<strong>Name: </strong>Aeryn Sunlight - her Society name, not her real name.<br/>Race:                Human<br/>Height:              5' 6'<br/>Weight:             130 pounds<br/>Measurements:  Athletic build, small bosom, hips not as broad as most women, but she would never be mistaken for a boy.<br/>Skin:                 Brown with a reddish tinge.  Copper skinned.<br/>hair:                  Dark brown, straight, thick.<br/>eyes:                 Very dark brown, almost black.  She usually wears very narrow glasses set low on her nose.  magnifying lenses for close examination.<br/><br/>fate:       3      [ X]   [ X]   [X ]<br/>refresh:  3<br/>High concept:  Naturalist and Sister of the secular order<strong>Societa Magna Femina Sophia</strong><br/><br/>Aspects:<br/><br/>High Concept:  A member of a Society that is not secret, but does keep some things secret.<br/>Trouble:  Divided Loyalty ( Her allegiance to the Society versus her allegiance to the expedition)<br/>Phase one: If I haven't been there, I've read about it.<br/>Phase two:The fae are deserving of respect and deference, but only a damn fool wants their attention.<br/>Phase three:   That Devious Bitch<br/><br/><strong>Phase One: </strong>Get thee to a Nunnery!<br/><br/><br/><br/>Younger daughters have fewer options.  And the poorer your family, the less options you have.  Nunnery's are always a good place to dump daughters a family can't afford a proper dowry for.  All those young women cooped up in a place they don't want to be....<br/><br/>Nunnery's often deserve their reputaion for less than proper behavior.<br/><br/>Aeryn was from a not wealthy family, not a poor one either.  But a Nunnery was where she was headed.  Then a derelict ship drifted into the harbor one night.  Not quite a plague ship, but the disease that had swept the crew was a nasty one.  She was a dutiful daughter, did what she could to fight the contagion, tend to her family.  To no avail.  Almost a quarter of her home town died.  When the dust settled, her relatives seached the house only she lived in now, and found nothing of value.  Not her, and certainly not the meager valuables accumulated by her now dead parents and sister.<br/><br/>There are Nunnerys, and, well, there are Nunnerys.  Magna Sophia was always on the lookout for sharp, decisive young women who didn't panic in a crisis but  took action.  Tapping this woefully underutilized pool of talent was the main factor in their rise to Civic power, after all.  Aeryn bought her way in.  They would have taken her without the sweetener, but with it?  Well.  This young woman thought ahead, just the sort of raw material they were looking for to be a field operative....   Um,  the term had unfortunate connotations, it made the Royal Secret Police kinda twitchy to hear things like that.<br/><br/>It was the home she dreamed of.  Books, books, more books, why there were literally two hundred books in the Chapterhouse library!  She read them all, and more on loan from other Chapterhouses.  But after almost two years of reading - and training, although she didn't recognizre it for what it was - the outside world crashed into her Ivory Tower.  Tried to, anyway.<br/><br/><strong>Phase Two:</strong>We have it, they want it.<br/><br/>Land.  The only thing of real lasting value in the minds of so many eople.  Expecially nobles.  An isolated Keep full of womenfolk?  Walls and moat in good repair, true, and a quarrel from a crossbow shot by a woman killed even the biggest man just as dead as a sword thrust from another big man.<br/><br/>The keep was in such a prime location, the tolls from the river bridge it loomed over, the rather nice farmland around it, that lovely forest the Sisters were so miserly about using.  And the Mill, Merciful Gods, the income from the Mill!<br/><br/>Take the land, sack the keep, ask for forgiveness - use the spoils of war to pay off anybody who cared.  It wasn't as if women property holders were equal to men anyway. Magna Sophia were uppity bitches, everybody knew that.  Take them down a peg!<br/><br/>The vassal of Baron Archibald Tetsuya never really knew what hit him.  A very nasty - but very localized -outbreak of a fungus that took out over half his harvest, merchants of nearby towns were so reluctant to honor his letters of credit.  No possible connection to the small band of Sisters who had been seenon horseback galloping madly in the distance as his troops encircled the keep.  Nonsense.<br/><br/>The fungus was Aeryn Sunlight's doing.  She was already earning a reputation as a Natural Philosopher.  The financial workings, the wheeling and dealing?  She learned much from the Sister who directed that part of the mission.  They used people. Lies, bluff honesty, money greasing palms, all had a part to play.  None of them had any doubt what would happen inside the Keep when enraged men finally fought their way over the walls.  That helped a lot to stiffen resolve.<br/><br/>And of course Aeryn made contacts outside of the order, her first, in fact.  Contacts that weighed in her favor when she was considered for selection to participate in a new Expedition of Discovery not long after.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Reliyian Isilivanthar</strong><br/><br/>The Elven woman from the mountains was sent by the fates, Aeryn quickly lost any doubt of that.  She had already decied to attack the Enemy's harvest, should matters deteriorate that far.  But Blights ahd a way of spreading.  Leaving aside the damage to innocents who were not a part of the current small local war, such a thing offended Aeryn's sense of order and neatness.  A sample of flora brought by Reliyian proved to be the key.  A fungus, native to a drier, cooler climate, unusually for a fungus, it didn't deal well with the warmer wetter conditions of the lowlands.  The thicker air was a factor, Aeryn strongly suspected.  An adaptation to a cllimate niche not filled by anything else?  That thought sparked some interesting lines of inquiry in her mind.  No time for that for now.<br/><br/>The Naturalist had a greenhouse and workshop of course.  A few days of tinkering with humidity. and temperature, growing the speciman to fungal stage, growing more.... harvesting the spores.  Not enough, Aeryn feared, but the stock she had ready for deployment would have to do.  The attack exceeded her expectations, half the Enemy harvest was destroyed before local fauna destroyed and consumed the blight.<br/><br/>Reliyian was gone when the tumult eased enough for Aeryn to return to the Keep.  The society had packed the woman off under heavy escort soon after Aeryn left.  In the very teeth of the arriving enemy advance guard, in fact.   Magna Sophia emphaticially did not want such a prestigious guest to come to harm.<br/><br/>Did The human and the elf ever do more than talk on those nights?    Aeryn had learned so much from the elven woman, had listend with rapt attention when Relyian had spoken of trhe elves dangerusly unreliable distant kin, the fae. Aeryn's Sociey sisters were desperate to know what else the Naturlist have learned about, um... comparative anatomy.   The order was celibate, no member took vows of marriage.  But they were not chaste.  Gossip is always  favorite pasttime of a semi-cloistered group of people.  Perhaps out of an impish desire to keep people guessing, Aeryn never confirmed or denied any physical intimacy, but only a fool, a blind fool would fail to  see how much the two women had in common.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Phase three: </strong>There's more than one way to fight a war.<br/><br/><strong>Eshalu</strong><br/><br/>War cannot be waged without some spilling of blood, however.  While seeding the enemy's fields with fungal spores, Aeryn encountered someone very unusual.  Even by her rather eclectic standards.<br/><br/>An elven ranger.  Shock was no exaggeration for Aeryn's initial reaction at meeting a second elf  in less than a month. Her more thoughtful reaction centered on how to recruit Eshalu for her cause. Under the ranger's leadership and tutelage, fire and blood hemmed in the besiegers as their trenches and palisades hemmed in the Keep.<br/><br/>Cultural differences, species differences - Aeryn was not at all sure that Elves and Humans thought alike -  the naturalist was almost screamingly frustrated that the conflict was getting in the way of a more leisurely and thorough examination.  Of her own feelings, not least of all.  There was no denying the attraction forged by danger that grew between them, but the end of the Siege meant the end of their acquaintance.  Eshalu had made plain her attention to continue her Walkabout, she disappeared without a word very soon after the last enemy soldier was off of Society land.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>Skills:</strong><br/><strong>Great:  </strong>Lore<br/><strong>Good:  </strong>Investigation, Will<br/><strong>Fair:  </strong>Athletics, Empathy, Contacts<br/><strong>Average:</strong>Deceit, Notice, Rapport, Shooting<br/><br/><br/><strong>Stunts: </strong>Field Medicine - based on Lore.<br/><br/>Stress:<br/>Mental     1{}  2{}  3{}  4{}<br/>Physical:  1{X}  2{X}<br/>Consequences:<br/><br/>(http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/images/655107/Laurel.jpg)<br/><br/>Aeryn Sunlight's fuzzy time thread:  http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?board=347.0 (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?board=347.0)<br/><br/><br/><strong> Long term issues</strong>:  Aeryn has invoked her Trouble,<strong>Divided Loyalties</strong>,  while negotiating with the Saurians on behalf of the Society, not the Dominion as a whole.<br/><br/>Rhiss, the Saurian matriarch is hiding several things at<strong>+4/Great</strong>difficulty.  Aeryn is conducting a long-term investigation to find out what exactly is going on, aiding the Saurians is an important goal, advancing the interests of the Society is her Prime goal.