Murphy

Proud, willful, self-centered... Many who have interacted with her would describe her personality as such. She seems to have always been treated like the center of the universe in her last living arrangement; perhaps it was this meticulous care that cultivated her spoiled nature.

"Hey! What are you looking at? Didn't I say that if I call you three times, you have to respond to this young lady?!"

One must be very careful, even when reading the documents.

Unlocks at: Awakener Level 1

In the summer of 3@2 A.F., stories of a sea monster began going around Niugini Island.

Fishermen claimed they had sighted a cephalopod some five stories tall in the coastal waters. Deep red all over, with black concentric rings along its tentacles.

When the rumor reached me, Johansen and I were verifying a suspected Dissolution Phenomenon in the Medan region. The next day he had a ship ready for Niugini Island. I am writing this report in the middle of the Amirante Ocean.

Day three of the voyage: dead fish across the surface in great drifts, mackerel, flounder, dolphins. I swear there was a pregnant sperm whale among them. The old hands all say overbreeding starves the water of oxygen and that is what kills them, but I can't shake the feeling that we are missing something...

Day eight: my seasickness is far worse, and the nausea is bad enough that I can hardly eat. We were close to Niugini Island, but Johansen insisted we turn back @3... I don't understand it, but I have chosen to trust him.

Bell Columbus,"Internship Report, Summer of 3@2 A.F."

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 3

Now that she has been Awakened, we finally know what sort of life Murphy led in the Order.

A parasol always in hand, and a great deal of time spent on her appearance before she will step outside. Afternoon tea at four, milk tea with scones and strawberry jam. Neat, elegant, a lady's calling, as she sees it, and wherever she happens to be, she insists on living like one.

(Archivist's note: I'd argue the way she grabs beef suet pudding in her bare hands is not especially ladylike...)

There are no servants left for her to order about now, yet she still lives exactly as she wishes, and that is genuinely good to see.

Because of what happened, she has almost nothing to do with the Awakeners Miryam and Goliath, she will look straight through them on purpose. When she meets the Awakener Tulu, her face becomes very difficult to read.

Bring up the past and her temper turns foul. Perhaps she still needs a little time to settle.

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 5

"You are a being charged with a glorious mission. You are the hope of Its return to this world."

"Be a good girl. Do as you're told... When It wakes again, every one of us will live in an undying kingdom."

A hidden daughter whose very birth could not be made public became, for reasons of their own, the treasure of the Sea-Treading High Priest. A pitiful infant no one had cared about was transformed into a Divine Maiden whose fate was bound to a mysterious civilization.

The ascetic Holy Mother raised her with her own hands. Offering and worship surrounded her from her earliest years, and anything she wanted, someone would present to her with both hands.

Had the Dissolution Phenomenon never appeared, had the vessel of the "god" never begun to fail, she would simply have taken up the High Priest's mantle in time and stood above the faithful, exactly as arranged.

But one day everything she had been given came to collect: a fate she had never once wished for had long since decided an ending she could not refuse.

To be the mother of a god, to bear the child of prophecy, the Divine Maiden's glorious sacrifice meant nothing more than handing over her body and her life, gladly.

From the day a second heart began beating in her chest, her soul was a river in flood, bound to be lost in time.

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 7

The haughtiness, the way she looks through everyone, is only armor, and bluff at that. Under the fine dress is a rebel's heart no one knows about.

Shut inside a lovely cage built out of sacred storytelling, Murphy knows better than anyone how false people are, and how false gods are. When the faithful look at her, there is nothing in their eyes but fear and pity; what her "Caregiver" calls love is the care one gives an offering. Her mission ends not in glory but in her own death, she knows the ending, so how could she lose herself in the distant kingdom the doctrine paints?

The plan to manufacture a god, the return of the old king, so many impossible hopes heaped upon her, and not once did anyone ask whether she was willing to die for a future no one could promise.

The canary will not spend her whole life in the cage, so she beats her wings at the thorn hedge. Having wagered her life on breaking free of fate, she means to choose the direction of her flight herself.

"My name is Murphy... and don't imagine you can give me orders! I know perfectly well what I should do and what I shouldn't."

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 9