Elya Sarai

A

Elya

Summary

Elya Sarai is a Fevarik Regalti from the nation of Vefaria. She was born in the nearly empty town of Emnil-Wreth, located along the coast. Growing up, she explored the old ruins of the town with her friends, and she always dreamed of visiting exotic locations and learning about the past. She originally went to college to be an Archaeologist. Despite not being interested in space, she ended up being trained as a Medical Officer to work aboard the Starship Void Chaser, on a mission to a mudball planet known as Earth...

Personality

Elya can best be described as outgoing but generally quiet, usually not giving her opinion, unless it is something she cares about, then she can be quick to anger or please, and she can talk about it for hours. She can generally be a reasonable and warm person. She's a great friend to have around, as she'll listen to your issues and try to help you out if she can, and she tries her best to not offend anyone. Just, don't mention video games around her, specifically her favorite one, "Skirmish for Terra!!!", because she will probably never leave you alone afterwards.

Early Life

Elya was born in the year 369, After Exodus, in the town of Emnil-Wreth. The town is mostly abandoned and most buildings are in ruins because most Regalti left their Homeworld during the Great Exodus centuries earlier. Her parents kept living there as, very much like their daughter, they had an attachment to the world they were born on and saw no value in living in space.

Elya started schooling when she was 8 (or about 10_Eyears). Due to the accelerated learning offered by Regalti technology such as the Time Dilation Headset, Elya had a lot of free time growing up. If she wasn't helping out at the family shrine, she was spending most of her time playing with her friends and exploring the ruins of the old city.

When she was about eleven (or 15 _Eyears), she grew very interested in history and archaeology. She joined the Collena Preservation Society, and had the job of taking pictures and gathering artifacts from whatever ruins she was exploring. She mainly worked inside of Emnil-Wreth, but she also traveled across much of her home country of Vefaria.

When Elya was 12 (16 _Eyears), she went to College for archaeology. She attended the space-based Delvianthro Institute through online courses. Due to the accelerated learning, she would be able to get the equivelant of a master's degree in about two years.

Elya really got into gaming around this time using the same time dilation headset as she used for schooling, sinking into a digital world during any free time she had. While it was only a few hours in real life each day, stacked up, Elya probably spent decades tuning out reality. It was a way to cope with the fact that both of her parents were slowly dying. They both were diagnosed with "Surface sickness" just a few months apart.

Birthday
23rd of Xolfin(13th month)
Age: 22 _EYears (16_RYears)
Species: Regalti
Ethnicity: Fevarik
Birthplace: Emnil-Wreth, Vefaria

Sex: Female
Height: 1.77m
Weight: 65kg
Build: Athletic
Feather Color: Green-Red
Eye Color: Violet
Complexion(neutral): Appears Sunburnt

Relatives:

Sayli Sarai (Mother)

Rayde Sarai (Father)

Languages Spoken:

Delvian (Fluent)

Vevari (Fluent)

English (Fluent)

Vusin (Basic)

Degrees/Licenses:

Degree in Archaeology

Degree in Medicine

License in Regalti Medicine

License in "Vusinor" Medicine

GAV (Ground Aerial Vehicle) License

How Elya learned English

Elya put thousands of virtual hours into a number of online games. Her favorite one, called "Skirmish for Terra!!" was an MMORPG about exploring a planet of a long extict alien species and fighting other factions for control of the planet. She picked the Explorer profession, as It was very profitable raiding tombs and bringing artifacts to the surface for the other professions to take advantage of. She kept coming across a strange language though.

She found a few chatrooms talking about the language. Apparently the word was that learning it will allow you to unlock the secrets of several dungeons buried deep in the ground. Elya had free time, so why not? In what was about three weeks in the real world, she spend almost two years in the DRS cracking this language, that was called English. She practice speaking it with others in the chatrooms, though there was no way to know if they were speaking it properly until they went into the Dungeon to the treasure rooms. She spoke it well enough to solve the riddles and open the doors at least and was one of the first players to do so.

Several days after she did this, Several Vusinor from the Capital knocked on her door. Elya found out that the Vusinor injected English into the game as a recruitment tool, as they needed Regalti that could naturally speak the language. They wanted Elya for this, but she initially refused. Elya had no interest in space, until the Vusinor said that they were going to cure her parent's surface sickness, something that was impossible otherwise. Elya didn't want to leave her homeworld, but she reluctantly agreed.

When Elya was 14 (19 _Eyears), the day after getting her archaeology degree, she went into space, joined the RAN(Regalti Allied Navy) and began her training for this mission to Earth. She went to the Delvian Naval Academy in orbit around Collena and was retrained in biology and medicine. A year later, she was stationed aboard the Starship Void Chaser as a medical officer. There she stayed for another year until the captain of the ship, Uul, got approval to begin the mission to Earth. Elya's job during this mission was to examine the humans they retrieved, communicate with them, and ensure they stayed healthy during the mission.

Interests and Hobbies

Archaeology

Elya's biggest interest has always been in learning about her world's past. Most of her species lives in space and cares nothing for their homeworld, and to Elya, someone has to. Elya got her start exploring the ruins of her hometown, and one of the first locations she explored and documented for the Collena Preservation Society was an old industrial area. there an building that looked like nothing more than a hill caught her eye.

After some digging, Elya found herself inside an old tavern, the Nilra Vendo, or Blend the Rules. It was an old tavern that served the workers of the surrounding factories, which used to be one of the largest manufacturing centers on the plant. This job got Elya hooked on exploring other ruins, finding artifacts and taking pictures for the Society to preserve for future generations.

Gaming

Originally Elya sunk into her gaming to escape reality. Even after her parents were cured and she joined the military, she still plays games out of habit. The one she plays the most is still "Skirmish for Terra!", which she now realizes was a Vusinor recruitment tool.

Now that Elya has learned a lot about Earth as part of her training, many things in the game have started to click into place for her, such as why the game world's moon is a dead white rock or why some animals are the way they are. The game world is not literally Earth but close enough to be unsettling....which is fine by Elya. As long as she can keep grinding out her dailies and working towards her next set of endgame gear, she doesn't really care that much what the game world looks like!

Shrine of the Moon Veil

In Elya's free time, when she wasn't neck deep in some ruins somewhere or later playing videogames, she was at the Sarai family Shrine, the Shrine of the Moon Veil. This Shrine has a large Veil Tree at the center. Elya pulls weeds around the base of the tree, cleans the walkways and buildings, and assists the family priest in performing the monthly feather burning rutial during a new moon.

She is one of the only children of the many Sarai branch families that regularly helps around the shrine. Because of this, she was chosen to bear the Sarai Ancestor Bracelet during her coming of age ceremony next year and will have one of her feathers added to the bracelet.

Kedon, Art of Rain

Elya's father, Rayde Sarai, is a woodworker that makes Wooden Swords from Veil Trees. Rayde is also a grandmaster of Kedon, a martial art centered around the use of these wooden swords, and he trained Elya how to use it. Elya is especially good at the Art of Rain, a stance that relies on gentle, but agile and persistent movement. Elya regularly spars with Raini on the Void Chaser. When she was on Collena, she practiced with her father, and the students of his school. Despite this, Elya isn't that interested in the sport itself and doesn't enter competitions.

Friends

Sharla Anri

Sharla is paradoxically the communications specialist aboard the Voidchaser, though She almost never talks to anyone, personally or otherwise. Even before they were both stationed on the Voidchaser, Elya met Anri at the Delvian Naval Academy. Somehow the two became friends despite the communication barrier.

"Sharla has trouble showing her emotions...even by Vusinor standards.She hardly talks to anyone and I often feel like I'm having a one way conversation with her. How do I know we're friends and she cares about me? She takes off her headset when I talk to her! She only does that for me, Raini, and Kaline."

Raini Fior

Elya met Raini at the Delvian Naval Academy. Raini noticed Elya practicing her English, and then learned it within a few weeks just by observing Elya. This landed Raini an assignment aboard the Voidchaser. Raini also went through the same medical training as Elya did. The two annoy each other constantly, but they are good friends.

"Raini is sweet, but also spicy, brash, immature, and so very manipulative! She's like a sister to me, but not a day goes by where I'm not yelling at her for doing something incredibly immature and stupid, and always on purpose...Like what she had Ryan do just days into our mission. Regalti only greet each other like that when we're really....ooh, I'm still mad at her!"

-Elya

Sarah

Sarah was one of the four humans Elya examined aboard the Voidchaser at the start of the Earth mission. Initially Sarah wanted nothing to do with leaving Earth, but she eventually opened up to Elya, after weeks of Elya's asking questions, and generally being annoying though well intentioned. As the months went by Sarah gradually grew distant from her human friends and keeping to herself, but Elya didn't give up on her, always finding some reason to drag Sarah out of her room to do something.

"There were gaps in the Vusinor's knowledge of Earth biology, making the genetic sequencing difficult, but Sarah was so useful in filling those gaps with her own knowledge! The report we sent to the Galactic Council should help in the expedition process. That aside, Sarah is actually a great person to be around! I don't know why her own human friends are so distant from her..."

-Elya

Ryan

Ryan was one of the four humans Elya examined aboard the Voidchaser at the start of the Earth mission. Ryan was more curious about Elya's homeworld than the ship he was on, and Elya was happy to explain due to her background in archaeology. The two spent weeks talking through the histories of their respective worlds finding the few similarities and looking at the ways the different species handled similar situations. Even after the mission was technically on pause and they were staying on the planet Collena waiting for the next phase, Ryan and Elya spent quite a bit of time together.

"Ryan explained why Sarah and Juan were calling me a Space Elf. He said it's because of my pointed ears. He then proceded to say that like most elves, I was beautiful, smart, and super talented, then he quickly changed the subject once he realized what he did. I don't know if he meant to say it that way at the time, but I'm glad he did!"

-Elya

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Extras (( Out of universe author's notes ))

Elya's Name written in Vevari

The way I have the language designed right now, most writing is vertical and is supposed to be similar to Asian calligraphy. The Language is still a work in progress. Right now I have a basic script made, but it needs refinement, so this may change in the future.

In Progress Art

I worked on Elya's full body character design a while back, then gave up due to my poor art skill. Then I started messing around with Midjourney V4, and it's image prompt feature. Below are two images. The left is the original. the right is that image fed into Midjourney with the following prompt: [turnaround sheet] of [anime concept art] of [beautiful anime elf woman wearing (described clothing), full body] [rich colors, beautiful details, cel shaded, anime, simple, 8k] --ar 2:3 --q 2 --v 4.

These are not final designs. I'm going to eventually redraw the midjourney art myself, even if I have to stop everything else for a few months and force myself to learn to draw better. The artstyle will eventually have more of a unified aesthetic rather than some of the images looking semi-realistic and some of them looking hand-drawn

Elya's portrait

Elya's (and other Regalti's) visual design has changed a bit from iteration to iteration. The base image has always been an artbreeder portrait, but I couldn't figure out how to draw the feathers. Below are several previous attempts and the final image on the right

As mentioned above, the art style of this world will eventually have a different look, so the portrait might have to eventually change as well.