OOC: Application
[series]: Tales of Vesperia
[character]: Rita Mordio
[character history / background]: See the general plot in the Wikipedia article
With her father abandoning them before she was born and her mother having died when she wasn't even old enough to remember, Rita Mordio has been alone most of her life. She turned to magic and research and became passionately obsessed with blastia, the technology of the world of Terca Lumereis. She lived in the city of scholars for several years but even among other mages was labelled as a 'weirdo'; as a child in their eyes, they couldn't quite take her seriously while she was so proficient in her research that they were all far behind her. She remained something of a recluse and buried her life in her studies.
Then one day, some strangers broke into her house and accused her of being a criminal.
Yuri, the young man leading them, had been pursuing a blastia thief whom he described as: "wore a cloak, was short, and his name was Mordio". Rita Mordio, short of stature and indeed wearing a cloak, found her protests not likely to be accepted. Going on a hunch and bent on clearing her name, Rita led them to some nearby ruins where they happened upon a suspicious character. Although he wasn't the thief they were looking for, he was connected to them, and was able to give Yuri an idea of where to go next. That meant they no longer had any suspicion towards Rita and were content to once again leave her be in Aspio while they continued on.
However, Rita had different ideas. During their fight with the mysterious thief, she had been injured. A noble girl by the name of Estelle who was in the group healed Rita's wounds and the mage picked up on something very odd about Estelle's abilities which aroused her curiosity. When the group was departing Aspio, Rita ended up tagging along due to an interest in those powers.
What followed was an adventure spanning the entire globe, as the party picked up more members--eventually consisting of Yuri and Estelle, Yuri's dog Repede, the boy Karol, a powerful Krityan named Judith, and a suspicious man named Raven--and along the way, they frequently ran into trouble. The search for the blastia thief brought them to corrupt and cruel nobles torturing citizens for fun in addition to ambitious men with plans to rule the world or keep war going as long as possible, many of whom were put out of commission by the party.
In addition to their clashes with other humans, the group ran afoul of a race known as the Entelexeia. At first mistaken to be extremely powerful monsters, the Entelexeia were quite sentient, fully capable of using human speech, and were tasked with keeping the aer in the world under control. It turned out that aer, although a fundamental component of the world, was dangerous in excess quantities. The surplus of aer was also caused by none other than blastia, which consumed aer as fuel and in turn caused the world's sources of aer (the aer krene) to go out of control and, essentially, overflow. With barely half a dozen Entelexeia left in existence and more and more blastia being put into use, the problem was spiralling out of their ability to control.
That wasn't their only problem, either. As Rita had noticed, Estelle was able to use her healing artes without the use of her bodhi blastia--she was capable of manipulating aer directly; a living and very powerful blastia, in a sense. This only worsened the aer problem, causing Estelle to become a target of some of the Entelexeia. Unfortunately, someone else also targeted the princess: the commandant of the knights, Alexei, whose aims of world domination included using both Estelle's abilities and the extremely powerful stones left behind upon an Entelexeia's death--known as apatheia, they were discovered to be the source of blastia cores which just added another reason to the race's dislike for the blastia. Alexei used these to awaken what he believed to be an ancient weapon.
To his and everybody else's horror, however, what he believed to be a weapon turned out to be an enormous barrier sealing away a great catastrophe known as the Adephagos. This was also only discovered after Alexei had activated it and unleashed said catastrophe upon the world. To add to the world's issues, the Adephagos was revealed to be the result of Entelexeia who had absorbed too much aer.
Since aer seemed to be the source of all their problems, Rita, with a little inspiration from a stable aer krene they had come across, hypothesized a solution: converting aer into a more stable form closer to matter, known as mana. She also proposed using an apatheia for the power necessary and was fully confident in her plan, which the rest of the group supported as well. Her idea worked--in fact, in her own words, it went "way beyond working". The apatheia they had used, which was much like a soul of the Entelexeia it had once been, created a new life form from the consciousness within. They christened the new being, one which could transform aer and control natural forces, a Spirit.
It now seemed they had found the perfect solution to everything: if the remaining Entelexeia were willing, they would be reincarnated into spirits of the four elements to both combat the Adephagos and reduce the aer surplus. The three they needed ended up being more or less willing to go along with the plan, but it still wasn't enough power to go up against the catastrophe. In the end, they had to propose an even more radical idea based on the knowledge that blastia were made from apatheia. It was decided that all the world's blastia cores would be converted to spirits, simultaneously giving them power to destroy the threat to the world and doing away with the aer problem. Even though that meant the convenience of everyday blastia and the safety of the barrier blastia would be all lost, it was deemed to be a small price to pay for saving the very planet.
However, one more hurdle remained for them: Duke, a man who they had run into several times during their adventure and from whom they had received help a few times, had his own plan to save the world. His strategy involved the use of a great, ancient weapon, but would be powered by the lives of all humans on the planet. Duke was unfortunately not taken with the group's plan, having no faith that humanity would willingly give up the blastia and move on, nor was he keen on the fact that they were making such drastic changes to the world. The two sides could not reach a compromise and thus did battle; Yuri and his team emerged the victors.
The group set about the implement their plan with everything going well, until even all the converted blastia of the world could still not provide sufficient power. Duke, defeated but not killed, was moved enough by their conviction that he granted them his aid. It was enough to defeat the Adephagos, which was itself converted into a multitude of Spirits from the Entelexeia it had once been. The Spirits used their powers to stabilize the aer and revive dead, barren wastelands. The world had been saved.
[character abilities]: Rita isn't known as a genius mage for nothing; not only is she a hardcore researcher but she has a wide array of offensive magic spells, spanning five of the six elements (fire, earth, air, water, and darkness, with light being the only one she doesn't have at her disposal). She was able to cast spells through the course of the adventure using her bodhi blastia which, by the end of the story, has become a spirit. It would, however, be expected that she would research the new powers of the spirits and may discover a way to use them in a similar manner. For this reason, she will have use of some of her less-devastating spells in the City.
For weapons, she has used items like belts, sashes, whips, and books by empowering them with aer but is otherwise not very proficient at melee combat.
[character personality]:
Being a research-obsessed recluse doesn't do much for someone's personality. When the group first runs into Rita, she is scathing, blunt, and sarcastic towards them. She is also very socially awkward, not quite sure how to react to Estelle's very honest, open, and friendly nature. Over the course of their journey, however, Rita slowly opens up, beginning with Estelle. The princess healed her wounds on more than one occasion and was always welcoming, something Rita beings to appreciate and the mage quickly grows very protective of her new friend.
Besides Estelle, Rita also manages to grow closer to the other female of their party. Her relations with Judith are neutral at first then grow very strained once Rita discovers that Judith had been going around and destroying blastia. As time went on, they come to understand each other more though: Rita discovers the reasons for her companions actions and comes to accept that blastia have become a danger to the world, while Judith learns that simply destroying them isn’t the only solution. The two share some quarrels and some secrets, and Judith even gives Rita a memento of her father upon discovering that Rita has no family.
The mage becomes somewhat more honest with her feelings as she grows closer to the group. The excuses of just wanting to investigate aer krene or blastia that she used to keep going with them eventually faded to be replaced by her sincere desire to be with them and not them go into dangerous places alone.
Of course, the adventure doesn't change every facet of Rita's personality. Throughout the course of the journey, she retains her quick temper and sometimes-violent tendencies, being very quick to snap at anybody who disturbs her during her studies (or Raven and Karol, when they say something perverted or stupid). She is also a self-proclaimed realist, ruining the mood more than once with her cynical comments.
Despite seemingly having no modesty when it comes to proclaiming her genius status, she does become flustered when other people actually praise or recognize her abilities.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Post-game
[journal post]:
[Someone is heavily distracted with whatever it is she's working on before excitement takes over.]
Eureka! I've got it worked out! If the equilibrium constant is at this value...then I can calculate the maximum efficiency, allowing for an error of 0.1...Yes, this works! Stability is within the allowed margin, output is at 0.44, reversal percentage an estimated 0.23...
[The babbling finally stops and there is a short pause.]
Huh? This thing is--Hey! No peeking at my research! ...Well, I guess it's not like you'd understand what I'm doing. Even those stubborn old mages were still squabbling about the rate of diffusion. It'll be the next century before they get anything figured out.
[third person / log sample]:
In the cluttered mess of a basement that served as a workspace, Rita Mordio scribbled out calculations with fervour. She had been on the verge of a real breakthrough some time ago-- although she couldn't be sure of exactly when that had been or how much time had passed as she had been working non-stop, so caught up in what she was doing that she didn't even know whether it was night or day anymore.
Excitement bubbled up within her chest, threatening to spill over into giggles of delight at how close she was to completing this formula. She reached to her left to grab another sheet of paper when a small pile of letters at the foot of her door drew her attention. How long had she had mail there? When had it even been delivered? Well, she did have a habit of never noticing when anybody came by. There was a time she would have also ignored the messages completely and kept working, but she recognized the script on the top letter as that of Estelle. Momentarily, she was torn. Formula or Estelle, formula or Estelle? Estelle won, and Rita sprang out of her seat to snatch up the letter, greatly looking forward to what her friend had to say.
Before she knew it, the mage was finding herself relaxing while she read the message. The letters she now received from her friends were a soothing balm, a reminder that research wasn't everything and that she had companions always close by even when separated by cities. Ba'ul could bring them together in a flash whenever they wished it, she thought gratefully.
She read further, a much more languid smile on her face than when she was working. Estelle had written about how she loved living in Halure, creating stories for children, free yet not abandoning all her responsibilities. Rita's heart swelled with satisfaction; just knowing that her friend was so happy with her life now made the mage more content than she would have ever imagined. Not only that, but the entire guild was planning to get together in a week's time to celebrate Karol's birthday. The doofus is growing up, she snickered to herself despite the fondness that also crept up on her.
In the beginning, she had made any excuse that came to mind to keep going with them on their trek around the world, couldn't understand why she didn't just leave them to it or why she couldn't bear to go back home alone. She hadn't been honest with her desire to be close to her friends, but now it was becoming familiar. Rita found her excitement had returned full-force; now, however, it was for seeing everyone again.
She even forgot about the formula she had been working on...for a brief time.
[character]: Rita Mordio
[character history / background]: See the general plot in the Wikipedia article
With her father abandoning them before she was born and her mother having died when she wasn't even old enough to remember, Rita Mordio has been alone most of her life. She turned to magic and research and became passionately obsessed with blastia, the technology of the world of Terca Lumereis. She lived in the city of scholars for several years but even among other mages was labelled as a 'weirdo'; as a child in their eyes, they couldn't quite take her seriously while she was so proficient in her research that they were all far behind her. She remained something of a recluse and buried her life in her studies.
Then one day, some strangers broke into her house and accused her of being a criminal.
Yuri, the young man leading them, had been pursuing a blastia thief whom he described as: "wore a cloak, was short, and his name was Mordio". Rita Mordio, short of stature and indeed wearing a cloak, found her protests not likely to be accepted. Going on a hunch and bent on clearing her name, Rita led them to some nearby ruins where they happened upon a suspicious character. Although he wasn't the thief they were looking for, he was connected to them, and was able to give Yuri an idea of where to go next. That meant they no longer had any suspicion towards Rita and were content to once again leave her be in Aspio while they continued on.
However, Rita had different ideas. During their fight with the mysterious thief, she had been injured. A noble girl by the name of Estelle who was in the group healed Rita's wounds and the mage picked up on something very odd about Estelle's abilities which aroused her curiosity. When the group was departing Aspio, Rita ended up tagging along due to an interest in those powers.
What followed was an adventure spanning the entire globe, as the party picked up more members--eventually consisting of Yuri and Estelle, Yuri's dog Repede, the boy Karol, a powerful Krityan named Judith, and a suspicious man named Raven--and along the way, they frequently ran into trouble. The search for the blastia thief brought them to corrupt and cruel nobles torturing citizens for fun in addition to ambitious men with plans to rule the world or keep war going as long as possible, many of whom were put out of commission by the party.
In addition to their clashes with other humans, the group ran afoul of a race known as the Entelexeia. At first mistaken to be extremely powerful monsters, the Entelexeia were quite sentient, fully capable of using human speech, and were tasked with keeping the aer in the world under control. It turned out that aer, although a fundamental component of the world, was dangerous in excess quantities. The surplus of aer was also caused by none other than blastia, which consumed aer as fuel and in turn caused the world's sources of aer (the aer krene) to go out of control and, essentially, overflow. With barely half a dozen Entelexeia left in existence and more and more blastia being put into use, the problem was spiralling out of their ability to control.
That wasn't their only problem, either. As Rita had noticed, Estelle was able to use her healing artes without the use of her bodhi blastia--she was capable of manipulating aer directly; a living and very powerful blastia, in a sense. This only worsened the aer problem, causing Estelle to become a target of some of the Entelexeia. Unfortunately, someone else also targeted the princess: the commandant of the knights, Alexei, whose aims of world domination included using both Estelle's abilities and the extremely powerful stones left behind upon an Entelexeia's death--known as apatheia, they were discovered to be the source of blastia cores which just added another reason to the race's dislike for the blastia. Alexei used these to awaken what he believed to be an ancient weapon.
To his and everybody else's horror, however, what he believed to be a weapon turned out to be an enormous barrier sealing away a great catastrophe known as the Adephagos. This was also only discovered after Alexei had activated it and unleashed said catastrophe upon the world. To add to the world's issues, the Adephagos was revealed to be the result of Entelexeia who had absorbed too much aer.
Since aer seemed to be the source of all their problems, Rita, with a little inspiration from a stable aer krene they had come across, hypothesized a solution: converting aer into a more stable form closer to matter, known as mana. She also proposed using an apatheia for the power necessary and was fully confident in her plan, which the rest of the group supported as well. Her idea worked--in fact, in her own words, it went "way beyond working". The apatheia they had used, which was much like a soul of the Entelexeia it had once been, created a new life form from the consciousness within. They christened the new being, one which could transform aer and control natural forces, a Spirit.
It now seemed they had found the perfect solution to everything: if the remaining Entelexeia were willing, they would be reincarnated into spirits of the four elements to both combat the Adephagos and reduce the aer surplus. The three they needed ended up being more or less willing to go along with the plan, but it still wasn't enough power to go up against the catastrophe. In the end, they had to propose an even more radical idea based on the knowledge that blastia were made from apatheia. It was decided that all the world's blastia cores would be converted to spirits, simultaneously giving them power to destroy the threat to the world and doing away with the aer problem. Even though that meant the convenience of everyday blastia and the safety of the barrier blastia would be all lost, it was deemed to be a small price to pay for saving the very planet.
However, one more hurdle remained for them: Duke, a man who they had run into several times during their adventure and from whom they had received help a few times, had his own plan to save the world. His strategy involved the use of a great, ancient weapon, but would be powered by the lives of all humans on the planet. Duke was unfortunately not taken with the group's plan, having no faith that humanity would willingly give up the blastia and move on, nor was he keen on the fact that they were making such drastic changes to the world. The two sides could not reach a compromise and thus did battle; Yuri and his team emerged the victors.
The group set about the implement their plan with everything going well, until even all the converted blastia of the world could still not provide sufficient power. Duke, defeated but not killed, was moved enough by their conviction that he granted them his aid. It was enough to defeat the Adephagos, which was itself converted into a multitude of Spirits from the Entelexeia it had once been. The Spirits used their powers to stabilize the aer and revive dead, barren wastelands. The world had been saved.
[character abilities]: Rita isn't known as a genius mage for nothing; not only is she a hardcore researcher but she has a wide array of offensive magic spells, spanning five of the six elements (fire, earth, air, water, and darkness, with light being the only one she doesn't have at her disposal). She was able to cast spells through the course of the adventure using her bodhi blastia which, by the end of the story, has become a spirit. It would, however, be expected that she would research the new powers of the spirits and may discover a way to use them in a similar manner. For this reason, she will have use of some of her less-devastating spells in the City.
For weapons, she has used items like belts, sashes, whips, and books by empowering them with aer but is otherwise not very proficient at melee combat.
[character personality]:
Being a research-obsessed recluse doesn't do much for someone's personality. When the group first runs into Rita, she is scathing, blunt, and sarcastic towards them. She is also very socially awkward, not quite sure how to react to Estelle's very honest, open, and friendly nature. Over the course of their journey, however, Rita slowly opens up, beginning with Estelle. The princess healed her wounds on more than one occasion and was always welcoming, something Rita beings to appreciate and the mage quickly grows very protective of her new friend.
Besides Estelle, Rita also manages to grow closer to the other female of their party. Her relations with Judith are neutral at first then grow very strained once Rita discovers that Judith had been going around and destroying blastia. As time went on, they come to understand each other more though: Rita discovers the reasons for her companions actions and comes to accept that blastia have become a danger to the world, while Judith learns that simply destroying them isn’t the only solution. The two share some quarrels and some secrets, and Judith even gives Rita a memento of her father upon discovering that Rita has no family.
The mage becomes somewhat more honest with her feelings as she grows closer to the group. The excuses of just wanting to investigate aer krene or blastia that she used to keep going with them eventually faded to be replaced by her sincere desire to be with them and not them go into dangerous places alone.
Of course, the adventure doesn't change every facet of Rita's personality. Throughout the course of the journey, she retains her quick temper and sometimes-violent tendencies, being very quick to snap at anybody who disturbs her during her studies (or Raven and Karol, when they say something perverted or stupid). She is also a self-proclaimed realist, ruining the mood more than once with her cynical comments.
Despite seemingly having no modesty when it comes to proclaiming her genius status, she does become flustered when other people actually praise or recognize her abilities.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Post-game
[journal post]:
[Someone is heavily distracted with whatever it is she's working on before excitement takes over.]
Eureka! I've got it worked out! If the equilibrium constant is at this value...then I can calculate the maximum efficiency, allowing for an error of 0.1...Yes, this works! Stability is within the allowed margin, output is at 0.44, reversal percentage an estimated 0.23...
[The babbling finally stops and there is a short pause.]
Huh? This thing is--Hey! No peeking at my research! ...Well, I guess it's not like you'd understand what I'm doing. Even those stubborn old mages were still squabbling about the rate of diffusion. It'll be the next century before they get anything figured out.
[third person / log sample]:
In the cluttered mess of a basement that served as a workspace, Rita Mordio scribbled out calculations with fervour. She had been on the verge of a real breakthrough some time ago-- although she couldn't be sure of exactly when that had been or how much time had passed as she had been working non-stop, so caught up in what she was doing that she didn't even know whether it was night or day anymore.
Excitement bubbled up within her chest, threatening to spill over into giggles of delight at how close she was to completing this formula. She reached to her left to grab another sheet of paper when a small pile of letters at the foot of her door drew her attention. How long had she had mail there? When had it even been delivered? Well, she did have a habit of never noticing when anybody came by. There was a time she would have also ignored the messages completely and kept working, but she recognized the script on the top letter as that of Estelle. Momentarily, she was torn. Formula or Estelle, formula or Estelle? Estelle won, and Rita sprang out of her seat to snatch up the letter, greatly looking forward to what her friend had to say.
Before she knew it, the mage was finding herself relaxing while she read the message. The letters she now received from her friends were a soothing balm, a reminder that research wasn't everything and that she had companions always close by even when separated by cities. Ba'ul could bring them together in a flash whenever they wished it, she thought gratefully.
She read further, a much more languid smile on her face than when she was working. Estelle had written about how she loved living in Halure, creating stories for children, free yet not abandoning all her responsibilities. Rita's heart swelled with satisfaction; just knowing that her friend was so happy with her life now made the mage more content than she would have ever imagined. Not only that, but the entire guild was planning to get together in a week's time to celebrate Karol's birthday. The doofus is growing up, she snickered to herself despite the fondness that also crept up on her.
In the beginning, she had made any excuse that came to mind to keep going with them on their trek around the world, couldn't understand why she didn't just leave them to it or why she couldn't bear to go back home alone. She hadn't been honest with her desire to be close to her friends, but now it was becoming familiar. Rita found her excitement had returned full-force; now, however, it was for seeing everyone again.
She even forgot about the formula she had been working on...for a brief time.