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+--- Thread: Visha (/thread-1427.html)
Visha - Visha - 01-15-2023
Patient Record: VIṢAKANYĀ
Medical History: [REDACTED]
DNA Profile: [REDACTED]
Additional Notes: EXERCISE CAUTION. NITRILE GLOVES AND FACE SHIELD RECOMMENDED. ANITVENOM REFERENCE 2291981.
Visha is the half-human offspring of a female naga. They both ended up in Di Inferi hands when her mother fled her underground home seeking sanctuary and to impart a prophetic warning. Atharim hunters were hot on their trail, and she was already bleeding when she arrived on the doorstep of Oleander Haart’s scholarly father, child in arm. The naga woman foretold the Rise of the Ancients and the ruin the Apollyon would bring before she passed.
Hunters burned the house to the ground. Oleander, still a girl herself, escaped with the child, and fled to Moscow in search of her uncle.
Ephraim Haart accepted them both with apparent open arms, particularly when he realised from his niece’s tale that the child was potentially not human despite all appearances. Paragon Group was still in its infancy at the time. Disagreements over the child that was later named Visha eventually spurred Oleander to flee in anger, and Visha was ultimately left in Ephraim’s care. Though she knows he is not actually her father, she views him in that light. For now he exerts some control over her behaviour.
She has been experimented on ruthlessly since childhood. Mostly she has lived peaceably within the confines of various Paragon-run facilities, but recently curiosity has sparked a newly rebellious streak in her.
Experimentation on her blood proved the basis for Paragon’s Pleasure Implant, first released in the early 30s. More recently it has been synthesised into the cult-status drug ‘P’ which has strong hallucinogenic and addictive qualities.
Since she has proven resistant qualities Ephraim believes she may hold the key to immortality. Poison does not affect her. Drugs and alcohol burn off quickly. Anaesthesia does not work. Under scrutiny her cells do not appear to age or damage in a normal way, however the markers are distinct from what is currently understood about channelers.
Visha has been sheltered her entire life.
She has always had minders. As a child she was easily placated with treats, toys, and attention, particularly when the latter came from Ephraim. She learned quickly to play on her sweet girlishness and has always used it to her great advantage in pursuit of getting precisely what she wants. Though Visha has grown at the same rate as a human child, mentally she has seemed to mature more slowly (although this might also be a result of her greatly isolated upbringing). Puberty came and went without much conscious notice from her, and it wasn’t really until she reached her twenties that she began to notice the shape of a new power, and the fluttering of new urges. Though by now she also understood the unique boundaries of her illness, and was diverted easily to the consumption of media in lieu of a life she could not have.
In recent years she has grown more and more restless with her confinement, though. Sneaking comes naturally to her, and she is a keen observer. Once she worked out how to slip free from her handlers and the facility, she did so without compunction to the risk.
Mostly she explores the city at night. Given her inborn athleticism, the urban jungle is her playground. She frequently breaks into stores to try on clothes and jewels, and usually takes a souvenir or two.
Visha is cunning and sly, and can be sweetly manipulative. Usually her heart is not in the wrong place, but she is selfish, and will put her own needs first – like a child who has not yet learned the value of sharing. She’s wildly hedonistic and a great consumer of the limited media available to her. She adores pretty things, the shinier the better. Ephraim’s expensive gifts always please her. She is naive and wilful and compelling, and very accustomed to others meeting her whims.
Visha presents as an adult female, but it’s unclear how old she actually is. Her newly acquired rebellious streak has a sense of adolescence about it. She has shoulder-length, dead-straight white blonde hair and pale brows. She is oddly featured in a way many find compelling, though not necessarily beautiful. Her eyes are large and widely spaced, hypnotically dark. She’s naturally lithe, and capable of athletic feats one would usually associate with long-time training, but appear to come naturally to her. There is something quite predatory to her when she chooses focus; she has an almost preternatural ability for sneaking, which she mostly uses for mischief and (recently) escaping.
Both her hearing and her sense of smell/taste are heightened, though do not approach the acuity of a full-blooded naga. She is stronger and faster than the average person.
Her blood and bodily fluids affect humans (and humanoid creatures, with the exception of other naga). Since puberty, even brief skin-contact itself is enough for a detrimental effect. Largely this is hallucinogenic, especially in small quantities, and may prove addictive for the recipient. Larger or prolonged doses can insight insanity, and eventually death.
Bites and scratches from her are venomous. She has the self-defensive ability to spit at distance, but can only do this when threatened. Differing from the side-effects of her skin, the effects of this defensive poison are usually painful (bruising, bleeding, swelling), and in the worst case can kill (sometimes incredibly quickly). When cornered or frightened she fights like an animal.
Emotions appear to influence the strength and voracity of her affect on others in both cases. If this can be controlled, she does not know. Since she presumes it is an illness she has never tried. She usually wears clothing that covers her up, toes to throat, including gloves. In private she has an extensive, expensive, and eclectic wardrobe that she delights in. In fact her room is a veritable treasure trove.
She believes Ephraim will “cure” her. She is unaware she is not entirely human. She does not know what the naga are, or even that they exist.
Other notes:
As yet undiscovered, Visha’s skin secretions also have the result of disrupting a channeler’s ability to channel (which will become apparent the first time a channeler touches her or otherwise comes into contact with her body fluid). Whatever synthesising process the drug P went through has unintentionally nullified this effect, though, and it does not have the same side-effect either when taken orally or injected.
She is resistant to channeling directed at her. The weaves simply fray and dissipate.
Reborn:
Echidna was a monstrous she-dragon with the head and breast of a woman and the tail of a coiling serpent. She probably represented the corruptions of the earth – rot, slime, fetid waters, illness and disease.
She was the consort of Typhoeus – a monstrous, multi-headed storm-giant who challenged Zeus to the throne of heaven. Together they spawned a host of terrible monsters to plague the earth including the Chimera, Cerberus, the Hydra, Sphinx and the Hesperian Dragon.
According to Hesiod, Echidna did not age and nor could she die a natural death. However she was not invincible, and was eventually killed by one of Hera’s emissaries while sleeping in her cave home.