Ashen - V3 (Novel AI)

It's been a very long time since I've covered Ashen. The Soulless urban legend hiding beneath Griswall's streets. It's been over a year. I haven't added too much to her since then outside a few sly mentions in some of Scin's Late Game scripts, so I think I'll just do a good old copy pasta rehash from her first post. Ashen is based off Black Rock Shooter. The PGR update got me thinking about her and I do love Ashen. Enjoy.

Copy Pasta:

Ashen started off as a medical student in Aurelia. Thanks to her attention to detail and strong drive she quickly became a standout. Her teachers had very high hopes for her. Until one day, when a group of researches approached her and asked if she'd join them as a student assistant on the autopsy and study of a dead Demonic Tormentor. The specimen came from a group of Shadows operating in Anea. She agreed and it didn't take long for her to lose herself. Her curiosity was out of control and she went far beyond the researchers when it came to dissecting and mapping out the Demon. After a week of intense and dirty work in the Tormentor's insides, she wrote a very well crafted thesis on it, which drew a lot of attention.

This attention culminated in Luscinia, Head of the Shadow Garden, to invite her into the Garden to research more Corrupted and Demonic specimens. With the Garden's reach, resources, and autonomy, they were able to gather far more dangerous and rare specimens than any civilian group could. She spent the next 20 years researching everything from Fodder Demons to large chunks of defeated Leviathans and even rarer Demons. She became one of the leading authorities in Aurelia on the subject. During this time she grew closer to Luscinia. That, is what doomed her.

One day she witnessed Luscinia bringing a Belkan prisoner deep below the Garden. Since he trusted her completely, he explained the situation. Later on, he invited her to an interrogation room to "assist" him in getting information from the Belka. The two got married, and the rest can be said, is history. From this point on, Ashen became the Head of Aurelia's Domestic Countermeasures Division, under the Garden's authority. On paper, her job was to study Demons and Corrupted to help the nation fully understand them, as well as gather information from prisoners.

Off the record, Ashen's duties outside studying mere specimens, are to use any and all means necessary to gather every last thought inside the head of her pitiable charge for Aurelia's intelligence community. The end result of this is more or less always a nightmarish and unimaginably slow death at her hands. After nearly 15 years of dedicated and disturbingly diligent work, Ashen has come to be described by a single title: Soulless. The name Soulless Ashen spread like a plague and strikes fear into any Aurelians who are threatened with it. Even the Queen is wary of Ashen, but still trusts her completely. The monster never fails to produce results. May as well stay on her good side.