Lyrel Athryna
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Contents |
Lyrel Athryna
| |
| Lyrel Athryna | |
| Player: | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Controller/Defender |
| Security Level: | 50/30 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Lyrel Athryna |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | Physiologically 35, born 1896 |
| Height: | 5'2" |
| Weight: | 110 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Green |
| Hair Color: | Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Ukrainian |
| Occupation: | Priestess of Mithros, physics professor |
| Place of Birth: | Village of Tunguska |
| Base of Operations: | The Grae Academy |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None |
| Known Powers | |
| ' | |
| Known Abilities | |
| ' | |
| Equipment | |
| ' | |
| No additional information available. | |
History
Somewhere in the Tunguska River, approximately 7:14 am, June 30, 1908...
"Lyrel! Lyrel Athryna! Where are you, child? It's almost time for the ceremony! Bring those candles, quickly!"
A young girl of twelve in long white wool robes toppled out of a storeroom amidst a clatter of small wooden boxes. Scrambling to her feet, she dusted off the box she was holding and dashed off, tripping over her robes and heedless of the dust she was covered in. She hurried down the dim hallways of the temple, finally slowing as she reached the side door of a wide room with an arched ceiling.
"Maester Namora! I.. I got the candles, where should I put them?"
An elderly man in the same white robes, with a deep purple sash, smiled kindly at her, "Oh child, look at your robes. They're filthy! Did you take it upon yourself to dust the storeroom, too?"
Lyrel looked down at herself and squeaked, "Oh no! Oh, I'm so sorry! I'll go change, it won't take but a moment!"
The maester chuckled to himself, "Don't worry child, I'm certain a little dust won't offend Mithros too much. Quickly, the Primoris Venatori will be here any moment, and we must have the site consecrated. Lay out the candles, you remember the pattern. 'Once for thy light, twice for mine sight', go on."
The young shrine maiden began to hurriedly place the dozens of candles around an ornate circle inlaid with gold in the temple floor. Just as she finished, the main doors of the ceremonial room boomed four times in measured knocks and a clear voice rang out, "Reverti inter canam et lupum! We return in the light of Mithros, for he hath guided us to our quarry!"
Maester Namora motioned hurriedly to Lyrel, and she dashed into the center of the circle, kneeling with her head bowed and her arms raised, palms up toward the sun. She looked up quickly, eyes wide with anticipation, and he nodded and gave her a wink. As she smiled and bowed her head again, the old man bellowed out a reply, "Acceptus domus sol! We welcome our hunters in the light of Mithros, for he hath guided them safely home!"
The doors opened and half a dozen lean men in dark green leather armor, wearing cloaks emblazoned with a white sunburst, entered surrounding a woman in robes of purest white carrying a brass chest. The men fanned out, forming a cone opening into the temple, and the woman walked forward, pausing only to exchange a ritual handsign with the maester, and to perform another sign over the chest before entering the circle and placing the chest on Lyrel's upturned hands.
Lyrel lowered the chest to her eye level, and began to fumble with the clasp. The woman sighed and bent to undo it for her with a simple twist.
"Thank you, Samatsuka!" Lyrel whispered with a smile. Samatsuka rolled her eyes, but a smile played over her lips.
Lyrel opened the chest and took out a crimson jewel the size of her fist. Cupping it gingerly in her hands, she began her chant, the words soft but powerful, "Dominus lumenicum, Mithros haal. Dominus lumenicum, Mithros haal. Dominus..."
Suddenly, the gem darkened from crimson to the color of dried blood, and the air pressure in the temple seemed to triple. The men in green dropped instantly from their lax postures into combat stances, drawing small curved swords that shone with white light. Samatsuka held up a fist, and they froze in place, eyes wary. She spoke soft words to the young shrine maiden.
"Child, you can do this. Let Mithros be your strength, and let his Light wash clean the Horizon Gem. You are-" She cut off with a gasp, her hands flying to her throat.
"Samatsuka, what is-aaugkk!" The nearest hunter suddenly doubled over in agony, making choked screams. There was a sickening crunch, and the man folded in on himself, then collapsed to a tiny, bloodsoaked ball. The remaining hunters, stricken with fear, quickly followed suit and left the entranceway a gory mess.
The maester fell to his knees and began to pray fervently. Samatsuka, choking for air, reached for the jewel, still clutched in Lyrel's hands. Something stopped her hand, then began to draw it in. Samatsuka tried to scream as her arm was stretched and ripped into the jewel, then her shoulder... then her entire body.
Lyrel was frozen, shaking. Her lips still spoke the chant, over and over, unable to stop even if she wanted. All she could hear, all she could see, was a horrible rushing blackness, as if she was falling forever through an inky midnight sky.
Maester Namora, pale as his robes, stared in horror at the jewel as it darkened past dried blood to a deep red that was almost black. There was a deafening silence, then a single word was whispered so low that it vibrated up through him like an earthquake, "CONSUME".
A farmer travelling across the tundra several days later came across Lyrel's body in the windswept plain where the temple and forest used to be, in what would later be known as the Tunguska Event. She was freezing, and nearly dead from exhaustion, but otherwise physically unmarred. The jewel was clutched in her hands, crimson once more.
Powers and Current State
And so the shrine maiden, Lyrel Athryna, was forced to contain the sentient black hole within the jewel known as the Horizon Gem. The entity called itself the Enuo, and granted Lyrel tremendous control over gravitational forces. She learned over time that what she restrained was in fact the force of oblivion in the universe. Similar to friction, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and electricity, the fundamental entity was responsible for bordering the universe and keeping it from expanding infinitely. It was not simply a black hole, but the spawner of all black holes. It did not know how it came to be entrapped in the jewel, but Lyrel eventually surmised that a powerful mage, or perhaps an entire order, had somehow given it sentience and bound it there.
The Enuo demands that its power be used - it MUST consume and annihilate matter - or it will grow too powerful for Lyrel to contain and simply begin consuming on its own, turning the Earth into a complete void. The Enuo is not evil, it is simply single-minded, and it does have a proper place at the edge of the universe. The only reason Lyrel can hold it back is due to a tremendous blessing from Mithros, the Lord Who Rules From The Sun, her patron god. Mithros has granted Lyrel some of his true Light, which is blinding to behold, and was the reason she could not see until very recently. She used the Enuo's gravitational senses to compensate, though she could not perceive colors or writing. For her own documents, she wrote with actual lead pencils, which she can 'read' due to their mass.
Lyrel did not have complete control over the Enuo for a long time, as she was only twelve, after all. She learned bits and pieces over the years, but several times since she acquired it, she has "slipped" through time. Sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards, she is never sure, having never had much time to adjust to cultures after her isolated childhood in the Siberian tundra. She remembers a few particular times, including her 15th birthday in 1999, her first kiss when she was 23 in 1966, and the first time she lost control to the point of an innocent being consumed, in 1942. Since arriving in Paragon City at the age of 25 in 2005, she has managed to keep stable in this time, thanks to her completion of Steel Canyon University's quantum physics program, which she received her doctorate in. She has since gained a position at the Grae Academy as a physics professor, and she enjoys working with the children very much.
'Eve' of Oblivion
These events took place in the late summer and fall of 2007.
The Enuo had grown restless over the years with Lyrel's reluctance to use it, and broke free enough to manifest itself in June of 2007. Before this, Lyrel had planned to contain it until her death, whereupon it would remain bound to her soul, and she could return it to the edge of the universe through the afterlife. Now, however, her death would simply release it unto the Earth, and she has been without a plan for restoring it. The Enuo resented the metaphorical jerking of its chain, and began systematically annihilating small pieces of her brain in an effort to lower her inhibitions.
Developments in her hero career had caused a bit of a crisis among the Academy and the Paragonian Knights in general. While working with Elizabeth Bloodmoon, a potential Academy recruit, Lyrel was involved very heavily in combatting the Devouring Earth in Founder's Falls. Lyrel was responsible not only for thwarting a Devouring Earth plan to release a 'Unity Plague' into the Paragon water supply, but also stopped Dr. Hamidon from turning his former lover, Tanya Tyler, into a breeder of his minions. Unfortunately for Lyrel, the Devouring Earth are nothing if not adaptative. While she had a plague sample, it was taking data samples from her and communicating them to the Hamidon hive mind. By the time she was forced to confront Tanya Tyler as the monster 'Terra', special spores had already infected her body.
These sentient fungi went for the same parts of her brain that the Enuo had targeted. The two entities communicated with each other, and combining forces, made short work of Lyrel's mental faculties. She already blamed herself for being unable to save Tanya before her transformation and being forced to destroy her, and in her grief-stricken, infected state, she annihilated all the Devouring Earth within a two-mile radius of where 'Terra' had fallen.
Returning in shame from the neighborhood 'Terra' had been tracked to, Lyrel fell further and further into the Hamidon and the Enuo's control. Despite Elizabeth Bloodmoon and Krewe's best efforts, and the medical technology at the main Paragonian Knights base, the Enuo assumed control of her body and broke out, taking her to Eden to be further altered. She was sighted sporadically by students and Knights alike: in Dark Astoria with the Enuo experimenting in accessing her blessings, healing two students who were losing a fight; in Warburg, on a rampage, attempting to consume Knights with Lyrel barely able to restrain it; in Founder's Falls, where Lyrel bargained with the Enuo to allow her to address Elizabeth and a group of students and Knights, pleading for assistance. Elizabeth's energy-pattern healing had been unable to remove the infection, as the fungi have adapted to include Lyrel's DNA in themselves.
Elizabeth and Krewe eventually tracked Lyrel to a small glen in Eden, where they found she had been almost completely subsumed by the Devouring Earth. Proclaiming herself 'Eve', Lyrel's body was now a mass of obscuring vegetation, barely recognizable as human. After a few narrow escapes from her gravitational attacks, Elizabeth managed to restore some of Lyrel's psyche. She broke down and begged her friends to destroy her somehow, but Krewe insisted that they could save her if only they could remove the infection without harming Lyrel in the process.
Lyrel remembered a special site within Croatoa, the Solar Circle, where she might be able to draw on yet more of Mithros' power and buffer herself from the dangerous procedure of killing the infection. The trio quickly rushed to the pond, where solar sprites danced and swirled. Using Krewe's incredible Nictus abilites to purge her body, Elizabeth's healing to restore the missing neurons, and Mithros' divine might to keep her safe, Lyrel was finally cleansed of the treacherous fungi!
Two unexpected boons came about as a result of Lyrel's infection. The fungi enhanced her vision, growing alternate pathways for the nerves, so that Lyrel can see once again. Moreover, the energy from Mithros coalesced into a divine suit of armor, which Lyrel can now summon and dismiss at will.
Back to the Future
Soon to come!
Annihilation Waits
The end of a hero.
