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Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane didn’t usually deal well with threats. Oh, she was absolutely adept at being on the giving end of threats of violence, but the redhead had a very unfortunate tendency to exceptionally escalate in response to being threatened. So, when a pretentious, tarted up fool of a voice from across the courtyard had the gall to scream at her drop her own weapon, she was about to take her would-be victim up on her own offer and blow her away.

She didn’t like being disarmed.

It was only the intervention of the Dragoon and the Edrenian king himself that the tense standoff eased off as quickly as it had begun. Éliane frowned at the mystel’s words, giving her a searching gaze before slowly lowering her own weapon after the samurai had done so as well. “Is that so,” she replied mildly, finding a nearby Valheimian corpse to wipe off her blade before finally sheathing it. She considered the woman’s words. Normally, Éliane would have dismissed such a thing, but she liked and respected the gall this woman had to give her a recruitment pitch right after Éliane literally had her by the balls. Skael had truly been isolated from the Edrenian-Osprey conflict, but even on the basis of the stories that she had heard of this woman, then she at the very least deserved the respect of a peer in combat, even if the current circumstances were less than ideal.

“Alright, I’ll consider it. Give me just a minute,” she replied, seriously, as she walked towards the Skaelan team to hear their side of story. She arrived just in time to see the blooded leader of team Unicorn bleating at the man that had threatened her and her countrymen just moments earlier. Still inclined to take the side of her countryman by default, she paused when she saw who she was dealing with and what he had said.

Alright, she had a pretty poor first impression of the other man, but as far as threats and declarations of outrage went, ‘Do you know who I am’ was a pretty limp-wristed one, especially when she could recognize whose family the Skaelan leader belonged to. They weren’t nobodies, but in the grand scheme of Skaelan politics…

She made up her mind on the situation. She approached the man, made sure he recognized her, and looked him in the eye.

“Your father will hear of this.”

Then she made an about face and returned to the former general from Osprey. “I was strongly considering joining my compatriots, but it is obvious to me now they’re led by a fool, and I have no reason to doubt your words,” she admitted. “My original team fell to the ambush, so I accept. My apologies for earlier. It wasn’t personal.”

She held a hand out. “Éliane Laruelle, of the Household Guards. A rough start, I think, but it’ll be a pleasure to work alongside veterans,” she continued, meeting her eyes before her gaze briefly drifted towards Galahad. Walking to the rest of the team with her, she made the same introduction to the other members before apologizing to the man's victim. "Let me apologize for my countrymen," she said to Neve. "Not all of us were dropped at birth."

She decided to give her two thoughts on their deliberation. “If I may, as an outsider,” she interrupted, “Considering the illustrious folks that make up this team, I don’t see how adhering to a rigid structure of command in this group will work out beyond the short term. The cracks are already forming by just having this conversation. You have a former general, a duke, and a white mage, among those I recognize, and myself, a knight commander. The Divine Mother above knows how badly the clash of wills will be if you don’t choose something less than formal.” Éliane frowned.

“With how informal the arrangements are, decisions should be elective, rather than resting on a sole point of failure. I’d certainly feel better following a collectively bad decision rather than one decided by the whims of a foreign leader. No offense intended, Lord Caradoc.”

Fire Emblem: Crestfallen

Parthenia Harland Ciran

of House Ciran

---

Irinduil. It had not always been a forgone conclusion, Parthenia knew. Her inheritance had not always been as secure as it had been in the last couple of years. There was a certain irony when she could relax more among her noble peers than her own family—although she had made the best of an interesting situation to make the most entertainment out of it. In comparison, the monastery would almost be a treat.

Parthenia had been somewhat put off by the caravan arrangement, considering how close her family’s territory was to Irinduil itself. The place was literally a hop, skip, and a jump away by family pegasi, tradition be damned. Unsurprisingly, she ended up traveling with her peer and friend Dory, but in the time that they had been kept waiting for a supposed third, she could flown to their destination and back. In the end, they had never appeared, but she had managed to fill the time catching up with Theodoric until they arrived at the mountain for the Archbishop Augustine’s welcoming ceremony.

Glad to stretch her legs after the unfortunate carriage ride, she made sure to greet every familiar face until she ran into a hitch. It was rare that Parthenia couldn’t pair a face with a name, yet a girl with long blue hair had caught her attention, and in a way that frustrated her. She had seen this girl, perhaps met her at some point, yet she couldn’t recall who she was.

She let her mind ponder that before she temporarily gave up once Augustine began to speak, resolving to investigate the temporarily unknown student and introduce herself later.

The head of the monastery’s speech had been roughly what she had expected. When addressing a crowd whose body largely consisted of nobility, there were only a few, rather formulaic ways one could conduct the proceedings. Parthenia had found herself ending up standing next to another familiar face, Sherry. The variety of emotions that displayed on her face provoked the urge to tease the princess, but as tempted as she was, Parthenia decided to save it for later and offered the redhead her congratulations.

Unlike Sherry, she enjoyed what the garden had to offer. It would be pleasant for tea, among many things. “Now, now, Sherry. The garden is only unserviceable if you’re particularly uncreative,” she chided. “There are so many things you can do with flowers. Have you seen how wonderfully some people sneeze?”

It wasn’t the princess of Galbia’s comments on flowers that seemed to grab the attention of the students around her, though, but the way Sherry had looked at the Archbishop. “He is good looking,” Parthenia admitted, partially in her defense, but spring boarded right off it to tease her further. “But if you’re going to undress him with your eyes, avoid making it obvious.”

She gave Roland a pat on the shoulder. “Looks like you have some more work to do.”

Seeing as she wasn’t familiar with the giant of a boy that had first teased Sherry together with the small blue-haired girl that she had puzzled over, Parthenia made an introduction after Theodoric. “Parthenia, of House Ciran. A pleasure… and despite what he says, I call him Dory.”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Giselle briefly raised her eyebrows at the mention of divine servants, but didn’t comment. “Fresnel. It’s a type of carved lens that propagates light far greater than a normal lens does,” she explained. “If these silver light lamps of yours don’t have them, they would greatly increase their range. If you have a lensmaker or a carver, I can teach them the pattern they need to carve.”

She frowned when Akyasha decided to stay. Certainly, there was nothing wrong with that, but the white-haired vampire suspected the priestess still wanted the blacksmith for herself. Giselle would be very cross if she came back and found the priestess with a new thrall in tow, but dealing with what everybody suspected was Kordelia in the forest was paramount.

That was how Giselle found herself back in the forest, this time with her peers… facing a giant chicken, as Aleksiya had so succinctly stated.

“Threatening, no. But it’s vile.”

The vampire princess went into action after the smaller vampire and the songstress made their moves against it. Staying out of the way of Aleksiya’s firing arc, she paired up with Luna once she drew her sword, aiming straight for the throat of the creature even as the other moved to pin it down.

Fire Emblem: Crestfallen

Parthenia Harland Ciran, Heir to House Ciran

[Full Name]
Parthenia Harland Ciran

[Alias]
Thenia, Parthy

[Affiliation]
Mordlind Concorde

[Starting Class]
Noble

[Status]
Heir to House Ciran

[Crest]
Minor Crest of Ciran

[Age]
18

[Date of Birth]
17th of the Hallowed Moon, Divine Year 762.

[Appearance Information]
Parthenia stands at about 5’ 7”, with distinctive silvery hair, crowned with a wraparound braid and decorative hair ornaments. Slender but not too skinny, she has a fair skin tone that skews on the side of pale, contrasting her reddish brown eyes. With a flair for aesthetic, she keeps her uniform mostly standard, but adorns its trimmings with modest embroidery in addition to a matching capelet draped over her shoulders.

[Personality]
Egotistical and ambitious, Parthenia has the hallmarks of a less-than-scrupulous noble. Intelligent, calculating, and ruthless, she looks down on the slow-witted. She, however, is charismatic, courteous, and even friendly; socially savvy, she masks her undesirable traits under a subtle layer of charm and personal flair, conducting herself with a mixture of etiquette and restrained energy. To that end, she even admits that she has a bad personality, deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others. With a sharp sense of humor and a fondness for deceit and tomfoolery, Parthenia is a habitual shit-stirrer. However, she has a disdain for ostentatious lies, and has a chivalric attitude towards upholding deals and agreements when she makes them.

As the heir to House Ciran, she understands her potential electability to the office of Speaker, and looks forward to vying for the title.

[Personal History]

Parthenia was the first child among four in the line of succession for the house. Inheriting her house’s minor crest along with her other three siblings, she had a trying, but not uncomfortable childhood. Her house, while not wanting of influence, lacked the wealth of the others, and her early childhood gave her a sense of contrasting humility and groundedness that she might not have had otherwise. While never truly poor, she lacked the trappings of many of her peers, with much of the family wealth tied up in their land in keeping up social appearances. Driven from a young age with an ambition for more, she took to her studies and training with disciplined fervor. While she had a strong claim for inheritance, she was always replaceable, with her siblings equally ambitious and having had the luck to share in their inheritance of minor crests. Her life was characterized by intense sibling rivalry, a dynamic that while unhealthy, honed her ability for politics and, by extension, her mischief and humor.

As she grew older, and with her foundations and inheritance solidified, Parthenia slowly began to take on the responsibilities and duties of her house. Taking this to the logical conclusion, along with many of her peers from the other houses and nations, she was sent to the Officer’s Academy to continue her training and preparation as eventual head of House Ciran.

[Preferred Fighting Style]
Lance

[Equipment]
Training Lance
Training Sword
Vulnerary

[Learned Spells]
N/A

[Interests]

• Administration
• Flying
• Board games
• Economics

[Likes]

• Spearmanship
• Tea
• Wine
• Puzzles
• Rivals

[Dislikes]

• Gambling & games of chance
• Dullards
• Rain
• Mundanity

Fire Emblem: Crestfallen

Same, same.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane’s expression darkened as she passed by the dead in the passageways, noting the presence of both Edrenian and Valheimian fallen. How had such a strike force penetrated this deeply into a castle this fortified? Although she hadn’t been the part of the Household Guards that actually guarded the Overseer, she knew enough about castle defense to know that there were precious few ways to reach the protected sections of a keep this easily. Treachery was usually the culprit, and considering how she had been surprised, she had to assume it was so.

What irritated her, though, was that it was clear that she had missed most of the fighting where she could have made a difference. Moving through the empty corridors, she was merely a witness to the dead and dying. There was no aid that she could render there.

Battle still continued elsewhere, though, and the gunbreaker broke into a sprint in the direction of the telltale report of gunfire. From the way the cracks and pops of bullets began to die out, however, it was clear that she would be coming into a fight that was at its end.

Bursting into the courtyard of the royal garden, Éliane took a split second to process the scene in front of her. The Edrenian king and knights had obviously been pitted against a significant enemy force, and from the way the men stood, had been assisted by a party of men with familiar uniforms. They were obviously her countrymen from one of the other teams. There was also another group she identified as Team Kirin. From the way the smoke still hung in the air, and the manner in which the knights and gunbreakers swept their weapons over the fallen Valheimians, the fight for the courtyard had ended mere moments ago.

A bit disappointing, really, even if Jacques and Anne had been avenged by Skaelans.

For a moment, it looked like her countrymen were talking to those from Kirin when the short exchange suddenly erupted into bared arms. Éliane didn’t know what had happened, but she would always trust her countrymen over the dubious word of a foreigner.

She grinned. Perhaps there would still be a fight after all.

She still had her gunblade out, so with a wind-assisted sprint and a jump, she appeared and pointed the tip of blade at the swordswoman from Osprey that was threatening her countryman in the same manner she had done. It was still coated with the blood from running one of the Valheimians through.

“If you so much as move, I’ll shoot,” she warned. “I thought everybody was supposed to be allies here?”

If she wasn’t recognized, then the obvious Skaelan guards’ uniform made it obvious why she had suddenly intervened.

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Polina gave the demon maid-to-be an unamused stare. This demon girl was really full of herself, wasn’t she? Better than being extremely violent or twisted in a way that wasn’t analogous to human failings, she supposed.

“Come along, then. Lucrecia and I will show—”

She was interrupted by the girl suddenly snapping at Siegine. Ah. Ah… she had a height complex. Polina was very sorely tempted to tease her in her usual manner, but she decided that discretion was the better part of valor and dropped the thought that came to the tip of her tongue. “Yes,” she replied instead, nonetheless using a dry tone. “You are not short, Elizstrazia. Now follow me, we don’t have all that much time to explore the entire Maison in an hour.”

She really hoped that the demon girl wasn’t going to have a temper tantrum about her height right here. At the very least, Mariarca had extracted Akantha from the tricky situation so there wouldn’t be a small girl being traumatized by the small-scale demon.

Heh. Small.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

“I see,” she said, following the human blacksmith inside her home. She would have to look into the others when she had the time. She frowned when she elaborated. Lamp signals and runners? She supposed technology had degraded quite a bit, but Giselle thought constructing a telegraph system wasn’t that difficult, even with regressed technology. She supposed it was too dangerous to do line work, or she was just out of touch. Wouldn’t that be a thought.

Giselle idly asked a follow up question. “Fire lit lamps, or oil lamps with Fresnel lens?” Depending on the answer, she could more accurately gage the village’s technology.

“Hmm, so the vampire is new, as are the undead. The former we can likely deal with, but undead dragging themselves up from the oceans is curious, if a bit ominous.” She recalled the skeletal beast they had recently encountered, and imagined a sea monster equivalent to it. That was the stuff of nightmares, even for vampire lords.

As she settled in for a quick rest, she raised her eyebrows as Dragan and Aleksiya filed into Julene’s house as well.

“The immediate situation is dealt with, then?” she nodded to confirm Dragan’s question, before letting him continue on, frowning as he went on. “Interesting. Good to know,” she finally said, filing the information to review later. The two stopping by the largest settlement in the region on their way to Alavaris made sense, but knowing that they had a third that had been meddling with the beasts pushed her to be more wary of them.

Giselle took a moment to relay the two newcomers of what they had found, before concluding with her suggestion. “If we are all sufficiently rested now, we must investigate this vampire of the forest.”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

For Éliane, the banquet and reception had been enlightening. The food had been exceptional, if simply for the variety it offered. The bread and the pastries at the end she found wanting, but even she was able to recognize the inherent bias that colored her opinions there. The coffee, on the other hand, was nothing short of fantastic.

With no one awake, she hummed to herself. “Coffee~ Coffee~ How I love you so~”

It was a pilfered carafe of this god’s nectar that Éliane was nursing in her room, slowly caffeinating even as the night drew on. Her three companions had long since gone to bed to rise early on the morrow, and despite the coffee, she would probably soon follow. She really was not the type to contemplate overmuch, but the spectacle that King Leonhardt and his guests gave –and that was all it really was, in her opinion—only served to reduce her opinion of the foreign king. The formation of such hastily assembled teams and the carrot of ten million gil felt to her that the man was simply throwing stuff on a wall and seeing what would stick several months later. If someone like herself could recognize that, then no doubt others had thought the same. It had been entertaining, though. She did like shows.

Éliane and her small delegation of two had come all this way, but she was of half a mind to turn around and go back to Skael. With the resources of her country’s scholars, the Garden, and the Household Guards combined, she was confident her countrymen could discover the solution to the Blight, or defeat a harebrained Valheimen scheme if they had been the cause of it like some had suggested, no collaboration with foreigners needed.

Intellectually, she knew that was a stupid opinion, but it was tempting train of thought. She was here as much as an act of diplomacy as much as she still needed to see what was going on, and she would be derelict of duty otherwise.

Taking a last sip of the delectable black beverage, she began to reluctantly set her cup down to change and turn in for the night. Before she finished the motion however, she caught the faint, hasty movement of heavy boots and froze. A Knight returning from the washroom? No, too many footsteps. An Edrenien patrol? Not in these hallways. It could only be…

“Ambush!”

Éliane yelled as she lept from her seat, coffee still in her hand as she grabbed her gunblade from the side of her bed. She was just in time for the bedroom door to crash open, revealing armored soldiers with guns pointed into the room.

An ambush by soldiers of Valheim? How… interesting!

A moment later, the entire room descended into chaos.

The two gunslingers that had been part of her delegation barely had time to rise and snatch up their weapons before their assailants opened fire. The fourth member of her team, a rogue that they had met in the banquet with the bed closest to the door, had no such luck and had managed to tangle himself in his bedsheets trying to get up before being riddled with bullets.

Instinctively, but with great reluctance, Éliane threw her coffee at the lead soldier, shattering the porcelain against his helmet and forcing him to stagger back into another soldier. It bought just enough time for her side to respond, and soon the small space erupted into a full firefight. Éliane opened up with her gunblade before she moved to close the distance, sticking to the wall as she made a wind-propelled dash to avoid the bulk of the fire being exchanged quarters. A fusillade of lead met the Valheimens, but the same number poured into her allies. She didn’t have time to contemplate the result before she made contact with the enemy.

She shot one in the head at near point blank before pivoting to the side to line up another shot. That too connected, but pinged off the thick point of his armor. Éliane, undeterred, lanced forward and stabbed out at the man’s exposed armpit as he turned to respond to the threat. Her gunsabre found purchase, driving deep into his chest before she pulled back with a kick. The soldier staggered back before collapsing to the floor with his heart pierced, joining three others on the ground. The remaining two had been shot dead by her comrades, and the room was now silent…

...Which wasn’t good. She turned back to her comrades, grimacing at what she found. Jacques was plain dead, Anne was bleeding out, and the rogue –she’d already forgotten his name—had clearly never gotten out of bed before eating shit.

“Damn, this sucks,” she muttered, pausing to collect the rest of her kit before jumping out the door. There were still sounds of fighting outside. Her comrades were a lost cause, but the others weren’t. And now she had a score to settle.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Éliane Laruelle

“Ahem! You face yours truly, Éliane, of the Household Guards of Skael. You face the blade, the bullet, or the high explosives. I would advise you to stand down… but you already know what I prefer, right?”

GENERAL INFORMATION

Éliane Laruelle

Dame Commander
1st Household Guards Battalion of Skael

25 | ♀ | Sollan

COMBAT INFORMATION

Class:

Gunbreaker

Weapon:

A long, thin gunblade, crafted in the style and weighting of a sabre. Lightweight but durable, as a custom-made weapon, it prioritizes the same melee fighting form and function of its more simple gunless sister. Thusly, it lacks accuracy or punch at range, unless explosive shells are used. It shares the same ammunition as a standard Skaelic longarm.

Inventory:

• Spare arms. Éliane carries, in a special dual-slotted strap slung across her shoulder, a spare standard-issue combat sabre and battle rifle. The blade sees little use, but she uses the firearm regularly for hunting, or when the situation demands a little more accuracy and discretion.
• Dagger. A basic third weapon hidden in her boot. Éliane likes her backup weapons.
• Traveling cloak. A long, thick garment that can cover her body down to just above her ankles. Color matched to the navy blues of her uniform.
• Leather satchel. Contains essentials, including basic traveling supplies, spare ammunition, and tools for maintaining her weapons. Includes a coinpurse with enough expenses for a couple months of travel.
• Potions. x3. Basic potions for whenever one might need them.
• Coffee. She can’t go without it.

Materia:

Fire.
Wind.

Limit Breaks:

Conflagration. Éliane has no idea why this needs to be explained. It’s a big, directed explosion with piercing qualities made by charging and simultaneously firing all rounds in her gunblade. It makes a big boom commensurate to the level you’d expect from a limit break.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Appearance Details:

Éliane stands at about 5’ 4” tall, with a slender, though fit build. She keeps her pinkish-red hair generally short. Her eyes, matching the color of her hair, are intense. She generally keeps to wearing her uniform even outside of Skael, seeing as her travels are in service to her country. When out of it, she wears simple, comfortable clothing that are easy to move in, and always at least with one weapon.

Personality:

Expressive. Intense. Slightly unhinged. Polite, to a degree. Friendly, nonetheless. Those are all words to describe the force of nature that is Éliane Laruelle. A battle junkie that doesn’t shy away when violence is needed, she has her head half in the clouds at times. Youthful, boisterous and energetic, she has no issue with commanding attention. Despite her rank and role, she is neither a particularly exceptional leader nor a very effective law keeper. A strong believer in pragmatism and might makes right, she nonetheless maintains a mostly moral, if practical outlook.

Has a penchant for accidental collateral damage. If the Seeds of the Garden are the scalpel, then Éliane and the others that were under her command are the big, unsubtle hammer that proudly trumpets the presence of Skael.

Biography:

Éliane’s story has humble origins. Her parents were both bakers; her mother from a long line of bakers, and her father, a guard captain that took up the family business later in life. For commoners, they did well for themselves, with a well-trafficked bakery on main street that has stood for generations. Growing up, she learned to bake, helping out in the family store in the early mornings. In the afternoons, her father, after closing up the shop, would teach her some of the skills he had picked up as a guardsman to protect herself.

It turned out she was far better with cold weapons and firearms than handling hot pie tins.

Not that her baking skills were subpar, mind, but Éliane simply never had the temperament to take up the family business. When she was of age, using her father’s connections, she joined the Garden, leaving her younger sister to take up the family business. Her time there was relatively brief, though fruitful. She quickly distinguished herself with the skill of her sword arm and the accuracy of her shot, but equally developed a reputation for bungling covert operations with risky maneuvers and high-profile attacks.

Nonetheless, her skills drew the attention and patronage of one of the seven great Houses. Thus, while still in her late teens, she was sworn into service to House Silvain, a relationship that turned out to be rather fruitful when Lord Silvester Silvain was elected Overseer. Still under service to the House, Éliane joined the Household Guards, the elite corps of soldiers tasked to protect the ruling Overseer and his administration and carry out missions of state. She remained at her position in this capacity after Silvain's four-year term was up, subsequently serving under Overseer Baramoux.

Éliane was a pivotal actor in the Conspiracy of Solitude’s Rest, an attempt to overthrow or assassinate Baramoux backed by a cartel of merchants slighted by isolationist policies. While she was not the one to uncover the plot, there are few that aren’t aware of the high-profile running battle between the Household Guards and the forces of the conspirators on the rooftops and spires of Solitude. There, Éliane dueled and personally defeated the corrupt lord that was the ringleader of the plot, for which she received a Knighthood and a promotion.

With the appearance of the Blight and the proclamation of Leonhart VII, and in the face of an unprecedented threat to her nation, Éliane led a small delegation to Balmung to show the flag… and, by the grace of Etro, nip the problem in the bud before it truly reached the lands of the far south.

She did not, however, expect everybody else in her delegation to keel over and die in the castle during a surprise attack.

Traits:

• Enjoys baking, despite not taking up the family business.
• Lives off caffeine. Heavily prefers coffee, but will gladly partake of tea or other caffeinated substitutes.
• Likes dueling. Recreational or otherwise.
• Fan of pubs and bars. Sometimes to the point of waking up in unfamiliar beds. She considers that a plus.
• Takes the titles and trust placed in her seriously. Despite not being the best student, she will take the time and study until she is knowledgeable in a required subject.

Relationships:

• Lord Silvester Silvain. She maintains a good relationship with the former Overseer and his family, despite parting ways as his retainer.
• Overseer Baramoux. Her current boss. She disagrees with some of his policies, but keeps things professional.
• Marianne, Oliver, and Therese Laruelle. Her parents and younger sister, respectively, at the Laruelle Bakery in Solitude where she will still occasionally help out.
• 1st Household Guards. She cares for and dotes on her small squad, which she’s left behind in Solitude to put out any fires in her absence.
• Solitude/Skael. Well known for putting out the incipient rebellion in Solitude. A somewhat divisive character, considering having a battle on the rooftops of the capital is a rather reckless endeavor.
• TBD.