Lynette Alderbrook

Lynette Alderbrook is one of the protagonists of Points & Pages, serving as the Rebel in the story's Eight Chosen. Lynette is the daughter of Umbrea Alderbrook, queenpin of the Underground Bureau. Opposing her mother's organization, Lynette sets off on a quest to take over the nation and create a society better than the one her mother has made.

## Background

Lynette was born to Umbrea Alderbrook and an unknown father. As leader of a powerful shadow organization controlling the Grand Union, Umbrea saw matters such as marriage as a liability and chose not to marry. However, as her own mother Aster was the only one who loved her in the world, Umbrea greatly desired a child of her own. Having associated with numerous unreliable men in her life, Umbrea chose to play around with men she liked, rather than have her heart broken by men she loved.

Umbrea raised Lynette in a sheltered environment as a single mother. However, Lynette was born with the same curse as her Umbrea: completely unable to use any magic at all. Umbrea, departing from her usual cruel and abusive methods in the Bureau, taught Lynette to be righteous and kind the same way her mother Aster raised her. To prepare her for the real world, Umbrea home-schooled Lynette on a wide variety of manipulation tactics, pretending it was a secret sorcery called "Sociomancy". Lynette followed her mother with a pure heart, believing that it was possible to use Sociomancy to change the world for the better.

Even at a young age, Lynette craved exploration outside her sheltered life in the Alderbrook Estate. She bribed the poorest members of her bodyguard to show her what Northern was like outside. Her bodyguards thought this was adorable and showed her all the incredible sights available in Northern. Though enchanted with the outside, Lynette wondered she was deprived of such experiences, hypothesizing everyone was hiding something from her. Her suspicions were confirmed as she raised the bribe to go out alone but was immediately denied.

As a teenager, Lynette began to attend social events with her mother. She was initially very excited to make new friends, as the only friends she had were her family's trusted guard. However, Lynette quickly discovered everyone either seemed to fear her or seek something from her. She was unable to make any close friends in the upper echelons of Northern society during the entirety of her teenage years. However, Lynette did manage to befriend a commoner servant named Eos Spellweaver, who Umbrea would later hire to keep tabs on her. Lynette would continue to learn of her mother's unpopularity among the elite, and about the unsavory methods she used to obtain and retain her position. Frustrated with the lonely, hollow world her mother had constructed for her, Lynette devoted herself to studying the geography, history and law of the Grand Union so she could change it herself.

When Lynette turned 17, she asked Eos to help her run away during a New Years festival in Southern. Eos agreed to help but reported to Umbrea hoping that she would stop Lynette from doing anything dangerous. Surprisingly, Umbrea told Eos that she would not stop Lynette and to let her go. Behind the scenes, Eos and Umbrea's men secretly tailed Lynette making sure her adventures went smoothly. Lynette enjoyed false hospitality and rigged transactions wherever she went, prepared in advance by Umbrea's men. However, Lynette grew suspicious, as everything was going too well. The people she encountered were nothing like the books she had read, or the stories she heard from Eos. After easily securing a top position at a Southeastern chancery, Lynette grows paranoid that her every move was being predicted by her mother, knowing her mother knows exactly how she thinks. Lynette concludes the only way to stop her mother from predicting her next move is to act irrationally and runs into the forest at night. She gets lost in the forest for several days before running into Roland Gallant, starting the events of Points & Pages.

## Abilities

Lynette's family believes they are afflicted with a Celestian Hex that prevents their family from being magic-users, originating from her grandmother Aster Alderbrook. Aster was born a member of the Celeste Tribe, a secretive tribe of fortune tellers claiming to be followers of the Goddess Shami whose business was in predicting future events. In reality, the Celeste tribe had no special powers and relied on the placebos and nocebos to create self-fulfilling prophecies for their clients. In addition to fortune-telling, the Celeste tribe charged large fees to change the self-inflicted fates of their client. The naive Aster took issue with her tribe's predatory methods of earning money and used fortune-telling as a way to help people for free. With their lifestyle greatly threatened, the Celeste tribe banished Aster and cursed her bloodline to never be able to use any magic ever again. Aster fully believed the hex was real and blamed herself for her children's lack of magic, when in fact no member of the Celeste lineage had ever been capable of magic.

The hex didn't bother Aster's daughter, Umbrea, who realized magic users and non-magic users alike were subject to manipulation. She believed that sufficiently advanced trickery was indistinguishable from magic and identifed herself as a sorcerer of a long lost magic, easily infiltrating the high society of Northern. Using purchased and gifted technology given to her by high-profile sorcerers, she recorded these manipulation techniques in a black book that only those with certain fingerprints can read. She would later make a smaller copy of this book for Lynette to learn from.

Lynette has no special abilities other than her black book, powerful connections, and her own wits. She is forced to rely on using other people to get what she wants, something using others purely for her own gain just like her mother. Lynette doesn't understand that people dislike being manipulated and views manipulation as merely another form of skill or sorcery.