I never promised that I'd be your hero. 

Being made to take all that responsibility... do you ever think about what that does to a person?

Or, do you just want to be saved from your problems, with minimal effort on your part?

Bitter, poisonous words like these would fill my thoughts, but I also, like, couldn't just let a random dude get trampled to death by a stampede of monsters when I had the ability to help. It wasn't his fault that he needed help, either. I didn't mind lending a hand to someone in need, but I hated it when they called me their 'savior.' 

I didn't feel like a 'savior' at all... I barely knew what I was doing half the time.  

Alto is an enigmatic young woman, often appearing in times of need to protect the innocent or desperate from attacks. With a distant, inscrutable smile, many know of her, but very few know her intimately. She leave as quickly as she appears, her white cape fluttering and striking in the sunlight, cutting the perfect visage of an invincible and beloved hero.

What the people don't know is that if she was given the opportunity to talk to them, they'd learn that their exalted hero is an awkward trainwreck of a human being. Alto is a ball of nervous energy, constantly putting her foot in her mouth and thinking about the things she's said weeks ago. She is very self-critical and has a low opinion of herself. Alto often thinks herself into ruts of negativity that she can stay in for a very long time, unless somebody pulls her out. She chooses to shy away from attention rather than revel in the spotlight, but she is the type to shine the brightest when impassioned. 

At a first glance, she appears somber or serious, but once she becomes comfortable around another person, she's actually a big goofy clown, and quite affectionate. However, she doesn't have many close friends, because she finds interacting with strangers exhausting. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

Alto is originally from Earth, born to a rich businessman and a famous pianist. Her mother died when she was a child. Alto was a sweet but distant child. As she grew older, she found herself unable to form satisfying relationships with others, and was diagnosed with depression as a junior in high school.

During her time in university, in a strange turn of events like one out of a fantasy novel, a winged stranger crashed into the window of her fifth-floor apartment. In spite of initial tensions between the two, they became very close friends and his foul-mouthed, charming nature helped her grow out of her shell and be more honest with herself and her other friends. 

Then, he disappeared. Alto tried searching for him, but it was as if this stranger who changed her life never existed. In her research, she found a way to contact some kind of entity, who agreed to help her find him if she agreed to complete a task for it. Confused by this, and not expecting much, she accepted, and was transported to another world called Lielle. It was a realm where magic shaped the continents and crowned kings and queens, but the magic supply was dwindling and the land dying for some reason. 

In this new world, populated with monsters and other nefarious creatures, Alto discovered that she had pure white magic, and abilities that marked her as the 'chosen one' who would bring magic back to the world. The people rejoiced and welcomed her with open arms.

Tasked by some ancient prophecy with the mystery of finding the source of the magic drain, Alto travels between kingdoms and learns the lay of the land, the reverence for her position in the mythology textbooks granting her some degree of clout and prestige. But the truth is... she finds it all very tiring, being transported to a world without being informed of what it entailed, and then having the hopes of a world of people placed on her shoulders. She just wants to find her friend, not play political games with nations and fight huge monsters for people who refuse to entertain the idea of living a life without magic and refuse to make an effort to adapt.

As she travels, though, and unravels the truth of the gods of Lielle, she finds that the heart of the mystery may be more linked to her missing friend than she thought. And as for why she was brought to Lielle in the first place...

"...Umm, please have some tea..."

...The Necromancer said in a high, nervous pitch, summoning a tea set with a jerky wave of his hand. The saucer and cup that appeared before me were light as a feather. Delicate brushstrokes depicting flowers and creeping vines in a rich dark green, pale blue, and gold pattern gave the pieces an elegant and ethereal feeling.

Just as otherworldly was the muddy, slightly purplish liquid that filled the cup, a light steam rising from its off-putting and odd-smelling depths. It had a pearlescent sheen to it, like how a poison-tipped dagger reflected light, and was strangely viscous, bubbling slowly. I stared at my reflection, distorted by the pulsing liquid (slime? Was it a liquefied slime?), then stared back up at my host.

"...if you like..." he said, his energy and enthusiasm petering off into meekness as he noticed that I made no move to drink his Bad Vibes Juice. He seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid eye contact at all costs, the bags under his eyes prominent even with his face partially obscured by the thick fringe of dark hair that hung over his eyes. 

For someone who was purported to have power rivaling one of the Gods who created the land, he reminded me of a classmate who realized that his presentation, which he was not prepared for, was utterly failing and falling flat in front of his audience. 

Wow, Alto, are you really going to poison yourself because someone made sad puppy eyes at you? Not even at you, since he's super into having a staring contest with the floor right now. Have you not learned your lesson after getting betrayed over and over again? Literally nobody in this world has a reason to speak to you without an ulterior motive, much less beings who have lived for thousands of years who would know how to manipulate dumb girls like you.

-My finance major brain said to me, with disgust. And yet, I found it strange that a being infamous for acting with indiscriminate violence and force would do something duplicitous. While our powers were in direct opposition of one another, I had no doubt that he could smite me with a twitch of his pinky the moment I stepped into his territory. If he wanted to kill me, he would do so without stinking up his beautiful, immaculate bedchamber. 

(The fact that I was drinking tea in his bedroom was something to unpack at a later date.)

Plus, the way his subjects acted... They were satisfied and happy in a way that was totally unlike the fevered, delusional devotion of the worshipers of the Church of Algeni, and neither were they like the forced smiles of a people who feared their rulers like those living under the fist of Raum's cartels. No. They were just a bunch of... skeletons and wraiths, living an idyllic agrarian life with cows that they did not need to slaughter for sustenance. 

Quirky. And it went to show that there was more to the undead and the Necromancer than the stories described. If his presence was akin to a swathe of locusts plaguing the land, why was the forest teeming with life and vegetation? Why were tiny skeleton children so eager to help me patch up my scrapes and bruises?

I didn't want to be ruled by my preconceptions. It felt supremely wasteful, to dismiss all I had seen in favors of fearful whispers and stories. Even if I was walking into a trap, turning around and leaving out of an overabundance of caution was totally unsatisfying, too.

...Plus, the Necromancer looked quite put out at my lack of response. 

I grasped the handle of the beautiful cup with my left hand, not  allowing my nose to crinkle at the acrid smell that filled my senses as I brought the cup to my lips.

(At least it wasn't the aphrodisiac tea that Locke let that prince serve me the one time...)

Miss Alto Einsfelt, the Holy Emissary, how did you meet your end in the world of Lielle? 

Why, what a fine question. You see, I wandered into the Necromancer's realm, upon which I was greeted warmly by his dorky servants, treated with hospitality, and then dropped dead due to the toxic concoction he fed me once we were able to speak face-to-face. But you see, he didn't tie me up or control me into drinking a super suspicious liquid, I did it of my own volition because it would be awkward otherwise.

The liquid, pleasantly piping-hot, touched my tongue, and-

"This is delicious," I said, a little breathlessly. I couldn't say much for the texture, which describing as sludgelike would be charitable, but the delicate herbal flavor blended well with floral aroma, which reminded me a bit of jasmine tea. It tasted totally differently from how it smelled. Immediately, I felt a warmth spread through my body, like I was being revitalized. "I've never had something like this before. Where did you get this blend from?" I wanted to chug the cup, but that'd be rude, so I held back and took a large gulp instead.

The Necromancer perked up immediately. "O-oh, well I made this myself! There's a wide variety of plants that change in taste and medicinal properties depending on how they're exposed to magic. They can be forced to use it as an energy source in place of sunlight. It's called Floramancy, but it's a dying art, because..."

I nodded. No wonder I had never tasted any flavors like these - magically grown plants would be marked up so ludicrously in the current economy that only the most financially irresponsible king would be able to afford them. "That makes sense. It seems cool, with all the combinations of flavors you could create by mixing different types of magic with just one plant."

He smiled, and the gloomy atmosphere that hung around him like a cloud seemed to dissipate entirely. "If you're interested, I have a few books on it..."

"Oh, I can only do Holy magic though, and only one combination seems kind of boring," I said. My current attempts at learning the other basic elements were too pitiful to make mention of. 

"Yes, you are the world's foremost authority and the strongest user of Holy magic," he said, his eyes shining with admiration.

Hey, that's not what I said at all. Still, I powered on: 

"So I wouldn't be able to mix magics and get very interesting results, I think."

"Ah, well you see, I have mastered every branch of magic, save for Holy magic, so I am greatly curious about how it would mix with my current experiments-" he seemed to catch himself. "Oh... but I don't want to pressure you into doing something you don't care for... it's not like you would benefit from wasting your time like that... I'm sure the heroine of the land has better things to do..." The gloomy cloud returned.

"Uh, hey, if you only need a few hours of time, that wouldn't be a problem at all! You don't have to talk about stuff like obligation or anything. Especially if we can make a tea as delicious as what I have here," I said, gesturing at the cup with my free hand.  

"You're so kind..." he mumbled, losing the ability to make eye contact again. "I'm sorry for making you feel obligated to help me...To be honest, you're the first human I've spoken to in a thousand years, so I really didn't want to mess it up..."

In spite of my best efforts, things ended up awkward anyway. Truly, such was life.

I opened my mouth to save the situation, or make it five times worse (it was a fifty-fifty shot at this point), but my own body stepped in and interrupted me. By having a bunch of organs fail at once. 

It was a dramatic overstatement, but that's what it felt like, as I blinked in confusion at the sudden doubling of my vision (perhaps the Necromancer could duplicate himself). The the world blurred. My tongue was heavy in my mouth. I felt the warm tea splatter across the table and on my armor, seeping through the joints and soaking the shirt I wore underneath. A clatter of silverware, and a shout of dismay. An icy-cold hand laid a palm across my forehead.

...so, it was poison, after all?!

-- And such was my first meeting with Phoebus, the first and only Necromancer, the man who allegedly haunted Lielle and terrorized its peaceful residents. Except, he never left his forest. Except, he always took the blame for natural disasters and plagues that he did not cause. Except, he accepted the fear and hatred from humans without complaint.

He was a man whose gentle and meek nature seemed utterly at odds with the violent power thrumming under his skin. He was so terrified of hurting others that he shut himself away in a tower all day. 

He was so isolated that he neglected to realize that the special tea blend, which he was looking forward to serving to the first guest to his tower in a millennium, which he spent hours figuring out the perfect proportions to blend together, which he painstakingly brewed at the perfect temperature and kept it at that temperature with the strongest stasis spell he knew - contained numerous toxins that would instantly kill any mortal who tried to consume it. Since he had forgotten exactly how fragile humans were, he did not consider that all of the plants he bred over thousands of years of floramancy, selected only for taste and revitalizing properties, had become rife with various poisonous compounds that he never noticed while drinking the teas by his lonesome.  

And, for the record -- he would use that same stasis spell to lock an entire country in one moment in time, when a deadly pandemic would break out, in order to save the lives of the infected, protect those uninfected, until a cure was found. He was someone who didn't understand what "overkill" was.

It was fortunate that his mortal guest had power borrowed from divinity that counteracted his powers, and so the concoction only made her violently ill. Or, that was the tearful explanation he gave me as I fluttered back into consciousness, swaddled in silken navy bedsheets and being fussed over by one of the most powerful beings in Lielle. 

In his eyes, this attempt at making a new friend failed utterly. But for me, I gained the acquaintanceship of somebody who I would learn was the most trustworthy person in the world. Lacking any agenda or motive to manipulate me, Phoebus would always be a stalwart friend, eager to welcome me into his home because of who I was, rather than what I could do for him. Totally worth a bunch of painful seizures and organ failure.

So, all in all, it was a good decision to drink that tea. Not stupid or impulsive at all! 

...definitely.

misc

• Alto is a fanatic for the piano, though she has a complicated relationship with it - since her mother was a prolific pianist, Alto was constantly compared to her. This, in combination with a pushy and abusive childhood friend, has given her a resentment towards the piano and to a lesser extent, her own mother, as well as guilt for feeling such emotions.
• At the end of the day, however, her piano is regarded as prodigal by many. In spite of her aversion to the classical music scene, she tends to see the world in musical terms and analogies the easiest. She has a sense of perfect pitch and rhythm. 
• Alto's rapier is called "Gemini." She made it herself. It started out as a pair of twin daggers, barely distinguishable and forged by amateur hands, until she became skilled enough to create weapons usable in real combat. As the blades became infused with her magic, they evolved and fused into its current rapier form.
• Gemini's gems glow slightly and the feather attached to it grows in size and length when Alto channels her power through it. She has dominion over "holy light." It is a light with two faces. One is hard, piercing light that can be used to chain and subjugate, while the other is a soft light that can heal and purify corruption.
• The scar on her chin was left by a cursed sword. Alto could heal it with some effort, but chooses not to. It reminds her of a time she was more naive and dependent, so she keeps it as a sentimental reminder.
• She's a finance/business double major at university, following in her father's footsteps. She's numbers-oriented.
• Another hobby of hers is cooking - she likes cooking for people, and will try to impress them with tasty, new, and sometimes strange combinations of food. She sticks to simpler things if she's cooking for herself.
• She's a cat person.