Sophia Stahl

Sophia Stahl, also known as the "Steel Wall", is a member of the Grand Order of Magi, specifically an agent and enforcer of the Veil, dedicated to hunting down rogue magi, rogue magical anomalies, and the enemies of the Arcane Order. While not the heir of her lineage, Sophia is nevertheless is a shining example on how the Veil is not to be trifled with.

## Background

Sophia was born as the 3rd of 4 children in the Stahl family. The Stahls are amongst those who choose to pass on their secrets and resources to only one child, concentrating all of their progress into a single lineage. Generally, this is the eldest child, though there are some exceptions when another child is clearly more talented and/or hardworking. In the case of Sophia’s generation, it was her older brother as was expected.

The Stahl family has a tradition though that differentiates them from the single-heir families that simply avoid having more than one child or ignore the extra children. Non-heirs of the Stahl family still receive some magic training, just nothing related to the secrets and specific research of the Stahl family. Then when they are old enough these children are sent to serve with the Veil. This serves the practical purpose of ensuring that, should something happen to the heir, the backups will still have some experience with magic and magical society as well as the political purpose of showing support for the Grand Order by contributing to its branch of enforcers.

So rather than continuing the family research, Sophia was trained to one day become a member of the Veil and hunt down rogue mages and other threats to magical society. She would have liked to have been a part of the family research but was content enough with this path as well and put her all into the training to become a veil-sister.

When she became an adult she joined her older sister in the veil and became one of the veil-sisters. Although it is not necessarily the life she would have chosen she has found purpose in working as part of the Veil. Seeing it as a necessity due to some of the targets she’s had to track down.

## Personality

Although she doesn’t make a big deal of it, Sophia can sometimes feel a bit jealous of her older brother. It’s not his fault that she was born with lower magical potential but even so, he is the heir to the family while she is only a backup and a show of support for the Grand Order.

Sophia dislikes it when the Veil is influenced by the politics of the Grand Order. Their purpose is to find traitors and rogues, not cater to some magister. It doesn’t help that the covenant mages often also look down on the lower ranking veil members as mere grunts. Still, even if she does occasionally have to deal with snooty magi-nobility she does take pride in her work, seeing it as a necessity for the world of magic and the Grand Order in particular.

She has the spirit of a fighter and tends to show some more excitement for missions that will definitely involve combat. She doesn’t go crazy during battle or anything but it’s still no secret that she tends to enjoy the thrill. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she often holds her targets in disdain, especially the ones that engage in horrific rituals and experiments.

Despite holding her targets in disdain though, she does generally try to keep that out of things and remain professional. She focuses on completing her mission and bringing in the target or eliminating the threat, whatever is required of her. However the earlier mentioned horrific rituals and experiments do occasionally break her professional demeanor and have led to a few cases of excessive force or damaging things she was retrieving.

Sophia gets along fairly well with most of the members of her squad and its connected squads, with a few exceptions. She often spends her free time hanging out with the friends she’s made in the veil, talking about particularly stand-out jobs, playing games, etc. She is a fairly outgoing person which has helped in this regard.

Although she dislikes rogue magi she is more open to other mages that would usually be looked down upon such as outcasts and the lower ranking magi. She herself was excluded from the inheritance of her family and is often looked down upon as a mere “grunt” by higher ranking magi despite doing their dirty work. As such, she can somewhat relate to them and helps where she can.

## Abilities

A combat-focused magus specializing in defeating rogue mages like most members of the veil. Like all members of the veil she is learned in magic for hiding the world of magi from the mundane world: altering minds, hiding battlefields, etc. Although due to her relatively small pool of magic energy, she’s not usually put in charge of long-term illusions

It was found that she has a particular affinity for the principle of absorption. Her parents have trained her to use this as both a boon in her mage fighting and a way to overcome her naturally low magical reserves yet high output which would normally not be particularly useful as she would just end up emptying all of her magical stores. They taught her how to absorb energy both magical and mundane. This allows her to absorb the energy from the spells of mages she fights and use it in her own spells, this also has the benefit of weakening the spell and if it’s an already weak spell it can be dispelled entirely by losing all of its fuel. Thanks to her lobe having a large “entrance/exit” in spite of its small storage she is able to absorb and expel much energy at once. Due to this, she is able to constantly take in and use up magical energy such that her limited storage does not matter quite as much

The final principle she specialized in is force. Often using the energy she absorbs she likes to increase the force she generates which can do things like making her go further with every step, jump great distances, and punch very hard. She can also use this to decrease incoming force such that a non-magi could not even budge her. Sophia prefers to fight up close but against those who refuse to enter fist range, she can still attack by projecting force in ranged attacks. She does this in a few ways, most commonly launching “waves” of force or shooting like invisible bullets.

Combining her affinity for absorption and force she has developed an automatic two-layer defensive spell that surrounds her body. The first layer puts her absorption into action and drains the energy from attacks coming at her, converting it into her own magical energy. The second layer detects when the first layer is breached and projects force, deflecting bullets, pushing back swords, shielding against spells with a physical form, etc.