mickilennial

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

_______________________________________________ // INFO I R L Full Name - Elizabeth Androvski Age - 17 Place of Origin - Kansas City, United States Occupation - High School Student A V A T A R Character's Name - Sif Pathos Affiliation - Drox Role - Spellcasting Support with DPS Capability Profession - Alchemist Weapon of Choice - Spellsword Domains - Light; Enhancement, Restoration, Alteration, Protection, Manifestation - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Child Prodigy Hosting a variety of accolades for her intelligence, Sif has brought her intelligence into the game in ways that makes some people exhausted. She understands complex elemental combinations, optimized routes through cities and dungeons, as well as vast amounts of lore almost better than the programmers of Pariah Online do. It’s borderline obsessive, but if you need someone to detail logistics or plan out a battle formation, she’s certainly not the worst choice one could pick. Kind Sif is patient, forthright, and above all else kind. She doesn’t have a mean or aggressive bone in her body. Her brother thinks it’s a problem given how she’s been taken advantage of before, but she doesn’t consider it a flaw. Playful Sprite When particularly comfortable Sif is known to say mean things without the intention to be mean. Hanging out with her brother has made her pick up on ways other wayfarers banter with one another and sometimes she just isn’t particularly good at it and can unintentionally aggravate others in a group. She’ll apologize once she knows she crossed a line, but she won’t consider a line until she cross it all the same either. // BENCHMARKS B E N C H M A R K S Calculated Attacker By using her brain to create the most optimal ways to use her magic time-after-time, Sif has increased the likelihood of her magic being the best it can be. Competent Apothecary The time in the lab creating potions has given Sif a know-how on what is the most effective and results in better quality potions. Deep Reserves Being pushed to exhaustion on several occasions using her magic, Sif's body holds deeper reserves of stamina and her lungs are hardier from the effort.

Physical Description Elizabeth Androvski has always felt like she was a porcelain doll, meant for cabinets and showrooms and nothing else. She’s won spelling bees and in her High School is one of the smartest students present, earning straight A’s across the board. It hasn’t changed how her mother treats her, especially following her father’s continuing fight with cancer. Her hair is worn long and bland, the brown strands stopping before her boring brown eyes with conservative, boring clothing. Her school has a strict dress code so that isn’t different, either. She didn’t really have any way to express herself or make friends who cared about her until she won a copy of Pariah Online in an essay contest. It changed her life and how she presented herself. Her hair strewn into twintails like an anime protagonist. A quiet confidence. Accessories galore. Style. She finally feels seen and comfortable in her own skin. She actually can laugh. She hasn’t smiled outside of Pariah Online since before her older brother left for college. Character Conceptualization Sif is a spellsword who specializes in lighting the way, or at least that’s how she describes her character. She’s been involved in the game a long while, but not long enough she was there on the very first day the game launched. Still, she’s become recognized as a pretty capable support player who is as helpful as she is kind. She also has a reputation for being a brainy know-it-all. She’s barely dabbled with her profession, but she has found that she doesn’t need to be an expert to know how to perfectly optimize her class. Most of the time, she holds groups with her brother due to the fact she’s made so many friends and the sad reality that some players have taken advantage of her penchant for kindness and charity. She’s likeable enough and despite her brother oftentimes being a bit too much of a brother she has found plenty of opportunities to enjoy, explore, and succeed in a world completely unlike the one outside of Pariah Online. She hopes that she can find a group that will accept her and her brother for all their faults and strengths and experience the world together. Spells & Spell-like Abilities Armor of the Unseen Eye An Protection Magic spell that creates a bubble like ward that soaks damage until its threshold breaks. Can be held, though is arduous in draining the caster's stamina. Vigorous Restoration A combination of Manifestation Magic and Restoration Magic that creates a magical sphere that shoots through allies like a bullet resulting in boosting their stamina. More taxing depending on how many targets are restored and how long the caster holds the sphere. Other Information N/A

Gamblers of Vox Fortuna

Gamblers of Vox Fortuna

Location: Corridor Pathways, Fortuna | In Transit

---

“Fuck! Fuck. Fuck! Stupid piece of shit.” Maerve Puckett howled as she looked up at the ceiling in irritation, pressing her elbows on the workbench in the Fortuna’s weapons armory.

The pink-haired girl had a reputation on the Fortuna ever since she joined their band of merry men cruising the galaxy for the next great paycheck. She hadn’t missed Luon Prime much, given the distaste she had for anything that reminded her of her parents. Her mother had passed away from stress when she was nineteen and her father got killed like tin stars tended to get killed when she was a kid. There really wasn’t anything back there and she was happy to commit to the Fortuna long term. The Fortuna perhaps wondered if they should’ve taken her at all as a member of their crew. There was two modes with Maeve as far as people could tell: angry and angry. She swore worse than anyone else on the crew, constantly yelled and annoyingly complained, and threatened inanimate objects as much as she threatened animate ones.

A good pilot. A good gunner. Just difficult.

Currently she was trying to modify a Tiberius King 17-B5, one of her go-to weapons, a rifle that used a particle ionizer to create blasts of thermal heat. Problem was, her Tiberius King 17-B5 was on the fritz and not firing reliably so she did what anybody else would do and took it to the armor and grabbed a toolkit and got to work fixing the problem. While being no gunsmith herself, Maeve still knew how to tend, fix, and modify her standard equipment. It just so happened that the ionizer and some of the other parts of the gun wasn’t agreeing with her and it was making her very upset; what some would call a 6 out of 10 for Maeve’s threshold for being mad. There was a chart on the wall with a spinning wheel in the barracks just for making fun of her anger threshold.

She sighed, running her hands through her shoulder length hair as she looked back down and grabbed another tool and started messing with the gun again. “C’mon, fuckin’ waster junk…”

And then the ionizer crackled and a large spark of electricity spun at her.

“Fuck you!”

The words roared through the armory and into the halls beside them, as she continued to ardently fix her rifle, including not getting hurt by any of the malfunctions with said rifle. It was going to be a minute before she forced it the firearm to listen to her.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg Tavern, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

“How many of us are gonna be needed for this investigation stuff, anyway? Kalie’s feeling sick after the dungeon, so she’s resting. Gonna be up to us to get done what we need to get done.”

Siegfried was worried, but he decided not to show it. Kalie had come back from the dungeon with Rael, Graves, and Alja well enough but it seemed like she needed a rest day, so after a quick chat in the marketplace Siegfried felt the need to remind himself to mention she wasn’t doing so good to the group. He doubted Kazuki needed to go heal her up or anything, she was still dealing with stuff that Siegfried didn’t feel like prying about.

“I’m not keen on playing Batman with you guys, so you can do that while I help with anything we need back here. There's a forge at me and Sif's place, anyway.” He looked at Kazuki, “I’m gonna need to start raking in the dough if I’m going to keep our house. I hope your plan to get through to the queen works, but if it doesn't I need to do what I do.”

His sister nodded, “To summarize, based on the information discussed we need to work on this investigation, network with other wayfarer guilds and people we know, collect world quests, communicate with craftsman organizations in the city, and try to talk with the queen. I’d also suggest helping Artemis here with anything she needs as well as meeting up with Mystic Prophecy and checking up on Priscilica and the others. I suppose we should figure out who is doing what and in what order?”

Where It Always Rains

die or something ok

“What the hell do you want? Leave me alone.”

Akari, saying some shit

ＮＡＭＥ
Sakaguchi Akari

ＡＧＥ
16 | November 2nd

ＡＰＰＥＡＲＡＮＣＥ
Akari is on the taller end of girls her own age, it’s something that’s just kind of been the reccurring trend since the latter half of elementary school.

Standing at 175 centimeters (around 5’9”) at sixteen years old makes her taller than some of the boys at Utsubyo High School, not that she particularly cares. If someone comes up to her and says “wow you’re so tall!” she’s going to deck them right in the mouth. Beyond her height the old thing that’s really distinct is her scarlet irises. Her hair is black, like so many other people. Her skin is light, but not pale; she’s played sports before, she knows how to go outside. Who in their right mind would want to lock themselves up in their house in this town? The outdoors are depressing, sure, but inside is way way worse.

ＰＥＲＳＯＮＡＬＩＴＹ
Angry
Anxious
Blunt
Cynical
Distant
Impulsive
Perceptive

ＬＩＫＥＳ

• Ariyoshi Café Tea Lattes
• Being left alone
• Competitive Sports, to get the anger out
• The Great Outdoors
• Singing, to the amusement of those who find out
• Solitary Places, to get some peace and quiet

ＤＩＳＬＩＫＥＳ

• Addicts
• Annoyances
• Dishonesty
• Excuses
• Her Height, and comments on it
• Whining

ＨＩＳＴＯＲＹ
Sakaguchi Akari used to have a pretty tolerable life. Some might say it was pretty good for someone born without much money or convenience in a town like Utsubyo.

Katsurō was the definition of a laid back factory worker, and when his wife, Komako, bore twins it pretty much changed everything in their lives. They barely had prepared for one child in their two bedroom home in the cheapest part of town to live in. But the two had stuck with each other since high school and nothing would change that going forward, or at least, that’s how they felt at the time. Nonetheless, for about seven years Akari and her twin brother grew up in a stable, happy home.

When Katsurō lost his father, things began to crumble the façade the Sakaguchi’s had created. Money had gotten tighter and tighter, as the family’s patriarch it was Katsurō’s responsibility to make it work. He couldn’t. The night before he left town Akari was the last person to see him. He promised her not to worry, that everything was going to be alright. It was a lie. A terrible fiction that dug into Akari’s heart. Everything seemed to fall apart in the subsequent months, as expected from a mother who now had the shame of a coward husband and was now forced to hold two jobs. It drove her straight into a bottle of saki nearly every night. Even with help from Komako’s young brother things never seemed to adjust correctly. Akari supposes that’s why the town is said to be cursed. The perception going forward for years was Akari dipped into her hobbies. It was more than that. She started hating everyone she saw, her bright disposition turning dour and pessimistic. She grew distant from her childhood friends and found herself doing whatever she could to not be at home.

Going into high school she contemplates often and has had another growth spurt, she knows it’s the time to start preparing for the future but why should she care what the future could bring? She doesn’t have any.

What Are You Listening To?

What Are You Listening To?

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg Tavern -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Rael sighed, “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

Not everybody’s you. The words cut like a knife, even if it wasn’t the intention. Rael, or rather Hanako’s own mind worked against her. Not every person in Pariah was a sociopathic monster with no friends. Not everyone was happy to be here. Not afraid. Not broken. It was a thought she kept coming back to, and it was hard to combat it. She had no friends, even if they called her one at the table, and sometimes made her felt needed.

Rael took a drink of some watered down wine, listening to others engage with the conversation. The noise in her head didn’t help, but she didn’t act like she was shut down or hurt by it.

“Maybe, people just need to realize the situation they are in. I dunno. Your idea about changing vocation is something, though. Pretty smart, if people want to hire wayfarers for denizen work.”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg Tavern -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Rael was tempted to snarl back at Graves when he accused her of listening to him wrong. Like words was his strong suit.

Fortunately, Graves had diverted to a more sensible argument. About how the denizens weren’t giving them anything, how they had leverage. How they needed to convince other guilds to get back in the field, which was largely going to be her next point. The argument still didn’t make sense even if it was more sensible, however. How did they have any leverage when the majority of guilds, single individuals, and normal groups of wayfarers weren’t doing anything.

“If you want to use leverage like a fuckin’ yakuza, you need to have more leverage than ‘we can do this thing others can’t’.” She explained, albeit heated.

“If eighty percent of people aren’t stopping dungeons or being productive and helping that ecosystem then they are parasites. That’s how society views people. Like,” She held her hands out, pointing out the few wayfarers she had seen in the tavern, people who didn’t have reputations for doing anything. “how many people here have we seen actually do anything? One group went to that dungeon in the western marshlands. One. Two groups fell into the rat dungeon, which means only two groups were bothering cleaning out the sewers in the first place. Answer me this, tank-for-brains, how many wayfarers are in Thorinn, do you think? What kind of leverage do they have?”

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location: The Laughing Worg Tavern -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

“I agree with Kazuki.” Rael stated as she leaned back in her chair casually as she tossed the apple she had been eating into a garbage can a few feet away.

Maybe it was the shared, practical Japanese way of thinking Rael, Benkei, and Kazuki had. Maybe it was just common sense to someone who was always about surviving in the game while pissing others off. Rael just knew that if wayfarers stood up to denizens the only thing that would happen would be double the graves. Thorinn wouldn’t even exist if they didn’t solve dungeons, but the denizens like the Queen gave them their patronage. It was what the dumb NPCs had said before.

“We’re in a shared ecosystem. That’s how they were describing it a few days ago, right?” Her eyes moved across the table before resting on Graves. “If we don’t seal dungeons, the cities get overran. If the cities get overran we have nowhere to rely on for safety and well, amenities. If we start a riot the only one you’re hurting is you. If you actually used your brain you’d see its really the only choice we have.”

Location: The Laughing Worg Tavern, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Alja’s guilt and sorrow didn’t get lost on Dariel.

He remembered the fear, though while he couldn’t relate to always thinking it’d be a cakewalk there had been other denizens who had thought so. Ones who thought it was just a fun adventure, hence the name, but were sadly mistaken. Kids whose bodies were buried. Some of them people he personally knew from his time in the village he grew up in. It was a dangerous vocation and it reminded people of it at the worst times, no matter if they were born in Aetheria or in the weird places wayfarers had mentioned. With the anxiety of not even being able to go home, plus the reality of the dangers of Aetheria finally rearing their head there was no reason Dariel couldn’t be sympathetic to their plight. He didn’t need to relate to it to understand it, after all.

The older man swerved a flagon of orange juice to the girl, nodding at what she had told him before he spoke again.

“Look kid, you didn’t fail anyone. Ain’t your fault you can’t go home or that you’re the only ones who seem to have this ability to fix dungeons. The gods gave you a bad set of dice. Best you can do is handle it as best as you can. You don’t have to weather the storm broken and alone.”