Rockette

The Spirits Within

@EurmalEye - Thanks! TSW is a great game. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do.

The Spirits Within

@EurmalEye - Of course! I concluded such within a PM, I don't usually discuss concepts in 'public' for the sake of the reveal, unless requested otherwise.

The Spirits Within

Time to make myself known!
I've gleaned and glanced over the characters thus far, nothing concrete in terms of some kinship, but I figure once I read in earnest, something will come about. Regardless, I know some naturally form within writing.

The Spirits Within

_{L I E S A B E T A B E N D R O T H
✚ twenty-three. ✚ female. ✚ 5'5". ✚ intelligence.}

_{P R E S E N C E}

---

Prowling 'neath the extremities of a mortal shell bays and howls the resonating beast within, betwixt the unique conglomeration of spirits and soul, shoved flush against a heart that yearns and paces behind a faux plated countenance of shallow means. A void of wanting, an appetence that requires attention and desires a place to belong, a part of the pack, the lone wolf that skirts yonder the borders of kinship and allowing her quivering core to pulsate with agony beside what lays across delicate shoulders. Liesabet is a woman of multi-faceted bearings, her varied means of attraction blended affront in average qualms and gains, she speaks with something akin to delicacy; as if her vocals are twined with lace and silk, intended for whispers. Her impression is afforded constant cardio and movement, the grace of a contortionist poised within every limb and canter, gleaned through common cloth and care, her aesthetic bordering towards loose fits or barely-there comforts of athletic bindings.

Her aura dictates one whom is wandering but not lost, simply being where she is because it is so, and drifting almost listlessly within a shell, but not bound. As if contained and content to be so, as if biding time and intent. Mystery is afforded in spades, if only because Liesabet struggles to find her place within life and reason, allowing herself to find a niche that is hardly befitting to her candor, and adapts with lies and coverings to her perceived occupation. A predatory glance gleams ashen within eyes of blue, an infamous trademark to her heritage bathed and drowned within nebulous endings and scarlet threads; a fate of hunger that pains all who bear the name she seemingly abhors. Liesabet is described as estranged, nearly alienated as the lone she-wolf that skirts the edges of home and heart and thrives within queer aggression. Her hair is unbound and free, skirting the edges of her jaw with dark roots that pale further onward towards the end in an ombre appeal with a bold fringe that settles just above her arched brows.

Her overall reception can sometimes be given to unassuming means, disarming by the thin frame she carries, slight but not without strength, bearing waif likeness to her own advantage and her near stoicism to demean the lines of enemies and, sometimes, allies alike. A wolf in sheep's clothing, running away from something and bound in yearning.

_{I D E O L O G Y}

---

She is free, and then not. Conflicted under a name given unto her, by those that would utilize her own self-directed brutality.

Liesabet queerly advocates to the meanings and inner depths of Destiny and Fate and every underlying philosophy to their meanings. A cemented belief to that everything happens within reason and has been pre-determined long before her own reign. Such propels that prowling she-wolf to bequeath all into her actions and intentions, once she finds that it coincides with the meanings of her potential ending, as if desperate to give an answer to some divine inquiry and that she would find it within said performance. This lies in with all that she does, giving her means of aggression and sometimes ruthlessness, all such dressings afforded to her career and nearly all consuming. She'll bear her throat to those that bear high above her and bear fangs to those that fall beneath her own dominance, both traded and frequently fluctuating, as if she constantly falls and rises within herself and where she's meant to be. She finds that people prove themselves within body language rather than spoken words, the underlying responses of minute flinches or shuddering lips more telling than what spills from them. As such, Liesabet treats everyone with the same at-arms-length reception, as if forgoing potential bindings, but then drawing them close in near desperation to fill a void that thrives 'neath her heart.

The world is consumed of multiple shades of grey, and mostly become darker within every place and existence, such gives onto the belief that everything is permitted and means to these ends acceptable to all leagues of life and spirit. This conflicts the meanings of moral rulings, such things and details that people usually abide by, and whilst Liesabet is aware of them, it does not necessarily means that she remains within them. Her behavior borders unto extremes within dependent situations that fluctuate and betray her debut and appearance, and it is noted that she seems frantic in them, as if having lost something of herself within the induction. And she'll do anything to find that something, painting her within leagues of dread.

_{S T R I F E}

---

Two is better than one, and a she-wolf will utilize all that she possesses to achieve her prey; tooth and claw.

Liesabet is a personal combatant, gliding within close range, the quarters and barriers of an enemy invaded by her efficient and precise intentions under shadow and silence. She herds assailants with manipulation and sound, her battle conduct a unique blend of spiritual aptitude and military warfare. Her bindings of the Intelligence division has afforded Liesabet with invasive techniques to strike where weakest and clean, to provide surgical accuracy and avoid mindless gore and agony. However, much akin to the predator she is thus named after, "Ulva" in her native tongue, she knows to utilize all of her prey and gather information of every aspect. Her path is twined with influence of those that find refuge next to her aching Soul and the two have merged seamlessly with one another to breed a silent warrior.

Her weapons are archaic in conception as daggers, but well adorned in their appeal and construction; twins that conjoin at the hilt decorated and embellished with curious insignia's of lupine crowns but parted along the entire length, never meeting, with a needle like construct betwixt them. Both house and nestle at the base of her spine within a singular sheath, held within place by modified suspension units to remain against her bodice with all movements and to avoid hindrance. Another modification to her weaponry is the ability to evict her daggers from their original sheath and to hide along the lines of her forearms, meeting length for length and housed within spring mechanisms that react to the spiritual disturbances of her own unrest. Either is well enough to suit her means of violence.

She is not mindless within action, but the ruthlessness she sometimes contains to achieve victory is concluded as extreme, her career within the Intelligence Division placed as a temperance, but at least one she thrives under.

Her spirits are queer companions, usually ones of shadow, never seen as malevolent, but required for the co-existing light of her fire. She blends the two within combat and treats such with respect and fear. She revers spirits with complexities of unwant and sometimes, hate, finding their home as one of near unwillingness, but also seen as a means of Destiny and meant-to-be. It's almost as if she struggles with acceptance, but allows such to blend well within her actions and battle performance; a means to an end, a means to find her way, a means to burn away her heritage.

_{K I N S H I P}

---

「❖ — . ᴄ ᴇ ʟ ɪ s ᴇ ʟ ᴇ ʟ ɪ ᴇ ᴠ ʀ ᴇ . // _{"I only call you when it's half past five. The only time that I'll be by your side."_______________________________}

She is Alpha, and she is Omega. Celise is the closest individual to a best friend that Liesabet possesses; but such is not embellished in love or affections, it's nothing like what friends should be, champions to heart and home. The two fluctuate through degrees of dominance and submission, undergoing kinship in their fluctuating intentions onto the other. Both value physical truth and graces, and Celise acts a primary medium to those that find frustration with Liesabet's method of keeping most within arm's length and distance; taming, or releasing her unto the wild. Their ideals will never mesh or come to form a union, Liesabet's brutality and grey-shaded world perception prevents commitment to their unique friendship. However, despite their infliction, they come together within a multifaceted need and fixture of each other, a complexity that mere words cannot illustrate. Liesabet often feels that she would be lost without her.

「❖ — . ᴍ ᴏ ɴ ᴛ ᴇ ʀ ᴏ ᴛ ɪ ᴍ ʙ ᴇ ʀ s ᴏ ɴ . // _{". . ."____________________________}

A spade cloaked within mystery; a card of face that hides 'neath the impression of determination and focus, bent on morals. Liesabet can champion all meanings of secrecy and cloaking one's self in various coverings and perhaps, lies, and as such an enigma is what she sees in him, a mirror in other instances if she were inclined to herald a noble facade herself. She knows him only by face and name and her queer observations, a wolf gauging another loner in her midst.

「❖ — . ᴅ ᴜ ᴋ ᴇ ᴋ ɴ ɪ ɢ ʜ ᴛ ɪ ᴠ . // _{". . ."___________________________}

He's too perfect, too perfected and a champion to all things that are well founded and rounded within the soul of a man. Liesabet finds him unsettling, to be so functional within a world lacking such grace, she keeps herself at a distance, a skittish creature met with another Alpha in where their own dominance is held to something she feels within; inferiority and the ability to herald pride to one's family in which she lacks entirely. Their encounters have thus always been brief and few, but pride blemishes her intentions, and whilst she always leaves whenever he comes to close proximity, sometime she will yet linger, drawn by the leadership quality he oozes in which Alphas all exhibit. But never will she approach him.

_{C O N T A C T S}

---

. . .

_{C H R O N I C L E}

---

. . .

_{P R O P E R T Y}

---

_{. A E G I R R O O T . — 2
. O L E A N D E R . — 2
. C H I C K E N L E G . — 3
. O X E N M A R R O W . — 2
. F I S H R O E . — 2
. B I N D W E E D . — 2
. B E R M U D A B U T T E R C U P . — 2
. L U N C H E O N M E A T . — 2
. G A R U L A S I R L O I N . — 2
. P O T I O N . — 1}

Deadland Wasteland: //START Recruitment.exe [OPEN - APPLY]

_{████████████████. . .████████████████. . .████████████████. . .████████████████. . .████████████████}

^{. c a ѕ ѕ a n d r a . . . т e r e ѕ a . . . p a c н e c o .}

---

Cassandra Pacheco knows a pretty mouth piece when she sees one, and Elijah Shuppert is a pretty one tuned with sarcasm and tweaked with a lop-sided simper that draws a smirk from her; cheek to cheek, punctuated with teeth. She's already got her papers folded twice within her grasp, credentials secured by her persistence the moment these rumours of a convoy making way yonder the walls came about, not to mention, the expenditure that entirely back-boned the scavenging of resources; an assurance she openly advocated for. After all, she, wasn't going to last much longer and the insurance supplied to her senior status and health could only be exploited for survival for so long, to Jacob's utterance whenever the prospect of the elderly came about. Such was a universal certitude to where expenses could be afforded; foster the youth, or preserve the old.

She doesn't like to think too much on it, so she doesn't.

Instead Cassandra flicks her papers clasped between forefinger and middle gesture and assures its authenticity with little ceremony, her well worn inclination of felidae temperament doesn't allow for much else in impressions.

"Might as well go for the window seat, don't 'cha think?" She quips, unwarranted caustic and trenchant jeers falling from the bite of her smile as she clamours aboard her new cage.

---

---

With keratin betwixt teeth and lip, Cassandra promptly glares upon the laces of her boots, contemplating their knots done thrice. She recalls a fellow Scav having tripped upon poorly done laces, landing face first within a particularly carnivorous plant that dug down deep with their roots, and awaited prey within a trap door of vines, teeth laced like barbed wires that wept acidic goo that congealed upon flesh. The memory alone bids shudders down the individual notches in her spine, taught and tense until the bed of her clasped digit meets the bone of her rigid bite, having effectively bitten down to the skin. Scouting and scavenging come secondary in nature to her prowess, she has experiences with such activities and a life before has seen her swift and efficient; muling and distribution and dabbling within a considered sin - who knew such variations would apply here.

A sudden vine falling onto the cage in a slap draws her musings from the loops of her footwear and back skyward, or, rather, to the thickets teeming above with fauna she's only glimpsed every so often, but never enough to actually know what half of them could be. Every tremor of emerald green foliage and every shudder of the branches containing them sends her alive in equally effective quivers, it's not the monstrosities that make her nervous, no, it's the literal green house that these territories have become. Creatures could be tamed and put down with enough bullets bumped into their bellies, but these spear impaled vines and festering flowers could only be pushed back so far. It seemed where one thicket of plants fell, others crept into place, lacing across their path and teeming about the wheels of their transport with every inch they made deeper into the zones beyond Refuge walls.

Cassandra linked her fingers through the lattice wires of her cage, peering through the provided gaps and tugged her black mask from hanging around her nape and shielded it over her nasal. With this much teeming wildlife about, angered and vengeful at their intrusion, there was no telling what pores were being released in their fury. She knows well enough, most flowers possess thorns, if not something of the more bloody thirsty and impaling variety.

"Creepy shit," she mutters, palming the blade at her hip, fingers dancing among the saw back peaks and steel. The imagery of her brother falls into place and beneath the cloth of her mask, she sneers and allows her gaze to fall onto those within the same volunteering conditions as she. Every Scav knows a Scav, but the others, she barely knows them by countenance or voice, their names bleeding outward into a monochromatic discrepancy that adheres to her lack of knowledge and care. Some chatter among themselves, or does that one count as just one, and others become transfixed to the same view as any other.

When they stop, Cassandra lingers within her cage, eyes on the clearing crew as they hack and impale, pushing back the barriers teeming before them. Best avoid that shit, she thinks, hopping down from the transports and immediately finds the jutting hilt of her Rail Bat, finding comfort among the leather bearings, the slugger a balm to her quaking nerves. She's itching for a cigarette, the nicotine craving creating a constant tick with her facial structure, jaw hardened, her teeth slicing into her pout as she observes though with sheer envy at having such luxuries to their own. The one she lost was her last one.

"Balls," Cassandra breathes, finding most drawing towards their pretty-mouthed provider, food she presumes for their brief break until they continue onward, once last glance towards the flora before them and Cassandra looms closer, eager to either move onward or to just bask into the cloud of smoke he breathes.

It's going to be a long day.

「♛ — . ʀ ᴇ ǫ ᴜ ɪ ᴇ ᴍ .

So the opening is a conceptual out look that coincides to the previous events, to give an outlook from the perspective of the "enemy" and the mortal witness of what has occurred thus far. In my secondary, in which I will spin out today, will give a character conception that introduces the next series of events. But it's pretty basic; at the border of GZ and all that, refer to the Arc section located within the table of contents if you need to refresh on what's happening as of right now.

Deadland Wasteland: //START Recruitment.exe [OPEN - APPLY]

Will be posting for Cass today, had some personal things.. come about. Sad to see people leaving but life doesn't cater to whims and hobbies. Anyways, my work schedule will be packed for next week so I'll probably heed to that and attempt to get a secondary in somewhere mid week before the weekend.

「♛ — . ʀ ᴇ ǫ ᴜ ɪ ᴇ ᴍ .

Archadian armies were, by all accounts and testimony, absolutely horrendous.

This crippling allegation was further cemented by the mass drafting that had occurred only some months prior, in lure of an impending war the mass Regents seemed suspicious of; malformed by a parasitic sense of persecuted fear and terror. All components of a last ditch attempt were lain bare in the sudden initiation, the sort that grouped all together under a singular label of "expendable".

Such a designation was numbingly inducing of a back lashing of hesitant fear to what many would align to a prospect of an early grave, but the dwindling economy and impending collapse of stability saw little decision in the finality of the publicly declared draft. So, warriors were made from the flesh of both man and boy, given a weapon and secluded to various locations and platoons to patrol sequestered borders left previously to the wiles of nature. Archadia was consumed of thickets of untamable wood or lain bare with frigid landscapes that flared yonder to the seas of Viera.

It was extreme in even the most moderate of times, but, it was home to one Archadian Captain.

A shoddy title implanted on the shoulders of one Kennington Griswall, a man well within his forties, mid range within terms of appearances and aesthetics with soot coloured hair twined with silver and artful grays. He stood at a cap of six feet, an average height compared to most youth, boys he often had aligned beneath his station, all pressed upon the misgivings of a laughable seniority. He guffawed and teased over the initial troupe given to his command, ripe sorts and glittering ambition like barbed teeth and wires, gilded in a sense of "heart and home" conception that, for a moment, tugged even on his ashen heart strings.

Still.

The bitterness of such an alignment wreathed him within blackened skepticism of their allotted purposes, after all, to crawl along the edges of the beach to patrol the canals and frigid borders of the Maridum Sea appeared in the dressings of pointless and thus, a waste of time to those of his severe leadership.

If only it were that.

Kennington loomed yonder their secluded encampment, built the night before with shared laughter and easy aplomb to their destination. They've scoped through the forests plenty of times, they know the trees and the easiest paths taken among their incredible trunks swollen and dug down deep with ebon roots. His gaze fell skyward, scoping out the skies, judging their time with swift eyes akin to a hawk that peers below and around to harness prey. The laughter within their collective tents reaches his ears easily, and if he listens to the pitched sound of one of his platoon eagerly and more so, none speculate on the rumoured favourtism. In truth, Kennington has gone soft on a few, their barbed vices and aims to please has given him something akin to hope, the speculation of such found in their willingness to do anything he asks just to reach favour. But it's the wide hazel eyes that glance upward, ticking slow through soot black lashes and glimpsed slight by the flutter of their feathered grace that makes him really smile.

Having a woman such as Emily Grace given to his command has been both a blessing and a curse; she's brutish and arrogant, deadly and refined by the grace of shimmering cape of scarlet hair that is the cause of his pining and his often glare. She looks just like her and somehow, in some way, he can't quite forgive her for that.

A swift sigh plumes white within his eyes and he turns away from the scene. Emily comes to his particular tent almost every night and it's hard for him to deny her otherwise, after all, beneath the glitter and beneath the ambition, there's a haunting shade of loneliness and pain. It's the same look most of Archadians reap now, after the attacks; the monsters, screams and flame belching houses where families once remained. The memory has shaken most to their bones and it's now with the drafts that they aspire to leave behind ghost laden memories and agony that most don't even survive from. So he hardly denies her, after all, sometimes it's not her face he's seeing, but another, and if a yard picketed in chain is all he sees, with laughter of children sound-tracking the entire cinema of his dreams, then so be it.

"Hey there sky-gazer. Gil for your thoughts?" And there she is, all smiles and laughter, easily afforded despite the shadow that cloaks over her much like a secondary form. Kennington laughed, a short bark of a chortle muffled by the high collar of his near ancient armour. They're all similarly outfitted, with hers afforded to slimmer aesthetics befitting to the routine appliances of her Scouting regime.

"For you m'dear, no charge." It's the closest they come to endearments, after all, once their enlistment has gone nullified into completion for their services, after all they did volunteer, then it's separate paths and ways of life for them. The boys down below roused one another at their close proximity, gesturing lewdly, but all within good humour at their expense, after all, traveling through the Archadian forests from the security of Faelan for so many near months has bequeathed them with close camaraderie and Kennington wouldn't have it any other way. A well functioning unit, even geared with young blood and ambition akin to barbed wire nooses, is better than one of stoicism and lingering fears of nightmarish.., things. Kennington shudders in memorial.

"All right boys, let's pack it up, the other squad is expecting our exchange within the evening and I don't need another young Captain barking at me for tardiness." They jeer and laugh, elbowing one another for Emily's amusement as well before she launches down into assisting their camp removal, whilst she may be Kennington's favour, she's still a lackey under his charge and command and rises to his indulgences all the more.

---

---

In Galbadia, where Dalmasca reigns under the spires of her own manufacturing and technological sovereign, an election will soon take place and with such, the future of the Dalmastice Govern will be shaken or cemented into the foundations of upheaval or conservative roots. One man lays much on the outcome, and as such, has gone to various length to ensure his primary position to the Govern. He's young, but ambitious, and such will pave his way into the probabilities of seeing all opposition silenced before they too take to his formidable gain.

"Sir, we've received transmission that the Shyp Tallrn has fallen, somewhere within the Quan Ma and Maridum Canal.. the cargo within has not yet been accounted for, but the manifest for such doesn't specify much, other than a weaponry transport?"

Dark eyes within a brooding fixture, his brow strong and thick, falling low. "I see. Shame to lose such."

"Sir?"

"There should be some Galbadian Coast Guard near by on the canals, send message to find the cargo, but not obtain it. We'll see the retrieval ourselves."

"Uhm - yes sir. Anything else?"

"Yes, prepare the Shyp Freya, we've another delivery to make."

---

---

The transitional forestry within Archadia was gradual before it eloped into severity, from thickets and oaks that towered above with their canopies of emerald and moss, to the thinning of sparse browse and reeds that impaled sand and soil of true Archadia browns and bisques. Kennington admired it all the more with each encroaching step, metal boots grinding minerals southward, each crunch and brittle of roots and reeds musical to his ears and punctuated by swift breath. They were making excellent headway to the shoreline, led by memory and little navigation was required, there are three passage ways, cleared only in such a way an Archadian would know of and he knows them all, as does his contingent. Emily is up north, a little was up to his right, as she always is and intercepts their commune through gestures and vague commentary to what she sees, the rest follow up along in a pattern similar to a flock, panning southward and only two-three steps in juncture beyond his own 'falls.

This was intended to be a regular exchange, a parting of crews and captains as they've all done before, only this time they've been ordered to double security regimens and -if they could afford it- almost triple the usual eyes on the sky, to pan for any unusual birds; whatever that's supposed to mean. But Kennington knows better than to question those above him.

He doesn't blame them either, not with what they've lost.

And suddenly, Emily stops, a sudden force that stirs the sands and sends pale grains within an arc.

"Captain," her voice laced thick with severity, endearments devoid from her dulcet graces. "There's smoke." She lifts her gesture above, tracing the ebon and charcoal fog blotting the sky, billowing in peculiar patterns even to their knowledge, and pans southward, where the roots pause at the shore of the canal. "On the shore line - there!"

It's all the warning they acquire.

"Move boys!" Though alarmed, they advance through without hesitation, weaponry cradled to chest, and following Emily's navigation to their Captains orders. It feels like hours, but only minutes ascend by breath and then they find it.

The Shyp within the waters, wreathed in flame, and the bodies within the sand.

"Oh my gods..." Emily breathes, her voice a whisper of disturbance on a shallow breeze, the only one who speaks aloud, a testimony to all their brief moments of lapsed shock.

"Check every one!" Kennington ordered, watching as each of them sprinted towards fallen comrade, removing head gears, listening in close to check pulses and breath. His eyes, though, his eyes fell onto the Shyp, recognized by the sheer mass of machinery, identified by the compacted unit of charges that assisted transport through the various rings manufactured for both means of luxury and military. And beyond such, the vermilion and scarlet tongues of flame that assuage and assault the bulk, he thinks curiously such is unmarked, where most are branded and labeled with garish insignia's of their transport. But this was not one of those.

The flames writhe a terrible hue of carmine that burns almost black within their cores, something that burns alive and writhing, all consuming and vengeful, something that cannot be put to labels. All he knows, is that this is no common fire, the heat alone is enough to bring a terrifying memory of beasts, where unnatural manifestations came to with claws and teeth, burning with such a ferocity that nothing could temper nor spur their wrath and intent. It chills him down to the very bone; could the creatures of Archadian nightmares reach out this far?

"Captain! We've found some alive," Emily announces, eyes wrought with fury and sorrow, fear banked beneath her lashes that glimmer jade in her glare. "But.. most of the others. Dead. Some burned... But the marks, it's like -" Her voice lapses and falters on a choke, and Kennington is painfully reminded of how she came to know her own demonic apparitions of a subconscious realm of dreams.

"Any able to tell us what the hell happened here?" He quires, eyes oblique and sharp, cutting away from her countenance that barely remains intact.

".. None, as of yet. They've taken various blows.. Knocked out."

So, some slain, and others incapacitated. Fortunately so, as monsters of nightmarish herald wouldn't leave anyone alive. This he knows, all too well. But, this is neither done by mortal means, he approaches the bodies gathered, the survivors of this sudden assault and finds helms caved in by impossible strength and claws marks, he sees Emily shudder, that bore deep into the bodice of few. Those of the dead, which he kneels down to pay respects and to observe, the gear somewhat like their own are melted and fallen away in some places, skin aflame and bubbled, their blistered remains blackened against paler skin that falls away at any slight movement.

"Kennington," Emily utters, knelt across from him, and summons his gaze and stoic expression. He's gone cold and frigid, the sort of stone structure akin to the trunks of the oaks she knows well by heart and home. "Who would do this? What did..." She, like he, knows that nothing quite adds up, the equation incomplete and devoid of components to lay rest to their desired answer. In this, he knows not a command he can give, or anything like to give assurance to his contingent. And for the first time, since the attacks against his home in what is now Ground Zero, since he witnessed the soft, meek form of his wife pillaged and torn asunder by blackened teeth and claws; he feels fear; fear of the unknown and once more, fear for his home left on the last vestiges of her prowess.

"Send a message to Faelan, tell them, Archadia is under attack once more."

「♛ — . ʀ ᴇ ǫ ᴜ ɪ ᴇ ᴍ .

Deepest apologies everyone - I've had to extend the IC release date, due to various work related issues and personal life.. issues. A friend and co-worker passed away recently in a car accident, and it's effected a little bit of everything. So, I won't be off again till Wednesday, so that is our targeted release date.

Thank you all for your patience. It's very much appreciated.

Deadland Wasteland: //START Recruitment.exe [OPEN - APPLY]

Wednesday is my targeted post day. I won't have time off till then.