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Shalem

Defender — Arts Protector
Normal attacks deal Arts damage while the skill is active
  • VC07
  • Melee
  • DPS
  • Defense
/ 80
[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.
HP
3090
ATK
729
DEF
550
RES
15
Cost
25
ATK Interval
1.6 sec
Block
3
Redeploy
70 sec

Talents

  • Land of Memories
    In [Phantom & Crimson Solitaire], ATK +15% and ASPD +30
  • Proclamation of Doom
    Attacks have 20% chance to reduce the target's RES by 25% for 3 seconds

Skills

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  • Rapid Onslaught
    Auto RecoveryManual Activation
    Initial SP
    15
    SP Cost
    30
    Duration
    30 sec
    Attack Interval reduces moderately, Max HP +50% and attack all blocked enemies
    base_attack_time
    -0.45
    max_hp
    0.5
  • Carnival of Self-Immolation
    Defensive RecoveryManual Activation
    SP Cost
    20
    Duration
    20 sec
    Lose 5% HP every second, Attack Range expands and attacks change to firing 6 times with 80% ATK at random enemies within Attack Range
    attack@atk_scale
    0.8
    attack@times
    6
    hp_ratio
    0.05

Modules

  • ORIGINAL
    Shalem's Badge
    Operator Shalem has demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for preservation of the front while inflicting Arts casualties on the enemy.
    The Field Operations Department has thus passed the following resolution:
    This operator shall be appointed a Defender Operator during field operations to exercise Arts Protector responsibilities.
    In witness whereof,
    This badge is hereby conferred upon the above named.
  • AST-X
    Ticket Stub Album
    StageStatsUpgrade Description
    1
    • ATK +45
    • DEF +23
    		Arts Protector Trait
    On skill activation, normal attacks deal Arts damage. When attacking and being attacked, deals extra 10% of ATK as Arts damage to target
    2
    • ATK +60
    • DEF +30
    		Proclamation of Doom
    Attacks have 35% chance to reduce the target's RES by 30% for 3 seconds
    3
    • ATK +70
    • DEF +35
    		Proclamation of Doom
    Attacks have 40% chance to reduce the target's RES by 30% for 6 seconds
    A pale light shines upon his face as the film's title floats before him. The horror film leaves the front row holding their breath, as the entire theater sinks into the silence of abject terror. He pinches the ticket stub in his hand lightly. While this film, A Desolate Night's Dream, had essentially no budget, it had an interesting-enough gimmick, and he found himself drawn to its premiere by a poster. The protagonist receives several videotapes filled with strange images recorded by him and his wife, yet he does not recall making such tapes. The tapes are mailed to him one by one, until he receives the final one, which shows him the death of his wife. As soon as he finishes watching it, she actually slips in the shower and perishes...
    The editing is rather messy, and a few illogical transitions leave part of the audience grumbling, some even leaving partway. The final tape is shown over and over, repeating the woman's death on end, greatly reducing its impact. For the one who was once his partner in drama, what unfolded on stage was always but the one and only death.
    He finds the film dull. The fake blood's color is off, and the lead actor's acting is too stiff, while the actress playing the wife is too campy, her incessant shrieks stabbing at his eardrums.
    Film and stage are different. If you're not happy with the results on camera, you can always reshoot, and the audience will be none the wiser. But if you make a mistake on the stage, the die is cast, much like life itself. If it is lost, then it is lost forever.
    The plays he knows are nothing like this. In those, both exaggeration and excessive restraint were wrong; they were imitations of life. Without death hanging over your head, you cannot express your fear of it. Without true killing intent, you will be unable to fully portray a murderer.
    Some will record a fake death again and again, but when he ascended the stage, there was only a single chance to perform a true murder. He once basked in such theater. Performance was his mask, and his truth.
    The film falls apart at the end with the reveal of the final twist. It is all the protagonist's dream, and dreams need not adhere to logic, or have videotapes show us what is real. Before the credits have even started rolling, the audience gets up to leave.
    He remains seated, watching the list of names slide past the screen.
    'Will people always remember the things they've done?'
    A line from a monologue breaks the silence of the empty theater. He lifts his head, and is greeted by the protagonist as he sits on his bed, exonerated. The man on the screen lifts his own head, letting out an eerie smile as he fiddles with the tapes.
    'They will. Those memories will follow you your entire life.'
    The film ends, and the projector's shine leaves the old curtain. He grips the ticket stub tight, unconsciously using strength to jab his fingernail into his palm, cutting open a streak of bloody red.
    Need to smooth the stub out so it can slide under the album's transparent film, he thinks.

RIIC Base Skills

  • Defender Expert α
    When this Operator is assigned to be the Trainer in the Training Room, Defender Operators' Specialization training speed +30%
    Combat Techniques: Arts Protector
    When this Operator is assigned to be the Trainer in the Training Room, Defender Operators' Specialization training speed +30%; if the trainee's Job Branch is Arts Protector, training speed will be further increased by +45%