Shalem

[Code Name] Shalem [Gender] Male [Combat Experience] Seven Years [Place of Birth] Victoria [Date of Birth] Dec 9 [Race] Phidia [Height] 179cm [Infection Status] Confirmed Infected by medical examination.

[Physical Strength] Standard [Mobility] Standard [Physical Resilience] Standard [Tactical Acumen] Standard [Combat Skill] Excellent [Originium Arts Assimilation] Standard

Operator Shalem, Rhodes Island Landship employee, principally responsible for field/logistics preparatory work, several items of background still as of yet unverified. Presently dispatched on relevant missions as a Defender Operator, possessing comparatively strong combat ability.

Imaging tests show the indistinct outlines of internal organs, obscured by abnormal shadows. Originium granules detected in the circulatory system. The subject is confirmed to be infected with Oripathy. [Cell-Originium Assimilation] 7% Operator Shalem is infected, but displays no visible surface crystallization yet. [Blood Originium-Crystal Density] 0.21u/L The operator is fully cooperative with plans proposed by Rhodes Island's Medical Department. Under active treatment, we have presently not found any likelihood of Oripathy metastasis.

Was someone like him ever there in your circles? When you return to your senses some day, only then will you realize he's appeared in your life. You've never held much conversation. You can't even remember what it was like the first time you met him. Yet in some domain, he's your most reliable adviser; you ask him a question, and he'll give you an answer. But when you design to pull him into your social rings, he'll slip quietly out from your hands, hidden in the shadows on interaction's periphery. Not so long ago, Shalem was such a 'friend,' conscientious in his work, humble and gentle in his treatment of others, a proclivity for using his Arts mastery to wipe others' doubts, but at the same time, he tactfully declines all kindnesses, maintaining a distance from every person. Considering Rhodes Island's operators come from all corners, races, temperaments, histories and myriad diversities of the land, there are indeed plenty who are weak with communication yet possess a kind heart, and thus HR's operators haven't had serious concern, vis-a-vis the state of Shalem's life. Actually, Shalem himself hopes he'll lead this sort of life to his biological end, unable to stand recalling his past, his intermittent dreams reminding him his nightmares are still in this world. Thus, he painstakingly avoids any relation with others, hoping that he won't embroil others in it when misfortune descends. He's been waiting forever, waiting for his chapter's end, but he doesn't anticipate that in ten or so months, when Rhodes Island life has long since become routine, that a shadow of the past will sorrowfully arrive.

After a field mission ended, Shalem noticed a phantasm behind him. He was the most brilliant of those young stars in the troupe, its leader's favorite, a crimson blood diamond, and he stared at him, naturally not seeking to reminisce. To evade that phantasm, Shalem left the squad, fled alone into the barrens, but the black mirage kept behind him close as his shadow. Shalem hid in the city, disguised, changed clothes, and took a circuitous route from a branch office back to Rhodes Island. He thought he'd fooled it, but on returning to his dormitory, he found it had followed aboard, and begun to roam this steel behemoth. An acquainted operator informed him someone called Phantom had joined as an Operator in the past few days. Who was Phantom? Shalem knew in his heart as clear as night. Ever since, he began making every effort to shrink his range of activity; if there was no need, he wouldn't set half a pace beyond his dormitory. The ghost of the troupe was still wandering aboard Rhodes Island, and should they meet, he would have no way out. Just like this, Shalem disappeared from Rhodes Island for an age... When he received a mission on his terminal to seek the missing Operator Phantom, Shalem believed someone to be pranking him, but after verifying high and low, he realized Phantom truly had departed Rhodes Island, and no one was more familiar with the mission objective's search area than Shalem. It was his and Phantom's home, and the beginning of their nightmares. The past had already found Shalem, and he could not choose to stay uninvolved again. He accepted the mission to search for Phantom.

In Shalem's memories, aside from the great flood that submerged the village, clinging miserably to the rooftops to survive, all recollection of his home has long gone. There is only the troupe, and only the troupe remains. After the flood receded, some sumptuously graceful guests entered the village. Yes, they handed people money to seek local aid; yes, they carefully selected, adopted many children who were without claim, now their parents had vanished or been lost. Numbering one of them was the young Shalem. When Shalem and the great huddle of children first saw the troupe's tent, and were taken to their quarters in familiar manner by the butler, given bread from the old man's hands, listened to his cordial questions, their hearts were filled with a hope for the future. 'You are children of the arts. Now, you may rest well.' So the old butler promised, and so Shalem believed. Soon after, his life became a play. Modest and gentle was the label the troupe gave to Shalem, and ever since then, it has become his 'true personality.' We shan't dwell on the daily physical training and rehearsal of lines. Understudies as excellent as Phantom would be led upon stage, given verbal motivation and material reward in front of them all. And of course, those children not fit for the troupe's demands would be correspondingly denounced. Everyone wanted to be the lead on stage with the support of all, and not the failures rebuked before them. And so, on all of their shoulders sat an incorporeal burden. Not every child could bear this burden, and though no worries of nourishment nor sleep were had, some still had not the physical power to last upon the stage. Or, perhaps, they were encaged in a role, unable to recover themselves. The children who entered the troupe together one by one disappeared, and those left were completely changed in temperament, not a speck of the innocence of their years left visible. As they grew in years, Shalem had convinced himself to accept one fact: We were only brought into this troupe to offer our lives to the arts. If we are unable to perform... Then we have no right to live within the troupe. Whether voluntary or not, so long as you joined the troupe, the script you were given would be written long in advance. To run until your life's end. ...... In his dreams, Shalem watches the traveling troupe's performances with his parents, and their performance is of a one-of-a-kind vast flood, submerging everything. Only a few survivors remain, pulling through atop the mountains. Survival drives all to the brink, and they who ought to have worked together past these difficulties began to slaughter each other. In the end, no one escapes. Only a few uneaten slices of meat remain, scooped away by fowlbeasts, flapping their wings across the endless waters.

Does the boy of the abyss sense beauty? He does; he still does. He is a child of the arts, and beautiful yearnings infiltrate his soul deep. He should have let the greed he held well his spirit full, cast all to the wind to chase the objects of beauty. If he could not have them, then he should have cast all to the wind to destroy them! In that interval resplendence dies out, see all things of rare marvel in the world fade to naught. In that instant only—in sorrow, pain, torment!—witness their fleeting destruction. He should have delivered that dagger to their heart, felt the spasm of their limbs, watched the light in their eyes little by little melt away. But the boy of the abyss did not do so. The weapon meant to murder instead cut the rope, and was handed to another to become a tool protective of life. And so did a meticulous production end. A play rendered a complete shambles by this boy of the abyss. A stage offered to him to prove his talent, so wasted and defiled by a conscience. Sinner, sinner! This coward, this lamentable coward. A hunter letting go its prey, presuming to still return to the castle, to report to its king. And yet he! He follows the prey's steps, disappears with it into the barrens' ends?! Let him be far from civilization, far from art, to go to that wild brink. He is fit only to be exiled.

When a person begins learning to perform, or takes up the profession of an actor, they bear for the rest of their life a curse: Are you doing what you would, or carrying out an endless performance? You're very good at surmising the personalities of roles, able to vary your expression and body language as you like. But do you still remember your own personality? People can change. Perhaps you've already matured, and maturity has brought the personality you show far, far away from your juvenile years. In which case, which personality is true, and which is the false? Do you enact your true personality? Or is your false personality itself the true you? Oh, I imagine you likely can't make heads or tails anymore. Let me show you a way forth. Whether you're the bottomless boy of the abyss taking the stage, or the nobody Shalem aboard Rhodes Island. Listen to this suggestion from your old butler. Everything is a sham. You are not your own self. You were born a performance. Don't be led astray by your self. You are a role, and the role is all that you are. The role's choices are your choices. Now take the stage, performer. The time to offer yourself to art has come.

Never did Shalem imagine that one day, the limelight would be his. Here he must stand firm as the 'audience' throngs, and use the equipment he carries, coordinating with others to ford the crisis. If only the Troupe were as acquiescent a foe—oh, would that it could be.