Acherus Grail

*'When a Lyran goes to war, you should be very afraid. Not because we outnumber the ranks of Dio, or because our swords out-duel the masters of Aomori. Not because our ships could even graze the hulls of Fornax, or because our minds could match the psychic fury of Hroa unleashed. You should be afraid... because you’ve gone and properly deserved to die, and not even death shall bring you peace. What’s that you say? Lyrans do not go to war? I’ve never been a very good Lyran.'*

- Acherus Grail

## Title & Responsibilities

Warden *(Wallflower), TrillSec - Security*

A relatively new member of the Trilliant Ring, Acherus Grail entered into the Lower Echelon as a Warden, colloquially known as "Wallflowers." Her work in security has thus far involved the personal protection of other members of the Trilliant Ring and maintaining the peace at the Grand Prix 3200.

## Traits and Appearance

*One would be hard-pressed to find a more formidable Lyran. Many seem friendly, if a little unusual or unorthodox. Acherus... she's the sort of Lyran you fear.*

Having only been with the Trilliant Ring for under a month, Acherus Grail is decidedly un-Trill, at least for the time being. She possesses an old suit of battle armor with the markings for several hundred kills scored into the back plate, a deadly, black bow-sword named Kulshedra, and a newly-acquired shear rifle provided by the Trilliant Ring for her work in security. Her deep, brown hair is pulled back in long, almost waist-length braids, and her skin is pale but healthy. She is remarkably fit for a Lyran, having trained with members of House Reticulum, Aquila, and Crux, and having gone through the Seven Rites of Izanami at the age of thirty. Her eyes appear at times gray, as though blind, and at others green, though no one but Acherus knows why.

She is incredibly blunt, unwavering, and oblivious in many social situations, having focused most of her time and energy on her training and work. During battle she is said to look like a dancer in motion, an artist of her craft.

## Biography

*We thought the War had taken her... some small Cygnus holdout finally too much for her to handle. She didn't die. But that doesn't mean she didn't come back different...*

Born to the Grail family of House Lyra, a more recent addition with threads leading back in to House Reticulum, Aquila, and Vela, Acherus Grail was drawn at a very early age to combat and weaponry. She was never remarkably skilled as an artist, philosopher, or diplomat, making her something of an outsider on Orpheus, and briefly approached the path of Neshmet before turning her focus to the training of her psychic abilities on Hroa and the path of Lyran Keepers.

Serving amongst the Keepers of Ammit, those who protected the catacombs of the dead and the will of the cult of Lyra and the secretive Shadow Council, Acherus became beguiled to a strange splinter belief within the cult presented to her by Neshmet Lyra Arakawa Dahlia. The Daughters of the Void, long thought to be exterminated, was and is a belief begun during the Scream that the Lyran fear of the Void is embodied within an entity somewhere, out there in the universe. Dahlia was able to entice Acherus' younger mind, and from then on they worked and worshipped closely together, following their special practices in secret.

After many years of faithful, unwavering service, Acherus chose to undergo the Seven Rites of Izanami. Many other Keepers saw her as weaker and less skilled because "catacomb work is just sitting on your hands in case two Neshmets get into a tussle." Proving them all wrong and more, Acherus became one of the youngest to pass the Rites in a single try, and one of the few to master the use of three simultaneous Cadences of War, the battle rhythms of the Izanami. She served as a protector and duelist for many years, and fought on both Gats and Imperial Prime during the War Against the Artificials.

Towards the end of the War, Acherus fought in a minor space battle against an outlying Cygnus fleet. During the battle, her fighter was damaged, and as she was chased beyond the battle by Cygnus fighters she attempted a spike jump, not realizing her drive had also been damaged due to faulty sensor readings. She found herself in an uncharted void between the stars, alone and with little chance of making it back to anywhere in her broken vessel.

It was then that Acherus stumbled upon the wreckage of a pre-Scream starship, lost in the darkness between the stars. Boarding it, Acherus discovered the vessel had been some sort of experimental psychic vessel, its psitech VI the only surviving crew, sealed away within a shielded core room that had partially protected it from the Scream. Many of the VIs memory banks had been corrupted, leaving it with very little knowledge of anything before the Scream, but it still possessed its personality, functionality, and knowledge of its name - Nemesis.

Nemesis and Acherus made a deal. Nemesis couldn't pilot the old ship without a psychic's aid, and Acherus had no chance of repairing her fighter from the vastly incompatible technology of the strange pre-Scream vessel. The two elected to work together, more out of necessity than any appreciation for each other, and Nemesis' nanite form merged with Acherus, allowing her to hold the ship together and pilot it through subspace back to civilization. Acherus never told Nemesis, but part of her wondered if Nemesis might not be an emissary of the being within the Void that she had believed in for so very long.

Both quickly realized that revealing Nemesis and the ship to others could very quickly go badly for both of them. Acherus resolved to leave the ship outside the edges of systems, where it would appear as nothing more than debris without her aboard, and fly in using the small fighter crafts in the strange ship's bays. Alluding to her own beliefs, Acherus dubbed Nemesis' ship "The Daughter of the Void," and the two worked closely together from then on.

At the dawn of the war between the Empire and the STO, Acherus sought out her cousin, Meret Lyra Eon Dusk, who had since become Meistersinger Crux Eon Solvain, and had caused no end of trouble within Lyra before her departure, including the kidnapping of a Hekate, the defacement of a gallery, and numerous murders, including Dusk's own grandmother Menmaatre Isis. Dusk had managed to evade much retribution for her actions, having aided the Hekate Kiho in their escape, paid Horuset Loset for the damage to his gallery and laid the blame on one of her serfs, and managed to use her new-found legal friends within Crux to worm her way out of anything more than a fine for the murder of her grandmother. Acherus despised the ease with which Dusk had slipped away, and attacked her space station, the Cherry Blossom, heavily damaging it and leaving Dusk near death aboard it.

However, Dusk had gotten word of Acherus' plan, and during the attack revealed that Lyra had been informed that Acherus' Keeper master and trainer within the Izanami was in fact a synth masquerading as a Noble. Acherus left swiftly, unable to finish off the Cherry Blossom or Dusk, and returned to Orpheus where she herself killed her old master, discovering that what Dusk had said was true.

In the wake of the event, Acherus left Orpheus, filling with doubt brought on by Dusk and other events, intending to serve Lyra further afield as needed. However, she was soon approached by the Trilliant Ring, who sought to add her renowned skills to their Trilliant Security division for the defense of Trillia and the ever-growing Expanse. Acherus chose to join them, unsure if she even belonged in Lyra anymore, but technically remaining Noble for the time being.

## Nemesis and *The Daughter of the Void*

Even Acherus knows very little about Nemesis, the VI she found in the dark spaces between the stars. As the Scream occurred, Nemesis shunted most of her memories to external systems and pulled her personality files into the shielded core of her ship in a strange form of self-preservation. This meant that any knowledge of why Nemesis or the ship were created, as well as any memories from before the Scream in general, were almost entirely destroyed. Nemesis retains a remarkable affinity for understanding, repairing, and building psitech, though she does not know why, and contains several corrupted databases that she has been working to repair.

To leave the ship, Nemesis inhabits a nanite swarm, effectively becoming a hivemind, that resides within Acherus as a host. The nanite swarm imparts very few benefits to Acherus, but does allow Nemesis to leave the ship and converse with Acherus mentally. The swarm is TL5 and Maltech in nature per contemporary laws and developments, but retains a weakness to Electronic Countermeasures, which have rendered the swarm temporarily inactive in the past.

The ship itself, very clearly some sort of experimental psitech vessel, is armed almost exclusively with Polyspectral MES beams which, though not remarkable in damage output, are exceptionally good at hitting a target in the first place. The ship also has an unused Precognitive Nav Chamber, as Acherus is not a Precog herself, and a Psionic Anchorpoint, which allows Acherus to teleport to and from the *Daughter of the Void* with ease. It also permits direct communication between Nemesis and Acherus in system through psychic means, rather than technological ones. The ship can be controlled exclusively by one psychic and Nemesis, and is powered by, in Nemesis' words, "a metadimensional energy conversion lock," which means only a psychic attuned to the Psionic Anchorpoint can pilot and activate the ship's systems. The engines are very similar to modern spike drives, requiring fueling and refueling, but cannot be activated except with the presence of a psychic.