The Innocent

The Innocent (male-appearing form Cirrus, female-appearing form Ciel) are Demons in the shape of a young human Cleric, created by the Run to infiltrate Aurisen through the Brotherhood of Pius. Innocent is a classification of Demon, but The Innocent refers specifically to whichever of the two Innocents the player chooses during the events of Points & Pages. The other Innocent is referred to as The Bystander. The Innocent plays the role of the Demon in the Eight Chosen.

## Background

Innocents and other demonic creatures are spawned in the Run, a hell-like place for wandering souls hide away from the watchful gaze of the Goddess Shami. As it is difficult for spirits to interact with the physical world, bodies of various reconstituted material are used to create golems for spirits to control. A spirit with a strong enough desire can enter a metaphysical state to control the golem, and the resulting spirit-golem pair becomes a Demon.

Demons of the Run are considered abominations by the Goddess Shami, who decreed whatever has died should remain dead. The harsh rays of the Sun proves fatal to most Demons, disintegrating spirits caught in the metaphysical world. To circumvent this, Demons have attempted fashioning Golems out of human corpses. However, the ability to attach a soul can only done while the body is still alive. Demons known as Reapers were tasked with retrieving bodies on the edge of death, severing the bond between soul and body to allow another to possess it. Most reapers are normal demons that would be destroyed by sunlight, and thus only perform their work late at night.

A Reaper by the name of Saminadaes came upon the body of an abandoned baby. There was a soul bounded to the body, but the attachment was very weak and was easily cut through. Saminadaes fashioned a Golem out of the body and and attached the lost soul of a child to the new body. Though the resulting Demon was somewhat unresponsive and its skin cracked under the Sun, it did not disintegrate. It was also incredibly obedient to commands, earning it the name "Innocent". Saminadeas trained the prototype Innocent for several years to infiltrate mortal society and tried to test it by sending it into a nearby town in Southeastern. However, the people of the town quickly became concerned for the health of the child, causing Saminadeas to lose contact with the prototype.

Many years later, the Brotherhood of Pius would begin sending soldiers and young clerics to the Barrens in response to the increasing threat of Demons on Aurisen. Ironically, this gave the Demons more convenient access to living beings on the verge of death. The Reapers launched raids to abduct soldiers, sometimes feigning defeat so as not to demotivate the soldiers into leaving. Their bodies allowed for the creation of powerful new Golems that could resist sunlight. Clerics from the Brotherhood were among the abducted as well. With their bodies, Saminadeas attempted to create improved Innocents by attaching older souls with more grudges. However, the resulting Demons would either fall apart or have no powers at all, leading them to be disassembled.

Saminadaes found that bodies were incompatible with souls whose potential differed too much from their original, suggesting a Demon's powers are determined based on the life of the body's previous owner. To test this theory, Saminadaes set out to create an Demon who could wield the power of healing magic to mimic a Brotherhood Cleric. He stumbled across Magdalene Hobry with a set of twin newborns and reaped only the souls of her children. Saminadaes created two Innocents from the twins, combining their newborn souls with Golems from the bodies of Brotherhood Clerics. Just like the prototype, the two Innocents were incredibly obedient and capable of healing magic. Saminadaes again trained the Innocents to interact with humans, using the Brotherhood presence at the Barrens as his testing grounds. He assigned Daywalkers, the new class of sunlight-resistant Demons disguised as soldiers, to watch over the two Innocents so as not to lose them a second time.

Unfortunately for the Demons, the Innocents would get swept away in a tactical retreat caused by an overzealous soldier named Shrike O'Hare.

## Abilities

All Innocents share the same basic healing and support magic. Furthermore, an Innocent's healing and support magic secretly wither away at their target's soul, making them more attached to the Innocent and their soul bond easier to sever by a Reaper. Innocents are demons, meaning they are unaffected by biological status effects and do not die from wounds. However, their bodies can still be destroyed via burning similar to other demons. Innocents trained to feign death after taking a certain amount of damage to appear more mortal. Also unlike most Demons, Innocents can survive in sunlight.

Innocents have the ability to learn and adapt to their surroundings, unlike most other Demons. Most Demons are born from souls whose willpower stems from a powerful grudge which makes them stubborn, but Innocents are created from newborn souls who have yet to experience life and are strongly desire to do so. The spirit-body bond in an Innocent starts off extremely weak, but gets stronger as they learn and experience more and even developing a personality of their own. Thus, Innocents are able to learn new skills and abilities if they are taughtm while normal Demons start to disappear when they satisfy their grudge or have a change of heart to finally obtain eternal rest.