#I was gonna change her name entirely but I decided to shorten it to Alyss instead before I even found you

[a-spiral-into-madness]

Alyss Icedreamer

Name: Alyss Icedreamer

Pronouns: She/Her

School: Ice

Age: 26

Origin: Born in Polaris, raised in Aquila

Backstory under the cut :)

(Despite how long this has taken me to write, the lore is still gonna probably be slightly incorrect along with some creative liberty taken! It's been a while since I've gone through the actual lore, so please just bear with me, I'll fix the inconsistencies as I actually go through the game properly!)

Alyss was born to a struggling Polarian merchant family. Her parents barely were able to scrape by, but they knew that the best course of action to secure a good education and a better life for their little girl would be to smuggle her out with their meager trade goods to Aquila, and beg for them to take care of her.

So, Alyss was accepted and raised among the eagles of Aquila, trained to see into the hidden places and seek out knowledge wherever it could be found. It quickly became home to her, though she missed her family deeply. Whenever she could, she did her best to check in on them, through the scrying pools of the oracles.

Though she was young, she quickly rose past what the Aquilan oracles could teach her about magic and scrying, and set her on a different path, encouraging her to go to Ravenwood to study magic.

Alyss, once again uprooted from her home, found comfort in the stability of Ice magic, practicing day and night to make each spell as precise and perfect as she could. With the ability to purify waters for scrying, as well as the icy familiarity of her Polarian home, she threw herself into her studies, body, mind, and soul. She made fast friends with a few other young wizards - a necromancer, a pyromancer, and a sorcerer - and she strove to protect them with her magic. While they dealt damage, she would encase them in shields and let no harm come to them.

Merle Ambrose willingly took her on as a student, and supported her unfailingly. But as she grew as both a person and as a student - into one of the best and brightest students he had ever taught - he began to see in her inklings of one of his old students. He resolved that this time he would do his best to correct his failures if he was able, but with as old as he was, he would have to trust that Alyss would not fall to the darkness.

After Alyss and her friends rescued the spirit of Sylvia Drake, foiled Malistaire's plans, and laid them both to rest, Halston Baelstrom quickly saw further potential in the four students. He tapped each of them for an expedition to the lost world of Celestia, full of new magic and dangers to explore, and introduced each of them to the wonders of Selenopolis. Ambrose had his reservations, but allowed Alyss to join the rest of the group.

Alyss, of course, was immediately fascinated by this overwhelming influx of schools of magic, both the familiar and the new, and resolved to learn as many of them as she could. She would weave the schools together, make new magic... and Star, Moon, and Sun would all be at her fingertips.

Try as she might, though, the strength of the Sun and the changeability of the Moon escaped her. The only school to flow through her like Ice magic did, was that of Star magic. Even weaving properly into another school was difficult, as she had never trained into a school other than Ice before. She was unable to weave into any other schools, but she did find an affinity for Star magic.

She was happy for her friends who were able to master the other Astral schools and weave so efficiently, even if she was a little bit jealous of their ability to quickly master these new types of spellcasting.

The jealousy was set aside, though, at the onset of several difficult battles, and the appearance of the Umbra Queen, Morganthe. Upon seeing her for the first time, Alyss locked eyes with her, and felt a strange tug in the pit of her stomach. For each night after, as they journeyed through Zafaria and Avalon in pursuit of Morganthe, she was plagued first with dreams of a shattering mirror, then the wailing cry of a horn. Each dream ended with a strange green-eyed woman peering through it all, seemingly parting some sort of curtain through the realms of dreams.

The woman broke the nightmares at first, a comforting presence. Alyss figured it must be some sort of scrying technique, though she had never heard of being able to break into dreams and affect them.

While traveling through Avalon especially, Alyss developed strange gaps in her memories that the others didn't seem to have. Dark spots, shrouded by shadow, that hurt when Alyss tried to pierce through them. She tried to leave them alone, but they only grew when she ignored them, spreading like tar through her mind.

When Alyss and the others arrived to Azteca, the green-eyed woman made fewer and fewer appearances. Alyss' dreams shifted to fire, destruction, and death raining from above, the sky falling, and the world becoming cloaked in shadows. Her own scrying became clouded, and she withdrew into herself, focusing on her other magic as comfort, and strengthening each one of her protective shield spells. Deep inside, though, she worried that it wouldn't be enough.

The time came to foil Morganthe's plans on Xibalba. The woman in her dreams had vanished weeks ago, and the shadow was creeping in. If Alyss didn't end this, all would be lost, for Azteca and the rest of the Spiral.

She felt the familiar gut wrench when she went to Xibalba. With the help of her friends, she broke the shadow webs. Each web clung to her, giving her a twisted sense of resolve. This was the way she would protect her friends, this was the way she would save them. She would take the darkness inside of her and use it to defeat Morganthe.

Once Morganthe was in reach, Alyss rushed forward to unleash her shadowy power onto Morganthe, but she had been carrying it for too long. Without knowing how to control it, the backlash of the Shadow she carried inside struck her down before she could damage Morganthe.

The sky over Azteca fell, and Alyss remembered nothing more.

This is part 1 of probably a few - I managed to save the other bit I wrote in a doc, so I'll be adding to this with a reblog soon :) I needed to just post what I had, but I'll be writing a bit more soon and finishing out the lore through the beginning of arc 3 I think! It's been fun to write even if it's been really chaotic and long lol - it's angstier than I usually write my characters to be, but I figured I'd indulge in a character who got really messed up by Azteca.

I appreciate y'all's patience, and thank you if you got this far! I really hope you like her! Y'alls' likes and comments on my other girlies mean a lot and are so so appreciated :)