BCTheEntity — Roleplayer Guild

Frankly, Nuva couldn't say he was particularly aware of what "the Invocation of Kazi-Nercht" was. One might describe his upbringing as "sheltered", after all... if one were being polite. In franker terms, he had practically no personal knowledge of magical invocations beyond what effects he'd observed from the gnome mage who had hired him on as a bodyguard of sorts for several years, never mind dark magic of any sort, and this in spite of having lived in a place where it ought to be somewhat common. Whatever was happening in there may as well be meaningless jargon to him.

He did, however, understand the intricacies of urgency in a person's voice. Preparing both his weapons to be bloodied again, he found himself almost annoyed with the second kick the human enchantress- Cassilda, if he'd heard correctly- took to remove the door from its hinges, but did not have time for additional thought on the topic. Charging into the room and past Cassilda, he found himself aiming to sweep a gory path round the circle of men, mace swinging to try and crush bones and bludgeon bodies aside, and the spiked arm ready to block any blades or bolts coming toward him - seven men for the ritual itself, twelve along the outside of the circle, and one cultist at the center, so the chances that his first kill would be one of those actually enacting the ritual were half and half, getting much better with every consecutive kill, and he reckoned once one cultist fell, the whole ritual could well come undone entirely. Projectiles weren't necessarily too much of a threat, either: contrary to popular belief, chainmail made with fine enough links is a very sturdy defense when layered over leather, and though in his case a lucky bolt may well have had a chance to penetrate through the holes in the links, he reckoned the speed he was moving at made that somewhat unlikely. Even so, he found himself instinctively glancing round as he moved, always checking his surroundings, as he'd been taught to do to make sure he was not blind-sided, and so ready to avoid or block otherwise-lethal attacks. He'd failed at that once already, and nearly gotten a sword to the back for it; he certainly didn't want a similar failure in awareness to kill him now.

Akella Pyrope


Gender: Female
Age: 19
Race: Human, with minor dwarven lineage

Miló - Akella's hand-crafted weapon, named "speak" in a Dwarven dialect local to her area of birth, seems to simply be a particularly-sharp double-edged blade of bronze, more specifically a type of shortsword often used by dwarves during fights in the confines of a mining tunnel, though the handle has, strangely enough, been crafted out of the same piece of metal with no covering, and only a single grey gemstone embedded into it. This, however, belies its nature as a remarkably strange object that only a skilled user of metal Lapi can use properly, and which only Akella herself actually knows how to use effectively - by applying small amounts of energy to the gemstone, actually a metal Lapis, in specific ways, one can force the weapon to change shape, flowing into various other forms, and apparently gaining and losing mass freely as a result of the transition. Alternate forms include a form of javelin with a similar blade on the end, again frequently used by dwarves in confined battles such as beneath the ground, which functions well as both a melee slashing and stabbing weapon and a ranged throwing weapon; what appears to be a rifle barrel, with no obvious parts other than the barrel itself, but the capacity to fire rounds endlessly nevertheless; the same rifle barrel, now with the shortsword-like blade on the end and split in two; and even a form with the blade fully intact on the end, intended to split rounds in two or even in four as they are fired in order to strike multiple targets. Miló's firing mechanism is described in the Other section.
Akoúo̱ - Akella's shield, named "listen" in the same Dwarven dialect, is a reasonably large circular shield made of bronze with two semi-circular sections missing out of each side, again derived from a common dwarven style intended for underground combat. Naturally, it is intended to block and deflect attacks from both physical and magical sources, being pretty much fit for purpose in both cases; however, it also possesses an edge as sharp as that of Miló, potentially enhanced further by Akella's own metal magic, therefore allowing it to be thrown by one of the indentations to cause grievous damage to anything it hits, and seems to attach directly on to Akella's arm band with only a couple of fixed metal "clips". Other than this, it is not particularly special as far as shields go.
Entolí - Akella's armour, named "command" in the Dwarven dialect, seems surprisingly bulky for the amount of agility Akella is able to show off whilst wearing it - though it is not explicitly made in dwarven style, it certainly has the bulk most dwarves are fond of in their armour, and it is more than thick enough to fend off most blows handily, yet Akella typically prefers to dodge attacks whilst wearing it, and is shockingly good at doing so. This is an intentionally misleading design: the green gemstones embedded at various points, up to and including those hanging on either side of her head, are all magnetism Lapi, and are designed to allow Akella to subtly bend any and all metal-based attacks - namely, most modern weapons from swords to arrowheads to musket balls - around her form or vice-versa, or at the very least ensure they only glance off her armour, giving the illusion of being untouchable in battle. They also allow her to move in ways that could be considered superhuman, for instance appearing to jump far higher than a normal human and hang in the air for much longer, or to strike with much more force than normal. Taking these effects to their logical extremes, a lot more stamina can be imbued into the Lapi to, for instance, generate a practical force field around Akella or allow her to hover and fly around in the air, though this is naturally quite draining.


Mastered Lapi - Akella is a master of both metal and magnetism Lapi, having had unrestricted access to both since childhood, and incorporates them heavily, though subtly, into her fighting style, as partially described above. A common trick against foes in chain or plate is for her to strike with Miló, and either break the armour it would otherwise clash against along the striking line to make it seem like she is strong enough to shear metal, or simply have the weapon pass straight through any offending metal to cause damage without obviously injuring the target. Once again, it is entirely possible for her to be more blatant about their use, e.g. by levitating both her weapon and shield to fight from a distance, but she prefers to avoid this sort of activity for reasons of conserving stamina.
Other Lapi - Aside from the very specific-use wind and fire Lapi in Miló's handle, Akella does not really use other forms of Lapi, instead relying mostly on her own physique as augmented by her mastered Lapi to handle combat. She's also not cottoned on to the existence of electromagnetism yet, having not had any particular access to lightning Lapi in her life.
Dwarven ETs - Though it is comparatively thin- almost surprisingly so, given her birthplace- Akella does have some dwarven lineage, and thus access to two somewhat watered-down dwarven ETs. First of all, her strength is notably greater than a normal human's - whilst not that much different from human compared to a full-blooded dwarf, she can nevertheless lift significantly more and strike noticeably harder than her build would suggest, and in fact benefits from being mostly human by not suffering any obvious reduction to agility the way most dwarves are afflicted, though that may be more a facet of not being built like a four-foot brick than her lineage proper. Secondly, she is fairly good at identifying metals, including ore quality, metal purity, alloy percentages, and even weak points in crafted metallic items; though most of these are not particularly better than a normal human for Akella, she has specifically trained her ability to identify weak points to the point that she can do so instinctively in the heat of battle, a very potent skill when facing off against, for example, an enemy knight.
Mutation: Hands of Tálos - In ancient Dwarven folklore, tales are told of a dwarf who held great strength even by their own standards, but who was cursed to transform whatever they touched into the same substance, even the very air around them, trapping them in a shell of bronze even as it broke away from their skin. Akella is unfortunate enough to have developed something similar: though only restricted to her hands, any solid object she directly touches with them is transformed into bronze, up to and including living flesh, gods forbid, unless they have been specifically enchanted to avoid this problem the way her gloves and most of her normal clothing has been, or are otherwise flooded with magical power in the way Lapi is. Naturally, this is somewhat of a restriction when it comes to social interaction, though fortunately mitigated by samesaid gloves; nonetheless, she considers herself doomed because of it, and fears that she may one day mess up and accidentally touch somebody with her bare hands, granting them what she can only assume would be an excruciating death.


Combat Expert - Akella has been trained from a young age to be an expert in just about all forms of traditional offense and defense in her home - the shortsword, javelin, shield, and heavy armour that are all incorporated into her equipment in some manner or another. Additionally, she has also trained extensively in the use of rifles, in particular the odd design of Miló's various gun forms that so defines its awkwardness in any hand that is not her own.
Metalworker - Though she rather prefers to keep it low-key, Akella's metal Lapis mastery gives her a surprisingly good ability to craft metal into just about any form she likes with no need for the heat of a forge to make a sharp and hard edge, or a sturdy plate. As a profession, she would rather avoid it, simply because combat is more of a thrill to her; however, the fact that she managed to forge Miló in the first place is a testament to her skill in this regard.
Lapi User - Mastery of metal and magnetism, minor use of fire and wind in equipment. Described above.


Akella is nothing if not friendly - contrary to what one might anticipate from a serious warrior, she does her best to see the world in the best light possible, making at least a token attempt to make friends with people who haven't been explicitly hostile toward her and doing what she can to avoid injuring those who are beyond what's needed to stop them. She also does her best to be polite to everyone as and when it is feasible, sometimes going as far as to apologise for damaging a foe if she would have rather not gotten into that particular fight, and she remains as patient as she can throughout. Furthermore, though not educated beyond a certain level outside of her combat training, she is intelligent enough to understand reasonably complex topics if they're explained to her, evidenced by her Lapi usage and ability to control the battlefield around her as needed, which perhaps contributes to how she acts in general.

Beneath all this, however, is a very insecure young woman. A combination of a near-crippling mutation and high expectations whilst growing up have not been kind to her, and a part of her exists which mostly wants to be normal, to not have so much responsibility any more, though she knows full well how unlikely this is. Indeed, she fears (perhaps irrationally) that the stress of the current war situation may one day kill her, or worse cause her to lose control of herself and do something she'll regret; she feels that if she can at least contribute to ending the stalemate between Sardiel and Gennisi in some form or another (though as far as her ideology goes, she considers Sardiel's victory the preferable option overall), she may at last be able to relax.


Akella's birthplace was the town of Broúntzos, a medium-small mining town composed of humans, dwarves, and various degrees of hybrid, that made heavy use of multiple sorts of Lapi so as to draw out from the ground ores of various types, in particular those required to forge bronze. Naturally, in such an environment, the rules on where and when Lapi was allowed to be put to use were enforced very clearly to prevent harmful mutation, but even so, the ambient magical aura of the place sometimes affected an unborn child... albeit not so noticeably at first, in Akella's case specifically. As she went from infant to toddler, though, it became more and more clear that the patches of bronze found all over her family's house were her doing, and they quickly took her to see an expert in the field after an incident where a small but notable chunk of flesh was transformed so. The diagnosis was declared, most notably that the effects of her mutation would get more pronounced as she grew older and gained more stamina, and in short order a pair of elbow-length leather gloves were fashioned for Akella to wear to ensure she did not accidentally turn to bronze anything else, a mark of her misfortune that would define her since then, new gloves being crafted and enchanted for her in advance of the old ones wearing out or losing their fit.

Naturally, this led to a certain degree of both attention and ostracising by her school mates once she began her education, and though friendly enough when talking to people, she often found herself not specifically seeking to interact with most of them, save her close childhood friend, a boy called John who had been fathered by a fairly large family shortly after their move to Broúntzos. Akella and John would often talk to one another about their lives, in a surprisingly deep fashion for young children, and they both realised that the other was confused about whether they deserved attention or not. In John's case, he wondered if his sisters overshadowed him, or whether he was babied too much to be useful; for Akella, she felt that her mutation singled her out, overshadowing other aspects of her being. They both promised the other that they'd make themselves worth the attention, and so both began training to become fighters in the town's local military outposts. Akella in particular already held a surprising affinity for two sorts of Lapi, and with focused training, she became very good at using them and the town's traditional weaponry in just a few years, drawing the attention of the head of the local outpost. This ultimately got her inducted into the town guard's junior regiment at the tender age of eleven.

It was shortly after this that Akella discovered she actually wasn't fond of attention. Or at least the amount of attention she got, anyway: noted as a potential source of "unique skill", and cited as being exceptionally useful for the war against the Firebird Empire should be become a full-blown lady of the realm, she was regularly pushed to her limits to master the weaponry available to her and her native Lapi, causing her excessive and undue stress which wasn't helped by her continuing anxiety about what had come to be known as the Hands of Tálos. Though she quickly became well-known within the town as a prodigy and a battle genius, her days often ended with her exhausted, and her nights were filled with terrors that left her even more exhausted the next morning. It was a cycle she found herself stuck within for the next five years, and it ended when she finally decided she couldn't live like that much longer. She went to the craftsman who created her gloves, and commissioned with the money she'd earned during her time appropriately-enchanted gloves to suit her for practically the rest of her life, as well as stealing from the armoury a single bronze shield, and from the ore storage enough bronze and Lapis to craft herself a suit of armour and a single-piece blade of some sort. The night that she received them, she spoke to John one last time, and found she would be sorely missed in kind. She was gone from the town by morning.

For the next few years, she travelled the world as a mercenary, acquiring money to survive off of in as ethical a manner as a hired thug can, as well as enough bronze to add to her armour whenever it was needed. In her down-time, she perfected her ability to manipulate metal and magnetic force alike with her magic, adding to and improving upon Entolí to suit her as and when needed, and frequently improving the function of Miló until it became an ungainly weapon which only she could reasonably utilise as effectively as possible. Akoúo̱ remained mostly unchanged, save for the addition of a sharp edge to its outer rim for the purposes of throwing. And yet despite her attempts to escape the world's notice, the unique appearance she wrought for herself and the skill with which she fought caused stories to spread about "the girl with hair like flame" throughout the kingdom, and it was rare for her to enter a town without at least a few people mobbing her for a tale of her most recent exploits, or offering her food and rest "after her long journey", regardless of how long she had been travelling before then. She would oblige these requests almost compulsively, feeling it was only fair to be kind to those who were kind to you, and often found herself with an excess of money and a dearth of time left to herself. Though throughout her life of combat her exterior has remained friendly, even humble, she has begun to despair on the inside of ever experiencing a life approaching normality, and though she knows logically that attempting to end the civil war is only likely to further boost her notoriety, it is the only route she sees to accomplish this... if only she could find a foothold to start off from.


Weapon Mechanics
Miló has the ability to fire rifle rounds with no obvious source of heat, or indeed any obvious source of rifle rounds. This is thanks to a result of two separate realisations on Akella's part. First, she has realised that what pushes the projectiles out of a regular gun's barrel isn't the heat of the exploding gunpowder itself, but the pushing force caused as a result of the explosion, in other words the explosion's wind. With that in mind, Miló has an air Lapis hidden in the hilt of the weapon, the only use of which is to create directed, and surprisingly strong, bursts of air to propel projectiles out of the weapon; a fire Lapis is also present from prior iterations of the weapon, though it is there mostly because its removal would not affect Miló's functionality, instead serving to produce smoke and noise from the end of the barrel to hide how the weapon actually functions.
The second realisation is that a flat surface on a projectile actually provides more space for a given pushing force to work properly when compared to the standard spherical rounds, though Akella understands that this is perhaps not an understanding limited to her mind alone; since the vast majority of bullets produced nowadays are lead musket balls, Akella has taken it upon herself to enhance Miló's functionality by allowing the weapon to spontaneously generate its own ammunition, again via supplying energy to the embedded metal Lapis in a specific pattern, such that a pointed lead projectile may be formed within Miló's barrel whilst in one of its rifle forms, fitting snugly to the barrel's rifling without sticking when fired, thus producing a far more accurate (and cheaper) shot than most might anticipate from any projectile weapon.

Magnetism Lapi
The functionality of most forms of Lapi are reasonably obvious - a metal Lapis lets you control metal, a healing Lapis heals your body, and a necromancy Lapis lets you resurrect and command the dead. Magnetism Lapi is one of the more complicated forms of Lapis to figure out, mostly because the mechanics of magnetism known to modern science in real life have not yet been entirely established in this setting, and even those who have encountered magnets are only likely to know that iron and steel are attracted to them, never mind that electricity and magnetism are in fact closely intertwined. Essentially, however, the principle is the same: five basic types of magnetism exist, the most common of which is ferromagnetism, wherein parallel magnetic moments within the electrons are arranged in parallel with each other, producing a north and south pole within the substance, and which is strongest within metals such as iron, cobalt, and nickel. For the same reason, these are the metals magnetism Lapi is most effective on, requiring the least amount of stamina to affect under normal circumstances, as their magnetic moments do not cancel one another at room temperature, thus allowing natural ferromagnetism.
That being said, part of the functionality of magnetism Lapis is to actively induce the appropriate form of magnetism to achieve its effects (most often telekinetic in nature) in just about any material it is used upon regardless of its usual physical properties, often combining multiple forms of magnetism to both push and pull a target in certain ways. Therefore, whilst it may or may not take more stamina to do so, most metals both pure and alloyed can be affected by magnetism Lapi as well - for instance, Entolí is largely made of bronze, an alloy largely composed of copper, which is a substance that is naturally diamagnetic, such that the magnetism Lapi implanted into the armour only requires a comparatively small amount of stamina to induce a significant repulsive force against most metallic objects. However, less magnetically reactive substances may require an excessive amount of stamina to handle effectively with magnetism Lapi, and it is often more productive to simply acquire the relevant Lapi type, e.g. earth Lapi for generic soil.

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