And on that note here’s my own OC, modeled after the Mage I play as in-game.
Name: Alyssa Silver, leader of the Azure Guard
Status: Alive, Stage 1 Infected (Stage 2 before she figured out how to surgically revert it back to Stage 1), Curse-Bearer (Wave Curse)
Insanity Level: 1
Whereabouts: Fort Talos, ventures out periodically to gather supplies, rescue survivors, and do field research.
Story: Alyssa Silver, like many infected and going through the earliest stages of the transformation, was captured by the Order of Aesir and experimented on unethically. Despite their best efforts, the infection continued to progress, eventually reaching Stage 2, and plans were made to euthanize her.
That would have been the end of her tale, if not for Wave Curse bearer General Zaix meeting an untimely end at the Massacre of Cassia Port, and a sea curse’s tendency to get launched off to a completely random location. By some improbable stroke of luck, the Wave Curse ended up landing right smack dab on top of her.
Alyssa promptly broke out of the Order of Aesir facility, washing up on Dawn Island much like her OG counterpart did, although her memories were still intact. For a time she wandered aimlessly, with little to her name besides a set of Lightmancer robes pilfered during her escape, a rowboat, a fishing pole, her magic, and the abilities granted to her by her sea curse.
However, she eventually noticed that her infection wasn’t progressing. A little experimentation later, and she learned of the Wave Curse’s magic-draining properties; said properties had leeched the corrupting energies of the Dark Sea out of her body, permanently stalling the infection and preventing it from progressing past the beginnings of Stage 2. Moreover, the Wave Curse could also drain the corruption out of other Lost Sailors and lesser mutated who have yet to reach Stage 3, granting them a reprive from the slow slide into monsterdom. The transformation couldn’t be permanently halted in others the way it could with her, and regular ‘doses’ of the Wave Curse’s power were thus required to keep the infection suspended indefinitely, but Alyssa was reasonably certain that the Wave Curse could do more if she had the right materials and resources.
Newly motivated by the promise of a cure that the Wave Curse offered, Alyssa set out onto the Bronze Sea once again, seeking a group who would be willing to harbor her and sponsor research into the Wave Curse and its corruption-draining properties. She eventually found such a group in the survivors in Fort Talos, who, while leery of the slight mutations she’d developed before acquiring the Wave Curse, welcomed her when they realized that she could drain the Dark Sea’s foul energies out of more than just people, and thus provide a reliable and steady supply of clean water and food.
Since then, Alyssa has attracted a large number of followers and supporters, so much so that they’be become a small faction unto themselves. Made up mostly of Lost Sailors who have been able to retain their humanity thanks to her Wave Curse, the ‘Azure Guard’, as Alyssa has christened her supporters, assist her with gathering resources and act as voluntary human guinea pigs for her experimental treatments. Thanks to them, Alyssa has managed to develop surgical procedures that can, when paired with the Wave Curse’s effects, revert those suffering from Stage 2 infection back to Stage 1, and portable potions infused with the Wave Curse’s power that have the same effect as a dose of power from her. However, she remains the sole source of this treatment for the infection, and a cure still eludes her. And as her experimental procedures get increasingly invasive, she can’t help but fear that she’s becoming no better than the Order of Aesir.
Side Note: She is aware of a legless Stage 2 infected haunting the lower levels of Fort Talos, and occasionally spends time down there trying to track it down, but she has yet to realize said infected is General Argos. Nor has she had much success with finding him.
