Ariel

Name: Ariel.
Age: 19.
Birthday: August 20th.
Gender: Female.
Nationality: Plegian.
Social Status: Middle-class citizen.
Occupation: Dancer in a traveling troupe.
Allegiance: Plegia, although she'd like to be kept out of the war.
Religion: Grimleal.
Affinity: Dark.
Handedness: Ambidextrous.
Literate: Yes.

Class: Dark Mage
Level: 6.
Weapon Levels: (Dark) Magic {D, 2/5}
Spells:

• Flux: Malady Spell.
  A tome Ariel picked up as quickly as she could after realizing her old tomes would no longer protect her. It’s a very simple and unimpressive spell, creating a magic cloud that implodes on itself and whoever stands in it. Interesting is that when Ariel uses it, victims seem to fall victim to mild nausea and appear disoriented for a few seconds.

Appearance:

Chibi Ariel & Raul (open) Chibi Ariel & Raul (close)

Many thanks to Squish!

If she’s not fighting, one could easily mistake Ariel for a harmless performer at first glance. The Dark Mage is slimly built, with fair skin, and is short enough to appear younger than she is. Ariel has a pair of red eyes set into a somewhat round face, as well as an impressive scalp of curly, light violet hair. Regardless of whether she’s fighting or dancing, she keeps that hair pinned up with a series of burgundy strings, leaving only a few strands to frame her face.

Normally, and especially when dancing, Ariel dresses in a sleeveless white midriff, with a V-neck and embroidered with black markings here and there, primarily on the edges. She also wears a white pair of harem pants, but dances barefoot. She does wear white, semi-see-through wide sleeves, detached from her midriff, and fastened on her upper arms by golden armlets.

However easy it is to mistake Ariel for someone incapable of combat, she has a different go-to outfit that she puts on whenever she knows she’s headed for battle. It consists of a basic black dress, long-sleeved and shin-length, as well as a pair of high boots. Unusual amongst mages, Ariel dons armor- a chestplate and pauldrons forged from a lightweight material, just thick enough to offer protection but light enough that she loses none of her agility. Much of the armor remains hidden under her burgundy mantle, though.


Personality:
Ariel is a worshipper of the Fell Dragon, but not a violent or cruel one. In fact, under normal circumstances Ariel is a very chipper, optimistic woman with energy to spare. While once a skilled mage, she’s recently had to start completely over with a kind of magic that she’s not only not used to, but also a little afraid of, but she refuses to show that it bothers her- as a performer, Ariel is very skilled at keeping her real thoughts and feelings hidden.

Although Ariel greatly enjoys the stereotypical pastimes for magic users, such as hunting new tomes and reading pretty much anything on rainy days, as well as practicing her new magic, her most obvious hobby is dancing, and if she has the choice, she will always choose dance practice over magic practice.

However, despite appearances, it’s very well possible to anger or upset Ariel. Whenever something very upsetting happens, or circumstances pile up and Ariel caves under stress, rage, or sadness, something snaps inside her and she makes a 180 degree change in personality; becoming a sadistic, blood-thirsty curse-slinger with no remorse for human life. These episodes can last for days, and when they finally end, Ariel seems to have no memory of what had happened.


Backstory:
Ariel was born not long after the former Exalt of Ylisse declared war on Plegia. Her father was a grim, but just swordsman and her mother a wielder of the Magic of Truth, and both were Grimleal, thus forced to either join the war or flee from shadow to shadow to avoid the so-called judgment of the Ylissean soldiers.

Fortunately for her, the crusades ended before she was five years old, although her parents remained wary and jumpy, never living in the same place for long. When she was ten years old, her parents decided Ariel had to learn how to protect herself in case something would happen again. While her father firmly believed that technically, anyone could learn the ways of the sword and therefore so could she, both her parents agreed that she had far more talent for the magic that her mother taught her.

Ariel was a diligent student, but picked up a different hobby at the age of twelve. When living at the border with Regna Ferox, she had stopped in town to sniff around the second-hand book stalls for old or rare tomes- she often did, and her mother had often remarked at her knack for finding unexpected gems in the rubble. As she walked along the market from stall to stall, however, she soon learnt that she had chosen the day of a festival to visit.

Performers and merchants were all over the place, more than usual, and Ariel was eventually pushed off course by the crowd. Instead of at a book stall, she found herself near the stage where a single, elegant woman stood dancing to the upbeat, fast music played by a group of musicians next to the stage.

Ariel became captivated by the woman’s fluid, seemingly uncontrolled gestures and movements, but even more so by the realization that she must have had perfect control over her body to be able to perform like that. Even after her father found her and the two returned home, the girl kept thinking about it and a few days later, she waited until both her parents were out in order to not embarrass herself, but then started her first practice session.

The path has been rough, and strewn with cuts and bruises, but over the years Ariel has built up a skill in dancing similar to that in magic, and has actually used it as a medium for controlling the magic power in her body. She’s incorporated magic gestures into her dancing both to distinguish herself from other dancers and so that one day, if she gained enough ability, she could cast spells from her dancing moves.

At the age of seventeen, Ariel was recruited by a small troupe of travelling performers in search of a second dancer to complement their ranks. She’s remained in touch with her parents ever since, but her home hasn’t stabilized any- she still travels all over the kingdom, this time to do what she likes best rather than to flee from Ylisseans.

However, last year something happened that, in retrospect, would change her life forever. The troupe cook was a Dark Mage of considerable skill and curious mind, and was experimenting with combinations of his own magic and the ingredients for dinner. He’d gone around the camp looking for a test subject, but most of the troupe members knew better than to trust him with their bodies.

Ariel had less experience with the man’s hexes, and agreed to let him try to enhance her magical power permanently. Or, as he said, to ‘break her limits.’ However, neither of them could have predicted what happened.

The cook had used an orange instead of a lemon, and the spell backfired pretty spectacularly. Others had to come in to help douse the fire that had been started by the concoction, or so Ariel heard- she wouldn’t know, herself, as she had been out cold for a whole day following the event.

When she set out to practice to get her mind off of it, Ariel noticed that her tomes would no longer supply her power- even the basic Fire tome that she borrowed from a troupe member that had recently learned Anima magic, would simply not respond to her. When the cook lent her his basic Dark tome by means of a test, it not only responded flawlessly but also a lot more fluidly than it usually did for its actual owner.

The troupe concluded that Ariel must have undergone a powerful shift in the nature of her magic, cutting off all her access to Anima magic and instead turning her into a Dark Mage. The cook wisely decided to no ask if he could study her, instead donating his tome to her so she could learn to protect herself again.

These days, Ariel is still mad at him for turning her life upside down, but what she hasn’t told anyone is that she suffers frequent blackouts, at which point the last she remembers is that something made her angry or upset.

With a new war breaking out between Ylisse and Plegia, Ariel’s troupe has kept itself under the radar in order to not be conscripted into the army. However, they have all stocked up on armor and more practical clothes in case they find themselves staying over in a town that ends up needing them in a combat situations…
-
When she got separated from her troupe, Ariel ran into the stoic Noah, the hot-tempered Emilia, and the half-blind Wolfe. Shortly after meeting up the four were attacked by bandits- a common problem in some regions of Plegia. Despite her inexperience, Ariel was able to contribute to the battle even after they got the drop on a larger group, and came out victorious, if exhausted.

RP History:
Writing contest #1: First place: +2 levels and +4/5 (Dark) Magic WEXP.
To Reclaim the Past: +3 levels, +3/5 (Dark) Magic WEXP, and Wolfe Bogenmann C-support.

Notes: If anyone is interested in making a member of Ariel’s troupe as a PC, have your people call my people. We'll do lunch.


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