Mika Roost
Mika is a perky and adventurous girl who is more than she lets on. She enjoys spending her time playing her violin in taverns and around town squares to earn some money, sometimes hitching a ride with caravans with promises of accompanying music and songs for the duration of the trip in exchange for a free ride.
Having been more or less raised in a brothel, she's shed all traces of being shy. Though she hadn't once worked as a wench in any capacity, being surrounded by men and women who simply breathed confidence did wonders for hers. Getting her flustered is a feat that precious few managed to accomplished, and she will push personal boundaries if one does try to duel her in the art of flirting.
She wasn't raised in a brothel for nothing however. When she was little, she would be the little helper running along behind the walls and through secret entrances to find some items people might have lost. Now normally this would have been bad for business, but the people running the place had garnered a reputation for its lost and found, and she wasn't their first or only scurrying rat.
Eventually, she met with a new talent that played a variety of instruments who started tutoring her on how to play, with the violin being her favorite because playing it made her feel a sort of comfort.
Her new friend started to bring her out to the city to play music, and eventually even brought her to different cities to perform, and to also apply some of the skills she'd learn while being a little rat in the brothel. She had a love for travelling ever since.
Appearance
Mika is a long-haired blonde with light blue eyes, often seen with two swords and a violin. She is 160cm short and has a slightly toned build and slender fingers. She exhibits a great degree of flexibility and agility, which she sometimes display when doing or getting to her performances, as she may choose someplace that grabs people's attention.
Skills and Abilities
Musician -- She plays a variety of instruments, mostly strings and windpipes, but her instrument of choice is the violin.
Swordsmanship -- She's been trained how to handle swords, both single- and double-handed as well as dual wielding. She's not afraid of fighting dirty either.
Poison Immunity -- Either it was because she started drinking poison unknowingly as a child, or because of one of her parents' genes, or perhaps a mixture of both, she is immune to poisons.
Acrobat -- Mika is limber and agile with the balance and flexibility of a cat.
Cyphers -- Part of her training touched upon different cyphering techniques and how to crack them.
Natural Liar -- She lacks the nervous ticks and telltale signs that are connected to lying. As such, its difficult to tell if she's actively lying or bluffing.
Slight of Hand -- She's a trained pickpocket, and she does magic tricks too.
Swordsmanship -- She's been trained how to handle swords, both single- and double-handed as well as dual wielding. She's not afraid of fighting dirty either.
Poison Immunity -- Either it was because she started drinking poison unknowingly as a child, or because of one of her parents' genes, or perhaps a mixture of both, she is immune to poisons.
Acrobat -- Mika is limber and agile with the balance and flexibility of a cat.
Cyphers -- Part of her training touched upon different cyphering techniques and how to crack them.
Natural Liar -- She lacks the nervous ticks and telltale signs that are connected to lying. As such, its difficult to tell if she's actively lying or bluffing.
Slight of Hand -- She's a trained pickpocket, and she does magic tricks too.
Personality
Outwardly, Mika is a perky youngster with a clear carefree attitude with a reserve of energy that simply couldn't wait to be released. Yet spend some time with her and she'll surprise people with her reliability.
With her happy and outgoing demeanor, she's easy to approach. With her time living in a brothel, she's hard to fluster. Personal space is a foreign concept to her as is personal property, however she is a good judge of who is an easy person to pickpocket from, not that she does it frequently, but there are times when fingers move on their own.
As one might have guessed by now, she is a lot more than she lets on. She is the observant type, though often she's seen as just another performer looking for an audience. And she isn't shy about it either.
With her happy and outgoing demeanor, she's easy to approach. With her time living in a brothel, she's hard to fluster. Personal space is a foreign concept to her as is personal property, however she is a good judge of who is an easy person to pickpocket from, not that she does it frequently, but there are times when fingers move on their own.
As one might have guessed by now, she is a lot more than she lets on. She is the observant type, though often she's seen as just another performer looking for an audience. And she isn't shy about it either.
Biography & Lore
Mika's mother was a worker at a brothel. Her father was never identified, and her mother was lost when a client formed an unhealthy bond and attempted to sweep her off her feet, which lead to a struggle which ended with an unfortunate accident concerning a blade her mother drew to protect herself.
Having no one to give her to, the other brothel workers decided to collectively adopt her. Mika was too young at the time to remember her mother, and while she never really knew her, she would leave flowers at the grave. Her adoptive family always had good things to say, despite the events that lead to working at such a place.
As she grew up, she was taught how to pick up things that people could have dropped and bring it to the lost and found box. Of course since the majority of people who had lost things could easily find it the next day, this boosted the patrons' trust in the brothel, which gave a nice reputation boost. The things that weren't claimed of course were either stored away or pawned off. She wasn't the first or only "rat" to do this kind of thing, but she had a natural talent for pickpocketing half-drunk visitors.
But the more she was exposed to the goings on in the brothel, the more curious she was of the things she saw, mainly the drinks that the adults always ordered, but she wasn't allowed to have. So she snuck into the storage rooms and found some bottles of ale, mead, and whatever other drinks the people were served, and she tasted them. She was careful though, since she knew if she was ever caught with her mouth smelling like alcohol, she'd be in big trouble.
She found the drinks disgusting.
But then she remained curious. Why do the adults like drinking the stuff? And so there started a cycle of having a little sip, getting disgusted, and trying to figure out what was so great about it.
There were times where she got sick. At first the family thought that she could have inhaled some spores in the hidden passages she used to do her lost and found activities, then they thought that she just had allergies, but they just couldn't find out why. That was until one of the bartenders found her passed out in one of the storage rooms, with a few missing bottles from the inventory tucked away in the corner.
In her quest to find out why the adults enjoyed the hard drinks, she steadily drank more and more, and even secretly watched the barkeeps as they mixed a few things in. Unfortunately for her, one of the bottles she scurried off with contained poison.
And she had been doing this for almost a year. The "grandmother" of the family, the one in charge of the brothel had known about Mika's activities at the time, but wanted to see where it lead.
After she recovered, everything went on as normal for a good while and everyone else pretended that they had no idea what she was up to.
Then when she was in her teens, her grandma suddenly asked if she wanted to try playing with swords. Mika said yes in a heartbeat. Some of her family would take her to festivals and fairs, and she had expressed interest in sword fighting whenever she saw the tournaments.
That was when things got a little rough. Underneath the brothel was a training room, with swords and a variety of other different weapons. The truth of the brothel was that it was a front for a nobleman's group of assassins. And while none of the brothel workers wanted Mika to be brought into such an occupation, things had apparently become complicated for them recently, and they wanted everyone to be able to defend themselves. Or so Mika was told.
She already had learned a few of the basic skills to be an agent; moving around stealthily, pickpocketing, and she had accidentally made herself immune to poison by drinking diluted doses of poison over the course of almost a year. Though admittedly it may also have something to do with her mother's genes as she had a natural resistance, according to the grandmother.
The training was harsh, but surprisingly, Mika was still enjoying it.
Around her late teens, a new talent joined the brothel, a bard from another city, who knew how to play a variety of instruments. Mika learned a few things from her, including how to play her now favored violin. However, she also brought Mika along to perform outside the brothel to get a bit of coin, and to also do other more devious work. Like scouting out for a person of interest.
Mika was also brought to other cities, and Mika found that she rather liked travelling. At first she was hesitant since she had never been away from family before, but she knew she could always return.
Mika had a strange quality to her. This quality was what the grandmother saw in her. Mika picked up skills as if she was picking up flowers. It was as if it all came naturally to her. Well, almost all of it. The things she was great at were the things her mother excelled at. In terms of gauging their skills against each other, Mika had an almost parallel level of skill, albeit lacking the finesse that came with experience.
Whether she herself knew this or not, not even the grandmother could tell.
Having no one to give her to, the other brothel workers decided to collectively adopt her. Mika was too young at the time to remember her mother, and while she never really knew her, she would leave flowers at the grave. Her adoptive family always had good things to say, despite the events that lead to working at such a place.
As she grew up, she was taught how to pick up things that people could have dropped and bring it to the lost and found box. Of course since the majority of people who had lost things could easily find it the next day, this boosted the patrons' trust in the brothel, which gave a nice reputation boost. The things that weren't claimed of course were either stored away or pawned off. She wasn't the first or only "rat" to do this kind of thing, but she had a natural talent for pickpocketing half-drunk visitors.
But the more she was exposed to the goings on in the brothel, the more curious she was of the things she saw, mainly the drinks that the adults always ordered, but she wasn't allowed to have. So she snuck into the storage rooms and found some bottles of ale, mead, and whatever other drinks the people were served, and she tasted them. She was careful though, since she knew if she was ever caught with her mouth smelling like alcohol, she'd be in big trouble.
She found the drinks disgusting.
But then she remained curious. Why do the adults like drinking the stuff? And so there started a cycle of having a little sip, getting disgusted, and trying to figure out what was so great about it.
There were times where she got sick. At first the family thought that she could have inhaled some spores in the hidden passages she used to do her lost and found activities, then they thought that she just had allergies, but they just couldn't find out why. That was until one of the bartenders found her passed out in one of the storage rooms, with a few missing bottles from the inventory tucked away in the corner.
In her quest to find out why the adults enjoyed the hard drinks, she steadily drank more and more, and even secretly watched the barkeeps as they mixed a few things in. Unfortunately for her, one of the bottles she scurried off with contained poison.
And she had been doing this for almost a year. The "grandmother" of the family, the one in charge of the brothel had known about Mika's activities at the time, but wanted to see where it lead.
After she recovered, everything went on as normal for a good while and everyone else pretended that they had no idea what she was up to.
Then when she was in her teens, her grandma suddenly asked if she wanted to try playing with swords. Mika said yes in a heartbeat. Some of her family would take her to festivals and fairs, and she had expressed interest in sword fighting whenever she saw the tournaments.
That was when things got a little rough. Underneath the brothel was a training room, with swords and a variety of other different weapons. The truth of the brothel was that it was a front for a nobleman's group of assassins. And while none of the brothel workers wanted Mika to be brought into such an occupation, things had apparently become complicated for them recently, and they wanted everyone to be able to defend themselves. Or so Mika was told.
She already had learned a few of the basic skills to be an agent; moving around stealthily, pickpocketing, and she had accidentally made herself immune to poison by drinking diluted doses of poison over the course of almost a year. Though admittedly it may also have something to do with her mother's genes as she had a natural resistance, according to the grandmother.
The training was harsh, but surprisingly, Mika was still enjoying it.
Around her late teens, a new talent joined the brothel, a bard from another city, who knew how to play a variety of instruments. Mika learned a few things from her, including how to play her now favored violin. However, she also brought Mika along to perform outside the brothel to get a bit of coin, and to also do other more devious work. Like scouting out for a person of interest.
Mika was also brought to other cities, and Mika found that she rather liked travelling. At first she was hesitant since she had never been away from family before, but she knew she could always return.
Mika had a strange quality to her. This quality was what the grandmother saw in her. Mika picked up skills as if she was picking up flowers. It was as if it all came naturally to her. Well, almost all of it. The things she was great at were the things her mother excelled at. In terms of gauging their skills against each other, Mika had an almost parallel level of skill, albeit lacking the finesse that came with experience.
Whether she herself knew this or not, not even the grandmother could tell.