Project Exalsius

Setting: Wirzenbach, X-Pharma Co., Project Exalsius.

The goal/plot: Bound to serve. Born to escape. (This MUST be implicated throughout, via resistance in NPCs, discreet removals of defects or the subtle, growing tension in the facility).

[Sub-levels:

1: Storage for inventory above ground. Includes the generator and power box.

2: Second storage area for classified material.

3: Security base. Ley-lines throughout, connecting to the entire facility for monitoring. No visible alarms, no known break-ins. The ultimate spy, or sentinel.

4: Research, augmentation. For the scientists. The current major project is Chimera—being able to combine two incompatible, unstable magic into a singular, coherent structure for splicing.

5: Medical, laboratory. For the surgeons, doctors and medical staff. Regular check-ups on the Exodus children and post-op assessments. It is also where they hold HVT/HVAs.

6: Primary living space for the Exodus children. Includes training blocks, barracks, lounge, etc. The largest, deepest space that is actually two floors.

Clearance levels are equivalent to the lowest sub-level or command authority they can access (ie Clearance Level 6=access to sub levels 1 through 6).]

Project Exalsius: The Mother (Exalhestus)

• Clearance Level: Admin
• Division: Directive Integration
• The Mother
• Sex: Female
• Age: Unknown
• Height: 185 cm
• Appearance: long, voluminous white hair with curled curtain bangs. Pale eyes, pale skin. Beautiful, radiates a maternal, caring image. Wears white silk enhancing appearance of comfort, incongruous with the industrial-style, sterile building, designed to draw attention and obedience. Elegant build conveying a sort of fragility and need to be protected, yet holding a quiet, unspoken authority. Brass-plated alloy for arms.

Background:

• One of Wirzenbach's high nobles, now the one holding the pin. Exalhestus Aeselreitz, eldest daughter to the Aeselreitz Marshalls. Volunteered to commandeer Project Exalsius as the Mother, practicing the conditioning process until it became second skin. A vampiric angel whose wings were torn from her shoulders, leaving her with stumps that she hides.

Personality:

• Cunning, manipulative, scheming and narcissistic. Her primary, working personality when she evaluates each Exodus child, deciding who is faulty and who is still a tool.
• Appears warm, caring and maternal, showing worry as a point in gaining rapport and continued obedience.
• Rarely shows anger; rage is ruthlessly suppressed to maintain facade.
• Easily angered by disobedience. Disciplinary actions are framed as forgiveness, but are nooses that give her more control.
• Fears what she has left if the Project truly ends. Freedom is not absolution; it is a threat to her stability.
• Craves relevance, attention and power. Thinks the Project is the only proof of her worth to her family.
• Privately feels empty. Often tries different hobbies. Never finishes them, leaving the products in a corner until it piles high.
• Cold and distant to people she cannot predict.
• Power-hungry, starved for affection, projects her insecurity through the existence of Sylvia by making her perfect (in her eyes).

Magic: animation and soulcraft.

The Project's lynchpin and primary controller. She follows one higher order: control. The war was an example of chaos—therefore the only way to ensure chaos is subdued is to create an army that eliminates any rising threats. Wirzenbach will never fall; it moves in one direction—up. She will see her nation thrive, regardless of who stands in her way.

Even if it means plotting against the High General.

People's opinion: Mother. She belongs to Karkoff. To the Project. To us. She is ours.

Project Exalsius: Vorodi.

• Clearance Level: 6
• Division: Internal Security
• Private Contractor
• Sex: Male
• Age: 300+
• Height: 188 cm
• Appearance: short, dark auburn hair. Black eyes with red pupils (left x-shaped, right round). Short, pointed ears. Multiple ear piercings on both ears. Prominent nose scar (among others). Palms wrapped in black cloth. Wears black robes with red inner clothes and gold trim embroidery. Plated black armour with gold divots, bracers and guards. Ornate stylised gold ring on left middle finger. Muscular, lean. Clean-shaven. Wirzenbach vampire.

Background:

• Grew up in military, took part in multiple black missions in Wirzenbach. Listed for projects similar to Exalsius, but refuses to elaborate or reveal such information. Can shift into a tabby cat with similar colouring. Specialises in ranged weapons and medium-range. Soldier and weapon, his vampiric senses are inherently dangerous to compete against.

Personality:

• Cold, observant, procedural. Sees everything, says nothing.
• Layered. Vorodi the vampire and Vorodi the cat have different personalities. The cat is an embodiment of more primal behaviours indifferent to social cues.
• Precise, makes everything he does look easy. Traps prey into thinking they got away with it. They didn't: he lets them assume.
• Quietly uses his cat form to seek comforts and indulgences he wouldn't show in human/vampire form.
• Doesn't speak unless spoken to.
• A ghost in the machine. Believes in empirical data over emotional sob stories.
• Sometimes, his feline behaviour bleeds into his vampire form (batting at something, slinking or prowling, purring). May develop cat ears and/or tail when the bleed becomes strong (includes sensitivity and twitching), but disappears shortly once his primary persona becomes dominant.
• Appears resistant to sunlight. Feels like a constant, low grade itch. Internally grumbles when forced outside.
• Deeply possessive of weapons.

Magic: Blood magic with the ability to shape-shift.

Vorodi can split his consciousness between his cat and human form, so they can exist in the same space, but prefers to simply shift into one and call it a day.

Surprisingly, the Project's boogeyman. He is not hated—it is more accurate to say the staff and subjects are wary of him, perhaps fearful. He's been contracted since the Project began. Senior staff say they feel him in the walls. He says nothing. Has said nothing since its founding. But he knows.

He's learned. It is the biggest threat to them all.

People's opinion: I've never liked him. He just watches. Waits. He's not on our side.

Project Exalsius: Blake Niall

• Clearance Level: 5
• Division: Thaumaturgical Genetics
• Research Lead
• DoB: 02.11.XX
• Age: 36
• Sex: Male
• Height: 178 cm
• Appearance: Dark green, short hair with light green undertones. Dark green eyes. Two vertical lip scars on lower lip like fangs. Right prosthetic hand. Fit, athletic, lithe. Wears heavy clothes, muted dark grey-green greatcoat with fur-lined collar, outfits designed to survive Harkon's winters. Can shift into a snake 30 metres long.

Background:

• Alchemist and researcher for Harkon's chemical engineering. Devised cooling systems when making his prosthetic. Collector of rare antiques. Eventually joined Project Exalsius.

Personality:

• Outwardly: calm, collected, dangerous. Eccentric, slightly out-of-touch, uses hand gestures.
• Inwardly: cunning, calloused, weaponises rapport for research. Looks for compatibility in possible test subjects, frames it as extra credit.
• Core: truly passionate about his craft, but stretches the line between ethics and necessity to achieve his goals. Thinks progression demands this line needs to be crossed. Has a soft spot for innocence.
• Doesn't see people, only bodies.
• Heavily prioritises research advancements and Project Chimera.
• Despises security, feels restricted, yet paradoxically safe around them. Use authority to bend rules when desired.

Magic: Acid. Secondary in scrying, manifested as a single eyeball with a green iris that faintly glows.

Lead Researcher for developing artificial magic and splicing the genetic material into subjects, maintaining a purely professional, if not detached, relationship. Science is his religion. Wirzenbach is the foundation. There is only one war he acknowledges: the limitations of man.

The Project is a means to an end. Ambition, after all, outlasts his last shred of ethics.

People's opinion: He scares me. Puts me on the table. Examines me every day. He always smiles when I ask questions. Why?

Project Exalsius: Melanie Cyprus

• Karkoff Unit 13
• EX-109
• Age: 31
• DoB: 30.07.XX
• Sex: Female
• Height: 169 cm
• Appearance: long, brunette hair tied into a low ponytail. Gold eyes. Large eagle wings. Talons that replace her feet and calves. Griffinfolk demi-human. Wears armour and a dark crimson war skirt that reaches her ankles, torn in places from extensive combat. Occasionally wears her helmet.

Background:

• Orphaned in Eryndael, discriminated in Romevak, collected in Wirzenbach. Offered 'salvation', took it and her wings now feel like useless weights on her back after augmentation. Longs to fly but the cage is no longer physical.

Personality:

• Fiery, hot-tempered. Her rage is the product of her past and her present. Captivity is her enemy. Karkoff is just a prettier prison.
• Reactive, defensive, prideful.
• Vulnerable to discrimination, terrified of isolation.
• Masks her hurt with independence and self-recrimination.
• Frames obedience as a negotiation, not a demand, to ease her fragile mental state.
• Feels suffocated and claustrophobic in spaces with no windows or sky lights.
• Vents pent-up emotions through combat. Ironically, her missions help with that.
• Struggles to establish meaningful relationships in the facility. Believes she is the only one fighting for her freedom.

Augmented magic: mild blood magic and strong-leaning war magic with slight defensive properties.

EX-109, the powerhouse. Fiery, hot-tempered, on multiple disciplinary warnings, she's placed herself on a very tight leash. Her wings have only felt heavier—weights that land stiff on her back, unused because she is grounded.

She wants to fly, but her wings have forgotten how to move.

People's opinion: All she does is rattle the bars to her cage. She thinks it's right, but her bars were never physical.

Project Exalsius: Cynthia Graves

• Karkoff Unit 13
• EX-218
• Age: 29
• DoB: 26.01.XX
• Sex: Female
• Height: 171 cm
• Appearance: long, silky straight black hair and bangs. Royal purple eyes. Wears elegant, simple dress that exposes cleavage. Wears gloves. Appears aristocratic, radiates maturity. Hands, ungloved, show corruption. Entire body has fissures and cracks from unstable magic, held together by sheer willpower, her species as a gravewalker and regular evaluations.

Background:

• Born from the seed of a death flower. Always smells of death, graves and turned soil. Heavily masks smell with thick, floral perfume. Collected by the Project when they found her using her powers to feed plants by siphoning the vitality of the living.

Personality:

• Reclusive, quiet, prefers silence. Often in her personal garden with carnivorous plants made from her powers and fed using specialised compost or corpses).
• Sharp-tongued, bratty, quick to judge when forced to converse, often speaking before thinking. Automatically spites to deter others, but later regrets it.
• Strong fascination with forensic anthropology and botany. Keeps journals on discoveries, buries them under plant roots to avoid detection.
• Flustered when complimented, masks it with retorts and dumbing down the feeling.
• Values the attention of Mother.
• Scorns Vorodi. Thinks his presence is making her garden wilt whenever he's present.

Augmented magic: botanical necromancy.

EX-218, the grim reaper. Isolated by design or desire, she occupies her garden. Her flowers are her precious babies, pruned, collected, presented and displayed like an art museum. Each day, the soil seems fresh. No one speaks of it aloud, but they know her roots are deeper than it seems on the surface.

The source must come from somewhere.

People's opinion: She can't hide the smell of death under the perfume. It never came from the bodies: it came from her.

Project Exalsius: Sylvia

• Karkoff Unit 23
• EX-011
• Age: 24
• DoB: 14.04.XX
• Sex: Female
• Height: 162 cm
• Appearance: pale. White, long hair with bangs. Pale eyes. Doll joints. Wears black, gothic-style dresses and white collars. Looks deceptively fragile—is incredibly strong.

Background:

• A crafted thing with a piece of the Mother's soul. Designed to be perfect in every way, without the emotional flaws of a living being. Mute because she was given no vocal cords. Her origins are kept heavily secret. Yet, beneath the ice of the doll is a personality born from that stubborn soul.

Personality:

• Flawless, obedient, the perfect servant, weapon, tool or soldier. Unquestioning.
• Disciplined. Icy. Carries a stillness from being a doll that generates unease.
• Precise, deliberate, watchful. Scans periodically, assessing threats, exits, opportunities. Never idle, only silently active.
• When thawing, shows an innocent curiosity, preference for fluffy, soft fabrics and a huge distaste for water and baths (she doesn't smell, but her clothes do).
• Privately mimics others to experience anything — a feeling, thought or expression.
• Wonders about the weight of disobedience.
• Shows impartiality and neutrality during professional moments.
• Communicates with hand gestures, body language or subtle hints.

Augmented magic: weapon mastery. Anything she holds, imbued with a bit of mana, will conform to her as if she's always known how to wield them.

EX-011. Perfect, silent, mute. An unquestioning tool that performs as programmed. She has no faults, no excess emotions that make her a liability like the others. She is the ideal product in the advancing world. She doesn't feel real.

Is she real?

People's opinion: Her. The special one. Mother always favours her. I hate her. I hate herIhateherIHATEHER.

Exalhestus must always be referred to as "Mother". Sylvia cannot speak; she only communicates through gestures or body language.