JOURNEYS ABOARD THE CRYOK: October 2022

Full Name: Elizabeth Cairnstone De La Vega

Aliases: Aries Passadar, The Lone Candle

Sex: Female

Species: Rathi (wolf)

Place of Birth: De La Vega Citadel, Relora City, De La Vega Province, Spira

Legal Status: Wanted in some nations

Occupation: Mercenary

Allegiance: Mercenary Guild, Crown of Volencia, her friends

Height: 5’11”

Weight: 210 lbs.

Sexuality: Bisexual, male-leaning

Marital Status: Single (Lone Candle timeline), dating (Argonaut Privateers), married (Azerian)

Known Relatives: None living

Vehicles of Choice: Large semi-truck/mobile home, De La Vega warbike

Weapons of Choice: Dragonlash, Witchfire

Creator: Zucca Xerfantes

Voiceclaim: Claudia Black

Elizabeth De La Vega was born to the noble Asraad house of the same, to parents Duchess Oriana and her husband, Horatio. She was set to be heir of her house, carrying on a long and proud tradition of military leadership service to the nation of Volencia. She was to be trained in everything from tactics to etiquette to combat…insofar as a child can be…and all was right with the world.

All of that changed however, when one day the king, maddened by the loss of his wife and son and believing the nation of Rora to be responsible, had the entire De La Vega bloodline assassinated one hour after Oriana publicly refused to support his plan to attack Rora in retribution.

By pure chance one survivor was spirited away by the maid of the citadel.

The survivor was Elizabeth.

They began a new life in a ghetto in Relora and sank into anonymity after Edna, the maid, selected a new identity for the child with the aid of a criminal forger. Thus, Aries Passadar was born. Though Enda never told Aries, she personally murdered the forger so that none would ever know the truth.

Aries grew up in the ghetto and cultivated a tough streak to survive and keep others off her back. Still bearing the sense of honor and duty from her family, she entered the Nightwatch as soon as was legal, at age fifteen. By the time she was nineteen, she had become a junior detective and solved and solved a fairly prominent murder, but time after time, red tape and technicalities got people off that she knew to be guilty. Fed up with the system, she joined the Mercenarie’s Guild, believing she could make a bigger difference there.

Her first mission came to set the tone for the rest of her career.

She was hired by the margrave of the small House Botono in the mining town of Dannon to fight a group of ogres on the outskirts of town and rescue their lost children from them. Finding the ogres to be oddly behaved and seeing no trace of the children, she put her detective skills to work and discerned the most likely culprit to be a mage who was a high school dropout with an axe to grind and an abusive mother. She defeated the duo, undid the magic that had turned the children into ogres, and reunited families once splintered. [1] Aries made quite a splash, becoming recognized as the one you call for difficult problems that require as much brain as they do brawn.

Aries was assigned to Squad Epsilon-02 under the pragmatic, yet motherly, squad leader Jenrilar Danjeigo. Her squadmates included the ‘Neather, Benjamin Gray, and fellow Rathi such as the spunky cheetah Kira Sierra, the Tengu pilot Tseida, and the willowy Amos, a half-breed who served as the squad medic. She showed herself to be an effective leader in Jen’s absence, an extremely aggressive and dominating fighter, a fiercely loyal squadmate.

Two years into her promising career, she was selected by the Masters Games Committee to participate in the Masters Games, an event wherein everyone from soldiers to mercenaries to athletes to astronauts compete in a variety of sub-events that are meant to hone and expand one’s pool of knowledge and skill. Delcara Ranzlomora, an heiress of an Arsraad house herself as well as a courier, delivered the invitation and Aries’ life was set on a collision course with global events.[2]

Her performance in the Masters Games, namely ranking 1^st in the Mercenary entrants and 3^rd overall gave her a huge advantage in getting her name out there. Soon she was being hired for many jobs and making money hand over fist, able to operate on the road from her semi-truck command center when not on a squad mission. This is also the phase of her life when she met Kristie Sparks, who would later join the Guild herself and become one of Aries’ closest and dearest friends.

It was during this fruitful phase of life when she saved a clutch of eggs for a dragon who, in addition to a significant financial reward, gave her a tooth. This tooth she forged into a sword that became one of her iconic weapons, Dragonlash. Her other iconic weapon came when she was tasked with finding a missing prince and his retinue of bodyguards: the enchanted firearm known as Witchfire.

Aries’ first “impossible” mission could not have happened if not for a failure of hers. She could not save a child she had promised to return. She came back to the parents, both of them, and had to look them in the eye and tell them their child was lost.

It changed her life forever.

When a job offer came down the line at the Mecenary’s Guild, the others regarded it as impossible, a fool’s quest. Aries took the job…the mission was to rescue a wrongfully taken soul of the fourth Volencian house, House Scantillian. The boy had been cursed and his soul dragged down to Hell.

Mephistasm, demon Lord of the Ninth Gate, warned Aries against going further. “Hell is where the wicked are punished. You are not without sin, but this is not where you belong.” She disregarded the advice…

….and she plunged.

The marks of damnation burned themselves into her hide, marking her forever. She rescued the soul and emerged in the mortal world again, but she had once again been eternally changed. Aries Passadar was once again outside the gate to Hell. Two days had passed to the outside world, but her time in Hell numbered in months...

It was done. Her most difficult challenge. She had stolen back the soul gem containing the essence of House Scantillian’s heir. She would not have to look another parent in the eyes and tell them their child was lost…

But she had lost everything but her very flesh. The hellfire over the course of her time, especially her departure, had burned it all to ashes. Now she sat with the Marks of Damnation, her very sins burned into her hide, forever etched on her.

At that moment, the cost of her actions, remembering the regretful words of the Lord of the Ninth Gate began to hit her…

“I am bound by the laws, child. You have courage I have not known to come here. The boy was cast down here by a mortal’s curse. Undeserving of this place, he was simply held here by me. However…you have a levy of your own. You have until the end of your life to break this chain, but if you agree to be bound to me, I will be allowed to realease the boy. When you die, however, child, you will be brought here without appeal. And you will not merely be held. It will be all the torment due one who comes here naturally. There is no guarantee you will find the mortal who laid this curse. This place…is not for either of you. It is for the wicked. But you will still be here for eternity should you fail to find the mortal who cursed the child.”

Aries had endured too much to turn back. She agreed, reaching for the hand of the boy as the intensity of Perdition’s flames ate her gloves as fiery tendrils. She seized his hand as Mephistram, the Ninth Lord, rent her hid with demonic talons, burning the marks into her…

And her she sat now, as naked in body as she felt in spirit, the crimson marks still burning like embers. But she had accomplished her mission…

From then on, though, was the start of Aries’ status as a living legend. People were all doubt until they saw those red marks, saw the ghostly white fire she unleashed, saw her walk through the flames unscathed and watched her lift what would take three to do. But she would trade it all back…if only to save her irrevocably damned soul.

Aries Passadar now dwells in three primary timelines. In one, she’s a mother and lives with a foot one of two worlds. In another, she’s the XO of a space-faring battleship.

But in her primary timeline, she is among the most widely feared mercenaries alive. People who know her in person realize the legend is bigger than the person, and the person is deeply compassionate, extremely protective of children, and has a powerful sense of justice. Those who regard her as a folk hero and even those that regard her as a menace (she is wanted in some nations for alleged murder, smuggling, illegal extraditions, and drunk/disorderly charges) do not know what her closest friends do: that she nurses a deep-seated hatred. Her spirit, diseased as it is, doesn’t allow her to give up, living in the service of others and at great personal expense, viewing herself as disposable, even with the threat of eternal damnation hanging over her head.

And yet she still fights, her will unbroken.

So far.

STRENGTHS

- Near Superhuman Strength: Aries possesses greatly enhanced physical strength and agility thanks to the Hellfire burning in her veins. She is capable of lifting an engine block over her head and throwing it. When using an unbreakable sword, she has been known to cut through very strong materials.

- Grandmaster Swordfighter Status: Aries is recognized as a grandmaster of sword combat. Her sharpshooting is well above average, but it’s her work with a blade that is clearly her hallmark skill. Nothing shy of superior experience or overwhelming strength/speed has been able to match her at the peak of her skill.

- Expert Sharpshooter: Aries is an excellent marksman and uniquely able to use Witchfire.

- Hellfire: Aries’ soul is linked directly to Hell and all of Perdition’s flames. Not only is she completely immune to any form of radiation and heat, but heat and flame will nourish and invigorate her. Radiation itself has different effects on her, depending on variety:

-Alpha Particles: Functions like a narcotic, lowering inhibitions, impairing

judgment, preventing pain receptors from functioning, and causing her to laugh

hysterically. Effect lasts ten minutes.

-Beta Particles: Overexposure causes Aries to become voraciously hungry and

consumption translates into increased intelligence and sensory sensitivity. Can

lead to out-of-control weight gain. Effect lasts several hours.

-Gamma Particles: Overexposure causes Aries to become extremely aggressive,

and her muscle and bone density increases by 500%. Her flame breath turns

radioactive. Effect lasts one hour.

-Neutron Particles: Invokes a hysterical berserker rage. Body heat increases to

temperatures upwards of 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Body becomes large,

bestial, and three-headed, and barbed tentacles sprout from her back and

tail. Effect lasts ten minutes after last exposure.

-Ultraviolet: In very dense exposure promotes wellness and health.

- Detective Skills: Aries has a host of skill from her time in the Nightwatch and one of those is a knack for deductive reasoning and criminal investigation, a talent she carried with her into the Mercenary’s Guild to great effect.

- Arsraad Nobility Training: As a child, Aries received extensive training on the inner workings of Arsraad nobility and possesses many of their secrets. Locations of safe houses, secret buildings, and more. She also learned how to deal with high society and people in high position find her to be uncommonly polite and cordial for a rough and tumble merc.

- Iron Will: Aries is nothing if not doggedly determined and relentless. Very little frightens her, and fewer things still cause panic in her heart. When she sets her mind to something, only death or her own limits can stop her.

- Fast Learner: Aries is very quick to memorize details and usually only has to be told something once. If she sees how something is done, she can mimic it with great effectiveness.

- Tactical Knowledge: Aries has been trained extensively in warfare tactics and can lead a squad to carry those tactics out with great effectiveness.

WEAKNESSES

- Self-Loathing: Aries harbors many dark thoughs in her heart of hearts and she believes that her poor, nomadic pauper’s lifestyle is suitable punishment for what she feels she deserves. She can be easily emotionally manipulated if someone knows how to push her buttons and she holds herself in such contempt that it borders on a death wish.

- Short Temper: Again, Aries’ emotions run hot, and she’s very swift to anger. Her passionate nature can easily be curbed to be her undoing if she doesn’t take care to control her emotions and keep her temper.

- Short Sighted: Aires lives for the moment, the here and now. Remembering the past is deeply painful for her, and, considering how bleak her future is, she doesn’t care to contemplate it, either. She’s perfectly suitable with strategic and tactical planning, but anything in regards to her personal life has minimal consideration.

- Damned Soul: Aries has a Sword of Damocles in the form of a mortgaged soul that she placed in such a position to save that of a wrongfully damned child. If she dies before finding who laid the curse, she will go straight to Hell without recourse.

- Life-Altering Secret: Aries is the sole remaining member of House De la Vega, and whatever dark forces that are working in the shadows will surely assassinate her if the truth were ever to be told. There are very few who know the secret of Aries Passadar.

- Arsraad Nobility Bloodline: The Arsraad Nobility of Volencia has a secret. Their bloodlines supply energy to the thirteen seals of the Hellgate, separating the Underworld from the physical one. If she should die before bearing heirs, the De la Veg seal on the Hellgate would forever be destroyed with no way to renew it. If as many as five seals are destroyed, the Hellgate will open and demons will once again be free to roam the mortal world.

- Alcoholic: Aries often retreats into a bottle to burn away her inner demons (or literal ones) tha make sleep a difficult venture. She has often had to spring for liver treatments from the Tengu and their sophisticated medical science in order to continue this habit. Her friends deeply worry when she starts to drink heavily, even though she’s more of a “fun” drunk.

POWER GRID