Name: Zachary Ornsdale
Nickname: Zeke
Age: Seventeen.
Appearance:
Image Uploaded by User 7/23/2013.
Caption: 'The light that day was incredible, as if it had heard all about Picture Day, and swelled to present us properly to Destiny. Or as if the photographer reads weather forecasts. Such mysteries are unknowable, the secret gravity of a spirit moon.'Personality: Zeke is a laid-back, generally friendly individual given to light banter - the kind that invites you to be a part of the joke instead of just its subject - and a certain flair for the melodramatic. He tries not to take life too seriously, except...well, when it comes to competition, he can't seem to help it. He does his best to stay playful on the battlefield, but anyone who's gone up against him knows the smile never touches his eyes out there. Zeke's Class is a duelist most effective against other duelists, and descends in effectiveness against more well-rounded opponents whose eggs aren't all in the beating-the-shit-out-of-him-in-particular basket. Given the often singular nature of the Nemesis system and the social pressure of Rank, some of Zeke's classmates have accused him of overspecializing something meant to be meaningful to a harmful degree in pursuit of petty status, rumors incensed by his preferred Tournament engagement of letting his prey pick off his most dangerous opponents and then stalking them in turn.
They're right. That's exactly what he's doing. It's just a little more complicated than the foundation, that's all...
Occupation: Third year at PCEA. Secretary of the Monster Hunting Club's committee.
History: Zeke is scion to the Ornsdale family, a clan of powerful merchants and alchemists known for their work providing miracle treatments to the rich and famous. But the Ornsdales aren't really the biggest ghost haunting Zeke, that's Raensdyr Scaedish - the Lady of the Second Skin - his highly-priced tutor, the one with a Tablet Power that, like his, revolved around the mysterious appearance of the beings called Monsters. It isn't really true that she raised him; his parents weren't absent, they weren't even all that different. But he was close with Raen, and so he took it hard during the sealed-record events wherein an ordinary Monster hunt went terribly wrong...and somehow, by methods no public information can illuminate, she somehow lost her humanity entirely and became the thing she'd hunted. Official records show her as missing; location unknown. With a few updates, as well, to her general records: Class unknown. Tablet Power unknown. Occupation unknown. No logged history. No contact records. Nothing to see.
It was after that incident that Zeke decided to join the PCEA. He has questions - about what happened to his mentor, about his own power, about the Enlil Network, the world...but a Nobody can't ask those questions. And only the people at the top can expect answers...
Class: Mirror Shepherd
Class Skills:
[Active]•
Dreams Come True in Silvered Glass: The core Skill of Zeke's class is division into five duplicates, or shards, that share his Enlil signature. Each shard bears a single mutation symbolic of an Attribute; this is the Attribute it possesses at full strength, while its others are somewhat reduced. Only four are ever actually separated out - Zeke always wears the fifth shard like a masquerade costume, sharing its mutation and gaining a boost to the corresponding Attribute. It is thus functionally impossible to tell Zeke apart from a shard...until he activates a Class Skill, at least. Shards are resistant to void / non elemental damage, but are otherwise ordinary entities.
Shards are not actually under Zeke's control, but coordinate instinctively through a hive-mind AI collective slaved to Zeke. They are extraordinarily effective at working together and with Zeke against single opponents, moving in a flawless tandem that multiplies their individual prowess, but this is a result of heavy parallel-processing analytics - every
additional target dramatically increases workload, meaning that despite appearances this power is actually
vulnerable to multiple attackers rather than advantageous against them. Shards can avoid being overwhelmed by simply focusing on a single target at a time, but doing so means their ability to defend themselves against other enemies is only what Zeke's own awareness and reflexes allow.
Shards dealt lethal damage are banished, and reform when he next sleeps.
•
Masquerade Waltz: Zeke can step between nearby shards, leaving the shard he was wearing in his place and cohabitating the shard stepped into.
•
Fantastic Festival Eschaton: The flashiest of Zeke's Skills, Fantastic Festival Eschaton is a roulette of powerful coordinated assault plans - eschatons - distributed to each of his shards and flavored according to their Attribute. Eschatons deal bonus void / non-elemental damage and feature an intricate, mind-warping attack sequence, which is the real secret of their efficacy: their flamboyance causes 'lag' in the Enlil Network, allowing them to 'glitch' through non-Tablet defenses. Zeke can stock a single eschaton per shard and must be masquerading as that shard to use its eschaton. Once used, the local Enlil Network acclimates to a given eschaton, obviating the lag for any characters who bore witness until the cache refreshes - usually an hour's time.
•
Broken Mirror Bite: A sharp sensation of something that isn't pain, but isn't
not, heralds the activation of this Skill. It provides a brief scan of the target's Skills and then copies one of their Active Skills, replacing Broken Mirror Bite. The target can still use the copied Skill, but doing so invites a
fracture - a moderate-duration 'bleed' of light void / non-elemental damage that amplifies further damage of that type.
[Passive]•
Bare Before the Gate: Zeke has resistance to void / non-elemental damage and rapidly "frays" debuffs from the last enemy to apply them. Like his shards, this Skill can be overwhelmed by multiple sources.
•
Keys to the Ring: While a shard is banished, Zeke deals a small amount of additional void / non-elemental damage and receives a small increase in speed. These effects stack.
Tablet Power:
Fallen Star Coronation: The first and strangest reflection Zeke ever learned to create. If present at the slaying of a Monster, Zeke can mirror its essence in his Enlil signature, creating a
daemon, a level-adjusted variation of that Monster. More powerful Monsters are devolved, while less powerful Monsters are enhanced to match Zeke's level. It can store an eschaton, and Zeke can masquerade as the daemon (becoming a cosmetic hybrid) to gain access to a single retained Skill and symbolic Attribute boost. If banished, it reforms much more rapidly than shards do...either by consuming a shard in its regrowth or causing Zeke moderate void / non-elemental damage (even after accounting for his resistance) as it claws its way back out of him. This power seems to cause minor corruption in the local Enlil Network, and looking directly at a daemon sometimes produces mild audiovisual glitches or discomforting [DATA LOSS] errors for others.
It has one even more uncomfortable effect - shards typically mirror Zeke exactly and are entirely codependent, but so long as Zeke has a daemon, sometimes they...change, developing a second mutation representative of his daemon and a small degree of individuality. These personality shifts inevitably reflect the daemon, rather than Zeke. Banishment will "reset" a corrupted shard, but the advantages of corruption - as well as its inevitability - discourage this option. Rumors that Zeke developed his Class entirely because of its synergy with this effect are sometimes shadowed by a more sinister whisper: that without his shards, these mutations would affect
Zeke himself. Zeke's teachers are typically required to read a small docket containing information related to his possession of this power. Zeke doesn't know what's in it.
The daemon doesn't share the shards' hivemind, instead having its own "black box" AI and an intuitive consciousness of Zeke's will to which it is generally loyal. It remains active even while Zeke sleeps. Usually, it also remains nearby.
