Adventure in Action 2024

Character - Recruit

Wedged between NoHo and Greenwich Village, Minetta Street was a grubby little alley that most overlooked as they rushed through the four-lane chaos that was 6th avenue. Still, there were some that pass through. Old men, seeking a shortcut as they shamble their way towards the chessboard tables of Washington Square Park. Skaters looking for an empty curb to peddle their tricks and then later, to squat down and smoke a joint. Foreign tourists who had gotten lost, murmuring to themselves as they try to find the nearest subway.

But even the few that passed through didn't notice the sturdy little carriage house that sits in the middle of the block. It was built of weathered red bricks, adorned with cast-iron shutters and boasting an ornate, antiquated-looking gate in the front. Its existence was like a patch of slick oil; it registers in the mind upon looking at it, but slips away the moment it leaves one's vision, subtly forgotten and unremarked upon.

But there are a few who know the trick to the old, cunning house. Knew to keep the building only in the corner of their eye, to approach it as though one would approach a skittish animal. To walk up and gently push the gate open, tilting their head so that the focus of their gaze is never the house itself. For some, it helped to chant a mantra, to remind themselves of their destination using words spoken aloud, as though giving substance to the delicate knowledge.

Red, brick building, they muttered as they carefully climbed the stairs. Red, brick building, red, brick building, red, brick -

But then they have reached the last step, have encountered the front door, a big, solid thing, made of mahogany that is dark like coffee, and have rung the little doorbell affixed to the entryway. There is always a sigh of relief when the spell is suddenly broken, when the house allowed itself to be viewed, remembered in full. They would face the door fully, and the dark foyer beyond as it swinged slowly open.

...

Recruit had a name once, but millennia of switching bodies, like the contents of a coat closet. had done its toll. Forgetting it wasn't something that bothered him, but these days nothing did, really. The world was but a kernel of awareness, and he was a pinprick of light in the darkness. The things life takes for granted; to be able to touch, to smell, to sate one's hunger and slake thirst - if Rec were coherent enough for the calculations, he would have guessed it had been a few centuries since he'd had eyes capable of looking upon a meal. These pleasures had left with the last of his bodies, before he'd been sent back to the vessel that kept his essence intact during these transitions. Usually, he was only in the darkness for a short time before being dragged out again, and stuffed into a new one.

Except this time, he never came back out.

The deterioration of Rec hadn't been a uniform one. For a while, he had been aware, rational, capable of clear, spelled-out thoughts. But no one, not even a being like Rec, could survive complete sensory deprivation for any true length of time.

After he'd burned himself out, his reserves of anger, and indignation, and yes, loneliness too finally run dry, he amused himself with stories and songs he'd think up himself, invent riddles for which there was no one to solve. But of course, without a hand to hold the pen, or eyes to see the words flow forth, the things he created would slip out his mind, far more easily than they had come. Other things fell away as well, until he was left with nothing but scattered, fragmented memories from a dozen different lives. And that's were Rec existed, for a very long time - a shadow of himself, reliving moments out of sequences, speaking to and killing, and loving people that bled into moments with others that he had met in a different body and they were poorly stitched together, these remembrances, so Rec sometimes would play out a time from his past over and over again for a decade, until another took its place and -

The dusty, mottled wine bottle Rec had been trapped in for the past two centuries was knocked into, a strong enough force that it teetered, then tipped, bouncing against the base of the shelf it rested upon. It did not break. And yet now it was on its side, and the self that held it was old and warped, and so the wine bottle rolled, rolled forward, before dropping to the floor like a stone and shattering into a million glinting shards.

And Rec was finally out. 

Character Summary: 

Name: Rec

Age: Centuries of existence. 

Ancestry/Ethnicity: Recruit was once an imp, a spirit pulled into the mortal plane and forced to serve for eternity. Body after body he possessed, under control of an old, powerful family, until one day he was killed - and never revived again. Rec spent the next 200 years sealed away in an old wine bottle in a magic pawn shop, until a rich, spoiled apprentice, sent there as punishment, accidentally knocked it off a shelf. 

Physical Looks + Attributes: Recruit's appearance reflects the body he currently possesses.  In this case, he has taken the body of the apprentice, Leon, a twenty-two year old man. 

Leon is of both German and Mexican decent, latest in line of to an offshoot of an old, aristocratic family from overseas. He's tall, with olive skin and thick, curly bronze-blond hair. He's slight, with pretty features, rather than handsome. 

Education: Recruit has a wealth of knowledge from centuries of magic use and servitude. He has to rely on the vestiges of Leon's memory for modern-day understanding, however. 

Skills/Interests: A variety, as those he learns from the bodies he inhabits he does not forget. In terms of interests, he wishes for nothing else but true freedom

Likes: Good food, knowledge, winning at whatever he does. His time in isolation has left him with some... odd attributes.

Dislikes: Rec can't handle being alone, or in tight spaces, or the dark very well. He also hates serving others. 

Strengths: His knowledge, skillset, and knowledge of old, not well-known magic is to his advantage. 

Weaknesses: He is forced to limit himself to what his body expected to be capable of, to avoid detection. 

Powers: Old, tricky magic.