The Countess

The Countess is a character in The Gradual Massacre.

Biography:
May as well refrain from stepping around the issue, The Countess is going to be the chaos-sowing, anarchy-inducing inside man for this battle; though the characters won't know that. A loyal servant of the Controller; she joined this battle voluntarily, simply because he asked her to. Despite the organic nature of her form, her origins are uncertain and it's hard to tell whether she's a creation of magic, mad science, or some kind of seriously messed up natural selection in an alternate universe.

Description:
The Countess is primarily composed of an off-white putty, which possesses two curious properties: Firstly, any foreign object embedded in it will slowly be consumed and converted to the same substance; and secondly, upon exposure to air it will coalesce into an elegant series of cogs and gears and pistons and springs. Where necessary, she can also form transparent, glassy spot armour, though it restricts her movement at the joint. She's capable of a little morphing, but prefers to take the form of an unnaturally segmented, slender-limbed humanoid with an unhingeable jaw full of pin-like teeth. She has a weirdly long, cable-like neck offering her 270-degrees rotation (both ways) and trailing arms with three surgical-precision, four-segmented fingers and two thumbs on each hand. From the waist down, human legs have been replaced with eight dexterous, dagger-like spiders' legs, normally bent at the 'knee' so The Countess is hunkering in the middle of the ring they form. (In essence, a human torso on the legs of a giant mecha-tarantula.) In terms of personality, she's not too bright, but what intelligence she has she dedicates to knowing how to manipulate people, earn their trust and subsequently break it, deceive them, jerk about their heartstrings, that kind of thing. The Countess is sadistic and cunning, and would be quite happy torturing someone before killing them if the alternative was letting them escape and ruin her front. Despite her skill in this department, The Countess fails to realise in turn that she's being manipulated by the Controller.

Items/Abilities:
The Countess has both legs and fingers that could stab a human as well as pierce stone (good for climbing), sharp teeth, and a body that can reform. She will also be keeping in touch with the controller, thanks to a receiver synthesized somewhere in her.