Eldritch

Eldritch and an enemy (art by Drunkfu)

Eldritch (Caitlin Bardue) is living her second life. She was originally born on Dec 27, 1977 in Fairbanks, Alaska as Erik Mahren. He was exiled from his family by her father when he learned he was dating a mutant with GSD. He served in the Marines as part of the Equalizer unit, popularly known as the Dragonslayers, consequently most of his combat record is utter top secret. He worked as one of the range hands at Whateley until a magical accident in November 2006 transformed him into an Artificer, a mystic female construct supposedly destined to be enslaved to someone. As Eldritch, she quickly fell in with Outcast Corner, and was enrolled in the school as a student.

Bladedancer's Tao-powered destiny senses read her as:

[a] gaping wound in the tapestry that leaked pure rage, grief and frustration, as well as pain. It was contained in a binding that would cause the wound to heal, but the Tao rebelled against the healing, as it would result in an aberrant scar that was like a cancer upon the rest. She couldn’t feel the girl in the Tao, merely the absence of where she SHOULD be, and why that primal force wanted her released rather than removed was beyond her.

MID

MID as of 2006-12:Call the Thunder: Chapter 6 - There is no homework, only Zuul!

Mutant Identification Card
Code name	ELDRITCH
Ratings	Exemplar - 4, Mage - <Unknown>, Devisor - <Unknown>, Esper - 2, Martial arts – Advanced Infantry Combat Expert, Martial Arts - Fencing, Sabre specialist, Rifle - Expert, Pistol - Sharpshooter, Submachine gun - Expert, Shotgun - Expert, Belt-Fed Weapons - Expert, Explosive Launch Weapons - Expert, Combat Demolitions Training, Vehicular combat training
-- WARNING! -- Combat experienced. Source of training, unknown. Class 2 Rager. Deadly Force Pre-Authorized. See also: Dx-211-23-DS-Foxtrot
Techniques	Charged Magic Aura, Class 3 Firearms License, Weapons of Opportunity, Vehicular Assault, Explosives, Assault Weapons, SMAW, Grenades, Knives, Sniper, Sabre, Parkour Master Traceur
Weak vs	Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Magic Aura Uncontrollable
Backup / Team Affiliation	Outcast Corner

Stories

• Upheaval - Her origin story.
• Call the Thunder
• Ashes and Steel

History

Main article: Hijacker

In Fall 2006, Backdraft, his fiancée, was killed during the Halloween invasion. Mahren went berserk and had to be pulled out by Lady Astarte. Things go downhill from there. He picks up a huge magic charge, and eventually on Nov. 19 it blows, transforming him into a golem, an Artificer.

She takes a codename last used in 1982.

The Whateley administration decides, for his, now her, protection, to pretend Mahren has been black-holed at ARC. Her new name is Caitlin Bardue, Gunny Bardue's god-daughter. She spends the remainder of Fall term trying to finish the spell that she needs to get her power under her control, rather than someone else's control, and makes friends with the Outcasts. She reactivates the Parkour team and gets (one of?) the keys to the spell. She has the spell done before Christmas.

During Christmas Vacation she was in Australia with the rest of the Outcasts. While there she took part in the Rager's Night memorial, laying a rose on Connor Edwards marker. She helped suppress a robbery and out-of-control "hero" team, and lead the fighting retreat of a large group of civilians to shelter during Doctor Reaper's attack. She participated with Doctor Diabolik in taking the Reaper down, taking his scythe as a trophy.

In the winter quarter she is in Team Tactics as part of the Outcast Corner training team.

Her youngest sister, Miranda Nichole Mahren, arrives at Whateley at the beginning of the 2007 academic year.

She is reconciled with her mother on Parent's Day.

Appearance

As the Artificer, Cait is much smaller than his previous form, but much heavier, being made out of a marble-like stone instead of flesh, with mithril veins and nerves, and bloodsteel blood. Her skin is a pure white, like alabaster, and her irises and hair are metallic and silvery in nature, while the irises have tiny runes carved into them, that seemingly turn molten with emotion. Her figure is 'perfect', being a female ideal. As of Winter 2007, Eldritch has a tracery of cobalt blue tattoos running along her entire body, and her hair is a metallic black.

The tattoos have been described as follows:

(...)the cobalt lines of tattoos traced delicately from her toes to her forehead, twin bars of elegant, curving flowing lines travelling up its body with ancient glyphs trapped between that none here could translate. The lines curved around stone breasts, seeming to cradle them, ending in delicate tips over the too-well-sculpted nipples. Her arms and face were works of art, the only marring where she had dislocated her arms to blindly etch the delicate patterns on her own back, bracketing her spine, then clinically forced the bones back into socket. (...) the delicately patterned lines on her face began as points above her eyes, then travelled back to her hairline and curved to another point under her cheekbones, then curved back again along the cheekbones and ended in tips below her eyes on her lower jaw.

Eldritch is constantly surrounded by a swirling, crackling vortex of wild magical energy, which becomes more pronounced as she moves or becomes emotional. This has largely died down after the tattoos were applied.

Cait usually wears what is described as 'wiccan from hell' clothing, usually dark or black jeans, t-shirts, and vests, along with a baseball cap, fingerless gloves and heavy boots, which are all etched with silvery sigils and pentagrams designed to contain her wild magical discharges.

Powers

Cait has all the abilities of the Artificer, being able to understand, create or break any and all enchantments, sigils, magical items or spells (generally, anything magical in nature) on an instinctual basis. Being made of stone, Eldritch also has super-strength and near-invulnerability, as well as eventually learning to control and project the field of wild magic.

She is also very conversant with technology as an effect of her Artificer abilities. Her abilities are good enough that she was able to remove by sight, the circuitry that enabled Doctor Reaper's scythe to vanish when he did.

She "channel[s] essence" with "[v]iolent motion", usually Parkour, and Elizabeth Carson notes that she's "better at fine manipulation than simple motions".

Eldritch remarks, "Last time I tried to light a candle, the fucking room damn near exploded."

Carson responds to that with: “And trying to levitate a fist-sized rock resulted in a hobgoblin that tried to eat Williams’ leg.”

Holdouts

Full set of Range REACT tactical armor with hardpoints.

Classes

Fall 2006

• Basic Martial Arts
• Powers Lab She's already read the books many times, so Powers Theory is a pass.
• Introduction to Magic Theory
• Magic Lab
• Physics
• Basic Rifle Combat

Winter 2007

• Team Tactics I

Spring 2007

• Intro to Magical Arts Third Period

Associations

• Birth family
  • Andrew Mahren (father)
  • Natalie Nichole Mahren (mother)
  • Cally Mahren (younger sister)
  • Miranda Nichole Mahren (youngest sister)
• Oscar Bardue (adoptive father)
• Outcast Corner
  • Deimos
  • Diamondback
  • Jericho
  • Phobos
  • Razorback
  • Anomaly
• The Three Maidens:
  • Silver
  • Seraphim
• Parkour Hooligans (master traceuse)
  • Aquerna
  • Breaker
  • Gateway
  • Slapdash
  • Thrasher
  • Zenith

Codename

• Eldritch - suggested by Razorback and the rest of Outcast Corner, in relation to the 'odd magic' around her.