07-01-2017, 10:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-24-2017, 11:32 AM by Ebonywood Hellscythe.)
Past History (pre-Omniverse)
Catherine Windsdale grew up on a prosperous, yet isolated, island in a medieval, magical renaissance, era. For much of her early life, she was shuffled from place to place to undergo training for her immense magical strength. She was, for all intents and purposes, "the chosen one". She didn't want that, and as time went on her magic began to seem more and more uncontrollable. One would have to give credit to her many instructors, that hadn't given up. Over this period, she read books. Mostly fiction. Books of warriors and heroes. She wanted to be like them. What was the point wasting her life away when she could be out there, doing something, anything, useful? She was naive and idyllic to a fault, even going so far as to romanticise the idea of being a country farmer.
In the little free time she had, she wrote books. Storybooks about a girl much like herself: Ebonywood Hellscythe. A student in the magician's academy by day, crime fighter by night (aptly named after the cool magic scythe Ebony crafted: 50% Awesome, 50% Cool, 100% Ebonywood, and 200% Justice). She didn't understand why people would commit crimes, fight over money, or steal food. Surely they could just get a job, or grow their food on a farm? Catherine decided on the fact that they were just evil. Not the same evil of her magic instructor forcing her to wake up at sunrise on a weekday. But evil nonetheless.
Her writing was about as good as you'd expect from a 14-year-old girl who'd seen little of the outside world. Sometimes, if she was really lucky, her teacher would tell her stories of his past. The funny things he got up to in magic school. She was sad. She wanted to go to school, as strange as that might be for a child to say. Instead, she was locked away in a tower, ever since they took her away from the orphanage she spent her young child years in. Her only taste of the outdoors was the castle garden, but she wasn't a fan of flowers - some had prickly bits and others made her sneeze. They looked nice, but she'd rather roll around in the grass - despite getting in trouble for doing so.
Later in the 14th year of her life, celebrations filled the land about the ending of a war she never knew of. "The Demons Are Dead" read one of the banners. She didn't know what Demons were, but she figured they must be evil. Dead. She knew what that meant from her books. It was meant to be sad. When something was gone. She wished early bedtimes were dead. That wouldn't be sad. So maybe Demons were just a bad thing? She did have a formal education. Maths, literature, science, but mostly magic. There was lots of theory they wanted her to remember. That was hard.
The day after her 16th "Birthday" was the last day she saw her guardian. He'd been swapped for a collection of mages, ones deemed skilled enough to do a better job of teaching her. They were getting impatient, and she didn't know why. She still had a modicum of free time, and occasionally cut out her sleep to continue to read and write. It was during that year where she actually began to get a true interest in magic - but not because of her teachers. She had come to the revelation that magic was actually really cool. It was just that the old people's boring-ness got in the way.
This all happened one day while she was browsing the library looking for books about weaponry. She needed to make sure Ebonywood Hellscythe's ebonywood hellscythe was factually accurate, after all. She'd stumbled across a book called Military Arts and Strategy Revised. What intrigued her was the image of magic on the cover. A swirling spell flowing around a steel sword. It looked pretty cool and interesting. Upon opening and scanning the contents, she noticed that the foreword of this book recommended reading the practical sections of two other books: What is Magic? and Everyday Uses of Mathematics and the Arcane - for Everyone. She read them. She read all of them. She didn't quite understand the theory or maths - those bits were confusing. But the books assured her that such a deep knowledge wasn't really needed if she herself had the mana, and according to her teachers and the many accidental damages she'd caused, she certainly did have a lot of magic stored away in her small frame.
What was good about the books was the "mind association game". Rather that just making a constipated expression and waving her arms about to try and shoot a blast of fire, the book suggested the use of chants or incantations to hone the mind of the caster. And it didn't even tell her a specific line to say. No, it said she could say whatever she wanted as long as it worked for her. Whatever cool phrase she desired. She really wanted to try it out sometime. She also wanted Ebony to try it out sometime as well. The books had given her some good ideas for writing, but she didn't really understand the strategy sections. The sword bit looked cool though, but she still thought Ebonywood Hellscythe's ebonywood hellscythe was cooler. The combination of dark black wood and a shiny silver crescent moon shaped blade made it really appeal to her. Not that Ebony used the blade. She was too good to need it. She could beat up the bad guys with the wooden pole and send them to the stocks where all the people they wronged would throw rotten tomatoes at them. Yuck. But that was their punishment for being evil.
Regardless, over the next few months, Catherine kept a small pocket booklet filled with spells she'd invented with phrases to go with them. She had no idea if they'd actually work, but the words looked fun to say. She'd never test speaking or using them, however, but Ebony had, of course, used them inside her written adventures. Ebony wasn't scared. Ebony was brave.
It was at the end of those months where Catherine's first true Magic Surge occurred. It had been a usual lesson. And by concentrating enough she'd just managed to blow over a stack of paper, namely by building up the confidence to speak "wind". The only problem was what happened afterwards, during the mage's congratulations and shock.
Gusts of wind, clumps of hardened earth, swirls of fire, and flowing spheres of water shot out of her palms and flew around the room. She remembered little of it besides waking up in a medical bed afterwards, but she never saw that mage again. She was given a black leather choker with a shining silver buckle and instructed to wear it. It was designed to suppress her magic to prevent that from happening again.
Despite the shock of the incident, Catherine's magical control did increase. She could general cast the spells she wanted with enough thought and chanting. It was hard to focus on them sometimes, so she pretended she was Ebony and that the spell she was casting was needed to catch the evil criminals.
By the time she was seventeen, they started asking her to do spells she didn't like. She didn't want to hurt people with magic, even if it was just a dummy. Ebony didn't really hurt anyone, not much. She just beat them up a bit. But the ice spikes they asked of her were sharp. She could really hurt someone with one of those. She didn't want that, but when she said no they got angry.
So she left. In the cover of darkness, she melted the bars off her window and climbed down - using her magic to help her. She brought little with her besides a bag containing the books she'd written, a couple of coins she'd picked up because they were shiny, and the three library books that had helped her. She'd later learned that the general "casting spells with words" techniques were heavily frowned upon my the mage community - it was deemed as unskilled and a mere novice method of casting spells. Catherine thought that was silly, who wouldn't want to shout spell phrases with their magic?
She got lucky. Very lucky. While she was durable and could probably fend for herself in generic combat, she was also naive and would likely refuse to do so. But she wasn't stupid. She knew how much money was worth and what it could buy. She knew the mages back at the castle would try to track her down. And they knew her name, and what she looked like. Thinking to herself she spoke some quiet words under her breath. Her eyes flickered red briefly before reverting back to their natural green. Her previously blond hair was now black. As dark as the night.
Eventually, she made it to the port of the city under her new disguise. She'd always thought boats were interesting. While travelling, she saw guards running about through the streets, but they had paid her no notice. In order to keep it that way, she turned quickly into another street. However, in the darkness, she bumped into the captain of a trade ship. He was old, maybe in his fifties.
"What are you doing on your own in the dark, lass?"
"I-I... umm."
He sighed and bent down slightly. "Where's your home, I can take you back there? Are you lost?"
"I... I don't have one." That might have been a partial lie, but at this point, she saw it as the truth.
He rubbed his head. "Well... what's your name?"
She steadied herself. "Ebony. Ebonywood Hellscythe."
And thus the adventures of Ebonywood Hellscythe began. She was an asset to the crew, able to manipulate the winds to assist in their travels. She may have learnt much about how to use a ship during this time, but besides that and perhaps becoming a tad more confident around people she knew, in her heart she very much stayed the same person. She occasionally practised sword fighting with the crew, sometimes using the scythe she eventually made for herself. It was fun. Like a game.
Her time on the ship had had an interesting effect on the crew. Maybe it was her optimism? Naivety? Or generally her cheery nature, but her time there had lightened the lives and behaviour of the sailors. So much so, that rather than being exposed to the harsh nature of the sea, the crew had yet again sheltered her. Much like her time in the tower, except here in a much more meaningful way.
A year passed and Catherine, now Ebony, turned eighteen. No questions were ever asked about her past by the crew, but they did celebrate her "birthday" after she'd divulged that much. The week afterwards a storm hit the ship. A large sudden storm. It had come out of nowhere. And in that moment of need, her magic failed her. She tried. She screamed chants and incantations into the air. But nothing. Nothing came of them as the ship was engulfed by the waves. She was scared. It was then, that Omni took her.
Catherine Windsdale grew up on a prosperous, yet isolated, island in a medieval, magical renaissance, era. For much of her early life, she was shuffled from place to place to undergo training for her immense magical strength. She was, for all intents and purposes, "the chosen one". She didn't want that, and as time went on her magic began to seem more and more uncontrollable. One would have to give credit to her many instructors, that hadn't given up. Over this period, she read books. Mostly fiction. Books of warriors and heroes. She wanted to be like them. What was the point wasting her life away when she could be out there, doing something, anything, useful? She was naive and idyllic to a fault, even going so far as to romanticise the idea of being a country farmer.
In the little free time she had, she wrote books. Storybooks about a girl much like herself: Ebonywood Hellscythe. A student in the magician's academy by day, crime fighter by night (aptly named after the cool magic scythe Ebony crafted: 50% Awesome, 50% Cool, 100% Ebonywood, and 200% Justice). She didn't understand why people would commit crimes, fight over money, or steal food. Surely they could just get a job, or grow their food on a farm? Catherine decided on the fact that they were just evil. Not the same evil of her magic instructor forcing her to wake up at sunrise on a weekday. But evil nonetheless.
Her writing was about as good as you'd expect from a 14-year-old girl who'd seen little of the outside world. Sometimes, if she was really lucky, her teacher would tell her stories of his past. The funny things he got up to in magic school. She was sad. She wanted to go to school, as strange as that might be for a child to say. Instead, she was locked away in a tower, ever since they took her away from the orphanage she spent her young child years in. Her only taste of the outdoors was the castle garden, but she wasn't a fan of flowers - some had prickly bits and others made her sneeze. They looked nice, but she'd rather roll around in the grass - despite getting in trouble for doing so.
Later in the 14th year of her life, celebrations filled the land about the ending of a war she never knew of. "The Demons Are Dead" read one of the banners. She didn't know what Demons were, but she figured they must be evil. Dead. She knew what that meant from her books. It was meant to be sad. When something was gone. She wished early bedtimes were dead. That wouldn't be sad. So maybe Demons were just a bad thing? She did have a formal education. Maths, literature, science, but mostly magic. There was lots of theory they wanted her to remember. That was hard.
The day after her 16th "Birthday" was the last day she saw her guardian. He'd been swapped for a collection of mages, ones deemed skilled enough to do a better job of teaching her. They were getting impatient, and she didn't know why. She still had a modicum of free time, and occasionally cut out her sleep to continue to read and write. It was during that year where she actually began to get a true interest in magic - but not because of her teachers. She had come to the revelation that magic was actually really cool. It was just that the old people's boring-ness got in the way.
This all happened one day while she was browsing the library looking for books about weaponry. She needed to make sure Ebonywood Hellscythe's ebonywood hellscythe was factually accurate, after all. She'd stumbled across a book called Military Arts and Strategy Revised. What intrigued her was the image of magic on the cover. A swirling spell flowing around a steel sword. It looked pretty cool and interesting. Upon opening and scanning the contents, she noticed that the foreword of this book recommended reading the practical sections of two other books: What is Magic? and Everyday Uses of Mathematics and the Arcane - for Everyone. She read them. She read all of them. She didn't quite understand the theory or maths - those bits were confusing. But the books assured her that such a deep knowledge wasn't really needed if she herself had the mana, and according to her teachers and the many accidental damages she'd caused, she certainly did have a lot of magic stored away in her small frame.
What was good about the books was the "mind association game". Rather that just making a constipated expression and waving her arms about to try and shoot a blast of fire, the book suggested the use of chants or incantations to hone the mind of the caster. And it didn't even tell her a specific line to say. No, it said she could say whatever she wanted as long as it worked for her. Whatever cool phrase she desired. She really wanted to try it out sometime. She also wanted Ebony to try it out sometime as well. The books had given her some good ideas for writing, but she didn't really understand the strategy sections. The sword bit looked cool though, but she still thought Ebonywood Hellscythe's ebonywood hellscythe was cooler. The combination of dark black wood and a shiny silver crescent moon shaped blade made it really appeal to her. Not that Ebony used the blade. She was too good to need it. She could beat up the bad guys with the wooden pole and send them to the stocks where all the people they wronged would throw rotten tomatoes at them. Yuck. But that was their punishment for being evil.
Regardless, over the next few months, Catherine kept a small pocket booklet filled with spells she'd invented with phrases to go with them. She had no idea if they'd actually work, but the words looked fun to say. She'd never test speaking or using them, however, but Ebony had, of course, used them inside her written adventures. Ebony wasn't scared. Ebony was brave.
It was at the end of those months where Catherine's first true Magic Surge occurred. It had been a usual lesson. And by concentrating enough she'd just managed to blow over a stack of paper, namely by building up the confidence to speak "wind". The only problem was what happened afterwards, during the mage's congratulations and shock.
Gusts of wind, clumps of hardened earth, swirls of fire, and flowing spheres of water shot out of her palms and flew around the room. She remembered little of it besides waking up in a medical bed afterwards, but she never saw that mage again. She was given a black leather choker with a shining silver buckle and instructed to wear it. It was designed to suppress her magic to prevent that from happening again.
Despite the shock of the incident, Catherine's magical control did increase. She could general cast the spells she wanted with enough thought and chanting. It was hard to focus on them sometimes, so she pretended she was Ebony and that the spell she was casting was needed to catch the evil criminals.
By the time she was seventeen, they started asking her to do spells she didn't like. She didn't want to hurt people with magic, even if it was just a dummy. Ebony didn't really hurt anyone, not much. She just beat them up a bit. But the ice spikes they asked of her were sharp. She could really hurt someone with one of those. She didn't want that, but when she said no they got angry.
So she left. In the cover of darkness, she melted the bars off her window and climbed down - using her magic to help her. She brought little with her besides a bag containing the books she'd written, a couple of coins she'd picked up because they were shiny, and the three library books that had helped her. She'd later learned that the general "casting spells with words" techniques were heavily frowned upon my the mage community - it was deemed as unskilled and a mere novice method of casting spells. Catherine thought that was silly, who wouldn't want to shout spell phrases with their magic?
She got lucky. Very lucky. While she was durable and could probably fend for herself in generic combat, she was also naive and would likely refuse to do so. But she wasn't stupid. She knew how much money was worth and what it could buy. She knew the mages back at the castle would try to track her down. And they knew her name, and what she looked like. Thinking to herself she spoke some quiet words under her breath. Her eyes flickered red briefly before reverting back to their natural green. Her previously blond hair was now black. As dark as the night.
Eventually, she made it to the port of the city under her new disguise. She'd always thought boats were interesting. While travelling, she saw guards running about through the streets, but they had paid her no notice. In order to keep it that way, she turned quickly into another street. However, in the darkness, she bumped into the captain of a trade ship. He was old, maybe in his fifties.
"What are you doing on your own in the dark, lass?"
"I-I... umm."
He sighed and bent down slightly. "Where's your home, I can take you back there? Are you lost?"
"I... I don't have one." That might have been a partial lie, but at this point, she saw it as the truth.
He rubbed his head. "Well... what's your name?"
She steadied herself. "Ebony. Ebonywood Hellscythe."
And thus the adventures of Ebonywood Hellscythe began. She was an asset to the crew, able to manipulate the winds to assist in their travels. She may have learnt much about how to use a ship during this time, but besides that and perhaps becoming a tad more confident around people she knew, in her heart she very much stayed the same person. She occasionally practised sword fighting with the crew, sometimes using the scythe she eventually made for herself. It was fun. Like a game.
Her time on the ship had had an interesting effect on the crew. Maybe it was her optimism? Naivety? Or generally her cheery nature, but her time there had lightened the lives and behaviour of the sailors. So much so, that rather than being exposed to the harsh nature of the sea, the crew had yet again sheltered her. Much like her time in the tower, except here in a much more meaningful way.
A year passed and Catherine, now Ebony, turned eighteen. No questions were ever asked about her past by the crew, but they did celebrate her "birthday" after she'd divulged that much. The week afterwards a storm hit the ship. A large sudden storm. It had come out of nowhere. And in that moment of need, her magic failed her. She tried. She screamed chants and incantations into the air. But nothing. Nothing came of them as the ship was engulfed by the waves. She was scared. It was then, that Omni took her.