Eline Messer
Eline Holly Messer (a.k.a. Ms. Shadow)
This character is involved in several plot points relating to the ongoing story arc of The Garbage Man, as well as certain questions involving the true nature of the Manifold Sky setting. Parts of her bio which include spoilers for these stories have been hidden for your convenience. Proceed at your own risk!
Eline Messer is a Groundling woman who joined the 125 Hands out of a desire to overturn what she percieves to be an unfair predjudice against her kind by the self-described 'progressive' autocrats of the Manifold Conservation Society.
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In truth, her entire backstory is a convenient lie to cover for the fact that, as an agent of The Waiting Room in Oxo, she has been tasked with eliminating The Garbage Man for his transgressive abuse of The Word against the natural order of the Manifold Sky instance.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Messer is a petite woman with slender features, a trait which has helped her slip into tight places in the past.
Facial Features
While it is not obvious at a distance, Eline Messer has heterochromia. Her left eye is blue, while her right eye has a green tinge to it.
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Messer's heterochromia is the result of the embodiment process being rushed. She had to get into the Manifold in time to stop The Garbage Man's research into dimensional shift before he did permanent damage to the Manifold Sky instance with it, but this left little time for her to fully master her own facial emulation skills. This is also why her right iris is always slightly more dilated than the other.
Apparel & Accessories
Messer prefers black turtlenecks and pants to conceal her body features and movements from others. She often dons shaded aviator goggles and a black knit cap while working in an effort to further conceal her identity, as her heterochromic eyes are a liability in this regard. Other 125 Hands agents have begun to suspect that she is sneaking out of The Tartagloam Palms at night for some reason because, though she has been in Tartagloam for over a year and has never been seen wearing a dust mask, her voice hasn't developed the distinctive 'Tartagloam Gravel.'
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Messer was born in Bunker Primus to a family of Elovisian-descended Groundlings; her ancestors were Craterhold citizens who, upon moving to the MCS, never fully integrated into that rigid society. As a young girl, she wished for nothing more than to return to the surface and get an education. Unfortunately, as her family were unwilling to ask for the government's assistance, regarding this as being beneath their dignity, Messer was forced to use her youthful agility to steal and, later, fence stolen goods to make ends meet.
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In truth, Messer (Patchy-M86, or 'Pam') was the child of a Choir Blank and an Elder Blank, both high-ranking officials in the celestial bureaucracy - specifically, The Waiting Room. Messer manifested a specific blend of intelligence, drive, and absolute devotion to the Substrate that marked her as a top candidate for embodiment as an 'on-the-ground' agent in the Manifold Sky instance.
Education
Messer was highly intelligent growing up, though her potential was hampered by a lack of formal education. Instead, whenever she would steal an interesting piece of technology or books of any type, she would pour over them in the family hovel beneath the bustling bunker accessways. Technical manuals and Administrative Council propaganda interested her the most - the former for the fascinating schematics and unfamiliar scientific concepts found within, and the latter because it showed her the illusion of a paradise that the MCS government was trying to spoon-feed their unsuspecting citizens. It was also though these technical manuals that Messer learned about systems intrusion via mechanical interruptions and social engineering techniques, though she would ultimately never develop the programming know-how to produce Ring0.
Employment
From her technical reading, diverse street-smarts, and experience with theft by stealth, Messer grew up to become a respected member of the Groundling community. If someone in the underground needed medicine, she could get it. If there were travellers looking to pass illicit substances, she could get it to the buyer undetected. By adulthood, Messer wasn't doing what she did out of a need anymore, but because her time in the underbelly of Bunker Primus had embittered her to the state of her society; every criminal deed was an act of vengeance against an ivory tower elite that didn't care about the plight of the underclass as long as new citizens kept rolling in and didn't ask any hard questions.
The MCS Hand boss sponsored her membership in the organization and, after a few heists at MCS data centers, sent her to The Tartagloam Palms to be vetted for her own command. She has worked closely with the Tartagloam Hand as an infiltration specialist ever since, running heists enabled by her facilities in gear-grinding, stealth, and social engineering.
It was a chance encounter with a 125 Hands Finger moving through the Bunker Primus utility tunnels that changed Messer's life forever. She had heard of the incident the 125 Hands had caused in Bunker Primus back in '94 and had found it remarkable that the culprits had never been caught. She observed the Hands agents until they separated for the evening, then approached the one who looked like the 'boss' to offer her services in infiltrating the Bunker's administrative facility. That operation never went through, but the boss was suitably impressed by the young woman's stealth and knowledge of her 'beat.'
125 Hands Deedmark by BCGR_Wurth
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Messer has carefully cultivated an artificial life story, having only actually arrived in the Manifold a few years prior, to advance closer to her target: The Garbage Man himself. Having fabricated the records of her own existence using both mundane and Arcana-based techniques, Messer has fooled the 125 Hands to accepting her into her inner circle. It is now only a matter of time before she finds the right moment to strike, taking out The Garbage Man and his immediate subbordinates in a grenade blast or torrent of bullets.
Alignment
Lawful Neutral
Current Location
Species
Ethnicity
Year of Birth
9975
25 Years old
Circumstances of Birth
Show spoiler
Embodied out of Oxo for assassination attempt
Circumstances of Death
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Killed by The Garbage Man during her assassination attempt
Birthplace
Children
Current Residence
Gender
Female
Eyes
Blue (left), Green (right)
Hair
Dirty blonde
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Light
Height
5;4"
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Comments