It was a nice day in the desert. The raid was a great success.

A whole month had passed since Camiel had learned about Arc Trading and their attempt at gaining access to the nation's holy silk.

On their traditional path through the Ibinian desert the tribe had made it’s scheduled visit to Jakul, one of the biggest cities in said desert.

While most of the tribe had been busy trading with the locals, the tribe’s spies had been gathering intel, rumours and gossip.

Sure most of what they had found out, was also picked up by the traders, but there were always some few hidden gems the dedicated spies could dig up. And this time Issel had hit the jackpot.

Before even informing the tribe’s leadership, Issel had confided in Camiel, seeking solace and spiritual guidance.

Camiel had immediately begun rallying some of their priests, warriors and spies to attack and destroy this damned Arc company. She could be very persuasive if she wanted to.

Two of her chosen had been uncooperative at first, but nobody had ever managed to resist Camiel’s mind-meddling. Granted, she had never before tried to use it for any purpose other than fulfilling her priestly duties, but it had worked all the same on the two unwilling participants of her small group of terrorists.

Now, a month later, the group had grown a thousandfold. And by now, none of them were even remotely adverse to the idea of dismantling the devilish company.

On their very first raid, only a few days after the group was formed, these terrorists had managed to empty out one of the company’s warehouses. For the very cheap price of dead humans, a few of which had been forcefully recruited, a few of which had tried to defend the building, most were voluntary recruits. Aside from looting necessities and weapons, they found documents. These documents proved valuable tools in gaining willing allies.

The documents hinted at the trade-deal being part of a much bigger ploy.

Each raid and each assassination brought the group closer to completing the puzzle which was Arc Trading. But no matter how many pieces they collected, they never quite got there. Every now and then a piece would come up which did not belong to any of the previous puzzles, some even acted as a bridge between two halfway completed puzzles.

Another interesting but completely unrelated puzzle, was how every time the group came close to eradicating Arc Trading’s presence in Jakul a new batch of company operatives would take the place of the recently deceased. And no amount of mind-meddling would give any insights into this specific puzzle. Most of these creatures simply did not know, and those who might have known had some kind of defence against mind-meddling … their brains melted. Once the brain of a high-ranking company operative did not melt, but the elven woman started drooling and became completely unresponsive to any and all stimuli.

Thinking about the confusing mess that was Arc Trading got Camiel annoyed. Her long, thin tongue flickered out of her scaly mouth and after wiggling in the air for a split-second retracted back into said mouth.

A knock came from her door. Even though she was not the leader of this group, almost all intel went through her at one point. She was the unofficial spiritual leader of most members. Although she was instrumental in establishing the group she had never sought leadership, instead letting people with a more fitting skillset take that responsibility.

“You may enter!” Camiel called out.

In came a black-scaled humanoid, slightly shorter than herself. It was clothed in a red robe, accentuated with intricate black and white patterns.

“Mistress, there is a guest, which requires your attention,” the visitor spoke with a deep bow.

“I don’t remember having agreed to any kind of responsibility, which could possibly make that statement true,” she rebutted while looking around her room. Sure, it was a bit bigger than the standard-issue room and her interior decoration was rather high end, but that did not make her a person of authority.

“Sadly one such as me is not privy to such information,” the male Huser argued “So if the mistress would be inclined to follow! Please!?”

Camiel slowly and quietly drew close to her visitor, who almost reacted too late and had to hurry into an upright position while jumping a few steps closer to the door. At the same time he turned to face the door.

The second he exited the door with the priestess in tow, he had regained his poise.

Camiel was led into a big meeting hall, full with all kinds of people. The only thing of note was the rather high ratio of Huser among them.

She had never seen the necessity to monitor who rose to power in the organisation, but she felt a certain kind of pride seeing her kin retaining some semblance of control.

Among the nine executives of the organisation three were Huser. In contrast, less than a hundred of the two million residents of Jakul were Huser. Seventy of which were likely working for the organisation in some way, or another.

The guests brought five people, none of which were Huser, as was to be expected.

“Let’s get straight to business, we know you want to stop Arc Trading, and we have a way to achieve that.” a female something, Camiel had never seen her kind before, skipped the introductions. She also skipped any and all potentially useful details.

“They are with …, you don’t care about that part, do you? Well there will be a tournament where you can butcher some Arc-peeps, in one-versus-one-kind-of-fights. And if you and the other ‘heroes’ butcher enough of these insufferable shits, they will stop pursuing that horrendous trade-deal,” Issel explained.

Until he began to speak, Camiel had not even realised that one of the three Huser was Issel, one of the original founders of this organisation.

“And we believe that, why?”

“Their story is all but confirmed by a few documents we found, but could not place anywhere in the bigger picture,” Issel explained.

“Fine!” with this word Camiel turned to leave, but before she took the first step she remembered to ask something “How many of us are going?”

“Just you!” Issel answered.

“Why me?”

“Our intelligence network found out that you are one of the best fighters we have at our disposal,” the strange woman explained.

Character Overview

Name: Camiel

Author: atgongumerki

Allegiance: Nova Ordo

Age: 56

Race: Huser

• Scaled humans
• Lifespan 150 years
• Rather short (normally 140 - 155cm)
• Tallest known specimen: 180cm
• Shortest known specimen: 120cm
• Limbs are longer than for humans of equivalent height
• Reproductive protrusions are not very pronounced and hidden by retractable scales
• Mostly travel by burrowing through the sands of the desert
• They only wear clothes when in settlements, because they would get in the way, for their method of travelling
• Only a few live in cities, and there are not many villages of their kind, most live in travelling merchant tribes
• Everything they own is kept in pocket-dimensions, which are surgically implanted into the tribe’s leaders - Camiel doesn't have one however
• In return for connecting the various isolated cities and tribes of the desert, they are allowed a small allotment of firemoth silk each year, which they use to transport their children through the desert-sands

Bio:

• Born to travelling merchant tribe
• Recruited into the priesthood at an early age, due to her inborn ability to convert mana to water
• Every member of the priesthood, aside from procuring water through various means, is trained in the usage of multiple melee-weapons, to protect the tribe from the various desert-threats
• After close to half a century in the priesthood she has risen to be one of the tribe’s 8 spiritual leaders, not necessarily through internal promotion, but because the tribesmen and tribeswomen trust these 8 people the most

Abilities:

• Water Manipulation: Can create and manipulate water. Usually used for creating fog or puddles to make her enemy slip, but she can also fill up defined containers and make it rain.
• Mental Manipulation: Can release a mental ping to distract and confuse her target for a fraction of a second. Slight manipulation of a target’s mind is also something she's capable of, but is normally not applicable in a fight.
• Strategic Mind: Due to decades of almost constant warfare, she is proficient in using small amounts of water and slight distractions to their utmost effect in a battle.
• Arsenal: Camiel is skilled at using a variety of weapons and carries a number of them on her person. In their "travel" form, Camiel's weapons look like 10 centimeter long metal rods, and she keeps seven of them in a small satchel at her hip. Each of these rods can magically transform into many kind of weapons, such as a halberd, a long spear, a shorter spear for close range, a sword, a pickaxe-style warhammer, or a mace.

Appearance:

• Green scales, covering the whole body
• No hair
• Height: 150cm
• Almost human face, with a slightly elongated mouth, housing a snake-like tongue and sharp teeth
• Slender and lithe

How they got recruited:

• Helped to organise a resistance group when the tribe found out about the soon to be trade deal, not liking the implications of giving trading rights of this holy silk to some foreign company
• Nova Ordo operatives approached the group and had convincing arguments about the reality that is the Sage Coalition, and they could prove that Arc Trading is part of said Sage Coalition
• The unnamed resistance group joined forces with Nova Ordo
• Being deemed the best fighter of that group she was given a spot in the tournament

ArantChronicles

This author decided on a different take for their character overview. If you're interested in joining, feel free to try and do a style similar to this one if you find it appealing.

Also, the author who joined previously has switched to being a backup. That means we have two slots open again, one for each team.