[Steel Shadow]

Well the Light side seems to be getting more applications than Dark, and if Nanako and Al are already here... Alternate character!

Name: Kiel Zelenha

Side: Dark

Race: Human

Age: She looks to be in her mid 20s.

Appearance: Blond hair, dark eyes, sensibly armored clothing for someone who engages in melee combat frequently. The main thing that stands out about her is how freakin' tall she is, standing comfortably over 7ft tall at full height.

Weapons: She carries what some would term 'an excessive amount of swords', all with their own properties. In particular she relies on her favored blade, Sever - A thin sword made of metal fallen from the skies and enchanted to cut through magical and mundane protections like water. Or flesh.

Special Skill:
Magic: Zelenha is a battlemage, utilizing sword techniques combined with powerful magics from other lands to overwhelm her opponents. She has a few parlor tricks in her arsenal - minor illusions, magical light, that sort of thing - but her main focus is in battle. Offensively, she typically uses the fire element to reduce her foes to ashes, but when hard pressed she falls back to her true strength - destruction magic. Conversely she uses it defensively to cast herself in armor of fire and shields of void.

Bookworm: Zel is a knowledge sponge. Seriously, she just takes any info she finds in and never lets it out again. Hell, she actively seeks out new books and scrolls whenever she has time to spend on her own. Maybe her lack of a social life is more to do with that instead of the trail of doom she leaves in her wake? At any rate, she's a font of knowledge on the most obscure of subjects, and when she finds something new she's usually beyond tempted to find out more. Comes in handy for ancient rituals, navigating mazes, working out the mechanics of trapped rooms, understanding dead languages, planning ridiculous plans, and sounding like an all around know-it-all.

History: Zelenha has had a cruel fate. She was raised as a member of a proud noble family in lands faraway, where magic is forbidden. Alas, due to plan or due to chance, she somehow found herself in the possession of a tome of the dark arts at an impressionable age, and she discovered she had immense talent for them. Fascinated, she began to dive into this secret world, learning all she could. She thought she could keep it a secret. She thought she could keep it under control. She was, as any person with an ounce of sense could tell you, very wrong.

In short, she lost everything, and was nearly killed. Her family disowned her, and she was forced to go on the run, hiding her identity and losing even her name as she fled. It was a disaster, and only by falling in with a group of otherwise gifted individuals did she survive - an organisation dedicated to researching and exploiting magic for profit. She found herself a hired blade rather quickly - she'd always been good with a sword.

None the less, she decided to do what she could with what life had handed her, and attempted to conduct herself in a good manner, looking out for people, and conducting her work without harming anyone if it was possible. It worked, for a while. But disaster seemed to dog her every step. Wherever she went, alone or in a team, horrific things would result, sometimes by chance, sometimes due to actions she herself had unknowingly taken. Forests burned. Cities were wiped out. Entire islands were reduced to nothing. All in her wake.

It broke her.

After her attempts at morality and peace failed just by virtue of her own existence for the last time, she simply... gave up. If people were to die in her presence, so be it. She would not apologize for her existence. So long as she got what she wanted, what did it matter? So now she's in this far off land, and working for the lord of darkness. What does she care if he wipes out all life? So long as she's left be with her reward, the world can burn.

Extra: Vis & Asha: Zel's two familiars, a pair of fairies about the size of your wrist. Asha is a spirit of life, specialized in healing, forged from Zel's soul when she was still a noble spirit. She's a gentle and quiet thing, while absolutely loyal to Zel in whatever she does. Meanwhile Vis is a spirit of darkness, more prone to action and grandstanding. She has a punch like being headbutted by a Rhino despite being an expert at sneaking through shadows undetected. Both are rarely far from their master.