Naseel Aharon

## Biography

As a young adult, Naseel was offered a position as emissary for the sand elf city of Panohsem. She took to this position with a fervor--though she enjoyed her tribal life as a Divaharrat, far out in the Southern Desert, she also wished to see and interact with the rest of the world. This curiosity made her naturally very intuitive and investigative; one day, a visiting representative of unknown origins took notice of these traits when she began to pry into his past. The representative took Naseel aside and introduced himself as Athos. He was here to secretly represent the Black Wardens, an underground organization made to protect the world. Athos offered her a position among their ranks. She happily accepted.

Due to her association with both the Prime Pyramid and the Desert Pyramid, Naseel was well-known among the Warden ranks. Even as an initiate, she was highly social and engaged, and by the time she was a full Warden she had already earned the respect of her peers.

Over time, the Wardens identified old schematics and designs for powerful weapons called guns that shot burning balls or cylinders of lead at their enemies. Naseel was chosen as a test subject for the use of the first prototypes; she turned out to be quite successful at their operation, and adopted the title of "gunslinger." Up until well after the Second Bone War, guns continued to be a Warden secret.

Naseel continued to maintain her position as a representative of Panohsem. As a result, she got to hear about many of the covert and secretive black market dealings going on around the city. One of these involved a renegade inventor who was illegally acquiring damaged android parts and using them to build strange prototype golems. There’s, like, one hundred different OSHA violations here, so Naseel made it her goal to hunt down this man and have him imprisoned.

She and some Panohsem soldiers converged on his location just as he was finalizing the most successful of his prototypes: an android body augmented with the soul of a human child. As Naseel arrived, the inventor was forced to flee -- and his creation, the oracle SILAS, was left undiscovered.

Not long after, Naseel met SILAS properly in the city. She helped him get established and stop wandering the streets as an orphan. They developed a fast friendship.

During a routine march through Panohsem, Naseel was besieged and teleported to a pocket dimension by ghorses. She initially believed Chaiya’s machinations to be an elaborate attack on the Black Wardens, covered up with the very distracting guise of “saving the gods.” A big part of this belief was due to the fact that two Warden children were also here -- Piper and Lykaios -- as well as the fact that several of their cohorts were also descendents of the heroes who accompanied Asta on Mount Megande. Also, Asta was there.

Naseel befriended Piper, Lykaios, and the rest of the party -- and was also reunited with SILAS. At the time, neither of them knew about their close brush with destiny in the desert outside of Panohsem.

During the first trial, Naseel made an effort to defend the party (particularly other Wardens) and keep the peace as much as possible. A primary threat was identified: the werewolf serial killer Twist, whose true identity was yet to be discovered. With the help of Piper and Lykaios, Naseel was able to find a trap door that led to a secret hideout of Twist’s. Here, he changed disguises and planned his next moves.

Twist discovered that he was… discovered, and immediately cleaned out his hideout. But he had done some investigating of his own. So he left behind a piece of paper with nothing but a symbol on it -- the symbol of the Black Wardens.

Upon discovering this, Naseel was sent into a quiet panic. If the Wardens were discovered, she believed it would give Chaiya some unseen upper hand. The kayal had disguised his work well, and she had yet to figure out the truth behind his motives. Deciding the best move would be a big one, she organized a parley with Twist.

Overseeing this parley was Fenton, an android who had caught Naseel’s eye due to her general helpfulness, cleverness, and impressive intelligence. The party was also in attendance. As a result, Fenton and the party heard about the Black Wardens through Twist and Naseel’s discussion.

The parley ended tersely. It was clear that Twist would not stop being a problem. But now Naseel had another problem to deal with: an information leak.

Knowing that Fenton had a talent for alchemy, Naseel approached her and offered her a position among the Black Wardens. Given the strangeness of the situation, Naseel would have to apprentice her here, and then hopefully finalize her training the right way once they returned to the Material Plane. For the first act of her apprenticeship, Fenton would need to mix an amnestic potion and wipe the memories of the non-Wardens. Fenton recognized how serious this situation was, and, after some deliberation, agreed.

During a somewhat tense meeting at the inn, Fenton spiked SILAS, Pecan, Roseblood, and Seraphine’s drinks with the potion. Naseel oversaw as they drank them, and then the two of them departed. Later, in private, they informed Piper and Lykaios of what they had done.

Not long after, SILAS learned of what Naseel had done. Unfamiliar with the Wardens and their ways, he interpreted this as an act of betrayal. Naseel had anticipated anger and even rage if she was found out, but she was not prepared for the depth of SILAS’ scorn. Naseel, who had spent her entire life in the professional field where feelings rarely mattered, was suddenly overwhelmed with very personal feelings of betrayal and loss.

In private, she lamented about this to Fenton, who tried to help her cope. Fenton, it turned out, was very good at comforting others! -- but that’s part of her story, not Naseel’s. As a result of this time together, both of them started to develop feelings for each other. Both of them also believed that these feelings would never come to fruition, so neither of them made any attempt to pursue it.

At some point during this time, Naseel was also contacted by fellow Warden Weylyn using magic. Weylyn was on a mission with several other Wardens investigating a pirate and the Wall of Worlds. Naseel provided some insight, and had a nice time catching up with another senior Warden.

In a later trial, Fenton, Naseel, and the party were all in different groups. In her group, Naseel was snuck up on by a basilisk, and turned to stone. As an “object,” she appeared in every iteration of the trial. The party was able to figure this out and helped un-petrify Naseel.

After this harrowing experience, the Outer God Apistoatl gave the party an opportunity to return to the Material Plane. The party agreed that they could be of the most help by remaining in the pocket plane. Fenton, however, was resolved to leave: the near-death experience with Naseel had reminded her of the important work she needed to attend to with her former captain.

With a tearful goodbye, Fenton and Skjoldolfr left the pocket plane. As she was departing, Naseel had a feeling she might never get another chance to sit down and talk feelings with her apprentice. So she decided to come out and say it: “You know, in different circumstances, we could have been a thing.”

Fenton smiled. “I know.” That was the last time Naseel thought about their relationship for some time.

Naseel spent most of her time after this assisting the party with daily upkeep of the pocket plane. The kayals had been kidnapped by mindflayers, and those remaining needed assistance. At one point Naseel got temporarily stranded in time, ending up over 20,000 years in the past at the birth of the Black Wardens.

There were also the other trialgoers to worry about, including Twist. Though SILAS soon made quick work of Twist with a spell that obliterated him to dust. Unfortunately, his escalating violence was also accompanied with an escalation of threats: that his family of assassins would hunt down and put an end to the Wardens.

A rift grew between the two of them that was never healed. Despite Fenton’s warnings that “he’s only a child,” Naseel continued to hold on to a wayward hope that they might be friends again. Although in no way a mother figure, she had viewed herself as responsible for SILAS, and loved him deeply. Later, in their last conversation, SILAS made it clear that while he wasn’t going to hurt her further, he had no interest in mending the rift. Naseel tried to downplay it in her head, but her heart had quietly been broken.

This was far from the final blow to Naseel’s psyche, however. After the Meeting at the Record, she and the remaining trialgoers returned victorious to the Material Plane. During a party at the Museum of Unnatural History that lasted several weeks, Naseel was reunited with her fellow Wardens -- only to discover that they had developed problems of their own.

A trial was to be held for Senior Warden Weylyn and his apprentice Thoren, who had broken several (if not all) of the Warden’s Edicts during a mission that ultimately created the goddess Goyoku. Naseel, viewing Weylyn as a friend, was initially eager to support him -- but was then shocked to hear him spouting anti-Warden slander left and right. She attempted to understand his perspective during the trial. Unfortunately, the speech he gave her did nothing but estrange her further, as he viciously denounced everything she believed in and had ever fought for.

Throughout the course of the trial, two important things happened. The first is that Vulen stepped down as High Warden Commander, and named Naseel as his successor. The second is that Varia and Weylyn attempted to perform a coup, fleeing from the Wardens and creating their own splinter group. They were technically successful, as the Wardens were unable to directly hunt them down due to Weylyn’s powerful magic. Fenton “fled” with them, actually intending to serve as a spy for the Wardens.

Naseel was beyond shocked; she was floored and stupefied. Weylyn had been a Warden before her; she had known him almost her entire life. Never before had she even imagined he was capable of a betrayal like this. It was like he was a different person entirely. She realized he had never been her friend at all; merely a too-sociable coworker. She concluded that it must have been the same with SILAS. They were never really friends. This new perspective hollowed her. Again, she tried to downplay it, but slowly a miasma was growing inside.

Varia and Weylyn were very clearly and explicitly threatening to expose the Wardens. In fact, they did so straightaway by reporting rumors about them to the Quarternotes. Naseel had to act immediately. Like Twist before them, it had to be something big.

She ordered all the Pyramids destroyed, any evidence of them scraped from the surface of Musea. All the Wardens would go into hiding -- truly, they would cease to exist. The Wardens had gotten too public, anyway; this was a necessary move. Those that didn’t want to go underground were forced to cut ties with the Wardens, but still had to maintain the Edicts under pain of death.

Finally, the matter of Fenton and Thoren remained. After a brief wait in holding, both were executed by Naseel. Though “Fenton” was really just an alchemy-made clone, and the “execution” was purely symbolic: it represented her death as a Warden. Strangely enough, Thoren’s execution was similarly symbolic, as he would be travelling to another universe. Before their deaths, under Naseel’s watch, Fenton made Thoren promise that he would never speak of the Wardens outside of this reality.

With all these matters sorted, Naseel and the remaining Wardens went into hiding. Where they went remains unknown. How they did it remains unknown. As yet, they have not been rediscovered.

Busy with her work, and the very difficult process of staying hidden while still garnering new recruits, Naseel was distracted from her harrowing feelings. After a few months, it stopped even crossing her mind. She was back to her corporate, professional world, where feelings weren’t allowed.

This changed instantly just a few years later, when one Warden returned from a scouting mission with a letter and glass globe that had been retrieved from an inn. It had the Warden symbol on it. The letter was a section of journal written by Taryn Atma, explaining that she had hunted down and killed Varia and Weylyn, as well as the rest of their splinter group. Like Twist, the threat had been suddenly and violently apparated to dust. The bloody story was over.

Reading Taryn’s words -- holding counsel to the necromancer’s own tortured feelings -- brought all of Naseel’s emotions flooding back. The rift between her and SILAS… the genuine hate in Weylyn’s eyes… her unresolved feelings for Fenton… having to execute an initiate… seeing Vulen absolutely defeated, desperate to rid himself of this position… watching those beautiful, marvelous Pyramids get torn to rubble… She couldn’t suppress it inside of herself anymore. She was wracked with guilt and regret.

What’s worse, there was no Fenton around to comfort her. Trapped in her corporate world, literally cut off from the rest of Musea, Naseel had no way to vent or cope. She was without recourse.

But the Wardens needed her. She knew they needed her. So she did what was necessary to carry on. She did her job, and in private moments when no one was looking, abused herself, tore things apart, and cried inconsolably for hours. It did not take long for her to grow detached from this lifestyle -- there was no one else to acknowledge it, after all. She barely registered the miserable state of her own actions.

Make no mistake. Naseel did her job, and she did it well. She went down in Warden history as one of the greatest High Warden Commanders to ever receive the title. The Wardens flourished in secret under her hand, and continued to flourish in secret long after. Anyone under her command was proud to be there, and as vocal about it as a Warden could be. Unfortunately, her success story isn’t a go-to among Wardens -- how it ends leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Naseel carried on like this until her late middle age. At this point, the coup performed by Weylyn and Varia was but a fading memory in the Warden’s records. The organization was triple the size it had been before the Meeting at the Record. Apprenticeships were more closely-monitored and followed more detailed rules; as a result, each and every Warden in service was as well-trained and efficient as a soldier. The Wardens didn’t need Naseel anymore. They could stand on their own.

So, after writing a letter naming her successor, Naseel sat down at her desk chair, pressed the dragon pistol prototype Fenton had built for her into the soft part of her jaw, and killed herself.

None of the Wardens ever really understood why.