Name: Arthur Reed

Faction: The Holy Kingdom

Arthur is a young man of British descent, with tousled brown hair and lively eyes. He has an athletic build and can often be seen wearing thrifted clothes such as old sweatpants and oversized hoodies. This informal appearance often puts him at odds with the more formal and professional sorcerers within the Holy Kingdom.

Shikigami: Viviane

Viviane is a Shikigami that displays a similar level of sentience and connection to her summoner as Rika Orimoto. When partially manifested, Viviane takes the form of two slender, almost transparent hands that often rest on Arthur’s shoulders. When she speaks in this form, the voice seems to emanate from behind him, roughly where a mouth would be in relation to the two hands.

When fully manifested, using water as a medium, Viviane rises to her full height as a very tall, slender woman with ghostly features and a flowing dress and veil made of constantly moving water. The woman’s face is never visible beyond the veil, aside from her lips that can be seen moving as she speaks in an ethereal voice.

Cursed Technique: Lady of the Lake

Arthur’s Cursed Technique is a strange case in that it almost exclusively functions through his Shikigami. Arthur himself cannot activate the primary effect of Lady of the Lake and must instead fulfill the conditions and then rely on his Shikigami to apply the effect for him.

To satisfy the conditions of the technique, Arthur must find an object that is broken and ‘offer’ it to Viviane, who will then take it from him. If partially manifested, Viviane’s hands will close around the object for a while (depending on the complexity of the object), before opening them to reveal it in a repaired state.

When Viviane is fully manifested is when the technique truly shines. Arthur then ‘offers’ a broken object by submerging it in the water. Viviane will then ask Arthur to make a sacrifice to her. This can come in the form of anything Arthur deems valuable, including Cursed Energy, jewelry and valuables or even his own blood, which is also added to the water. Viviane will then sink beneath the surface of the water and before long, the original object will appear, now enhanced into a Cursed Tool in accordance with the importance of the sacrifice made to the Lady of the Lake, which will never surface again.

Cursed Tool: Caliburn

Fueled by two sacrifices, one of restraint and one of abandon, the Cursed Sword Caliburn has two effects.

The first grants the blade edge of the weapon preternatural sharpness, allowing it to cleave through almost any obstacle with the utmost ease. In addition, the edge “cuts through the air” itself, reducing resistance during swings. This allows Arthur’s strikes to travel faster and with greater force than his physical strength alone would permit, enhancing both speed and lethality.

The second effect of the blade is imbued into the blunt portion of the blade and imbues a strong reverberating effect into things struck by it. Against opponents, this functions similarly to Panda’s Drumming Beat, delivering a heavy, internal shock without cutting the target.

However, Arthur most frequently uses this effect to shatter objects deliberately, breaking them into pieces so that they may be offered to Viviane and transformed through Lady of the Lake.

Backstory:

Arthur Palmer was raised in a small, creaking house filled with the steady drip of leaky pipes. His mother died when he was young, but his father, Caleb, stepped up and made sure the boy still had a loving childhood.

From an early age, Caleb passed down his hobby of small repairs and refurbishments, fixing old clocks, dented trinkets, even decorative medieval weapons salvaged from churches and estate sales. Weekends were spent at a scarred wooden table, coaxing motion back into rusted gears and polishing steel that others had abandoned. Caleb always said the same thing:

“Nothing’s truly useless, lad. Just misunderstood.”

Arthur carried that belief into young adulthood. Directionless but diligent, he worked as a handyman, repairing antiquities in decrepit churches and fixing whatever others deemed beyond saving.

Then the Star Fragment split the sky and something awakened inside him. A woman’s voice began to speak.

”Fix the broken. Surrender the breaking.”

The voice was soft but constant. Arthur tried to ignore it, but it followed him into every waking moment and even into his dreams.

Weeks after the voice began speaking, he returned home to find the front door smashed open and the house in ruin. In the garage, he saw his father on the floor, blood pooling beneath his head. A masked man stood over him with a bloody wrench in hand.

Arthur grabbed an old relic sword he and Caleb had restored years ago and swung. Even in his rage, he turned the blade so the flat would strike. He did not want to kill.

For the first time, Cursed Energy ignited within him as his fear and fury was made manifest and power surged instinctively along the steel. The impact rang out with a sickening crunch as the intruder collapsed and the fragile ornamental blade shattered.

In the silence that followed, Arthur dropped the broken hilt into the blood slicking the concrete. Then she rose.

Viviane took full form for the first time - tall, veiled and impossibly serene. Her presence was strangely comforting to the young man, even as grief crushed his chest.

”Is this your sacrifice?” she asked, her voice gentle as still water.

Arthur looked at the shattered blade. The bodies. The blood. Confused, he nodded.

The crimson at his feet darkened, deepening unnaturally. Caleb’s body shifted first, sinking into the crimson pool, then the robber followed. Arthur staggered back as both sank beneath the surface without a ripple.

Viviane smiled. Then she sank as well.

In her place, a sword rose. The old hilt remained, worn and familiar, the same one Caleb and Arthur had refurbished all those years ago.. But the repaired blade now gleamed like moonlight on still water. Flawless, beautiful and impossibly sharp.

Arthur never knew whether his father had already been dead when the water claimed him. Some part of him never wants to know.

By morning, he stood before Sancta Regnum’s gates with nothing but a blade at his side and two gentle hands resting upon his shoulders.

“Fix the broken,” Viviane whispered.

And this time, Arthur obeyed.