An'Nyese

Strength: 0
Speed: +1
Stamina: +1
Weapon: +1
Armor: +1
Hit Points [30+(7xStamina)]: 37

5
10
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
vs. Schaden - Loss (Injuries - Cross cut deep enough into back to have shattered bone. Another just as deep cut diagonal across chest)
vs. Duron - Loss (Injuries - Small slash from shoulder to hip. Heavy injury to back/spine, shattered skull and missing flesh/hair from one side of head.)
vs. Arouse - Loss (Injuries - Broken rib. Heavy, heavy bruising to the whole expanse of her torso.)
vs. Kleesna - Loss (Injuries - Badly bruised back, deep stab wound just below armpit.)
vs. Crowling - Loss (Injuries - Heavy slice across chest splintering rib bone, nearly severed arm.)
vs. Shakti - Win (Injuries - Heavy bruising to dominant arm, decent cut to chest)
vs. Arouse - Loss (Injuries - Bruised stomach, heavily bruised wrist, broken leg, broken back.)
vs. Necessary Evil - Win (2v1 Ny and Hassan vs Evil - Injuries - Pierced through chest bruising around it.)
vs. Shakti - Win (Injuries - Heavy cut on leg. Scratches on ankle, chest and temple.)
vs. Arouse - Loss (Injuries - Badly bruised stomach, internal damage. Fractured leg.)
vs. Kleesna - Loss (Injuries - Cut across stomach, badly bruised jaw with cracked tooth, split and bruised temple.)
vs. Lasur - Win (Injuries - Stitches in back.)
vs. Aqrab - Win (Injuries - None.)
vs. Kleesna - Loss (Injuries - Bite taken out of left side of jaw/cheek area, severely bruised spine - unable to walk, heavy bruise with split skin between eyes.)
vs. La'Tisha - Loss (Injuries - Bruises to rear and legs. Small cut to leg. Gash and deep teeth punctures to stomach.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~




Scarlong's Strength - Last place.

Scraps of paper near her bed, out in the open. Either carelessness or belief no one would bother to read this makeshift journal.

Fire based: The affinity to fire is common among the Ahibanu, but most can do little more than light candles and small fires. Control of this ability is extremely difficult, and few have the strength to develop it further. In addition to the natural destructive uses of such an ability, many use it for crafting such metal-working and glass.

As the former High Priestess An'nyese has had significant training in fire and has learned to control it to a great degree. Ny possesses a great resistance to burns and can heat her own body to a degree that can inflict injury and significant burns to others. Though only for short periods of time before the effort exhausts her, and control is lost, and energy drained. Physical manifestation of overuse is a general weakness, lower than average body temperature and ash in her bloodstream.

Water based:Manipulation of water is the least common of the physical abilities. It is Anahita's domain, and the ability to work with water is considered holy. As such, these women are too sacred to remain in this realm and are frequently sent to Seht so he may deliver them to his goddess.

An'nyese's caregiver failed to report the emergence of water ability to the Sisters of the Temple when she was a child. And as such, she grew up hiding this ability and practicing only in secret. She believes if Anahita wanted her, Seht would have delivered her long ago. She does not talk about this power, and will very, very rarely display it unless severely agitated/enraged. This includes manipulation of bodies of water from puddles and ocean waves, as well as any other source of water, including that residing in living bodies. While she can drown, she can remain underwater for a great deal longer than the average person. So rarely used, exhaustion effects are unknown.

Snake Charming: She can sooth any agitated serpent, and seemed to enjoy 'talking' to them. She can understand them and they her in the most basic of ways. She cannot have a conversation with these beasts. But mood and illness in Ny or the snakes will cross affect, this only applies to her pets, not every passing serpent. (I.E. If one is cold, Ny herself gets sluggish.) She can also sense the presence of serpents. Charming heavily relies on power aura, normally only felt by snakes, but occasionally by those who can sense auras themselves. She possesses two of her own, A black adder and a saw-scaled viper, but these companions are currently missing after the unnatural winter on the island. She has recently acquired a third as a gift, a red spitting cobra. It is rumored that Ny's charming effects with serpents works on sentient creatures as well, she will not confirm or deny this.

*For those concerned over magic use, Ny avoids magic use for fighting if she is able. It is too taxing on her body. The cons heavily outweigh the pros. She will, however, use it largely for crafting, which takes considerably less effort and only in moderation. Water abilities likely will never be seen unless extreme circumstances arise.

More info about the Temple and Life An'nyese hails from can be found here, for those interested in the life and culture of the Ahibanu.

A cool night breeze blew in from the windows, ruffling the bright blue sheers that covered it. She slept soundly, nestled in a mass of pillows and sleep tussled curls. The next morning was a big day for the eighteen year old girl. She had come of age to be allowed out of the main sanctuary, and was to be assigned a true temple to begin her service. Excitement had nearly stolen her slumber for her, but her day of preparation had exhausted her enough to allow that blissful darkness.

In the shadows of the room, something shifted. It had stood, still in the corner of her room the moment that same shadow had extinguished the lights. It debated, it prayed, it worried over the sleeping girl until it had come to a decision. Nearer it crept to where the girl slept. A trembling hand reached out, to pull the sheer curtain of her bed aside and gently stroke down the girls arm. "An'nyese... wake up."

Her thick lashes fluttered, warring between grunting the intrusion away to sink back into sleep and waking. That stroking hand and soft voice, however, was persistent and soon she groggily sat up. Bleary eyes took in the haunted blues that stared at her and her lips melted into a bright smile. "Tahj," she mumbled, voice thick with sleep, "you know you aren't supposed to be in here after dark." Her chiding was only a front. The man had snuck into her room several times over the past two years, from when he stopped being one of the slave-men of the Temple and became her lover.

His lips broke into a ghost of a grin, his stroking hand mussing her wild curls, but he did not speak at first. When she peeled back her sheets to offer a place for him to lay, he shook his head. "We need to speak An'nyese. Come with me to the stream." With that, he held out a robe for her that matched his own. Her brow lifted, but her smile remained, unable to deny her love anything, even if she desperately wanted to curl up warm in her bed beside him. Rising to her feet, she pulled on the robe and pulled the hood over her head as he did, and they wandered out of the sanctuary and into the night.

Soon, they found themselves at the foot of the bubbling stream, the fires that lit the outside of the temple off in the distance. Giddy with this nighttime excursion, Ny twirled in the dew laden grass, and began to sink down onto the shore. Swiftly, Tahj caught her arm and kept her standing. His eyes held a note of sorrow, a twitching of shame. "You won't be getting assigned to a temple, Ny," he whispered, a glitter of tears staining the corners of his eye. "I have to tell them."

Confusion lit the girls eyes as she stared at that mournful face and she took a step back from him. "What do you mean?" Panic began to grow, a deep fear pulsing through her veins. "You let me live, all these years... Why... why would you tell them now?" By now, the ugly truth was dawning fully on her, and with her terror, she felt the energy in her blood begin to churn. "I thought you loved me!"

He took a step forward to try to console her, to touch her arm to explain, but she took another backward, her bare feet within the icy waters. "Ny, I had a dream last night. Anahita will damn me if I do not tell them and let the Sisters send you back to her. We'll both be damned! Don't you see? We might be spared if..." He was cut off by the strange look in her eye. Her trembling had ceased, and she stared, not at him, but through him. Her head cocked to the side. She breathed in a slow, easy rhythm. Silence engulfed the night. For a few long moments, there was only the sound of the bubbling stream. He began to think he had gotten through to her. Until...

"No," she spoke softly, though her words held no warmth. An icyness settled around her, he could almost feel it rolling off her skin. As he looked at her, she seemed to change. No longer did he see the warm, happy child he had been barred from playing with as children, nor the loving, trusting woman that had become his. She was an ocean of calm fury, of whispered scorn. She was a silent frosty tigress. "You misunderstood your dream. If Anahita wanted me, she would have had me. My destiny is not to be sacrificed." She smiled, but it was a cold, terrible thing. "One thing in your dream, however, was true. You are damned, Tahj."

His lips parted to speak, but she lifted her hands. In front of her, a column of water rose from the stream and wrapped around him. The serpentine coils of liquid dragged him into the river with her, standing him before the vicious thing she'd become. "Your betrayal, Tahj, has damned you." The last scrap of her feeling came out in the slightly wounded sound of her voice. Fingertips plucked out the long, curved blade of the bone dagger he had given her, that she kept tucked into that ebony mass of curls.

Fear whipped through him at the sight of the glinting steel, at the display of her power that she should not have had so much steady control over. "Can you handle my blood on your hands, An'nyese? I want to tell them out of my love for you! No one will ever love you as much as I do! Can't you see that?" he pleaded for her understanding. But all he recieved was a firm shake of her head. "I do not intend to love again." Her words were ice, seething snakelike through her strange calm. Without another breath, the blade flashed against his throat and the waters began to swirl with crimson.

Slowly, the water around them began to solidify, building a freezing dam around them until they stood in a bowl-shape, filled with unfrozen water. Her finger lifted and his blood began to roll upward from his neck, then swirl around the pair in terrible red tendrils. Down they spiraled until every ounce of his life floated through the still water. Only then did the column that held his body slink back into the reddened pool and his lifeless corpse sink down, engulfed by the hungry red water.

She too, fell to her knees. Slowly, the robe was peeled away, as were her underclothes and tossed onto the shore. And there she sat, in the night, soaking herself in the blood of her one great love, and her one great betrayer. "No Tahj, I will never love again."









The journey had been tedious. He silently cursed his equally silent passenger as he prodded the weary camels to pick up their pace. Had they followed the direct route the long desert trek would have only had him out in the sandstorms and scorching heat for five days. As it was, his quiet passenger had insisted in the beginning they avoid all cities, towns, merchant roads. She wanted no living soul to see their passing, and the five day march rolled into a grueling three week journey.

He glanced back at the gilded carriage that housed the woman, who's face he hadn't even seen. Just a voice in the darkness, hidden by layers of colorful sheer fabric that draped over the glassless windows. As he watched the carriage bump over the dunes in the hazy half-light of the oncoming twilight, he mourned another nights loss of a warm brothel bed. His mind danced with colored pillows and tinkling bells, of low voices and silky legs.

The only thing that held him from making a bee line to the nearest town was the promise of payment. All knew that the Temples held vast riches, donations given by the wealthy for this blessing or that. To take a single Sister from one temple to another seemed an easy task to feel the weight of a heavy satchel in his pocket. However, as the days rolled on, he began to feel that itch. Alone in the desert, with only himself, the camels, and that mysterious woman. It was enough to make him wonder if damning himself by defiling one of the Sisters was worth it. After all, he'd never been much of a religious man. There was no real fear of the old God in him.

His ponderings were interrupted by a disgruntled sound from the camel, and he glanced up to see night had fallen, but in the distance he saw the oasis. The large tree's bloomed up from the dunes and the rocky temple loomed dark on the horizon. A sense of relief swept over him. "Nearly there," he called out over his shoulder to the passenger, "Just another two hours or so." He began to give the camel another sharp prod to speed the brute up when a voice called out from the carriage. "Stop and make camp here, we will proceed at mornings first light."

Bewildered at the demand, he turned fully in his seat and gazed, slack jawed at the carriage. "But, Sister, we are nearly there. We can make it before the moon fully rises!" In the silence that followed his plea, he heard the sound of a pocket full of coins dancing away. His burning loins would have to wait another day to find reprieve. Sighing, he stopped the camel with a slight tug on the reigns and made quick work of setting up his own campsite. With a fire quickly started for protection from the night creatures, he bundled up on the front seat of the carriage to keep himself well away from the ground crawlers. Sleep came quickly, knowing the sooner he slumbered, the quicker day would come.

Something awoke him from his sleep. A familiar serpentine rattling that tugged on the very edges of his dreams and yet faded when his eyes opened. Through his bleary vision, he guessed he'd only been out for a couple of hours. It took him a moment to realize something was amiss. His blurred vision cleared when he noted the fire was out, not a single burning coal left flickering or smoking. Curious he sat up from his bedding to get a closer look, and in the brilliance of the moonlight, she stepped in his line of vision.

She was all curves and sinewy muscle. Her light caramel flesh glistened with a sheen of sweat, glittered like she were dusted in salt crystals, he could almost smell them on her. She was a canvas of exotic ink. He could make out the design of a black snake curling around her muscled thigh, a pattern of flames and beneath of waves high on the inside of her other thigh, her arms covered in henna-styled patterns. Waves of silky black hair rolled down her back, glinting silver in the starlight. But with all she lay exposed to him, his dark, hungry gaze settled onto those vibrant blue eyes that seemed to take in the meager light and reflect it into an almost unnatural glow.

Her full lips curved into an inviting smile, and one finger rose to beckon him down from his perch, ever silent save for the soothing sound of the tinkling silver bells at her wrists. His aching loins could not help but obey her silent command and down he scrambled, tearing away his clothing as he stumbled through the sand to get to her. He stopped, just shy of taking her in his arms, panting with the sudden excitement and her beckoning hand found its way instantly into his hair, drawing him close. He breathed her in, the pleasant scent of exotic herbs filled his lungs.

"You have served Seht well, are you ready for your payment, Habibi? " she purred, her voice low and thick with lust. His vigorous nodding and panting breaths froze a moment later as sheer horror and pain screamed through him. His eyes swung down from the vision before him, to the wicked, curved bone dagger embedded into his chest. "May He keep you," she whispered seductively into his ear before she leaned hard into him, pressing her white-hot flesh against his and twisted the blade. As she pushed him away, the last sound he heard was the tinkling of those silver bells.