A slew of looks had been fired around the group almost as soon as they had gathered. She added her own to the mix in turning her head back at the woman who arrived after her. She looked every bit the part of a foreigner trekking through Gris, which was to say there wasn't much to see other than a big warm cloak. Satisfied with only the knowledge that the other person was there, she returned to her idling. It was only natural to make note of new arrivals, only prudent in such a violent world, but Lexine wondered what the split was between assessment and acknowledgment with this crowd. She didn't bother returning any glances or trying to make eye contact. It would have been nice to break the group's silence that way and force an interaction out of someone, anything for answers, but her gut told her to keep quiet.
Fortune smiled on her, as the youth at the head of the group turned to address the rest of them. Tikkis, he said. I've been pronouncing it wrong. She made note of how to properly say the man's name, all the while aware that there was no point trying to act local with her appearance. "Only excerpts, unfortunately," she said, adding her reply after the man with the book and feeling a tad under prepared. She was representing the interests of someone else and had expected to find similarly prepared research parties. If not the rest of these eccentric picks - I'm here too, I guess - the man sitting near her was the genuine article, someone with more than a passing interest in the arcane ramblings within 'The Abnormal.' Suddenly, she wanted to know more. She didn't go on, instead adopting silence and waiting for the rest of the party's answers. Were they also similarly invested? It wasn't that she felt unworthy, she felt unknowledgeable which was a far more dangerous thing to be in work like this. With the exception of the male duo towards the front, no one here had an overtly martial presence, but outside the bounds of civilization murder came more often out of passion than orders. As far as she knew they had nothing to compete over in the search for knowledge, but people could be fickle with secrets and if it wasn't ideology that got to them it would be running out of food in a few days. She had done her part to prevent that eventuality but no matter how burdened anyone present was with supplies they did not have a baggage train and that was final. It was unlikely that such a thing could go much further north, though. Shifting uncomfortably on strained legs, she sighed at the back of the group. It would have been so easy to form a team around a carriage. For the time being, she had only to listen to the other's answers. Spurred by a newfound desire to know more, she found herself casting her sight around the group once more. The woman and the kid had to be another personal interest, there were few reasons to drag a scrawny looking boy through all this and none of it sounded like professional work. That left the woman behind her and the other duo, who were just the right level of inconspicuous. Between being like her and being like the man with the staff, she had to place them in the former camp, and thus suspect them.
Some time within the last interval the cold had begun to set in. It was a wonder it hadn't already, considering she'd had to go most of the way on foot. Finding a carriage driver that didn't throw her out or turn his nose up at the prospect of going to the far north had proven far too difficult to be worth it. As a result, the majority of her possessions were now being held indefinitely in the hands of the smuggler who had gotten her into the country. From what she'd seen that far, it was looking as though that precautionary measure had been entirely unnecessary. A waste of money or not, it was a place she could keep the things that weren't coming with her on the road. That left Lexine, her equipment, the courier bag, and an inconsistent supply of victuals carried therein. It wasn't her first time footing it through a land totally unknown to her, she'd managed to survive, but Gris was a place for adventurers and she no longer fit into that category. The people were rough, the buildings were rough, the food was rough. She described Gris to herself as rough only to avoid using the word cold. Ice had seeped into every fragile joint of hers, what felt like jagged frost impinged on every movement. For a while it was the same as any other winter, but as the towns grew more sparse, same for the stitching of each consecutive blanket, her ability to cope was simply not great enough. Misery was the word she applied to her predicament.
As security against the freezing wind, the belts governing her coat's hood had been pulled tight. Through the ring of fur lining the opening, only a fragment of Lexine's face remained. Two glowering, mismatched eyes directed at the horizon. The ashen color of her hair blended in with the gray striped white surface of her overgarment, and nothing else remained to define her silhouette save the streak of yellow fastened to her arm. Unlike her, Vulture's Roost stood out from the horizon quite clearly. It was the only means she had left of navigation, except for the road signs. They had proven unreliable in the past though, and she was very keen on not being lead away from the main road again by would-be bandits who had the unfortunate qualification of being literate. There was no way of relocating the monolith she chased. It was the only feature on the horizon, a description she had been given of Vulture's Roost by a native prior. The great white empty behind and around it told her that it truly was the last stop on the way north. At least part of her journey was over, in a sense. The more painful part was certainly only beginning. She had a job to do, however, and had surmounted far worse to see her task done before. Her investigation was, for the moment, the only thing she had left.
One dutiful step after the other saw her down her last road. The Roost slowly grew before her, until she stood well within its shadow and could see every impressive detail of the fortress' architecture. Another detail was the crowd at its gate. No admission. For whatever reason, there was a collection of travelers that she was about to join who were being held at the door. It was a castle, there was no point if they just opened the door whenever, but she knew for a fact that she needed at least a chair before continuing on. She trudged up to the assembly, looking between the people present in the hopes of finding some sort of clue about their predicament. Hopefully one that told her that she was fine to head in. Of course, that wasn't the case, and she was one more person stuck waiting outside the castle walls. She stood apart from the quartet conversing, and planted herself on a patch of road by the man wise enough to spend his time reading on the assumption that they were in a sort of line. Given the scarcity of reasons for coming this far north, she also assumed it wasn't going to be the last of this crowd she was seeing. If she could help it, this was a traveling party in the making if only for the sake of convenience.
Bump, here's hoping some more come around quick then. I keep seeing a couple of the people from the intcheck popping in and out so maybe they're working on bios.
Appearance: Lexine is a woman of average, unimposing build. She stands approximately 172 cm (~5'8") tall, a height that is usually disguised by poor posture. She has an average physique to go with her slender body, lingering muscles that suggest at least some degree of training earlier in life. Despite her best efforts, her presence gives a feeling of decay. Her fitness is not in decline, but her physical strength is. Despite a life full of missteps, her skin is clear of scarring and she carries few visible reminders of her past. Her skin itself is light in coloration, with a paleness bordering on sickly. It tends to be smooth in texture and nonreactive, flushing rarely and proving quite resistant to the many forms of abuse that life on the road has exposed it to. She has a girly face and pointed nose that would be quite pretty if it didn't look so sad so often. She has a slim jawline that presides below a pouting, full mouth. The red of her lips is one of the most pronounced colors on her person, although they aren't particularly bright. Her good eye is a deep olive green, a vivid coloration that stands out jarringly against the colors of her face and hair. The other, her left, is a bizarre, iridescent color that fluctuates between being primarily aquamarine and white in low light. It appears reactive and intact, but Lexine has difficulty seeing from the afflicted eye. They are sharply shaped, but what should be a glaring set of eyes seem only tired on Lexine's face. Her hair is long, unruly, and a light, ashy gray. Tangled locks cover her shoulders and reach down to her shoulder blades. Likewise, her bangs are long and unstyled, ending over her eyebrows.
Clothing: Lexine dresses herself simply, with unremarkable garments and muted colors. Often, her clothing is loose, as she finds most clothes anywhere from uncomfortable to painful. Most typically, she sports a white, buttoned shirt. It might have been a man's shirt, but she no longer remembers and it fits her reasonably well with a comfortable spaciousness in the shoulders and waist. It is made of a lightweight, airy cloth that seems to suggest some value. Seven gray buttons hold it closed up the front, though she wears the neck undone. Its sleeves are long, ending at her wrist in wide cuffs held by buttons sewn on where once cuff links would go. It is most often untucked, over a pair of baggy work trousers. Lexine's chosen pants are a dark, earthy brown. It is a color reminiscent of more luxurious suits, but more importantly difficult to make dirty. They are made of a heavy, yet soft material and lack the double knee and other such reinforcements one would expect from work clothes. Intended for contractors and craftsmen in less intensive lines of work, they are far from rugged and their primary utility lays in the generous number of pouches and pockets that line the trousers. A narrow belt of black leather, undone but still looped through, holds them up. Regardless of personal habits, her work calls for boots, and Lexine sports a pair of well made, shin height boots crafted in light brown leather. They are laced up the front with a distinctive pattern, leaving all crosses on the inside of the eyelets and tying the excess string tightly around the boot's neck. A pattern popular with soldiers and workers making the most of low quality footwear, it allows the sides to flex easily. To ward away the cold, Lexine carries with her a heavily insulated longcoat. Its full length takes it down around her ankles, and its sleeves would cover most of her hands if they did not belt around the wrists. Its hood is broad, although it also secures against the wind and elements with belts, and lined with a fluffy pseudo-fur made to trap heat. The outside is undecorated, but the interior contains a handful of pockets for the useful things one needs to survive frozen wastelands. A number of heavy metal buckles hold the overgarment securely closed, each painted a non reflective white color. The entirety of the coat is done up in a winter camouflage pattern, pure white with a spattering of small gray details to break up the wearer's silhouette and simulate texture. Contrary to its purpose, a bolt of offensively yellow fabric is tied around the left sleeve so that the wearer, while they wish, can remain easily visible to their comrades.
Weapons/Belongings: Lexine carries twenty four small knives on her person. They are all identical. Each one is 15cm (~6") long, with 5cm of that composing the blade. The knife is entirely a single piece of pattern cut steel, far too thin to be considered combative. There is no tang, just raw metal. In fact, if it were not for their uniformity, their bare metal appearance and hollow frame handles make them appear unfinished. This would not be a wise assumption, however, as despite being pressed steel they have been machined to a razor's edge along the cutting side of the blade. The blades are flat backed and taper to a point only towards their ends. They have a poor balance, rendering throwing them an act of futility, and they seem to function better as cutlery than defensive weaponry, but she favors to use only her knives when pressed. They are hidden across her person, with the exception of her coat. Two reside in each cuff of her shirt, eight total hang in individual leather sheathes from her belt. Another two are hidden away in each of her pant legs, with a matching set in both boots. The final four knives are distributed through her various pants pockets, all within their own individual sheaths for safety. Lexine doesn't use most of her pockets unless she has to, because she owns a number of suitcases and traveling bags. The one that she keeps on her person even after finding lodging is a small rectangular pouch that hangs at her waist off of a leather strap around her chest. Her courier bag contains the unused sheathes for her knives, where they return to after a day's work, and enough space for any parcel her work needs her to move. Seeking passage into inhospitable lands, she's likely to just buy a rucksack or move with a caravan.
Personality: Lexine is an easily troubled sort of person. She is quite serious at heart, ruminating on the problems of her life and searching for significance that often simply isn't there. This nature, however, is usually disguised by the irritable and cynical face she turns towards the world. She is quite content with keeping her own problems her own, and while she is conversational her relationships are distant and shallow. She has an underwhelming catalog of social experiences, and out of a general lack of patience is quick to become defensive or withdrawn when dealing with the unfamiliar. Her reluctance towards intimacy stems not from discomfort around others but simple inability. She has next to no experience in dealing with people outside of a professional context. Any curiosity she has for others is usually diminished by a belief that understanding herself has been enough of a challenge, and that adding an entire person to her concerns would be too much. Contrary to what her prickly outer shell might suggest, Lexine has very little in the way of disdain for others. She likes the quiet and the driven, not only because they seldom challenge her social experience, but also because she envies people who seem fulfilled. In the same way, she avoids the curious and deplores people she sees as having abandoned themselves. Despite her preference for people keeping to themselves, she does possess her own acerbic sense of justice, and can't quite force herself to ignore violence as well as she once could. Lexine is a person with few different sides. While she isn't simple, she has never had close friends to form a more open persona around. Her straightforward nature leaves very little to ambiguity in what she says, although information from Lexine about herself is scarce. This is, in part, due to that fact that she herself remembers little of her history.
History: Lexine remembers next to nothing about her early life, besides what she has been told. To the best of her knowledge, she was born in a rural country to poor parents and a large family. She has never met any of her supposed siblings, but she believes that her split from the family was less than graceful. She found a job with a small, relatively unknown scientific group known as the Elmgrove Astronomical Society. The details of her employment with them are well known to her, save the first few years, because she remains in the organization's employ. For Elmgrove, Lexine is a professional problem solver. She arranged payment and passage for research groups, escorted them in disagreeable climates, and worked with other such problem solvers to further what were assuredly legitimate scientific pursuits. She has her doubts about what she has read and been told, the vagueness of official records concerning her and her fellows is no small vexation for her. Understanding the need for secrecy, some of what Elmgrove's retainers did was undeniably illegal in every country they passed through, has only agitated her further on the matter. Her safety then may have been important, but the Lexine of the future was left not knowing what exactly she was accountable for. The chain of events that left her in her amnesiac state are still relatively clear and constitute the whole of a reliable history she has left. The society sent her, another of her kind, and one of its doctors into a far flung country named Keilaudrin to request financial aid from its government. There was, to her knowledge, little malice in what they were doing at the time, but several members of the capital's policing agency held a grudge with the Elmgrove scientists for past misdeeds in the country. As she had done many times before, Lexine was tasked with securing their safe passage, and spent much of her time in the company of the capital police discussing in detail the exact itinerary for the expedition. It was there that everything went wrong for her. As the only memory she is left with it is one of regret for a person who has found herself enthralled by purpose. Lexine died not protecting or representing anything, but getting strangled and battered by a guardsman for running her mouth off. While Lexine herself unarguably died at the time, her body was unfortunately more resistant. Her single comrade saw her back to the doctor they were escorting at the time. He was an eccentric man who also happened to be a doctor of philosophy rather than a doctor of medicine, but his ministrations were enough to keep the flesh alive until more effective help could be sought in the city's back alleys. Following a joint effort between asphyxia, head trauma, and psychological stress, there was little left of her original personality. Through no small miracle, she remained physically functional after her ordeal. Her memories and sense of self had been altered, fragments of what seemed correct dotted the emptiness of her consciousness, and between them hallucinations and misconceptions that she was unable to make sense of. In addition, she was left with a near constant pain in her extremities. Never enough to approach agony, but a constant nuisance none the less. Treatment proved to be only temporary for her aches, and she has since learned to live with them. Lexine, while quite reluctant to share the detail that she had 'new' memories with anyone, found herself interested in the significance that fictionalized margins of her history could hold. She went so far as to construe them as a second, inactive identity for the purposes of separating her memories of Lexine, and memories that are obviously false. Elmgrove Astronomical Society continued to employ her, albeit in less direct roles out of consideration for the unknown extent of her damages. The next time she was sent out into the fray, she was told it would be alone, to a place called Gris. Elmgrove had experimented in investigating the occult before. Verifying the claim set forth in 'The Abnormal' for their own records was an ordinary action, but also a valuable opportunity if any of the writings proved true. Lexine, at the time, suspected that sending an unqualified lone investigator was also a valuable opportunity to get rid of a tenured but defective employee. Nevertheless, she found passage across the sea and went forward with her work as usual.
Someone without any magic for the party. Hope it checks out.
Name: Lexine Tristan Age: 25 Gender: Female
Appearance: Lexine is a woman of average, unimposing build. She stands approximately 172 cm (~5'8") tall, a height that is usually disguised by poor posture. She has an average physique to go with her slender body, lingering muscles that suggest at least some degree of training earlier in life. Despite her best efforts, her presence gives a feeling of decay. Her fitness is not in decline, but her physical strength is. Despite a life full of missteps, her skin is clear of scarring and she carries few visible reminders of her past. Her skin itself is light in coloration, with a paleness bordering on sickly. It tends to be smooth in texture and nonreactive, flushing rarely and proving quite resistant to the many forms of abuse that life on the road has exposed it to. She has a girly face and pointed nose that would be quite pretty if it didn't look so sad so often. She has a slim jawline that presides below a pouting, full mouth. The red of her lips is one of the most pronounced colors on her person, although they aren't particularly bright. Her good eye is a deep olive green, a vivid coloration that stands out jarringly against the colors of her face and hair. The other, her left, is a bizarre, iridescent color that fluctuates between being primarily aquamarine and white in low light. It appears reactive and intact, but Lexine has difficulty seeing from the afflicted eye. They are sharply shaped, but what should be a glaring set of eyes seem only tired on Lexine's face. Her hair is long, unruly, and a light, ashy gray. Tangled locks cover her shoulders and reach down to her shoulder blades. Likewise, her bangs are long and unstyled, ending over her eyebrows.
Clothing: Lexine dresses herself simply, with unremarkable garments and muted colors. Often, her clothing is loose, as she finds most clothes anywhere from uncomfortable to painful. Most typically, she sports a white, buttoned shirt. It might have been a man's shirt, but she no longer remembers and it fits her reasonably well with a comfortable spaciousness in the shoulders and waist. It is made of a lightweight, airy cloth that seems to suggest some value. Seven gray buttons hold it closed up the front, though she wears the neck undone. Its sleeves are long, ending at her wrist in wide cuffs held by buttons sewn on where once cuff links would go. It is most often untucked, over a pair of baggy work trousers. Lexine's chosen pants are a dark, earthy brown. It is a color reminiscent of more luxurious suits, but more importantly difficult to make dirty. They are made of a heavy, yet soft material and lack the double knee and other such reinforcements one would expect from work clothes. Intended for contractors and craftsmen in less intensive lines of work, they are far from rugged and their primary utility lays in the generous number of pouches and pockets that line the trousers. A narrow belt of black leather, undone but still looped through, holds them up. Regardless of personal habits, her work calls for boots, and Lexine sports a pair of well made, shin height boots crafted in light brown leather. They are laced up the front with a distinctive pattern, leaving all crosses on the inside of the eyelets and tying the excess string tightly around the boot's neck. A pattern popular with soldiers and workers making the most of low quality footwear, it allows the sides to flex easily. To ward away the cold, Lexine carries with her a heavily insulated longcoat. Its full length takes it down around her ankles, and its sleeves would cover most of her hands if they did not belt around the wrists. Its hood is broad, although it also secures against the wind and elements with belts, and lined with a fluffy pseudo-fur made to trap heat. The outside is undecorated, but the interior contains a handful of pockets for the useful things one needs to survive frozen wastelands. A number of heavy metal buckles hold the overgarment securely closed, each painted a non reflective white color. The entirety of the coat is done up in a winter camouflage pattern, pure white with a spattering of small gray details to break up the wearer's silhouette and simulate texture. Contrary to its purpose, a bolt of offensively yellow fabric is tied around the left sleeve so that the wearer, while they wish, can remain easily visible to their comrades.
Weapons/Belongings: Lexine carries twenty four small knives on her person. They are all identical. Each one is 15cm (~6") long, with 5cm of that composing the blade. The knife is entirely a single piece of pattern cut steel, far too thin to be considered combative. There is no tang, just raw metal. In fact, if it were not for their uniformity, their bare metal appearance and hollow frame handles make them appear unfinished. This would not be a wise assumption, however, as despite being pressed steel they have been machined to a razor's edge along the cutting side of the blade. The blades are flat backed and taper to a point only towards their ends. They have a poor balance, rendering throwing them an act of futility, and they seem to function better as cutlery than defensive weaponry, but she favors to use only her knives when pressed. They are hidden across her person, with the exception of her coat. Two reside in each cuff of her shirt, eight total hang in individual leather sheathes from her belt. Another two are hidden away in each of her pant legs, with a matching set in both boots. The final four knives are distributed through her various pants pockets, all within their own individual sheaths for safety. Lexine doesn't use most of her pockets unless she has to, because she owns a number of suitcases and traveling bags. The one that she keeps on her person even after finding lodging is a small rectangular pouch that hangs at her waist off of a leather strap around her chest. Her courier bag contains the unused sheathes for her knives, where they return to after a day's work, and enough space for any parcel her work needs her to move. Seeking passage into inhospitable lands, she's likely to just buy a rucksack or move with a caravan.
Personality: Lexine is an easily troubled sort of person. She is quite serious at heart, ruminating on the problems of her life and searching for significance that often simply isn't there. This nature, however, is usually disguised by the irritable and cynical face she turns towards the world. She is quite content with keeping her own problems her own, and while she is conversational her relationships are distant and shallow. She has an underwhelming catalog of social experiences, and out of a general lack of patience is quick to become defensive or withdrawn when dealing with the unfamiliar. Her reluctance towards intimacy stems not from discomfort around others but simple inability. She has next to no experience in dealing with people outside of a professional context. Any curiosity she has for others is usually diminished by a belief that understanding herself has been enough of a challenge, and that adding an entire person to her concerns would be too much. Contrary to what her prickly outer shell might suggest, Lexine has very little in the way of disdain for others. She likes the quiet and the driven, not only because they seldom challenge her social experience, but also because she envies people who seem fulfilled. In the same way, she avoids the curious and deplores people she sees as having abandoned themselves. Despite her preference for people keeping to themselves, she does possess her own acerbic sense of justice, and can't quite force herself to ignore violence as well as she once could. Lexine is a person with few different sides. While she isn't simple, she has never had close friends to form a more open persona around. Her straightforward nature leaves very little to ambiguity in what she says, although information from Lexine about herself is scarce. This is, in part, due to that fact that she herself remembers little of her history.
History: Lexine remembers next to nothing about her early life, besides what she has been told. To the best of her knowledge, she was born in a rural country to poor parents and a large family. She has never met any of her supposed siblings, but she believes that her split from the family was less than graceful. She found a job with a small, relatively unknown scientific group known as the Elmgrove Astronomical Society. The details of her employment with them are well known to her, save the first few years, because she remains in the organization's employ. For Elmgrove, Lexine is a professional problem solver. She arranged payment and passage for research groups, escorted them in disagreeable climates, and worked with other such problem solvers to further what were assuredly legitimate scientific pursuits. She has her doubts about what she has read and been told, the vagueness of official records concerning her and her fellows is no small vexation for her. Understanding the need for secrecy, some of what Elmgrove's retainers did was undeniably illegal in every country they passed through, has only agitated her further on the matter. Her safety then may have been important, but the Lexine of the future was left not knowing what exactly she was accountable for. The chain of events that left her in her amnesiac state are still relatively clear and constitute the whole of a reliable history she has left. The society sent her, another of her kind, and one of its doctors into a far flung country named Keilaudrin to request financial aid from its government. There was, to her knowledge, little malice in what they were doing at the time, but several members of the capital's policing agency held a grudge with the Elmgrove scientists for past misdeeds in the country. As she had done many times before, Lexine was tasked with securing their safe passage, and spent much of her time in the company of the capital police discussing in detail the exact itinerary for the expedition. It was there that everything went wrong for her. As the only memory she is left with it is one of regret for a person who has found herself enthralled by purpose. Lexine died not protecting or representing anything, but getting strangled and battered by a guardsman for running her mouth off. While Lexine herself unarguably died at the time, her body was unfortunately more resistant. Her single comrade saw her back to the doctor they were escorting at the time. He was an eccentric man who also happened to be a doctor of philosophy rather than a doctor of medicine, but his ministrations were enough to keep the flesh alive until more effective help could be sought in the city's back alleys. Following a joint effort between asphyxia, head trauma, and psychological stress, there was little left of her original personality. Through no small miracle, she remained physically functional after her ordeal. Her memories and sense of self had been altered, fragments of what seemed correct dotted the emptiness of her consciousness, and between them hallucinations and misconceptions that she was unable to make sense of. In addition, she was left with a near constant pain in her extremities. Never enough to approach agony, but a constant nuisance none the less. Treatment proved to be only temporary for her aches, and she has since learned to live with them. Lexine, while quite reluctant to share the detail that she had 'new' memories with anyone, found herself interested in the significance that fictionalized margins of her history could hold. She went so far as to construe them as a second, inactive identity for the purposes of separating her memories of Lexine, and memories that are obviously false. Elmgrove Astronomical Society continued to employ her, albeit in less direct roles out of consideration for the unknown extent of her damages. The next time she was sent out into the fray, she was told it would be alone, to a place called Gris. Elmgrove had experimented in investigating the occult before. Verifying the claim set forth in 'The Abnormal' for their own records was an ordinary action, but also a valuable opportunity if any of the writings proved true. Lexine, at the time, suspected that sending an unqualified lone investigator was also a valuable opportunity to get rid of a tenured but defective employee. Nevertheless, she found passage across the sea and went forward with her work as usual.
Accepted, welcome to the thread. It's nice to see people from the interest check starting to roll in. I imagine we can start soon but a few more players definitely wouldn't hurt.
Fetzen