Lumen

Lumen is a young girl who was part of the Gifted Child program at Helix Corporation. She was extracted by the The Nova and now lives at Maelstrom under care of Vox Tempest.

She has a rather disobedient and distant attitude and prefers to be in control of her own rules.

## Appearance

She is 13 years old, slight of frame, and has brown skin. Her hair is cut into a bob-style ending just below her jaw. It was originally dark, however she reluctantly agreed to have it dyed blue as a disguise. She is human in appearance and prefers to wear dark colors.

## History

Mostly unknown. The group encountered Lumen at the Excursions, an outing for the Gifted Children from Helix Corp with her teachers including Helsing Speck.

## In-game appearances

Since the beginning of the story we have seen Lumen:

* On the Excursions as a Gifted Child with Milo and other children under the protection of Helsing Speck and other Teachers
* She left of her own free-will with Vox and the Nova group
* Currently lives in Maelstrom, allowed to come and go on her own
* She has been seen being served small amounts of alcohol by Terra, much to Vox's chagrin. Terra tells Vox she wants to be a bartender.
* HelixCorp and Helsing Speck have released an image of her to the press, and it has been broadcast across the various news channels. Following this, Vox insisted that she dye her hair and use a different name in public. Lumen was not pleased about either idea, but eventually acquiesced to allowing Crystal Symphony to dye it.
* After Terra claimed he'd heard some noises coming from her room, Vox and him went in to find that she had turned the walls and floors of her room into one giant investigation board, and was hiding Samuel inside. She proceeded to offer Vox a job, asking if she could hire him to steal Milo back from Triade.
* Vox came two days after receiving the job from herself and Samuel to inquire if she knew why Triade would want Milo. She did not seem to have any knowledge and became annoyed when Vox tried to pry into why HelixCorp had wanted her, rebuking his claims that they were family and pointing out that he'd simply taken her and told her to stay with him.
* Whilst The Nova tried to arrange a plan for the recovery of Milo, Arno told Vox he wanted to take Lumen with them. Vox immediately told him no, but Lumen then arrived alongside Samuel insisting that she was indeed going. She pointed out to Vox that Milo trusted her, and that he had no reason to trust Vox after what he had done before. Vox fought the suggestion to bring her vehemently, but he was eventually over-ruled by all the members of The Nova.
* Lumen was present whilst all the members of The Nova got ready for The Foundings, with Oatmeal and Terra tending to her disguise. Vox made her promise that if things went south, she would get out of there as quickly as possible. He also gave her a pair of gloves that would allow her to scale the walls to escape.
* Vox, Lumen, Terra, Oatmeal and Boombox all arrived together to the Harmonia. Vox was so anxious that he would not let go of Lumen's hand until she forcibly tore it away. When they arrived at the Glory of the Glutt stage, Vox's cyber-eyes allowed him to identify Triade and Milo using face masking technology. When he informed Lumen, she began purposely striding off the now fleeing figures of Milo and Triade.
* After Boombox knocked out Triade and Milo with a stun grenade, Lumen tried to run to Milo to help. Vox managed to restrain her, although he got stung by a DociliBee in the process. He then pulled her into a nearby hat store to hide from The Praetorian guards behind them, although she struggled against him.
* Boombox blew up the police with a frag grenade, prompting Lumen to fight against Vox's hold on her again. He was unable to restrain her time time, and she fled the store towards Milo. Vox tried to pursue, but was stung by another DociliBee and passed out.
* When Lumen eventually reached Milo, she was confused to discover Samuel was trying to pull him away entirely. He would not answer her as she cried for him to let Milo go.
* After Elsy managed to convince Samuel to leave, Lumen knelt by Milo and gently tried to stir him. He kept muttering about not wanting to go, much to Lumen's distress. Arno asked Lumen whether they should take him, to which she said yes. They made their way out through a hole in the wall Boombox had made, Lumen holding onto a barely conscious Vox's hand, as he was held up by Terra.
* Back at Maelstrom, Lumen waited with Vox and a 'sleeping' Terra for Milo, Oatmeal and Arno to return. Once they had, she helped wake Milo up - and was shocked when he greeted her by asking what had she done. She told Milo she had brought him here to be safe, and he continued to insist he needed to go back to Triade. She eventually seemed unable to listen to him anymore, and left, clearly upset.
* After putting Milo to bed in a makeshift bedroom, Vox paused at Lumen's door, considering going in. He eventually left, opting to give her her space. Lumen was visible standing at the other side of the door, before walking away once Vox did.
* Lumen was present at MLD's funeral. After Boombox launched MLD's remains into space, Lumen took the flowers Terra had brought and laid them on the scorch-marks left behind. She then sang a song in a language no one present had heard before.
* Lumen and Milo were seen sitting on the raftings above Maelstrom, observing the crowd. When Kaz Konnor showed up, Arno signaled for the two of them to get out of sight.
* After Maelstrom was destroyed in the wake of Kaz's visit, Lumen found Vox storming out of his office, unable to sleep there because a drunken Boombox and Arno were in there. She quietly offered him to sleep in her room, which he gratefully accepted.
* The following day, Lumen walked Milo back to the Museum. Before they left, Vox stopped Milo and asked him to visit Lumen on occasion. Lumen was both furious and humiliated by Vox's request.
* Lumen accompanied Vox, Boombox and Arno to the Docks as they left for Sagi, along with Terra. Vox asked her whether she was okay with what had happened with Milo, and that he hoped she was where she wanted to be. She admitted she was glad to be with them, but mentioned she wasn't sure how much control people had about where they got to be. This lead to a group conversation about fate, with Terra, Boombox, and Vox rejecting the notion of it, whilst Arno told Lumen that he believed.
* When communications were restored to Sagi, Vox immediately tried to make contact with Terra and Lumen. Lumen did not answer her phone, but did text Vox instead. The two exchanged a series of messages, where Lumen reassured him that she was okay, but remained vague about where she was in typical teenager fashion.
* Once Vox made it back to Maelstrom after Sagi and reunited with Terra, Terra called up to Lumen to inform her that Vox was home. She did not appear particularly enthusiastic, and called down to see if he had gotten her a present. She was later seen from her usual vantage point of the rafters, observing Terra, Gimble, Vox, Elsy and Boombox celebrating their safe return.
* As Maelstrom closed up in the early hours following the reopening party, Vox called on Lumen to come down from the rafters where he knew she'd been watching, to come join him and Terra in some after-party strawberry daiquiris. Her teenage rebelliousness was unable to resist the call of strawberry daiquiris, and she thus came down to join the two of them. Vox asked her again about Milo, and as to whether they had been in contact, to which Lumen responded that she hadn't. She admitted they hadn't been exactly friends per se, and she had thought he might have needed help, but it turned out he hadn't.
	+ Vox inquired as to whether Lumen knew what Milo had been talking about, with regards to the odd riddles he had been spouting. Lumen shrugged it off, dismissing it as garbage. Vox said he had questions for Triade, and Lumen suggested he could always go talk to Triade himself, and that he probably already knew Vox had kidnapped Milo but had no lingering resentments if he hadn't struck back already.
* Following the reopening party, Vox insisted on taking Lumen and Terra for a family day out, which ended up including the entire staff of Maelstrom. Terra, Lumen, Vox and Boombox remained on picnic blankets eating ice cream, and when Vox told Boombox to stop chomping on the ice cream directly, he tried to eat it in the worst ways imaginable instead. Lumen was delighted by this, and tried to encourage him with even more terrible ways to eat it. She ended up giving her own cone to Boombox to further his efforts.
* When Thistle Catastrophe and other government officials stormed Maelstrom, following an 'anonymous tip' about the club being a base for terrorist activity, Vox instructed Crunch to ascertain Lumen's safety. As Crunch knocked on her door, trying to get her attention, Lumen was heard screaming from within. Both Vox and Crunch anxiously tried to figure out what was happening, and Vox realised someone else had broken into her room, recognising the other voice as Samuel's. Samuel seemed to be urging Lumen to come with him, as Vox rushed off to greet the invading police, worried that their search for him might draw them towards Lumen's room.
* When Arno arrived home from the Museum, following his meeting with Triade, he heard another female voice coming from Neida Kampf's room in the Authentic Tavern. The voice seemed to be complaining about someone worrying too much about protecting them, when they could take care of themselves. Arno cautiously knocked, and upon confirming his identity, was told to come inside by Neida.
	+ Arno quizzed Lumen on why she was there, and she explained that Maelstrom was being searched by the police, and thus Terra had taken her to the Tavern to stay in the meantime.
	+ Neida suggested that herself and Arno go into another room so as to have a conversation, and Arno suggested Lumen join them. Lumen appeared disinterested, and informed them she didn't care. Neida and Arno both eventually left for his room, leaving Lumen to play with Neida's cat.
* The following day, Vox rushed into the Tavern along with Elsy and Boombox, to discover Arno trying to teach Lumen to throw a punch. He shrieked with outrage and immediately tried to disrupt the lesson. Vox went on to quiz Lumen on how she had gotten out of the club, and she reluctantly admitted it was Samuel. Vox asked her to express his - and Elsy's - gratitude when she saw him again.
	+ When Vox finally finished fussing over her, he collapsed into a chair and announced the group needed to talk. Lumen declared that if Vox was going to start sighing, she was gonna go play with Neida's cat.
		- Before doing so, she mentioned that with Arno's lessons, she might have less use for her gun - which she proceeded to pull out. Vox immediately flew into hysterics, demanding she hand it over to him. Arno tried to press upon Lumen they had only gone over the academics of combat and not the practice. Lumen decided to turn her gun over to Elsy whilst she went into the next room, and Elsy gave her a knife instead, much to Vox's despair.
	+ Vox went to say goodbye to Lumen that night before leaving, and left Neida with a ten page list of her likes and dislikes.

## Trivia

* Vox calls her Lulu - Vox is the Strict Dad, Terra is the Fun Dad.
* Lumen has a distinct love of maraschino cherries and strawberry daiquiris.