The Night Veil’s needles
Her core implement is an amethyst sphere that separates into twelve sealing needles. Casting looks like sewing — pinning violet thread between the ground, an enemy’s status and an ally’s attack.
Curse Analyst of the Night Veil · Counter-intelligence Adviser
Lilith Asmodeus
“Leave the curses to me. I’ve taken apart more of them than you’ve seen. …Ah— I’m not boasting! …Really.”
- Abyssal Court
- Night Veil
- Curse Analyst
- Called
- Lilith
- People / Age
- Demon / 24
- Birthday
- 3 November, 963 ST
- Affiliation
- The Abyssal Court — the Night Veil
- Office
- Adopted daughter of House Asmodeus, curse analyst, counter-intelligence adviser
- Inherent class
- Curse-worker / debuff and sealing specialist
- First appears
- Chapter 3 — The double-curse containment at the border rift
- Role
- Debuffs / status extension / traps / dismantling enemy formulae
- Fond of
- Dark-hardy fungus flowers, mending old books, filling a whole column of the register with “none”
- Not good at
- Sleeping. And being thanked to her face.
- Art status
- No approved portrait yet
Spoiler-free
Her job is to inspect every letter, every contract, every vial and every gift the Court receives, and confirm there is no curse hidden in it. Most of the time the work is extremely dull — a whole day’s output is often a single word: none.
She dislikes hearing the work called sinister. A city this short on resources cannot afford to burn everything suspicious, so someone has to look at each item, one at a time. She has done it for seven years and written something other than “none” exactly twice.
She speaks quietly, and habitually explains where the danger is before deciding whether to explain herself. Her humour is faint, and usually lands half a beat after you have stopped listening for it.
How she got here
She was born into a small demon clan on the northern frontier. When she was eight, the clan was destroyed.
Rhavaniel carried her out of the site. The following year she was given the Asmodeus name — which caused no small argument inside the Court, and there are still people who do not recognise the adoption.
Her answer to that was simple: thirteen years of work, and an entrance examination into the Night Veil passed on her own record. Her position was not handed to her by her sister, and that matters to her more than to anyone else.
In 987 ST she laid a containment across a border rift that held back the human and demon armies at once. Anyone willing to look closely would have found that half the curses in it were channelling the rift’s contamination toward uninhabited ground.
That year, the first person to see it was a stranger.
Traits
The flowers that raise the alarm
She keeps several pots of dark-hardy fungus flowers in the archive to test the air and mana contamination. Their colour tells her before any alarm does whether her body is up to today.
Very fine stitches
She is very good at mending books and clothes, with stitches almost too fine to see. The skill comes from her refugee years — not to seem domestic, but because back then everything had to be mended by hand.
Timeline
- 963 ST Born into a small demon clan on the northern frontier
- 971 ST The clan is destroyed; Rhavaniel pulls her out
- 972 ST Granted the Asmodeus name
- 974 ST Begins studying curse analysis
- 985 ST Passes the examinations and formally enters the Night Veil
- 986 ST Appointed curse analyst, responsible for inspecting everything entering or leaving the Court
- 987 ST Meets the Stranger at the border rift
Ties
- The Stranger (you)
- Initially filed as an uncontrollable risk. Trust came from watching them respect a seal boundary and admit what they did not understand.
- Rhavaniel
- Adopted sister, rescuer and superior officer. Three roles at once, which makes refusing an order extraordinarily hard.
- Claria
- At first the cleric most wary of her; later the most reliable professional partner for handling backlash.
- Sylvarine
- Someone else doing work that cannot be spoken of. Lilith sees in her what she might become.
- The Night Veil
- The place that gave her ability and a position — and the place that consumes her most casually.
Voice
- First meeting
“Leave the curses to me. I’ve taken apart more of them than you’ve seen. …Ah— I’m not boasting! …Really.”
- Introducing herself
“Night Veil. Lilith. …My post? It’s long to write out. In short, I’m the one who checks whether things are poisoned.”
- Inspecting an item
“Gift opened, letter opened. I replaced the seal wax on the vial and kept the old one. Register says ‘none’ — safe again today.”
- Small talk
“The fungus flowers are blue today, which means nobody in this room is poisoned. …Laugh if you want. I know it isn’t romantic.”
- Setting out
“I brought twelve needles. That’s enough… it should be enough. Let’s go. Stay close.”
- Combat start
“Don’t move. …Good. The net is up. Your turn.”
- Ultimate
“All twelve, down at once — nothing in this area moves again!”
- An ally falls
“Don’t close your eyes! I’m running the thread across now — hold on, just a moment longer, please!”
- Receiving a gift
“…For me? I have to check it first. …Ah, it isn’t that I don’t trust you! It’s occupational habit, honestly.”
- Late at night
“No orders tonight, and no work. …It’s suddenly very quiet in here. Would you sit for a while?”
Drawn from the KTM2 WorldDict. Only the public layer of each entry is published here.