Enzeron outline/concept

The War to end all Wars happened. Some scientist invented nanorobotics and used it as a weapon. It was a good weapon.

Too good.

Nanorobots were used by every side to great effect, and it got so bad the world council decided to outlaw them, mostly because any weapon that could turn an entire enemy army into a fine pink paste, then make horrible cyborg warriors from said paste, maybe didn't need to be used.

The that came from them trying to outlaw nanorobots was worse than the actual war they were invented to end, and the world ended up in a weird reverse techno-renaissance where most people distrust any technology more sophisticated than a clock and anyone who knows how to maintain robots/electronics is held with equal amounts of awe and contempt.

Enter our protagonists, Zyla and Crayl, the former a veteran of both of the aformentioned wars, the latter a staunch pacifist and anti-war protestor. They're also both very good mechanics/engineers, Zyla specializing in software, electronics, and (secretly) nanomachinery, Crayl specializing in mechanical engineering and robotics. Together they operate a mobile repair business, traveling across the country and providing expert repair/maintenance for people. Zyla owns the bus they travel in, which has been converted into a caravan-style mobile home for the two of them. Crayl owns a MULE (Multi-Use Labor Environment) he named Kilimanjaro. Most of the money they make is used to keep the bus, and themselves, going.

Zyla is on the run from the ANC, the Anti-Nano Concord, a multi-governmental organization charged with finding every last nanoscientist and nanoengineer and bringing them to justice for their role in the war. Crayl is on the run from his daughter, Ysmi, CEO of Palzacrawn, one of the companies which made out like bandits during the war by developing both nanorobots and then traditional robotics after the shift. Ysmi blames her dad for the death of her mother, Pondit; he was partially responsible.

Zyla is headstrong, brave, loyal, deathly afraid of being alone, and prone to alcoholism and depression. Crayl is also headstrong, brave, loyal, deathly afraid of being alone, and has a very weak immune system and almost always has either the flu or extreme seasonal allergies. They are more alike than either would like to ever admit.

Zyla is in her late 30s, about 6'2 and is a very muscular 200+ pounds. She has nanorobots in her blood keeping her fit, but her body runs through calories much quicker than average and she has to eat six or seven times a day to keep up. Her left arm is a robotic prosthesis, installed before she became a nanoscientist, which was designed to look like her original arm but chrome, down to her wedding ring. She's dark-skinned, wide-faced, hazel eyes, and usually keeps her hair in a short mohawk or pixie cut and dyed whatever color she can find for cheap. She has two military tattoos, one on each shoulder, one of her former platoon (The Blighted 209th) and the other her rank (Leftenant), a tattoo on her back of two moons rising over an alien landscape, and numerous facial piercings.

Crayl is in his mid-40s, about 5'3 and a flabby 180+ pounds. He has chrome lenses for eyes and his tear-ducts have been rerouted to his bladder. He shaves his head but wears his beard long and tied off, despite his age it's still dark, dark brown. His nose is prominent and large. He has a bull-ring style cock piercing and an ornate montage of tattoos running up his arm and along one shoulder depicting the progress of Dante and Beatrice through heaven.

Zyla's bus used to be a cross-country travel deal for hauling 30-ish people, until she got her hands on it and turned it into a mobile home/workshop. It was originally designed just to hold herself and her equipment, but once Crayl came along for the ride they modified things to keep them both comfortable. It wasn't too hard, she lives light and he lives almost lighter. The living space part of the bus is mostly a couple of beds, a kitchen, bathroom, and a few level surfaces for tables. The workshop is the real hard-core part of the bus, lots of tools, racks, spare parts, diagnostics equipment, etcetera. The back-end of the bus can open to allow larger projects to enter/leave the workshop, or to act as a sort-of sales floor/business space. They have added their own decorative touches to the interior, mostly art projects they've collected or made themselves, and they've wired the whole bus for sound so they can listen to their music (Crayl likes noise, math, and ambient environmental music, Zyla likes lyric-heavy hip-hop and traditional folk music from her home country).

Crayl's MULE was, for a long time, his only friend. It has a rudimentary AI that behaves like a living dog, albeit one that doubles as a mobile computer system.

Fenkirk Malvado

Concept: magic works on conceptualized faith, knowledge mixed with belief; you have to understand the spell, and then you can cast it if your will is strong enough to force it into reality. The words and motions to bring a spell out are focuses and crutches, not the spell itself; it doesn't really matter what you say or how you move your hands, just that you know what you're trying to do and you have conviction.

Fen is considered a scholar of esoteric magic, he crafts his own spells from the world around him as he needs them, and his movements and words are based on whatever he needs to keep his will focused; for example, his version of High Umbervuld's Emotional Turmoil spell, which causes the target to instantly, and sometimes painfully, realize the damage their actions are causing to the world around them, is performed with a simple movement of his staff and the words "Bolivar Trask".

Yes. All of Fen's spells are references to comics: for Oppen Moon's Shape-Shift he moves his hand over his own faces and says "Raven Darkhölme" while visualizing what he wants to become. For the more monstrous Oppen Moon's Beastly Form, he hunches down on all fours and says "Phillip McCoy".

Some of his peers feel his obsession with comics shows a lack of understanding of the seriousness of magic, though others believe that the fact that he can perform complex rites and wizardry while boiling down the main verbal and physical components to a simple memetic show a deep connection with both himself and the spells.

Desperation

It was cold. Very cold. Janek's breath came in long, steamy plumes that wisped up and away, threatening to give away his position to the three Spangelend mercenaries, covered head to toe in armor and snow-white winter gear, crunching their way through the snow. A snap of a twig, the flutter of wings, and everything stopped.

Janek held his breath. The mercenaries stopped dead, slowly sweeping the landscape rifles-first. A bird suddenly darted from the brush, and though one of them snapped their attention to it, they did not fire.

Too professional for that shit, Janek thought. The silence gave him a chance to orient himself, picking up the minutae of the sounds of the world around him, hearing the breathing of the three, the heartbeat of a squirrel nearby, then the snow being crushed underfoot as they continued to advance. They were off his trail just enough that they would pass him, he figured, though one was just far enough from the others, probably scanning their rear, that they might notice his hiding place if he waited too long.

His now snow-covered pistol, a rough steel beast of a revolver with an octagonal barrel, was already cocked and ready to fire, but he had to wait for the right moment or they would catch him between shots, and sitting as he was, legs splayed out before him, solid on his butt in the snow, he didn't have much in the way of options in moving silently.

Janek suppressed a sigh. Life had taken a very unfortunate turn in the last few months, dragging him from assignment to assignment, each leading his employer, step by step, closer to their goal, their goal which he had destroyed in a fit of insight at the last moment. The orb was dangerous in anyone's hands, stealing it would have just prolonged the inevitable. He had put two rounds into the thing and it exploded, immediately, spraying the room in shrapnel; he had gotten the worst of it, really, leaving him alive but mangled. His boss died immediately, the lucky bastard, as had Zeke and Polly, who didn't deserve their fate but hadn't seen the danger of the orb.

Janek resisted the urge to rub at his muzzle, a network of scar tissue now, as the mercenaries closed the gap. Finally the first one walked past the rocks he sat behind, sweeping before him but not turning. The second one came into view and turned to check behind the rocks.

Janek slid to the side, hitting the ground hard, and fired twice in rapid succession, the first round hitting low, landing flat on the armor of the second merc, the other one clipping the top of their helmet and snapping their head back. Janek shifted his weight to roll to the side and fired a third time, taking the merc square in the neck and killing them just as the point-man turned and sprayed fire in the general direction of the shots; one round hit the snow by Janek's head, while another made solid contact with his thigh. Janek took a fourth shot while kicking off the rock, propelling himself away from the incoming fire; his bullet was true, taking the point-man in the face, shattering his jaw and dropping him instantly.

Before he could react the third soldier, who had come around the far side, fired, narrowly missing Janek's head but not his shoulder, the bullet passing through and into the ground; Janek rolled with the impact, shoving the fresh wound into the snow to bring his pistol to bear and firing the last two rounds, both taking the remaining merc in the chest, knocking him flat onto the ground. Janek's leg refused to do as it was told but he pushed it on anyway, kneeing himself up off the ground and lunging at the prone merc before they could get up.

When it was over Janek pushed himself off the dead merc's chest, the blood on his teeth and fur stark contrast to the white around them. He finally allowed himself a deep, wracking breath, the pain coming to the forefront, and the suppressed sigh came out.

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Janek Orz, born ∄24,957, 37 years old. Created at the Tal Mayloth facility in Nevostok, genetically derived from human and European lynx stock, raised at the facility and highly educated to act as a bodyguard and covert agent for one Shigeharu Ko, a business mogul with a penchant for collecting rare artifacts by stealing them from other people. Ko also bought two other products of the facility, Ezekiel Marin, black rhino, and Pollyanna Firth, water vole, as a package deal; the three of them had no choice in the matter. The fact that Ko treated them like people and not property was a blessing, not the norm.

Normally quiet and outwardly friendly, Janek is prone to violence when stressed, lashing out when pushed; he spends a lot of his free-time in introspective meditation, which is just starting to help. He tends to trust easily, though recent events have caused him to begin to see/suspect treachery where none exists.