Alma Taschner

Alma Taschner

N/A

Sixteen years

Female

White Mage

Human

Light

Wonderland

Just “Mama Taschner”, her mother who owns rural property in Wonderland. Few know her by any professional title. Supposedly makes a really good Fizzbapple Cobbler.

Alma is an enthusiastic student in the art of Conjury and other White Magics, though she has never been formally taught. Her magic is rudimentary at best, but she makes herself a great help by assisting others with the minor wounds of the work day and helping stave off sicknesses. These skills may transfer well into combat, where she can function as a powerful healer if she refines her talent more. She sees nothing wrong in using magic to manipulate magic forces, but automated machinery comes off as bothersome, and sometimes intrusive. Hand tools don’t provoke the same dissent, and she has a soft spot for the working class.

Though she’s not the fighting type at the start of her adventure, Alma is by no means a pacifist. She’s used to seeing and disposing of Shadows, and is confident in her ability to do so with her Light-based magic. She sees them as pests to be removed, since they often appeared in Wonderland, but she hasn’t yet seen the more powerful Heartless that wander the other Worlds. It’s likely her disposition toward them may change once she’s been exposed to something more threatening.

Claustrophobia is a bit of an issue, though not consistently. If closed into most modern buildings or structures, she may be liable to discomfort, and panic in more extreme cases, but those with a natural theme or free-flowing air are a lot less concerning. It’s mostly due to her links with natural energies which, when cut off, will cause symptoms ranging from discomfort to weakness.

Alma was born into a farming peasant family in Wonderland, where she spent her time working once she was old enough to do so. It was soon noted that, following the start of her assistance, the land never again failed to produce the needed crop. In fact, there was often a surplus, which was used to help whatever nearby groups were struggling with their own crops. Considering her lack of finesse with any of the tools, and her tendency to stroll through the field rather than tend to it, the reasoning behind this development remained a mystery. Her family would sometimes imply that they'd stumbled upon some secret technique, but even they did not understand their circumstance.

As their land provided more than enough to survive, the Taschner family could upgrade to a plantation, and sell off their surplus for profit. This profit allowed them the luxury of books, though they couldn't afford to teach anyone to read. They asked a favor of one literate worker, who agreed to teach Alma in exchange for a slight raise. Alma learned under this tutelage, and soon after indulged in the written stories the family now had on the property. It was around this time as well that her father claimed to have struck a deal with a merchantry, and left on a shuttle to pursue it. He did not return, and Alma dove deeper into the books.

In these books, she found stories of every sort, though there was no clear line between historical text and pure fiction. The tragedies she detested, yet she read them anyway, and soon she grew worried about what terrible things may befall her successful family. What would she do if a war broke out, or a sickness came over the plantation? Her only relief was in stories of the great clerics of distant lands, who wielded the powers granted to them by gods to heal the good of heart and strike down evil with shining spears of sunlight. Many such stories were fiction, but she knew that all tales were based in truth.

Alma knew that it was her own influence that kept the plantlife so healthy, and that she had the power to change things for the better. She began to practice in focusing this strange effect, and quickly learned how to wield it. She deliberately fell or misused tools and used this new talent to repair what hurts arose. It worked well, and after some practice she was able to help tend to the workers who had cut or scraped themselves during their shifts. The product only grew, and so did her ambition.

She would not just mend simple injuries from menial work. She set her sights once again on the stories which told of powerful wielders of nature's will, and in secret she wished for greater knowledge and training. In time, she learned to replicate some few miracles, but still it didn't satisfy her want. Then, a letter came. It was delivered by a subtle courier, who slipped by her family and their workmen to ensure only she would see it. In it, the sender wrote an offer to grant her all the knowledge her hungry mind ached for. They promised that she would learn to wield great powers to protect anyone she wanted from the dangers of the greater world.

All she needed to do was follow the included instructions. She did, and they led her to a shuttle with no passengers, the owner of which agreed to give her a complimentary flight so she could travel far away to meet the famed Daniel Kinley, master of magic, who promised in his letter to teach her many things about how to wield it. She boarded and left Wonderland in search of this teacher. Only, it wouldn't be quite so simple, because not only was she leaving her home, but the entire World it rested in- And worse so than that, soon enough.

Because Kinley doesn't exist.

Art is not made by me, but I do not know who the artist is.

"...And they'd launch it like a typical javelin, but I can't get it to keep its shape in the air..." -Alma Taschner, troubleshooting a particular spell that she hasn't yet perfected, even though it's among the most explicitly described in the books.

When she found the shuttle, it was easy to tell it didn’t belong to anyone in the kingdom. Its body was long, slick, and plated with a clean white metal that didn’t look like anything she’d seen used for tools or armor. The door didn’t even swing to open. Rather, it just came away from the wall it was flush with before sliding upward, carried by a set of what looked like metal arms. On the other side was the person she assumed was its pilot, by his stiff posture and pristine uniform. If he had set foot off the ship for even a moment, it wouldn’t stay so spotless. He stepped aside in the entrance and broke his strict attention to give a short bow, welcoming her with no words just yet. He knew what she was there for.

And so did Alma, although she was still somewhat apprehensive. The bag over her shoulder carried what few clothes she owned, all of which she had packed away to bring with her, so it wasn’t as if she was leaving behind any prized possessions. She had few friends, wasn’t too close with too many of the workers in her town, and didn’t even have many family members to speak of, either, so what was she leaving? Maybe it wasn’t the idea of what she was leaving that worried her as much as where she was going. Had she even been told what the real destination was? In hindsight, all she had been told was that she’d be speaking with one person in particular: A mage, famous in other lands, named Daniel Kinley.

She didn’t let the worries hold her back. Wherever she was going, it was where she’d become something far greater than what she ever was before. Alma understood that there were wonderful things she could do, if she applied herself to the right studies, and she’d never come close if she lived in Wonderland without some kind of royal heritage. No, she had to go somewhere else, and this Kinley was the only person who seemed willing to tell her where. She was soon seated on the shuttle, and the door sealed shut, flush with the wall once more as the pilot stepped through another door to reach the cockpit. There was something odd about it, though. It made sense for the exit door to be designed the way it was, well-sealed and airtight to facilitate protection for passengers and crew while they traveled, but it looked like the door to the cockpit was designed almost exactly the same way.

Her worry returned when she realized the shuttle wasn’t moving. She approached the cockpit’s door, and tried to call in, to ask about the delay. When there was no response, she slid a hatch aside to look through a glass window. There, at the controls for the ship, there wasn’t a soul to speak of. Another door, off to the side, had been left open. When she tried to open the one in front of her, she found it locked. Turning to see the other showed that one didn’t have a handle at all. Looking up revealed the holes in the ceiling, leading to somewhere she couldn’t see. Just seconds later, she could smell a change in the air as something invisible leaked in through them. As it turns out, it wasn’t leaving home that worried her, nor was it the going somewhere unknown. It was this.

Alma tried to call out again, and just like before, there was no answer. She tried to force the door open, but it was far too durable. Far sooner than she should have, she began to tire and drowse. After that, she felt the need to sit down, and then to lay down. Then, to sleep.
When she next awoke, the shuttle was gone, and she was somewhere she’d never seen.

Circle of Life

Festival of Fools

The last site I was on is getting shut down, so I went to Google. Many of the sites I ‘found’ are also dead or dying, unfortunately, but I was able to find this one after a bit of sifting.