"Here comes the BOOM!"
Elodie Maya
19/Female/5'3
The Binnes
Personality
Driven, intelligent, and open-minded, Elodie is a sharp-minded individual who, despite her environment, refuses to give up on her ideals and dreams. Meticulous, years spent on experiments and adjustments have given her a habit of speaking out random measurements or amounts aloud, and everything she does seems to be a race against a deadline, even when there is no reason for her to rush. For her, what's important in war isn't morale or valor, but logistics, and she loves to drown herself in facts. To Elodie, information isn't merely a tool, but it is also candy, something sweet that sounds beautiful when it rolls out of her tongue. Enthusiastic to the point of being occasionally stifling, she's definitely a chatty person, with a particular liking towards word play. The little scientist girl doesn't really care about feelings or romance or whatever else, not when there's things to be learned and facts to share.
For all her communication, documentation, and decision-making skills, however, Elodie is also a truly honest person. As someone who prefers the naked truth, she finds etiquette and tact to be wastes of time. Bald-faced criticism may hurt, obviously, but it's also way easier to improve. If simple machines can make it obvious when you messed up during construction, then surely humans should be the same way, right? Maybe it's arrogance on her part, and maybe she's made her fair amount of enemies with such a viewpoint, but, as always, Elodie simply doesn't care.
Her end goal is too grand, and her life is too short. Taking social detours is pointless.
Relations
WIP
Biography
Daughter of a widower, Elodie Maya's childhood was one spent in her father's laboratory in the Binnes. An inventor and a handyman, Garm took the task of raising up his child in his own hands and homeschooled her, teaching her to both appreciate the world and to question it. Sucked in by his fascination of science and of creating things with merely knowledge and his own hands, Elodie saw her father as a hero, something that the rest of the world didn't share. In a place like the Binnes, where plenty were talented with swordplay or gifted with power of Rewrite, few actually cared about what Garm made.
A sword made of a lighter alloy? Just rewrite a better one instead of spending six months.
A portable lever that made for more efficient methods of hoisting up heavy objects? Just rewrite it to become lighter.
A combination of chemicals that created a powerful explosive reaction? Just rewrite an explosion.
In a city where magic existed in abundance, tools that helped those without talents were simply…pointless. And yet, regardless of how he was ostracized, Garm's determination never wavered, and Elodie swallowed her hatred of Rewriters in order to follow his path. She had few friends, but she didn't care. Her father's notes, the books in her personal library, those were all she needed. Even as the neighbors talked about how he selfishly squandered his family's fortune, even as nobles joked about how Garm must have been Meadow-born in regards to how his inventions would only benefit the dim-witted weaklings of that backwater pig pen, Elodie didn't care.
She found out at a very early age that friends didn't matter if one had passion.
When the XII Final War broke out, Garm suddenly became much more popular. Though mocked within the Binnes, he was offered a job underneath Abbelest's War Technology Division. They have took note of the explosive reactions Garm has created, and wished to weaponize it, giving them a proper answer to the destructive rewritions of Kelda's mages. It was a job opportunity that Garm couldn't let slip, and soon, the father and the daughter moved to the capital of Abbelest, joining a team of other smart individuals and getting to work.
Years passed by in that relatively safe environment, and soon, results were showing up. Bombs that could be slung by trebuchets and wreck fiery havoc or explosive ruin. Siege weapons designed to force open gates instead of simply smash them. And soon, prototypes of firearms began to show up within certain regiments of Abbelest's army. With a thunderous salvo, they would tear the very wings off Keldan knights, sending the magic-reliant fools plummeting unto the ground. Though still in developmental phases, it looked like the Final War was swinging in Abbelest's favor.
Then, at night, Garm was assassinated, throat slit in his bedroom.
The guards were found dozing, drugged by a powerful soporific poison.
And, like that, the breakthrough Lady Celessa expected never happened. The War Technology Division, without a project leader, soon crumbled and was disbanded. Elodie, without even a father, found herself swept out of the castle, clutching her father's notes, boiling with hatred at the fact that she couldn't even figure out who her father's killer was. A slit throat? Literally anyone could have done that.
The next years went by in a breeze. She left Abbelest during the riots against Lady Celessa's rule, and floated from city to city alone, narrowly escaping the clutches of highwaymen and bandits many times over. Eventually, Elodie settled in the Meadows, sitting the war out, hoping that there would be order restored soon, so she could have a clear space to figure out what to do with her father's notes, her inheritance, and her life.
But order wasn't restored, and it only became worst.
Abbelest and Kelda were both in ruins, corruption taking over and rotting away at the structure of the world. Bandits became more and more frequent, ensuring that nowhere was safe. Everyone was out to fend for themselves, seeking salvation one way or the other. She almost crumbled underneath that pressure, almost decided that it would be better off just to jump off a cliff, but she didn't
She recalled her father's drive, her father's determination, her father's passion.
And she inherited that.
A monster-slaying weapon that even a child could use. That was what she would aspire towards. That was what would revolutionize the world.
And when Argent, ran by the King that must have ordered her father's assassination, held out a hand towards the daughter of Garm Maya, Elodie put aside her meaningless, self-destructive emotions and accepted.
Profession
Tinkerer
Elodie is a tinkerer, someone who improves her abilities through science rather than magic. Wielding the latest prototype of the firearm that her father had died producing, she dubs it 'Thundercrack', for the roar it makes whenever she pulls the trigger. Each singular bullet is pointed, and the awesome recoil of the weapon requires her to wear special equipment underneath in order to absorb the shock and prevent her from dropping it, while gloves give her enough grip to hold onto her weapon even if it's slick with water or mud or whatever other annoying environmental factor. Elodie has approached her physical training in much the same way, creating a variety of weight resistance machines that tones her body much more effectively than simple logs would. She may not be the strongest, or the fastest, or the most durable, but she is getting there, and she is getting there quickly.
Right now, she's also in the drafting stages of a spring-loaded piledriver, to assist with melee combat or with breaching fortified doors.
Signature Moves
Two Birds, One Stone
It's really just the application of simple geometry, combined with the absurd destructive power of Thundercrack. With one bullet, Elodie can take down multiple targets, regardless of whether or not they're armored.
Thunderhammer
Also not much of a signature move, Thunderhammer just takes full advantage of the heavy materials and heft of the gunstock in order to convert a long-ranged weapon into a bludgeoning weapon. Can't do that with a flimsy-ass bow, can you? Of course, Elodie has been looking at affixing some sort of pointed object onto the front end of Thundercrack as well, but those plans are secondary to improving reload time for her weapon.
Skills
Weapon Maintenance
Steady Hands
Learning
Chemistry
Tinkering
Weaknesses
Weakling
Single Shot
Socially Apathetic
Emotionally Repressed