[CHAR] Soulless Shadows

[Jollan]

Kiimi

Name: Kiimi Van Avery

Age: 19

National Origin: none

Appearance:

casual

work

Personality:
Around others, she is most a strange mixture of bubbly and shy, growing more confident to talk with people the more comfortable she feels around them. She is normally an easygoing and happy individual, if not naive to the world away from her ship. She is entirely disgusted by her illness and will try to hide away while she is feeling sick, locking herself in her room. When working on the airship however, one might catch her more hidden fiery side, especially if a job is proving to be particularly difficult or a part is especially stubborn. However, if someone were to walk in on such a rant, where she thought she was working alone, she would be incredibly embarrassed, as if a kid being caught doing something he shouldn't be.

Bio:
Kiimi had never known land as home. She was born on an airship, raised on an airship, and worked on airships. The skies were her home and she was alright with that. Her family was made up of prominent air merchants, owning their own airship. However, the airship they owned had been boarded by a shadow after what was thought to be a fairly successful scavenging mission. The only two that made it out was her and her uncle, Jarred Greaves, who had married her aunt. She was still young at the time, but old enough to understand what was happening, which only left scars in her mind she couldn't possibly recover from. Jarred Did everything he could to get her out of there. The ships light had been cut, and they were running through the dark halls of the ship by a high output lantern Jarred had, bathing them in a strong light at the cost of high power consumption, but they only needed to reach the emergency skiff. Kiimi has seen many of her family members killed, both by each other and by Jarred once they had been touched. She was in shock for nearly a month before she started opening back up to Jarred.

Kiimi had always had a fascination with machines and seam power, even after the accident with her family, she had continued her studies and continued practicing, even making some of her own machinations. One time during a join project however, the partner she was with over-pressurized one of the merc tanks on a vehicle they were both creating together, causing an explosion and calling for an evacuation of anyone in the building. Her partner didn't survive, and she had become poisoned by the merc, only successfully retrieved by men wearing protective gear that responded to the scene. Due to her long exposure to the raw merc gases, she had contracted merc poisoning. Her skin faded to porcelain, her hair bleached to a pale gold. She thought using makeup and wearing clothes to cover it up would help her, but the possibility of the makeup smudging and the extra clothing made it unbearable at times, especially when afraid of her blood coming to a boil. If a person who is diagnosed with merc poisoning, warm temperatures became fatal, causing Kiimi to wear her work gear for it's ability to keep the user cool despite the heavier clothing due to some functions built into the gear itself. While expensive, Jarred usually made sure to keep enough merc to keep the suit powered if ever needed and is always sure to buy more than enough medicine for her whenever he can.

Equipment:
-Engineer's toolkit
-Medicine
-Heavy wrench
-9mm double barreled derringer, owns 6 cartridges
-Gas mask with filters for merc heavy environments

Extra notes:
-Has a thing for sweets
-Afraid of the dark, even on airships.

Jarred

Name: Jarred Greaves

Age: 36

National Origin: Barnaby Shoals, Old Lyre Kingdom

Appearance:

casual

work

Personality:
Somewhat keeps to himself but doesn't mind holding a conversation with people who approach him or starting a conversation if he wants to talk to someone. He is highly protective of his niece Kiimi as he is her guardian and also blames himself for what happened to their family. He is cautious, overly so, some might say, and while this is normally a blessing, it can sometimes be a curse. Will make a joke with as straight a face as he would talking to someone, making them wonder if her was serious or not until he would smirk at them for believing in some of his more outlandish tricks, however, when on mission, he makes it very clear that he will not waste words and he will mean everything he says to those around him. When on a salvage mission, any sliver of humor is gone and he becomes nearly robotic like as he meticulously picks his paths through the mainland, very careful not to let any slip ups happen again.

Bio:
Married to Kiimi's mother's quite younger sister, Jarred took Kiimi under his care after the accident where a shadow took their ship and everyone else aboard, Jarred and Kiimi, barely making it out on an emergency craft. Jarred had to quickly put the tragedy behind himself to be able to support Kiimi, returning to work as soon as a ship hired him. However, the stress from losing his wife and the rest of the family on board, weighed heavy on his heart. Even if was just their souless shells, having to put down his own wife and her family that he had come to know well, and in the presence of his crying niece, it still haunts him to this day. The experience is what drove Jarred to do better, becoming more cautious than ever, his attention to detail, quick thinking, and craftiness caused him to surge past the competition for scavengers. He was able to afford education and a decent living for Kiimi and even find her an apprenticeship with a ship engineer. Kiimi took to it so well, Jarred even supported her inventing endeavors, up until she had an accident while working on a new type of light, two seater flying craft that ran on a large merc tank and could be deployed easily from a ship. It was a simple mistake to make, but a fatal one nonetheless.

Luckily, the rescue teams were able to make it to Kiimi in time to save her, but not without her developing merc poisoning. With this, Jarred pulled her from the invention field and took a full time job on a single ship to help pay for her medical costs. Luckily, when she started to recover, Jarred was happy to see that she was back to her usual self, and trying to help where she could around the ship mechanically, becoming the top mechanical mind on board within only a few months. He was glad, for once, things seemed to become stable once more, and while he knew that he would always worry for her, he knew that if he never came back, she would be able to provide for herself should the need arise.

Equipment:
- steam armaments: modified over under shotgun (can still use old standard shells), heavy rifle, pistol.
- .45 pistol, 3 mags of 7 rounds
- 10 buckshot, 5 slugs
- heavy war cleaver
- scavenger gear

Extra notes:
-

[Lotrix Molick]

Name: Keket, Belle of the Brawl

Age: 18

National Origin: Bright Coast Covenant

Appearance:
Her back is almost entirely covered by scarring from lashings she received. The scarring, due to a few missed lashings, also extends to her hips, thighs, and sides. When wearing her bands, they would be on her biceps and thighs to apply pressure on relatively sensitive areas.

Personality: While absolutely not religious, Keket adopted a particular form of self-restraint from the Bright Coast. The bands have dulled studs that apply pressure and have a latchlike device on top to further press the studs in to cause pain. The original intent of the bands was to purify sin by pain, but this serves to help Keket remember to keep her temper down. Her temper, after the events surrounding her leaving Bright Coast, has gone from nearly nonexistent to a seething fury at all times. Without her bands, she is prone to going into a pure rage upon the first enemy or agitator, becoming almost rapturously aggressive.

Outside of her rage, she is generally pretty pleasant to be around. She is far from meek and quite fiery. She does not attempt to insult others and instead compliments them. She does not intentionally make jokes that talk directly about a person. She prefers to make fun of a situation or the things that happen to people. She cannot read nor write anything more than her signature due to the oral tradition and lack of writing in her culture. However, she is very eloquent when speaking and was originally groomed to be a storyteller. So, she is very much observant and uses her ability to observe for gathering information. Information she gathers that she feels must be preserved will be woven into either a story or poem, left in her mind for future use.

Most of her motivations center upon herself. She wants to find a place to finally belong, one that will not mistreat her again. She wishes to find a better means to keep her temper under control. Most of all, however, she wants to become strong enough to crush those similar to her abusers.

Bio: Born among a religious sect that believed sin was cleansed by pain and the shadows were people who did not cleanse themselves, Keket grew up originally intended to become a lorekeeping storyteller like her father. The first 16 years of her life were spent learning the lore of the sect and the tenets. She spent almost all day learning lore and tenets, only having a couple hours to go outside when night came. She was careful to take a lantern and spent it mostly sitting under a tree at the center of the town. After she turned 16, she began to question the tenets of pain to cleanse. It was not unusual for children to privately question the sect at some point before adulthood, but Keket went further and began to publicly question the methods of cleansing and even the need for cleansing.

This heresy drew the attention of the inquisitorial branch of the sect, called the Order of the Soul. They quietly kidnapped her from her home and put her into interrogation chambers. Their interrogating found her guilty of heresy and attempting to incite a split among the religion. As her punishment, she was lashed in the cell for weeks, barely kept alive on minimal rations and water, and frequently belittled and screamed at by inquisitors. Due to the dehumanizing treatment, some of the inuisitors did as they willed with her, raping her multiple times during the punishments. The final part of her punishment was public execution by exposure and flogging. They started by a day of flogging her back, leaving large bleeding gashes and almost unbroken bruising along the whole of her back. Then, they left her tied to a post in the outskirts of town without any light to leave her for the shadows to "welcome" her sinful soul to the fold.

Keket was half-starved, dehydrated, battered and cut, bound, gagged, and left to die in the night. She wept as the she watch the sun setting, knowing the shadows would find her soon after it became dark. She was too weak to fight the bindings. When she was on the verge of consigning herself to her fate, when the light was almost gone, sudden brightness appeared behind her. A cabal of dissidents apparently existed in the town and had found her execution spot. They brought lanterns and various items to help her. A woman from the ground untied her and carried her from the pole. The group went into a long forgotten mine nearby and began tending her wounds as well as feeding her. Keket remained quiet the whole time, less scared of shadows but now equally scared of the strangers.

The next day, she woke to find the group still there. It seemed it was their barracks. As she looked at each face, she recognized others who had been sentenced to execution. Knowing what a soulless was, she frantically tried to see if they had shadows. The group reacted calmly, showing off their shadows to calm Keket. Once sufficiently quieted, Keket let them continue tending to her. It took two years to finally get back into her peak condition. During that time, she helped save a few more people and participated in a few small operations to hinder the Order of the Soul from taking more innocent life. Shortly after she turned 18, the group went on a larger operation to stop a particularly bloodthirsty and zealous inquisitor that threatened to go into every home to root out even the smallest heresy. On this operation, her group was led into a trap by a traitor in their group. Keket, through some cunning and help from the woman who originally carried here, escaped the slaughter and fled the area. After a few months of mourning and fleeing the hunting groups, Keket found herself in another settlement and managed to get onto an airship. There, she regained some semblance of a life, though she still felt like an outsider again. Now, she is ready and almost itching to find her place in this world and become strong enough for the Order of the Soul and others like it to fear her.

Equipment:
Cleansing Pressure Bands: two fitted for thighs, two fitted for biceps
Prayer Beads: These are from a small religion unknown to Keket. They were owned by the woman who first helped Keket.
Barbed Scourge: This is her primary weapon, used to trip up, harm, and control opponents.
Dirk: Hidden in her boot and mostly used for eating or opening packages
Hatchet: Kept under her faulds usually, mostly used for utility purposes, though also used in combat if her guns aren't useful.
Brace of Pistols: She usually wears a strapped setup that holds up to 4 pistols. usually two are loaded with buckshot or flechette types of rounds and the other two with standard balls. The buckshot ones have a flared barrel and wider bore while the standard ball ones are triple barreled and able to be fired one by one or with all three barrels in one pull.
Armored Clothing: With the exception of her underclothes and undergarments, Keket's clothing is a mix of cloth layers mixed with plate to allow flexibility, negated armor sounds, and yet still provide decent protection. It is not as effective as normal plate, but it provides more versatility and comfort, allowing her to wear it at all times with minimal added bulk and weight.

Extra notes: Her time in the dissident group led Keket to learn survival skills as well as skills in hunting, stealth, tracking, guerilla tactics, and certain spy skills. She can function as a covert operative given resources and time.
The group also taught her how to fight in both bare fisted and armed manners, though much of her skills come from improvisation and learning as she goes.
Her nickname came from one night where she ended up in a tavern brawl. She was the only one unscathed by the whole brawl, yet she still took down five other people to defend herself. This tavern was on the airship she lives on currently.

[13org]

Eliza 'Liz'

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Basic Information:

Name: Eliza 'Liz' or 'Lizzie'
Age: 20
Gender: Female
National Origin: Baile Mór

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Personality:

Cheerful, easygoing and quite energetic, Eliza, or 'Liz/Lizzie' how she prefers to be called, is quite a refreshing person to have around. Despite her strong opinions, she is still a pleasant company. Often enjoying conversation and meeting other people. She greatly values trust and friendship, more so than money or material possessions and is quite loyal to those she considers as friends.

Despite all that, Eliza also can, sometimes, have quite a fiery temper. She is not the type of girl who would back from a fight or stay quiet if someone offends her. She's not your defenseless little girl and has no problems in getting her hands dirty if needed. That said, even if she gets mad with one of her friends, she is quick to forgive, as long as it wasn't anything serious like betraying her trust.

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Biography:

Eliza spent most of her childhood in the suburbs of Baile Mór, in the island of Iona. When one has no roof over their heads, life is already hard but when supplies, food and most other things aren't as abundant as they were before, it gets much worse... The apocalypse had an... interesting effect on most people. Even though human instincts tells them to gather and make groups in order to survive, most people seem to have forgotten what kindness and compassion is. Focusing only on their sole survival, there were few the good souls that found enough kindness in themselves to help orphans and share what little they had. Being shunned and even chased by some, Eliza quickly learned that she had to do anything she could to survive. Trusting others was a dangerous thing to an orphan, especially when no one cared about her survival and if she didn't know how to defend herself, she was as good as dead. Every day for her was quite literally, a fight for her life... That is until she met Charles, a middle aged mechanic that had a small workshop on a part of the city that was a bit less poor than the suburbs where Eliza lived.

At first, Eliza and Charles' meeting was simply due to curiosity. After finding Charles' workshop by luck, she saw him working on a big block of metal which she soon recognized as the engine of a huge airship. Amazed by both the complexity of it's insides and how such a huge, heavy thing was responsible for making the airships fly, she simply stood outside, hiding herself behind a few wooden boxes while she watched Charles working, afraid he would beat or chase her if he saw her. Without anything better to do, Eliza began to return to that same place to watch Charles work day after day, always hiding and never showing herself. Until the day she found a sandwich neatly wrapped on top of the boxes she often hid behind, that is. Eliza didn't think twice as her stomach was often empty and ate the sandwich in mere seconds. It was then that she saw Charles looking at her from inside the workshop, laughing at how voraciously such a small girl ate the sandwich. When their eyes met, he waved at her, asking her to get closer to the engine she always liked to watch him work on. When he turned it on for the first time since he started fixing it, it made a loud noise as the previously broken engine came to life, making Eliza jump back in fear, which in result made him laugh as he turned it off again.

Soon, Eliza and Charles' relationship, which started without a single word being said by both of them, grew enough that Eliza began to live in Charles' workshop, together with him. Neither one of them remembers how or when Eliza began helping Charles with his job as a mechanic nor how she became so good at it, but her admiration for Charles coupled with her interest in his job certainly were one of the reasons why she was so quick to learn.
Maybe it was luck or maybe Charles saw something on the poor, dirty orphan Eliza was, but he ended up unofficially adopting her. As she grew older, Eliza not only became a beautiful girl, but her talent for being a mechanic became quite clear as she quickly became as good as Charles himself, quickly making the title 'apprentice' inaccurate to describe her. With Charles raising Eliza as his own daughter, the two grew incredibly close over the years and Eliza helped him in his workshop until she became old enough to start her own life.

On Eliza's 18th birthday, Charles gave her a small, portable set of tools, the same ones that were quite expensive, used by the mechanics on wealthier parts of the city, together with a box, filled with a decent amount of money he had saved over the years. Telling her she shouldn't waste her life on such a small workshop, Charles told Eliza that she should take those gifts and go where her heart wanted, live her own life. After a long hug and a heartfelt farewell, Eliza promised to return to visit him before boarding an Airship and leaving.

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Equipment
Weapons

Mercureal Pistol - Modeled after a vintage model, it packs a considerable punch, even for a Mercureal weapon. No special attributes other than it's appearance and it's stopping power.
Injection Knife - On the outside it looks like a standard combat knife, but it has a small mechanism that uses a cylinder of compressed air that when a certain button, hidden on the knife's hilt is pressed, liberates the pressurized air, expanding inside the wound and causing great damage. It is still an incredibly sharp, reliable and resistant knife though.

Armor

Heavily modified scout steam armor - Having removed everything other than the boots, it was made to be as light and efficient as possible by Liz herself. It is quite simple compared to a normal scout model steam armor, having only a belt to hold the small steam cells and the necessary mechanisms, connected to the boots and the steam jets themselves. It offers absolutely no protection or armor other than the boots but it is is more efficient than the normal models due to the lower weight (also because Eliza herself modified them) and doesn't hinder the user's mobility in any way while the jets are not active. It is a bit more complicated to use than normal scout models due to the lack of stabilizing jets, but when mastered, offers much more mobility.

Accessories

Mechanic's tools Most of the times, other than ammunition, spare mercureal cells, compressed air cylinders and her weapons, Liz often carries a small pouch of tools on her belt. Reasonably portable, they are perfect for any type of repair she may need to do.