[Scion] Amica Mason - Scion of Bastet

[SalmonMax]

Birth Name: Amica Mason

Nick Names: Amy

Aliases: Jade Cat

Calling: File Clerk at Boston Memorial Hospital/Volunteer at local shelters

Known Relatives: Conrad Mason, Father; Rose Fredrikson, aunt; Gregory and Tabitha Fredrikson, cousins (Rose's kids)

Nature: Rogue

Age: 20

Gender: Female

Ethnic Background: Caucasian

Nationality: North American

Height: 5' 7"

Weight: 130lbs

Eye Color: Brown

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Handedness: Right

Distinguishing Marks: Crescent shaped birthmark at small of back.

Appearance:

Of average height and weight, Amica has short, dark hair and deep brown eyes that usually have an impish glint to them. Strong cheekbones and full lips give her face a sensuous look. Her physique is sleek and athletic, emphasized by the uncanny grace of her movements. She is fastidious; not always the most fashionable or best dressed, but always wearing clean, well maintained garments.

Click to reveal.. (Pic!)

Click to reveal.. (Another pic!)

Personality:

Amica puts out a strong 'slacker' vibe that can be offputting at times. It takes some convincing to get her to start moving, or to put effort into doing something. However, once she starts she hates to stop before the job's done. Her apparent laziness is deceiving as well, as she will expend great energy doing the things she's motivated to do...perhaps it's for that reason that she protects herself by not frivolously picking tasks. Also contributing to that slacker aura is the equanamity with which she views the world. Even strange and bizarre events rarely provoke much reaction from her...partly because of her experiences already, and partly just because she can process those things with great speed, resulting in no visible reaction. This makes her seem very detached and even cynical at times, though also very self-assured. She approaches new situations circumspectly and cautiously, but once she's eased in will take part enthusiastically.

Interests:

Though she's still exploring her interests, Amica is currently very much into 'left-leaning' politics, focusing on issues of social justice and environmentalism...things shaped largely by her past. Despite her interest and passion, she doesn't seem to be much of an activist, choosing to act in her own way in her own time rather than just be another warm body at a protest few will ever hear about. She also enjoys a wide range of music as well as audiobooks...she's not into reading, but likes hearing books read while she does other things or just relaxes. She was on the track team in high school and did very well. She's now capitalizing on her performance there to try to win an athletics scholarship to Boston University so she can explore other interests as well.

History:

Click to reveal..

Amica's story begins in the Mount Graylock State Reservation, in Massachusetts, where a young man named Conrad Mason was working as one of the "conservation specialists." It was basically 'park ranger,' but since a Reservation wasn't exactly the same as a park, they had to call it something different. Conrad was good at his job, but was especially known for his easygoing manner with the cougar population. He admired and respected the big cats, and they in turn tolerated him to an unusual degree. Though he was careful not to 'tame' them, he did like helping them during the winters with strategically placed meat, and found other ways to help them as well...including luring a wayward cub back to the den at one point.

One fine spring day, he saw a woman reclining on a sunlit rock right next to the cougar's den. Gripped by sudden panic...as much for the cats as for the woman...Conrad rushed in through the thicket into the clearing to get her out. That's when he saw the mountain lions. They were lying on the ground near her feet, perfectly calmly. That brought Conrad up short. He knew better than to trust that apparent calm. Cats when stalking often feigned indifference to their prey. He backed off and started making lots of noise, rustling bushes and speaking loudly to let the big cats know another human was coming, and not surprise them. When he came into the clearing, his rifle at the ready just in case, he was surprised to find the cougars gathered around the woman's perch in the same defensive line they'd take to defend their cubs, growling. The woman didn't even react at first, but slowly tilted her head forward and opened an eye to peek lazily at him. She smiled. Conrad's rifle dropped to the ground in blind shock. She was the most beautiful creature he could imagine, and from just that look he was madly, utterly in love.

It was hours later that he awoke face down, naked and sunburned on that rock next to the den. There was no woman, and only one cougar sat a little ways off near the little hole in the rocks they got in and out through. Watching him. Thoroughly confused, Conrad picked up his stuff, backed off a ways, and got dressed in the woods. At the time he still believed it had been real, though he didn't understand what it meant. Later, as his life went on, he decided it must not have been. A late adolescent fantasy, born of loneliness.

A year later, Conrad was getting to the city (Adams was the closest one) more, doing some dating though not seeing anyone regularly yet, when a package was delivered. The package consisted of a baby in a basked. Literally...a hand-woven, broad but shallow basket. The note said in an elegant hand; "This is our daughter from our day with the lions. I expect you to take good care of her until I'm ready to see her again."

It all came back to him as he read that note, with it's strange cinnamon-spicy scent. She'd smelled that way too, he remembered. Conrad picked the infant up and brought her inside, accepting the burden put on him. He didn't date anymore after that either. No one else would compare. He named his daughter Amica, after the the name he'd given the mother mountain lion to characterize her sociability.

Time passed, and Conrad raised Amica mostly alone, though with help from his sister in North Adams when he needed it. His protective instincts towards the Reservation and his family only intensified as she grew up, and he was promoted finally to the title of Conservation Manager; now in charge of the 'park rangers' that he used to be one of.

The troubles started when Amica's namesake mountain lion finally died, after a surprisingly long life. It wasn't of natural causes. The mother cougar died of toxic reactions similar to intense allergies caused by, according to the autopsy, exposure to high levels of several industrial compounds. Conrad set off to investigate, taking the situation very personally. He rarely spoke of it to his daughter, but she could tell it wasn't going very well. Finally came the day that instead of her dad coming home, her aunt Rose did, as well as some of the other conservation specialists. They told her that her father's body had been found...that he'd been killed. Mauled, they said, by mountain lions.

She didn't believe that for a second, of course. Her father had been uncannily good with the creatures; especially the ones that ranged in that area. But her denials were dismissed as just sorrow from a girl who'd lost the only caregiver she'd had. At the tender age of 14, she had to move in with her aunt; leave her friends in Adams behind (though admittedly not FAR behind) and start a new life in a new town with a new family.

And she couldn't do it. She couldn't let go. Maybe it was just that she was at an age where she was young enough to believe in her own immortality but old enough to feel like she wasn't helpless. Or maybe it was the rock solid certainty that the official explanation was flat out wrong, and that something, or someone, else had been responsible. That question kept pulling her, and even though she took her time about finding the answer, she never stopped thinking about it.

Through careful, sneaky snooping, she found her dad's things where they'd been put in storage by Rose. He kept notes, she knew, journals. And yes, one of them, the most recent one, had a few entries on his activities. He'd been looking for where the cougars had been getting their water. The old spring had dried up that season, so they'd gone elsewhere. There was a map, and a note about where he had tracked them...but then nothing more. It was enough to start.

Amica rode her bike to the Reservation and inside as far as it would go. Then she hiked. She was very familiar with the country, as she'd spent a lot of time out there with her dad. They camped and hiked and fished quite frequently, though less so after he'd been promoted. She followed his map, though it took more than one trip out there. And finally she found what she was looking for. There was another watering hole all right. But the water in it wasn't right. It had an odd smell, and an oily sheen...and plants around the pool were yellowing. Closer in, they weren't growing at all. More, even the hole itself wasn't right...it was too regular. Too circular. It wasn't natural; it had been dug. Something had been buried, and then rainfall and erosion had slowly eaten the softer earth away, gradually starting to expose it. The pool was hard to see through, but she thought she could see shapes down there. Like cannisters or boxes or something.

She was on the way to report this when she realized a few things. One...her dad found this too, but it hadn't gotten out. His reaction would have been the same as hers was now. Alert the authorities. So he must have done just that. How did that go for him? More was going on here.

So, rather than fleeing back to the station, Amica looked around some more. She found faint, old tire tracks nearly covered by regrown weeds and shrubs, and followed them into the forest. Though brambles and brush as the sun got lower, she followed the trail until she lost track of it, deep in the woods. Just as she was about to give up and follow the tracks back, she heard the sound of a heavy engine somewhere ahead. Carefully and quietly she got closer and saw in the woods a truck running, sitting still on a rough hewn trail that led off into the woods. Behind it was an open pit. Men in spacesuit-looking things were controlling a little forklift, carrying large oblong canisters off the truck and around into the pit.

Too terrified to move, she stayed where she was, watching from behind the bushes. The truck had no markings, and neither did the suits the men were wearing. All she could do was write down the license plate number on the truck as it pulled away once the job was done. From there she started a long and frustrating process as she tried to find out how to get the info of the owner. She didn't want to tell the police about it, and the DMV couldn't release the information. Amica finally did find a website that provided the service for a fee, and since she wasn't 18, had to steal Rose's credit card to do it. But she got what she wanted.

The truck was owned by a company based in Adams called Trident Recycling, which turned out to be a waste disposal company specializing in hazardous chemical and medical wastes. More research in the Chamber of Commerce turned up that they were owned under an umbrella corporation called Undine, that owned several other local businesses as well, mostly hospitals and health clinics.

Arming herself with a digital camera, Amica started documenting all these pieces. The dumps. The trucks. It wasn't enough. She could show that Trident was dumping it's hardest to dispose of wastes illegally in the backwoods, but she couldn't prove that it went any farther up than them, or that they had anything to do with her father's death. She needed more. But the only way to get it would be to get it from the company's records.

She considered several possibilities. She could try to get hired by the company and get access that way. But that would have to wait until she graduated at the very least. She could try to bribe or trick her way in...but she really had no idea how to do that, and her funds weren't very large. Or she could break in. That seemed very risky to her too, but she had an idea about it. Thursday nights a cleaning service came and did a run through the Trident office building. She'd seen that much while watching the place one evening. She thought they must turn off the alarm sensors then. So if she could get in and avoid the cleaning crew...

The first obstacle was that they locked the door after them. She had to learn to pick locks. Not sure where to start with that, she figured she'd ask around school. For the price of a date with Rudy Baker from metal shop, she got the basic instruction. From there it was just a matter of practice, practice, practice. Different locks were different, of course, so she found another place that had a similar kind to the one on the Trident building and practiced there. She already knew how to move quietly...her dad had taught her that so they could get close enough to animals to photograph without scaring them off. And, if push came to shove...she was fast on her feet.

It was time.

Amica watched the crew over several weeks, learning how they moved. One day she wandered in, asking if Tom Wilkins (a made up name) was working there. As the receptionist made sure no one was named that, she stole peeks into the offices as she tagged along. The files she wanted, she figured, would be in the president's office. They did it last though, so she'd have to get in, hide in another office and wait for them to start to leave...but then get it and get out before they re-armed the alarm.

It didn't go off quite without a hitch. In fact, at one point she was huddled under the President's desk as one of the cleaners poked his head in after she accidentally made some noise while picking the locked file cabinet open. However, as she waited for him to go away, cursing that she'd lost her time to avoid the alarm, she had an idea. The second the door closed she was up and grabbing a sheet of paper off the desk. She rolled the desk chair over to the door and got up on it to tape the paper in front of the alarm's motion sensor in that room.

The lights went out. She cautiously moved...and nothing happened. She was free to take her time.

The information in the files was enough to clearly implicate Undine itself in terms of the dumping. The fate of Amica's father was still unknown, though she became more and more certain he was killed on purpose...though by what, it was hard to say. The wounds were definitely not 'human inflicted', consisting of claw rakes and obvious bites. The investigation that Amica got started resulted in Trident losing their license, and in a fairly big (on the local scene) scandal for Undine that resulted in several in management losing their positions, and a public apology. None of which placated Amica in the least, despite the 'victory.'

It was the week after the settlement hearing that the visitations began. Amica noticed the same car parked across the street from her aunt's house that she'd seen at the track meet. Another day it was a van. A sense of foreboding fell over her...and not just her, but her Aunt and her two cousins as well. There was a sense of something on the horizon, like a line of dark, dark clouds.

But when it came, it wasn't what Amica expected.

Her mother came for her in the night.

A beautiful woman who seemed to glow in the gloom...Amica knew who she was immediately based on her father's descriptions. Or thought she did. Her mother was in no mood to play coy though. She told Amica straight up what was happening. Her name was Bast, or Bastet, and she was a goddess. Amica had done well, better than she knew, attacking Undine...but she'd underestimated the reprisal. The company traced its leaders back to creatures not human, and they were not pleased at all with the interference. What had happened to Conrad was now going to happen to her...except that Bast had no intention of letting one of her own come to that fate.

Beguiled by the goddess' power, Amica couldn't question her words...and the thought of the blind, mad vengeance of what Bastet described falling on her filled her with terror. Bast brought her into her arms, and warmth flooded through her as the divine ichor in her veins awoke from the will of its mother. Amica reeled from the sudden rush of strength that roared through her body, nearly falling over backwards. Smiling broadly, Bast held up a strange thing...like an oblong golden loop with several crossbars that extended out beyond the loop with little hooks. When she waved it gently, the crossbars waggled against each other and made a pleasant tinkling musical noise. Then she waved her hand over it...and in its place was something very different. A large handgun, which she handed to Amica. The sistrum, a musical instrument, would make a different kind of music now, Bast explained cryptically. The time for revels were done, and it was time for war now. Then she gave Amica a jade mask made to look a bit like a stylized cat's face.

"I am sun and moon," Bast said. "The lion that roars and slew Apep, and the cat in the night that walks unseen and keeps her secrets. These will let you be the same."

Amica shakily accepted the items, in particular intimidated by the "musical" gun. Bast gave her a wistful look and stroked her cheek, then said, "Your father understood more than he knew. He kept the basket I brought you here in. Look in it when you have need, and you'll find you are never alone. I've done all I can for you, for now. Choose your battles wisely, my daughter. Farewell."

The next day, everything was different for Amy. She spent the better part of the day in a daze, just adjusting to her new perceptions and her new capabilities. The sense of foreboding had eased, at least for her. Graduation was so close, after all...and then...well...now that she knew that someone, or something, had decided to kill her father, maybe there was something she could do about that.

Then the attack came. They came for her at her Aunt's house. It was sheer coincidence (or fate?) that only Amy was home at the time. A hideous, warped nightmare creature that announced its presence by catching her cousin's dog and making it yelp and whine with its claws until she came out to meet it. On seeing her it chuckled wetly, tore the unfortunate pooch in two, and charged! The battle was not going well, when Amy spied the basket Bast had spoken of sitting under the porch near the chair her aunt set up during the summers and holding a few magazines. She leapt for it, dumped out the magazines, and grabbed onto what felt like a little ball of fur. Horrified, thinking she'd just grabbed a dead mouse or a kitten or something, she reflexively threw it away. Then she faced the stalking creature, with no ammo left. She'd hurt it...badly, but it had her now and seemed to know it. But just as it was about to lunge...it was mauled from behind by a massive lion! The creature whirled on it, snarling, but while it might have beaten the lion by itself, in its present state it was no match for it. The majestic animal ripped its throat out, wherupon it dissolved into noxious foam and was blown away by the wind.

She'd bought a reprieve, but Amy knew it would probably be short lived. She had savings enough to get away, out of town, though it wouldn't be any fun for a little while until she got a job. After graduation she said her goodbyes...stating that her intent was to head to Boston and go to college. Which wasn't exactly a lie, but it was omitting the greater truth that she was going to try to keep her head down, stay off the radar and hope that she didn't attract more trouble while she was learning about these divine gifts and what she could, and couldn't, do with them.

And then? There was still unfinished business to take care of.

Pantheon: Pasedjet

Patron: Bastet

Virtues: Conviction *** Harmony *** Order * Piety **

Physical: Strength ***, Dexterity ****, Stamina ***

Epic-Physical: Strength *, Dexterity **, Stamina *

Knacks: Holy Bound (14yrds high, 28yrds long), Cat's Grace, Untouchable Opponent, Self Healing

Mental: Perception ****, Intelligence ***, Wits ****

Epic-Mental: Perception **, Wits *

Knacks: Predatory Focus (6d+2auto), Spatial Attunement, Eternal Vigilance

Social: Charisma **, Manipulation ***, Appearance **

Epic-Social:

Knacks:

Abilities: Academics *, Animal Ken *, Athletics ***, Awareness ***, Brawl ***, Control (Car) *, Empathy ***, Integrity *, Investigation *, Larceny ****, Marksmanship ***, Presence **, Stealth ****, Survival **

Birthrights:

Relic **: Golden Roar (Purview: Sun, upgraded Acc +1)

- A large automatic handgun that looks to be made from solid gold, though this can't be, since it's far too sturdy and not nearly heavy enough. The barrel is shaped at the end into a richly detailed sculpture of a lion's head with its mouth open, with the weapon firing out of the lion's mouth. Egyptian hieroglyphs are graven into its sides and down the grip. Along the top of it, between the two sights, is a cartouche in the metal depicting the name of Ra beside that of Bastet, emphasizing her role as one of the Eyes of Ra, and defender of the people.

Relic *: Bast's Woven Basket (Birthright Connection: Creature)

- A broad, round, flat basked woven of reeds with a stiff hoop over it for a handle. It has a thin covering of woven grass that, when reached under, can be found to cover a small ball of fur. This 'furball' rapidly expands into a full grown male lion at the peak of its health, which will act in defense of Amica, or follow her orders delivered via Animal Communication.

,,

Relic **: Jade Cat Mask (Purview: Moon, Purview: Animal (Cat))

- This is a half-mask that covers the eyes, most of the cheeks, and the nose, but leaves the mouth open. Made of dark, carved jade, it takes the stylized features of a cat from ancient Egyptian times, though it has the markings of an Eye of Ra under its left eye. This mask is a connection to Bastet's later associations with cats, secrets and the moon. It is a counterpart to her solar associations with protection and war, and together with the transformed sistrum (now a pistol) allow Amica full access to both aspects of her goddess.

Creature **: Lion

Boons:

Animal Communication (Animal: Cat *)

Penetrating Glare (Sun *)

Smoking Mirror (Moon *)

Join Battle 7 (+1 auto)

Attacks:

- Unarmed (Light) Acc 8, Dmg 3B, Parry 6, Speed 4

- Unarmed (Heavy) Acc 6, Dmg 6B, Parry 5, Speed 5

- Golden Roar (Desert Eagle) Acc 8, Dmg 5L, Shots 7, Range 50, Speed 5, Piercing

Soak

Stamina: 3B/2L

Epic-Stamina: 1B/1L/1A

Armor: /

Total: 4B/3L/1A

Health Levels:

Dodge DV: 7 (9 w/Untouchable opponent)

Willpower: ***** *

Legend: ***

Legend Points: 9

Bonus Points: 15

+1 Legend 7

+1 Str 4

+2 Birthrights 2

+1 Larceny 1

+1 Stealth 1

Misc. Equipment:

Studio Apartment with basic trimmings (TV/stereo/etc)

Cheap used car

Laptop computer

Cellphone

Digital Camera

Minitoolkit

Lockpicks

Smoke bombs

Binoculars

Mini-audio recorder

Mini-digital camera

Experience:

Code:

Story/Purchase          Exp Change / Current Exp / Exp Total
June 2009                    +9    /      9      /     9