Ava

"A large, muscular human woman with hair and eyes the same deep blue-black, Ava has a large, hooked nose and a prominent chin. She wears blue and grey shabby mage robes folded down to her waist and tied up to her knees with thick brown work boots. When the party first met her, she had jaw-length solid black hair; since exiting the Bastion, she's gone partially grey, and keeps it tied back in an undercut ponytail. These days a livid red burn scar stretches across her upper back."Ava is a talented mage of unclear origin. She was friends with Lord Provost Stonebold in Arnor before it exploded, along with her brother, Evan. Currently her exact connection to the Scholars is unclear, but the existence of the connection is proven. At some point she possessed at least a part of a deck of many things.

6/4/21: Ava has been confirmed as one of the founders of the Scholars, along with her brother. She was nicknamed 'the General' when Evan took on the title of Dean. The pair founded the organization shortly after their childhood home, the Arcane University, detonated, which they survived through a use of wish. In total, Ava has drawn from the deck of many things twice, receiving the Moon and Key.

It is unknown how many wishes the Moon card granted her, but she has used at least two—one to survive Arnor along with her brother and Balen Stonebold, and one to enter the Vestige. Ava and Evan are responsible for altering the Labyrinth into its current state, something she has likened to altering code. After leaving the Labyrinth, Ava reluctantly agreed to ally with Valentina Laurent in exchange for resources to keep the Scholars alive. Once it became clear the Labyrinth was causing an increase in natural disasters, however, she wanted to stop using it and, if possible, find a way to reverse their influence. Evan and Valentina both disagreed. Valentina trapped her in the Bastion for six months before the party arrived. It is unclear if Evan was involved in her initial imprisonment, but when Ava attempted to return to Scholar HQ she had to flee immediately, and it is likely he is the source of the burn scar on her back.

Ava is currently hiding out near the Vizier monolith and coordinating ex-Scholars around the other northern cards.

PC Interaction
The party first met Ava when they were imprisoned in the Bastion, where she was incarcerated as well, and had been for some time. She claimed to have been imprisoned by Valentina Laurent. She helped the party escape, most notably with her 'snap-to' staff and magical ability. While the party and her staff were deposited back in Ashpike Manor, Ava was not. Her staff attempting to cross the bay south of Hanton is what led to Roaric's fateful dive.

During the Yearspring celebrations at the end of 632, Ava sent the party a message."Hey y’all. Heard you got titles and a house. Nice place you got here. Good spot for a short rest before heading southeast."While the party was beginning their activities in the Lapis Lake and trailing Edor, Ava contacted them several times via sending and gave them a sequence of numbers: 9, 16, 2, 8, then 5, 17, 15. After they left the Scholar HQ, the party sent her a message asking for an explanation of recent events. Ava: Deck mine, now an arena. He wants to rule. I'm keeping fools out of Vizier. Laurent betrayed us, he betrayed me. Where are you?

Senya: Leaving HQ from mountain entrance. Dealing with Lapis Sea, plus Roaric needs curse broken. Explain arena further. Explain effect of entering cards?

Ava: Sea Laurent's, wants Spear, Tyrant's bones. Everything we know in HQ. Arena--walk in, fight others, winner escapes with prize, doors close. Think cards are doors. After dealing with the Lapis Lake and Roaric's corpus, the party met with Ava in Caershire, just outside of Bournemouth. After explaining the situation with Roaric, Ava offered to give her side of the story.

Ava's Story (Session 33)
''When I was a kid, all I had was my brother and a deck of many things. I don’t know where we got it--I really don’t know how we kept it--but it was ours. Only ever drew one card, hoping for money--pulled the Moon instead, with a few magic wishes. If we hadn’t met the Archmage the next morning, I would’ve used them. Instead the whole city went up in smoke five years later, and I wished for me and my brother and our best friend to live. Wish granted, though we had to dig our way out of the ashes of a hundred thousand people to do it.''

''We lost the city, and then we lost the University, and then we lost Balen, and—well, all of a sudden it seemed like drawing cards couldn’t make things worse. I got a staff, Evan got power--so we started pulling people together, trying to make somewhere we could be safe, could just be mages and not fear what that meant. Took about four years for us to start calling ourselves the Scholars, ten to really turn it into something real—we gathered plans, and people, and along the way we found something underground. Tunnels, crude and decorated, that nobody else seemed to dare explore--so we used them to move, store supplies, that kind of thing. But we still wanted a home.''

''Guess that wasn’t enough for my brother, because two years ago Evan drew Ruin and everything we’d built for a decade and a half went up in smoke. We had nothing in writing, no deeds, no promises, no letters of support—no money, not in banks or in our pockets—no hope. We were starving, we were dying, we were desperate—me and Evan went into the Labyrinth and we didn’t come out for what felt like years, turned out to just be months.''

I wished ''us into its heart. I can’t quite describe what it’s like, it’s--like looking up at the whole world and seeing its veins. Not quite real--beyond any power I’ve ever felt. It felt...alive. But--sick. Poisoned, maybe. Weak, whatever it was. We called it the Vestige, later, when we were back with ourselves, but what we did—''

''It was a set of rules--thousands upon thousands of little words making up what it was, set down by...I don’t know who. We found the ones that kept it slow, and careful, and subtle, and we just...erased them.''

''We were desperate. And when we came out, for a few months, it seemed like the answer to all our problems. We started a real headquarters, we could escape anyone chasing us, we opened up new routes and made life easier for thousands of mages. Valentina fucking Laurent arrived, fed our people, didn’t seem to ask for much in return--and we believed her. We really believed we were going to succeed.''

''And then--then things started happening. Mine collapses, tidal waves, earthquakes, magic items going haywire. Evan couldn’t see it, or maybe he wouldn’t, but I was out there, traveling, recruiting, and I saw patterns that made me sick to my stomach. And then--then he kept feeding power into it, him and Laurent, without telling anyone, without telling me, and the patterns started to spread.''

''Guess I got a little too upset, though, because Valentina asked me to her boyfriend’s lakehouse, stabbed me in the back, and sent me to fucking prison for six months. And as soon as I came back, I find out my little brother’s gone fucking crazy and wants to be the Dean of the whoel fucking continent and he’ll drag the Labyrinth through the planes to do it, along with a whole bunch of dead people. So I ran with a souvenir to show for it (gestures to scarring), took what Scholars I could with me, and now--now we’re here.''