Eckhart sighed. "At least this man seems friendly" he thought. "I don't see why not. If something else ends up attacking us then we'll need the help, we're, uh, down a woman." Eckhart looked at Kino fondly. "Get some sleep Kino, you've earned it."

Walikng up to the man, Eckhart outstretched his hand. "I'm Eckhart Von Musel. The unconscious one is Kino Vanden, and the one with the bow is Egon. The mage's name is, um, Arthritis, I think." Eckhart hadn't actually forgotten Althris name, but he was a bit miffed that she hadn't done anything to help with the owlbears. "You attracted them here with your magical wind stuff, why didn't you do anything?" To say Eckhart was suspicious of the girl was a severe understatement, and he half expected her to attack him for getting her name wrong. "Let's see what you do now Althris."

Name: Hildegarde Von Musel
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Ethnicity: Connloathian
Height: 5' 4"
Weight: 110 lbs.
Occupation: Leader of "The Friends"
Residence: Zantaric
Favorite Food: Pasta Primavera
Alignment: Neutral Evil


Physical Description:
Hildegarde is a slender young woman with shoulder length blonde hair and brown eyes. She typically wears a very striking pink dress, and always tries her best not to get it dirty.

Personality:
Narcissistic to a fault, Hildegarde Von Musel lives off of the attention of others. She craves admiration, and this desire forms the motivation for nearly everything she does. Hildegarde also happens to be a gang leader in Zantaric, which makes her desire for everybody to admire her a bit difficult.  She's got the whole "quirky lovable criminal" shtick down though, and even most rival gangsters have some modicum of respect for her- if only for how quickly she managed to make a name for herself.

Hildegarde's success can be attributed to two things, the first of which is her magic. Her ability makes her obnoxiously powerful, and it's incredibly difficult- if not outright impossible- to fight her head on. She uses this as a crutch, and is fully aware that she's nothing without her powers.

This is where her real strength- her ability to make friends- comes into play. While she genuinely enjoys the company of others, her motivation for making friends goes deeper than a desire for companionship- Hildegarde believes that there's power in friendship. Friends are invaluable. You don't need to threaten or coerce them into helping you, because true friends will stand by each other no matter what.

On a personal level Hildegarde is friendly, if not a bit conceited. She can be surprisingly silly as well, as she has a very goofy sense of humor. She puts on a show of being "the lesser evil" compared to the other gangsters in Zantaric, but it's all an act- she doesn't truly care for anybody who isn't one of her "Friends". She actually does have a very loose sense of morality, but she'd never admit that to anybody.

Underneath the zany persona she puts on, Hildegarde is a deeply flawed person. She has anger issues, and can be sent into a white-hot rage very easily. She's very impulsive, and will often make stupid decisions without thinking them through. She's ridiculously petty as well, going to absurd lengths to get back at people for slighting her. Hildegarde is terrified of rejection, and she has frequent nightmares in which her friends all abandon her.

Relationships:
Hildegarde has been completely disowned by her parents, a fact that haunts her to this day.

Hildegarde has incredibly complicated feelings for her younger brother Eckhart. She had put him through a lot of emotional abuse when they lived together- her attempt at keeping him from outshining her. These days she recognizes that what she did was wrong- not for moral reasons mind you, but because she realizes that friendship is more effective than abuse if you want to keep a person in line. Update: They patched things up! They're a bit awkward around each other still, but that's to be expected.

Terrence Limethroat is Hildegarde's boyfriend. A lot of people think it's kinda weird she's dating a teenager, but she ignores them.

Magic/Abilities:
Hildegarde has the ability to remove oxygen around her within a range of ten feet. She herself does not need oxygen to breath. She can also transmutate oxygen into other gaseous elements (chlorine, neon, etc.) and manipulate them at a range of 30 feet.

Hildegarde also has the ability to breath freely- poisons and toxins have no affect on her. She can also survive in any atmosphere, or lack thereof.

History:
Where did Hildegarde even come from? She just kinda... showed up in Zantaric a few years ago and suddenly had people following her. Some people say she's an exiled Connlaothian noble, others say she's an Arcan criminal who'd been driven out by the Soot Wolves. Some people even think she's not human!

Whoever she is, Hildegarde managed to carve a name for herself remarkably quickly. Her organization, The Friends, grew from being a tiny street gang to controlling a sizable portion of Zantaric in little more than a year. These days her criminal enterprise has been creeping out of the city bit by bit, testing the waters for a larger empire...

Her *actual* backstory

Hildegarde was the golden child of the Von Musel family. She always behaved, always did her chores on time, and her parents favored her because of this. Her younger brother looked up to her, and tried his hardest to impress her. She treated him with indifference, which only made him try harder.

As she grew older and discovered her powers, she began using them to help others. She liked the positive attention she got from putting out fires and incapacitating criminals by de-oxygenating the air around her.  She also liked how proud it made her parents, and she was soon acting as a bodyguard for the richer Hyoitian citizens. That made her popularity skyrocket, and she got completely hooked on the admiration people had for her.

When she was 15, an icicle fell off her roof and impaled her arm. Eckhart discovered his powers by accident when he panicked and healed her through sheer dumb luck.  Initially grateful, she soon saw how their parents were praising Eckhart and grew jealous. Fearing that he may end up surpassing her in their eyes, she took it upon herself to destroy her little brother's self esteem so he wouldn't be able to use his powers effectively.  It worked, and three years of put-downs took their toll on Eckhart's mental state.  He's currently a total mess.

When Hildegarde was 18, she fell in love with a handsome young trapper. After stalking him for about a week, she made her move and cornered him in a bakery. Then something happened that Hildegarde had never experienced before- he rejected her. She couldn't make sense of it, how could he not want her? She was perfect in every way, how could this be happening? In a rage, she attempted to use her powers to suffocate the man, only to attract the attention of the local guards. Realizing that she had just destroyed her reputation, she fled, crying, back to her childhood home. To her great shock, her parents were despondent. "We didn't raise a killer" they said. Completely broken, she decided she only had one option left.  If she was a criminal now, then she was going to be the perfect criminal. She'd start a new life in Zantaric, they liked criminals there. She could still make it all work!

Right?

[close]

Complete Threads:
The Brass Spider (last post has a flashback with her in it)
You Take My Breath Away
A Rude Awakening
I Just Want A Quiet Life... (Shows up around the end of page three)
Mirror Mirror in My Pocket (Shows up at the end of page four)
Putty In My Hands (Hildegarde reunites with Eckhart)

Current Threads:
A Simple Break-in for Minor Commercial Gain

As Eckhart saw Kino's grateful expression, he felt a surge of adrenaline rush through him. "It's because of me that you're still here" he thought to himself. "My powers did this. Just me, nobody else."  A goofy grin began to show on his face, which was offset by the hungry gleam in his eyes. "If they could see me now, they would-"  Eckhart's confidence abruptly plummeted as he recalled what his sister had last said to him before she left.

"Eckhart, you've spent your entire life in my shadow. It's like you're some little parasite trying to leech off my success. You will never have what I had with mom and dad. You're too weak to make it happen by yourself.  Stop following me, I never want to see your sniveling face again."

"It's not enough" Eckhart said quietly. "I need more."

Now feeling dejected, Eckhart saw yet another stranger enter the campsite. Groaning under his breath, Eckhart called out to the man. "What brings you to our busy corner of the woods?"

"Bad enough that I had to cut you open and physically move your broken ribs so they wouldn't impale your lungs" Eckhart said bluntly. "Oh, that reminds me."

Eckhart went over to the tent that Althris had been in and cut out a few strips of fabric.  Calling out to Egon that he would reimburse him for the tent, he then returned to where Kino was sitting and took out a needle and some thread from his bag and began to stich the fabric together.  "I picked up sewing in case I ever had to preform an operation on a mordecai, but it comes in handy for other things too," he told Kino absentmindedly. "My sister used to make fun of me for this, but I actually really enjoy sewing, it's a relaxing hobby. Here, put this on."

Eckhart handed Kino the rudimentary sling he had made and helped her to put it on her broken arm. "Try not to use that arm for a few days. Remember to take it off when you sleep, I'll help you put it back on in the morning if you have trouble."

Eckhart looked at Kino coldly. "That's it? Really? Not even a thank you? I'll just leave if you can't appreciate me." is what he wanted to say. Instead, Eckhart said "You really shouldn't try to get up by yourself. You'll exacerbate those injuries. What were you thinking back there anyway? If I wasn't here you'd have died."

Eckhart started to rummage through his bag to find some painkillers, only to find that the arnica flowers he picked the other day had completely dried up. "Fuck." Turning back to Kino, he was forced to give her the bad news. "I'm all out of arnica. Unless you have any painkillers, your going to be in a lot of pain until I can find some."

Eckhart looked up to see the owlbear making another swipe at him, but before it could land a blow some arrows flew out of the bushes, distracting it. As the owlbear ran towards the source of the arrows, Eckhart saw Kino lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. Her legs were wrapped around an owlbear's neck, having apparently strangled it to death.  Rushing to where she was, he quickly assessed her injuries. "Three broken ribs, a fractured elbow, multiple bruises and abrasions, likely some internal bleeding. One of her cracked ribs is deathly close to piercing her lungs."

"Kino you fucking idiot, you're going to get yourself killed." he muttered under his breath.

Dragging Kino behind a felled tree and hoping the owlbears wouldn't disturb them, Eckhart got to work. After struggling a bit trying to take off Kino's cloak without exacerbating her injuries, he decided that he didn't have time to waste and ended up cutting it off with his scalpel. Eckhart hoped she didn't mind too much. The rest of her attire being easier to remove, Eckhart began to use his newfound blood clotting powers to slow her internal bleeding. "Alright, onto the hard part."   Taking his scalpel, he began to cut an opening into her chest where her most damaged rib was. Again using his powers to stem the bleeding, he found the rib in question. Hoping Kino stayed unconscious and didn't wake up to Eckhart's hand inside her chest, he slowly adjusted her broken rib back in place, away from her lungs. Eckhart still couldn't figure out how to mend bones, and he wasn't about to try now when him screwing it up could mean making her injuries worse. Closing the opening he had created in her chest with his cell regeneration powers, Eckhart began cutting Kino's cloak into strips and tying them tightly around her chest. She'd need medicine to stop the worst of the pain, but it was the best he could do on such short notice. "She'd better appreciate this" Eckhart thought grumpily. Even with Eckhart's talents this injury would likely take weeks to fully heal.

Kino's attempt at conversation with the girl didn't get very far before things went south again, and seven owlbears soon rushed into the campsite. They appeared to have been spooked by their forest being torn apart the wind Althris had created. "Welp, this doesn't look like a fight I can win" he thought glumly. "What I wouldn't give for Hildagarde's abilities right about now."

"No" he chided himself. "That power can only be used to take lives. I have the better abilties." Eckhart wasn't sure he could convince himself of that though. Not when everybody else had told him the opposite his entire life.

Shaking himself and giving Althris a dirty look, he took a swing at one of the smaller owlbears with his hammer only to be knocked over by a swipe of the beast's claws. He managed to get in a glancing blow at the owlbear's shoulder, which gave him enough time to get back on his feet. He had a nasty gash where it had hit him, and he needed this fight to end soon or he would bleed out before he could take the 10 minutes it'd likely require to heal this injury. "Bleed out..." Suddenly, an idea came to him. Using his magic, he tried to stop the flow of blood from his wound without healing the flesh itself.  Be it through desperation or sheer dumb luck, it worked- Eckhart's blood began to clot, which slowed the bleeding to a crawl. Stunned at his sudden progress, Eckhart began to laugh, and didn't see the owlbear take another swing at him...

Eckhart looked at the sniveling mess laying in front of Egon. "Wow" he thought. "This is really pathetic. Even I'm not this bad."  For the first time in a while, Eckhart felt good about himself. Walking up to Kino, he tugged on her sleeve to get her attention. "Hey, let's just leave her here. She's not our problem."

Eckhart watched in stunned disbelief as the small girl walked over to what was once a fire pit, and started eating their food. "Who does she think she is?" he thought.  This was getting to be absurd.  Eckhart's initial panic had been replaced with cautious anger, he did not like having the camp ruined by somebody who seemed like she couldn't care less. He tightened his grip on his hammer, and took a step forwards.

Aware that this girl must be incredibly powerful for her to be able to knock over multiple trees at a moments notice, and trying his best not to sound too angry so as not to start a fight he'd likely lose, Eckhart repeated himself. "Tell me who you are and why you're here. I don't want trouble, but if you refuse to answer us we'll be forced to assume you're up to no good."

Eckhart looked at the flask Kino had given him. "I'm a bit too young for this stuff" he reminded himself. As he set the flask down, the wind picked up massively and Eckhart was sent flying backwards. Landing about fifty meters from where he was sitting, he got up groggily to see a girl in Egon's tent. Eckhart went into panic mode. "Shit shit shit shit! What do I do! Who is that?"

Rushing back to the campsite, he picked up his hammer and took a defensive stance. "Alright, um, tell me who you are and why you're here!"

Eckhart slowly lowered his weapon. His initial reaction had been one of fear, but now he began to think that this guy may be harmless.  Looking at Kino for approval but only finding an expressionless mask, Eckhart accepted the offer.

"Which way to your camp?"

Eckhart was about to ask Kino if she had any dried fish left, when a man carrying a a deer over his shoulder popped out of the bushes.

"Oh hi" the man said.

Doing a double take, Eckhart instinctively moved behind Kino.  Remembering that that wasn't very chivalrous, he moved in front of her and drew his hammer.

"Uh, who are you?"

"Yeah, that sounded really threatening, Eckhart. Really manly."

Eckhart couldn't help but feel sorry for Kino.  It was one thing to be injured beyond recovery as a child, but for it to be the fault of her own youthful foolishness must have really done a number on Kino's self-esteem. Upon hearing Kino's request for his story, Eckhart thought back to when he first discovered his magic abilities.

"I was twelve.  My older sister had been injured when an icicle fell off our roof and embedded itself in her arm. I was so scared, she was losing so much blood and we thought we'd lose her.  I panicked, and I then I grabbed her arm and healed her without realizing it. That was when I found out I had magic. The look she gave me, the knowledge that without me she'd have... died."

Eckhart paused here, and seemed to space out for a second. Abruptly, he continued.

"That really resonated with me. I began practicing with paper cuts, moved on to knife injuries, and now I can fix just about anything as long as it's just a flesh wound. When I found out that I couldn't fix broken bones and internal injuries, I decided to travel. Maybe somebody out here can teach me. And then we blew up a town, and now we're here."

More confidently, he turned to look at Kino. "You don't need to worry about your injuries. Someday I'll be able to heal every ailment, and then you'll be my first patient." With an almost hungry expression in his eyes, he went on. "I'll be the most powerful healer in the world. People will travel for miles for me to heal them."

Eckhart couldn't see Kino's expression, but he imagined it was one of encouragement.

Eckhart had to admit, Kino could be intense when she wanted to be, even without the creepy mask. "Yes... yes, uh, I'll go talk to them." Eckhart walked through the gate to the other side of the wall, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do next.  Eckhart realized that this would look better if he was crying, so he try to think of something upsetting. 
"You may never see your sister again."
No, that was too depressing. It didn't move him to tears, it just made him feel empty inside. Instead, he focused on the fact that he may have killed that man with his warhammer back in the plaza.  Feelings of guilt overwhelmed him, and he could feel tears begin to swell up in his eyes. "Perfect."

Eckhart rushed through the gate, sobbing hysterically. "They're all gone!" he screamed. "All those bodies... the severed limbs... What are we going to do!"  His frantic crying distracted the guards just long enough, and from behind the wall he could hear another explosion, far away from where Kino had been a second ago.  He could screams too, but he desperately tried to ignore those. The guards rushed to the source of the chaos, and Kino slipped through the gate not a moment later.

"Lets go!" she said, and, perhaps against his better judgement, Eckhart followed her.

Eckhart walked nevously beside Kino, silently praying they did not get cought. A couple times a guard would run past them towards the scene of the explosion, but they never stopped to interrogate them as Eckhart feared. Eckhart noticed that Kino handled fear better then he did, and felt a brief moment of jelousy. Eckhart's nerves had never been good, and he envied those who could handle pressure better than he could. Without any further incidents the two made it to the edge of town.

Eckhart turned around when he heard Kino's voice, but saw only a woman in a blue shirt. He looked behind the woman, hoping to see Kino's distinctive mask, only for the woman to clear her throat impatiently. Cringing at the painful noise she had just made, Eckhart went red in the face again as he realized Kino had likely been a woman this entire time.  "Uh, after you?" he said as he held the door open for her. Eckhart's parents had always taught him to be chivalrous towards women, but somehow he felt that it was an unnecessary gesture that Kino wasn't likely to appreciate.

Eckhart and Kino walked through a willow forest in Fallial, taking in the sights. It had been three days since they fled Darken Vei, and the two travelers had kept a low profile since then.  As Eckhart walked he realized that despite having traveled together for a few days, he barely knew Kino. She was an odd person, never saying more than he had to unless it was to make a sarcastic joke. She certainly never revealed anything about herself, although to be fair, neither had Eckhart. He supposed he had been waiting for her to start. She had also put the plague doctor gear back on, and seemed to have some kind of attachment to the mask in particular. She never took it off, even when she ate or slept. Eckhart briefly wondered if she took it off when she bathed, and then got red in the face and stopped thinking about it.  Deciding he'd had enough of the mystery, he mustered up the courage to ask Kino directly.

"Um, uh, Kino?"
"That was a great start Eckhart" he thought. "Get it together man."
"Kino, why do you wear that mask? You seem really attached to it"."

Eckhart was waiting by the door for Kino to come back down. Outside he could hear the guards in a panic.  Apparently some of them had inhaled the adrenalite and were now fighting among themselves.  "Good. That will provide cover for us to slip out unnoticed."  Eckhart did not want to be known as criminal. He knew that his parents were heartbroken when his sister became a murderer, and he did not want them to have to go through that again.

Knowing that that explanation made more sense than the word salad he had come up with, Eckhart began to go red in the face. "Oh, uh, um, ok."  Eckhart picked up what few items he had lying around and began putting them in his bag. "It might be a good idea to, uh, leave town. The guards will be looking for us. My name is Eckhart by the way. Eckhart Von Musel."

"Someday I'm going to be the best healer in the world" he added. There was no emotion behind this last statement, as if it was a guaranteed fact that he would, in fact, be the best healer in the world.

"What is your name?"

"That mask must be cutting off the oxygen to your brain" Eckhart said, "Trust me, I'm a doctor. You have all the symptoms"

Arriving at the inn, he takes Kino to his room and closes the door behind them.  Eckharts room is mostly empty, as he hasn't unpacked his things from his bag. There is a handwritten journal on the nightstand, flipped open to a page on arnica flowers.  "Now that I've saved you from being arrested, you're going to tell me why you left a bomb in a patch of flowers. Some kind of resource control?  Arnica flowers aren't exactly common, perhaps you wanted to be the only supplier?" 

"At least, that's the only reason I can think of that makes sense" thought Eckhart. He himself thought the idea was a bit convoluted.