This profile was copied automatically from the old chat.
'You've no business with me. Please, disappear. I do not want to have to cause your disappearance myself.'
---
The question always comes up... what is Adelinde? What could cause a petite little creature like this to be so darkly terrifying?
Well...
Adelinde is a Fallen Valkyrie, a Runic Witch, an Unholy Apostle, an Interrogator. She is a pleasant little creature for those who get to understand her, but one who observes her from afar will see naught but an empty shell of a girl, dragging her way through her existence to a goal that may be unattainable.
But, we should likely tell you some about her first!
Adelinde was a Valkyrie once... a dutiful collector of fallen souls for Odin. She was kinder and gentler then, descending from the sky to comfort the dead and remove them from their mortal bodies. But, Adelinde was a bit less stable than her sisters. At the time, she detested the sight of blood, and would often cower behind the older Valkyries to avoid having to look at particularly ravaged corpses.
The Adelinde today would look back and laugh at herself for this, mind... but the first time she went to collect souls alone was the catalyst for her existence today.
A single soul seemed like an easy task. Retrieve the fallen warrior's soul and return. Adelinde's hunt, however, took her to the deepest depths of a castle in Japan. The warrior she was hunting for... his intestines had been strung up on a pulley and yanked out while he watched. Every joint in his body had a metal spike or nail driven into it. His mouth was crudely sewn shut. And, despite her thoughts before, Adelinde... was fascinated. Because he was not dead. He was still being interrogated as she arrived, and the girl watched his agonizing death from the shadows with interest, not disgust.
The soul was collected after the incident... but the sights remained in the Valkyrie's head. She studied, in her free time, the arts of torture... secretly, keeping it from her sisters and all others around her. For as long as she could.
A Vanir had been captured... a messenger who came with taunts and snide remarks in his letters, who Odin had sentenced to death. But Adelinde pleaded for his life, saying that she desired to have her own words with him. Odin, as well as the other Valkyries, were impressed by her plea and allowed a short time for her to speak with him.
Adelinde had more than words planned for him, however. She led him into a secluded room, chained him to a table, and proceeded to slowly re-enact the tortures she had learned of, applying healing magic when required to keep him alive throughout the entire process. When her sisters came to retrieve the prisoner, they found Adelinde elbow-deep in his guts.
Needless to say, heartless brutality of this type was not something Valkyries were known for. Adelinde was stripped of her title as Valkyrie and cast out of Asgard. Her story should have ended there... she should have been killed... but she had managed to retrieve useful information, and so Odin allowed her to live as a powerless exile. Or, rather, that's what he had expected.
Adelinde's sisters were disgusted with her, and feigned pity, allowing her to leave with forbidden artifacts from Asgard... however, the items they granted her were cursed items, meant to lead their owner into the embrace of Hell in short order. Her sisters did not count on Adelinde's own dark malevolence not only overpowering the curses... but amplifying and redirecting them, turning them into powerful weapons in the Fallen Valkyrie's arsenal. She was granted armor and a sword... and a set of grimoires with tainted, unholy techniques on their pages. The sword, Phantasm, is a deep purple blade etched with black runes that absorbs parts of whatever it damages on behalf of its user. The armor, Danaan, was always said to provide an 'absolute defense'. The tomes were originally of no use to her... cast in ancient text that she had no way of deciphering without assistance, she attempted to destroy them with Phantasm. However, she did not count on the sword's ability... every technique within the grimoires was absorbed into her mind, and the books themselves were destroyed.
From these tomes, Adelinde learned the magics of sanguine manipulation... of dark runecasting, and unholy combat. She learned techniques to keep a body and soul alive indefinitely, despite damage done to it. She learned of command mantras, and of summoning the dead to fight once more in a grotesque parody of the einherjar common to her Valkyrie sisters.
Adelinde became the near-antithesis of Asgard.
And that's exactly what she desired...
(More to come~)