Gabriel Elwyn

Gabriel's base sprite

Gabriel is a Type B telepath and member of the Gifted Few. He is forced to participate in the Game of the Gifted at Espera's Keep alongside his fellow students.

## Appearance

Gabriel is 5'10'' with an average build, dark brown hair and blue eyes. He wears a simple button down shirt, grey trousers fastened with a brown belt, a light denim jacket and white trainers. He keeps a pair of sunglasses in his breast pocket, though he never actually wears them. While his hair is usually unstyled, it's clearly well looked after.

## Personality

At first, Gabriel seems like a completely average, fairly easy-going guy. He has a very relaxed demeanour and has no problem working with others. He often makes witty or sarcastic remarks, though these are often in fairly good nature. He tends to be more of a follower than a leader, preferring to join conversations rather than start them.

He has no problem adapting to new situations. His relaxed attitude allows him to easily adjust to sudden or unexpected changes, even ones that might seem alarming at first. He has a very grounded, down to earth approach, thinking less of the bigger picture and more of the immediate issues at hand.

However, most of these traits are surface level. Beneath his easy persona, he hides a deeply cynical nature. Though he might call himself a realist, his outlook becomes fairly pessimistic when it comes to people's true intentions. His experiences in his mid-late teens have left him deeply jaded with society, seeing other people as inherently fake, shallow and selfish. To him, blending into the background is a conscious choice, an attempt to gain back the normality he lost when his gift manifested. While he is more than willing to cooperate and be civil with people, he is very hesitant to trust them.

## History

### Early Life

Unlike his peers at Espera's Keep, Gabriel did not encounter magic until his mid-teens. His early life with his family was completely unremarkable, living in a central area of a well-populated city. His older sister Sapphira graduated college when Gabriel was 10, and his grandmother was a well-renowned judge.

The first few years of his high school life were unremarkable. He didn't have many close friends, often sitting alone at lunchtimes and during classes, but he never found himself wanting anything else. He was perfectly content being alone, spending most of his time focussing on work. He was a regular member of the chess club and occasionally observed rehearsals of the drama group, though he never actually joined their rehearsals.

At 15 years old, Gabriel's gift manifested, something previously unheard of in all studied of magic. As soon as his diagnosis was confirmed, his peers suddenly began to take interest in him, despite having ignored him for most of his time in school. He quickly saw through their sudden offers of friendship, leading to his somewhat jaded attitude towards other people.

### The Prequels

Gabriel skips most of his classes the day his summons to the Keep arrives. His father insists on doing training exercises with him, though he isn't allowed to actually use his gift. Gabriel insists this is pointless, since he'll never actually improve if he can't practice for real. His father acknowledges this, but explains the difficulty of finding someone who could properly work with him, given how late his gift manifested. Gabriel considers what it would be like to give up on training and pretend to live a normal life again. But as soon as he suggests the idea to his father, his letter arrives. While his father leaves to tell the rest of the family, Gabriel realises he will never have the chance to be normal again.

*You can find links to the prequel chapters here.*

### Game of the Gifted

#### Prologue

Gabriel meets Cora Valen and Kahia Rothwell in the hallway of the dormitory corridor. Kahia is initially wary of his telepathy while Cora seems irritated by his presence. Soon, they meet Wren StClaire, who knocks Gabriel over as she flies down the corridor. The four decide to investigate the Keep together as none of them remember how the got there.

Downstairs, the group meet Lyssa Masterson, Malachi Linden and Ambrose Delaney. Gabriel tries to make light-hearted conversation with Lyssa, who reacts in a blunt, standoffish manner. Once Lyssa and Ambrose leaves, he follows the others out onto the grounds. He seems relatively uninterested by the towers, focussing more on the wall and the forcefield that surround the Keep.

After Silas Reid uses his gift to dampen Kahia's powers, Gabriel and Wren help her to recover. When he hears that Cora plans to go after Silas, he decides to go with her, though his reasons why are left unclear.

Gabriel is next seen in the Great Hall, arriving after the Interface's first announcement. He enters with Cora and Silas, bringing Ambrose along with him after finding him loitering in a corridor.

When the Interface reveals the rules of the game, Gabriel is initially taken back, but seems to handle the news better than most. When Ceres Lane suggests splitting up into groups, he offers to work with Kahia and seems relatively unbothered when Emmerich Tennyson ends up tagging along.

*More coming soon.*