Piper Elenmin

"You can admit when you're being nice, you know. I won't tell anyone."

Lykaios Shadowpiercer - Adoptive brother

Piper Elia Elenmin (formerly Piper Elia Askeris) was one of the player characters in Refrain of the New Gods. After the Meeting at the Record, she ascended to godhood and became Palypso.

## Appearance

Piper was a young human woman with dark brown skin. She had purple hair that faded to a lighter pink towards the tips, with freckles across her face and body. Her eyes were light pink.

She frequently wore a pair of white boots and semi-translucent sleeves, both which were enchanted gifts from her parents. The sleeves allowed her to change her outfits at will, sometimes disappearing entirely.

## Personality

As a contrast to her darkness-related abilities, Piper's personality was very upbeat and kind. Like any younger sibling, she delighted in bothering her older brother Lykaios, and had an impulsive and silly nature. Piper was highly empathetic, crying tears or laughing on others' behalf often. Because of this, she was very charismatic and frequently took the role as the party face.

Despite her cheerfulness, Piper carried a sense of worthlessness and inferiority. Due to her perceived abandonment as a child, she feared that any mistake she made would make her undeserving of love. She gave out many second chances, as evidenced by her one-sided friendship with the werewolf Dharin and attempts to reason with both Chaiya and Akthos. Her belief that anyone could redeem themselves was powerful, even if it didn't extend to herself. She was loyal above all else to the Shadowpiercer-Elenmin family for saving her, and her decision to ascend as Palypso was largely due to her desire to protect them and "make it up to them".

Piper kept her secrets closely hidden, though she gave off an impression of openness to her friends. She rarely expressed how she felt beneath the surface, never telling even her parents the story of how she came to live with them. This was due both to wanting to maintain her privacy and to her repressing all memories of the event. It wasn't until Dahlia revealed her secret to the pocket plane that she was able to confront her emotions, though it wasn't without difficulty due to her PTSD.

## Biography

### Early Life

Piper Askeris was born in Panohsem to parents at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder on Crescober 27th, 342 TC.  Shortly after, her little brother Riven was born. On her adventures around the town, he met and befriended a kitsune, Emilia, who introduced her to the basics of shadowmancy. At age 8, she wandered into the palace grounds and was cornered by the elf prince Gamet Thanaki. He attempted to assault her, and she panicked and fatally stabbed him with a glass shard in self defense.

News of the prince's death spread quickly, with rumors of a little girl covered in blood fleeing the scene, and the hunt for the killer began. Piper, who had developed a fever and a horrible cough, was hidden away by her parents, but her location was quickly tracked down by the Nocturne guild of assassins. They offered her parents a horrible choice -- sell their daughter to their guild to be raised as a killer, or they would alert the royal guard as to her whereabouts. Scared for their daughter's life and with no third option in sight, they handed her over to the Nocturnes.

Terrified, betrayed, and confused, Piper slipped away from her new captors in the night and ran into Athos Elenmin. Though he couldn't get any clear answers out of her, Athos clued in to the fact that she had come from a horrible situation and promised to watch after her while he was on his mission in Panohsem. Her health and mental state continued to decline, and after an unsuccessful search for a guardian, Athos decided he would take her back with him to Yale'hadil.

Piper was raised by the Shadowpiercer-Elenmins as a member of their family, never giving them any clues as to the events that led her to them. The trauma left her mentally scarred and weakened, but she kept a cheerful attitude nonetheless. She began to take up dancing and worked on her shadowmancy, one of the few aspects of her past she carried with her.

### Refrain of the New Gods

In Sol 361 TC, Piper, her brother Lykaios, and Athos were on a walk when they were chased by ghostly horses. They trampled Athos to death, surrounding Lykaios and teleporting him away. Piper escaped, running from the horses for several days with the help of a man named (fuck if i know his name olivia help me out here) before eventually letting herself be caught in order to find her brother.

She awoke in a pocket dimension, meeting many others who had been similarly kidnapped. After reuniting with Lykaios, she learned from Chaiya that they were to be put through trials designed to strengthen their souls for the purpose of defeating the world destroying god, Akthos. Though she failed to understand why she'd been selected in the first place, she willingly participated in the trials. Shortly after they began, Piper unintentionally used her shadowmancy to summon the spirit of a dead kitsune into a shadow. She named the shadow Inari, and soon after, she began to dream of Inari's past life as Quijoti.

After surviving several trials and befriending SILAS, Pecan, Seraphine, and Rose, Piper stumbled across a mindflayer at night and was infested with one of its young. The immature mindflayer wrapped around the inside of her chest, causing her to become listless and apathetic. Rose neutralized the infestation, but Piper's troubles weren't over. Dahlia had learned of her past, and in an effort to demoralize her, revealed it to the entire population of the pocket plane.

Seeking comfort, Piper had a conversation with Twist where he told her about an old ritual of Medlayla that would turn the user into a werewolf. Unknowingly, he had just given her what she thought was a solution to what she thought was her problem — she felt as if she didn't belong in her family. Soon after, she was thrown into another trial and met Yeethoa and Gabuuti, who instructed her party to destroy the mindflayers. Seeing her chance, Piper performed the bloody ritual in private.

The first full moon after the ritual came soon, but Piper had little time to sort out her feelings, as she quickly entered the final trial where Akthos waited. The final confrontation began, but none of the party's attacks were effective. Suddenly, they seemed to be teleported away from the fight. There, they learned Normal Girl's real name and met the god Ora.

Ora offered the party the chance to become gods themselves. Piper hesitated, knowing her family would grow old and die without her if she chose to accept. But in the end, she realized that her problem wasn't just not fitting in with her family — it was not feeling like she was doing enough for them. By becoming a goddess, she would have the power to watch over and protect them as long as they lived.

And thus Piper became no more, and Palypso was born.