From Flight From Darkness

Revision as of 08:39, 14 September 2012

Background

Birth and early life

Manakasha Melnora, commonly referred to as Mana by the friends, was born on the third day of calibration in RY 744, through an act of great virility of her aging father to his considerably younger second wife, in the small city-state of Dragon's Maw, located in the center parts of the eastern territories.

Of lightly tan skin, straight black hair, green eyes and slim body, the bright young lady is a picture of health.

Dragon's Maw was not a city steeped in treasures of the lost age, or even lesser modern sorcerous wonders, but it was peaceful and relatively prosperous in mundane measure, in no small part thanks to the temple-library and public school run by the local cult to Luxana. Mana's father was an apothecary, well versed in the arts of alchemy and medicine, and wealthy enough through his trade for her family to live a life of relative comfort.

Mana grew as a happy, inquisitive and curious child. Not only would she bombard her teachers with tough questions, but also jump to her own wild speculations on what the answer might be while the supposedly wise scholar monks were still stuttering. Of course, her guesses were rarely even close to correct, but their accuracy kept increasing with her age, occasionally hitting truths even monks hadn't heard about, and sometimes ones they were uncomfortable with.

To Mana, Luxana herself was an object of admiration, respect and even idolation, but never worship. Mana was thankful for the learning Luxana had provided for her, and firmly believed in the idea of spreading peace and prosperity through enlightenment and knowledge. Above all else, though, she wanted to *be* Luxana. After all, it was learning that she loved, reading was just a necessary evil. Being able to know everything that's written down, even as it's written down, how cool is that? And the opportunities for communication, ooh...

The monks would urge young Mana to take a more reverent attitude and show her gratitude to Luxana in prayer, to which Mana would reply by taking out her diary and showing them the latest page where she'd already written her words of appreciation and explain how it's more efficient that way. Within those pages were contained her ideas and theories about everything within creation, as well as beyond. Everyone around her was sick of listening to her, and even those who claimed to be interested mostly just smiled and nodded, but surely her big sister in Heaven truly wished to hear what she had to say. Or write, anyway.

Mana bugged her father to teach her alchemy, and when he indulged those wishes, she took to the art like fire to the wind, unlike her two decade older half-brother, Torus. The crafts of wood and water, for the preparation of the ingredients, came easy to her as well. Mana soon grew bored with medicine, and begun making recipes of her own. Any surviving citizens of Dragon's Maw still cringe over the mention of potions of Mana. Her experients ground to a halt when the perfectly functioning elixir meant to facilitate enrichment of minerals in one's digestive tract had the unfortunate side effect of rendering the family dog it was tested upon dead. On her tenth birthday, no less.

Years rolled by, and it was soon her twentieth birthday. Her father, growing quite old, had gathered the entire family for some big announcement. Everyone figured that he was going to name Mana to succeed his business. As he was raising the toast, however, he got a sudden heart attack, and died.

Torus, who was in many ways jealous and resentful of Mana, succeeded the family business, and left Mana and her mother in relative poverty. Mana found employment as a teacher at the school. Her quirky, enthusiastic and friendly nature made her well liked by her pupils, even though they had a lot of trouble following her.

Fall of Creation

About a year or so before all hell broke loose, literally, a solar later identified as Lux Aeterna waltzed through Dragon's Maw. Again literally. He was passing through the streets in dance staps while playing a violin. Mana herself did not directly witness this, but most of those who did, including Torus, Followed Lux Aeterna out of the city, never to be seen again. Mana quitely took over the now unoccupied pharmacy that used to belong to her father.

Then one day, she woke to find that the entire city was covered in green fire. Somehow she made it through the chaos to the city gate, only to find the horrible truth. Dragon's Maw was not under direct attack, the sea of lime flame carried out as far as the eye could see. What's worse, being doused in water or consuming the matter it was flickering on didn't seem to work at all.

Even though the situation was hopeless, Manakasha was trying to think of a way to quench the obviously magical flames. She only managed ideas that were practically impossible to pull off in the situation, however.

Then the skies darkened and a feeling of sickness and chill came over Mana, like she suddenly breathing cooking oil. She vomited on the spot, but as she rose her head, she could see the fires dying around her. Immediately she realized what had happened; the city had turned into a shadowland, and the flames were unable to sustain themselves on necrotic essence.

For a few days, the survivors, already quite few in number, were forced to live within the shadowland. As irony would have it, it was the safest place to be at the time. Ghosts of locals showed up at night, but they showed no hostility, and rather helped their progeny in ways they could, which were not many. For better or for worse, no contact was made from the rest of the Underworld. Mana wished to hear the secrets of death from those who had already experienced it, but had her hands full tending to the wounds of the living.

Eventually, the flames outside came down, leaving the landscape not only scorched, but sickly as well. The survivors then faced a choice: to live in the dust and decay inside, or the ash and taint outside. Almost everyone chose stay in the shadowland, some committed suicide, and a few wandered into the Underworld, which was essentially the same thing.

But Mana, she *had* to learn what was going on in the world. She gathered what little supplies she could, and set out. After a few weeks of travel, famished and weak, she noticed something huge and artificial in the sky. She fired her makeshift fireworks, and passed out.

Toward Wyld and Beyond!

When Mana came to, she was aboard the Sweet Rain, already advancing into the Wyld. The medical officer explained to her that Creation had been lost and everyone she knew was gone forever. She had a panic attack as she processed that. Later, after she had calmed down, she learned that someone who was important to her and had had a big influence in her life was indeed aboard the ship: Luxana.

Mana knew that this could not be mere coincidence, she knew that she had to meet big sis face to face, and the very idea made her stomach all tingly. Throughout all these years she had been keeping her diary, though all but the latest one were lost when Dragon's Maw burned.

So, Mana joined the technical corps, and soon nearly killed herself by unbolting an online essence conduit. She was about to be booted from the corps when it became obvious that she had no competence for magitech maintenance, but she pled desperately to be allowed to stay, she'd learn. She'd learn everything. She'd learn it fast. With a sigh, Momo put her on a crash course with Tulian on strict and severe conditions.

Mana breezed through the crash course, of course. The crafts of fire and air did not come to her quite as easily as those of water and wood had, but ultimately offered her little difficulty. Tulian commended her for field work soon, as to avoid hearing yet another theory on just why the Wyld is so malleable, and so began Mana's time as a handiman.

One day during her first month aboard, Mana was called on while she was in her quarters, by a man introducing himself as a representative of the Guild. He told her he had heard that she knew something of the art of alchemy, and asked if this was correct. First she fruitlessly inquired into the man's sources, then confirmed the rumors he had heard. The man offered some small conveniences and comforts in exchange for the occasional use of these skills. The Guild would provide the equipment and materials. Mana agreed, choosing not to think about where the Guild got the materials, or how they used the products.

Ever since Mana left the shadowland of Dragon's Maw, there has been a disconcerting outside presence within her mind. Sometimes she would hear words of death and darkness, and occasionally there would be flashes of horrible imagery. She considers this to be caused by stress and trauma.

The repair and maintenance work Mana did was certainly important, but it was tedious and boring. She wasn't learning anything new, or doing anything to improve the situation - just uphold it. The labor of a grease monkey was also way too physical and dirty for her liking. She didn't enjoy the work, and she felt it a waste of her talents, but worst of all, she never got to meet Luxana.

One day, roughly a year after she had arrived on board, she was musing to her team about how the whole idea of traving "into" the Wyld is folly. There's nothing to show that the very concepts of movement or distance even exist in the pure chaos outside the Sweet Rain's energy shield. As usual, no one in her team was paying any attention to her. A young man wearing a jacket with the tech corps insignia came and grabbed her sleeve then, and told her to come with him. The rest of the team smiled, almost grinned, and told her to go, they would handle the work.

The man led the confused Mana to the closest archive room, and introduced himself as Shining the Test Light. What followed was a storm of conversation and debate over ideas and theories both mundane and esoteric. Mana was overjoyed, it was the first time she ever met anyone who had both the will and the ability to follow her trains of thought. They both showed each other to be wrong on things, right on other things, and together spawned ideas wilder and theories crazier than each had ever had on their own - and that's saying something. The exchange ended with "You should totally join the Light Brigade!"

And so, for the last three years, Mana has been searching for a way to improve the situation of those aboard Sweet Rain. She's been over again and again of plans of re-reclamation of Creation, creating a new world in the Wyld and trying to reach Autochtonia and make a life there, and trying to make these plans workable, what with the huge issues they have. She's also been coming up with alternative ideas, such as trying to turn the passengers into creatures that could live in the Wyld as is like the natives, moving into illusionary subrealities, or making the ship capable of self-replication. Needless to say, those plans have even bigger issues. Shining the Testing Light, or Shine, as she calls him, listens to her issues and ideas, and offers his own input, but has little authority to act of them. Other people tend to just ignore her, and tell her to leave the planning to the exalts. This does not offer her much comfort; in her eyes the exalted may be paragons of virtue and pinnacles of superhuman ability, but there's nothing to keep them from being complete idiots.

Mana has also been reading the Black and White treatises from cover to cover time and time again. The concepts make sense to her, but try as she might, she just can not channel essence. Seeing how all other kinds of learning has come so easily to her, this frustrates her greatly. Oh, if only she could wield sorcery. Certainly she could use it to find new solutions to this mess. And there's so many experients she wants to make with all those nifty spells.

And where the heck is Luxana? Is she really aboard this ship? Really watching over the tech corps? Really reading the diary dedicated to her? Is she purposedly avoiding Mana? Why?

Soon, the spark of genius will meet the dark voice in the back of Mana's head, and she will have her most wonderful and horrible idea yet...