Name : Muse Engelke
Appearance :
The picture above with a few minor differences (refer to “Gear” and “Backpack”).
Race : Human
Age : 33
Gender : Female
Side : Imperial Troops
Title : Light Infantry
Abilities : As a light infantryman, Muse is often thrown into the midst of rush fighting and skirmishes. Therefore, she spent years developing the talents required for quick pace fighting, with her most prominent being horsemanship. In fact, she has honed her horsemanship to a point that one might say she fights on a horse better than she does on her own two feet. As for her swordsmanship, it is a tad lacking. While she may be able to hold her own against regular bandits and such, she would be at a significant advantage when it comes to other soldiers. Of course, she makes up for this with formidable agility and stamina that allows her to ware enemies down or take the heat off her allies. This correctly suggests she has some acrobatic skills and, while she may not be able to scale a wall or perform a back flip, she does possess the skills necessary to dodge incoming blows with simple modesty.
Skills : Strangely, Muse’s favorite hobby is basket weaving. She also has an impressive knowledge of geography and breaking horses, as well as caring for them.
Gear : Muse’s profession requires that she constantly be on the move. Therefore, it’s vital she dresses light. Her regular uniform consists of a red, sleeveless shirt that coils tightly around her person. To make up for the lack of sleeves, she regularly covers her arms and hands with bandages, making her hands more resistant to long-term combat. Her trousers are a tanned leather, making the motion of sliding across a rough surface more bearable. As not to get her trouser cuffs caught on something, she tucks them neatly into her boots. Above all this, she covers her body with a gold-colored cloak with red trim, though, this is mostly to denote rank rather than provide any combat advantages. When it comes to weaponry, she tries to pack lightly whilst making sure she’s armed with the vital tools. As such, her weapon of choice is a five-foot iron spear, a weapon that makes her lethal on horseback and able to keep a good distance from opponents on foot. The spear is typically strapped to her back with a leather sash.
Backpack : The backpack, in the form of a satchel strapped to her waist (under her coat) contains a roll of bandages, two skins of water, a small coil of rope, a wrapped up bread bun, and a small dagger not fit for combat. She also carries a few coins on her person for emergencies.
Personality : You may not think so from simple observation, but Muse is quite passionate about serving the weak and helpless. After all, she fully believes this is the sole purpose of a soldier, not to seek glory or amass wealth. Neither does she believe a soldier should just blindly follow orders, but rather act according to their own morals. Above all, she holds a personal distain for the needless sacrifice of others and especially for authority figures that do so. You might think these qualities make it difficult to cooperate with authority, and you’d be spot on; but, she does tend to make up for this with other traits. Among these redeeming qualities are her empathy (not to be confused with sympathy) and intuitive nature. This, evidently, makes her idea for team-work oriented combat in which tactics may be altered on a whim.
As stated, these are not personality traits that can be derived from mere observation, with the reason being a reserved demeanor explainable by many years of service to the Phoenix Empire. While she does not mean to come off as cold, she understands that it may be necessary to keep focused on assignments, lest it cost someone’s life. Other times, she may be just plain assertive in her opinions, often refusing to be ignored. In other aspects, she’s not very fond of humor and is easily agitated by immature behavior. On a few rare occasions, she may spare a grin if the moment is appropriate; and even more rarely does she deem something worthy of celebration, giving her the appearance of a workaholic.
Bio : Muse was born as the first daughter of a prestigious family, one whose ancestors are believed to have been one of the great heroes who helped liberate Crematia from the necromancers. While this prestige did not necessarily make her family beyond wealthy, it did put them in one of the safer areas of the continent: Calvion town, a humble and peaceful settlement with a long history to boot. Of course, this also meant it was found to be boring by many of the town's children, including Muse. Thus, she and many her age were notorious for their pranks, the most memorable being when they covered the town statute with manure (if you’re curious how it ended, they were all forced to clean it themselves). Home life was almost the same, except for her grandfather's stories of being a soldier in the Phoenix Empire. Indeed, the tale of how he defeated a nasty gang of thugs by himself was by far her favorite. Her father, on the other hand, found the stories quite irritating and often described the soldiers as, "People stupid enough to die because someone tells them to." Despite this, Muse knew from an early age that she wanted to be a mighty warrior, a hero of valor.
When she finally came of age, Muse enlisted into the military. Unfortunately, enlisting was the easy part. The training portion proved to be some of the most brutal years of her life but not because it was exceedingly difficult; but rather because she had not outgrown her immature attitude – an affliction that caused her to neglect much of her training. Even so, she passed, just barely. Shortly afterwards, she was placed into the light infantry division, specifically under Captain Louis's command. Captain Louis was a hardened man whose main concern was getting the job done at any cost, something he expected from his subordinates as well. As one might guess, putting Muse and Captain Louis next together was a poor choice. By the end of her first week under Captain Louis's command, Muse was cleaning the barracks with her own socks. That’s not to say it wall bad: she had quickly made a friend named Siliton, a man who covered for Muse’s wrongdoings on countless occasions.
For the most part, things stayed this way until, at the age of twenty-five, Muse along with Louis and a small group of men were sent to a minor fishing village to quell a group of rebels. The reason for this minnor revolt was ultimately due to a small group of bandits taking advantage of the village, which was ripe with disease at the time. Louis, however, had underestimated the number of enemies and was forced into a tactical retreat. Rather than inform his superiors of his failure though, he ordered the group to return to the village and burn it down. With a blind trust in their adamant captain, Muse and the group did just that. The village and its rebellious inhabitants were quickly consumed by the fire, ensuring a future celebration for the group; that is, until the cries of children came from within the fire. Those specific screams are the ones that would forever cling to Muse and break her fantasy of soldiers being heroes. Finally, the immature little girl had died and become a true soldier, one who knew the dark side of military life.
As it would turn out a month later, a portion of the bandits who started the revolt had escaped the village and set up small camps along the Deborah Mountains. Louis, afraid of any blemish on his record, responded with a plan to lure the bandits to an inescapable portion of the mountain. Siliton, ever the optimistic, volunteered to lure them. It would later become evident, however, that Louis had neglected to mention to Siliton that he too would be unable to escape. When Siliton had finally lured the bandit gang into the ambush point, he found himself without a place to retreat and was quickly outnumbered and ultimately died from a slash to the throat. When the last bandit had fallen, it was Muse who buried her fallen comrade. In a suspicious irony, Louis was found several days later in his own bed with his throat slashed…
Not long after, Muse finally began taking her training seriously, if not to an extreme. She was determined to become a great soldier. It wasn’t valor that drove her this time though, but rather a resentment to see innocents – comrades and civilians – die. It wasn’t long before she became a first lieutenant under Captain Zeigenbein. A relaxed (though skilled) individual, Zeigenbein proved to be the exact opposite of Louis. Beyond that, life was normal in Muse’s life for the next decade until she was specially selected by Knight Captain Markos Helmshear for a seemingly boring escort mission.
Other : FRAMPT
