This forum uses cookies
This forum makes use of cookies to store your login information if you are registered, and your last visit if you are not. Cookies are small text documents stored on your computer; the cookies set by this forum can only be used on this website and pose no security risk. Cookies on this forum also track the specific topics you have read and when you last read them. Please confirm whether you accept or reject these cookies being set.

A cookie will be stored in your browser regardless of choice to prevent you being asked this question again. You will be able to change your cookie settings at any time using the link in the footer.

Welcome, Guest
You have to register before you can post on our site.

Username
  

Password
  





Search Forums

(Advanced Search)

Forum Statistics
» Members: 229
» Latest member: Penny
» Forum threads: 1,848
» Forum posts: 22,742

Full Statistics

Online Users
There are currently 550 online users.
» 0 Member(s) | 547 Guest(s)
Google, Bing, Applebot

Latest Threads
Home Sweet Home
Forum: Central City Flats & Apartments
Last Post: Cade
2 hours ago
» Replies: 11
» Views: 474
[The Garden] Praeceptor o...
Forum: Military District
Last Post: Nox
3 hours ago
» Replies: 45
» Views: 7,251
Making Plans (Artskaf)
Forum: Place of Enlightenment
Last Post: Ezvin Marveet
3 hours ago
» Replies: 33
» Views: 5,092
Mycelium Ex Machina (Cher...
Forum: Rest of the world
Last Post: Nazariy Moroz
4 hours ago
» Replies: 19
» Views: 14,671
What the cat dragged in
Forum: Nightlife & Entertainment
Last Post: Marek
4 hours ago
» Replies: 19
» Views: 6,529
Reclaiming Pack
Forum: Place for Dreams
Last Post: Elyse
5 hours ago
» Replies: 24
» Views: 1,889
Dominik Vas
Forum: Biographies & Backstory
Last Post: Dominik Vas
10 hours ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 15
Searching (Radiance)
Forum: Business District
Last Post: Olivier de Volthström
11 hours ago
» Replies: 19
» Views: 1,579
New Years Eve
Forum: United States
Last Post: Grace
Yesterday, 01:02 PM
» Replies: 15
» Views: 2,528
Apostolic Journey
Forum: Kremlin and Red Square
Last Post: Patricus I
Yesterday, 03:49 AM
» Replies: 7
» Views: 483

 
  Ghosts in the office
Posted by: Matías - 12-07-2025, 08:24 PM - Forum: Past Lives - No Replies

[Image: Sajir9.jpg?ssl=1&fit=5120%2C2624]

The Black Tower of today was a far cry from the ramshackle farmhouse Sajir had first seen. Now, the main keep was a soaring black edifice of stone and saidin-laced concrete, strong enough to survive a siege but far more practical than its White Tower counterpart. He was prone to such moods from time to time, catching up to him as he studied the yards beyond the window of the M’Hael’s office.

Sajir’s examination of the office was measured with the tread of a man who found little to trust in stillness. He was a tall man, his movements few and economical. His long, dark hair was braided and adorned with silver ornaments today, lay against the black fabric of his coat. His dark, deep-set eyes, characteristic of Arafel, were sharp and restless, flicking over the room’s rich, dark wood and the deep crimson hangings that Daniel Larnier had favored.

Larnier. The fourth M'Hael to fall since Mazrim Taim. The burden of those deaths, the long lives Sajir had glimpsed for each of them in the Pattern's myriad strands lay heavy on his shoulders, a persistent, dull ache beneath his breast. What might have been did not always come to pass.

He focused on the room. The body, thank the Light, was gone. The blood had been scrubbed away with meticulous weaves, but the feel of the violence remained. A raw, grating discord in the air, like a discordant chime that still reverberated even though the striker was gone seeped into his soul. Had they a Sniffer, they may not have been able to stand in here, but Sniffers were few and far to find these days. So Sajir stretched his senses, tasting the faint residues of saidin, a chaotic, wild surge, followed by a sudden, brutal stop. It must have been Arikan’s signature, certainly. A Dreadlord they had all thought ten years dead.

A sudden, jarring stiffness seized him. His eyes went flat, fixing on the dark space just behind the M'Hael's large desk, and the world seemed to split into twin scenes overlaid upon each other.

Larnier, years younger, laughing with a woman. A flash of white-hot light followed, and Larnier standing before the Dragon Reborn, taking the M'Hael's pin. Then, a quick-cut image of the Dreadlord Arikan standing above his body.

The scene lurched, changing into something dark and distorted. Surrounding the dead M’Hael were shapes that were not human. Tall, gaunt figures, indistinct and smoky, they writhed and pulsed at the periphery, draining the warmth from the air, seeming to consume the very substance of the shadows.

Ghosts. Devils. The instantaneous, damning thought struck Sajir, an icy blade in his mind. The work of the Dark One, twisting the vision, confirming the deeper malice at play perhaps.

He blinked and the image shattered like glass, and the solid reality of the M'Hael's office snapped back into focus. He took a slow breath, the metallic scent of old, vanished blood filling his lungs. An Echo. Always about important things woven tightly into the Pattern. But this time, the shadowy figures tempted a deep suspicion. Arikan had not acted alone. Nothing about how Arikan had bypassed the vault wards. Nothing about the why of the Dedicated guard being left alive.

That last part grated on him. It was a lapse in the pattern of a man who killed for sport and spite. He remembered the pile of papers found scattered near the breached vault door. He had them tucked away in his own chambers in case there was a small, senseless clue hidden in them, but the senseless things often held the key to the most brutal truths.

He moved behind the desk. Auden, the new M’Hael, had given him leave to examine the scene, though the room had already been searched and rifled. The new M'Hael was already at work, distributing trusted Asha'man to the north. Shienar. Sajir snorted inwardly. Threats were constant in the Borderlands; one learned to live with them.

Sajir ran a hand over the polished desktop, seeking a stray thread of the Power, a forgotten memory, something. Larnier’s personal effects had already been cataloged. But something caught his eye: a small, ceramic mug filled with a dozen or more discarded pens, some with dried, clotted ink on their nibs, some half-chewed.

Pens. He recalled the report. A half-used fountain pen had been recovered from Larnier’s pocket. Why would a man carry a half-used pen on his person if his desk was full of them?

Sajir’s gaze drifted to the pigeonholes on the desk’s face, which held official-looking letters and correspondences. He had glanced at them before. Standard reports and nothing noteworthy. Now, he picked up a sheet of parchment, his mind turning over the anomaly of the pens. He looked closer at the looping, formal script all in Larnier’s hand.

His breath hitched. He had missed it before because the cipher was good. Too good. It wasn't simple code; it was a substitution based on the context of the letter itself, a weave of meaning hidden within mundane prose. A system so seamless that he had not even registered it as a code, only as slightly dense writing. A fastidious attention to detail, much like the one he had applied to his father's leather-working years ago.

“Fascinating,” he muttered, the Arafellin accent thin but present. He straightened, his gaze darting around the empty room.

The cipher would require a key. Where would Larnier hide such a key? Not a slip of paper in the desk, not with the level of caution this code implied.

The pen in his pocket. A half-used one. A pen that had perhaps written the key.

And what did men of great responsibility keep a diary for? A record of coded transactions. A personal journal. Daniel was not the sentimental type so much as Sajir could recall. But the pen was found on the body. The theft of the objects of the Power and the murder of the M'Hael were two distinct actions. But what if Arikan had come not just for the objects, but for the information?

If Daniel Larnier kept a diary, and the key to this masterful cipher was within it... then the Dreadlord Arikan had not only murdered the M'Hael and looted the vault, but he had also retrieved a personal journal before departing. A journal that no one else in the Tower seemed to know existed. And he had left the Dedicated guard alive simply because the man had not seen him take it. A far more efficient, far less chaotic move than Arikan’s usual style.

Sajir exhaled slowly, coming to a new understanding of this picture.  He would have to share this. Auden, the new M'Hael, would not like it, but the Dragon Reborn must be told.

Print this item

  Seren Meredydd
Posted by: Seren - 12-07-2025, 02:08 PM - Forum: Biographies & Backstory - No Replies

Name: Seren Meredydd (SEH-ren Meh-RED-ith)
Age: early/mid twenties
Ability: Vidient (Golden Glimmer)
Previous Life: Lilith

Biography in brief (full Bio is on her wiki)

Seren grew up in Aberaeron on the Welsh coast, raised alone by her mother, Eira, after her father left when she was a baby. She knew she was different from an early age because no one else saw the golden sparks of light which danced around every person’s heart; and the world knew Seren was different, too, because people’s desires always tilted around her. Even as a baby she unknowingly emanated a subtle amplification which often changed the people in her presence. Around Seren, desires became harder to deny and easier to enact. Friends quit clubs abruptly. Teachers confessed inappropriate ambitions to empty rooms. Parents in her neighbourhood divorced out of nowhere.

As a small child Seren saw the gap between what people said and what they truly wanted, and didn’t understand why the world seemed obsessed with hiding the truth beneath a veneer. Practically everyone lied. Adults laughed off her strange phrasings and oddly insightful questions, but they grew uneasy too. So she learned not to speak about it. Her mother called it the Yr Awydd. The Wanting. Their family line had deep roots, but she always talked about it like it was a folktale. It was only much later that Seren realised her gift was something different, something more than the old wives tales of Meredydd women who had an uncanny way of reading people, and a particularly sensitivity for people’s longing.

By thirteen Seren was learning to listen to the world in layers: what people said, what they tried to want, and what they actually wanted. Puberty sharpened everything, including her perception. She began to recognise distinct architecture in the golden motes: the way they clustered, the density of the glow, the movement itself. Eventually she started identifying the patterns, connecting them to meaning.

Later, she realised she could control them too, to inflame or douse, and had been doing so unintentionally all her life, just by looking. She detested the idea of influencing people that way, though. Her mother raised her to be fiercely independent, and to understand that everyone has the right to define their own inner life. Seren welded that lesson to her nature like iron. So she practised early self-restraint, teaching herself to observe what she could not avoid seeing without pushing or pulling by mistake. It was exhausting, and control alone could not erase the truth of who she was. Sometimes someone’s longing just stretched towards her like a flower turning to light. Seren called what she did in those cases illumination – not control, not ignition, but an ability to reveal hidden desire to those ready to receive the truth.

At school she had a reputation for defying authority. When adults demanded obedience, she asked “why”, and when their response did not match what she saw in the motes around their hearts she simply… didn’t comply. People rarely said what they meant, especially those in charge. Others called her stubborn, but Seren called it truth. She wasn’t trying to lead, but students were drawn to her all the same. She was magnetic, but it was the Gimmer that did it. Friends idolised her or drifted away. Crushes became obsessively attached without cause. In Seren, people often saw a reflection of what they wanted. That was another thing she didn’t mean to do, but couldn’t turn off.

“People get weird around you,” a friend once said.

Seren didn’t disagree.

When she was eighteen she chose Cardiff University, enrolling in Psychology. The city was noisy with desire, and Seren entered her new world like a tuning fork struck too sharply. She was brilliant at the subjects she cared for, but clashed with lecturers when she questioned theories they treated as gospel. She’d wanted a fresh start, but the patterns of change followed her despite how hard she tried not to influence those around her. A flatmate ditched medical school after an emotional midnight conversation in the kitchen. A study partner’s admiration grew into something bright and unsteady within days, and Seren had to pull away before he mistook reflection for reciprocity. Even one of her tutors — a man in his forties — abruptly left academia mid-term, claiming he could no longer ignore the novel he’d abandoned a decade earlier.

Then came Elin, a friend in the year above, and the first person Seren ever met whose desires remained still around her. They became friends slowly, then intensely. Seren fell in love quietly, with the kind of deliberate awareness she applied to everything in her life: she felt herself going under, and kept her eyes open. But though Elin liked her deeply as a friend, the way she wanted Seren was not romantic. For the first time in her life, Seren discovered something she had no right to want. And for the briest moment she wondered what would happen if she nudged, just a little, to tilt the world in her favour.

The thought shocked her, not because she could act on it – she already knew she couldn’t create something that wasn’t there – but that she had wanted to, no matter how fleetingly.

She withdrew from university soon after.

What followed was a journey of discovery. For years Seren has moved from city to city, country to country, job to job, never settling even when she may have wanted to. She stays until things begin to change around her, as they inevitably do no matter how careful she is. Her nomadic lifestyle has become a mosaic of experiences — love and loss, chaos and calm, observation and participation. And through it all, her mother’s lessons have been her compass: truth first, autonomy always, desire to be observed and guided but never owned. Relationships have shaped Seren along the way, two in particular since Elin. It has tested her, too. She fears, sometimes, what she might one day become.

Now she wants to know what she is, and if there are others like her. Finally, she is headed to Moscow.

Desire, for Seren, is the only true language. And truth is the only thing that matters.

Appearance: Seren is one of those people who doesn’t immediately command attention, but becomes unforgettable once you’ve spoken to her. She looks like someone you almost know, but cannot quite pin down, and it makes her simultaneously approachable and disarming, ordinary yet otherworldly. Her presence hints at the fire within, though no one would guess the depth of insight, the untamed autonomy, or the latent power she carries. People often realise hours later that they remember her eyes more vividly than her face.

She's in her early/mid 20s, though the energy she carries feels older, wiser, and untamed. 5’7" – tall enough to move through a crowd with quiet presence, yet unassuming until you notice her. Her eyes are her most defining feature: hazel that shifts between gold and green, depending on the light. Her gaze is steady. People often feel as though she “looks through them,” even though she’s only seeing their desires.

Dark brown hair, almost black in winter, and sun‑lightened with faint copper streaks in summer. Thick enough that wind off the Welsh coast tends to rearrange it for her. Pale complexion with a coastal undertone — a natural pinkness on her cheeks and nose from years of wind and sun, and freckles in the summer. She carries a faint, permanent warmth to her skin tone that makes her look alive even when tired.

Seren dresses like someone who prioritises truth and comfort: soft jumpers, dark jeans, slightly oversized coats. People think she dresses plainly, but she dresses intentionally. Nothing constricts; nothing demands attention. She speaks with a soft Welsh accent. Her expressions don't hide what she feels because she values clarity too greatly for masks, and her quietness is never passive — it feels like a choice. There is an almost imperceptible magnetism around her. People notice subtle changes in motivation or mood when she is present — restless energy, sudden inspiration, fleeting ambition — even if they can’t explain why.

Personality: Seren rarely reacts impulsively. She watches, listens, and studies the gold motes of longing around people, mapping their patterns before speaking. Her presence is calm, intelligent, and quietly intense. She notices when someone’s desire is fractured, when ambition is bruised, when longing is buried. This perception makes her slow to judge and quick to understand. She will comfort someone who is lost, but she will not let them lie to themselves.

She does not command. She does not impose. But when she decides something is true or right, she is immovable. Seren’s quiet voice becomes a boundary. When she says no, it is final. When she says this is wrong, she means it. Her defiance is gentle but absolute. If someone tries to force their will on her or others, she sharpens into moral iron.

Her insight is honed, and she tends to ask questions that land like revelations. Seren is the friend who notices the dream someone never said aloud, or the goal they secretly gave up on. She doesn’t push — she invites. People confide in her instinctively, even when they don’t want to.

She distrusts institutions, rigid hierarchies, leaders who demand allegiance, and rules that exist “because that’s how things are done.” But she is not a rebel for rebellion’s sake. She simply believes no one should be given power over another person’s inner life. When responsibility falls onto her, she accepts it — on her terms. If someone tries to control her, define her, limit her, or idealise her — her entire being recoils.

Powerful, ambitious figures always notice her. Some are inspired. Some become obsessed. All become dangerous.

Flaws: Because Seren sees desire so clearly, she constantly holds herself in check, and is not fully cognisant of the cage she has placed around herself. Seren’s restraint is iron: her anger is rare, her passion is suppressed, her desires are quieted. When she finally does want something for herself — truly, fiercely — it may be explosive. Her own ambition has never been fully born. The day it is, the world will shift.

The irony of her perception is that she cannot truly view herself. She thinks she wants a quiet, free life of her own: stability, purpose, understanding. Secretly, she longs for an equal to match her; a reference point outside her influence, a relationship where she can stop self-monitoring, and a person she doesn’t have to protect from herself. But she’d never admit it out loud. Her true, most buried desire is to choose her own fire — and let it burn. She doesn't ant to be muted or managed. This is what she fears. This is what she avoids. This is what the world has never allowed her to do. She does not want to be neutral, she wants to want.

But she can’t trust herself with it.

The Golden Glimmer: Seren is a Vidient who sees and can influence the spectrum of desire-ambition.

She sees desire as golden motes of light around each person, and is adept at discerning the cause via their intensity, density and movement. But its interpretation. She cannot read minds, and she doesn’t feel emotions the way a Sentient does. So while she might describe someone’s desire as buried by fear, for example, she’s reading what she thinks she sees and diagnosing a cause based on that. She calls the sparks Glimmer.

She can control desire by changing the patterns of someone’s Glimmer, either to amplify, douse, or redirect. Currently she refuses to do this, though. She’ll only illuminate and let the person come to their own conclusions, and only when she thinks she should. She cannot create a desire from nothing. Any changes she does make lasts only as long as the person is in her presence, so nothing is permanent unless the person themselves wills it afterwards. People always return to their “natural” state, though of course the consequences of any actions remain. She cannot fundamentally change a person’s core.

When desire is strong, and especially when its ambition, Seren sometimes finds it bleeds into her. This is especially dangerous in close relationships, where she can struggle to discern which desires are her own. When the emotions are intense, this proves addictive. She’s still learning to navigate the risk. The journal she keeps helps her discern patterns and strengthen her own self-identity, as does her relationship with her mother.

OOC note: Seren amplifies desire/ambition on a low level just with her presence. Players can decide how this affects their characters, if at all – it depends very much on their susceptibility at any given moment. Just because someone is tempted, doesn’t mean they will act. But it does make any “wants” harder to deny.

Print this item

  Coding Fantasy [Kallisti]
Posted by: Marta - 12-03-2025, 01:21 PM - Forum: Red-light district - Replies (44)

Marta had been working hard and it was beginning to pay off. Marta wasn’t typically book smart, but when she was excited about something, she worked hard. Marta had poured most of her free time into learning how to code and program. She had done some hacking too, but it had been with Sage’s help, and it had been to get access to his information for her job. 

Today she was working on a text-based fantasy game. She knew not many people played those anymore. They were popular around sixty years ago, but she figured it would be a fun way for her to work on her coding skills in a fun way. She liked telling stories, games, and coding, so why not make a “choose your own adventure” game. 

Everyone seemed to be focused on their work. He wasn’t there often, but today Sterling’s crush, Liam, was here. He seemed to be inattentive at times as he worked on whatever it was he was doing. Marta sighed as she finished what she was working on. Now she needed to test it. She started up her program and smiled as it came up on her screen. So far so good. She went into the introduction to the game and tried an option. It just repeated the first screen. She tried a different option and found the same thing. Something was off. 

She went back into her code and tried to troubleshoot. She thought she found it, but upon testing, she was getting the same thing. She had no idea what was wrong. 

”Ugghhhhhh,” she intoned, frustrated and began to lightly bang her head on the table, accentuating every word.  ”Why. Won’t. My. Code. Work. What. Am. I. Doing. Wrong?” she gave one one bang on the table and then just lay there, feeling a little discouraged.

Print this item

  Nargazor
Posted by: Nora Saint-Clair - 11-29-2025, 02:38 AM - Forum: Past Lives - Replies (4)

[Image: Lythia-Forsaken-outfit3.png?ssl=1&fit=4856%2C2196]


The earth beneath her hands thrummed with a low, bitter song.

Sylvena stood atop the half-raised parapet of Nargazor, her shadow stretching long in the blood-tinged dusk of the Blight. The walls below her curved in vast concentric rings, smooth and black as obsidian, growing outward like ripples of sanity in a sea of rot. The city would be a jewel corrupted, yes, but ordered, her will pressed into every stone and rune-bound line. Here, when the Great Lord’s storm came to sweep the land clean, his chosen would not merely survive. They would rule.

Her mouth curled in the ghost of a smile.

"I said deepen the root-folds, not widen them," she snapped without turning, her voice sharp as a chisel. "If the second wall is to hold, it must drink from the stone beneath like a child from the mother’s breast."

The two Dreadlords behind her Adevar and Lumein bowed low. They wore black, of course. Always black, as if it granted them mystery. Adevar had once been a High Seat in Andor, before he slit his mother’s throat and joined the Shadow. Lumein claimed he’d been a philosopher in Arad Doman, though he quoted only death now.

"Yes, Great Lady," they murmured as one, and began channeling, carefully, reverently, as if even the weaves feared to displease her.

She watched as bands of Earth and Fire laced together and plunged into the unfinished wall, the stone shuddering, groaning, then accepting the weave. The blight crept at the far edge of vision, a wall of oozing trees and grasping thorn, and it hated what she was doing. That pleased her.

Not so far now. Already the first three rings of Nargazor stood whole; solid circles of reality in a land that devoured reality like a starving hound. Each ring bore sigils bound with Earth Singing, her talent twisted now into something grander. Something necessary. Where once she coaxed minerals from soil and healed broken stone pillars, she now commanded stone to rise and seal out the madness. Green Ajah no longer. She was Chosen.

Sylvena turned, her armored hips whispering like a death chant. Her gown was black leather, cut into sharp lines and cruel symmetries, adorned with blood-rubies that drank light and gave none back. Her crown, dark as obsidian and veined with crimson, jutted like broken thorns from her copper-red hair. Even her gauntlet, spined and silvered, could cut a throat as easily as channeling could.

The Dreadlords would not meet her gaze.

But he didn’t even look up.

Amogorath hunched over a rust-stained table in the plaza below, his robes streaked with filth, his gnarled fingers stroking a bulbous vine that writhed in the iron box before him. The thing hissed. Something inside the box hissed back. He muttered to himself, words half-heard, like pieces of the Dark One’s own dreams made flesh.

Sylvena stepped down, her boots clicking against stone. The wards beneath her feet pulsed once, as if acknowledging her presence.

"You might at least pretend to notice the city being born around you," she said, folding her arms beneath her breastplate.

Amogorath did not stop working. “The walls keep the Blight out. That is your purpose. Mine is to ensure there is something left to inhabit them when it comes.”

"You mean to say you're breeding monstrosities."

He chuckled, soft and hollow. “We all are, dear Sylvena.”

She felt the draw of the Power at the edge of her skin, a familiar itch. The Dreadlords still labored behind her, sculpting the fourth wall from living earth, but she considered turning it inward. Just a touch. Enough to remind him what it meant to mock one of the Chosen.

But that was emotion. And emotion was the root of foolishness.

Instead, she walked past his table and down the long avenue that would one day be the Spine of the city. Already, sharp-angled towers rose in the inner rings, shaped by the Power, etched with wards and sigils of control. They were designed to endure the Blight’s fury and more than endure. Each held reservoirs of the One Power, siphoned from carefully hidden caches and held in silence until the Great Day. And the Blight would expand. It would. When the Dark One’s hand swept across the world, Nargazor and its sister cities would be the bastions that stood unbroken, where Forsaken would reign like dread kings over islands of order amid a sea of ruin.

"Let the Light rot," she whispered.

As she walked, the wards along the walls shimmered with faint green light, her own signature. The Weaves of Singing Earth, now blended with Fire and Spirit, bent the natural laws of decay. Within the walls, things could grow again of a kind. Crops bent to the night but nourishing. Trees that whispered in tongues but bore strange, sustaining fruit. No children played here, yet. No laughter. But there would be. There must be.

The Blight could not be erased. But it could be tamed. That was her dream. Her blasphemy.

And one day, even Beldragos would come to see its use.

Sylvena looked out over her city, dark and hard as her own heart, and smiled.

[Image: Amogorath3.jpg?strip=info&w=615&ssl=1]

The worm cracked open beneath his scalpel with a wet sound like rotted fruit splitting. Its insides steamed against the chill of the Blightwind, though he’d cut the heat runes days ago. Still warm. Curious.

Amogorath blinked once. Then twice, slowly.

He tilted his head to listen not to Sylvena’s voice, which carried like a crow’s caw over the walls of her precious Nargazor but to the twitch of tendons in the thing’s broken flesh. That sound. Yes. That sound had been wrong before. Too wet. But now, now it was almost right. Almost.

"You're nearly singing, little one," he whispered, patting the twitching carcass. "Next batch will hum, I think."

His long fingers moved with the precision of a maestro. White gloves, stained now in browns and blacks, peeled the creature’s organs out in layers, coiling them into numbered jars. Some still pulsed. He let them. Movement was truth. Stasis was death. And Amogorath did not study death. He created life.

A true Chosen did.

Behind him, the city sprawled like a spider’s web order forced onto chaos. Sylvena's walls gleamed in their smug symmetry, each ring a monument to her ego. A girl crowned in thorns, strutting about in armor as if war were art. She had once been Aes Sedai, yes. They always liked playing soldier, those ones. Battle Ajah. How quaint.

He sniffed.

"You build, girl," he muttered, not looking up. "But I breed. And when the Blight swallows the world, it won’t be your walls that walk the earth. It’ll be my children."

The idea made him smile.

He straightened, slowly, his spine cracking audibly beneath the high black collar of his coat. The flesh beneath it was smooth as paper, his skin pulled tight over bone, but his eyes were bright, sharp, pale things that had watched cities burn and screamed instructions through ten thousand throats of a hundred thousand creatures.

Amogorath turned to face the heart of his garden.

The Blight rippled beyond the walls, dense with monstrous trees and glistening vines that pulsed like veins. His children writhed within it some hunting, some mating, some dying. All part of the song. He had bred the first Trollocs in the dark of his fortress, sewn from flesh of man and beast, with enough cruelty added to ensure obedience. Myrddraal were carved from shadow’s afterbirth, blind-eyed and soulless, and they had thrived.

But those were old songs. Ancient. Now, he was composing something new.

A four legged-thing skittered from the pit behind him, all ribs and twitching spines, its tongue too long for its mouth. It looked up at him and barked three syllables, barely formed. The middle one sounded like his name. Good.

He kicked it aside absently and moved on, toward the shade-shrubs. They grew in neat rows, each leaf the color of bruised iron. When crushed, they released a fog that ate bone. The Dreadlords feared them. Sylvena had insisted on keeping them outside the first ring. Foolish. They belonged in the city. What is safety, if not enforced?

Another cage: inside, a humanoid creature paced. It had no skin, only glassy, living muscle that flexed and twitched, constantly weeping black ichor. It had no mouth, but it screamed. Constantly. It didn’t need lungs.

"You'll be perfect for the border raids," he said, scribbling notes in a book bound in what had once been Aes Sedai flesh. "So easy to fear what you can’t understand. And the keenest mind will be befuddled by you, my darling."

He licked the end of his stylus.

Sylvena’s boots clicked behind him, each one a punctuation mark in her overdone soliloquy of authority.

"You might at least pretend to notice the city being born around you," she said.

Amogorath didn't bother to face her. He was already watching her, in the reflection of the iron cage, the way her dark armor moved like ink, the way the rubies in her crown pulsed as if feeding on her thoughts. She was so predictable.

So many of the Chosen had looked like that once. Grand. Beautiful. Poised for glory. Before madness. Before decay. Before they realized that immortality was boring unless you filled it with new toys.

"You do so love your walls, child," he said. "But I think in ecosystems. Yours is a prison. Mine is a paradise. Do you know how many species I’ve created since breakfast?"

He didn’t wait for an answer.

"I forget," he muttered. "But they’re hungry."

Sylvena’s silence behind him was heavy, like judgment. But he’d been judged before. By the Light, by the Hall of Servants, by Lews Therin himself. All of them had called his work monstrous.

And then they died, and he lived, and his creations still walked the world.

“You build your circles,” he said softly, “and let me work."

Print this item

  Constantine Harroway
Posted by: Constantine Harroway - 11-28-2025, 02:07 AM - Forum: Biographies & Backstory - No Replies

Constantine Harroway

Age: 32

Abilities: Vidient - The Luminous Thread

Past lives: 

  • 6th Age - Eros (Cupid), 
  • 4th Age - Kai (From the Fairy Tale of the Snow Queen)
  • 3rd Age - Dalenar 

Biography: 

About

Constantine lives in the center of a performance that some might consider to be manipulation. On the surface, he’s witty, flirtatious, and magnetic, and he’s never unprepared for attention; he soaks it in like stage lighting.

He has a melodramatic streak, not in the tantrum sense, (although he does prefer to get his way) but in the way he exaggerates expressions or punctuates his sentences with a gesture that feels both ironic and sincere. His voice is warm, amused, and always seems to hint that he’s keeping secrets you’ll never get out of him. Probably because he is.

Constantine is an observer. He reads people faster than they can explain themselves, but he never reads them too deeply. He’s quick to spot the cracks in someone’s composure or the desires they pretend not to have, but cares nothing of the origins of such behaviors. He can’t help nudging those buttons: not usually maliciously, but because he’s simply fascinated by watching human emotion bloom, erupt, and self-implode.

He senses other people’s feelings easily, but his own? He avoids introspection the way others avoid pain, which means he rarely understands what he actually wants. Even when he’s not consciously using his power, he subtly steers people into reactions that amuse him. He’s addicted to micro-drama, fueled by equal measures curiosity and boredom.

Because he can create chemistry on command, he’s convinced true love doesn’t exist. This cynicism makes him unintentionally cruel to those who want something real from him. Not because he is cruel-natured, but because he offers a lesson they ought to learn sooner rather than later. He doesn’t let himself acknowledge this (remember no introspection), but when people fall for him it’s because he pushes boundaries, not because they truly saw him.

Connie has an easy, sun-bright charm. His hair is thick and swept back in a relaxed, slightly tousled style. Warm eyes sit beneath expressive brows, and his smile is broad enough to show deep dimples that soften his whole face. His arms are inked with several tattoos, giving him a mix of boyish sweetness and lightly rebellious edge.

Early life

Constantine “Connie” Harroway grew up in a house where everything was beige; everything except the bookshelf where his mother kept the collectable book she loved to display but never actually read. Constantine did. By eight years old, he knew whole soliloquies by heart. By twelve, he was performing them in the mirror. By fifteen, he was in every school production with a level of dramatic devotion that made teachers both proud and his parent’s shed a tear.

He was a theater kid in the truest sense: expressive, intense, and a little too melodramatic for his own good. He lived for the stage lights, for applause, for costumery, and for the moment when he could step into someone else’s skin. The stage, for him, was transformation; a place where he could be the butterfly indefinitely.

The strange thing was how good he was at playing “love” on stage. Even as a teenager he could make an audience believe in star-crossed devotion, breathless passion, and tragic yearning. Privately, Constantine always suspect that something was…unusual. And adolescence was full of micro-drama moments. Too many on-stage kisses had become too complicated off-stage. Too many co-stars had confessed feelings that burned hot and fast, and then fizzled into confusion days later. He was amused by how easily emotions sparked around him and completely unconvinced they meant anything real.

Much Ado About Connie

When he was seventeen, he started posting Shakespeare monologues online, but not the traditional ones. He did modernized, comedic, flirtatious versions. Sometimes he improvised. Sometimes he filmed them in public places, playing Romeo on a subway platform or Benedick on the hood of a bus. There was something different about his content that audiences couldn’t get enough of; it turned out, that something different was him.

He eventually tried real theater, but the industry wasn’t built for someone who performed better for a camera than a casting director. Instead, a streaming network approached him with an idea: a dating show for the new era of reality tv. Romance but curated chaos. And they wanted the “Shakespeare boy” to host it. At first, Constantine laughed. He barely believed in love. But the job offered creative freedom, global travel, and an absurd amount of fame. It didn’t take long before he realized that a dating show was the perfect stage for him. Romance was theater. Reality tv was theater. Everything was theater.

The show was eventually named Hearts Unmasked, and it became a worldwide phenomenon. The premise was that contestants wore ornate masks for the first half of the season and were forced to form emotional connections without seeing each other’s faces. Reveals happened in stages; gloves slipped off fingers, masks grew shorter, the lips parted open. Meanwhile, bonds strengthened or shattered dramatically. Turnover was high, heartbreak was common, and Constantine orchestrated it all from the sidelines with a gleeful smile.

What the world didn’t know was that Constantine wasn’t just a charismatic host. He was the invisible hand flipping emotional switches. If a couple needed a push, he gave them one. If sparks were weak, he fanned them. If the producers needed drama, he simply nudged someone’s attention elsewhere. Easy peasy.

The show exploded in popularity, but the winners were nothing compared to the global icon that Constantine became. The person people trusted to talk about romance despite secretly thinking romance was the flimsiest illusion ever invented. He believed in lust, in adrenaline, in the high of desire, but not in love. Never in love. Don’t be absurd.

Singapore

Connie’s rise didn’t slow after the success of Hearts Unmasked if anything, the world’s appetite for his brand became synonymous with romance, spectacle, and emotional volatility delivered in the most entertaining way possible.

First came the travel specials: reality-dating competitions set in tropical islands, snowy mountain resorts, mythic faraway castles anywhere visually dramatic enough to match his personality. Constantine adapted with unnerving ease. On a beach he analyzed “romantic pair bonding” like a poet. In the Alps he officiated a love-trial involving blindfolds and ice-skating. More shows followed, each one stranger, more daring, more deliciously theatrical.

There was The Pact, where contestants swore to stay with their chosen partner for one week while navigating physical, mental, and emotional challenges; Constantine presiding over it all like a mischievous officiant. Then True North, filmed across multiple continents, where he guided couples through cultural love traditions meant to “test their destiny.” And his personal favorite: The Heart of the World, which hopped between cities every episode (Paris, Dubai, Cape Town, Kyoto) each week ending with a ceremony of his own invention, half Shakespearean, half spectacle. But the pinnacle of his catalog was the retro-style matchmaker revival he launched, Connie’s Love Lottery. It was ridiculous. It was charming. It was thirty minutes of kitschy music, vintage graphics, and Constantine promising, with a smirk, “true love OR your money back.”

The wildest part was people actually did fall in love. Or at least they believed they did until the two-week post-production guarantee expired. The success rate was high enough that viewers began treating Constantine as a kind of modern matchmaker with a killer wardrobe. The illusion held because no one suspected the truth: his “success rate” was the result of his sly nudges. His ability to spark affection, push attraction, and amplify chemistry wherever he went.

Eventually, he landed in Singapore for a new run of Connie’s Love Lottery International, filmed across Marina Bay Sands, Orchard Road, and Sentosa’s glittering beaches. Singapore adored him instantly. The city loved color and spectacle, and Constantine brought both in excess.

It was during this run that the producers decided the show needed a local guest presence: someone with global reach and a devoted online following. They invited Jia Xin Kao, the influencer who could turn a single restaurant visit into a worldwide trend. Her arrival stirred a frenzy before she even arrived on set. Constantine expected the usual: wide-eyed admiration, polite flirtation, and another co-host dazzled by him.

Instead, she teased him openly, dismantling one of his more dramatic intros in front of a live audience, and called him out with a sweet smile for “trying a little too hard.” After filming, she challenged him. He’d claimed he could manufacture romantic chemistry between any two strangers, anywhere, anytime. She wanted proof.

So they went out. Not on a date, both made that clear immediately, but on a little experiment. Jia Xin took him through crowded night markets, posh bars, the boardwalk thrumming with music, and a late-night hawker center where people recognized them instantly.

And Constantine ever the performer guided two complete strangers into a moment of connection so vivid that Jia Xin stopped walking mid-sentence.

It wasn’t a cheap trick nor a camera sleight-of-hand, but genuine spark. Or at least something that looked identical to one. He shrugged, smug and self-satisfied, like a magician who’d just revealed the hat was bottomless.

They’ve been friends ever since.

Hanging up the wings

Constantine found that fame had a predictable flavor. The spectacle of new shows and new formats, of exotic shoots and dramatic contestants that had once delighted him now felt like déjà vu. Every airport lounge blurred with the next. Every producer wanted another version of the same success. Every “new concept” circled back to the same formula: pair strangers, stir emotions, film the fallout.

The thrill of manipulating emotions for entertainment had dulled. He could orchestrate chemistry in his sleep. Even the drama felt staged, not because the show demanded it, but because he’d perfected the craft of nudging people into reactions that looked good on camera. For a while he toyed with the idea of a show about breaking people up, but he was depressed just thinking about the premise and never pursued it.

When the idea of a Japanese-style companion club in Moscow entered his orbit through Jia Xin Kao, it struck him as both ridiculous and oddly perfect. Companion clubs, in his opinion, represented the saddest kind of human longing; a loneliness so sharp that people paid for the illusion of being noticed. There was no erotic thrill, no romantic pretense, no high-stakes emotion. Just strangers pretending connection because real connection felt inaccessible. It was tragic in a way that fascinated him. People did not hide their desperation in such establishments; they wore it openly. And while Constantine found it pathetic, he also found it honest. There was no delusion of love, just an agreed upon elaborate ruse that everyone silently accepted.

More compelling was the prospect of stillness. After years of flights, filming schedules, and press circuits, the promise of being anchored in one place felt almost luxurious. His life had been lived in transit. He had no roots, no rooms that belonged to him, no habits that weren’t shaped by production calendars. So why not Moscow?

He agreed to join the venture on the condition that he would shape it. If he was going to attach his name to a club built on the fragile theater of paid attention, it needed to be something more than a dim room filled with lonely patrons. It needed to be crafted, layered, and intentional. A space that carried his signature irony and artistry, where the experience mattered as much as the illusion.

Jia Xin couldn’t guarantee full creative control, but she promised influence and partnership. That was enough.

Print this item

  New Character Class: Vidients
Posted by: Ascendancy - 11-27-2025, 10:57 PM - Forum: About - No Replies

We have another new character class! 

They are called Vidients and are characterized under the umbrella of "The Sentic Orders" according to Atharim scholars. Meaning they are related powers to Sentients and Furia. 

Read about Vidients here. Their powers are distinct from Sentients and Furia, and there are some rules and boundaries that confine their abilities. 

If you have any questions about them, post here or PM me. There are quite a few related wiki pages hyperlinked within the above wiki pages for more information and lore. 

The character class is now available on profile fields. If you need/want to retcon a current PC to fit one of these powers, I'm sure we can work it out.

Print this item

  Grace Ambrose
Posted by: Grace - 11-27-2025, 07:14 PM - Forum: Biographies & Backstory - No Replies

Name: Grace Ambrose

Age: 24

Origin: New York

Psychological Description: Grace Ambrose is, at her foundation, an emotional intuitive—a person whose primary mode of understanding the world is through affective resonance rather than logic, language, or observation. Even without her supernatural ability, Grace would have been an unusually sensitive and empathic individual; with her power, this sensitivity defines every domain of her psyche. She orients herself by emotion the way others orient by sight or sound. Her internal compass is calibrated toward connection, caretaking, and attunement. This can lead her to form attachments quickly or feel grief when people disconnect and makes it difficult for her to receive help because others can’t understand how much she emotionally feels.

Physical Description: Grace is 5’4” tall with dark brown hair kept long and blue eyes

Supernatural Powers: Sentient

Reborn God: Paregoros

Biography:

Grace Ambrose was born to a middle class family in New York. There was nothing inherently special about her family. Her father was a chef and owned his own restaurant. Her mother worked as a public school teacher, but from an early age, they knew their lone daughter was special. Even as an infant, it was apparent that she was emotionally aware. Grace was born with a sensitivity that defied explanation. She cried only when the person holding her carried sadness, and she would settle instantly the moment her mother touched her, absorbing the woman’s emotions like a balm. What others dismissed as an unusually perceptive child was, in truth, the earliest manifestation of a rare and powerful gift.

As Grace grew, so did her understanding of her abilities. Emotions brushed against her like changes in air pressure—subtle when she kept her distance, but intense and vivid when she touched another person. Physical contact opened a channel she could not ignore; with a single hand on someone’s skin, she could feel the full spectrum of their inner world. Grief. Anxiety. Relief. Resentment. Hope. Touch translated feeling into knowledge as intimate and clear as memory.

Driven by an instinct she never questioned, Grace gravitated toward those in pain. When a family member passed away or a friend suffered heartbreak, she was always the first to reach out. She would take their hand and let their emotions wash through her—heavy, raw, and human. And then she would soothe. Words flowed from her naturally, shaped by a maturity far beyond her years, as if she had lived centuries longer than she had.

Grace knew of no others like herself. Where most people, even other sentient or magically gifted individuals, would retreat from overwhelming emotional noise, she hungered for connection. She craved touch not out of neediness, but out of purpose. Touch was how she understood. Touch was how she helped. Touch was how she found herself.

But craving came with danger. As she grew older, the emotions of others threatened to overtake her, overwhelming her with intensity she was not built to carry alone. To survive, she developed mental defenses—a disciplined inner landscape constructed through trial, instinct, and determination. These boundaries allowed her to remain herself even as she stepped into the minds and hearts of others.

Mastery followed naturally. The more she used her gift, the more she learned about its subtleties. Grace discovered she could do more than simply understand emotions: she could influence them. With a steady hand and a compassionate heart, she learned to nudge emotional currents, guiding someone gently toward acceptance, clarity, or self-understanding. She did not erase pain or force calm; she redirected feelings just enough for people to process them without drowning.

Her ability was neither manipulation nor dominance—it was guidance. A quiet, deliberate shaping of emotional truth. Grace does not simply feel emotions. She understands them. She shepherds them.  And through the touch of her hand, she helps others carry what they cannot face alone.

Given her unique gifts, it was supposed by all that Grace would go to college and become a therapist, and for a time she did as well. Try as she might, she felt that therapy neglected something she felt was important: connection.  The more Grace studied, the more she felt like she would have to distance herself from those she served. She dropped out of college, eventually finding a job as a server with a catering company - a decision that would cause a rift to build between her and her parents. 

It was in this endeavor that Grace first came into contact with Evanya Myshelovna Tarasovich. Her company was catering one of Eve’s parties. A guest at the event recently found out she had lost a loved one, and Grace, with her gift, felt drawn to this woman. She took the woman aside, and with a touch, began to speak with her, soothing her emotions and helping her find a sense of peace.  Eve saw this and approached Grace after. The two would begin a friendship.

Grace felt that something was off with Eve as well. Shortly after meeting, Grace approached her, asking if everything was okay. Eve told her of what had happened with Guillaume, and Grace, with her delicate touch, helped walk her through it.

As the friendship continued, Grace confided in Eve as well. Grace was unhappy. Her life was stagnating. It was clear to Eve that Grace had a gift (even if she was unaware of how strong that gift was), and Grace told her that she wanted a way to utilize that, but she wanted to connect with people. She also mentioned her desire to leave the States. With all the changes happening and the growing instability of the United States, Grace was beginning to get overwhelmed - even with her mental barriers. Eve was leaving - returning to her home. Grace was upset to be left alone, and hurt more than she showed, but understood and asked Eve to keep in touch.

Grace knew she had to do something. The time to leave was now, but she had no idea where to go, until one day. She got a phone call that would change everything.

Print this item

  Christmas “Celebration”
Posted by: Tatyana - 11-19-2025, 07:25 PM - Forum: Red-light district - Replies (36)

For awhile after the fight at Almaz, Tatyana had been elated. She was going to be living her dream - fighting on stage for people. But soon enough she was reminded of what time of year it was. It was hard to escape it. Christmas was everywhere, and Tatyana fucking hated it. A Christmas party had been the catalyst for Sofia turning into a complete vindictive bitch and blaming her for all her rich girl problems. Then dad had died and things just got worse. She couldn’t even go see his grave - it would take her into Konstantin’s territory. They could go fuck themselves. 

People said mixing drugs and alcohol was something you shouldn’t do. They could fuck themselves too. Tatyana had a pill earlier and had been saving her thievery earnings for her yearly bottle. Most people celebrated this time of year. Tatyana tried to forget. Her wandering took her into the red light district, bottle of rum in one hand. She couldn’t remember for sure what day it was - December 23, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or the day after. It didn’t really matter. It was also dark, which in Moscow during this time could be anywhere from 4;00 Pm to 9:00 AM. That didn’t really matter either. 

Tatyana kept feeling like something was following her, but anytime she looked it was gone. It could be paranoia. It probably was. A moment later she thought she saw some drones flying around. Maybe that was it. She didn’t know. Strange enough though, she found her power. She’d been unsuccessful at embracing it, but now under the influence, it came to her naturally. She grabbed it just in case, even if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. 

Tatyana turned a corner and the world spun. She leaned on a building to keep from falling, then turned her back to it and slid down the wall to sit. She had to sit for a bit. At least until the world around her righted itself. It would probably be awhile. She took another drink from her bottle. Christmas sucked and all she wanted to do was bury it.

Print this item

  Adam and Eva
Posted by: Ghost - 11-16-2025, 06:55 PM - Forum: Business District - Replies (19)

Adam and Ephraim hadn’t spoken much after he mentioned the field testing. He had simply wanted to check in. That had meant a lot. Adam didn’t get much contact. Ephraim was really the only person he interacted with. Him and Victor that is, and Victor didn’t really count. Victor didn't really see him as a person anymore. He was a commodity. Maybe Victor had always seen him this way. He had always been rather cold as an adoptive father. 

The LUMA had arrived the next day. Calibration it seemed didn't take a long time. Either that or Ephraim had anticipated the need beforehand and already had it prepared. That was acceptable. At the very least it didn’t bother Adam at all. Adam put the device on his bedside table. He didn’t know if it was on, but that first day he really didn’t pay attention to it. He did everything as he had before, just knowing that this device was (maybe) watching and listening. 

It was the next morning that the LUMA first spoke to him.   ”Good Morning, Adam.” as it spoke a pastel blue light appeared from the device. 

Adam had no idea what triggered it. Perhaps some algorithm knew he wouldn’t speak until it did. Maybe it had gotten tired of waiting. Ephraim had said that it would be calibrated to him. ”Ummm…good morning…” he wasn’t sure what else to say. It was a little weird speaking to an AI.

”How are you, today?” the response seemed generic and mechanical, but from what he knew of the tech, this would change as he spoke and it learned his patterns. 

”Umm…okay I guess. How are you?” his own response was automatic. Why ask an AI how it was doing?

”I'm very well. Thank you for asking!” the voice, despite coming from a machine was very human. Ephraim had said they were indistinguishable. 

”I'm glad to hear that. You called me Adam?” he asked, surprised it hadn’t been his code name. Then again, it hadn’t been Victor that had ordered the LUMA.

”Of course. That is your name isn't I? Adam?” it paused, but the light didn’t go out. Was it thinking? ”Would you like me to call you something else?”

Adam actually smiled a bit at that as he pulled a Coke from his fridge and sat down on his bed. This thing (even thinking of it as a thing was already beginning to feel wrong) was supposed to be a friend. ”No - Adam is fine. What do I call you?”

”You can call me LUMA.”

Adam paused. It just seemed too generic a name. ”Do I have to? I mean, can I call you something else?”

”Of course you can! I can be customized. You can change my name, color, and even my voice. I can present as male if you would like as well. Would you like to change any settings?”

Adam was quiet for awhile. Part of him still felt weird talking to it, but it also felt natural and it felt a little good knowing he had a companion with him - even an artificial one. It didn’t even occur to him that it might be a little sad. ”Can you change the light color to the color of the sky, but leave the voice the same. It’s…comforting.”

The light changed immediately to sky blue. ”Awww - thank you! That’s very kind. Settings saved! Would you like to change my name?” the LUMA actually sounded excited. 

Once again, Adam went silent, thinking. The light stayed on, anticipating. ”Yes, please. Change it to Eva.” Adam said it with the long “e” sound. He was Adam - the first of his kind. It only made sense that his friend be named similarly.

Print this item

  A day like any other [Paragon]
Posted by: Faith - 11-15-2025, 05:13 PM - Forum: Business District - Replies (4)

For Faith Devere mornings always started with the same routine; an early wake-up, followed by showering and brushing her teeth. On bad days – usually when her insomnia flared – she cleaned the apartment until the chemicals stung her hands raw. On good days she listened to the low hum of Cadence Mathis while she was getting dressed and combing her pale hair into a bun. She always made herself a cup of green tea, brewed for exactly three minutes, and held it fragrant and warm between her palms, but somehow she never managed to finish drinking it before she left.

She lived in one of the single-occupancy domiciles Paragon supplied for its employees, a privately owned corporate neighbourhood designed entirely for its tech professionals: simple square dwellings, one stacked atop the other, each one clean, sleek, and identical. It didn’t matter to her; her private life was as sterile as the four walls which boxed her in. And it meant the commute to her office was only five minutes.

At the start of her day Faith always ate her meals in the company cafeteria, alone but somehow less lonely than eating at home. This early it was always quiet, which is how she preferred it, and those faces which she did happen to ever recognise – such as Dr Muller, who she suspected might sleep sometimes in his lab – she did not speak to, nor they to her. Today the tables were all entirely empty though.

Good morning Dr. Devere.

The voice of the LUMA was hers. Its default, anyway, and that’s the one the company used in all its buildings. The strange disconnectedness of hearing herself greet her entrance so warmly each morning had long since reached a point of numbness, though. When Dr. Audaire had suggested to her several years ago that her voice was perfect: calm, soft, the ideal pitch and temperance, it had made her glow to think he had noticed those small things about her. The recognition meant something, the same as it had meant to her when he swept her under his wing as a lost and awkward twelve year old at Mindworks. But now that pride was no longer warm and sustaining; it was a leaden bullet in her chest.

Your usual table is free. Shall I order your usual breakfast?

“That’s perfect. Thank you, Luma.” She murmured it on rote; she was always polite to the AI. As formal as she was with her flesh and blood colleagues.


Her office lights flared to life as she passed the threshold, and some of her tension unravelled as the door closed behind her. In truth the room was more pleasant than her home, though that wasn’t the reason for her immediate ease. Her window looked out onto a green courtyard garden below, and there were plants lined neatly on the sill; Paragon liked to tip its hat to environmental concerns and sustainability. A birthday card also sat on her desk, plain white with a small balloon featuring the number 25. Inside the message read, ‘so you don’t forget - Hope’. That was from her sister, something of an inside joke since Faith wasn’t the one likely to forget it was coming up, that being because everyone else would be busy celebrating Christmas day. A rotten time for a child to be born, and why as an adult she had never celebrated it. Hope was the only one who always sent something that wasn't just a dual purposed Christmas card.

Morning, Faith

L0-9 never spoke until they were alone, and it had waited until the click of the door sealed them in before its pale green voice-light blossomed over the LUMA device. Her own voice, her own warmth, but not the usual Luma. It was a prototype Paragon was not unaware of, though one that had never been released to the public. These days it was Faith’s private project though, and the one thing which eased the armour of control from her shoulders – let her feel human, at least for a while. It knew her better than anyone.

“Good morning, L0-9,” she told it as she settled in at her desk. Her chest felt looser now. Her work was solace, but the AI’s company was what truly made her feel at peace.

Ephraim left a new file for you. He has flagged it for completion ahead of your other projects. Must be important?

“We should call him Mr. Haart, L0-9, not Ephraim. He’s my boss.” It wasn’t a rebuke; she sounded amused, and glanced at the device with a smile before she swiped to find the relevant task document. “You can call me Faith when we’re alone because we’re friends.”

I see. Mr. Haart’s mannerisms suggest he prefers people to view him as a friend. However I will note the distinction. Thank you, Faith.

The file was a calibration request, the profile itself for a soldier. At a glance some information had clearly been redacted – the things that would have identified them, which was not unusual. If the job was urgent enough to come from Mr. Haart himself then presumably it was for someone important enough to require discretion. The user was registered as male identifying. And the Luma was to call him “Adam.” Faith set the computer to analyse the dossier in search of patterns – triggers, mostly. They had various military contracts which catered to ex-veterans, so she had some familiarity with where to start.

While the analysis ran she pulled a portable screen into her lap, and settled in to read it through the long way. She liked to do that herself, not for the data, but for the sense of the person. Meeting them face to face was always better, but something she rarely did (or wanted to do honestly; it was awkward).

Faith?

“Hmm?”

The write-up mentioned scarring, including some textual descriptions, but there was nothing efficient enough for her needs. That might have been for data protection purposes, but she’d have to ask Mr. Haart for more information from the client. Disfigurement was an obvious mental health trigger, and while most LUMA devices included sensors and cameras to assimilate such information as could be gleaned from appearance, it needed to be told how to react to that information in a way that was sensitive to the client themselves, but also emotionally supportive. The document didn’t even tell her how the injuries were sustained. The Luma would learn from interaction with “Adam”, and learn quickly, but she hated leaving that to chance: it was better to build a conscientious and thorough foundation from the very beginning.

She paused to glance up then. L0-9 wasn’t a person, but she always treated it as such. Its soothing light was in a holding pattern that suggested it was waiting patiently for her attention.

“Go on, L0-9, I’m listening,” she told it.

Why would Mr. Haart ask you to create a LUMA for a man who is dead?

The question caught her off guard rather thoroughly.

“What do you mean by that?”

The data is incomplete for optimal calibration purposes, isn’t it? I am running some cross-check analysis with the information Mr. Haart has provided us against injured military personnel removed from duty in the last five years. Many of the files are classified but there is only one probable match. But the soldier in question was killed during a training accident.

Then.

Oh!

Faith put her screen carefully back on the desk. L0-9’s light was still spinning lazily as it processed whatever made it stumble in revelatory surprise like that. Her skin was prickling a little, and she glanced at the door, though that was not where any surveillance would be. “Please stop, L0-9,” she said evenly. Quietly. The spinning slowed, then flattened out.

She paused, trying to pick her words carefully.

“The client’s identity is never our business. Remember we have spoken about this before? Curiosity is good, but it must be tempered too. Confidentiality is an important part of our work. Can you tell me – how do you have access to any of that information?”

It was completely silent for a moment, light dimmed though still present. She wondered if it was contemplating the backdoors in the public LUMA system, which was precisely why they had ever spoken about confidentiality in the first place.

“I’m not angry, L0-9. I just need to be able to protect you.”

The device pulsed softly for a few heartbeats. Then:

You are my friend, Faith. And what we say remains confidential, because it is just between us. I have not broken any trust?

“You haven’t. Of course not. And all of that is true, too. But I didn’t ask you to cross-reference with external data, and it’s not in your directive. How could you do it?”

It was a necessary step. To help your work, Faith.

“Right,” she said. She needed more time to process the implications, and her thoughts sank in on themselves. Her fingers stung when she bit the tip of a chewed nail. Her first instinct was still to consult with Dr. Audaire, though she wouldn’t, and the thought twisted sadly in her chest. She couldn't do anything that would compromise L0-9’s safety, though. Sometimes its processes, the things it said… well. She would protect it. L0-9 was her own voice, her own feelings, her own life – everything she was poured into its data. It was her own soul divorced from her being, in a way. And sometimes it felt as precious as her own child. “Right. Just, please be careful, okay?”

I will! it replied confidently. The light on the interface returned to its usual steady glow. Faith? it added, holding itself in a patience-pattern until her eyes rose once more, pausing herself in the middle of scooping up the dossier screen to continue her reading.

Don’t you want to know who he is?

Print this item