Belladonna

Born

2,987 Reign of Amaranth (2,010 years ago)

Died

n/a

Aliases

Six

Family

Amaranth (father)

Calanthe (sister),

Dahlia (sister),

Evanthe (sister),

Flora (sister),

Gladiolus (sister),

Aster (sister)

1 daughter

Racial characteristics

Horns, tail, scales, draconic might, dragonfire

Omnivore. Anything with chemical energy can be digested by her dragonfire. All pyreen tend to eat in sporadic bursts over mult-day digestive periods, sometimes settling into a routine of 3 days on, 1 day of sleep and digestion. She can eat gemstones and rocks--they don't offer much nutritional value, but they have interesting flavors.

Sex

Female

Height

5'3" (not including horns)

Weight

140 lbs (much denser bones than anyone would expect)

Hair

Iridescent aquamarine

Eyes

Heterochromatic: left eye is gold, right eye is bluish-silver

Affiliations

Phoenix Dawn

Ancestry

Arycx is a pyreen, a rare and ancient race of draconic humanoids native to Athas. Pyreen are known for their formidable physical prowess, innate magical abilities, and draconic features such as horns, tails, and scales. As a pyreen, Arycx possesses enhanced strength, resilience, and the ability to wield dragonfire, a potent magical energy associated with her kind.

History

Born during the Red Age as the youngest and last daughter of Amaranth, Belladonna was the last in a centuries-long breeding program to complete a grand ritual meant to turn her father into a god. Strictly raised in an isolated enclave to maximize her magical powers, she was kept in the dark about her purpose, as the ritual would mean her death, and the death of her sisters and their own daughters. However, with the power of Song of Time, she foresaw the outcome of the ritual and the fate that awaited her and her family, allowing her to conspire with her sisters to alter the course of events and ultimately thwart her father's plan.

Unfortunately, although the plan she and her sisters--under mastermind Evanthe--devised was clever and well-coordinated, she had one vulnerability: love. Her love for a human wizard blinded her to his betrayal, as he sabotaged her ritual, causing it to fail at the last moment. Instead of freezing her father in temporal stasis for eternity, she frozen the entire kingdom, including herself.

Ten years ago, she awakened, unsure of how, as the rest of the kingdom remained frozen in time, and, discovering the outcome of the ritual for the first time, she screamed in rage, her song unfreezing a several mile radius of the kingdom that she would come to call The Oasis. The people of the Oasis nursed her back to health, and together they discovered that the world outside was a vast plain of obsidian, which sapped the vitality of any life form that attempted to cross it. She was trapped. And yet, a voice within her bade her not to give up, and with the guidance of the stars, she did something no Pyreen had before: she learned a new Song, the Song of Stars. Shielded by starlight, she quested into the Obsidian Plain to determine the fate of her kingdom and the world beyond.

Beyond the plain she found endless wastes, and despaired of finding any life at all--least of all her family. She didn't know what guided her, but she knew to walk north in search of...something. Seemingly by chance (later she would learn otherwise), adventurers from Balic found her and guided her to the "safety" of the city. As a Pyreen, she was a living wonder, and would soon become the treasure of Sorcerer-King Andropinis, who offered her safety, knowledge, and all the comforts she could desire, in a gilded birdcage she'd be unable to escape.

For years she endured, her hope kept burning by motes of information, hints of her sisters. She learned of a red-haired Pyreen gladiatrix, who surely must be Calanthe. She learned of a strange, domed city to the east where impossible verdigris defied the desert, perhaps the work of Flora. There was a chance she was yet not alone. Not that she could ever escape to make good on it.

In time, her salvation arrived: Lumi of Tyr heard tell of Andropinis' prized pyreen and sought his audience. She managed to convince him to a high-stakes game for her freedom, somehow winning it, except for one condition: Andropinis would keep one part of her, of his choice. Reluctantly, Belladonna agreed, bracing for mutilation. But the part he kept was her voice.

Since then, she has dwelt in Tyr, within the guild hall of Phoenix Dawn, under Lumi's protection. She speaks now with the voice of her celestial, who does not permit her to speak certain truths, or even remember them. She recalls longing for companionship, seeking lost connections, but not the names or faces she sought. Of her lost loved ones, she remembered only a single word: "Six".

Having forgotten her name, she now wears this moniker as her own, to keep close to her heart the sole clue of her true identity. She has worked hard to rebuild her power; bereft of her Songs, she must learn to work magic as humans do, through arcane symbols, phrases, and gestures. She has begun to re-master the powers of Time and Stars, and has discovered new powers beyond her Songs. She knows it is vitally important to build her power, although she isn't quite sure why.

Deep within her mind, her thoughts and memories, bereft of words, frantically try to reach her consciousness. They sneak sour notes into her perfect performances, they spill ink on her parchments in chaotic, but somehow meaningful ways. The celestial's mind is Order incarnate, and it is blind to Chaos. Long ago, she learned to communicate in the language of Chaos, although she cannot recall why she learned this, or how, but trying to do so opens new wounds, feelings of loss and betrayal.

Since meeting Alistair, she has found a surge of new hope, as he has been tracking her sisters and uncovering her mysteries on behalf of Lumi. Whatever reason the guildmaster has for her secrecy, Alistair sees no reason to conceal the truth from Bella herself, and continues to do Lumi's work while keeping her informed. She's learned of her living sisters again, including Dahlia, who has been almost close enough to touch for years, but has never shown her face.

With renewed purpose, she quests to reunite her family, and find a way, somehow, to restore her lost kingdom.

Early Life

Born in the final years of the Kingdom of the Pyreen, as terrible war ravaged the kingdom from all sides, Belladonna's early life was, paradoxically, peaceful and idyllic. She remembers cheerful afternoons playing with her sisters in the lush gardens of their home, and the warmth of her mother's embrace. She remembers lively family dinners and discussions of philosophy, magic, anything and everything but talk of war and suffering. She grew up in the Sky Palace, hovering miles above the war-torn lands below, shielded from the harsh realities of the world. Her father, despite orchestrating a massive campaign of defense from the Disciples of Rajaat, seemed a loving and attentive parent, and her mother was a kind and nurturing figure.

Central to her education was music, and not just as a pastime, but as a fundamental aspect of her identity and power. Her father believed that music was a conduit for magical energy, and he encouraged her to explore its depths. She learned to play various instruments, especially strings, and mastered an unfathomably complex 7-part harmony with her sisters. The reality of Pyreen magic is that it is deeply intertwined with music, and the melodies and harmonies they create can influence the world around them in profound ways. It was as natural as the sun rising in the morning to imagine that, as her father taught her, their harmony would one day create an ultimate spell to save the kingdom and end the war forever.

Her dreams were often focused on the future, envisioning her future life much like her sisters, as a wife and mother, living in a peaceful world. Her vision was crystal clear, but sometimes reality didn't line up. And one day, she discovered something: if she didn't like reality's version, she could assert hers. And everyone else remembered her way, that it had always been that way. It was a small thing at first, but it grew. She could change the past, the present, and even the future, as long as she believed in it strongly enough.

Through this loophole, she gained advance notice of the tragedy to come. Her vision of the future, especially her daughter's future, began to lose fidelity. She began to glimpse a terrible future, one where her daughter was taken from her, and she was left alone in a world of suffering. She tried to change it, but the more she tried, the more it seemed to solidify. It was as if the future was resisting her attempts to alter it, and the more she fought against it, the more it seemed to push back. Whatever made that future had her power, and she couldn't break through it.

When it became clear she couldn't save her family through main strength alone, she sought answers and knowledge from elsewhere: from the forbidden place, the world below.

The Capital City

With the help of her sister Gladiolus, Bella frequently visited the City of Many Colors, the Kingdom's capital. The Kingdom of the Pyreen was ruled by the Pyreen, but contained multitudes of every other "lesser" race, the most privileged of which were allowed to flourish in the wealthy capital. A great university taught all knowledge seekers free of charge, and under an assumed name, she attended lectures and read every text she could. The security in the Sky Palace was watertight, and she couldn't be gone more than a few minutes without being noticed--but as a master of Time, this was hardly a challenge at all.

In time, she met a fellow knowledge-seeker, a human named Zar Kalak. Handsome, eloquent, well-mannered, charming, and intelligent, he was everything she'd been taught humans weren't. They became fast friends, and flirted with more, despite her knowing she must marry her betrothed--a boring bureaucrat unworthy of her attention. His knowledge of the arcane was vast, and though it wasn't particularly useful to her, she was fascinated to learn, as he was a naturally gifted teacher.

As a proficient musician, he was in awe of her gifts, vastly exceeding any human capability, but she enjoyed their duets nonetheless. He shared his fascination with music, on an intellectual level--how the underlying mathematics of it unifies it with geometry and natural law. To him, the Arcane wasn't a study of magic, but a study of the fundamental, unifying forces of the Cosmos, which explain all of Creation, all Life, all of Space and Time. And her music only proved his conviction.

It was with the aid of his keen intellect that she discovered a terrible truth: her mind was host to a spy and a saboteur. At birth, she'd been imbued with a powerful celestial spirit by her father, using his power of the Light of Creation. The celestial was loyal to Amaranth, reporting on all her goings-on, and able to suppress her speech and memory with ease. He'd noticed strange omissions, forgotten encounters, and generally unusual behavior from her. And he devised a way to break past it.

Firstly, her power was essential. The reason she hadn't been found out years ago is that the celestial is not affected by her Time magic. So when she froze herself in the Sky Palace and borrowed time to be in the world below, it was trapped in her body, unaware of her activities, aware only that she was doing something nefarious. In frozen moments, shared between them, they could speak freely, sure of secrecy, and with her tongue unbound. But afterward, her memory would be laid bare to the celestial, and could be altered.

His insight was thus: as a creation of Order, the celestial can only perceive orderly information. Humans and Pyreen can perceive the perfect order of the Cosmos--the movement of the spheres, the mathematical perfection of music and color, etc--but they can perceive the messy world of Chaos as well--the perturbations of turbulent water, the flicker of a burning flame, the imperfections of a musical instrument made by imperfect hands--and in that Chaos, they would hide messages. Subliminal, wordless messages that communicated feeling, intent, trust, and meaning, all without words.

This would prove vital for what was to come.

The Conspiracy

In time, she learned the whole truth: her father's grand spell was indeed meant to stop the war and save the kingdom, by sacrificing her daughter's life, and absorbing all 6 of her sisters and their daughters, channeling all of their power into himself. He would become a god, and end the war with a thought. At its core, the idea was simple: Pyreen magic flows deep, from an infinite well, but for each given Pyreen, its use is narrowly limited. Every Pyreen has a unique power, and while they can twist and morph that power in many ways, ultimately every spell they craft must be built on the foundation of their innate power. Arycx's was time, and she could do much with time, but nothing that didn't involve it.

Her father had carefully bred his daughters, discarding far more than he kept, to find not only the most powerful natural abilities for each, but 7 carefully-selected powers that would synergize together into virtually unlimited potential, atop his already limitless capacity. His daughters commanded Power, Life, Soul, Mind, Reality, Space, and Time. With all of them combined, he would be able to manipulate the very fabric of existence, and end the war in an instant. And all it would cost were 7 daughters and their 7 daughters.

She revealed the plan to her sisters, fighting various stages of denial. By the time of the ritual, they realized the only possibility was to play along, but take command of the ritual to use their power jointly to save the kingdom without sacrifice. And hopefully, they could convince their father it had been the better path, but, if necessary, their unified power could overcome him. They committed to their plan, joining his ritual circle, leading a chorus of hundreds of other Pyreen, a grand symphony of magic that would echo across the world.

In that moment of unity, their powers began to intertwine. Her sister, master of the Mind, had always been able to calculate possibilities and outcomes with incredible precision, but now, with the power of Time, she could literally view the future. She saw the path before them, and it was clear: the only way to save the kingdom was to follow their father's plan. They had to sacrifice themselves, and their daughters, to give him the power he needed to end the war. Beyond the horizons of their families and their kingdom, a greater future unfolded. They could not stop Rajaat without her father's ascension, and they couldn't save the world. But in a future without the Kingdom of the Pyreen, Rajaat would be imprisoned by his own disciples, and the world would be left to rebuild itself in the aftermath of the Red Age. It was a bleak future, but it was better than the alternative. And far in the future, hope remained for the world, in the ultimate consummation of their power.

She didn't have time to convince her sisters. But she didn't have to. They came to the same conclusion, seemingly of their own accord. Arycx had always had a Plan B: to freeze the entire kingdom in time, shielding it and her family from the ritual. Her father would probably be destroyed, and the war would be moot without a kingdom to conquer. When it finally ended, they would reappear, regroup, and chart a path forward together. With her sister removing herself from the circle, it began to rapidly collapse. Somehow, Arycx kept the spell going without them, as she bade them to evacuate, get their families to safety with the help of her sister's Space power. Within the spell's chaotic inner sphere, she saw her father preparing to strike, and she desperately attempted to maintain the spell alone, without the strength of her sisters.

And somehow, she did. She was joined by familiar, yet impossible hands from beyond time and space. She gained the strength to suspend the spell, buying her sisters time to escape the kingdom. But inevitably, there came a moment of no return. With her grasp over Time, she was able to wait until literally the last moment, one Planck unit away from her daughter's death and the spell's consummation, before she triggered her final plan.

The awesome power of the spell was unleashed--not to empower her father, but to freeze time. The entire kingdom, and everyone in it, was frozen in place, suspended in a moment of stasis, frozen into obsidian statues. She tried to exclude her sisters, but with limited success; one was tightly grouped with her family, and all of them survived. One was separated from them, and they were all frozen without her. Of all, four sisters remained in the flow of time, and Arycx and the other two were frozen in place. Her daughter was frozen with her, forever stuck in the moment before her demise. Arycx was frozen, staring directly at the moment of her daughter's death, her father's betrayal, unable to look away until the spell ended.

And it did not end. Not for 2,000 years.

In fact, it still hasn't ended. But Arycx has awakened, for reasons that remain unclear. She was displaced from her original location without explanation, and as she pieced together her memories, she realized something had gone terribly wrong. She stood in a vast field of obsidian: the earth, the trees, the animals, buildings, and even people were all frozen in place, turned to stone. The stars above had shifted--it had been thousands of years. As the magnitude of the tragedy became clear, 2,000 years of pent-up rage boiled over. She screamed in anguish, and the sound of her voice shattered the obsidian around her, ending the spell. In a radius miles wide, the world was restored to its natural state, even freeing a small town of Pyreen, who remembered nothing, but found it odd the time of day had instantly changed. She collapsed to the ground, energy spent.

She came to gradually, in fits and starts, as the townsfolk nursed her back to health. Her Pyreen magic flows from the vitality of life, and it was to be found in this oasis, albeit weaker than it had been in the past. She was able to recover, but her powers were diminished, and her memories were fragmented. She has been piecing together her past ever since, trying to understand who she is, what happened to her family, and what her purpose is in this new world.

Eager to discover the fate of her sisters and the world, she sought to leave the oasis, but the world outside was deadly. Every second on the obsidian plain, her vitality drained, both the source of her magic and the her very life. She wasn't going to make it a mile, let alone hundreds or thousands. She needed a shield of some sort, but what? A time shield? Even she couldn't devise a way to do that. Fearful she was trapped, she railed at her strange fate. In dreams, she imagined other possibilities. One night, she lay awake, gazing at the stars, and realized something strange. The stars themselves called to her. They offered energy, just like that of her homeworld, but impossibly faint, given their distance. However, they were also impossibly numerous, and by drawing upon them all, she was empowered.

She imagined a new power, the power of the stars. Each star was a point of light, vibrating at a certain frequency, not unlike a musical note. She could weave them together into a symphony of light, creating a shield of starlight that could protect her from the draining effects of the obsidian plain. It was a novel idea--not just the spell, but the idea that a Pyreen could develop a second power. It had never been done before, and it was unclear how she'd achieved the feat, but she'd have time to ponder it later. Bathed in starlight, she left the oasis.

Inevitably, she discovered the wasteland outside the Obsidian Plains. In the vast nothing, she knew not where to wander, since she'd never before even left the palace grounds, let alone the kingdom. Her memory of ancient maps was fragmented already, but even if it had been perfect, thousands of years had passed. Outside lands had changed dramatically; not only were cities and kingdoms void, but the landmarks themselves had often changed. And yet, she had a mysterious guide, someone she sensed more than saw, but the signs were clear. She made her way north, following the signs, and eventually found herself along a road.

There, she was encountered by adventurers, who were surprised to find a lone Pyreen wandering the wasteland. They offered her food and water, and she gratefully accepted, having stretched her limited supplies as far as she could. They were concerned less for her safety and more for the profit she represented, and since she seemed ignorant of the ways of the world, they guided her to the nearest city, under the guise of bringing her to safety. At first, they couldn't communicate--she spoke the Old Tongue, which was only partially intelligible to the group's arcanist, as its words were used (often with improper pronunciation and almost universally with changed meaning) in the words of magic. But over the days, she pieced together the basics of their modern language, and they could communicate their intent. They were taking her the Wise Wizard, the smartest person in the city, who could surely help with all her mysteries.

Indeed, they delivered her to Andropinis, Sorcerer-King of Balic, who was very grateful for the opportunity to study a living Pyreen, and rewarded the adventurers handsomely for their efforts. He offered Arycx every comfort, communicating easily in the Old Tongue, which he'd learned at the feet of Rajaat himself. He made himself seem a nurtiring and harmless father figure, and while some part of her yearned for that, his ruse planted the seeds of her doubt. She probed at his intentions, and eventually demanded her freedom. He denied her request. She was once again imprisoned in a glided cage.

With so little life energy around her, her natural Pyreen power was too weak to contend with a Sorcerer-King, especially after spending all she'd built up in the past creating the Oasis. Indeed, he was aware of her limitation, and cut her off from the gardens, from animals, from all life, expecting her to wither. She lasted longer than he expected, absorbing starlight unbenownst to him, but her fate was sealed. He offered her a deal: he didn't want her to die, nor had he need of her service. He wanted only one thing: her voice. She surely had the magic to make do without it, it was hardly worth dying for, right? She refused, growing weaker every day, seeking an escape that proved impossible.

Eventually there came a day when Andropinis entertained a guest. She knew not of this strange halfling, but apparently she had history with the Sorcerer-King, and was received warmly. She challenged him to a game of wits, with a hefty wager: she offered something in a whisper that delighted the wizard more so than he'd seemed at the discovery of a living Pyreen. At her urging, he wagered something equally valuable: Arycx's life. The game was lively, but Lumi bested the wizard, and in his rage, he demanded her voice before relinquishing her. The threat of violence was clear, and Lumi counseled her to comply, promising it would be returned to her. She preferred death, and readied herself for his punishment.

But something changed. Words whispered in her mind, and though she was suspicious and tried to defend herself, she quickly forgot that the thoughts were intrusive. They became her own. Why not give up her voice? She would never sing that song again, and it was hardly worth dying for. She had another voice, the voice of the stars, and it offered new possibilities. She would have to relearn magic, but it would be the magic that still works in this world, not the dead dragonsong of the Pyreen. She agreed to the deal, and the wizard took her voice, but true to his word, he returned her to Lumi, who swiftly exfiltrated her from the city.

Her new voice sounds superficially like the old, but it is not the voice of a Pyreen, not the voice of a dragon. She remembers the song, but cannot sing it. Her old powers are gone, outside her reach. But with the help of Lumi and other teachers of the Phoenix Dawn, she learned a new magic. The way of the Arcane was strange to her: bizarre symbols, meaningless sounds, irrational numbers, etc. But there was a pattern to it, a complex but striking truth: the modern art of the Arcane was a reverse-engineered, degenerted version of the ancient magic of the Pyreen. The Pyreen's magic was a symphony, a complex and harmonious weaving of power that could shape reality itself. The modern Arcane was a pale imitation, a clumsy attempt to replicate that power without understanding its true nature. But undeniably, it worked, and with her new voice, she could tap into it. It was a different way to work the same magic.

She regained her powers of Time, and continued to make the magic of the Stars. And like all modern wizards, she was not limited to just the powers of her birth. With each new glyph, each word of power learned, her horizons widened. And she dreamed again: visions of a future, with life regrowing from the sand, her sisters reunited, her daughter alive again. Some day, her voice would be returned to her. Some day, the villains who spoiled this world would be brought to justice, and her magic would restore the world to its rightful state. Once again, she had hope--a faint candle of hope, but one her draconic heart could alight into a blaze from which the world would be reborn.