Profile for "Utopia Online"

Personality

 She is unassuming, and wants nothing more than for people to see her as "knowing her place."

 In this way she is the same in reality and in the game. The line between that reality and her fantasies has clearly grown blurry for her, over the years. She wouldn't ever admit it's dementia kicking in, but some part in the back of her brain believes it. That's the curse of growing older- doubting not only the past, but yourself and your actions in it.

 Ophelia was the epitome of that, in life. Unsurprising. Her strict Christian parents having forced her to marry early, she learned quickly what her value in the world was. Disappointingly little. And though she resented it, at the same time she could never fight against it. It was torturous, a life of staying mum and keeping things in silent order, for no true reward. But that was "her place."

 Parhelia is elegant, graceful. Beautiful, feminine, but still always willing to speak her mind. She can hold her superiority over others, be they within her own guild or outside of it- even in ways they won't realize it. It would be laughable to assume she got to where she is asking those around her to "bow down" in so few words. Instead, she learned the easiest way ahead was to exploit what she had that others didn't- talent. Intelligence. Drive. Yes, she "knew her place" - and so too did she know how to make the most of it, this time.

 She relishes being better than others. It's something she could never have in reality, especially not now. The power fantasy is all she wanted, and she has it. So she's made her own way to have some more fun while doing it.

 Don't get her motivations twisted. It was never that Parhelia has no moral code- rather, it was always that her moral code revolves only around herself. Truly hurting others is an infinitesimally small burden compared to losing her niche, let alone compared to making an ass of herself in front of them. She would rather be the greatest killer in the land than the worst saint. At least then, she would be great.

 The trouble comes in not letting this on.

 So the world gets to see her for her harmless self- all but the inner circle of her guild knows her as the MMO equivalent of the kind lady down the lane. She's known for her smile, her sense of humor, her patience- her talent. All what she's supposed to be. It's tantamount to social suicide to cause a scene. Literal suicide now to get caught involved in the kind of things she does.

 Somehow, it's not as torturous, living her life in relative peace and quiet- when she knows it's her choice to be doing so. When she knows that soon enough, she can have the rush of accomplishment that domination gives her once again.

Background

 What else was she meant to spend her time on?

 Ophelia's connection with the game is among the longest of active users. There are few people more suited to dump countless hours into an online game than a retired widow living on monthly estate checks. Not like her children ever came to visit her, anyway- a subscription to an MMO was thousands of dollars less expensive than hiring a therapist or caretaker to talk to, even with her physical health declining over her years of play. It wasn't surprising. She'd never been the healthiest woman around, and age had only exacerbated that.

 But that only served to push her deeper into her fantasies.

 It wasn't like she started her guild with the express intention of it being home to lawless lunatics and looters. In some ways, she hates that connotation- though they were never noble, Dreadspawn for a long while were simply seen as masters of their trade, just as Galeforce was of theirs. PvP was to her just a more direct way to assert your superiority over other players. Any fool could spend 1,000 hours grinding experience killing squirrels and picking mushrooms to meet a mere "level requirement." Dedication, she reckoned, was only the first step towards aptitude.

 The profit was never the initial motive. It just became one, somewhere down the line.

 If she'd wanted to get rich quick, she could have just joined Galeforce. Raiding was always more lucrative than player killing. But the nature of humanity is to not want to get their hands dirty- and so the requests for assassinations started rolling in. And with them, they brought in the lowlife, amoral dogs just sniffing out an opportunity.

 Problem with an elite secretive guild: There is really no good way to tell anyone who is and isn't in it.

 Perhaps Dreadspawn was doomed from day 1 to fall into what amounted to basically lawlessness. Sure, the upper echelons of members were happy to organize under her, and generally knew what was going on. But at the lower levels, it rapidly became an adventure in herding cats. Except they were extremely angry cats with knives that wanted nothing more than an excuse to kill people, so that was a problem.

 Still, by this point, Ophelia's health on the outside had been deteriorating even more. Though one of her granddaughters (ironically, the one who was blind herself- perhaps in a moment of empathy) had seen to getting her a very part-time caretaker, she was by that point very limited in her ability to walk, and her vision had started leaving her. It was as if God was beating her with the stick of her own mortality, while she clung desperately to the one thing she could still consider "hers."

 In hindsight, she wonders if it's sad that her last claim to fame was essentially killing people in a video game. She knows what other people would think as an answer, but her mind isn't made up.

 So, she saw to it that her goal was first and foremost to appease her upper guild staff- to make sure that, in no uncertain terms, each of them wanted her to stay on top- taking money for lives or not. To make sure that they knew she was never using her guild for a quick buck, but only to find a life in the game that kept her happy.

 And there were years of that, years and years. She built up a great social life, one she was never sure if she could call a lie- fraternizing with whoever benefited her in some way, even just by being someone of status. Selling to and buying things from the Providers- this was a large time investment, but necessary if she wanted to craft better talismans. Wasting her money on drinks from the Swans- as she sat around doing nothing but looking pretty and telling jokes. Even helping the odd new member in a raid here and there- somehow the most rewarding activity of them all.

 Was it a lie, that she could live this life while on the side taking out those prideful, high-level fops? Or was it just another worthy hobby? So often the requests she actually made good on with her own two hands instead of pawning off to another member were heartfelt. Over and over she would find herself tearing the chair out from under a scammer, or a harasser, or an arrogant fool. Maybe that was the only way she could reason with herself that doing so was "right."

 She'd dump the spoils on the rest of her guild like dirty laundry, with only the rare exception. Her nature told her that it was no fun to succeed solely by being underhanded- rather, the fun was in succeeding at being underhanded.

 The Catastrophe changed her world. But, for once, in a good way.

 Ophelia had never in a thousand years dreamed of feeling as young and revitalized as Parhelia again. (Imagine if Parhelia wasn't pushing middle aged herself.) In a way, she had been given a new lease on life thanks to this "disaster." Unlike most of the other players, in her case, her fears for her life faded away. Without a physical connection to it, she can at least in the moment forget about her fragile mortality.

 And focus on the fragile mortality of others.

 Indeed, despite her "new life" away from her reality, she still has expectations to live up to. While the looting and anarchy of the lower levels of her guild is higher than ever, so too is the business at the top. When everyone is forced to interact with everyone else 24/7, with no option to log off, cracks start to form in their facades and their sanity. Sins start leaking out. Sins that Parhelia takes pride in punishing.

 She's busier than ever, between long drinks at the inn and idle sympathy, commanding the dogs to drag her latest ill-gotten gains to the center of Falledge to be picked over. Responding to petty complaints in messages. And, most of all, exacting her judgement on those that are deserving.

 Finally, she has something worth gambling her life on.