Elise Pestarztyn

Elise Pestarztyn is a character in Journal of Sociology.

Biography:
Elise Pestarztyn was born in a time of change.

The City-State of Crossroads was booming with the twin wealths of magical ability and industry that powered new heights of technological achievement. New inventions that synthesized these two disparate approaches became commonplace-- alchemical dynamos, magical constructs operating automated factories, and elementals powering new vehicles were all inventions that wormed their way into the city-state. The city had grown immensely, with the powerful allure of the hint of extraordinary opportunity drawing countless immigrants. Elise's parents were among those immigrants, and managed to find a niche amongst the turbulent growth before settling down to raise a family. In spite of the poverty, crime, and corruption that came with such growth and rapid changes in fortune, they managed to provide Elise with some measure of stability in the ever-shifting city, settling her into one of the many crowded middle-class districts.

As Elise grew older, she found herself intrigued by the magic surrounding her-- she saw it less as an inexplicable convenience as many did and wished to know more about how to master it. Unfortunately, her education soon proved to her that she was incompetent in the traditional thaumaturgical fields, nearly prompting her to give up her pursuit all-together. It wasn't until she studied alchemy that she found a viable avenue to learn magic through-- unlike the long-established areas of magical theory, alchemy utilized a combination of magical potential and assorted reagents to produce its effects, and Elise quickly found herself progressing in her studies. Her learning eventually led to her taking up a medical career, and she eventually became a chirurgeon-- both a doctor and an alchemist. She soon after took to operating an independent clinic in a lower-class district.

It was here that her troubles began.

As much as its practitioners liked to claim their work was wholly safe, magic is a fickle entity-- and with the possibility of immense fortunes for discovering new applications, many were willing to turn a blind eye to proper safety in the pursuit of profit. Some of these ventures were successful, and often enough the accidents could be swept under the carpet and hidden. A few erupted as scandals-- an alchemical engine that overworked itself and catastrophically exploded, magical preservatives that inadvertently spoiled foodstuffs, and other such incidents-- but one in particular proved to be disastrous. Originating in the laboratory of some anonymous thaumaturge, a plague began to sweep the city-- first killing its infected, then bringing them back as undead creatures.

Poorer districts found themselves now host to teeming hordes of the dead, while wealthier locales quarantined themselves, sequestering their occupants from the disease. Elise found her clinic overburdened by the sick, desperate for some sort of cure. Refusing to give up, she maintained her office, healing whatever she could. She soon found herself being required to work out of her clinic, as she wandered the chaotic, half-destroyed city to dispense whatever medical assistance she could. Soon after that, she was drawn into missions of retribution-- hunting the undead alongside ragtag militias to try and stem the tide of affliction. Amid abandoned alchemical laboratories, Elise scavenged and scoured, trying to learn how to combat the disease with the knowledge she specialized in.

It was during one of these missions that she herself became infected. While fortunate enough to know how to delay the disease, she had no permanent cure. Her exploration became more desperate, her experiments more frenetic. After months of desperately searching for a remedy to her disease, she was abducted and disappeared from Crossroads.

Description:
Elise Pestarztyn appears to be a woman of average height and thin build, with short tufts of neglected hair pulled back to avoid interfering with her day-to-day work. However, given the nature of her work, her physique and physical appearance tend to not be the most evident. Her face is obscured by the mask she wears-- a bleached-white, beaked visage that only leaves her eyes visible beneath a pair of glass goggles. The mask itself functions similarly to a makeshift respirator, with an assortment of pungent herbs and alchemical apparatuses acting to filter air.

The rest of her body is left similarly unexposed, as she has covered herself in numerous pieces of leather armor. This ensemble ranges from a coif to cover what is left of her head, to a waxed, protective overcoat, to gloves and boots. Similarly to her mask, her coat is impregnated with various protective reagents. In addition to her haphazard protective gear, she wears a hooded canvas cloak. Survival gear, weaponry, and alchemical components are stuffed in the backpack she brings with her. Contained within the folds of her overcoat are journals detailing some of her observations, as well as recipes for various draughts and elixirs.

Elise herself is somewhat reckless and stubborn, existing on something of a one-track mind at times. While someone of her profession is meant to remain dispassionate and logical, she is increasingly emotional and desperate; she has found her sense of self-preservation to be something discarded more often than not. In spite of the grim work she has undertaken, however, she attempts to at least maintain some degree of hopefulness about her-- even though she increasingly believes such hope to be folly, she sees no other avenue for her single-minded drive and has forced herself to believe that her current efforts are not being undertaken in vain. Despite being antithetical to her demeanor and experience, there is some optimism underneath the callous, desperate exterior she presents.

Items/Abilities:
As part of her time hunting the undead, Elise has picked up skill in a variety of weapons, as well as an aptitude in surviving in her forlorn situation-- she has learnt how to scavenge abandoned buildings, navigate sewers, and so on. While she has utilized a variety of weapons, her preference is for the crossbow, and she tends to carry one on her person when exploring. However, her experience in this set of skills is not her main focus.

Elise is a practitioner of the school of magical thought known as alchemy. Rather than casting a spell as other magic-users might, Elise instead utilizes a variety of reagents to capture and bottle her magical potential and produce extraordinary effects in the form of a variety of liquids and extracts. While many alchemists produce virulent toxins, powerful explosives, and dangerous mutagens, this is not the case for Elise. She has devoted herself to using her alchemical prowess to heal, combining knowledge of anatomy with her magic to aid others. Although she has a cursory knowledge of deadlier extracts and potions, her expertise is in producing restoratives, anesthetics, and healing infusions.

Her other ability, if it can be called that, is the necromantic infection she suffers from. Her affliction has gradually whittled away her strength and wasted her form, and will eventually kill her and bring her back as an undead monstrosity. While she is fortunate enough to have produced an elixir capable of maintaining her strength and keeping the disease stabilized, she is living on borrowed time-- her studies and exploration have had yet to yield a permanent cure, and with each passing day the restorative she has relied on grows less potent.