Lady of the Masquerade Ball

The is a posthumous character introduced in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index.
==Appearance==
When reproduced, the Lady of the Masquerade Ball fits her namesake and wears a red party dress showing off her bodylines as well as a smooth white mask without eyes or mouth over her beautiful face. Chapter 1 Part 8 She has reddish/purplish, wavy hair at shoulder-length.
Like other members of the Golden Dawn, her dress has decorations in the shape of four-pointed stars.
==Personality==
She is an eccentric always seeking to stand in the spotlight, Chapter 3 Part 16 doing everything in the most extravagant and over-the-top way she can, Chapter 1 Part 10 even waiting until pubs are open to cut loose so what she does can be written off as her being drunk. Between the Lines 2 However, she can rapidly lose interest in any one thing.
Unlike Aleister, she does not care if the side effects of magic affect someone else as she prioritizes her own goals as a Magician. Likewise, she has little regard for the life and well-being of her servants, thinking of them as pawns that can be sacrificed for her goals. However, she is bored by faithful obedience and apparently liked that Allan Bennett went against her, even if she still considered him a pawn.
==Background==
When she was alive, she was the most influential member of the Golden Dawn, having helped spread word of the cabal. In her time as a member, she created a secondary cabal known as The Sphere, inviting only a select few. The known members include John William Brodie-Innes, Allan Bennett, Frederick Leigh Gardner, and Charles Rosher. Chapter 1 Part 7 She and Annie Horniman also helped Mina Mathers at times with the development of the cabal's ceremonial ground, which incorporated stage contraptions.
She once attended a non-magical ball while wearing a Symbolic Weapon still in development and that should never have been taken out in public.
At some point after her death, the Lady of the Masquerade Ball was reproduced along with other members of the Golden Dawn by Coronzon, through the application of Tarot-based grimoires, as part of her anti-Crowley countermeasures. Chapter 2 Part 7 Chapter 3 Part 1
==Chronology==
===Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index===
====Coronzon Arc====
The reproduced Lady of the Masquerade Ball, along with two of her followers Frederick Leigh Gardner and Charles Rosher, was stationed in Hyde Park, on small island in . Unknowingly driven by Qliphah Puzzle 545's madness of war, Chapter 2 Part 9 the Lady of the Masquerade Ball got impatient and decided to carelessly attack the Naked Shopping Center in Piccadilly Circus, where Aleister Crowley, Kamijou Touma, Othinus and Accelerator were holed up in, ahead of time. As Allan Bennett was not present, a horn was substituted in his place in the formation for the summoning of Taphthartharath. Hearing about Taphthartharath from Allan Bennett allowed Aleister to survive as well as saving the others.
She was also involved in the group's pursuit of the British Royal Family as they were being evacuated to Scotland, in order to protect the real Mathers's grave, and was among those who took aim at Touma during his clash with Mathers. When Aleister succeeded in disrupting the flow of power to the reproductions' grimoire bodies, the Lady came apart while trying to get her spells working again. Chapter 4 Part 7
===Side Stories===
====Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index SS====
At some point during the Golden Dawn's heyday, not long after the Lady had formed the Sphere and discussed the summoning of Taphthartharath, she attempted to assassinate Mathers during a late-night walk to the British Museum, seeking to free herself from the restrictions imposed by the group's current framework and enjoy her magic more freely. However, the surprise attack failed and Mathers was easily able to destroy the remote curse, hitting the Lady with the recoil without even seeking out who was attacking him. She was then roughed up by Annie Horniman, despite her own dislike for Mathers, for trying to harm the life that her friend Mina Mathers had chosen for herself.Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index SS
==Abilities==
Besides her knowledge of Golden-style magic, the Lady has knowledge and experience from the theatrical world of performing arts, being a famous actress, incorporating it into some of her methods. A couple of her few known spells involve remote attacks (both involving a form of summoning or evocation), with Annie Horniman noting that she seemed to be the type to like them.
One of her remote curses, used in a failed assassination attempt against Mathers (noted as a theatrical crime), involved a temple (constructed on a former Thames wharf, and including an altar, tablets of different metals, flags to the east and west, seats for roles etc) used to summon a large amount of Telesma, and having it carry a mental image through a then-prototype GD Tarot card. The specific card used was the first of the Major Arcana, The Magician, which has meanings including cleverness, willpower, an enemy's trap, as well as the beginning of change or the chance to begin something. Part of the 'image' imbued into the card is the symbol of the octagram, a eight-pointed star drawn in a single continuous stroke, said to be a combination of all elements and symbolizing the power of metal, which can be intentionally misused to strike a physical blow to anything composed of the four elements. This particular octagram, visualized by Mathers as 2m wide and dragged along the ground by the floating card, acted as a giant spring which, after approaching a target, rejected and launched them upwards. The Lady controlled the attack with her thoughts, with the card-pulled octagram capable of zigzagging and faster than the automobiles of the time. While this increased her odds of success, having it linked to her also meant she risked harm from a rebound if the curse was defeated - when Mathers destroyed the curse with an evocation of Baal Zebul, the temple and implements used in the curse were equally destroyed, and the Lady's shoulder was broken just as Mathers's shoulder had been.
The Lady is apparently capable of astral projection, having attempted to do so to escape the pain from a rebounded curse, although she was interrupted by Annie Horniman, who warned her of the risks. The halted chant invoked the fifth sephirah Gevurah, associated with the element of fire, and the 6=5 robe of the Egyptian role, calling for it to accept her as she freed herself from her physical body's bonds and departed, while purifying the flaws of her soul with a flame from records of ancient gods, so that she would be reborn, stripping off old wounds and pain.
During the reproduced Golden Dawn's pursuit of the royal family and Touma's battle with Mathers, the Lady is suggested to have made use of a cloak that flaps on its own.While the item in question wasn't specifically linked to her, given knowledge of items which are linked to other magicians who were mentioned in the same instance, there seems to be a correspondence between the order of the names mentioned and the items being used by those individuals, which suggests that this is the case. Her mask, without slots for the mouth or eyes, allows her to pass objects such as a brandy glass or a long pipe through it to her mouth, described as almost being like it was made of smoke or liquid.
===Taphthartharath===
The Lady can summon , the Planetary Spirit of , using a formation of four people and an incantation that is completely different from the Golden Dawn's formulas and sounds more like a nursery rhyme:
"Let us begin the silly wordplay. We shall toy with numbers and letters, add straight lines and curves, and combine it all into signs and symbols. It is time to shake Kochab, the planet protected by Raphael. But do not forget. Though the names may differ, the entire celestial sphere points to a single tree. All elements fall within my grasp and no element found on the surface of the four worlds or to the very ends of this earth can be fully separated. Therefore, only the appropriate knowledge allows one to reach their pure form. Planetary Spirit Taphthartharath. Leave thy natural revolution and seize upon my planet."
In actuality, she doesn't really summon a being from Mercury, but instead, the energy within the planet is sent high up towards a point in the sky serving as a fictional representation of Mercury before being made to fall down on a target as an invisible attack similar to a bombing.
==Trivia==
*Based on the details given about her life, especially how she led an elitist group within the Golden Dawn known as The Sphere, it is certain that the Lady is in actuality under a pseudonym for unknown reasons. She was an English actress, women's rights activist, and a leading member of the . She created the secret order "the Sphere" or "the Sphere " within the Golden Dawn to focus on more Egyptian rituals, which would last from 1896 to 1902, when it would collapse following Farr's resignation from the cabal. Following this, Florence continued her acting career and wrote plays before becoming headmistress of a girls' school in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she died of breast cancer in 1917.
*Taphthartharath (in Hebrew: תפתרתרת) is a being first described during the Renaissance by German occultist in his (De Occulta Philosophia libri III), Book 2 Chapter 22, as the demon (or spirit depending on the sources) of complementary to Mercury's Intelligence named Tiriel. Cornelius Agrippa explains that each planet has a specific intelligence and demon assigned to them, with the intelligence of the planet being benevolent and the demon being malevolent. On May 13 1896, Florence Farr apparently led a ritual attempting to invoke Taphthartharath, together with , Charles Rosher and .
*Kochab, mentioned in the incantation for Taphthartharath, is the Hebrew name for , used in the and . It is also a name for the star , the second brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor next to Polaris.
*In the afterword of Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 4, talismans that can input the power of Mercury were mentioned while exemplifying the sort of summoning spell. Afterword Based on her ability, it seems to be an early reference to her.
==External Links==
*
==Notes==
==References==
==Navigation==
Category:Characters
Category:Magic Side Characters
Category:Magicians
Category:Golden Dawn
Category:Deceased Characters
Category:Unnamed Characters