Ʀ Application - deerington Ʀ

[ishuikon]

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Qifrey
Canon: Witch Hat Atelier
Canon Point: End of chapter 41

In-Game Tattoo Placement: His right palm - Design
Current Health/Status: Recovering from injuries dealt to him by the brim hats, but alive!
Age: Unknown but he looks to be in his late 20s early 30s
Species: Human

Content Warnings:
Child experimentation, child abuse.

History:

Here
Since this only goes up to the first few chapters I will just write out a brief timeline of things.

Trial By Fire arc;

Qifrey is not in this much until the end. Coco and Agathe are left alone to help a caravan of normal, non-magic people. In trying to save the young boy, Coustas Coco accidentally turns the overflowing river into a bed of sand, alerting the Knights Moralis that forbidden magic has been used. Easthies of the knights track down Coco and Agatha and are about to erase their memories when Qifrey steps in to help his students. Finding that Coco is not a Brimhat agent he and the other knights leave, not having to erase anyone’s memories.

At the end of the chapter, Qifrey asks to see the ink Coco used to drawn her glyph and finds out its blood from none other than Iguin, a brim hat that’s been tracking and tampering with Coco for quite some time. The magic shop owner Mr. Nolnoa is there when both he and Qifrey find out about this ink’s potency and Nolnoa wants to immediately inform the Magic Auditorium of its existence. Qifrey, finally having a lead to the Brimhats, protests and asks him not to do that but under magic law Nolnoa is obligated to, which makes Qifrey show his hand and erase Nolnoa’s memories with a blinding white light that Nolnoa’s apprentice and grandson Tartar witnesses.

Some time passes and Qifrey takes the bottle of ink infused with Iguin’s blood to try and draw out the brimhat. He is successful but in the end, Iguin destroys the evidence against him and Qifrey is left without a lead. The following day Coco comes down with a fever and Qifrey hurriedly brings her to town to a hospital, as witches are not able to use healing magic of any sort, he is confronted by Tartar but unfortunately the other isn’t able to ask his question. Qifrey spends the night at Coco’s side until a fire breaks out causing him to be pulled away from her. Tartar helps Coco instead when her fever picks back up by finding the right medicine for her. The two become closer and by the end of the evening, Coco is basically 100% better. The following day Tartar finally asks Qifrey about the light but Qifrey feigns ignorance and says he does not remember/know.

Trial 2;

This arc starts off with Agathe receiving a letter from the Assembly for her second witch trial to take place in the Serpent’s Spine of the Cliffs of Romonneau. The second test is the Knight’s Vow and this test makes the test taker protect whatever their target is. Before the test is administered it is revealed that Riche was also put into the test by Qifrey himself. During the test, Agathe, Riche, and Eunie (another student of a different teacher) encounter the Brimhat Sasaran a witch with the face of a cat. Sasaran casts a spell on Eunie which causes him to turn into a scaled wolf-like creature but not before Alaria (the proctor of the exam) is injured and taken away from them. Alaira manages to contact Qifrey before she’s taken, and he immediately recognizes as something being wrong. But before he has a chance to enact any sort of plan the Serpent’s bridge literally comes to life and attacks Qifrey, Coco, and Tetia opening a deep crater in the Earth where they land in a pit filled with former residences of Romonneau now turned into abominations known as gilt people. Qifrey, badly injured as he is, manages to fight them off for a while but due to his injuries succumbs to his wounds and is captured. Coco and Tetia join to answer the gilt people’s riddle and save Qifrey and Alaria by melting the gilt people whose bodies are made of pure gold. Afterward, Qifrey is told to rest and the four of them manage to make it back to the upper levels of the Serpent’s Bridge where Qifrey encounters Sasaran and loses control of himself upon seeing a brimhat. He chases the other and manages to figure out the other’s magic of pretending to be invisible but all along was just controlling his cloak from a distance. And begins to interrogate Sasaran until Alaira disrupts his concentration and Sasaran hits Qifrey in his injured arm, causing him to lose his grip on the other where he manages to escape. Qifrey and Alaria learn that the brimhats objective is to get Coco to use forbidden magic because according to the brimhats having and Unlearned use forbidden magic means the chains of their bonded art can finally be broken and magic users freed. Qifrey and Alaria are still busy with Sasaran but Iguin intervenes once Olruggio comes to their aid by Riche finding him. They both leave and before Qifrey can give chance Olruggio brings him back to his senses.

At the end of the arc Eunie is partially freed of his curse but to fully break it forbidden magic must be used. Eunie is sent off with Alaria, now Eunie’s protector, somewhere so that the Knights of Moralis can’t find him and accuse him of forbidden magic (due to the sigil carved into his neck by Sasaran) and Qifrey along with his students are sent to the Assembly for him to recover and for Olruggio to be interrogated on what happened.

Assembly aftermath;

While in the Assembly Qifrey is mostly recovering from his wounds but we learn a fair bit about his past and his reasons behind his obsession with the brimhats. Apparently, when he was young the brimhats captured him, experimented on him with ‘new magic’ as he puts it, removed his right eye, and buried him alive in a grave. He was rescued and nursed back to health by Beldarut, his now-former teacher, and one of the three sages (extremely gifted and powerful witches). After the 4 of Qifrey’s students impress Beldarut enough to pass their Knight’s Vow exam Beldarut sets up an unexpected meeting with Coco in private. During their meeting, he asks her to join him as one of his apprentices because Qifrey’s past is tied to the brimhats and that he might be using her as a means to end to get at them to retrieve his eye and memories. He explains Qifrey’s past and how he was found buried alive with no memories of his past and without his right eye. Coco ends up running away to the Tower of Books a place where all magical knowledge is held in attempts to find a way to help her mother and possible Eunie too. While all of this is happening Orugio is questioning Qifrey’s motives as he finds out that his other good eye is starting to fail him, but before their conversation can advance Beldarut interrupts and tells them both about Coco. Qifrey immediately goes to her aid acting as a decoy for her to escape by sacrificing himself for her. However, Coco saves both him and her escaping back through the Gate Window and back into the Assembly.

Qifrey and the rest of them return to the Atelier where finally Orugio and Qifrey continue their talk. Qifrey goes on to explain his failing eyesight but also that while he was in the tower of books he found out that brimhats had experimented on him with a new type of magic, one which the world has never seen before, and that he wants to stop them before his eyesight gives out entirely. Unfortunately, Qifrey does not trust Orugio with this knowledge and immediately erases his memories of their conversation, continuing as nothing happened. It is from here that he will be brought to Deerington.

Personality:

Qifrey upon first meeting him is a slightly eccentric but a rather kind man. He is protective, knowledgeable, and kind to his students often helping with teachings and learnings of magic as seen with his lessons towards Coco and even Agathe. Qifrey is eccentric just like his former teacher, Beldarut, in that he gets excited and almost child-like when his students have a question or when they learn something new. For him teaching them is peaceful and something he can foresee himself doing for many years to come. He’s extremely patient in his teachings, never once getting angry at Coco messing up, although the times that he does get angry it’s because Coco and his other students put themselves at risk and it’s for a good reason that he does. Qifrey is also seen as an outsider as Easthies who calls Qifrey a troublemaker just like his current lot of students. Qifrey’s break-in into the tower of books is probably why he has such a reputation but also because he was supposed to have his memories erased after his ordeal with the Brimhats when he was younger. All Qifrey’s students, aside from Tetia, have pasts that are mired in failure, disownment to an extent, and difficulties learning magic in a traditional way. Qifrey is open-minded enough and damaged enough himself to allow his students to learn in ways that are untraditional and often allow them to excel where their prior teachers have failed them. In this way Qifrey is open-minded and conscientious of his student’s needs, never once berating them or even forcing them to do things that they do not want to do.

Unfortunately, Qifrey is also a man haunted by his past and his inability to let things go. This, in and of itself, creates a fissure with the man we see outwardly and the man that resides within him. Qifrey when it comes to the Brimhats loses any sense of the man he is, meaning he will go to great lengths even leaving his students behind, to fight them tooth and nail to retrieve his eye and get information out of them. His grudge and anger towards the Brimhats make him callous and truly emotionless as is seen multiple times when he erases Nolnoa’s memory, for example, hangs Sasaran over the edge of the Serpent’s Spine, a drop that would have surely killed him, and even when it comes to Olruggio, his most trusted and best friend. He erases the man’s memory without a second thought thinking that he can’t trust even his best friend with the knowledge of the Brimhats and what they had done to him.

The juxtaposition in how he acts is alarming and goes to show you just how consumed with his past and current state he is. It strains his relationships quite readily with the others as well. Coco is the exception and almost like a guiding light for the man, as her ability to think clearly and move to her own pace often settles Qifrey’s agitated and otherwise chaotic energy. Her saving him at the Tower of Books truly did save him in more than one way. She is a witch that advances herself not for personal gain but to impress her teacher, Qifrey, and he sees that for what it is. It makes him consider his own situation but ultimately Qifrey’s choice has been made and his path towards revenge continues.

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses & Warping:

Qifrey’s magic is mostly water-based and the way it’s used is with magical ink and drawing sigils/glyphs in specific ways to activate a certain type of spell. This means that people in the Witch hat Atelier universe do not have specific powers perse. Their 'magic' comes from the ink they use and not the user themselves, in a way that suggests it's an inherited skill. Technically everyone can use magic in canon but only select people/families are allowed to due to the history of people (such as those of Romonneau who were so consumed with power that they eventually wiped themselves out) abusing magic and causing wars amongst people. Basically, this means that Qifrey is an ordinary human that has no special powers, but in terms of the game, I'll give his magic some warping conditions regardless.

Warping wise whenever Qifrey uses a spell, especially water-based, it’ll sometimes feel like he’s drowning and can’t breathe. This is to go along with his own inner fears of water and to amplify its psychological effects on him. The warping will happen every so often.

Another warping attributed to his ink/powers will be that sometimes his magic won’t work at all for a certain amount of time or just randomly will cut itself off from him, or it’ll backfire on him instead.

The ink that he uses will sometimes not work at all.

Inventory:

Raincleaver: a unique magical sword whose surface has many tiny seals that give it the ability to divert water with a slash.

Palm Dragon Teacup: A teacup with glyphs on the saucer base so that when the teacup itself meets the saucer it gives the tea the shape of a dragon.

Conjuring ink: Special ink that is used by witches. Only seals drawn with this substance will activate.

Palm Quire: A notepad that fits in one’s palm and used for seals that must be drawn covertly or quickly.

Qifrey’s Notebook: An ordinary notebook that has a shrinking glyph on its clasp so it can fit in his pocket. When the clasp is undone the book is restored to its normal size and additional seals inside the book itself can make it large enough for both him and Coco to ride on.

Ink Wand: As stated it's basically a fountain pen used by witches to drawn glyphs.

Writing Samples:
TDM top-level

[ Deerington thus far has been a fascinating and otherworldly type of place. Something that Qifrey could get behind as he wandered the streets. It’s only when he comes across a shop selling televisions that he stops in his musings and immediately lights up.

Moving illusions?! Or…wait. Is it something more than that?? He really must know how it works. For anyone wandering by he’ll come over to them, fingertips connected tip to tip as he tilts his head a little with a bright smile. ]

Do you know how this magic works? I have never seen anything like it, and I must know! Is it some sort of illusion, or puppets of a sort? It’s really quite something, isn’t it? This. This is truly magic.

[ He’ll say as he presses fingertips to the store’s window as he stares back at the screen playing some sort of sports game before him. Despite being separated from his Atelier this place is winding up to be a rather intriguing detour. But he really does need to get back home and perhaps by helping here he’ll be able to, or so he hopes. He really does have…quite a lot left to do back there. ]

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Levy

Player Age: 31

Player Contact: plurk @ pathogenic | discord @ levantholos#4601

Other Characters In Game: N/A

In-Game Tag If Accepted: Qifrey: Levy

Permissions for Character: Here

Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: Yes!

What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: Eldritch horrors mostly. But I’m down for corruption of characters, violence, characters being possessed, etc.

Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: Nope!

Additional Information: N/A