Anise Mínervudóttir
The Daughter of Time Anise Mínervudóttir (a.k.a. "The plant girl")
Lost to time, this individual was put in stasis and only awoke due to a power surge caused by the ley lines. She remembers much... too much... her mind is befuddled and often confuses fact from fiction.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Born on the plane of time, Anise was fathered by Yog-Sothoth and raised until she reached adulthood. She is a rare and unique entity who had fallen into the timestream and world of Astralaria through the dream gate hosted in Treddleton, one of the only instances of something falling through that wasn't intended to pass through,
Her first introduction would have come in the presence of one Rodrick Blackcrag and Smao Klaiminora-Wae, with Rodrick holding some caution after being alerted to her arrival. At the same time, Smao was calm about the matter, abating concerns by stating that she was "in most cases" not an invasion force and "in most cases" more help than harm, which only begrudgingly dissuaded the more prominent man from action, as while Smao was not often wrong, he was loathe to listen to a necromancer.
Through some adventures, Anise would grow in experience and become one of the members of the second expedition - becoming one of the initial forces and participating in many events. However, what is unmistakably her most significant contribution would be the unique approaches she has had in resolving numerous situations, benefitting and saving the lives of many of her adventurers, especially in times when death itself has set its eyes upon those around her.
Following her adventures with the expedition, Anise joins with the Child of Heaven De'nethorr, The Marksman Marrok, and the defender knight Fortis, the Craftsman Alexsander (her future husband) and together - with the aide of the Moon Mistress Tess to guide them, start tracking down the Avatar of the Chained one, hunting his divine aura to extinct it. As part of these travels, they end up in a stray encounter with the Elain war maiden as they exterminate a nearby cult. Seeing them following a quest for righteousness, the maiden joins the party.
While far from relaxing in many senses of the word, Anise settles well into her party. Often acting as the vanguard for her fellows, her intuitive and creative use of illusions baffles and bemuses many of their foes, whilst the evening hours were made more bearable by the suffused healing her illusions could provide.
Perhaps even more notable was that she partnered exceptionally well with Tess due to her unique conditions, helping redirect and guide the mage away from the numerous traps and delusions that the faux-god had attempted to use to befuddle them. Such methods made Anise only increasingly annoyed with someone who couldn't seem to get to the point and was all too bent on avoiding fate. Still, this motivation kept her motivated and going forward.
After culminating in a hunt, in which De'nethor's usage of his artifact prevents the chained one from fleeing, the group falls upon the god with violence in effective brutality. It is a challenging fight; the counters and statuses inflicted by the god make it dangerous. Attempting to break and crush the morale of those battling him and filling the air with false illusions. It is through De'nethors light by which the false images are purified, and by Alexsander and Fortis's shield by which the blows are avoided.
But it is by spear and lance together by which the dark entity is slain.
But death was only a temporary measure, and by this point, all members of the party knew in truth how hard it was to assure the death of one of their fellows. Thus, it fell upon the role of time-thief to ensure that death was a lasting effect, or at least as traumatizing as possible for the dark entity. Drawing upon her stolen arcana, Anise chained the chained one in a fit of Irony, stealing his time and binding him into a crystallized stone.
Her task now completed, she returns to Treddleton with her partner Alexsander to celebrate and recover and finally seal a pact she had promised herself a long time ago. Though she had seen many paths in which she would never walk these steps, she found a present-day, in which she walked down the aisle of a grand but straightforward wedding held by Alexsander for her to be wed to the same man.
The wedding's attendance consisted of a great many of those who participated in the expedition, but also included a special secret, for though only she and her husband could see it, both know that Anise did not walk that aisle alone, and much to the groom's cold sweat, only carefully was the daughter of time given to her husband.
The honeymoon for the two of them lasted for at least a year and proved exceptionally fruitful, for their passions would birth unto the two of them a child, who would be cared for carefully by both until the pull of adventure and the needs of the lives the two had temporarily left behind them fell upon them once more. Alexsander needed to attend to matters at his guild and Anise the call of the mainland. Though she knew that Marrok was hunting other divinities, she herself knew that she had a burden as a lynchpin to be somewhere. Therefore, with Alexsander's numerous golems to aid in nannying, Anise would leave for a time.
Guided by her mythic supervisor, Anise would find herself teleporting into a strange city above the clouds. Heated with warm hues, this city was inhabited by creatures who identified themselves to Anise as Anhneun, living in the Zenith City of Eyes. Adroitly used to translating many tongues by this point in her life, Anise realized that the creatures exhibited strange behaviors akin to herself. Their perception of time was deeply warped, allowing for numerous conversations to occur almost simultaneously as they broached and discussed numerous topics.
Anise discovered that there were three other cities akin to this floating one. Each one represents a different season in which the city would travel through the land, crossing the world. Yet, the world—as yet as dangerous as it was made it so that only these strangely disconnected-from-reality creatures were capable of surviving the overall passage.
They spoke of topics that spread from around the world of the Mirage Auroris, from the volcanic frontiers to its great deserts, but most important to them was what they spoke of as the northern stormlands. A place where the weave "bleeds," warning Anise of the great magic auroras occurring there and the great danger as the land steadily appeared to be undergoing corruption.
Such warnings undoubtedly excited the adventurous woman, and she immediately became curious about the lands up north and how to arrive there and explore what was going on. But with the strange magical phenomena, she quickly realized that her options of actually reaching there were quite limited.
Although... if there wasn't already an answer, couldn't she just make her own? After all, she was nothing if not resourceful. However, as she learned all she could from the cloudbound city, three months would pass, and she would leave them, returning to Treddleton and passing back to the enclosure of the veil.
When visiting Ireland, she encountered two others with similar experiences, and though her conversations with them were brief, the coalescence of their three experiences was meritorious to pass on to those studying esoteric topics. She would share this knowledge with her fellow expedition member Suzy Klaiminora-Wae, whom she would provide generous funding for to open this northern passageway.
Of course, during this time, a brief break was taken to relax and enjoy her husband's company and care for her daughter, both of whom she had missed dearly. The engagement of having fellows operating on a similar perception to oneself was certainly delightful, however sometimes a girl just wanted to be centered in herself. Or rather, needed to be centered in the moment, as Anise had started to struggle with her strange temporal condition in a new way.
Where she would occasionally get lost and seem spontaneous in nature or reaction, Anise struggled with an overwhelming imbalance in witnessing the end and loss of that which she had spent her life cultivating. An unsettling sense that subconsciously started to affect the environment around her, at least until Alexsander would come home and shatter the temporal phenomena and center her once more. Bringing her back to his reality and a place of familiarity and comfort.
However, as time passed, her condition worsened. Alexsander would find his wife locked in a temporal stop for hours. Pacing around and giving him a newfound sense of worry, he did his best to ensure she had the arcane tools to stabilize herself. Both experienced it as they were, knowing this was a temporary stop.
However, Both of them knew that the only way to break free from this was for Anise to return to her life as an adventurer and see where things were going. The only reluctance in both was in knowing that a number of the expedition members had disappeared with time. The possibility lingered. Anise may never return if she left.
It was this unusual sense of uncertainty in which Anise had voluntarily clipped her own wings. Despite her devotion to Yog-Sohoth, there was still a "human" part of her after all this time, and she could still experience doubt. Yet, this feeling was dispelled as one day, she could hear a simple call in her mind. "Come," his voice had said, and from that moment on, Anise bid farewell to Alexsander and kissed her child for potentially the last time.
Heading to the Expedition Site, Anise teleported to the Saltieunni Heartland and approached the Nexus on foot. Felt the draw of her supervisor as she approached it. She walked there not in one minute alone, but instead walked the same steps in multitudes.
Approximately Forty-Two Years Ago
Anise walked the path with a man in strange gear, his body wholly covered in draped clothing and wearing a sash. The man was cold and dour but walked with prideful determination. His path was walked amidst the Saltieunni, who seemed blind to his presence. Given his chilling attitude, perhaps there was a psychological aspect that made them unwilling to recognize this creature who had come to this place.
Pulling out his Kukri, the man would only execute a single slash to depart "time" from "space" and enter the void he had made, entering this phenomenon.
About Two Years Ago
Anise walked the path with a woman, her face cold and chilling with eyes sharper than steel. Though her body was destroyed by magic akin to a candle burning at both ends, the woman seemed to have a certain familiarity with death that allowed her to survive the powerful energies and forces that ravaged her body incessantly.
The woman approached, and as if the Nexus seemed to be waiting for her, a portal opened and swallowed her whole.
Three Years from "now"
A figure she recognized with a hint of distaste, for his hatred of magic and innate willfulness had rebelled against her goodwill countless times, also approached the Nexus. Pausing when another portal opened, he saw something attempting to break out from within. The space fractured and bent unwillingly as something reached out from its depths. With so much arcane power and intent, however, this fellow member had taken only a moment to strip off his helmet and glove before sending both back to the expedition site and throwing himself into the portal.
Six Years from "Now"
Anise watches another as space threatens to shatter once again. Like a mirror cracking, she sees it all - a shattering of the walls between worlds and an avalanche of unstoppable forces and energies destroying the world like the unsealing of a great dam and the final resolution of every foretold fate she has seen thus far.
But Now...
It was now, and Anise was here now. Watching the great gash of arcane energy that flowed from the pit of the massive crater where that great Nexus had once stood. Anise stood at the ledge of it. Turning to look backwards to the world she knew she'd likely leave behind and then fell backwards into it. Teleporting herself once to the center of the crater itself and falling down into its depths.
Anywhere but Now
As soon as she struck and passed the barrier, Anise's consciousness was akin to a pool of water after being struck by a stone, rippling outwards as it dissolved. Yet, not all of her was lost, as the power, energy, and time she had stolen throughout her life manifested as a crystal whose core still contained her purpose. With this as a focus, Anise pulled herself back together and reconstituted to her new reality.
With the sensation of feeling like she was being smothered by a blanket, Anise racked her memories for a brief moment to see where she was, only to find her head was strangely empty. Having been born in the plane of time, she had long since been a companion to many memories that existed in her history and future. But now, at this moment, she only had her past as her experience and guide.
Though she would need some time to process this feeling, her head and attention instinctively flicked in the direction of a noise she had heard, the words <"help me" echoing from far off and triggering her body to dash off towards it, locating the source of the noise to be some titanic giant wrapped in tentacles that appeared to pulsating and injecting something into the Titan's flesh.
Anise, of course, stopped and asked the creature a pair of questions, beginning with "Who are you?" and "Where am I?" as she looked to understand more of the situation, she was met with a tortured groan from the creature whose response consisted of
"We are Vision." and "between the akashic and temporal planes."
For the rare decision to offer a straightforward answer to something she had asked, Anise rewarded the creature generously by brutally destroying the various tentacles that held the beast in place. Also, she held a somewhat shared nature as a fellow creature from the time of the plane. Setting it free as the beast collapsed with a heavy thud upon the ground and groaned a sigh of relief. His body radiated strange energy that seemed to crack his skin at the seams and threaten to rupture him from within.
Walking around to examine the creature curiously, Anise would then ask it, "Why was that happening to you?"
To which the creature would reply, "The creature doing that is like a parasite of sorts. It is using me as a host." as his explanation, pausing before continuing with a request, "Could you help me? That was not the last I'll see of the creature, and I'd much like to go somewhere else."
"Well, I don't know why or what I'm supposed to do here." Anise began to reply, interrupted by a beckoning presence in her mind. Her god's voice whispered a soft 'help them' in its recesses, causing her to immediately change her position on the topic. "But I'll help you."
"Thank you." was the earnestly appreciative response she would receive as a response to her offered aid.
Now, Then;
Anise would travel with Vision for a while and have many strange encounters throughout this process. At one point, she and they found themselves walking across a smoking crater from a flesh-like construct that seemed to have fallen from the sky with numerous creatures that had died in an attempt to flee the wreckage. She identified creatures as the original Saltieunni predecessors who had once taken to stitch their own deity into existence.
On Vision's journey, Anise would also see a massive city of arcane might and power. One that stood had a ruling queen of embers, and the artistically engraved visage of a phoenix could be found on every column. This city - seeming impossibly sturdy at its beginning - cracked and decayed even as they walked through it, swallowed by the darkness of the abyss as something seemed to pull the city down from its center. However, Anise and Vision would walk through this unphased.
This journey, however, had its challenges. Vision had an unquestionable ability to draw in hostility. Attacked time and time again, and while they were not a 'weak' creature, the sheer number by which the foes came was overwhelming for them alone, and it was only by Anise's intercession that she could help stave off them from getting injured any further.
"further" indeed, for it was evident to Anise that Vision had not visibly recovered in their shared experience, the wound experienced by the creature growing with each passing battle. Keeping the beast from resting, as if he were being hunted, and the number of foes it had to fight was doubled each time it would be found.
For that reason alone, Vision was ceaseless in his movement, and Anise was beside him. She adapted to her strange environment over time and then started to exercise her abilities as a thief. Though the creatures had no interest in using her as a host, she began to steal something of a form that was not Arcana or time but instead something "else" - an energy she couldn't quite describe.
This energy, however, slowly started to change her. Slowly Anise drifted away from her previous lives. Unconsciously becoming something less "human" as her experience with Vision grew. As slowly as this changed, did she also see something new - that where She and Vision traveled, Vision was "healing" the world around them. In her time in existence, she noticed the strange anomalies littered throughout, but now she knew the "who" that prevented them from spiraling out of control.
Some things, she noticed - Vision could not affect; perhaps it was something he was ironically blind to, or maybe they were simply too small for him to touch. Some things she noticed she could affect where things had gone awry and needed to be fixed. Sometimes, this was kind - a misplaced stone, allowing for the meeting of two lovers as one tripped over the other. Sometimes, this was cruel - a mansion where a candle needed to be knocked over.
This sense of Anise grew alongside her experience, and almost autonomously, she started to influence the world much like Vision had. As soon as this started, she also drew her own hostility - the shared hunt between Vision and her. But she relished the challenge in a way as the fighting spirit within her challenged it back.
But as she would later discover, it was not only the fighter in her that fought back, as she felt the urge to protect... something? Knowing that if things were knocked from their place, she'd lose something important, though she'd lost sight of what that was. Continuing with Vision, they journeyed a while longer, until they approached a gateway. Once again, a semi-familiar experience.
"Dream gates," her memories reminded her idly as she examined it, Vision turning to her and giving her a low bow before rising up and speaking to her.
"All things must end. For a fire to burn, wood must be sacrificed. For life to continue, life must be sacrificed. But sacrifice is a choice. This choice is yours." These were the words spoken to Anise by Vision.
Anise's first feeling was a sense of frustration. In her opinion, people who spoke in such confusing ways were annoying. Straightforward speaking was always ideal, but both dream gates started to swirl and charge out of one; she could feel an immense hostility toward them both. Whatever existed on the other side truly only wished for Vision to end, and alongside Vision, now Anise. The other dreamgate was familiar. A vision back "home" to the ordinary.
Now, it was her choice; she could stay and fight the creature entering the dreamgate, or she could return home. Knowing the flow of time as she did, whatever happened here might take years - decades, centuries, or even millennia before it transposed back to her known reality. Or, she could be trapped here forever.
But here were the wishes of her god. She had long since found her path. She was an avatar of the god of time, tender to time. Daughter of time, and if needed, here was where she belonged. Even as her heart thrummed softly and painfully in her chest, something was crying out to her, telling her that the easy way out was within reach.
Anise... was never easy, though.
Steadying her stance and briefly swiping her eyes with an arm, Anise's eyes hardened as she interwove the many magics and powers she had collected around herself and prepared to fight. Vision, who also organized themselves, shared a silent look of acknowledgment.
What she fought - Anise could not quantify with numbers. Countless "things" were unleashed en masse, threatening the sanctity of both her homes; however, this meant that she fought violently and passionately. Whatever damage she took was returned tenfold, and whatever energy she needed was stolen from what she fought. Illusions turned into countless warriors to distract and fight on her behalf.
She hadn't realized when she had subconsciously started to do this, but a part of her took solace and comfort in fighting alongside Marrok, Alexsander, and the rest. It took some of the pressure off of her amidst the combat, as the against endless she fought. Yet this would quickly prove to be a mistake, as while she could always recreate them, each destroyed illusion felt personal. Adding a furious hue to her vision as she pushed herself to her limits.
If she didn't fight here, could reality be unwritten? She had seen the events get knocked out of place, and if this was one of the creatures manifesting it, then as a daughter of Yog-sohoth, could she stand to watch time itself start to unravel? Would she still be aware of everything that had happened? Would she still know Alex? Remember him?
This insatiable hunger, rage, and feeling weren't just of some entropic nature that was the natural consequence of reality; she knew it was something that wanted her gone - not just her but everyone she had known. So concentrated was its nature that Anise knew that it could never be reasoned with. She could only fight against it.
This fight, however, was comparable to a man trying to stop the tide with his bare hands. As a mortal, Anise could never fight against such forces, no matter how much she tried. Overwhelmed repeatedly, she felt the endless entity "seep" through the cracks. Each time it would occur, she'd push herself further, stealing time, essence, and arcana from her foes to further empower herself until she started to grasp at the edge of something. An inbuilt limit into her body.
As a "mortal," Anise could only bear so much power. Her thievery filled up the vessel of her body until it threatened to crack. Her body overflowing with power until she could no longer reasonably hold onto it, and even as she hit her upper limit, what she fought had no limit. Despite the infusions from her plane of birth strengthening her, the incompatibility of the energies she now absorbed meant that parts of her body had started to crack and seep ichor.
What will you sacrifice? Anise didn't want to give anything up. Not her friends, not her family, not her past, not her future. But for the fire to burn, wood must be sacrificed for her family to live, for her daughter, for Alex. A momentary lapse in judgment was all that it took for Anise to feel a sharp crystalline prod against her chest as she was slammed into the ground.
Though the impact and its consequence lasted for a moment until she teleported herself back to her feet and furiously retorted in violent strikes, the essential seed she had collected so long ago with Marrok and the others still belonged to her. A body beyond worldly measure could possibly withstand its due duty. But Anise felt that if she made this choice, the world would not be able to bear her presence. She'd only ever existed in this place.
She could see visions from the other world through the second dream gate almost torturously, too. Alexsander's worried expression as he toiled at the forge. A mindless array of tools forged amidst sweat and toil as the man sweated under the burning anxiety that came from not knowing where his wife was, his sixth sense awake and restless for wanting to be by her side.
Marrok's stoic expression commands his troops to look past the Saltieunni nexus again as if he could find his missing companions. And the cold nature by which he took vengeance on the mainland that had stolen his compatriots away.
And though she longed for them, the thought of their achievements and lives undone was even more torturous. Stiffening with conviction, Anise pulled out the crystal and gripped it firmly. Holding it as she surrounded herself with the illusory combatants of her friends and all she knew to give her the moment she required, she took the crystal in both hands and started to cut at herself violently.
From the wounds she now made, the crystal started trying to unleash the energy inside her. Attempting to twist and corrupt her thoughts so that even as she sought to separate herself from the bloodline that could not contain the power and embody the bloodline that could, a new battleground would start to exist in her head. The outside influence and the internal cognitive dissonance. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, she began to focus on all she embodied;
She was Anise. She Was the daughter of Time. She was Alexsander's Wife. She was a mother. She was a fighter. She was an adventurer. She was unstoppable. She was a legend.
She was Anise. She Was the daughter of Time. She was Alexsander's Wife. She was a mother. She was a fighter. She was an adventurer. She was unstoppable. She was a legend.
She was Anise. She Was the daughter of Time. She was Alexsander's Wife. She was a mother. She was a fighter. She was an adventurer. She was unstoppable. She was a legend.
But the requirements to fulfill the role she had now chosen required a complete lack of frivolous things.
She was Time.
Simplicity required that she be that and only that.
Complexity was a bug in her system and, therefore, a weakness. One that allowed the corruptive influence of the crystal to darken and cloud her mind. A weakness that stilled her as the remaining illusions fell away, and she was swarmed by a mass of flesh and tentacles and swallowed up. Leaving her only one last thought she had as her own; "Though it seems impossible at times. I hope that everyone finds in themselves the ability to continue moving forward."
A moment of silence...
How long was a moment? To someone who could manipulate time, it was as brief as an eternity and as long as the light of a lightning bolt. To break the silence, the now-split Anise unleashed a devastating battle cry. A shockwave of energy bursting out from the flesh that had entombed them, shattering it open and unleashing the two together. One, embodying the power of time and unleashing a semi-divine might that resonated with her father and the plane from which she had been born, seemed to manipulate the fabric of space through time and time itself. Disintegrating creatures by her presence, she tore them apart and moved with impossible speed.
The other, embodying the power of illusions, was inhumanly beautiful and adorned with living tattoos of plant life growths whose inky leaves fell from her skin and sprung up as warriors and fighters to aid her twinned self. Disorientating her foes by redirecting them onto false delusions.
If the ceaseless future opportunities are unknown, then, by this same measure, an infinity was expressed in response to the infinite entity that invaded through the dream gate. Though either of the Anisi was decisive in their own right, one between the two still embodied a mortal form.
This would become more evident as whilst the Chronal Anise would receive no lasting injury and have no signs of exhaustion, the Fey Anise could not withstand the constant pressure with the same grace. Receiving injuries and growing exhausted as the battle continued. Their innate confidence together meant that neither would back down from a fight. However, this didn't stop the Chronal Anise from recognizing the condition of her other self.
Convincing herself was unlikely to happen as she knew how stubborn she was, so a trick would have to be played. Waiting for the moment when it was most opportune. The Chronal Anise gradually positioned herself until she had her back to the dream gate, which she knew would lead back to the world of the Mirage, and then stilled long enough that an incredible blow was directed towards her. However, rather than receive or avoid the blow. She simply changed the target.
Given no opportunity to react or block the transposition, the Fey Anise found herself abruptly launched backward. Quickly thinking and then making a wall behind herself to prevent herself from being forcibly removed when she had not yet called it quits, Anise was now subjected to one of the classic blunders: "Was that really subjectively there?" as the wall was disbelieved by her fellow self.
Now, the dreamgates were ordinarily meant to be traversed, and "launched through one at extreme speeds" was undoubtedly a sub-ideal method of transport, as one smashed through various realities at incredible speeds. Hence, the Fey Daughter Anise's resulting lack of consciousness was entirely reasonable.
Eventually, the fey Anise's motherly instincts would awaken her to the sound of a soft, childlike giggle nearby. Her entire body aching in pain, she forced her eyes open and looked over. Seeing her daughter's green hair nearby, she also saw her playing with the empty-hued crystal that had once contained the dark god's essence.
Mother mode trilling its alarm, Anise tried to shift herself to a sitting position, only for the noise to startle Sylvie, whose reaction was to jump slightly, look over at her mother, and drop the crystal she was playing with, only for the sharp point of it to jab into the child's soft thigh.
Freezing for a moment, Little Sylvie's only reaction was a slightly shocked "Oopies" as the crystal visibly melted down, a gray-yellowish hue to it as whatever energy still remained inside was absorbed directly into the child, seeming to give her hair and eyes the slightly-yellowish hue that the crystal had once contained.
Sighing, Anise remembered that her Chronal self had been the one last holding it, and if having given it to her, it was probably with some purpose or another. However, she had to process if she wanted her daughter to be burdened with it before figuring out whatever challenge she faced. Sylvie's at least well cared for while she was raised.
How long was a moment? To someone who could manipulate time, it was as brief as an eternity and as long as the light of a lightning bolt. To break the silence, the now-split Anise unleashed a devastating battle cry. A shockwave of energy bursting out from the flesh that had entombed them, shattering it open and unleashing the two together. One, embodying the power of time and unleashing a semi-divine might that resonated with her father and the plane from which she had been born, seemed to manipulate the fabric of space through time and time itself. Disintegrating creatures by her presence, she tore them apart and moved with impossible speed.
Current Status
On a mission to find more vestiges of her god within the mainland.
Age
???
Date of Birth
???
Circumstances of Birth
Extremely strange
Birthplace
Plane of Time
Children
Pronouns
She/Didn't/Ask
Sex
Female
Gender
Woman
Presentation
Feminine
Hair
Yellow and Leaf Green
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pale
Height
5'1''
Weight
112
Belief/Deity
Yog-Sothoth
