Doxa

“Doxa once beat me to a Bane I’d been tracking for three weeks. She didn’t banish it—she humiliated it. Bent the damn thing’s pride until it apologized to her. I don’t like competing with people like that.”

— Soki Noles

Origins: Vanda Ilyachenko

Vanda Ilyachenko was born into comfort and expectation. Her parents—both mid-level AetherTech Solutions professionals—provided her with an upbringing unmarred by scarcity or instability. From her first years, she exhibited a leader’s gravity: the effortless charisma of someone who knows they will be listened to. Vanda was the kind of child adults described as “promising,” with teachers predicting a bright future in administration, governance, or diplomacy. She excelled academically, socially, and politically without ever needing to grasp for dominance. Authority simply pooled around her.

Her admission into the prestigious University of Titania was a foregone conclusion. Her grades were unassailable, her lineage impeccable, her confidence absolute. She chose the Surveyor’s Track the moment she stepped onto campus—less out of passion than instinct. Surveyors combine intellect, adventure, political leverage, and corporate patronage, and Vanda Ilyachenko believed herself destined for all of them. Her professors and peers agreed. Leadership roles fell into her hands as easily as high marks.

It was Vanda’s keen eye and soft arrogance that first noticed the anomaly on Umbriel—the subtle misalignment in the soil strata suggesting a chamber outside the licensed dig perimeter. Her instincts were correct: within that neglected corner of the colony ruins lay a crystal skull, untouched and resonant with secrets. Discovering that the skull projected a map when illuminated was exhilarating. Learning that a second projection—when aligned precisely with where the pineal gland would sit—produced a cipher was intoxicating. And the decision to keep the artifact and chase the clue was hers. Delira and Doroha followed her lead as they always had.

She led them into the Cave of Narcissus. She led them into the dark.

And she was the first to hear Mother Carmun’s call.

Transformation: Becoming Doxa

Vanda’s metamorphosis into Doxa did not happen all at once—it was not a breaking, but a revealing. The Cave of Narcissus bathed the trio in Pride-resonance, a psychic frequency that amplifies ambition, self-regard, and the intoxicating conviction that one is destined for greatness. Of the three, Vanda had the least internal resistance. Where Delira felt temptation, Vanda felt validation. Where Doroha felt fear, Vanda felt excitement. And when Mother Carmun emerged—symmetrical, terrible, radiant with subspace prestige—Vanda was ready to kneel, not as a servant, but as an inheritor.

Doxa was the name Carmun gave her, drawn from Old Terran roots meaning “glory.” It fit too well. She accepted it without hesitation, discarding Vanda like a chrysalis. Her parents, horrified when she dropped out of university to join a “cave cult,” cut her off financially; she had already withdrawn what she needed. Her focus was total. Her devotion unquestioning. Her trajectory irreversible.

Mother Carmun warped Doxa’s natural confidence into something more brittle and combustible. Pride became hubris. Compassion became condescension. Leadership transformed into domination. Doxa quickly became the de facto head of the Sisterhood, not through vote or decree but the sheer gravitational force of her will. Delira and Doroha deferred to her instinctively. They believed they needed her. She believed they belonged to her.

She does not see them as equals, but she does see them as extensions. Their strength is proof of her capacity. Their victories are hers. Their power is her mirror. And their loyalty is assumed, unexamined, and absolute.

Appearance and Affect

Like many Uranites, Doxa possesses a striking coloration: porcelain-pale skin, hair as white as fresh snowfall, and irises flecked with gold and red like smoldering coals. Her eyes catch light in unsettling ways, reflecting the cavern crystals’ hues as if alive. Her hair—which falls in a long, immaculate cascade down her back—is her most obvious nervous tell. When contemplating strategy, deciphering grimoires, or planning a ritual, she absently runs a pearl-handled comb through it, a gesture both vain and soothing.

Her clothing blends her privileged upbringing with her newfound arcane identity. She wears a corporate-cut tunic with a high collar and tailored sleeves, layered skirts over fitted trousers—a look fashionable among Neptune’s upper-white-collar class. But she has altered the ensemble to suit her occult ambitions. Pinned across the fabric are ruby-and-gold amulets, charms, and warded symbols, each representing some hybrid of Protection and self-aggrandizement. More than one was made using knowledge extracted from Mother Carmun or stolen from Dubhan’s grimoires.

Her voice remains warm and commanding, gentle but imperious. Her smile is dazzling and predatory. She radiates the conviction that she is always—always—the most important person in the room.