Jon Acron

Jon Acron is a professor and anthropologist from the Darkside of Taldain. He is an assassin working for Skathan, ruler of The Dynasty.
== Appearance and Personality ==
Acron has dark skin, shoulder length black hair with a receding hairline, and a horseshoe mustache. He most often wears a purple duster-length coat, often with a white vest and puce necktie. He has a somewhat haughty personality. He thinks he is better than so-called primitive peoples and often comments to that effect.
== History ==
Acron travels with Duchess Khrissalla, fellow Professor Allstren Cynder, Baon, and their Elisian soldiers to visit Dayside, ostensibly to find the sand mages. He discovers a Kerztian merchant in the port of Dosha-Har'Ken that speaks Dynastic allowing them to purchase supplies when Professor Cynder has difficulties communicating with the locals. Acron is perplexed at the mixed indications of the technological level of Dayside when he notices a lack of what, in his view, would be basic technology combined with evidence advanced understanding of some technological accomplishments like pneumatics. Acron and his party find Kenton unconscious in a tent near the area of the Kerla that the sand masters were massacred. They awakened him and he showed them how to find water from the dorim vines, and then guided them to Kezare.
After an eventful journey across the kerla, during which they were attacked by Kerztian warriors, they arrived in Kezare. Kenton and the group then parted ways, Kenton heading to the Diem, and Acron and the rest of the group going to Lonzare, the Darksider quarter. Acron bickered with Cynder while they waited outside of Loaten's "office" during Khrissalla's meeting. Acron and Cynder remain in Lonzare while Khriss attempts to meet with the Taisha.
Later he came to Khriss while she was alone to try to make her suspicious of Baon by impying that the night that Captain Deral was killed he was awake and heard only two shots—while Baon had implied their party was being chased by a Dynasty Patrol. Soon after Professors Cynder and Acron return to their lodging in Lonzare to find Khriss confronting Baon. Cynder droped the saltpeter when they walk in and find Baon with his pistol in-hand while he admitted to have been working for the Dynasty. Baon then left the group.
In order to get closer to sand mastery to study it, the Duchess moved the remaining trio from Lonzare to the Diem, Acron carried Khriss' suitcase, heavy with scientific equipment, and she admonished him for not being careful with it. In the conversation that followed, Cynder mentioned how shocking it was for a person as loyal as Baon to be a traitor and speculated that any of them could also betray the others. Acron deflected by saying they should not dwell on that until they learn more about Baon's motivations. Afterward Khriss gave Gevin's pistol, which she had received from Nilto, to Cynder to use to guard her since Baon was no longer around to do so. 
Later, Professors Acron and Cynder join Kenton, Senior Trackt Ais, Aarik and the Duchess in another meeting with Lord Merchant Vey, but the Lerd Merchant allows only Kenton into his office. After the meeting, Kenton, Khriss, Aarik and Ais decide to dicuss the meeting over lunch in a restaurant, while Cynder and Acron presumably return to the Diem. 
When Khriss and Kenton were attacked in the restaurant, Acron used the pistol Khriss had given to Cynder to save her life. When Khriss confronted him, asking why he had the gun and not Cynder, he claimed to have taken it from Cynder for her safekeeping. Afterward he seemed to be in a state of shock, and Aarik tried to comfort him. But when Khriss went off with N'Teese to see Nilto, Acron stammered an excuse and ran after her. Aarik noted that it was an oddly quick recovery, while Kenton chalked it up to the loyalty that Duchess Khrissalla inspired in her retainers.
Acron arrives at the alley where Khiss met Nilto just as Nilto was leaving. Later, when Khriss confronted Nilto at the docks and revealed him to be Gevin, Acron pulled out the gun and tried to kill Gevin, revealing himself as an agent of the Dynasty on a mission to kill the Prince. Baon then reappeared and pushed a crate of fruit onto Acron, knocking him over. While Khriss and Baon were speaking, Acron reached out to the gun that was knocked from his hand and fired it, grazing Baon on the arm and knocking him over. Khriss and Gevin scattered and separated through various paths in the dockside pallets. Acron chased after them without knowing who took which path and eventually caught sight of Khriss climbing a stack of crates. When he caught up to her, Khriss used a crane to knock Acron off the pier and to his apparent death in the harbor.
== Quotes ==
== Trivia ==
* In White Sand Volume 1 Jon Acron and Cynder's speech bubbles are occasionally misattributed, particularly when they converse with one another. Noting the clothing of the speaker and context of the quote is required to catch these mistakes. For example, Jon wears white in most of Volume 1, though in at least one frame their clothing was switched.
* In the Omnibus Professor Acron is shown in some scenes with chin hair—either a soul patch or goatee. A shaven chin with the horseshoe mustache seems to be the most predominant image.
== Notes ==
Category: Taldaini