Mage Council records

Some 200 years ago the mountains around the modern day city of Era, home of the illustrious Mage Council, were a very mysterious place. Legends and rumors swirled about the deepest points in the mountains, unexplored by man for thousands of years. The people of the mountains villages spoke of legends passed down in their oral history since a time before time as they said. The legends spoke of horrible inhuman creatures that devoured the blood of their victims much like vampires. But, as one villager is recorded as saying, vampires look like mice to a lion when compared to the Oogal, the name they had given these legendary beast.




The story begins two hundred years ago with the Mage Council in Era City.They funded several expeditions into the unexplored regions of Fiore, and one of those expeditions was lead by a magicryptozoologist by the name of Kenshin Muramo. He had heard of the legends told by the villagers in the mountains around Era, and came to the Mage Council with plans to explore the unexplored areas of the mountains. At first the Council refused his proposals, claiming they had better things to spend money on then chasing stories told by villagers that had no solid written or visual proof behind them. After nearly 5 years of begging he Council to fund his expedition he was finally granted approval, and set off for the Era mountains. The condition of his expedition was that anything he found, expected to be unknown depositions or ore hidden in the mountains, was to be turned over to the Mage Council without question.

So after nearly 10 years of planning and securing funding, Kenshin Muramo and a team of 20 people including mineral experts, historians, symbologist, and a disgruntled  Mage Council representative headed into the freezing Era mountains. Using clues in the stories of the villagers they headed into an area known as Queens Valley. It was in this area some 20 miles into the frozen mountain range that villagers said the Oogal once existed.

After three months of hiking through the frozen mountains the team finally made the first of what would become one of the Mage Councils earliest secrets. In a rather unimportant looking cave they found the ruins of what seemed to be a temple complex. They had entered the cave under the suggestion of one of the mineral experts on the expedition. He believed the area was a good spot to find a gold deposit, and so had the team enter the caves so he could perform some surveying. The ruins were made of crumbling stone. Large pillars stood around piles of stone that may have once been a roof or walls. The discovery of these ruined in the caves were significant on their own, but when one of the team members found the intact entrance to a hidden chamber the real discovery happened.

Inside the long forgotten chamber of the crumbling temple complex, hidden from man and animal for untold years was found the mummified remains of a creature unknown to humans. It had brownish leathery skin, enlarged snout like mouth, large hands with deadly claws attacked to each long, bony finger. A thin wing like membrane stretched from the arms of the creature to its torso. This had to be the mythical Oogal, the legendary vampire like beast.

The mummy was removed from its secret tomb in the Era mountains, brought back to the Mage Council a year after the team had left on their expedition. As per terms of the funding of the expedition, the mummy was handed over to the Mage Council. This came much to the fury of Sir Kenshin, who insisted that he deserved to take part in any study performed on the discovery. He threatened to take the discovery public, but even after his threats he never saw his discovery again as he and several other members of the team who discovered the mummy died in rather mysterious accidents shortly after arriving back to Era. The mummy was labeled as CLASSIFIED and could only be accessed by members of the Council research team and higher ranking guild members.

The leader of the research team was a man named Jeal Alchost. He was a young and brilliant man who specialized in medical autopsies for the Mage Council. He was also an expert in non human physiology, and was often called in to assist study on Ogre. He gave the new species the name ''Chiropteran'', stating that it had several physical features more similar to bats then humans. He also named the mummy ''Saya'' in memory of his recently deceased wife.
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The first step in the examination of the mummified corpse of the new species was the perform a full autopsy of its internal organs. In doing so Jeal made a second, even more shocking discovery. The mummy was pregnant. From its womb he pulled out what looked to be a cocoon that was about the size of a human infant. The material around the cocoon was unknown. Despite his excitement he put the cocoon aside for a later date, and the team finished the autopsy of the mother to get a base idea of the organs and systems. To their surprise the organs and overall system was identical to that of human beings.

After the completion of the research on the mother, the team turned its attention to the cocoon. They aimed to open the cocoon and study the internal workings of a baby to compare them to the mother. This task did not go as planned as no matter what tool they used they could not open the cocoon. In his frustration one of the researches cut his hand open with a scalpel. His blood fell upon the cocoon, and to his shock it was absorbed into the material as soon as it fell upon it.

After this discovery the cocoon was labeled as TOP SECRET, and was only accessible by members of the research department assigned to the Diva Project as it was called, and the very highest ranking members of the Mage Council. Official records on the subject say the cocoon could never be opened for examination, so the mummy and cocoon were stored away. The real story is much different.

For nearly 3 months the team gave the cocoon nearly 3 liters of blood a day. Every drop they poured onto the cocoon would be absorbed almost as soon as it came in contact. thoughts opening the cocoon had been completely forgotten as the mystery deepened. It was unknown how far into development the cocoon had been at the time of its mothers death. This lead to questions on exactly how the Chiropteran gave birth. How long a pregnancy cycle was. Why the fetus was enveloped in a cocoon that seemingly could not be cut. It revealed how little they could know about them without a live subject to study.

In a rather dark basement of the Mage Council Department of Magical Research, on a cold winters afternoon the cocoon began to hatch. A small arm pushed out of the material, followed by legs that kicked against it. A baby was born from that cocoon on that day. It appeared to be as developed physically as a 2 month old human, which rose even more questions. How could such a inhuman looking creature as the mummy give birth to something that look completely human. Further research was required, as was performed. This leads to a dark secret chapter in the Mage Council history. One that not even the head of the Council himself knew about fully at the time.
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THE PRECIOUS LIVING SPECIMEN:

2 years 3 months after the initial discovery of the mummy, Saya, in the Era mountains the Diva Project researches had unexpectedly found themselves with a living, breathing Chiropteran. This was the time that the lead researcher of the project, Jeal Alchost, began to keep certain secrets from his superiors on the Mage Council. He had something in front of him that had not been alive in some thousands of years, maybe even tens of thousands. Here was his chance to find out everything one could know about a species unknown by man till just a couple years ago. He had never had any kind of opportunity like this, no one had.

So it was that a secret project was formed right under the nose of the Mage Council, under the disguise of a fully endorsed, if secret, project. He knew that there was no way that the Council would approve of the experiments he had in mind for this newborn. They broke so many ethics that they would name the crime he was about to commit after him if they knew. Thus began the project known as Wretched Egg.

The experiments that followed the secret formation of the Wretched Egg project were extremely cruel. Performed in secret were dissections on a living child. They found that as long as they allowed the child to drink the blood of a human that they could do anything they wanted short of removing or causing permanent damage to an organ. The child would lose her right kidney to find that fact out. Was she immortal? No. Her body was simple able to take punishment that would of killed a human subject put under the same conditions.

The Wretched Egg project was performed in total secrecy with only 3 researches aware of its existence out of the 10 researcher team of Project Diva. During the day the child was put in a cage where they would perform simple intelligence and reasoning test. Sometimes high ranking Council members would attend these test, usually once a year to check the progress. she was often kept in a sound proof area so that she could not hear the talk of the research team. This was at the order of head research Jeal, fearing she would pick up words and be able to spill his secret project.

The child physically aged normally till the age of 16, at which point her physical aging seemed to have stopped. Talk of whether or not to try to see if they could breed her began to be discussed at that time. What most did not know was that Project Wretched Egg had already tried to make her breed. She had been, for lack of a better term, raped several times in the name of science for 3 years at that point. Both human and non human subjects had been tried and failed. She appeared to be sterile.

Project Wretched Egg made one important discovery about the Chiropteran unknown till that time. They had a mastery of their blood unlike any mage. The thought was that maybe the Chiropteran, or tales of this ability, had inspired the first use of blood magic in Fiore. That is just a theory as it can never truly be proven

From here there is a large gap in time. From about year 20 in Project Diva to year 50 nothing much seemed to have happened. In her 50 year though a researcher started to work on the project. A young woman whose name is not known to history other then researcher 10. She apparently questioned why the team did not teach her to speak. At this time an experiment was done to see how well Diva would do without her daily blood feedings. She went for about 6 months with no blood feedings, and was found to be becoming lethargic and less energetic. Towards the end she would sleep for around 20 hours a day in a hibernation like state.

Researcher 10 one day decided she did not like the treatment the team gave Diva. She unlocked the cage that held the girl. This brought about what is recorded in the documents as ''Bloody Sunday'' in which she killed all 10 members of Project Diva research group by draining their blood.

After the Bloody Sunday incident Diva was placed in greater lockdown then ever before. Those who entered her cage wore full body armor at all times. She would be chained by her hands and legs to a wall whenever they needed to perform any exam on her.

The only good thing to come from Bloody Sunday for Diva was that the new research team decided to teach her language skills. Year 52 of Project Diva found her learning to speak and read. She was not taught to write as that would require her hand to be more free then the researchers were willing to allow.

Now we skip to the modern day. Project Diva only has a team of 3 doctors whose job more or less involves simply feeding her daily packs of blood. The only research of note it the study of her blood and its effects on humans.
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VARIOUS NOTES:

The legends from 200 years ago told of villagers who served Oogal, betraying their loyalties to protect them. The thought was that the Chiropteran blood may hold some power. Early research by the founder of the mummy Saya said that Saya was most like a Queen with his evidence being how she was entombed and not simply buried under snow. If that is true then their was a way for the queen to make other Oogal, as the legend says a Queen can only give birth to another Queen.

Currently nothing is known about how other Chiropteran are made, though it is thought by Project Diva researchers to have something to do with a Queens blood.