#eethie

Happy New Year, everyone! :)

Welcoming in 2023 with some individual screens of Chieko's Pact search-and-rescue squad--which I am slowly realizing needs a name and will get one soon xD

Oop, you are asking about my gremlin ex-Inquest child! Excellent excellent let's go!! :D <3

3. What person impacted them the most?

I will admit to the fact that I am still working out the details of their backstory, so if someone asks me this question for them in two months my answer might be different, lol. But as far as right now--Chieko. She's one of my other folks, and she's in charge of what's basically a small triage/search-and-rescue group in the Pact. She's also the first person in ages to give Eethie a genuine chance to be part of something, and is, right now, maybe the one person they're afraid to let down.

6. They're now a heart NPC/part of a string of quests. What does that involve?

Ooh, I could see Eethie being the head of some sort of quest chain in the Sandswept Isles, either with or without the rest of Chieko's squad, that's involved in making some sort of significant dent in Rata Primus's defenses. Any dialogue they have alludes to the fact that they have some sort of personal grudge, but they absolutely refuse to spell it out plainly no matter what you ask them.

8. How willing are they to bend/break the rules for their cause (be it selfless or otherwise)?

You're getting both! :D Hope that's okay, and thanks a bunch for the ask!!

Kerra:

Love her, 30/10 forever, first kiddo and will always be my favorite even though I love all of them <3

And for the one I haven't played in the longest, meet Eethie, who I might have mentioned once, but is mostly new to this blog! They're my scourge and an ex-Inquest member who's now doing their best to help the Pact's medical team. They're also a menace, and I love them. (And any pronouns are good as far as they're concerned!) Picture below:

Eethie:

Ooh sure sure, thank you! :D

15. Were they involved with any of the canon GW2 events that involved the Inquest-- Thaumanova, Crucible of Eternity, Sorrow's Embrace, Rata Primus, etc? (Optional: How'd they escape when the Commander rolled in?)

I'm still thinking about this one and am not totally certain, lol. Eethie absolutely was still involved with the Inquest during the personal story era and only defected/left afterward, but I think if there was any way for them to not be involved in all of Kudu's stuff while still being Inquest, then they would have stayed out of it. That specific variant of grandstanding for power isn't their thing, and besides, they don't really like the guy.

I think if they were forced to be involved in Crucible of Eternity/Sorrow's Embrace, they'd have been as in the background as possible and maybe even have posed as someone the Inquest had captured to avoid retaliation from Commander Kerra and the Destiny's Edge members.

For the last two bits--

Eethie left the Inquest shortly before Thaumanova, but the resulting chaos helped cover the fact that they'd left. It also helped that their direct supervisor was at Thaumanova and did not survive.

Awesome awesome, thank you! :D

1. Have they been an Inquest loyalist since the start, or did they defect from another faction? Is there a risk they'll defect away from the Inquest in the future? (If already defected: If it were possible, would they go back?)

Eethie pretty much went straight into the Inquest while still fairly young. They were relatively talented with parents who barely acknowledged their existence even when they did well and punished them with isolation when they did poorly at something. The Inquest recruiters acknowledged their potential and treated them like they might be worth something, which really was all they wanted.

They did, in fact, defect, so would they go back...only in some kind of worst-timeline scenario where the people they've come to care about are no longer alive. They might go back to find that validation somewhere, even if it wasn't good for them.

6. Do they have a guilty conscience? How do they cope with or personally reconcile the continuous stress and horror?

Oof, hmm. Yes, they have a guilty conscience. They were studying how to modify cellular structure using magic, which was very hit-or-miss and also very dangerous. They got by for a while by mainly experimenting on themself, but eventually they needed live specimens. Their goals with it were more small-scale, but in theory it could have been used as a destructive weapon if it had ever been developed to that point.

They experimented on a lot of creatures and people, but their breaking point was when one of their coworkers, Belu, who'd been caught trying to undermine the Inquest, was assigned to them as a test subject. They did in fact experiment on her and (as far as they know) killed her by doing so, and then they immediately began planning how to leave. They still carry that guilt and have to this day shared that fact with absolutely no one.

They personally reconciled any more minor guilt they felt during experimentation with the idea that their technology, if perfected, could a) possibly help people, b) empower people in new ways, and c) help them make a name for themself. Part c was a bigger part of it than they'd be willing to admit.

13. What was their real motive for joining the Inquest? Whatever their job or area of research is, why is it that they feel they can't perform it within normal society-- why do something so extreme and push moral boundaries?

Excellent excellent, love this! :D From best to worst at falling asleep:

Tanza: gets to sleep pretty fast and sleeps deeply. Vivid dreams are super common for her, though they're usually positive or neutral dreams. Stress doesn't manifest in loss of sleep for them very often.

Kerra: her problem is staying asleep due to nightmares, but she crashes real quick.

Eethie: about average--they sometimes have a mild amount of trouble falling asleep, but not extensive and not often.

Chieko: has trouble turning her brain off if she's not physically and/or mentally exhausted enough. She's familiar with all the tricks in the book and does indeed listen to music to help.

Three pens, very cool very cool, tyty!! :D I shall give you three different people for your three pens!

🖊 - Chieko is very much going to be jumping smack dab into the middle of everything that's going on in EoD right now. She's definitely not the Commander and also definitely hasn't been asked to, but she's been in Cantha with pretty much all of the members of her Pact squad for a while doing a) some research work for the Priory, b) helping to ensure there aren't any lingering Void threats in Dragon's End, and c) being diplomatic envoys in the vaguest possible sense. (Also, she's gotten a girlfriend in the last year.) It's close enough to within her job description that she could look into it, and she's also a very curious person who would want to help and figure out what the hell was going on. So her and her triage squad are going to get to experience The Horrors (TM).

🖊 - Pliarr has been a member of the Order of Whispers for years and is now a part of the Mesmer Collective. I still need to think through a lot of the missions he's gone on and will go on, so I'm not sharing details right now, but suffice it to say for now that this guy deals in a lot of secrets. He is, and always has been, a very talented mesmer. (He's also specifically a chronomancer.)