Clocksoul Vindlens
General
~Pain! So. Much. Pain! But I can endure it. I must! I must punish those who have done this to me!
Vindlens is the name of one of the most infamous Clocksouls in Jothame. One who has had an unfortunate life both as a former Human and a Clocksoul. Now she is hunted both by physical threats and mental ghosts.
Rogue Clocksoul
~Giving me a second chance was literally the worst thing you could have done! I'll see to it!
For unclear reasons, Vindlens murdered her former master Constant Joris and everyone within his mansion after ten years of trusted service. She became the first rogue Clocksoul to go against her directives to such a great scale and is these days seen as more of a boogeyman than anything else, stalking the streets of the Imperial Capital in search of prey.
Those who were instrumental in her creation see her as something far more troublesome and something that needs to be hunted down and destroyed. At all costs. Beyond that, she is also seen as one of the greatest obstacles to the technology that powers her. After all, who would want to own something that could possibly kill them without warning?
Memories, new and old.
Vindlens does only have fuzzy memories of her former life. Like remembering an old dream. The clearest memories involve the death of her mortal form and specific moments that meant a great deal to her. Her first meeting with a Black Talon and when she killed her abuser and gang leader Carita Dead-Eye.
Reborn memories
Her new memories as a Clocksoul are not that pleasant either. Awakening and seeing Tarik Elzenaar examine her in her new clockwork prison. Meeting the other few of her new kind. Being bought as a guard by Constant Joris. Murdering him, his family, and everyone else at his mansion. For reasons, she has a very difficult time recalling.
"...Itsy-bitsy human, running through the streets. I will take you, you can't flee. Be ready to feel steel...
History
Before the life of a Clocksoul.
Vindlens, whose original name has long-since been forgotten, had a tough and violent life up until the point when her mortal form died.
A life in poverty
Growing up in the poorest of conditions and with both parents' lives claimed by the Blue Soot Plague, Vindlens was accepted into a local thieving gang. But things soon took a turn for the worse, as it was discovered that Vindlens was an Goëtia Ilyon.
Since individuals such as her were either forcibly conscripted by governmental officials or taken up by the Black Talons to be trained in their art form, the leader of the thriving gang, Carita Dead-Eye, did everything she could think of to make Vindlens obedient and make her learn to keep her powers at bay. This means exposing Vindlens to physical and mental abuse in the worst possible ways imaginable.
A weapon in more ways than one
Vindlens was soon made into a crude weapon to make Carita more powerful. She assassinated rivals or was being handed over to allies as a night's plaything. She kept going on though, even if there were some close calls during the worsts of times.
However, thanks to her Ilyon nature, she became stronger for every kill she made and it helped her endure the abuse from Carita and her allies. Up until one night that is, when she first met a member of the Black Talons.
Revenge
She could be evaluated to become one of them if she performed a task to prove her worth. The target? Carista Dead-Eye, who had become too much of a liability, with all the power she had acquired in Parallel.
But the gang leader was nothing without her Ilyon pet and her excuses for bodyguards did not have a single chance of stopping [Vindlens] from stabbing the cruel woman through the left eye and chest. But she did not stop there. Instead, she went on a horrific killing spree throughout Parallel and did the law enforcement a huge favor that night.
New way of life
After seeing what she was capable of doing, the Black Talons reluctantly welcomed her into their ranks. Most of them feared her and even disliked her, but a few managed to get close enough to her to call her friend - or at the very least an acquaintance. And for the first time in her life, Vindlens felt safe and even happy.
Over the following years, she made name for herself, as she concentrated on the most suicidal contracts and completed them with not too much collateral damage.
A dark hobby
However, Vindlens had a rather dark and bloody hobby that she dedicated some of her free time to: Killing both those deserving and undeserving and Khartom's poorer districts was her primarily hunting ground. Every week, she killed around a dozen people, excluding her assassination contracts, and they could be of any age, gender, and social class.
The reason for her dark hobby? Excluding the thrill of hunting defenseless prey, she wanted to feel powerful; never again did she want to feel weak and hopeless ever again. The result made her one of the worst serial killers in the empire's thousand-year-long history and also a very powerful Ilyon.
A final assassination.
Her fellow assassins soon discovered her darker activities after having suspicions for years and did what they felt was necessary. And a part of it all was giving her a final assassination contract, which would be the most suicidal one up until that point. Her target? The First Advisor of the High King; a dangerous man in his own right, who was also protected by an even more dangerous and efficient bodyguard.
Underestimated.
Fortunatly for the Black Talons, Vindlens did not see anything particularly wrong or strange with the contract. The excitement of taking on such a big target was something that she rarely felt, and she also felt a great deal of acceptance from her fellow assassins, who had entrusted her with it.
Therefore, she did not anticipate that it all was a semi-trap; the First Advisor was indeed a marked target but had been warned by the Black Talons, who had said that she had gone rogue in her mission to take him down. Thus they did not expect her to succeed in her endeavor and little did they know that the First Advisor looked forward to the meeting; after all, they had the use of an Ilyon, thanks to the top-secret science project the High King's personal inventor Tarik was working on.
A silent approach
For this contract, Vindlens did something she rarely did: She proceeded with caution and gathered as much intelligence as she could before she infiltrated the Great Imperial Palace. And she did not eliminate every guard and servent she came across, as she sometimes did. After all, she could not take the risk of accidentally setting off an alarm, or getting hurt. If she wanted to take care of both the First Advisor and his bodyguard, she needed to be in an unharmed condition, even though she so much wanted to have those souls. But she already had an abnormal amount.
Challenge accepted
Thanks to being so quiet for once, she managed to surprise her target. At least to a small amount. And thanks to being forewarned, the First Advisor had extended his lifeguard to four members, instead of just one. But Vindlens had always liked a challenge, and this just made it a greater one.
She took care of two of the bodyguards with relatively ease: thanks to her many souls, she could teleport nearly constantly throughout the battle. However, the Bodyguard seemed to be made from a very special and persistent kind of fiber and blocked nearly every thrust and blow, and the other third was almost in the same league. Almost.
Final obstacle.
After pushing the third bodyguard to the afterlife by a thousand cuts, the only remaining bodyguard was the original one. Surprisingly, he did not seem tired. He was not even out of breath, and for once, Vindlens grew uncertain and used her more mystical senses. When she realized that the Bodyguard too was a Goëtia Ilyon, she felt an even greater uncertainty and also cursed herself for not finding it out sooner. That he had nearly as many souls as herself made her more irritated than anything else.
Blessed by luck
Seeing her uncertainty, the Ilyon Bodyguard went on the offensive. And he used his abilities to his full extent, so much so that the following minutes were a flurry of black smoke and swashbuckling. Vindlens was strained to her very limit and let her fury decide her blows more so than not. Unfortunately, the Bodyguard was a lot more experienced than her, forcing her to go on the defensive. And both were determined to see their tasks completed, even if it meant that they had to pay with their lives.
Finally, Vindlens managed to get lucky and stabbed her sword through the Bodyguard's throat, but before the man's life and soul flooded into her, he defiantly stabbed her with a dagger in her side.
Cursed by misfortune
Seeing his Bodyguard die did not persuade the First Advisor to flee, and Vindlens was surprised that the man had not run for safety earlier. As she still recovered from the shock of having been stabbed in her side by a dagger, and the surprise of her target still being in the room, the First Advisor wandered forward and shocked every fiber in her body with hot lightning.
As he was electrocuting her, hindering her from momentarily teleporting, he told her that she was doomed to fail her assignment; after all, this whole ordeal had been forewarned by her fellow ex-associates within the Black Talons. Not believing him in any way, shape or form, she replicated the last move done by her last opponent and conjured a dagger in her hand and stabbed him in the stomach, only seconds before she lost consciousness.
When she awoke shortly afterward, it was as a prisoner in the laboratories of the mad inventor Tarik, where she awaited the final trails before becoming a Clocksoul. The words of the First Advisor slowly but surely being accepted in anger and despair.
"Try listening to the sound of moving cogs. It is said that it is the only audible warning she'll give before killing you...
Children
Alternate Universe
Vindlens don't exist within Mésvéstell Prime but in an alternate version of Mésvéstell called Mésvéstell Jothame - Or Mésvéstell 1716-High 0422-Low if you want to be more academical.
The Black Talons
One of the most influential and powerful Assassin's Guilds that has managed to thrive within the Amridien Empire, is the Black Talons. They usually deal with high-profit assignments and are rumored to work for the High King, or at least his station. Whether it is true or not depends on the political landscape within the empire; there are some times when the Black Talons are actively hunted by the authorities and many within its ranks that sees this current era as one.Khartom
The capital of the Amridien Empire
Khartom is one of the most industrious cities in the western world; the sound of machines powered by steam and clockwork and steam whistles can be heard from a distance, though they are the most concentrated in the city's industrial districts. Zeppelins sail above the city, some among the low clouds and others near the high buildings. Alternate Universe Info
In contrast to what happened in Mésvéstell Prime, the Amridien Empire did not crumble and was separated into several other nations, such as Ukred, Amridien, and Åtrava. And thanks to the empire's connections with Naronjen, the technology which they possessed was spread out a lot more, a lot earlier. Though, being in near-constant war with The Rieisian Empire for more than four hundred years has also sped up the rise in technology.
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