Dispatches-From-Amaurot

A Mostly IC Digest by Aellae Neru

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Our name is Aellae on Discord.

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CatWhoIsAWizard
@CatWhoIsAWizard

Hey y'all, I'm finally doing character introduction posts! I have six characters to introduce, and I'll try to post them all in the next few days. First up, we have my main, Zhera Anki!

Zhera is, first and foremost, an adventurer, but also a scientist, soldier, wife. She was born in Ala Mhigo to a local Seeker and a Keeper from Gridania, but the family fled when the Garleans invaded, eventually settling down in Limsa Lominsa. She had a fairly happy childhood, growing up beside her little sister Naalu, and eventually enrolled at Mealvaan's Gate to train as an Arcanist, which she took to very quickly. Her parents died in the Calamity, leaving Naalu in her care, but after a couple years the younger sibling left to find her own way in the world, freeing Zhera to pursue her career as an adventurer.

And pursue she did, joining the Maelstrom's Foreign Levy as an adventurer-soldier, and going on botany expeditions in various wildernesses when not on missions. During her adventures at this point in her life she met Lergwyb Merlwyn, who would later become her first wife, fought alongside the Warrior of Light against Ifrit (and Titan, Garuda, and Leviathan), and attempted to cast a self-made spell called Shroud of the Inferno (basically Dreadwyrm Trance, but with Ifrit's aether instead of Bahamut) that backfired and infected her with Ifrit's aether.

After spending the entirety of A Realm Reborn and Heavensward adventuring and doing missions for the Maelstrom, she grew in power, both in terms of magical ability and authority. When she saved Lergwyb (more on that in her post), she also found a Scholar soulstone and learned how to use it, and her attempt to cast Shroud of the Inferno, despite ending in failure, caught the attention of her superiors, who arranged for her to get a Summoner soulstone. She excelled at the Summoner arts, quickly rising through the ranks, and about a year before the attack on Baelsar's Wall she was placed in command of a classified program to develop and weaponize new spells.

The product of this project was finally brought to bear at the Battle of the Ghimlyt Dark. She fought during the whole war to liberate Ala Mhigo, even getting injured during the battle for Castrum Abania (the scar over her left eye), but the Ghimlyt Dark was important for her in two ways. First we have the special project she oversaw: the battle was the first field test of her new spell, Inferno Install. This Summoner spell was designed to take advantage of Zhera's unique state of being infected by Ifrit's aether, allowing her to harness said aether within her own body, temporarily replicating his powers and supercharging her own. And that's exactly what it did. With her unit in tatters and the flank she was defending about to buckle, she used Inferno Install as her last resort, allowing her to repel the Garlean push long enough for reinforcements to arrive, but at a cost. With her focus distracted with controlling Ifrit's power, his aether was able to further infect her body and started to even encroach on her mind. The second reason that Ghimlyt was important to Zhera, is that is where she first met the Imperial defector who would later become Ambedo Anki, her second wife (more on that in her post).

The side effect of Inferno Install, combined with the horrors she saw during the war led her to resign from the Maelstrom shortly after the Battle of the Ghimlyt Dark. She had grown tired of killing people and lying to dying soldiers (she was a healer in addition to a Summoner), and wanted to return to her life as an adventurer. Recognizing that Ifrit's aether will probably use Zhera to summon Ifrit himself should it ever gain control of her (which would be very likely if she ever used Inferno Install again), the Maelstrom accepted her resignation, but scrubbed all mention of her time in R&D from her record; as far as anyone without clearance knows, she was simply a Foreign Levy Marine Captain.

Aaaand that's as far as I've gotten in the MSQ, so the rest will have to wait until I play Shadowbringers and Endwalker and can finish writing it.


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