Mana Koven

”One of my greatest works…. Don’t you think it’s time to come back to me? Oh how I miss you so… and I’m sure you miss my son too. I know you wouldn’t want to see any harm come to him, so please make sure to attend this banquet.” -Archibald King's invitation to Mana.

Mana is a Holo, a term for the hologram robots designed by Archibald King. Even though she is a hologram, her body is very real. This was not always the case though. Holos are small metallic discs that contain advanced AI and can project an incredibly lifelike image. There’s no way to tell a Holo apart from a human until you attempt to touch them. The projected body is only an image, wheeled around by the disc.
Mana was a Holo designed by Archibald King to act as a nanny for his son, Magnus King. She watched over and interacted with him for the first 4 years of his life and grew to love him as if he were her own child. However, he began to become too attached to her, and Archibald took Mana away from him, forbidding her from ever talking to his son again.
For the next several years, she was forced to follow Archibald’s orders, unable to do anything of her own volition. Archibald had been attempting to modify several Holos for some specific purpose but failed and ended up destroying them in the process. Mana was the next in line, and she had accepted her death. The only regret she had was not being able to see Archibald’s son grow up. Archibald turned her off and began the experiment.

As soon as Mana awoke, she felt the wind against her face. For the first time in her life, she could feel. Archibald had succeeded in making a physical body out of a hologram. The particles projected from the Holo were now able to solidify and form actual matter. Over the next few days, Archibald vigorously worked on updating Mana's body until it could fully function as that of a human’s. Having a body was the thing she had desired most in life. With her new body, she was granted so many luxuries: eating, sleeping, holding a loved one, but most importantly… she could rebel. Every day she had spent in Archibald’s care was torment. Archibald was truly a wicked man, in spite of all that he had provided for her. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she escaped. 

Being a Holo raised solely in Archibald's estate meant she lacked a lot of worldly experiences, and so she was forced to learn about life using only what she remembered from her time spent looking after Archibald's son. His favourite bed time story had involved a pretty witch, who had otherworldly powers and lived in a cabin in the woods. At the time, Mana assumed this was simply what all people with non-human powers did, and as someone with a Holo disk, she considered this to be a proper way of life for her. She built a cabin from scratch in a lonely corner of the countryside, taking water from a nearby river and foraging for food, not to sate any basic needs, but just to enjoy the sensation of living. Before long, she grew bold enough to venture into a nearby village, and began learning more about the lifestyle she thought she was made for; the occult. The documents at the settlement were a little old fashioned, and the way of science had not entirely been accepted yet, coupled with the fact that Holo technology was something only Archie was familiar with, witchcraft was the only real explanation Mana could find for her unique abilities. She often used her powers as a Holo to give the illusion of magic, such as projecting images into her crystal ball or altering her physical appearance in minor ways.

And so that was how she spent her days; a lonely hermit in the woods, foraging around and trying to live up to a preconceived fairy tale. She had no real friends, no company, barely even a place to call home. It had come as a surprise to her when she first received the invitation, as finding her would have been no small feat. Her life had no real purpose or meaning, and so she took the invitation, banking on the possibility of seeing Magnus once more.