Marco - The Assassin

aluminiumclock · November 5th, 2009, 2:10 am

Name: Marco

Age: 25

Gender: male

Skills: Bane of magic: Galbatorix chose to train Marco as assassin because of this ability Marco because of this ‘blessing’ any spells that have him as a target don’t work, if you magically lit Marco on fire the flames would go out immediately making dragon fire useless against him. However this doesn’t mean that spell casters are helpless against him. He is still vulnerable if the spell isn’t directed at him like if it was designed to drop rocks on his head. This immunity to magic is also a curse, because of it he can’t use magic himself nor can any beneficial spells be cast on him. A sufficiently powerful spell like ones cast by a Galbatorix can override this ability at great cost to the caster, even someone with access to several eldunari would be exhausted after casting such a spell. Unfortunately for Marco if a spell is blocked by this ability the caster will only lose a tiny amount of energy not the amount they would normally use to cast the spell.

Invisible mind and Mindbreaking: Marco’s mind isn’t actually invisible it’s just almost impossible to detect this is because of how he is trained to defend his mind. Instead of focussing on a wall or a scale as is common he has been trained to focus on nothing, so that is all someone who is looking at his mind will see. Most spell casters will just assume that there is no mind where they are looking because it looks to be the same as empty space would. It is possible to detect Marco’s mind however only a powerful magician concentrating solely on where Marco’s mind should be would be able discover him Marco usually has to be in their line of sight if they can’t see him how would they know where his mind should be. Marco can mindbreak however he rarely does because this makes it easy to see his mind and he prefers to remain anonymous.

Speed, Strength, Senses and Healing: In order for him to be an effective versus all of the empire’s foe’s Galbatorix gave the strength and speed of an elf to Marco he also magically modified Marco so his senses where as acute as an elf’s. On top of all that Galbatorix changed things such as Marco’s heart and lungs to make the more efficient this unexpectedly gave Marco’s body healing powers which means that wounds which would normally take weeks to heal only take a day for Marco’s body to fix. However during this healing period Marco cannot engage in any physically stressful activities like fighting or running long distances. Very few poisons have any effect on Marco and none of the poisons that he uses do.

Breath and climbing: Due to his increased lung size Marco can hold his breath underwater for minutes at a time breathing at high altitudes is not a problem either. Because of his training and the years he has spent climbing city buildings and the countryside Marco is an unrivalled climber which means if Galbatorix wants someone in the Beors dead he usually sends Marco on the mission.

Scabs and Pain Immunity: Marco’s blood contains massively high levels of platelets as a result of the changes in his body this means that if Marco starts to bleed the cut will likely scab over in seconds. Because of years of training and large amounts of dead nerve cells Marco is easily able to deal with horrendous injuries such as having an entire arm ripped off or burning alive with little more than minor discomfort. It’s not that he can’t feel the pain it’s just he doesn’t care about the pain. However he does try to save himself from injuries as he finds waiting for his wounds to heal annoying to the extreme.

Camouflage and stealth: As part of his training Marco often had to infiltrate buildings and facilities belonging to the empire if he was caught he would have been punished however he was never detected. Years of this type of activities mean the Marco can make himself hard to notice anywhere and if he has time to prepare a disguise almost invisible. Marco has had spells cast on him by Galbatorix that make sure that he doesn’t emit any smells. Marco final camouflage trick is his uncanny ability to make himself seem like a normal human being in most human cities through a mixture of intimate knowledge of customs and excellent voice training.

Crossbows swords and other weapons: Training with weapons masters has made Marco an adept with almost all weapons however he is only truly master with his crossbow and daggers. As a swordsman he can hold his own against all but masters of the blade. Even unarmed Marco is a dangerous opponent having also been trained extensively in hand to hand combat and the experience that he has had fighting on the streets.
Race: Human

Hair: Black but cut really short

Eyes: black in centre the rest of the eye is white Marco has no iris

Home Village: Uru’baen

Parents: All Marco remembers about his parents is that they were killed when the empire took him for training.

Siblings: none known to be alive

Character Personality: Marco doesn’t talk to anyone and keeps his thoughts to himself. It’s hard to say whether or not he would be a loyal friend seeing that he has never had a friend. He finds company tiring and detests trying to make conversation with other people preferring instead to think over his plans in his mind. Marco has been taught to detest riders and dragons (including wild dragons) so it’s not likely that he will trust anyone from either species. Marco knows when he is outmatched and will try avoid any encounters he is unlikely to win. Because of this Marco is not afraid to call for back-up, working for the empire does have its advantages as there will almost always be soldiers available to help with his missions. Though he knows any foes that he is trying to avoid will likely be able to deal with soldiers easily. Marco hates being the centre of conversation if only because it is likely to reveal what he is. Marco isn’t arrogant and will simply state what he can do if asked by someone he trusts. Marco’s training had made him very suspicious it doesn’t help that he has many secrets to hide himself. Now that he is a fully trained and successful assassin he has been assigned an assassin in training by the empire partly to assist him and partly so that he can show the younger assassin the finer skills of his art however Marco wishes nothing more than to plunge a knife into his apprentice Tattersail’s heart. Despite his lot in life Marco is optimistic and succeeding in his gruesome job fills him with joy. It’s not that he enjoys killing but Marco loves to achieve things and anything that slows him down will annoy him which has led many people to mistakenly conclude that he is impatient.

Character History: Marco’s first memory is from when he was three years old.

He was sitting in a pile of rags by the fire in his family small house he looking at a bird out the window when the front door to the house burst open and a group of soldiers charged in followed closely a young woman wearing black robes she jabbed towards him with her finger shouting “that’s the one I want kill the rest”. As the soldiers rushed forward cutting down his parents and older sister Clary the women walked over to Marco and whispered “slytha” in his ear. Marco started howl, tear were pouring down his face. The women looking down grew angry and drew a blade ready to cut down and end Marco’s life. Marco remembers her pausing, putting the dagger away grabbing Marco and walking out the door with soldiers in a protective formation around her.

Marco was brought to the palace in Uru’baen and trained along with five other students for the first year he and the other students had their skin constantly burned off and where tortured by their ‘teachers’ the seventh time of burning of all of his skin of was the last time they did so to Marco because when the skin re-grew it had only grown an extremely small number of nerve cells and so Marco would have to endure far greater punishment to feel anywhere near the same level of pain. This was also the period where they discovered Marco’s ability to scab over incredibly fast even between the slashes of a whipping Marco’s back would stop bleeding.

The next seven years were spent increasing the strength, speed of Marco and the other assassins in training. The pain drills continued but they didn’t bother Marco at all anymore. During their free time between physical training periods and the pain drills the assassin had to learn about the culture, history, and customs of all the human cities in Alagaesia as well as extensive studies of human anatomy, geography, the ancient language and magic. When he turned twelve Marco had to learn to block and speak with his mind on top of all his other studies.

A year later Galbatorix paid them a visit he broke into the minds of the assassins and learned their true names he used these to force the assassins to swear oaths to him however he made the mistake of making the assassins use their true names in the oaths meaning that should their true name ever change they would be free however none of the assassins knew this. Galbatorix’s treatment of them drove 4 of the potential assassins insane and Galbatorix killed them out of disgust.

Immediately after his departure Marco and Tattersail the two remaining assassins began weapons training along with other more advanced skills like the use and creation of poison and surviving in hostile environments where taught. The potential assassins were given seals by Galbatorix (indirectly of course) and allowed to roam the city practicing their non-lethal skills but there were only allowed out once a week. The seals also told any of Galbatorix’s soldiers to help the assassins should they ever need it. When Marco was twenty Galbatorix came to visit him and Tattersail again he magically altered both their bodies, however the process of change that the magic began was killing Tattersail so Galbatorix had to stop his magic earlier than he would have liked. He did finish the spell completely with Marco. After the changes Marco’s ‘teachers’ told Galbatorix that Marco was ready for his first mission. Marco can still visualize it clearly...

Marco was wearing his black robes and had the hood up. He’d been waiting lying down atop the stables across the street from the estate since just after noon. The estate would have posed a challenge if Marco wasn’t such a great climber but as it was the might as well have put ladders against the twenty foot walls, it wouldn’t have been any harder for Marco to climb. If he was allowed Marco would have snuck in and covered the duke’s bed sheets in sethir oil during the day when security was lax however he had been strictly forbidden from using sethir oil on this mission perhaps it was to make sure that the mission was enough to test his skills. Marco had seen the duke’s carriage enter earlier along with his personal guard of forty veteran warriors add this to the hundred common soldier guarding the grounds and it would still be easy Marco thought to himself. Marco made out the figures of several watchmen on the wall they appeared to be untroubled by anything this was to Marco’s Advantage. Marco took out his one of his incendiary glass balls and smiled to himself as dropped off the back of the stable. Slipping into a ditch he sprinted fifty yards along the ditch so he was near the south-east tower in the wall he quietly peered over the top of the ditch to make sure that he was where he wanted to be. Dropping back into the ditch he threw the glass ball into the air it landed with a smash on the top of the stable house within seconds the entire complex was ablaze attracting the attention of all the watchmen. Wasting no time Marco sprinted toward the wall and began climbing his experienced hands finding plenty of crevices to use in the rock. Reaching the top of the tower Marco observed a lone guard who escaped his watch of the estate from the stable roof. Marco removed one of his throwing knives and tossed it through the neck of the guard before he was noticed. Marco leapt across the parapet to catch the guard’s body before it fell to the floor with a clang. Lowering the body on top of the trapdoor Marco retrieved his knife, wiped it clean of blood and started to climb down the far side of the wall ‘Now comes the hard part’ Marco predicted running silently across the lawn in the pitch black towards the house. Crouching just out of the torchlight Marco saw eight men guarding the main entranceway it was too risky to try to take them out and not set-off the alarm. Fortunately he had found out there was a servant entrance on the east side of the house from a girl who worked for the duke. Her body was now lying face down on the stable roof it would soon burn. There were two more guards on this door however instead of swords these two carried pikes. Marco wondered why as the weapons would be useless in a close quarters fight. Taking out another of his glass balls this one filled with poison gas he tossed it at the wall behind the guards. With his enhanced hearing the noise was easy for Marco to make out however any normal human would have to strain his ears to have a hope of hearing it. As Marco moved closer waiting for the gas to take effect he could hear the guards talking to each other he noticed that after all the elder guard was carrying a dagger as well as the pike. Marco stopped as the older guard said “stupid kids probably started the fire I heard that last week some of them managed to steal some of his lordships horsesss” The younger guard started in response “Aaarrrrrrreeee yyyyoooouuuuu aallllrrrriiii” when both guards suddenly collapsed to the floor dead. Marco dragged the two bodies out of the torchlight and casually walked back up to the door taking out a lock pick and beginning to fiddle with the lock. He was in no hurry. He reviewed his plan in his head if all went well there was only one more guard to kill along his route. As the lock clicked Marco put away the lock pick and placed a bolt in his crossbow slowly pushing open the door Marco glimpsed the contents of the room he was in the kitchen and the servants’ stairway was at the back right hand corner. Marco closed the door to the outside and made his way up the servants stairway on the left at the top Marco knew there would be another guard the thought didn’t worry him as he padded up the stairs. Sure enough as he rounded the corner there was a soldier in red livery Marco grabbed the soldier’s neck and squeezed breaking the his neck before he had realized Marco was even there. Placing the limp body on the chair next to where the guard had been standing Marco continued down the corridor and turned the corner. He knew that the duke’s bedroom was at the far end however there was a man in the way who walking towards Marco. Marco assumed the man was a magician because of the fire floating above his left hand. Despite the fact that Marco had frozen as soon as he turned the corner the man had noticed Marco. The man pointed as Marco and grumbled angrily “you don’t have permission to be here, deyja” Marco smiled and shot the man through the head with a bolt from his crossbow. Briskly walking over the deceased Magician’s body Marco opened the door at the end of the hallway. Elation jolted around inside Marco as he saw his targets body. Unsheathing his sword he calmly walked over to the side of the bed despite this appearance of complete control it was all Marco could do to contain himself. Raising the blade with both hands Marco brought the blade straight down point first going through the duke’s heart and the bed. Blood squirted up the length of the blade as he withdrew it. Some of the windows in the dukes bedroom faced north Marco unlatched one and clambered outside. There were no guards at the back of the house. Marco relieved now his job was done he didn’t want to kill anyone else which he knew some would consider a flaw in an assassin. Sprinting north Marco speedily reached the wall and ascended it rapidly. There were only two watchers on this wall the others all having gone to help with the fire. Marco dropped to the ground on the other side of the wall and kicking up a small amount of dust as he sped north into the night to tell Galbatorix that the Surdian duke was dead.

On his return Galbatorix gave Marco other missions to complete they waited for Tattersail to finish her training. Half a year progressed and Marco turned twenty-one and still the teacher’s deemed that Tattersail was not yet good enough to go on a mission by herself. In his wrath Galbatorix slew ‘the teachers’ and assigned Tattersail to be an apprentice to Marco and learn the ways of the assassin from him. Galbatorix had equipment stores set-up for them in all of the empire’s major cities. Since that day Marco and Tattersail have roamed the empire as Galbatorix’s own Black Hand.

Weapons: Typically Marco will carry around only one straight black sword of about medium length small enough that he can easily hide it under his cloak. As they are one of his preferred weapons Marco will usually have eight daggers which double as throwing knives as such they are incredibly well balanced, the hilt and blade are the same length which is one of Marco’s hands. The blade is curved and the point at the end of the blade has been sharpened to the extreme. Sometimes he coats the daggers in sethir oil if his target is exceedingly dangerous. Often Marco will have additional daggers hidden in his sleeves which he can use to stab someone without having to reach into his robe to draw a dagger out.

Marco favourite weapon is his incredibly powerful crossbow as the empire have combined the Urgal horn bow technology with their own crossbow designs which gives the crossbow a range of two-hundred and fifty feet. This is impressive considering the size of the crossbow which is only a foot long and half a foot wide. He typically carries around carries about fifty bolts with him on a mission ten of these are tipped with dragon scales so can puncture dragon armour at seventy feet and inflict severe bruising at further distances. Another twenty bolts are tipped with glass containers that will smash on impact, ten of these carry an invisible, odourless poisonous gas the other ten contain a mixture of elements which will start a fire wherever they hit. When using the more advanced type of ammunitions the crossbow only has a range of hundred and fifty feet. Lastly in the advanced weapons department Marco carries six glass balls, three will create large fires when broken the remaining three will create a small green smokescreen. All of his glass weapons have been enchanted only to break when the user wants/wills them to and to make very little noise when they do break.

Due to the problem of needing to wind up a crossbow every time you fire it Marco also carries a bow but keeps his arrows in cylinder like bags as he can store more and keep his supply hidden. In order to help him with climbing Marco also wears special gloves and boots combined with his natural climbing ability they enable his to climb almost upside down on any surface even if the surface is soaking wet. Lastly he has a bag of common thieves equipment as he usually wants to get into the same sort of places that a thief would.
Likes: Secrecy, knowledge, being alone, climbing and having something to strive for.

Dislikes: Company, Galbatorix, his role as an assassin, dragons and elves.

Animal Companions: none

Character's Physical Description: Marco is constantly changing the aspects his appearance that he can so that he isn’t recognized on any future missions. However Marco is between five and six feet tall and covered in muscles. His back is a labyrinth of scars from his pain training. Marco is double-jointed in nearly all of his joints making him incredibly flexible. Despite his muscles Marco is thin and his skin is slightly tanned. No-one would think he was someone special just by looking at him in a crowd. When he thinks stealth isn’t so important he will wear an entirely black robe and pull up the hood to cover his face. The robe and his other clothing will have room for all the weapons and equipment he lugs around.

Dreams for the Future: Escaping from Galbatorix’s control and discovering where he belongs.
Reasons for dreams: Hates not having control over his own life and wants to be able to fall asleep without fear of his enemies or what he will be forced to do next.

Alignment/side: self, he doesn’t like the empire but they made him what he is, the Varden has never done anything for him so he’s not particular fond of them. However Galbatorix knows his true name so his forced to work for the empire as an assassin and spy.

Marco - The Assassin

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