Tenebelle Shimano

As Reifa quizzed the apothecary about his wares, Tenebelle's golden eyes watched the shadows behind him. They swam with faces and spectral limbs that yearned to grasp at the man. Their silent laments touched her ears, stories of sorrow and pain and falsehoods. The man was a charlatan, intent on preying on the desperate. A few strands of Tenebelle's dark hair shifted like waves on the ocean, and a sudden sense of dread filled the air. Reifa, Kelia and the man suddenly looked at the silent, pale woman. When Tenebelle speaks, her words are soft, but the gravity of her presence granted the store a silence that was utmost. "... The spirits..." she began, looking over the bald man's shoulder as his eyes grew wider.
***

Reifa groaned as they left the shop. "Did you have to scare him that much, Ten?" she huffed, looking up at her idol and role model. Tenebelle replied only with a glance that set Reifa's nerves freezing. Tenebelle did not need to justify herself to her friend. What the man had done was inexcusable, and the spirits would, eventually, have had their revenge had Tenebelle not changed the course of his life. Even now, those spirits might draw him into the darkness.
Tenebelle did not need to justify herself to her friend, but she responded to her. "... That man's... Potions..." she said with the slow, flat cadence that was her norm, "... They were... Harmful..." That was the information Reifa got, and she fell silent, wondering whether a peddler of snake oil ought to not peddle at all.

A Dark Fate

I have never met my parents. I start with this because so many ask of them when they hear my story. Who they are and why they surrendered me was, and perhaps will always be knowledge forbidden to me. My first memories are of darkness so deep that I could not see my hands before my face. It was in this darkness that I grew to know the design my life was to take, and to whom it was devoted. The creature gave no name, but the many voices in the darkness gave it the name Kagutaba. Kagutaba nurtured me with its essence, and filled me with its knowledge. Until I was ten, I did not know light, and the only conversation I had was with the formless spirits in the void. I was born on Kagejima, the Island of Shadows, into the station of high priestess, handmaiden of, and sacrifice to, the the shadows that gripped my homeland. Through my pain, the world was kept safe.

When I was ten, they opened up my world. It was a tomb, but I did not know that then, nor did I know that it was small. I remember the confusion, the pain, the terror at seeing light for the first time. When your life has been lived in darkness, light is bizarre. When your companions have been naught but voices and the clammy spectral touch of ectoplasm, the sight of flesh and the form of people is horrific. Over the slow course of years, I grew accustomed to these, and the disturbing rites I was central to as high priestess. This single sentence overlays the writhing form of a decade of nightmares.

Hope

I came to hate. There were few things protecting in a world that hates you for your service. In the village, I was shunned. I was cursed, dirty, something to be feared. The ghosts of the island were everywhere, and loquacious. I never have learned to ignore the voices of the spirits. I thought them a part of life, and by the time I realised I was the only one who could hear them among my people, it was too late. They could not hear them, nor could they see the shapes shifting in the darkness. They understood Kagutaba to be evil, and as its handmaiden, I carried a part of Kagutaba inside me.

The understandings of Kagutaba the priests had were very different to my own. Kagutaba was a being of immense power. In a time long past, the ancestors of those who live on Kagejima used powerful magic to seal Kagutaba below the island, and atop the ritual ground they built the temple below which we interred the dead. Their souls were held by Kagutaba, and without a doubt, Kagutaba's power had an influence on the island most found alarming. What I had been told by Kagutaba was different. The islanders of old used Kagutaba's power for sorcery, as I do. They exploited Kagutaba, and it grew wrathful. Kagutaba's curse stems from this, and its rage remains unquelled. The rites the high priestess is subjected to, Kagutaba taught, reinforce this seal.

I had read about the sun, but I had never seen it. When I glimpsed the woman who had been found on the island's shores, I wondered if she was perhaps the sun. Glowing, a white light that seemed to burn as it warmed. The woman fascinated me. She tore me from my studies with a horrible force, my mind wandering to her even as the priests punished me for my negligence. She and her companions; a child and a fairy; were being cared for by the villagers. The spirits would whisper to me of their convalescence, slow though it was. The island has that effect -- something regarding the latent magic of Kagutaba and the seal that binds it. Kagutaba itself was restless. It could sense a change, a shift in the balance of things in its domain, and to it I spoke of the glowing woman and the strange feelings that she inspired in me.

I would like to take a moment here to write about love, and my experience of it to this point. It was something I was entirely unfamiliar with. To the priests, I was a tool; one that needed to be cared for, certainly, and at times praised. There was no affection in the relationship between the priests and me, however. Their rites were painful and humiliating, and unnecessary were they to listen to the voice of Kagutaba itself. To the people in the village, I was a monster. I bore the brunt of a curse, and I was to be pitied, but I was to be feared, too, and reviled. I have written that I hated, and I hated with a cold sort of fire. The coals in my heart flickered with a painful, icy power that prickled along my nerves with all the lethargy of a winter mist. Hate, I have read, is not the opposite of love. The feelings the woman provoked were not entirely opposite to those I had nursed in my chest. They caused my nerves to buzz, to jitter and dance with the butterflies that touched my stomach and seemed to crawl across my skin. They caused a restlessness, a desire for action but only in a vague sense that left me sitting motionless and confused. They caused my mind to wander, interrupting thought and process. The difference was that these new feelings were warm, and they warded away the chill fingers of hate as a fire might ward the winter's cold.

I did not have a name for this feeling then. It was my fate to continue my role in the temple, and though the woman, whose name was Paya, sought to enter the temple, such things were impossible. It was forbidden for an outsider to set foot in the temple. I was interred in the catacombs by the priests. A high priestess should not be exposed to any danger, they said, and an outsider was a threat. My fascination with Paya no doubt underpinned this diagnosis. In the catacombs I would stay until the next full moon, when the trio of strangers were to leave. Beneath the ground, a sealing stone barring any attempt to escape, I lay restless in the darkness.

I would later learn in stranger lands that magic is malleable, and at times an unconscious process. Perhaps this is what caused the chance events that allowed Paya and her partners to sneak into the temple. I could feel her presence as soon as her toes crossed the buried rope that encircled the sanctified ground. With more attention than I had given even my most enjoyable of lessons, I strained my ears in the pitch darkness. I listened to my heartbeat. Between the excited whispers of the spirits, I listened for her footsteps. Two pairs I heard, along with a shrill voice. I neared the stairwell, wanting to close the distance between us. I could hardly breathe as I heard her voice, muffled though it was by stone. It was another voice that first spoke, though.

"Daughter of darkness, lend me your aid. From your tombly home, I will unearth thee!" Though the pattern of speech hardly seemed fitting, I assumed that was the girl, and that she was speaking to me. I was uncertain of the moniker she bestowed upon me, but it was fitting, given the circumstances. I was uncertain of what aid she required at first, but with our combined powers, the sealing stone was removed from the catacombs, and the trio stood before me. I felt unworthy to be in Paya's sight, and my usually quiet voice was swallowed by silence. The three introduced themselves. I knew Paya, and the other names; Reifa and Kelia; were ones I had heard. I mumbled my own introduction haltingly, guided by the helpful voices of the spirits and resting firmly on the power of Kagutaba, that cold, comforting knot below my navel. This first meeting was necessarily short. The women (which even the girl was numbered among, I found) had been guided here by prophecy, and were only confirming the existence of the undercroft this night. There was more to the temple, they said, and at its heart was a rod and a whistle, tools that held a powerful magic that would one day play part in yet another prophecy, one of a foreign land.

When the priests removed the stone in the morning, they found me alone. I hid my happiness well, and I suspect they had no knowledge of what happened.

Dawn

For the first time, I knew excitement. I had something to look forward to. Each seventh day, the three women would sneak into the temple. The guards would sleep, and we would explore the catacombs. Reifa, the girlish woman, and Kelia, her fairy partner, would lead the way, falling back when the fear of the dark and the dead grew too heavy a burden. Paya, the white-haired girl who suffused me with such warmth, would linger with me. I wondered if she was drawn to me as I was to her. I hoped and feared. I had seen moths drawn toward the light of a flame, thinking it the moon, only to perish amidst dancing flames. She was kind, though, and gentle in voice and demeanour. Her warmth was a soft glow, lambent and comforting, though it illuminated my insecurities and drew attention to deep scars I had never noticed. I had learnt much in my eighteen years at the temple. I had learnt of the history of my island and my people. I had learnt of the dual histories of Kagutaba and the magic that sealed it. I had learnt to endure pain, shame and violation. I had learnt to bend reality with magic. I had not learnt about myself until Paya, Reifa and Kelia lit Kagejima's shadows.

Adrift

Life as an Adventurer

Skills & Abilities

Tenebelle has a grave, sobering presence. With one foot firmly in the land of the dead, she is only ever partially present in the world, and though she cannot be relied upon to convey thoughts with alacrity, her observations are insightful and incisive. Darkly beautiful, her eeriness attracts and repels others. Her detachment from the world -- or more accurately, her distraction from it -- makes her seem aloof and cold. In truth, she does keep herself at a distance from most, feeling uncomfortable with emotional and physical closeness alike. Her skills in field work seem to be predominantly in the fields of magic, information gathering and investigation. With the aid of spirits, she can gather information with remarkable speed, but the proximity of this magic to necromancy is distasteful and terrifying to most. Her magic deals primarily with shadows, darkness and the dead, though this does extend to some basic restorative magic. She is able to assist spirits in manifesting by drawing on the power of Kagutaba, the ancient being that Tenebelle was once bound to.

Relics

Tenebelle has no relics registered to her name. The Guild has recorded her magical foci as a butterfly-shaped mask, a pair of maracas, and a terracotta whistle.

Guild Record

24 Frostmoon 218CC: Adventurer registered.
26 Frostmoon 218CC: Job no. EST07251809 Assisted an old lady in finding her cat. Employed unlicensed use of magic during the investigation (first count -- warning). A portion of the reward offered to adventurer and her party was withheld by the Guild under Stipulation 51, and the adventurer and two party members were supplied with arcana licenses. Job completed. Client reported adventurer to be 'creepy.'

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