Atore Gadarik

## **General information**

One of Apate’s sisters and Akyo’s twin, Atore never really stopped blaming her brother for leaving his entire family behind so she ran after him in some kind of furious attempt to get him back, but eventually decided to give up and make a life for herself as a skilled hunter in **Layer 3**.

## Background / History

You could describe Atore Gadarik in many ways. Impulsive? Yes. Aloof? Surely. Vindictive? Pretty much. So full of anger she’s probably gonna explode very soon? Yep, that too.

For someone who’s never been good with feelings she surely seems to be dealing with (or suppressing) many of them.

Unlike her sister Akyo, who was generally more emotionally open to her and Apate, Atore mostly ignored her feelings and kept them to herself. All she really cared about was her twin and her brother.

The three had grown very close during their time in Re’gross and with the rest of the siblings being too busy to hang out with them, they were left alone to entertain each other either by cooking, committing just a few crimes, fishing, swimming or playing music.

Apate was already a great violinist and started teaching Akyo how to play the flute, followed by Atore who also wanted to join, so he taught her how to play the guitar.

All the sisters went to the same school and since they were relatively close in academic years, they would hang out during school and go home together.

They all loved each other, and that’s all Atore ever wanted.

Her family was everything to her: even after watching her home planet get destroyed, one sibling missing and getting stuck in a smelly terrible place, they were going to get through those tough times together like they always had.

## CHARACTER INFO

### Location(s)

- Re’gross (age 0 - 14)
- Hyperborea (age 14 - present)

### Relatives

- Arita (oldest sister)
- Amari (older sister)
- Apate (older brother)
- Akari (older sister)
- Akyo ( twin sister)
- Assio (youngest sister)
- Her Mother

### Connections

- Damiem (hunter partner)
- Nova Volley (employer)

## STATUS

**ALIVE**

And then Akari dies and Apate disappears out of nowhere, leaving his remaining family to pick their shattered hearts on their own.

To say that Atore was furious at him for it would be a huge understatement: she decided to take matters into her own hands and started some vengeful research. She managed to get a lead and started her journey to get to the bottom Layers of Hyperborea. This was definitely not an easy task though, because moving through the layers is difficult and incredibly dangerous as you are willingly putting yourself at high risk of getting robbed and/or killed, getting lost to the point of starving to death or you risk getting eaten up by the walls themselves.

Atore never actually catched up to Apate because once she got to **Layer 3** she had to change her plans.

This layer has two locations: the entrance from **Layer 2** which has a city around it and all the way on the other side is the exit to get to **Layer 4**. Around this exit, also called *Death Drop*, there’s the ***Lush Forest of Zomi*** with a carcass of a dead mysterious creature looming over it. Local legends say that this creature made its way there millions of years prior and died there, fertilizing the soil and growing this forest around it. This area is the major food source as it’s the only place where you can actually do any kind of farming.

Right between these two locations there is a huge desert that extends for hundreds of kilometers that is infested by *Humming Worms* that detect vibrations through the ground and if you stand still for too long they will attack you in droves and get inside your body from any hole they can find, obviously killing you in matter of seconds.

The ceiling of this Layer is held up by large pillars that are hollow on their inside and they are the only relatively safe areas in this desert.

There isn’t much in these towers besides lanterns, metal cutlery and other trash other travelers leave behind and some people like Apate, who know these places very well by now, rely on the hidden compartments to stash stuff for basic survival.

The only problem is that they are tremendously apart from each other.

Every single choice you make while getting through this desert can determine if it will be your last or if you’ll be able to reach the forest. You have to be extremely careful on coming up with a good plan because you can't keep walking forever and even if you keep moving you might not be able to outrun the worms, the other various monsters in this area or the bandits who will take every chance to fuck you up.

What can help travelers though are the car rental stations, with even an option to get assigned an escort (people like Apate who make their living by getting people through the desert), on either side of this Layer. If you have the money for it obviously, but when Atore was making her way there she did not have any with her so she decided to run.

She ran through the whole desert, stopping at every tower she could make her way through.

She was only 16 at this point and running for her life for so long strained her body so much that the moment she reached the forest and found an area without the *Humming Worms*, her body gave up and she collapsed on the ground.

This is where a homeless kid named **Damiem** finds her. They are one of the locals of Hyperborea and belong to a race of people who have lived in the bug for countless generations, residing inside this city while being isolated from the outside world. When Atore woke up she asked them for some food and water before they started getting to know each other, bonding over their life struggles. Damiem specifically loved hearing stories about her experiences in the upper Layers since they had never seen or heard anything like it. They were actually the one who convinced Atore to try to get a job as a hunter: a huge bulk of the *Forest of Zomi* is barred off with massive walls because of many dangerous monsters residing inside of them and if you are good enough to not get killed in the process, they can be sold for a lot of money.

The majority of the monopoly of this forest is ruled by one man, ***Nova Volley***. As one of the elites of Hyperborea, he’s the one to manage everything that goes inside the forest and the trading with the outer layers. One of his last hunters had died during one of the hunts so Damiem managed to convince Atore to shoot her shot and get their spot.

The two get to Nova’s office and once Atore asks for that job he looks at her up and down, thinks “yeah this small child will do” and gives her the most vague description of a beast to kill before throwing her inside the walls.

Yet again Atore has managed to get herself in an insane unsurvivable situation no 16 year old should have to deal with, but she refused to give up and nothing in this world is a stronger fuel than one’s desire to snap the spine of their own brother.

She wielded all her bottled up fury and rage against everything that crossed her until she somehow managed to kill a beast and dragged its dragon sized body back to Nova Volley, only for him to tell her that it wasn’t the right monster before shutting down the gate in front of her.

If looks could kill, the majority of the forest would have been pulverized by her gaze.

At this point anger was one of the most familiar feelings to Atore, yet the sheer amount of rage that ran through her blood in that moment would have surprised her if her mind wasn’t too busy thinking about all the reasons why she was in this goddamn bitch of a situation (*spoiler alert it was Apate*).

What she ends up doing is killing one of every single type of animal in the forest for months until she gets it right because Nova’s description of “*kinda uhh big and hairy? also lots of teeth*” is not exactly that great.

During all this time inside these walls she was freaking the fuck out and had no way to express it since she was all alone in this dangerous forest, which only made her internalise her feelings of fear and wrath even more until she’s just bitter.

And quiet.

And so angry.

If Atore had been very stoic and serious before, now her unsociability was turned all the way to the max.

And she blames Apate for all of it because if he hadn’t left all of them would have been fine.

She ends up getting the job as a hunter and since she kinda owed a debt to Damiem she convinced them to become her partner. Turns out Damiem is very good at cutting meat, which is kinda weird because they’re also very young, but she ignores it.

With time Atore refines her skills until she becomes a master hunter and lives her life inside the Forest, mostly feeding off of the meat of the animals she kills. She is in danger every single day but she’s become so numb to it that it doesn’t really affect her anymore.

Unlike her temper though, which has gotten shorter than the amount of time she’s ever been truly happy in all her life.

Just when she thought she had given up on finding her brother and moved on with her life, Apate conveniently shows up: since sometimes the walls of the exit to **Layer 4** cave in and block the passageways for several days, travelers are left to either wait until it opens again or they can try the gamble of attempting to get inside the Forest’s walls and find the secondary exit, so because Apate cannot afford to wait that long he goes to chase that alternative way out.

He gets inside pretty easily since he’s very good at being a little crime boy just by climbing the wall. He wasn’t too worried because he could fight the beasts inside, but his arrogance only brought him closer to someone he would have never guessed nor wanted to face, his raging little sister Atore.

She had spotted someone trying to get through the second exit very easily so she followed them until she recognised who she was dealing with.

Nothing could have ever prepared her for the rush of fury that ran through her veins as the realization hit her. With just a few heavy steps she got to him and he didn’t even have time to react before she was beating the shit out of him.

Apate didn’t even try to fight back either, he knows very well he fucked up, so he just takes it all. All her built up anger was unleashed on him until she forcefully threw him out to deal with his own wounds for three days until the main exit opened.

Atore and Apate never really make up.

They are always gonna have a bad relationship.

Eventually Atore will cool down enough not to punch her brother every time she sees him, but things will never be the same: Apate can only dream of the sweet old days when he could look at his siblings only to find so much love and admiration in their eyes.

All he gets now is a cold shoulder and angry stares from Atore.

And he can’t even blame her.