Thea the Tomb Angel

Thea is a Lightbringer who returned to Teleria from the Halls of Eternity to fight against Siroth's forces before the Second Great War. Her tale is not a happy one, she is a broken shadow of her former, glorious self. In her time of greatness, Thea was a warrior with golden angelic wings, glittering hair, and platinum armor who sought out evil wherever it could be found. Thea fought endlessly against Demonspawn, Undead, and any who threatened Teleria with war and death, becoming a beacon of hope for the Sacred Order in every battle. Soldiers claimed to see an angel watching over them from high above when she soared over the field, and she became known as Thea the Dauntless. She was honorable beyond repute and her integrity was unimpeachable. But even her example could not prevent the Sacred Order from falling into corruption and unleashing cruelty. The Red Crusade, during which the Order set about purging all Anhelt of Skinwalkers, and in the process slaughtered countless Orcs, Lizardmen, and Ogryn, was a turning point. Thea had joined the Arbiter's cause to defeat Siroth, not to hunt down and butcher the innocent. She left the Order and wandered Teleria alone, a dangerous thing in an increasingly broken world. Without duty or purpose, Thea grew weaker as the years went by. Her heartbreak at the state of the world was a poison in her veins, and it sapped her strength. Her glittering hair grew dull, she found her plate too heavy to bear, and her wings withered. When the Knights Revenant came for her, she was too frail to stop them. They surrounded her, catching her completely unawares in a dark forest Thea could not name, in the shadow of a mountain she did not recognize. With a single maul-strike, a Knight knocked her unconscious. They strapped Thea to a wooden table in a dark, windowless cell. Blood and filth coated the walls and floor. Only when she awoke did they pluck the feathers from her wings, reducing them to nothing more than bone and sinew. Every day, sorcerers came to her, slicing some part of her flesh for whatever insane experiments they were conducting, or even for food. Some stood over her, held her head, and muttered dark incantations. Thea’s screams and cries echoed from her cell sometimes for hours at a time. For years, Thea suffered at the hands of the Knights Revenant, who grew complacent, and greedy. They no longer wanted her as a test subject. They wanted to use her as a weapon, and developed a ritual that would enslave her soul to them. Careful that they did not kill her outright – and that her bindings were still secure – the Knights Revenant sawed off the remains of her wings, the first element of the ritual providing vital components for the last. The Knights then stood in a circle around Thea and cast their spell, and she was consumed by green flames. Her screams could be heard even over the fire’s roaring. Only after an hour did the Knights stop. The flames petered out. Smoke rose from Thea’s body. She was unconscious but still breathing. The Knights thought they had succeeded. They made small requests and asked questions of her, which she obediently fulfilled and truthfully answered. But Thea was merely playing the game. Her tormentors removed her restraints, and learned how wrong they were. Thea’s love for Lumaya, her loyalty to the Arbiter, her sense of duty and purpose – all were far too strong for the spell to take true effect. She rose from the table, and butchered her torturers in seconds, tearing them limb from limb with her bare hands. Surrounded by tools, and weapons, she magically welded them into new, malign-looking armor, and a new set of wings bound to her by magic alone, and stepped over the corpses and out into the rest of the Knights’ sanctuary, determined to kill all she found. When Thea left her prison with hundreds of dead cultists in her wake, the Arbiter was waiting for her, and tried to embrace her. Thea rejected the gesture, and spat on the floor. The Arbiter had abandoned her, she said, and could not expect loyalty or gratitude from her. She made it clear that the forces of evil would come to fear her as they once did, but never again would she fight beside armies claiming to be forces of ‘Light’ or ‘goodness’. She would stalk the tombs, catacombs, and temples of Darkness – and purge the horrors within – alone.