Azalea Isra | Ghost

Azalea Isra

A sad tale of carefully self-controlled cowardice

All her rational thinking life, she hated the way humans, that on the outside appeared to be like her, treated others. Cyborgs were cool. Mages were fantastic. People, of all kinds, were wonderful.

At least, they should have been. Cyborgs they treated like tools, like slaves. Mages they treated worse than the animals and flora they resembled. However, all these atrocities, these actions borne of prejudice and hatred, and what did she do? Wasted her life away studying human anthropology, early 21st century culture, listening to music that caused physical illness, seeing the history her people repeated of intolerance and violence, and playing the quirky games created before the days of VR. Speaking privately against atrocity, but never doing anything.

She always enjoyed running. She'd started at an early age, running all through her childhood, competing against her peers, and persisting well into her adult life, claiming health as her primary reason. The truth? Because she was a coward, it made her feel powerful, it made her feel safe, or it explains why she ran from Tatara?

Maybe.

That's the word that defined her life. Maybe: a word without action. She did nothing of note or consequence, and remained safe, despite her feelings, right until her death. Then she defied Tatara, and her story began.

She seeks USB to possess in order to hide, and to write more manuscripts to send to her publisher. She sends them whenever she's attached to a terminal, so long as she can do so while the owner does not see. She has been seeking a companion to haunt with good feelings, to alleviate her loneliness.

Fond of buns and crazy colored hair that somehow still seemed to be a mess upon her head. Her thick lens glasses accompanied by thick rims over dark brown eyes and darker bags beneath. She had a pointed nose that ended in a manner some had insisted was fun to "poke". Her lips were thin, she pursed them when she was cross. However, much to her ire, her face, even when overcome with fierce rage, was, in fact, adorable.

She'd always looked young, and it wasn't until her young thirties that people stop mistaking her for a teen. She'd hated it growing up, having cashiers insisting she had a fake I.D. as old as twenty-six. Then she hit her mid-thirties and she was "a cougar". She enjoyed the attention for a time, as suitors young and old came to call on her.

Then she realized it was her physique, not her studies or self, that they sought, and she left the dating sphere altogether. She'd always had eclectic tastes in style. Now she made certain no one would find her desirable with her gaudy colors and eccentric attire. She was certainly a sight to behold, but more the cuckoolander than the woman aged like fine wine.


Fond of turtle-neck sweaters, leggings and dress pants; sweater dresses, loud coats, and big purses. A variety of colors. A show to show, and hide, herself.

Parents
Mother: Ginger Smith-Isra (deceased)
Father: Richard Isra (deceased)

Extended Family
Not worthy of mention.


Sometimes I wonder if his parents knew he'd be a dick. They called him Dick. Sure it was Richard, but it was Dick too, and he was a dick. It was his name, and my mother who believed his lies of love, that made me. Tried to use his name on me too. Mother found out. For the first time in her life, she told him no. Not directly, of course. I'm like my mother dearest, bless her heart. Informed the government, got him locked away, and got our names changed and moved far away.

I didn't take her too seriously when she told me he was getting out of prison. There was no way he'd find us after all. I didn't notice when she called, busy writing my research paper to published for peer-review in an academic journal about the Baby Flu (the illness affecting women, mostly young, that came from Jason Baby's music in the early 21st century). It wasn't until the knocks at the door, and the word that she'd been right to worry that I finally stopped running from my memories.

I wept bitter tears that night. The next few months of my life were devoted to destroying the man who was my father in court. I took our story to the news. I wrote editorial pieces about it, quickly after receiving my doctorate, granting me immense PR. I made myself a titan, and I crushed him beneath my heel. By the time he made it to prison, his story, my story, were so well known that he was murdered his first night back. I was a little girl, my mother a young woman, both afraid the first time he went. Men do not mess with gods.

It was hubris, but the only time I felt alive. I enjoyed the attention, and the rapture that attention brought me in the form of many suitors. I was powerful and desirable right up until the moment my persona had surpassed me. My accomplishments were overshadowed by his legacy.

I destroyed it all. I made a mad woman out of myself: the woman obsessed with the quirkiness of times centuries past. I wrote guides to games centuries old before there was any interest. I was the paragon of the odd, pioneering the interests of the weird with her works and creating something of a cult following. It persisted this way right up until I was seen as showing scorn for his advances, his delusions shattered, and my life immediately after as he choked it out of me.

Since she fled Tatara's guidance, she's hid inside electronics to avoid notice by both mediums, spirits, and deities. She writes of her experiences, and sends the manuscripts to her publisher. She loves "life" even more than she did when she lived. Now she seeks to a companion to spend her eternity with. In the meantime, she feeds upon rational thought and positive feeling: the things she strove for in life.

Tech Communication: As a wandering Soul you have learned to use technology as a medium of communicating with the living. Wither that be static on a radio or electronically typing, you are capable of doing this now.

Aura: Similar to a Zero Magi's Empathy abilities, you can project a certain emotion onto one other living being. The emotions obviously vary from a sense of dread to sadness to anger.

Possession I: You are capable of temporarily inhabiting an item. In lore the most popular choice for a Soul to possess is a doll but, eh. You do you.




E.M.O. I: Emotional Materialized Orb, better known as E.M.O. Because you as a ghost dwell within the same plane of existence as Spirits you are more likely to come across them. The most effective defensive measure one can take is to utilize EMO. By deeply focusing on one powerful memory in your past you need to channel all of those intense emotions. From there the emotions will manifest into a glowing orb which can then be aimed at the antagonistic spirit as a projectile. At this level you can manage to throw one orb at a time.

Details: Azalea felt a tugging at the core of her being. She tried to ignore it, to persist in writing her manuscripts, but the longer she tried the greater the pull she could feel inside her being. It grew increasingly persistent until she could no longer stand it: like hair being viciously pulled from a sensitive scalp. She'd leave her dear friend Samuel a message:

"I must go. I do not know when I will be back. Please do not worry about me. I will message you when I can.

Dr. A.I."

She'd leave with a conviction she did not understand, and within her grew the will to see this through: a power she did not know she had.

E.M.O. II: At this level you can manage to throw multiple orbs at once which will explode upon contact. This often leaves the spirit in a sticky ectoplasmic trap.

Details: She'd been months of living in constant terror, constant fear: a memory without end that defined her existence, rather than a brief moment in her life. As she looked at this spirit now, dreading the true death that might very well be hers. She launched out the entirety of this string of memories, of this fundamental part of her existence: a perpetual state of paranoia and terror of things just like it.

Spirit Whisperer Your chances of rolling a neutral/positive Spirit encounter rises by 20% making negative/antagonistic Spirit rolls less likely.

Details: She wasn't sure whether it was her months of hiding, or her insistence on a positive diet. Perhaps it was they way she always looked over her shoulder, and kept an eye on the horizon, the sky, and behind every crossing obstacle, paranoid and terrified of her true demise. She seemed to only seem to see things that did not seem malicious, even as she traveled past Camlorn, though she observed much as she hid in various electronics while hitchhiking across Ethea, she never felt like she was in any imminent danger. May this luck persist and keep her safe in later days.

Spirit Tamer: Your chances of rolling a neutral/positive Spirit encounter rises by 50% making negative/antagonistic Spirit rolls less likely. You can even attempt to befriend spirits and have a chance of success.



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Lantern of Diogenes
A old iron lantern that shines brighter when there are ghosts nearby. All ghosts cast within the light become opaque and corporal.

[b]Mangaka, Elise[/b] as [i]Azalea Isra[/i]