Background
When the Pelagials’ previous agent failed, they turned to another. Clearly the fire in the veins and the heart of the last one was incompatible with their colder natures. They needed something closer to themselves as raw material. Also, the previous agent was perhaps too far dead when the rites of power were begun. (There were differences of opinion in interpreting the ancient rites.) Luckily, with the there was little shortage of raw material to work with.
They captured a sailor who had fallen overboard. She was a young woman from a distant land who learned, painfully, just how quickly a squall could overcome a ship on these lakes, but they took her beauty for Sapphire Light.
They found a volunteer among their own people who gave her body and soul for the cause of her people and the downfall of Creation.
They stole the voice and the deep, flowing essence of a soldier whose ship was sunk in battle against a deathlord’s forces on the Inland Sea.
They stole the heart from of one of the Fair Folk, who seeks it still.
All of these they combined, molding them into a spy who could cross between their world and that of the hated land-dwellers. This time, they feel, they got it right.
Sapphire Light walks from the lake into the fogs that cover the Pearl in the morning. When the fog covers the shoreline again at night, she returns to the lake. During the day she learns about the Pearl, its defenders, and its Chosen. At night she calls softly to sailors and night-fishermen, luring them into the waters. There she drowns them and turns them into more creatures like herself.
She never sleeps.
She never regrets.
Appearance
Half-woman, half-fish. Sapphire Light’s upper body has pale white skin and long black hair down to her waist. Her eyes are pure black, with no whites. Below her waist is a deep blue tail about thrice the length of her torso. When she comes to the shoreline, her tail splits and becomes a pair of legs. Her eyes gain whites, but no irises A ring of sea-gold on her right hand clothes her as she walks the land, summoning a simple veiled white sari with blue highlights. She sings in a haunting and beautiful voice.
Demeanor
Devious, calculating, and cold. Where Nakotch Tala retained her humanity and her heart, and Adach Molo‘s love of children is part of his eternal self, Sapphire Light’s transformation left no caring center to her being. She combines V’neef Kharavi‘s callous bedside manner with Peacebringer‘s manipulation and the King of Kindness‘ “the ends justify the means” philosophy. Whatever needs to be done will be done, as expediently as possible.
When she walks through the bazaars and temples of the Pearl, she is quiet. She avoids eye contact, makes no friends, and rebuffs advances. She observes. When she swims beneath the water, she approaches land-dwellers only to pull them down and add them to her army of zombie soldiers. Again, she observes, surfacing to see how ships are deployed, and perhaps to sing sailors to their deaths.
Intimacies: “All who breathe air were born to be part of my army” (Defining), “The Pelagial cause” (Defining, Positive), “The Chosen” (Major, Negative), “My predecessor was weak and traitorous” (Major)
Capabilities
Sapphire Light is actually not that good as a spy. She knows what to observe and where, but has no unusual skill at it. Her Pelagial overseers have accepted this. They may train her better in the future. Her primary use is as an unexpected agent and provocateur. She can move unseen to a ship, cut ropes and ruin supplies, and then disappear into the depths. She betrays no hint of wrongdoing, so when she sets a fire in a bazaar, no one suspects it might have been her. She is good at acting where no one is looking. She has little social skill – she is pretty, but (if one will pardon the expression) has all the personality of a fish.
The Raksha heart that was sewn into Sapphire Light gives her a weak command of all five elements. She can light a fire with a moment’s concentration. She can send a gust of wind to distract a guard or startle an animal. The ground and the grass refuse her footprint. She can salt a vat of water or dry her clothing with a glance. She has not much more than these, but small tricks can be useful, carefully applied. It only takes a single candle to burn down a ship.
Sapphire Light is a grappler. She has a grip like a riptide, and chokes her opponents with thin arms and inhumanly strong hands. Her foes rarely suspect her method of attack, nor the speed with which she strikes. Being attacked does nothing to shake her grip, and stands a good chance of harming her victim. The longer she holds her opponents, the more water builds up in their lungs, and the worse her savage wrenching becomes for them. On land, if she faces more than one foe, she’ll try to hold one between herself and the others. In the water she rarely has to do more than hold her opponent under and wait for them to die. In some ways this may be her greatest weakness in combat: being unprepared for a Water-aspect or a swimming Lunar.
Treat her minions as zombies who can swim. She has a hundred and twenty of them simply standing on the lake bottom, waiting quietly for her command.
Supporting Characters
- Five Eggs Unhatched, her Pelagial military advisor. Boorish, shameless, committed.
- Twenty-Three Sides of Argument, a Pelagial sorcerer tasked to support her. Sanctimonious, languid, skillful.
- The Hole in the World, the Raksha whose heart was stolen. Hostile, conceited, insincere.
- Ixtena Agni, whose wife was sung away into the sea by Sapphire Light. Anguished, restless, honorable.
Questions
- Sapphire Light is turning people into a Pelagial army. Did she steal the worship-power from the dragon lines to do this?
- The Pearl’s tribute to the Realm travels by ship. Did Sapphire Light or her Pelagial masters sink it to cause trouble here?