Character info
Age: 19
Race: Spirian
Spirian (Human). While Humans and Spirians are nearly identical, there are a few important differences between them. The most important to note is that when Spirians die, their being becomes a group of lights known as Pyreflies. Pyreflies may be best understood as the broken essence of a person, or the form(s) disembodied spiritual energy gathers in. An important thing to note is that Pyreflies do not have a willpower or a consciousness of their own, though they may hold a person’s memories.
Once a person dies, they become a collection of Pyreflies. They linger in the world until a Summoner sends their souls to rest upon the Farplane.
If a person’s essence remains unsent for a vast amount of time, they may give into anger and the resentment of those still living, enabling them to become monsters known as Fiends. For generations, Fiends have plagued the land of Spira.
Spirian Technology:Machina:Also known as Machines, Machina were created around 3,0000 years prior to Era’s birth. They were so powerful, in fact, that cities could run day and night. Powered primarily by electricity, many believed them even to be more greatly revered than Magic.
But that was eons ago. The doctrine of Yevon forbade the use of Machina due to its potential for destruction, and being the political power that it was, few people argued. Only recently had the tight reins of Yevon fallen, and the people have once again begun to explore the potential benefits of Machina
Spheres:Water infused with Pyreflies can crystallize into Spheres. Amazingly, Pyreflies can react to a person’s memories, binding them to images and audio. Varying in density, Spheres are used primarily to record information
Commonly encompassing personal memories or information, Spheres are also used as tools for teaching.
Known Languages:Assuming that there is a unified interpretation between worlds that everyone tends to understand by default, Era also knows:
Spirian. (Her native tongue. She is rather good at speaking and writing in it.)
While she has a few friends who spoke Al Bhed, Era herself doesn’t understand anything outside of an occasional letter here, or a small phrase there. She wouldn’t be able to communicate with it to save her life, though she would surely recognize the language by sight or sound.
Being type:While Era retains her identity as a Somebody, this isn’t the whole of it. After undergoing a rigorous and painstaking process of memory erasing and re-conditioning, Era had almost lost her conscious mind. She was so close to breaking off into Nobody and Heartless that the outcome ended in neither the sundering nor the unity. Forged out of a ridiculously strong will to live, her soul was rendered into fragments of her former self, with Era merely being the most whole fragment.
Fragments:EraxThe dark part of Era’s soul who has also taken away pretty much all of Era’s old memories, including those of Spira and of her sister Hyri. When Era gives into the residual Darkness within her heart, it opens up a gateway that may allow Erax back in.
When the two combine, they form Nightmare.
Erax is still tied to Era. She senses matters of Era's heart, and some things which negatively or positively affect one also adversely affect the other.
Erax is most of Era’s Heartless: somewhat of a Heartless mockery, but a pretty sizeable fake. Her core character seems to define the word very well.
Taking on the shape of a small shoulder-perched Dragon, Erax wants nothing more than to merge with Era’s mind and body, and will jump on any opportunity to take control. Her end-goal is to fully merge with Era again, with the dark side of Era’s heart in control. In so doing she would catapult her human goody-two-shoes counterpart full-speed into the Darkness.
NightmareA banshee-like creature of Darkness.
“The Nightmare Bringer”, also rendered: “Bringer of Bad Dreams”: these are the most prominent titles given to this ghoulish hybrid. The epitome of evil and all things dark, it was formed when Wraith employed Era for his own wicked bidding by awakening the Sleeping Darkness within Era’s heart.
This made Era a more rigorous and dangerous fighter, and opened up a gateway to the Depth of Dark Dreams. What is the Depth of Dark Dreams? It is where Nightmare drags the souls of the living - a prison wrought of the physical depiction of the victim’s biggest fears.
Nightmare is not summoned, rather it is a resulting manifestation of Erax’s powers, and the darkness already residing within Era’s being. When Erax gains control of her mind, Era is nothing more than a fleshy puppet, compelled by the bidding of Wraith, and the darkness within herself; to the detriment of whomever happens to be in the way.
Curiously, Nightmare’s gender is somewhat of a mystery, as it speaks with both male and female voices who speak in perfect unison.
XraeShe is a fragment of Era's soul, lost and wandering. (Would be her Nobody if Era had completely died).
Backstory
Era grew up in Kilika Port for her younger life with a moderate-income family. Her parents made an honest living off of buying and selling interesting items: gorgeous things, music boxes, trinkets, tapestries and more. Their business revolved around selling to the tourists on the boats that had consistently stocked the port with fresh faces.
The day had been nothing unusual to a child. Era and her sister Hyri had been playing within Kilika’s vast forest. On the turn of a dime, the wind ripped through the island. The ground shook and the trees trembled.
In the gusting zephyr it was hard to see much of anything, and harder to plant one’s feet on the ground. Hyri had fallen over and scraped her knees. The poor child was frightened and confused. Era could see the fear blossoming in her sister. In the storm that was stirred in an instant, Era did the best thing she could at the tender age of thirteen: she took Hyri by the hand and sheltered her beneath a nearby fallen shrine stone. Many similar stones littered the forest, either offering prayers of peace to the spirits of the woods or marking the way to Kilika’s temple.
There was enough room inside the bulbous debris for two children - just barely.
Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest place to hide. The storm could have easily moved the stone slabs and flattened the children — but it was still shelter. It was all they had. And surprisingly, it was enough.
The destruction would come to an end in only a few minutes, and when the wind and the earth had stilled, Era and Hyri had hurried through the debris of the storm’s wake only to find their beloved home in shambles. Naturally, destruction left in Sin’s wake had rendered the port useless, thereby crippling the family business.
Worse yet, neither parent had been lucky enough to survive the attack. In the coming days there were many tears. A Summoner had come to send the souls of the dead to the farplane, where they might rest in peace instead of becoming engulfed in the malice and anger of the afterlife.
It was a difficult time. The Sending was performed at sunset. It was executed artfully and woefully; the event was full of emotion. Sadness was heavy on the island breeze. Fear was there too, but so was peace. The Sending brought a certain measure of closure to Era. The heartbreak of fallen family would never truly go away, but at least she could rest knowing that her parents would be at peace within the Farplane.
Recognizing that there was very little future left for these young ones at Kilika, one of their neighbors suggested that they head to a bigger city. With their acceptance, he had arranged for the children to get off the island by paying for their fare back to Bevelle when the restoration efforts had arrived.
Era and Hyri would start a new life for themselves in Bevelle, first taking residence in a homeless shelter.
It was obvious that Hyri was too young to take care of herself, and Era felt inclined to do something to bind this tiny remnant of their family together.
Eagerly looking for anything she could find, Era would work at her first job. Only a young teen, the bright-eyed youngster would work almost constantly in her humble janitorial position. There was very little room for improvement, but it was a source of income, and she had gained a few raises. Although they were never rich by any stretch of the imagination, Era had enough to provide for herself and Hyri, and they would live in a small residence within the grand city of Bevelle for years to come.
By Era’s seventeenth year she had learned everything there was to know about her job. She could tell you exactly how many steps between the eloquent window-decorated A-frame front door to the main desk, and how many steps it took to get to every room on either side of the corresponding hallways..
She could tell you exactly how long it took to clean each type of mess until it was spotless, tell you every groove in the ceiling, and the names of every businessman and woman to grace these halls on a regular basis. It was a good job. And once there was no more room for improvement, she would begin teaching herself.
Once or twice, when nobody was looking, she had made her way through the papers in the desks, learning what she could from the information provided upon them. On one particular day, however, she didn’t even have to dig. Papers were just scattered across the table, just screaming for curious eyes to dig into them! It was a baited opportunity to learn.
The chairs had all been vacant and so she decided to fill one, and her curious eyes immediately glossed the documentation. A folder would shroud the files from the immediate glance, but for being so secretive the plans sure were easy enough to look through.
The first page was a warning about concealed documentation, warning the reader to browse the information within at their own risk. Of course, the first page was completely discarded as she dug further in.
What she had found was both jarring and exhilarating! There was imagery of a colossal machine. The documentation blueprinted plans of bringing it to life. The titanic contraption would harness unreal amounts of energy from the Farplane. The intention seemed innocent enough, but anything that could absorb and channel that much energy had a potential for enormous disaster.
The papers looked rather new and the plans were deviously-well thought out. Yet as extravagant as the plans were, Era had been caught red-handed. The information she had so eagerly learned would come at a price.
She would unwillingly undergo a series of brainwashing efforts to rid her of the information she had learned and then be dumped upon an uninhabited island far away. To that particular group of individuals, she was left as good as dead. And whether or not she actually died made no difference; she could no longer pose a threat.
The treatments had left her in very bad condition. She was almost deemed a fatality of the brutal memory erasure, save for some spitfire determination to stay alive. Era had come so close to death at the hands of this group, in fact, that her being tried to burst into Pyreflies.
She resisted, the force of her will being the last thing holding her being together. Only a few fragments fell away. The first shard to slip away was a large part of her memories, and with it a large segment of her Heart. This fragment became Erax. The second entity to take shape would be Xrae. She would have been Era’s Nobody if she had ever been fully realized. At their creation, both of them were simply different accumulations of life-energy, each carrying with them their own Pyreflies.
Xrae never fully realized and therefore only amounted to an echo lingering somewhere between the real world and the Farplane. Of course Era wasn’t conscious enough to be knowledgeable of any of this. Era found herself coming to in the ruins of an abandoned building long forgotten. Amidst the desolate landscape around her she would be stranded for days. Try as she might to find any sort of food, the island was devoid of plant and animal life. The idea to build a raft had crossed her mind and just as quickly was dismissed. The beaches were too rough and the materials too scarce.
Despite her best intentions, it wasn’t that far-fetched to expect to die here. There was no food or drinkable water. Still, she had shelter, and during her days she didn’t stop looking for ways to live. But reality would remind her that her situation had a pretty bad outlook. And yet the God that was had another plan, for when all hope seemed lost, she was found..
A peculiar individual had happened upon her. Wraith, an unsent holding the form of the man he was in life, had made her a deal. He would rescue her from the forsaken wasteland, but she would have to avail herself to his employ. And if she should take him up on his offer, he had promised to return the memories that had been put to sleep deep within her.
Left short on options that would keep her alive, and looking just as hard for answer about how she wound up where she was, Era complied.
The angry undead void that once was a strong and courageous fellow, Wraith, had intentions to see the people of this world in agony. Filled with a virulent distaste for those who continued to live, as many Unsent eventually became, Wraith had turned bitterness into his drive. It was for this purpose that Wraith had awakened the Sleeping Darkness within Era’s heart.
It was painful, but no more so than the memory erasure had been. And Era had pulled through this agony, too, eventually rising from the pits of her suffering only to become stronger.
Unfortunately, having opened up the gateway into the darkness of Era’s heart as he did, Wraith left an opening for the dark parts of Era’s heart to take hold. Surrendering to her Darkness would create a new sort of monster known as Nightmare.
By all rights Era should have succumbed. Her heart was very close to being completely destroyed, terminating the rest of her existence at the tender age of seventeen. But Era had always been a fighter and, laying on the bring of existence, in the Corridors of Darkness that was somewhere between life and the hereafter, Era battled the Darkness that so diligently fought to overtake her. Eventually, through little more than sheer determination, she won.
But the battle of the heart is only a sliver of the spectrum. Bound and determined to fill the holes in her memory, Era continued her duties under Wraith, having very little recollection of the sins committed during the time she’d been possessed by Nightmare. What little she did remember would haunt her in visions, tiny snippets of recollection and horrible dreams. Countless souls had been dragged to the Depth of Dark Dreams because of her. (This is unbeknownst to Era in her present state).
All the while, having no real evidence of whom this girl had been, Wraith would string her along with lies about whom it was she used to be just to keep her faithful to his hand : the false memories were the carrot on the stick that kept his dedicated work horse in check.
Months passed, Era returned to her previous home, much to her little sister’s surprise and eventually Hyri had learned of Wraith.
Desperately Hyri tried to get Era to realize that she was being tricked and to expose Wraith as a liar who knew absolutely nothing about her.
Whether it was the memory spheres of their parents’ sending, the picture books or some other means, eventually Era had become enlightened as to the true face of her superior. She and Hyri engaged Wraith in a furious battle, all the while Era had been hoping that by destroying the corruptor, Nightmare too would end. But life couldn’t be so simple. Wraith would eventually wither, but Nightmare lived on.
WORLD DESTINY
Era would wake up in Traverse Town having no idea whom it was she used to be. A few weeks would pass as she got a feel for her surroundings, learning of other worlds and of Heartless, and soon enough she would encounter Rook: a light in the darkness, and her first friend after the loss of her memory.
After a skirmish with Erax that had awakened Nightmare, Rook bravely fought against the beast posessing Era, forcing the girl to regain control of her mind, lest she should cause harm to her friend.
Once Era was in control of her own mind and body, the duo battled against the Darkness. Erax dealt Rook a lethal blow, and struggling to remain awake, the tattered redhead would pass off the most powerful technique he could muster: Guard Light. Era was unwieldy with the Light, only had enough control over the channeled blast to abate the Heartless that pursued them.
It was painful to throw, but the attack was successful. The threat dissipated and Era clung to her new friend as the courageous boy fell unconscious.
With curiosity piqued by Era’s ability to manipulate the shadows without succumbing to her own darkness, Ansem jumped on the opportunity. He saw a use in her ability, if he could only manage to control her. Era was taken captive and brought to the realm of Darkness.
To Era’s surprise, somehow Rook had found a way into the World That Never Was. A storm of Light on the Castle of Darkness would alarm and surprise everyone involved, yet the forces of Darkness overpowered him, pushing Rook out of their world. Against Rook’s will, Era was forced to remain in the Castle Where Darkness Gatherrs.
Forced to comply to Ansem’s will, at least for now, Era was sent to Radiant Garden. In theory she would reach where a Heartless could not go. It was her charge to hack the defense system to allow the Heartless entry into the world.
She had made it to Master Ansem’s computer - even into the world of the Space Paranoids, but being an unrecognized program fixed on getting out of her quarantine, she proved too hostile and the computer system rejected her.
Upon returning to the Computer Room, Era had realized that she failed her mission, yet the Dark Twelve’s eyes were scrutinizing her from within the shadows. Having recognized her failure, one of Elseus’s magma-themed heartless had come to escort her safely through the Corridors of Darkness and back to the confinement within the Castle Where Nothing Gathers.
Era, being the fiery female she was, had gotten another wild hair and decided it would be better to get lost in the Darkness than to be a captive any longer. Her opportunity for escape had come! Within the Corridors of Darkness she would slowly put a growing distance between herself and the Heartless Escort, purposely getting herself lost in the between.
Getting herself lost was easy enough. It was the rest of the plan that Era had yet to iron out. But where there was a will, there was a way. The swathes of Darkness were no place for the Light, and now that nothing was around to guard her, endless waves of Heartless sought to snuff her out.
Taking up her Harvesters, she began a tussle with swarms of black demons. Her weapons were less effective against them, being wrought of an element friendly to them, but she was able to cause some to dissipate. The others were merely forced to stay at bay.
She fought vigorously for what had felt like hours. Her will pressed her to keep swinging and wander until she could stumble toward the light. Yet fate had another plan for her. Eventually exhaustion had taken its toll and even against her steel will, her body began to give out. She struggled in an endless tussle against the Heartless until she could expend every last ounce of energy.
Finally, when her demons began to whisper in her ear that the Darkness had won, she remembered what Rook had done for her in the battle with Erax: he gave her a chance to use the Light by granting her his technique:
Guard Light.
Figuring that if anything went wrong she wouldn’t be left to witness anything worse, Era focussed deep within her being, attempting to channel the Light. And despite her odds, she had somehow blown enough of the Darkness away. Closing her eyes, she collapsed, only for her consciousness to stir and find her body sprawled against some rubbish. Somehow she’d made it back to Traverse Town, her body body draped across trash piles that sat in the back of a storefront. With the help of a stranger she was taken to the Inn to recuperate.
Once again on the road to recovery, Era began looking for her friend as soon as she was well enough. Here, she meets an acquaintance named Shiro. After a few attempts to find her old friend Rook Era had ruled out Traverse Town. That was one world down and who knew how many to go. She made her next World Hop over to Destiny Islands.
On one of the Play Islands she decided to take a mini-vacation, where she met two more friends: Hero and Renzo. The vacation was exactly what she needed to refocus. A few days later she would land a job at a beach-front café to replenish her munny supply.
She spent weeks on Destiny Islands, slowly gaining munny, and offering the ocean several messages in bottles.
One day during her beautiful, humble job a few patrons would settle in. One of them, surprisingly enough, was Rook. The other, a friend of his who had managed to stick by Rook’s side and pull him out of the darkness. The travelers looked exhausted, explaining that they were intending to pass through, and Era offered her hotel room keys to them for the night.
That’s when they all saw it: the attack on Destiny Islands. A dark storm crashed above the common Play Island, and a quick trip over to the location would end in a full-out battle between the Darkness and the Nothings.
Era had taken up arms against both sides with a tag-team of locals, Rook and the Nobody Jason: their sights set on defending the heart of the world.
Rook was pinned beneath a pile of rubble, and Era, whose heart was swallowed by fear, would fight in her rage until the world had succumbed to the Darkness.
THE IN-BETWEEN
After Destiny Islands had fallen, Era had no choice but to continue traveling - any way she could.
Her heart still clung to a glimmer of hope that her friend had somehow survived in the cave-in that trapped him just before Destiny Islands fell, but the entire event had put things into perspective for her. She knew she could no longer live for herself and her small circle of friends.
After all, she had glimpsed the plans of the Dark Twelve to bring as many worlds into Darkness as possible. There were so many places she had to visit: so many people she had to warn. And for the next two years, Era would hop from world to world, talking to anyone who would listen: telling them desperately of the plight that worked against them, and trying to help them get ready for the onslaught of Darkness that was surely coming for their world.
If people didn’t listen she would continue her travel, trying to find those who would take heed. Eventually she would settle in Twilight Town long enough to gather her strength and resupply.
Enter: the Nightfall.
