Avaselm Croix

Noir Lavgne (adopted mother)

Violetta Lavgne (adopted sister)

Stroldra (temporary owner)

Avaselm Croix is a Chaotic Object, the former grimoire of Aoife Croix. She lives in the Brass District of St. Stroldrum, and is currently owned by the city's celestial watcher. She works under one of the city's senior inquisitors, Noir Lavgne, and is trying to discover who the vessel of Droussel, her rightful master, is.

## History

Ambrose is a sentient manifestation of magic itself, or more specifically, the magic vested in a particular chaotic magic soul named Droussel. Through countless reincarnations, she serves whoever Droussel's new vessel is, and whether Droussel be reborn as a lowly magician or a ruthless witch queen is irrelevant, and whether Ambrose be reborn as Droussel's fate-bound friend, lover, servant, parent, child, mentor, or sibling is also irrelevant: she must forever serve the vessel with unconditional loyalty, void of her own moral judgement or opinion of the new vessel.

In the 19th century, Droussel is reborn as Aoife Croix, while Ambrose is reborn as Malady under a ritual by the Blackhand Society in order to assume control of the reincarnations of Droussel and Ambrose. In this new reincarnated state, Aoife and Malady are often at odds with each other, Malady's strict moral code and her lack of agency colliding with Aoife's thirst for vengeance to create an unstable pairing at best. Under the Croix family, both are thrust deep into a war between Chaotic witches and the rest of witchkind (see: Blackhand Revolt of 1843). By the end of this war, the accumulated power within the soul of Drossel calls up one of the Ether Gods from the Diaboliaca, resulting in the beginning of the Diaboliaca takeover of witch lands and the spread of the Eldritch Virus. Malady will die protecting Aoife's life from being consumed by the Ether Gods but also curse Aoife's deeds and her permanent attachment to the soul of Droussel with her dying breath.

Ambrose's next reincarnation occurs soon after as Aoife's "daughter", Avaselm Croix. Unlike the bitter state her previous life had left her and Aoife off with, Avaselm idolizes her mother despite knowing the cruelty and ruin Aoife had caused upon the witch world and Avaselm is sure there is regret, too, for what her mother had done and how horribly Aoife had treated truly the closest thing she had had to a friend. Aoife was now on the run, pursuited by the world itself, but in the end, is murdered by an unknown killer.

Noir Lavgne discovers the young Avaselm, only about four at the time. Debate arose whether or not to execute Avaselm in her mother's stead (execution was a practice not committed publicly on a witch since the 1979 Accords outlawed capital punishment on all witchkind, including Chaotics). In the end, it is Noir herself who, despite being the one who had relentlessly tried to arrest Aoife for over a decade, decides to take Avaselm in as her ward, seeing the potential Avaselm had as either a future weapon or, at least, so Avaselm, either in this life or the next life, would not be groomed into an enemy of magickind again.

## Personality

Each one of her reincarnations are different people with different values and personality, only connected by the fact their fates are all inseparable from the fate of the soul she originates from.

She tends to act two-faced and snide, vying only for superficial relationships and building upon her infamous reputation to build detachment between her and people who possess free will. They're all defenses from the fact she knows the world will never see her as Avaselm, scapegoat who only wants to be liberated from her fate, only ever Ambrose, the grimoire that helped cause the collapse of magical society. Even Noir, her adopted mother, has ulterior motives.

As a person, she is conflicted on whether or not she feels loyal for Aoife because she was the woman who raised her for a short time, or only because she was the latest vessel of the soul of Droussel. Though she acknowledges the memories of her past lives, she loathes associating them with her present, considering them more of her extended family of sorts rather than her herself.

In truth, she doesn't want to associate herself with serving Droussel for eternity but also knows that's her inevitable fate: without Droussel, she is worth nothing. Her fate, to her, also casts doubt on whether or not she is able to truly form attachments with anyone: unable to distinguish her emotions between the artificial and the genuine, she is unsure whether or not her crush on Ophelia is because she, as a witch, feels love for Ophelia, or if it's because she, as the soul of Ambrose, feels dedicated to Ophelia because she is the new vessel for Droussel. While Avaselm tends to not heed rules established by the mortal or witch government, she would never dare defy the true, ironclad rules of the universe itself.

Regardless, she subconsciously places small rebellions against her fate through her work under the Clocktower, aiming to make up for the misery her past selves had generated on the magic world, and occasional attempts at friendship, such as her hesitant pact with Law to one day revive Caspar. Her favorite things are inanimate objects, surrealist art, desserts, jewelry, mysteries, and St. Stroldrum.

## Magic

Her magic is severely underdeveloped without the influence of her master. She is still relevantly potent, but her use of magic is wasteful and depends on leeching magic from her surroundings in large qualities to activate her spells. Her main source of power comes from her grimoire, which is an embodied extension of her essence.

As a Chaotic Object, she can communicate with inanimate objects. Unlike other witches who are only able to manipulate objects, Avaselm can warp, control, and awaken their souls as a secondary source of magic. Through specific sigils, she can get entire buildings "on her side", ultimately able to possess them and sense any movement or sound within the area. But this ability is a double-edged sword: she is also able to sense their pain, physical or emotional.

She also considers inanimate objects as her main friends, often sneaking into museums after dark to tell them stories or bring them their requests and also amassing a collection of stolen or abandoned objects. Her favorites are a bust of Julius Caesar without a nose and a anatomical skeleton model she rescued from a fire. She feels the strongest kinship with antiquities, objects lost in time and with no real home.