Tila "Surfer" - Camping Trip

Name: Tila Codename: Surfer Gender: Female Race: Zalak (based on the Abert's squirrel also known as Sciurus aberti) Appearance: Slender young woman in her 20s, light skin tone, long white hair with bangs, light purple eyes, large breasts, pointed white squirrel ears atop her head, bushy white tail behind her, white tank top with a black outline exposing her cleavage under a bright blue puffy high-collared jacket worn open, black pants held up by a black belt, black sneakers with blue details, infection monitor around her neck worn like a choker Combat experience: 8 years Place of birth: Columbia Date of birth: May 3rd Height: 165 cm Infection status: Medical tests have confirmed that no infection is present Family and relatives: Unnamed parents (deceased), Toms (uncle), Unnamed aunt Affiliation: Blacksteel Worldwide Intelligence Squad Weapons: Combat knife and kunais

Tila is an extremely competent member of Blacksteel's advance recon team. Although she is an excellent intelligence agent, she has become bored with these missions for an unknown reason. To distance herself from Blacksteel's core intelligence operations, Tila applied to become a collaborative operator of Rhodes Island, and now plays a role in joint information gathering missions with Blacksteel.

Tila, codename Surfer, is from Blacksteel's advance recon team. Extremely competent in her work. She has applied to be a collaborating operator aboard Rhodes Island, expanding the scope of our joint intelligence gathering missions with Blacksteel.

Every Blacksteel employee, whether an old hand or a new recruit, has one particular funny story they're always happy to recount, what they call the 'surprise team building session.' It was originally a celebration dinner, and several board members on the business side of things were also invited. The staff's private chat channels were aflutter. Apparently, once the dinner was over, the star of the celebration would be publicly recognized by leadership and be given a promotion right there and then. Some of the other departments also heard the news somehow, and were considering sneaking into the party just to see the lucky winner. When the dinner started, the guests waited and waited, but the lucky winner never showed. Instead, one of the executives took the stage and declared the whole thing to actually be a team-building dinner in preparation for the current assignment. As those who snuck in enjoyed the free food and drinks, they speculated who the no-show was supposed to be. After a few rounds of this, their most likely candidate was someone known to be extremely capable, yet somehow never promoted over who-knows-how-many years: Tila. Or as we know her, Operator Surfer. According to HR's research, during her time at Blacksteel, Surfer has relied on her extremely acute senses, as well as an ability to quickly divine the truth hiding behind people's words. With talents suited for information extraction, it was not long before she became an outstanding intelligence officer serving as the lynchpin for many missions. However, for unknown reasons, she soon became bored of putting her skills to the test in intelligence gathering. Not even a year after the Davistown incident, she submitted an application to become a collaborating officer with Rhodes Island, intent on distancing herself from Blacksteel's core intelligence operations. Based on our later conversations with Surfer, it appears her keen perception is derived from her experiences as an adopted child. But whether it stems from her background or from live combat experience, Surfer's job performance is beyond reproach. If she manages to find a balance between her personality and her work conditions, then as far as we are concerned, that is a good thing.

For a long time, our operators assumed the new hire Surfer was a meticulous explorer, one very serious about her work. Every one of her field missions has been completed swiftly and flawlessly, and the teams she leads often snag the record for fastest mission times. But when she returns from the solo camping trips she goes on to relax, she is always somehow covered head to toe in dirt. Whenever she recounts her experiences, we often hear anecdotes like the time she had the bright idea to abandon her tent and camp out in a tree hollow, which ended with her awkwardly staring down a tuskbeast returning to its nest in the middle of the night, or the time she deliberately tried some mouth-numbing nuts just to see what they were like. One time, she planned to camp at a rocky beach, but halfway through the trip was found stuck and had to be rescued by Asbestos, who happened to be passing by. It would seem the highly efficient wilderness scout and the camper who comes up with wild ideas are essentially two different people. According to Asbestos, she was just about to start pitching her tent at the beach after enjoying the sunset when she realized a pair of withered tree branches in the distance were actually someone stuck upside down in the rocks. She pulled her out, and to her surprise, found Surfer in the middle of one of her solo camping escapades. Surfer was not particular worried about her recent predicament. She even excitedly shared her findings: 'Turns out an upside-down sunset at a rocky beach really is beautiful!' This cemented Asbestos's first impression of her as 'not the brightest bulb.' However, even if her 'flashes of brilliance' often end up with her in a sticky situation, she still gets her work done as quickly as possible, setting aside the thick sheafs of paperwork and interpersonal relationships that wear her down to instead pick up her backpack and head off to wherever she has circled on her map. Perhaps everyone has something silly they do that still manages to spark joy despite everything.

Many who explore the Columbian wilderness have recently began reporting a 'spectral explorer'. It is said that, whether you found a nice little place on your own, heard about one at a bar, or found one scrawled on a treasure map hidden under a rock, if you go there on a picturesque day, you'll very likely find someone already there, perhaps even occupying the spot with the best view. This is the 'spectral explorer', and the more secret the spot, the more likely she'll appear. However, she always comes and goes alone, and to this day, nobody knows who she is. Click, refusing to believe the rumors, once headed out to search for a valley she heard about from a Pioneer couple she met in the wilds as a child. They stumbled onto it while lost, and in the dawnlight, saw a great herd of burdenbeasts rushing towards a stream. She gave a guarantee to her viewers: this place was incredibly difficult to find, out in the middle of the wilderness, and if she ran into the 'spectral explorer' even in a place like that, her next video would have her as a guest star and everyone would get to meet this mysterious figure. A week later, Click's latest video officially released to the eager masses, immediately setting off a firestorm on Columbia's intercity net. Her video detailed her grueling journey: how she relied on the few descriptions she had heard from that couple to find the valley, and how she managed to discern where the herd of burdenbeasts would pass based on their footprints. Once she finally decided on a good viewing spot, she started to set up her tent. As she did so, her camera inadvertently spun around, and in its lens, a distant figure was captured: the 'spectral explorer' of legend, Surfer. Surfer was amazed to run into someone who knew about this place, and invited Click to her campsite. There, they enjoyed watching the burdenbeasts gallop past in the dawnlight together. Click's video got an incredible amount of views, yet some viewers familiar with Surfer had to wonder: how exactly did she know about all these picturesque spots even seasoned explorers might not have heard of, all while being burdened by those 'bright ideas' of hers? Surfer's answer was to smile and wave about a yellowing diary in her hand.

From then on, Surfer's diary was famous. Luckily, she didn't mind telling us where it came from: Her parents were Infected, and from a young age, she was raised by her uncle's family. Her aunt and uncle never tried to hide this from her, which she took to mean they never really considered her part of their immediate family. After graduating from military academy, she considered finding her parents, but they had already passed away from their disease long ago, leaving only their diary detailing their pioneering days. But she never opened it, at least not at the time. Instead, she packed her bags and moved into Blacksteel's staff dorms. After working there a while, the unending barrage of intelligence work day after day wore her down. The pressure grew as she got more and more tired of having to view every conversation through a utilitarian lens, and to relieve it, she chose to head out into the wilds for some solo camping. During one of her boredom-relieving trips, she flipped open the diary to a random page. It was then that she realized the landscape before her and the image of the frontier her parents described on those yellowed pages were strikingly similar. And so, after more than a decade apart from them, Surfer finally began to understand what her parents were like through their diary. It also slowly became clear to her that the reason her aunt and uncle were always so forthcoming with her past was not because they didn't accept her as a daughter, but because they did not want her to miss the earnest love of her parents, no matter how distant they may be. The day she was upside-down on the rocky beach, watching the setting sun slowly sink into the horizon, was the day she finally understood what her mother meant when she scribbled 'when you look at the setting sun upside-down, it's like it's rising instead.' Though the revelation was somewhat marred by becoming stuck there, at least until a fierce-looking explorer yanked her out. As she was being freed, the diary caught the light. Only then did she notice the impressions left on the page by a line of fuzzy handwriting, now erased and stained with tears: 'If our daughter were here, she'd love this view.' A while later, Surfer hired a Messenger and wrote a letter to her aunt and uncle, asking if she could see them soon. She had plenty of camping stories she wanted to share with them, after all. But before handing the letter over to the Messenger, she stopped herself for a moment. She then took the envelope labeled 'To My Aunt and Uncle,' threw it in the bin, and found a new one. This time, she wrote 'To Mom and Dad.'

Surfer propped up her finning rod by the riverbank, flipped open her diary, and read her parents' words line by line under the moonlight. This entry was different from the others, as it happened to be a dialog. 'The fins you catch here at night are way bigger than the ones you get anywhere else. They're real tasty, and smell amazing whether you roast them or put them in a soup.' 'Well, that's because anything you cook ends up tasty.' Surfer clicked her tongue a couple of times before turning her attention to her hook's float. She had a rough idea of how her parents sat by this river, taking turns minding the line and writing in the diary. But she had been sitting here for hours with nary a nibble. She was getting a bit bored, so she opened up the diary once more and continued reading under the light of the moon: 'They're not biting. Aren't you worried?' 'Relax, fincatching's not something you can rush.' Surfer was amazed. How did her parents know she'd only keep reading after she had no luck finning? But before she could think about it, the float suddenly sank beneath the surface, and she started reeling in the line as fast as she could. After an arduous battle, she dragged the huge fin ashore. Gasping for breath, she sat down on the ground, and looked at the words on the back of the page: 'We wrote this entry on your birthday. Your mom was crying, though she tried to hide it from me, so I said we should write something down for the occasion. Who knows, you might see it someday. 'The next page has a recipe for roast fin your mom came up with. We're sure you'll like it. Happy birthday, Tila.' Surfer closed the diary as she basked in the love of her parents.