay, but groups and friend circles she orbited eventually led her to a different, and foregone, conclusion. Not long after she started HRT and decided upon the name Mallaidh.

Coming out to her boyfriend took a lot of time and she tried and failed twice, but when she finally did… well, it went a lot different to how she hoped. Asking if it was “some kind of joke" led to a heated argument that he stormed out of. The few times she saw him since he made a show of ignoring her. He left her with a broken heart, a neutered trust, and a much more insidious parting gift.

After that Molly dropped out, it was only her second year, citing mental health issues after her first suicide attempt: a failed drowning in her bath. She returned home and became assistant librarian in her village. When she told her family of what she had discovered about herself, she was met with ridicule, and has not raised the issue since. Then still call her Malcom, every day. Every. Single. Day.

Every two weeks she made the journey to the largest nearby town, collecting her medication – not just HRT and antidepressants, but fixed-dose combination ARVs too. She had her boyfriend to thank for needing those. It was also why she was told she’d not be able to have her desired surgery performed. She refused the consolatory offer of therapy sessions. She felt hollow for weeks after that.

Adrift in the sea of life, hopeless and without direction, dysphoric in her own body, and feeling the side-effects of all her medications, she planned to end her life by jumping off a cliff, seeing it as a rather poetic and apt conclusion, to be lost to the depths.

It was then that Neem appeared to her, on the clifftop shrouded in twilight. He came as a face in the negative space of a lichen covered boulder. Its voice snuck into her head, offering her change, promising her what she wanted, if she lived and served. A taste was offered, a simple task for a simple reward: a show of power. All she had to do was tie a blue ribbon to the unlocked window of a baby’s bedroom, whilst they slept, without being detected. It would be the first step towards becoming outside what she was inside. Towards acceptance. Towards happiness. Finally.

And it worked, but the next morning, an article appeared in the newspaper. It was about a missing infant, his room found covered in blood. It was easy to connect the dots. However, before panic and guilt took total hold, the words in the news column rearranged, forming a message that burnt itself into her consciousness. When she blinked, the paper was normal again.

She had just received her summons.