Physical Condition
Exhausted but otherwise unharmed, thanks to a prodigious feat of healing magic performed at the end of Flight from Ironheart.
Available Equipment
None
Known Abilities
Dancing, singing, and other skills useful for seducing men. She's a decent pickpocket, but not usually skilled. Her elven heritage lends her both speed and strength beyond what is suggested by her slight build. In combat she's deadly with a knife and dangerous even unarmed. She is also a sorceress, but prior to her imprisonment was not aware of the fact, having only ever used her power to unconsciously enhance her more natural skills and qualities - making herself appear irresistible no matter what kind of woman her target preferred. Since escaping Ironheart, she has swiftly gained control of her power, quickly becoming one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world, if only in raw magical ability. She does not, however, have a great deal of finesse in the use of her power, and tends to fall back on a few spells copied or adapted from enemy mages. Specifically, she can exchange and/or modify memories with another person, veil herself with complex illusions, summon cloth or flame to move at her will, and heal herself and others, albeit painfully. Note to enemy mages - she may be untrained, but she learns fast. Don't cast a spell on her unless you're willing to risk her figuring out how to use it on you.
Handicaps
Prideful, stubborn, and has a tendency to predictability. She figures, if it worked once it should work every time. She also has a tendency to exhaust herself by overuse of her magical powers, and has frequently fainted after performing new feats of complex magics.
Backstory
Public Knowledge:
Anyone who is aware of current events over the last two years probably knows some or all of this.
Just over a year ago it happened for the first time. A minor nobleman's younger son went out on the town for a night of drinking and carousing. He met a dancer at the edge of the pleasure district, a flaming red-headed beauty named Pyrene who agreed to escort him to a room he had rented for just such a purpose. He woke the next day with memories of a night of pleasure beyond what he had ever known - and not so much as a stitch of clothing in the room. As his companion was of course the most likely suspect, a search was made, but no one had so much as seen the woman before the previous night. The case might have been dismissed as a cruriousity, a one-time event, but before long reports of similar incidents were coming from neighboring cities.
Reports varied widely as to the appearance of the woman. Some said her hair was strawberry blonde, others insisted it was black, with a curious red shine in certain lights. The accounts differed with regards to the mysterious Pyrene's age as well, with some insisting she was little more than a child, while others claimed she was a distinguished woman in her early thirties. In every case, however, some wealthy young man took a woman calling herself Pyrene into his bed, only to wake with nothing but his memories of a night of incredible pleasure. People began calling her Pyrene the Temptress because she seemed able to seduce anyone she chose, even if the man were married or engaged, and happily in love with his significant other. For 9 months Pyrene was allowed to roam like this, virtually unhindered. Her "victims" included sons from nearly every noble family in the western half of the kingdom, but little real effort was made to capture the Temptress. Indeed, some young nobles actually sought Pyrene out when rumor placed her in their home city, apparently deciding that a night of incomparable pleasure was worth the awkwardness of losing all the clothes and equipment they had with them.
They sought her out, that is, until the day one of them, having found Pyrene, turned up dead the next morning, his throat cut and all his possessions gone. The gentleman in question was the local Earl's oldest son, an arrogant bully rumored to have sadistic tendencies. Unpopular though he was, his death prompted the nobles to decide that they could no longer afford to ignore the Temptress. Accordingly, a trap was set and Pyrene was captured when her target led her into a room full of guards. Even so, she would have escaped (not-quite-promising each man there a night of pleasure without subsequent robbery) if not for the fact that a few of the guards did not, in fact, fancy women at all and so were able to resist her charms and subdue her. When the Earl's court mage identified her as a sorceress, the nobles who's sons she had bedded promptly decided that she was too dangerous to deal with themselves and sent her off to Ironheart, where she could be properly contained and eventually executed.
Private Knowledge
Few people know this, and Pyrene has taken pains to make sure it stays that way.
Pyrene was given the name Jaqueline by her mother, a popular prostitute who managed to secure a permanent position in a high-class bordello when her daughter turned five. Growing up in the bordello, Jaqueline was encouraged to keep her mouth shut and her eyes and ears open, and in this way learned a great deal about pleasures of the body and about human nature long before she was old enough to fully comprehend them. The woman who taught new members of the bordello how deal with a non-paying customer also taught the child both defensive and offensive fighting from a young age. No one, least of all the girl herself, realized how important the knowledge would be later in her life.
The year Jaqueline turned ten, her mother gave birth to another girl, Ariella. Jaqueline was devoted to her half-sister, and it seemed that the girls would have a happy, if unorthodox, childhood. However, just three years later a fire swept through the city, destroying the bordello along with half the town. Lacking the funds to rebuild on a similar scale, the owner was forced send away some of the ladies who worked there, Jaqueline's mother among them. For the next two years the three scraped out a living, but times were hard, and Jaqueline's mother took on more and more clients in her attempts to feed the children.
Then came the inevitable day when a client noticed Jaqueline, the "young and pretty daughter of a tired old whore" as he put it. When Jaqueline's mother prevented him from touching her, commanding Jaqueline to take Ariella and get out, he turned on her in a rage. This particular customer was always rough, but now he went mad, literally beating her to death with his bare hands. Jaqueline could only hide with her sister, watching in horror and trying to block both the sight and the sound from Ariella.
Then and there Jaqueline made a decision. Her little sister would never again be exposed to the dangers and sick realities of their current life. With the help of a priest of Athelion, she found a new home for her sister with a barren couple, then took up her mother's profession, adding experience to the theoretical knowledge she had gained from watching her mother and the women of the bordello. Often she changed her name, each time hoping to distance herself and her life just a little more from Ariella. Whenever she could, she sent a little extra money to her sister's foster parents, but even then she ensured that they never knew it came from her.
Then plague struck the city, and Ariella fell deathly ill. Her foster parents, while kind and loving, simply could not afford the necessary medicine on their own. Desperate, Jacqueline robbed a wealthy customer, selling his rich garments for enough coin to cure Ariella as well as paying Jacqueline's living expenses. From then on, Jacqueline continued seducing and robbing wealthy men, sending every spare copper to support her half sister. After enjoying nine months of notoriety as Pyrene the Temptress, Jacqueline picked the wrong man. Her target, the eldest son of a local Earl, tried to beat her savagely. When Pyrene attempted to leave, he pulled a knife, and in the ensuing struggle his throat was cut. Not knowing what else to do, Jacqueline took her usual payment and ran. Less than a month later, she was captured, denounced as a sorceress, and sentenced to imprisonment in Ironheart.
In-game Synopsis
Pyrene spent three months in the Prism, an experimental crystal prison within Ironheart that held the body in stasis while the mind was tormented with nightmares targeted to a prisoner's worst fears: in Pyrene's case, visions of her sister in pain, in danger, or dying. When she was released from the crystal for a three month review, she convinced her jailer, known as the Judge, to release her into Ironheart proper. There she met Edward and Alphonse Volesin,