Lilith Aveline Brightfall

Appearance
It's always been apparent Lily was aasimar, with her pale eyes and skin that shimmered in just the right light, but she always looked more or less like her parents.

She had her father's black hair and the slight point to her ears and teeth that looked like a softer version of his. And, every once in a while, an undertone of his purple skin would show in the glint of her skin. She just lacked the horns, or tail, or hell-magic.

Since the Event, her dark hair shifted to silvery white, she can sometimes manifest wings, and she's got a healing scar under her left eye.

Personality
Lily's a cinnamon roll and everyone's big sister. She's not terribly confident in herself, since she never really wanted to be an adventurer ... but she's finding she really loves it. Maybe too much?

Valius Brightfall (Father)

 * Race: Tiefling


 * Job: Brewer, specializing in liquors


 * Description: Burgundy-skinned tiefling who is just about 6 feet tall. This makes him on the shorter end of the family. His horns are long, curved, and he wears ornaments on them that were made by his husband. He also has a chain that he keeps his previous wedding ring on. He wears his black hair shoulder-length and usually tied back with a strip of leather cord.


 * Notes: Valius loves gardening, and uses the talent in his brewing as well as for food. His real love is growing flowers.

Mahvik Stoneweaver (Father):

 * Race: Goliath


 * Job: Brewer


 * Description: Stands a solid 8 feet tall, and has rune-like tattoos across his gray skin


 * Notes: Actually discarded his clan name and has since taken Brightfall. His hobby is jewelry-making and the jewelry he makes can be impressively delicate. He is the more perceptive of the two parents. He also is the less talkative of the two.

Bilak

 * Race: Half-orc


 * Age: 19 years
 * Birthday: 22nd of Darkness, 2100


 * Job: Dock worker.


 * Description: Huge for a guy that's still a teenager. He stands about 6'7", and will probably gain a bit more before he stops growing. He's also got tattoos inspired by Mahvik and maybe too many piercings. He wears his hair long, usually tied back, and is the sort that will eventually have a well-trimmed beard. He's got one seriously impressive scar down the right-hand side of his face, running along the side of his eye and down to his jaw.


 * How did he end up here?: Bilak came to the family young. Like infant young. He’s the child of a human woman/teenager they had boarding in part of the house who was found very dead in the slums one morning. She’d died Jack the Ripper style. Social services are pretty much non-existent, and the woman had explicitly said she had no family. Lily, who was just a toddler herself at the time, was fascinated by the baby, so they ended up just keeping him.


 * Notes: Bilak and Lily are very close. They're the closest in age, but also grew up together. They are the steel that sharpens one another. His face scar was from a fight the two of them ended up in down in the slums, and he got it by pushing her out of the way and taking the hit himself.

Bilak works hard, and has the build to show it, but is conspicuously well-groomed when he's not on the docks.

Lor’ildan Faelor

 * Race: half-elf (human/high elf)


 * Age: 10 years
 * Birthday: 7th of Hearths, 2109


 * Description: black hair and grey eyes.


 * How did he end up here?: Lor was the third child added into the household, and he's been with them for a good eight years. I have no idea how he ended up here. I'll get back to you when I figure that out. He refuses to tell me.


 * Personality: He is ten going on a century. The high elf might have bred a little bit too true in this one. He is ambitious and. Below it all, though, he's got the fey-blood mischievous streak and a fondness for pranks. Pranks that usually end up landing on either Deirdre or Bilak. But not Callista. Callie has ways of making him regret it.
 * Notes: Lor is fluent in Infernal, Celestial, Giant, Elvish, and Common. He talks to LIly exclusively in Celestial whenever he can get away with it. It sort of annoys Bilak, which is probably why he does it.

Deirdre

 * Race: Human


 * Age: 10 years
 * Birthday: 22nd of Net, 2109


 * Description: Brown curly hair, freckles, and hazel-green eyes. She's almost 5 feet tall, but not yet.


 * How did she end up here?: This is mostly Bilak’s doing; he's the one that found Deirdre. She was discovered in the hold of a ship being unloaded at the docks. She was also promptly cracked over the head and thrown overboard. Bilak dropped what he was doing and jumped in after her. She did nearly drown, but he got them both out, and the water out of her lungs. It also lost him a day’s pay, but he took the kid home where she could be watched for dry drowning and they ended up keeping her. She’s been with the family for about three years now.


 * Notes: She's got a bit of a rivalry going on with her "twin". She's extremely smart and has a foreign accent. She also really loves books. Particularly non-fiction. Oddly, she speaks both Elvish and Sylvan as well as common. She's learning Infernal.

Callista Vesper

 * Race: Tiefling


 * Age: 6 years
 * Birthday: 24th of Clan, 2113
 * Description: black-skinned tiefling with pupiless amber-orange eyes.


 * How did she end up here?: Callie’s past, what little of it there would have been, is a complete mystery to the family. They literally found her living on the streets, in an alleyway, and she only spoke Infernal. But mostly it was hisses. She was also eating a rat (Bilak got bit for taking it away). Nearby orphanages hadn’t lost her, and the city watch had no reports of a missing black tiefling. Also, finding people who spoke Infernal isn’t all that easy, so the family ended up keeping her. At least the parents and the two oldest speak it fluently, so they could communicate. She’s been with them for 2 years now and can speak Common. She still very much tends to bite if you take away her food.


 * Notes: Callista is a feral hell-child. And it's sort of adorable.

History
Lily’s mother died when she was only about nine months old. Her father ended up moving to Gaoli and crashing with an old friend, a jeweler goliath named Mahvik Stoneweaver. Eventually the two of them married, and Lily doesn’t remember any other parents. She was legally adopted by her step-father, and both are addressed as “dad”.

The family is the sort that always has people coming and going. Friends of children, stray children, occasional boarders, and anyone else that needs a temporary port in a storm. There's even a monthly informal market that springs up in the courtyard on full moons. It's not a black market, per say, but a sort of grey one. It trades in community favors and gossip.

The Brightfalls officially adopted more kids over the years, and now it stands at two parents, five children, one pet mouse, and one snaggle-toothed stray cat, with everyone crammed into a slightly-shabby seven-bedroom house on the poorer end of town.

Both parents work, as do Lily and Bilak (the two oldest children). Lily pulls shifts at a tavern, as server or bartender, and Bilak works as a dockhand. Even with four incomes, it's not enough for luxuries.

Things got worse when a retired adventurer returned to Gaoli and opened up a brewery nearby, trading on his minor exploits and fan base and drying up almost a quarter of Lily's family income.

To make matters worse, the interloping adventurer was well known to Lily. He'd grown up deep in the slums, and his greatest dream had been to get out. Out of Gaoli and out of living hand to mouth. He'd been an okay kid, and driven. He and Lily had even dated briefly at 15, until the Calling had finally given him his out. It was long enough to show her the basics of opening locks without keys - he'd given her his lockpicks as a goodbye gift - but not long enough that either wanted to try things long-distance. So he'd left and she'd gone back to her life with good enough memories.

His memory wasn't as good as hers was, though. He didn't remember her at all, thought she was a fan girl and, when she disabused him of this notion, and pointed out he was hurting her family, he told her that maybe if she went out and made something of herself like he did she wouldn't be poor anymore. And maybe she'd be memorable.

Lily tossed a drink in his face and stormed out, anger brewing. She turned the anger into resolve. Her brother Bilak had just failed his first assessment, and couldn't try again for three years. No one else was going to get them out of this situation, but she'd trained against Bilak to help him with his dream of becoming an adventurer. If she led the way, if she passed and received a Calling, it wouldn't be on Bilak's shoulders as heavily. And there would be more money and more connections to better training for him and the young ones.

So she resolved to try, and secretly signed up for the next assessment. And passed. Now she can summon a weapon to her hand at will, and even feel the echoes of a weapon's soul if she spends enough time with it, letting whatever magic that's running through her now flow into wood and steel.

The new power is worth the whispers and the secrets. She just has to figure out how to attend the Calling without crushing Bilak, and, if she is Called, what to tell everyone when she leaves.

Aptitude Test Scores
Lily’s Overall Score: D
 * Combat: C
 * Magic: B
 * Tactical: D
 * Judgment: D

Mr Press Visions

 * Mr Press can pull them into a dreamscape meeting. It looked like their ready room in Basalt. He pulled Lily in to tell her that they'd looked into the potential betrayal of the Mobula Fleet, but Mr. Flastin was legitimate, as was his contract with the Archmage. Also, no trace was left at either lyceum. He recommended they go to the Sidnoss Region and look in the Library of Ashawan. There would be information about older entities and their followers, so they might get information about the Cult of Ebony Wings. He also let her know that the poison on the needles she sent back was something called "Celestial Bane". It works particularly well against people with celestial heritage.

Patron Visions

 * Lily awoke in a sandy room with a glowing blue. There was a blue crystal and she could feel a pull towards it. On the walls were projections of Lily’s memories. A voice said: “Place your hand in the Heart of the Sea and grab the living shard within. Keep it close to your heart. You will need it in the trials to come.”
 * After meditating on the jewel in her chest, she felt a coldness as it emerged. It then pulled her along, flinging her through memories until stopping in a place she didn't recognize. It was an ice cave within high peaks, filled with broken ice sculptures of people, frozen in place. She felt they were the remnants of explorers who destroyed the interior on accident. They triggered something and were now frozen in the wall. Lily heard a word echo through her mind: "Temple". Then, she was thrust forward again, into the ice cave ... or temple ... before it was destroyed. An elaborate ice chandelier with gem shards in place of the flames hangs above her. Ice cracks around as it settles. The gems look similar to the shard from the Heart of the Sea, and there's an empty spot in the chandelier. She then hears the word "Completion" and feels the need to replace the gem in the chandelier. She has a desire to complete it and set things to rights. Lily is then pulled back and the ice slowly melts as her vision muddles. Once more the voice speaks, and says: "Trials."

Letters Home

 * To Bilak, 2nd of High Cold
 * To Bilak, 7th of High Cold
 * To Bilak, 17th of Hearth