Leni

[Leni]

Name: Alenia Fisher (Len or Leni)

Age: Born March 8, 165 PW. Presently aged 43.

Race: Human

Description

Life has not been easy for Alenia. Scars wrap her forearms, creases line her face, a small divot rests above her right ear, devoid of hair. She's missing her right pinky, and part of her right ring finger, and a front tooth. She has a weak shoulder. She keeps her hair cropped short. She's tattooed all over, and the edge of her left ear seems to be partially melted.

A dull metal collar encircles her throat, inscribed with rough and rude runes of the most basic sort. They speak of containment and punishment to any who might read such base things of power, though they are of such a low form of power-signs that the scorn behind them is nearly visible. She tugs at it, touches it, feels those signs when something troubles her.

She looks as if she wants to gnaw through everyone in sight.

She breathes toughness, exudes I-don't-give-a-damn. She's seen the worst the world has to offer her, and she managed to survive. She's an ugly old cuss who takes joy out of making teenagers wet themselves.

She hates monsters with a passion, especially those of the sea. She dislikes and distrusts most people. The most notable exception is her partner, Scraps. She's a little bit unstable when it comes to killing monsters.

Strengths

Has trained and used combative magic for about twenty years. She is able to control water via shaping it, making it freeze, or turn into gas. This only applies to water; anything in the water not H2O she has no control over.

Through clever manipulation of this ability Alenia is able to procure clean drinking water from any body of water.

Contracted with a daimon through the astral plane, whom provides her with a surge of astral energy in return for teeth, fingernails and hair. Origin of these does not matter. Alenia is capable of using this energy to transfer superhuman abilities to the person of her choice (though it does require a blood bond). When used on herself, she is capable of protecting herself while working her water magic and keeping herself from dehydrating too quickly.

The abilities she can transfer generally involve increasing what is already there (better eyesight, strength, hearing, thicker skin, smell, natural magical ability etc). However, as the amount of energy is finite per second she is only capable of making one attribute very good, or having a slight increase to the person's physical or mental characteristics. This power can last indefinitely, but as paying for it is, inconvenient, time consuming and she must account for the total amount of power used, she prefers to only use it during emergencies.

Very knowledgeable about monster hunting, especially marine monsters.

Physically strong, though this has waned over the years with time and injury. She is proficient with a crossbow.

Down to earth -- she is not easily swayed by illusion or other suggestive magics.

Tough. She can handle most punks, and is not very squeamish around gore.

She has an ear for tempo and likes making syncopated noise.

Has a sense of humor, and enjoys joking around.

She has nicely shaped boobies!

Weaknesses

Controlling water causes her to sweat at a steadily increasing pace. If she does not carefully regulate herself, she will dehydrate and potentially kill herself. Controlling water for an hour straight will result in death. To control water she must stay still and send her will to the water, requiring much concentration. Too much jostling (or hitting her repeatedly) will break the contact.

The contract for the astral magic is very specific about its needs. The hair must be plucked whole from its pore and bundled neatly. Nine strands per bundle, braided specifically according to the contract. The nails must be filed and include the whole nail with a small hole bored through the base. Six nails are required. Next, three teeth, with as much or as little of its root. These should be polished, and each etched with a specific rune. The teeth are threaded in between the nails, and the hair is woven into a circle. Each of these ingredients must be fresh since the new moon, and are burned during a special ceremony. Each circlet represents a very specific amount of power used, and the correct amount (not too much or too little) must be burned before the next new moon or she will have breached the contract Alenia spends much time preparing.

A breach of contract on her part will allow the daimon to possess her until the next full moon. She breached the contract once, and was forcibly retired from active duty and put on reserve.

The one and only breach of contract resulted in her removal from active duty, and a containment collar severing her from active contact with the daimon placed about her throat. Scraps is both partner and keeper in this regard. Both loyal to her and the Society, it is up to his firm judgement whether or not a situation requires her use of the contract. He is also responsible for overseeing her preparation and readiness for use of the contract.

She is missing a nipple. The left nipple. It is a very unpleasant scar, courtesy of the daimon, in the shape of his mark.

She has a gentle love for cats, who do not love her. Several of her forearm scars were caused by cats, but of this she will never tell.

Despite a lifetime of hunting monsters, she still has not mastered the art of hunting her own food. She also sucks at foraging for food.

Fails at telling jokes.

Confrontational when seeking information; usually doesn't get the info she wanted.

A bit of a (sort of) recovering alcoholic. She has been told numerous times that the damage she has done to her body borders on irreversible without proper (and expensive) magical medical help.

History

Len was born from a union between a candlemaker's daughter and a fisherman's son. In an Apthoni fishing town by the name of Pescequa. Rolena Taper and Logan Fisher were these parents -- simple folk, but well enough off to have a small home of their own. Logan split the duties of the family fishing trade with his two brothers, and over time earned enough hard won money to buy his own boats.

Meanwhile, Rolena had five children. Rory, the eldest. A year later, Wisenna. Three years, Alenia. Two years, Norion. A year later, the last, Drasor.

Rolena still occasionally helped her family at their candle shop for extra money, so the kids were largely left to their own devices. They roamed the streets of Pescequa freely, and sometimes haunted the docks getting underfoot as they waited for their father to be home at dusk. They were a wild bunch, and one early botched attempt at thievery ended with a thunderous father and much squalling; that particular endeavor was not tried again.

Rory was put to work helping at the docks at age ten, and Rolena began to reign in Wisenna at age 9 by teaching her letters. Alenia, who idolized her bigger brother (despite the fact that he was often a brat) would often follow him to the docks to 'help.' After numerous tantrums (and the dilemma of a four and three year old at home), Rolena relented and just let Alenia do as she pleased.

Alenia was, as a result, a tomboy. Wisenna often took it upon herself to nag her younger sister incessantly, but the result was opposite the effect desired.

Finally, when Alennia was 14 even Rory -- who had previously encouraged her deviations -- turned against her. She grudgingly began to learn the basics of behaving in a feminine manner, and learned (haphazardly) her letters. She grew to like it well enough (though she still enjoyed sneaking out to walk the docks), and eventually was married off at 16.

Three times pregnant, and three times miscarried. She was 21 at the last, and deeply heartbroken by her inability to have a child. A healer told her she would be unable to carry to term, and trying to do so would become dangerous to her health. Arguments between herself and her husband lead to him divorcing her.

She was distraught. She returned to her parents' home, and spent a year in anguish before Rory came to her rescue one day by suggesting offhand that she help at the docks with records, unloading, and hawking fish.

She seized the opportunity fiercely. She had nothing, truly, and wanted to feel needed. She had lost most of the eager outspokenness that had marked her youth, and tended to not look people in the eyes. It took several months for her to gain the most basic of acceptance among her father's crew, though her father never truly accepted her help at the docks. That she was at all accepted by crew was largely in part to Rory and Drasor, though Norion quietly disapproved.

It was during her time at the docks that her ability was discovered. A small ketch, coming in to the dock with a full load of fish was being helmed by an inexperienced man, and he had turned too soon. The ketch was near to plowing across the dock and into another ship when Alenia threw up her hands, and the water around the boat froze.

Alenia, clueless about what she had done or how to undo it, soon passed out from dehydration. Only then did the water unfreeze, and her family held a quick meeting about what to do with Alenia. All but Drasor and Wisenna agreed that she must be sent to the magical stronghold of Vitalis to learn more about her strange ability.

So, she was sent with a grumbling Drasor acting as escort, and enrolled in the general Apthoni University, placed under the care of the Astral Department. Then followed a year where she put her all into learning, encouraged by the rather expensive tuition and the need to distract herself. She was largely left alone (scorned, more like) due to her plain appearance and boring village ways. Without peers to encourage her to deviate, she had a rather mundane start to her academic career.

Until the man from the Society of the Changed came for a lecture.

The idea of it, the glamor and adventure of it nestled down in her soul right next to her resentment and burning anger at the way she had been and continued to be treated (both by her ex husband and her peers, and to an extent some of her professors, who treated her as if she was slow and dumb. . .which, maybe she was a little). More savvy with city life and the University's workings, she burned through half a year picking up what work she could and getting the best marks she could.

When she deemed her savings enough, she marched herself to her department head and demanded, begged, and pleaded for a transfer to the Society's Academy in northern Apthoni along with recomendations. She intended to join the Society, and become someone who was strong enough to do things. What sort of things, she couldn't fathom or describe to herself properly, but they were things and she would do them.

Apthoni University posed a few hoops that she jumped with some difficulty, both academically and logistically, and her family (whom she'd written frequently) posed the other string of problems. She had to gain permission from her father, as he was the chief source of funding (and her guardian, besides, even at age twenty-two), and so she traveled back home. This time, she traveled alone.

What followed was a month of family anguish that is best left undisturbed. Alenia emerged victorious, and Drasor once more was assigned as an escort to the Society's Apthoni Academy.

She arrived, and excelled. She was determined to be indispensible to the Society, and became obsessed with being the best. She was not very well liked. She didn't like anyone, in return. She cared only about one day taking up the Badger & Fox of Tasks, social skills be damned.

She found vicious pleasure in learning how to manipulate water with the intent of harm, and she became quite dextrous in the use of this manipulation. However, when a concerned Learned told her that this skill was not enough to become a fully fledged member of Task 0, she picked up use of the crossbow. This, also, was not enough -- and no matter how she practiced she just wasn't good enough with the weapon for it to be a reliable skill.

With no natural skill to aid her (or at least none that would allow her to become proficient soon), she turned to the Learned of the Astral Plane. It was not unheard of for members of the Society to contract with a Daimon in order to expand their skillsets. It was routine enough that, with proper oversight, even a student would be allowed to form a contract.

However, the process took time and study. She would have to pass several tests before she was found capable of handling a contract properly. Len took it in stride, and her practice time with the crossbow waned as she took up this new challenge. A year passed before she was deemed fit, and together with a man from Task Four (one used to contracting members of Society), she contracted with her daimon.

Whom was named Memphestus and looked like a gnarly dark non being with too many body parts and no real order to its being. It had a love of ritual even the Task Four man found to be bordering obsessive compulsive, and a method of measuring power usage only an accountant could love. It was both mischievous and dull, and had a hidden sense of humor Len found funny, though only when it wasn't aimed at her. They got along well enough. Memphestus never explained why the hair and fingernails and teeth, and the man from Task Four recommended not asking. Ever.

So it was that Leni graduated later that year, and became a member of Task Zero.

Len had climbed a mountain to become a member of Task, so to suddenly find herself back on the ground and labeled as 'wet behind the ears' was quite jolting. And irritating.

She accepted the necessity for what it was, however, as there was still much to be learned in the field. She was assigned a senior partner, another main specialization elementist whose primary was air. He called himself Spade, and was a gambler, alcoholic, and prodigious smoker of the thorny Thuey plant. He smelled of his excesses and sweat. Studious Leni did not approve.

Spade didn't do much for Leni in the first week of her appointment. He showed her the armory, her shared room with two of the other nublets, and where to get grub. She figured out the rest on her own, being not too keen on spending much time with Spade.

Her first hunt went well enough. Spade was called in for a routine purge of a catoblepas herd that had strayed too close to a village. It was a once a year sort of thing, and routine enough that Spade did not bother giving Leni any specific instructions or detailed warning about the dangers of the catoblepas.

The breath of one grazed her pinky, and turned the tip of it to stone. Spade cut the thing off, as sometimes the afflicted stone area spreads further. Leni's arrogance was suitably chastened, and Spade was greatly amused by the whole ordeal. Their relationship improved, sort of, from that point onwards.

Leni picked up drinking from Spade, though she was never much of a gambler or drug user. The two would often stick to the bar as Spade taught her the tricks of the world of Task Zero, and Leni loosened up considerably. She became less clumsy and gained finesse with her magic, and Spade even helped her raise her proficiency with the crossbow. He might have taught her other things too, though Leni doesn't talk about that.

An encounter with a frightened unicorn left her with a chunk of flesh missing from her skull, which was a source of great amusement among her fellow hunters. An Afanc took off part of her ring finger, and though the task had only required subdoing the creature, she took all of its water from its body, and then hacked off the head. She had the head properly stuffed, and keeps it to this day as a trophy.

She fell off a gryphon trying to capture it for a -- dare I say it -- friend in Seekers Two, breaking a leg, fracturing an arm, and injuring a shoulder. She still fears flight, and has no problem taking the piss out of anyone who tries to tell her to 'get back on the horse,' as it were.

She was almost disemboweled by one of the fae, whom she presumably insulted, but Spade saved her the embarassment. Leni was censured pretty thoroughly after that, and Spade helped the matter by calling her 'Fairydust' for the next year or so, until Leni had had enough and put powdered hot-pepper into Spade's clean laundry. He stopped. She has a fairly wicked scar to remind her of the incident, and thinks of it fondly.

When Leni turned 30, and had been a member of Task Zero for five years, she took on a noob of her own. He was 23, and practiced astral magics. His primary area of study was the summoning of different flavors of power from different astral planes, and then priming them into a sort of magic ink that he used to 'paint' various creatures, strengths or weaknesses. His name was Thoros Lichtensus, which Leni found to be quite annoying. The two argued incessantly, until Leni saw fit to pound him into submission. Thereafter she called him Scrappy. Scraps for short.

Scraps never took on a noob of his own, instead content to remain partnered with Leni and Spade and work on refining the interplay of their abilities.

Spade was 44 when he was killed. He had been thinking of retiring, and each time he renewed for Task Zero he repeated his mantra of 'one more year.' He was slowed with age and old injuries, and often let Leni or Scraps take point on their assignments. The three of them were assigned to take out a nest of scyllax, which were sea monsters named after the nymph-monster Skylla for their many legs and multiple heads.

The scyllax had migrated more inland than was usual, and had taken to feeding on a coastal village's source of fish for food and revenue. Attempts had been made to drive off the scyllax, and had resulted in the deaths of several of the fishermen. After a day of planning and talking to the villagefolk, they formed a plan. Spade volunteered to be the bait to gather the scyllax together, but despite arguments from Leni otherwise, it was determined to be the best way so Leni and Scraps could perform their own parts. Spade could use his powers to keep himself from being mauled; with Leni amplifying his toughness they thought he would be secure.

Once gathered, Leni pulled the water out from under the scyllax and Scraps began to channel a binding to keep them still so they would not flop back into the water. There were four scallax, and Spade used his ability to float just out of their reach, though it was draining for him and winded him over time.

They hadn't counted on the scallax being able to jump from dry sea bed. Spade was swallowed whole. Leni converted some of her amplification to strength, and he was able to cut a small hole, whereupon he drew in air and then expanded it rapidly. The scyllax died, but the other three were quick to eat their dead brother. Spade was torn up in the process.

Leni lost control of the water as her daimon-power snapped back into her, and the two scyllax not properly caught in the binding were able to escape. Scraps had prepared a special wasting that would have used the binding to drain the scyllaxs' stored energy, in the form of fat, and send it to the plane from which the astral power originated. He turned the full force of the spell upon the sole scyllax left, and he and Leni silently watched the beast wither and die.

They returned to HQ. Leni was upset, but it was the quiet sort of murderous upset that is low key enough to remain unremarked upon by superiors. Scraps tried to cheer her up through various activities, but after almost getting his head bit off he quickly relented and remained quietly supportive. Leni put in a request to be included in the next scyllax job, and a year later her request was granted.

She strongarmed Scraps into summoning Memphestus, though he protested (not his realm of expertise, as he put it). She clumsily altered the bargain for a single night for the ability to increase her own natural powers along with the norm. The price was a hair, a tooth, and a fingernail from her own body to be handed over immediately, which she did without comment and a few gulps of whiskey and some blood.

The following day, with the aid of another team, Leni effectively went batshit crazy. She pushed the water away from the scyllax with a good fifty feet to spare. After they were bound by Scraps and one of the other mages she froze herself a path from their boat to the bound scyllax, complete with ice-steps down to the exposed ocean floor. She then walked up to each scyllax and ripped out some teeth, stabbed them with enhanced strength, and drew out their bodies' water through the holes slow enough to be torturous.

Once done, she used the water to push the scyllax to shore, whereupon she collected more trophies.

Half dehydrated, she then took a beeline straight to the bar and got thoroughly drunk. Scraps eventually manhandled her back to base, where she was treated for dehydration and a spot of alcohol poisoning. She remained in bed through the next new moon, whereupon a delighted Memphestus took her body out for a spin.

Pranks and tricks lead to some personal and public destruction. A few innocent bystanders were made thralls, and quite a bit of partying left more property wrecked. Memphestus gleefully evaded attempts at capture, having thrown open a larger-than-normal conduit to the astral plane to increase his speed. He was halfway across Apthoni when he was finally caught, after being found unconscious and mostly naked. He had essentially destroyed her left nipple after trying to brand it with his mark.

He was held bound at the Society's main branch until the next full moon, when his possession ended. He had refined the failed brand by cutting into the flesh with Leni's fingernails. It was a fairly clear mark of ownership, and it tied them closer together. It allowed Leni to draw more power, and strengthen others' natural magical abilities . . .for a price, of course.

She was taken off active duty and put onto reserve. Scraps volunteered to be her keeper and watch to make sure she didn't use her contract unless she was specifically allowed to during a Society emergency.

The next few years were spent in quiet solitude. Leni used the time to study marine monsters, and obsessed over them with a seething hatred. Scraps was sympathetic, but stern. He remained friend and confidant, and reported back to their superiors. At age 41 she was placed back on a more active reserve, and completed her first assignment back with Scraps -- without her contract. Scraps had been ordered to place a binding upon her in the form of an enchanted collar, that prohibited her use of the contract.

She became more proficient with the crossbow, instead.

Leni has calmed some, and become much more grumpy and bitter than she used to be. She spends much of her time studying monsters with the few friends she has among the Seekers, biding her time until the next assignment.


Spade 6 years older
Scraps 7 years younger