Shen Mantrinka
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Shen Mantrinka | |
| Player: @KrigSyler | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Defender |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Unknown |
| Known Aliases: | Shen, Shadow Witch, Dark Mistress |
| Species: | Presumed Human |
| Age: | 30s |
| Height: | 5'5" |
| Weight: | 130 |
| Eye Color: | Deep Brown |
| Hair Color: | Black with Red Highlights |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Presumed Chinese |
| Occupation: | Hero and Advisor |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Base of Operations: | Unknown |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Confidential |
| Known Powers | |
| Mastry of Shadows and Energy Manipulation | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Flight | |
| Equipment | |
| Minimalistic | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Affiliations
Open Circuit, Resting Breeze, Destinee Fable, Nemine Lecte, Stonehendge, Juggertha, Jolly-Roger
Supergroup: The Seekers
Personality
She carries herself with confidence and a playful level of being at ease with her surroundings. She speaks only with a slight accent of her native language. What she says is often of multiple levels of meaning both filled with wisdom and compasion. There is aplayful side to her in the form of word play she finds so fascinating in the English language.
Powers
As you might have read in her background, she is gifted as few are in the ability to control and manipulate shadow magic and also pure energy. Later on in her teachings she found it ever prudent to fight darkness with darkness to wear down her opponents then using pure energy to show them the light at the end of their tunnel of crime. The Paragon hero registration has labeled her powers as follows:
Armor
As her control over the powers of shadow and energy she has found a way to wrap herself in a fog of shadowy tendrils making it very difficult to see. Weapons systems find it difficult to lock on and some forms of energy do not even penitrate this protective shroud or darkness.
The Seekers
History
The light reflecting off of the meditation pool dances with the shadows across Shen's face, but today, she doesn't notice. The tears glisten in her dark eyes as she rereads the crumpled and tear stained letter. She came here once more to meditate on the news, to find peace and balance, but all she finds are memories.
It has been a week now. Seven days pass so slowly when you spend them remembering, re-living your life. All of the bad times seem so insignificant now as she remembers her life as "just another orphan" in China's bustling Shanghai back alleys.
It was a cold autumn day when they changed her life. She was digging though a garbage bin for scraps of food, when they, an old man and woman approached her. She nearly ran away, fearing that they were "recruiters" for the gangs that capture girls like herself and use them for illicit purposes, but something in their demeanor stopped her.
It took nearly a half hour of bribes of tasty food for her to get past her fears though, but she did finally relent as the growl in her belly grew with each passing moment. They brought her to a restaurant just down the block, and let her order whatever she wanted. She did. They ate mostly in silence and she was under the impression that she was being weighed, tested, or measured for something but she had no idea what. Perhaps these strangers trusted her about as much as she trusted them, or anyone for that matter.
After eating, she prepared herself to bolt out the door and away from these strange but kind people, but then the woman offered to buy her new clothes as well. Her suspicions tingling again, she cautiously accepted, they were true to their word on the food at any rate. Perhaps they were just wealthy eccentrics trying to assuage their guilt by pampering a guttersnipe. If that was the case, she decided she didn’t mind being the one they chose. A new robe would help her stay warm in the coming winter.
They brought her to a clothing shop and picked out several sets of clothing. She tried on shoes until they found 3 pairs. After that she and the lady went to a spa where Shen for the first time in her life was cleaned up and cared for as if she were important. She was bathed, massaged, and given a strange kind of reflexology combined with acupuncture. A Hair cut, nails, lotions, and a very subtle sandalwood perfume were almost more than she could believe. She had to stifle a cry of shock when she heard the lady pay the bill that would have been enough money to last her two or more years on the street. She got the impression that these people had plans for her.
"Perhaps I should make a break for it now," she thought. Why would they spend so much on her if they didn’t plan on using her in some way, or worse selling her on the Black Market. She had lived on the street for years now, and she heard the stories of what happens to girls who aren’t careful. Was that what this was? For some reason she couldn’t believe it. She trusted these two people, and she didn’t have a clue as to why.
All of what she had learned on the street had been turned on it's head this morning. Trusting no one and stealing away with tidbits and diving in dumpsters for food stopped instantly. These people weren’t forcing her; they actually let her make decisions. They had given her what she was never allowed to have for nearly a dozen years now. Then, as they finished packing a car full of all they had purchased for her, the thing she had dreaded came to pass, the "catch." She would never forget those words.
"Would you like to learn something special?" the woman asked her.
She instantly panicked inside. They were going to take her to some boarding school or facility where she would be educated just enough to be their slave labor force, to please gentlemen callers and the like.
"What special thing could I be taught?" she said with a slight sneer, ready to bolt off down the street.
"We can bring you to a school where you can learn whatever you want, or you can come with us and we will teach you how to have balance in your life." said the woman.
She snorted, backing away, "Your joking right? You'll turn me into something I don't want to be, and use me for money and gain."
"We give you our word of honor that you will not be turned into anything that you are not already." the woman said. She even looked honest and serious. She looked in the woman’s eyes and then the man’s. She felt something there that stirred something deep within her soul. Somehow, she knew they weren’t lying. Somehow she knew that they were the best hope for her future. She had nothing to loose anyway, it was only a matter of time before the streets claimed her life.
Emotion welled up in her and a tear formed in her eyes as she blurted, "I want to learn special stuff, like you said. Stuff you can't learn in school."
They smiled as if they knew some secret she didn't, "Very well."
The drive was so long she had fallen asleep for what must have been several hours and awoke only to find they were still driving, deeper into the mountains, farther and farther from cities and lights and people. There would be no chance to run away now. They had traveled so far from civilization that the road was no longer a road at all, but a cart path and even that ended near the tree line of a forest at the base of a mountain.
All three of them grabbed her supplies and clothing and made their way up a small path. They took a break whenever she wanted to and they had brought some food so they could gain some energy. It was the first time in her life that she had been so far from a city that she couldn't hear it. She couldn't even feel it. There was no pulse of the society out here half way up a mountain. The sounds of the wildlife and woods were so loud and new. This whole day seemed like a dream. Part of her wanted to pinch herself and wake up and the other part kept slapping the pinching hand so it couldn't.
It was getting dark and flashlights attached to head-bands were passed out. Another couple hours and they came to an opening in the forest giving way to about a twenty foot circle of short grass. And on the far side, a wooden door bound in iron with no handle or visible hinges stood against a smooth rock face on the side of the mountain they had been climbing.
The air was just starting to get cool enough to see your breath but they were all warm from the long hike. The lady approached the door and said something very softly. What happened next was simply amazing. The door was split into two equal halves by a golden line of light and the doors swung towards them. The golden light was bright enough to illuminate four slender statues that she had previously not noticed. She knew they represented spirit guardians. They faced away from the doorway as if protecting it. Usually these were only placed at cemetery entrances to keep out the angry ghosts of wrongfully deceased people.
She felt that she was being observed by these statues though. They were not just carved stone but felt somehow alive or aware or something she could not explain. They made her uncomfortable as if she was being allowed to enter but if she had managed to be here alone she would not have been allowed to stay. She had the impression they were indeed going to start moving if she did anything wrong. She did not want to do anything wrong.
The door was now open and the golden light had faded a bit as their eyes adjusted to the light of a small room lit by several torches. Once inside, the lady said something under her breath and the door proceeded to close. Once closed, the room was oppressively quiet only the sound of the burning torches filled the silence. They waited for a couple of minutes and then someone dressed in black and white robes with grey patterns came though a doorway in the rock, one so well concealed that even her two chaperones didn’t seem to have noticed. The person had a cart for their belongings. They went deeper into the heart of the mountain and then entered an elevator. They went up for a long time
When they came out of the elevator, they were in a room filled with chairs and tables likely designed for study instead of eating. Lights hung from the ceiling and the sounds of people doing things started to trickle in as the robed person asked, "Where will she be staying?"
The lady replied, "Up in the spare room. We will catch up to you in a bit young lady. We have some quick business to attend to."
"Follow me." the man said, and they made their way along the side to a corridor that led to another elevator. They went up three floors and down the hallway to door #37. The robed person produced a set of keys and opened the door. Entering he pulled the cart through and piled all the belongings on the floor. Then he bowed and left, taking the empty cart and closing the door behind.
The room had everything she could have ever wanted after living on the street for so many years. There was a bed, a real bed and not just some rolled up blankets, a full length mirror, a small bathroom with a tub, toilet, sink, towels, and another mirror. She had a large square table with six chairs and a book case that took up two full walls, floor to ceiling and filled with books of all colors, shapes and sizes. There was a beautiful Persian rug on the floor depicting a scene of a man and woman wielding what looked like magical swords holding back a hoard of demons from attacking women and children. The man’s sword was white and the lady’s was black. There was a tapestry hanging above the headboard of the bed of what must be the same two people or perhaps another pair of similarly looking people entwined in a loving embrace.
The room had the scent of flowers but she could find none in the room. She took off her new shoes and placed them on the mat next to the door and walked about the room. She ran her fingers over the spines of the books, the table, and a chair and then dove on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling twinkled. As she peered closer she noticed that the glints were stars painted with a shiny, gold paint. There were constellations and other symbols she didn’t know all over the ceiling. The bed was soft and pulled at her for sleep. She was tired and she was sleeping in no time.
A shimmer of light across her eye snaps her back to the present. She looks at the letter in her hands, not reading, for she has it memorized now. She knew the day would come but hoped it would not have come before she felt like her abilities had come into full bloom. Many a night since she received the letter has she sat and reflected on the ripples in her meditation room's small pool, the light and dark dancing, moving, and always seeking balance.
She had gained a great deal of knowledge since she left them to work with the Seekers. She had maintained contact with them of course, she loved them, as if they were her parents, and, in a way, they were. They have marveled at and taken pride in her abilities, and had constantly expressed their hopes that she would return one day and share her knowledge at the school so that more could spread their teachings to those in need.
And now they are gone, and her time has come.
