[hider=Henry Ashton]

[b]Name[/b]: Henry Ashton

[b]Species[/b]: Human

[b]Job[/b]: Engineer / former Diver

[b]Appearance[/b]: He is a slightly buff man with a height of 5’11” standing up. He has dark brown hair with small bits of grey showing around the sides. He has a mustache and beard, kept clean. He has brown eyes. He doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings. He has a mostly faded scar from the base of his neck to under his chin, but it’s usually hidden by the beard. Despite a clean beard, his hair is unkempt, only pushed out of his face. He wears a white dress shirt, sweater vest, brown coat, and brown slacks. 

[b]Personality[/b]: He is a kind man, but can usually appear grumpy around others. He is quick to lose his patience with people who bug him unnecessarily. While not having anger issues, he won’t hesitate to speak his mind about. Once he puts his mind to something, he will see it to the end. His dislikes ignorance and arrogance. He likes to have his quiet time, and will go to great lengths to make sure he is interrupted during those times even if the attempts fail.

[b]Background[/b]: Henry was 23 when the first wells opened. He lived in nowhere Idaho where a massive well, the size of a small city opened in the ground, sinking it and replacing it with water. Looking into the water looked as though the galaxy itself was pooled into the ground. After the initially disaster had settled, the well was quickly surrounded by the local government.

After the wells came into being, the government eventually started a program to send in divers to see just what lay underneath the water. Despite the well being several miles away, he had volunteered to join the divers in their exhibition. The initial process to be let in was rushed and crude, but he was able to pass. Under the water lay no bottom. Outside of the way they entered there was no surface either. After what felt like an eternity, his team saw it. Another world, filled with nothing but clouds and sky. It was the discovery of a life time. Reports about it came from other diving teams from other states, and the exploration was ramped up.

As the years passed, he continued diving. He saw worlds of clockwork, flesh, and mud. These left a varying degree of emotions with him. On one hand, It was fascinating just the extent these other worlds could exist, with no clear laws for physics guiding any of them. On the other hand, it left chills down his spine. A world made of only one biome, what would happen should it leak through the wells and onto his home.

During one dive he and his team were tasked with setting up a beacon device at the base of one of the plateau mountains which was observed to be sinking. While setting it up, a sudden quake, and the mountain sank several feet. The sudden force of it loosened Henry’s grip, and he fell several stories landing hard atop the muddy surface below. His safety gear swaying uselessly above. His teammates quickly retrieved him, and they escaped back towards earth. He had survived, but he had several broken bones, his lower spine in the worst condition.

Since then, he had been wheelchair bound, depressed that he would no longer be able to work at the wells. For the better part of a year, he stayed at his home, looking towards the bright lights of the facilities guarding the well. His only source of comfort through this trying time for him was his friend Margaret.

Margaret was a friend he had met in high school. She was coming in as a freshman during his senior years and while the story changes depending on who you ask, they got along well. They were never an official item, but it didn’t stop the rumors. In between diving excursions, Margaret would often bug Henry for stories for the things he had seen. This at first annoyed him, but eventually he would get just as excited to tell. She was in school studying to be a zoologist working on her masters, and between her presentations would visit even though they were hours apart.

Eventually, Margaret was able to convince Henry to pursue another field. The wells were still relatively new, and he could find something else to involve himself with them. He did, he became an engineer, and through that was able to return to the facility as a developer for the new resources found in the dimensions. His work was able to soar when it came out that some of the material found on Corpus could be used for more mechanical purposes over medicine. This caught Henry’s attention

After several more years of development, he was able to build himself a new external nervous system. Much like how the robot prosthetics, this pair of legs was able to sense the electrical pulses of his spine, and control his legs. Research involving actually incorporating the tissue into a subject was still in the early phases, but this way, he didn’t need to. It was all external, and first time in years after being wheelchair bound, Henry was able to stand. Since then, his mood had improved. While he could still be a grump, he found a new lease on life and continued forward developing new applications for their discoveries. Margaret moved into a research facility at the same well not long after. She is the only one he tolerates bugging him. He is usually willing to help design and build her any new piece of equipment she needs to continue her research.

So far regarding his own R&D the development of his exosuit had spawned a variety of fleshy tools to his disposal. The material of these range from organic tendrils, to hard bone like tools. Out of caution, he has not used any of the more malignant tissues in his experiments though their rapid division could be useful if he were to design a gun that could not have to reload. He has some theoretical ideas involving them. He is building a new suit and so far, it’s working as intended, capable of great utility, he can see it as a self-sufficient tool for extended dives. He equipped it with defensive capabilities to protect the wearer before and during an emergency. While Henry is willing to don such a fleshy machine, he’s not quite sure if anyone else will. So far, he knows for sure Margaret won’t.

While he was not broadcasting it, his work on the exosuits was widely known throughout the facility he worked, some people surprised to seem him walking again. The suit was able to help transfer the signals from his head to his legs, bypassing his spine entirely. And when word came out that his new suit could help divers, then the facility made the decision to share some of the research with the other well companies. Henry had sculpted himself a new man to work within. His research in playing with the intercellular communication of the tissues, the mechanical frame, and himself made the corpus veins a goldmine for self-producing equipment.

[b]Talents[/b]: He is good with his hands, working quickly with various tools ranging from handheld constructions tools, to small more precise tools used in electronics. He also versed well enough in programming and data management to take care of the software aspects of his work.

While his legs have weakened because of his paralysis, his arms are still pretty strong, capable of lifting a couple hundred pounds if he positions himself correctly. As for his mobility, he has an electric chair, which he can ram into people should the need arise. 

His main draw comes from his research using the corpus tissues. He had found a way to essentially grow machines-like organic material that like the name sounds operate similarly to machines. For himself he has a back brace made of hard organic material with a long tendril that rests along his spine, and two wider tendrils that wrap around his legs. This basic apparatus allows him to walk and run at a decent pace.

He is currently developing a more complicated version of it that would also have tendrils that wrap around his arms, torso, and parts of his head in order to boost his natural organic functions such as awareness of his surroundings, enhanced senses (touch, smell, and hearing), reflex speed, and agility and dexterity. How the suit is supposed to achieve this is by having these tissues sensitive to the stimuli, and pass them to the wearer. Otherwise, it works like an exosuit where it takes on some of the physical effort required putting more power into the wearer’s movements. Lastly, the suit has some grow potential where he can produce large carapace shields at a steady pace. He has thought about, but has not dared to try and directly connect the organic machines into his or anyone else’s nervous system, though he suspects that would drastically improve user operation.

Part of his development of the two suits have left him with various unorthodox tools which mainly consist of bone like knives that can sharpen themselves, and tendrils that can reach and work in tight spaces. His early gun prototype fires digestive acids and bile.


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