Faith

The Face of Faith

Outer - Appearance

Faith might be a bit too skinny or be of small height with her 5'4", but she stands out. Triangular face, big smile, big brown eyes, fiery mane of hair. She wears clothes mostly very feminine in style and with very strong colors. She likes jewelry, though she might wear both something luxurious- and rural-looking. Sometimes she wears clothes inspired by Polish regional styles.

Inner - Personality

It's rare to see Faith not doing anything. She's an energetic woman with a lot of drive and focus. She's a bit too serious most of the time, but with people she trust she becomes cheerful, to the point of childish playfulness. Even normally she has trouble being still - moving her leg, playing with a pen or pencil, doodling, whistling or outright singing betrays her restlessness. The only time she can be still is when she's focusing on something. Oh, she has a lot of focus. She's confident and holds a lot of pride in her Order and her personal goals and she's going to do a lot for that... Even if by ways that might not always be Wise.

Magical Tool

Silver pendant in the shape of triangle, with engraved simple version of the Square and Compasses with the Eye in the middle. The pendant is worn on a long thong.

Nimbus

Pillar of light and white fire over the Mage's head brightens the surroundings. There is an addition of sound when her Virtue and Vice manifest: high, a bit sounding like a chorus or low and threatening humming. For Uncloaking the pillar of light looks like a ray of sun shining only at her.

History

Sleeping

Agnieszka Stavinsky. One normal girl from Little Italy in Chicago. A daughter of Polish immigrants (employed at the local hospital), but born in Chicago already, she thought herself American. She was leading a normal life - school, parties, boyfriends, part time jobs, doing a bit of arts and handicraft in your spare time, visiting grandparents with her parents from time to time, snoozing at school and doodling in her notebooks, rebellion age (that's when she started to dye her ginger hair into a bit more dark red color), high school rock band, dreams of being a rock star (she was sure she would try to get into LePaul). Everything normal.

Awakening

It was a break after her second year at high school and Agnieszka was spending her time in Warsaw when she was asked about directions by this woman. She looked like Japanese, but she tried asking in Russian first, then English. Agnieszka helped her. Something clicked, and she didn't know how it turned that the redhead became her guide through the city. She told Agnieszka she was on a trip through Europe to study urban planning. Well, she told her a lot more - how she wanted to make the dead cities of former Soviet Republic into thriving hubs of life, especially Chernobyl. She talked and talked about how the greatest cities were great hubs of life through history, and somehow Agnieszka was unable to forget it, even a week later when she was returning home. She was restless and dreams were not relieving her. The image in her head was changing, but it still was the same in the essence: the great city, full of colors and light - practically only with light, since there was no shadow - and towers, with one tower reaching as far as skies allowed.

Agnieszka saw it with her own eyes when you got out of plane. She doesn't remember much of what happened later. She remembers having her senses attacked from every direction. Sounds of all wavelength and loudness, light of all possible and impossible colors and hues, everything too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet. It was intense. Excruciating, even. But she got to the highest tower and managed to touch it. There was pain like nothing she felt and it originated from the inside of her head, like her brain was on fire. Yet she didn't back away. The last thing she knew was seeing her name sound in the electric wall of the tower, and then she fainted.

Magic

Agnieszka wasn't found so fast. It took them over two months, she never learned in details why. It somehow had in common with Banishers having control of the local area around the airport. What mattered then to her was what she experienced. It felt... overworldly. Unthinkable. Divine. Somehow she managed to convince her parents and doctors it was 'just a jet-lag', but she knew it was something else. She couldn't let it rest. She lost all interest in fame, in love, in sex. She broke up with her boyfriend after the first two weeks. She went looking for all kind of religions in hope they would tell her what she experienced. Mainstream, offstream, even all kinds of myths and paganism. All of them had a bit of what she was looking for, but not everything. She decided that maybe they're all right and wrong. Maybe the Divine was wearing hundreds, thousands, millions of masks, each different for each person.

And then she decided that if she wanted to touch, to experience it again, she'd need to find the City again. Maybe even build it yourself.

When the Silver Ladder found her, she knew she's going to join them. They were the only ones who were not talking about being shy and humble, and they would be the only people that would help her in her ambition. She took "Faith" as her Shadow Name to always remind herself of Divine. She studied hard. She had her successes and she was making mistakes. She was still proud and her methods a bit too flashy - and that didn't lie well with the Guardians, who ruled the city. The Silver Ladder arranged for her a task to get her away from the city for a while. They told her it's "to get her inner Lion calmed down".

They sent her to Sacramento, to help stabilize the local Consilium and support the effort of local Silver Ladder.