Character Sheet: Sandoval, Son of Sando
 
Hair colour: White
Eye colour: Blue
Age: 25
Height: 6.5 Foot
Weight: 240 Pounds
Body Type: Muscular/Athletic
Character traits: Good: Dutiful (to some extend)
                                               Enduring
                                               Self-sufficient
                                               Persevering
 
                                   Bad:    Misanthropic
                                               Calculating
                                               Choleric
                                               Sarcastic
                                               Brutal
                                               Uncaring
                                               VERY Vengeful
 
                                              
Mother and Father: unknown, foster parents: Sando, chief of the Hidden Village, and Ceana, his wife
Other Relatives: None
 
Biography:
 
Although Sandoval was raised by Sando - the chief of the Hidden Village and master of the blade mages - like his own son, his true parents were actually descendants of Gaia’s knights.  The Story how Sando found Sandoval, which means “Son of Sando” in the old tongue, is a sad one.
 
It was a dark and stormy night Sando was passing through the northern woods. After 3 years of wandering and fighting demons, Sando was now ready to return home and claim his title as a Blade mage.  This was no weather to be out, so Sando was searching for a place to stay for the night. He couldn’t believe his eyes when after half an hour of wandering aimlessly he stumbled over a hut in the middle of the forest. Rain was pouring like a waterfall, and together with the light thrown onto his way by the thunderstorm scenery resembled a nightmare. Shadows where jumping out at every corner, and Sando, though not one of the faint hearted, was happy that he could now spend the night by a warm fireplace rather than in this nasty storm. But as soon as he stepped to knock at the door he sensed something was wrong.
Nobody in his right mind would leave the door ajar in such a night. Also his sharpened senses noticed a faint smell as he pushed the door open even further. Fading but distinct, it was an odour he learnt to hate the past years:
The smell of demons.
Slowly he placed one hand on the hilt of one of his magical blades while sneaking into the house without making any noise. The sight he gazed upon when he had passed the anteroom would have been horrifying if wouldn’t have already reckoned with it.
On the other side of the room, on a wall that was once the colour of fresh cut wood but which resembled now more a field of dark-red roses, a woman was nailed.  The stench of blood was stomach turning. Her eyes where gazing upwards, like a silent accusation to the heavens. Clenching his teeth and swallowing a curse Sando approached the women, not wanting to leave her like this.
His heart nearly stopped when her lips started to move the instant he touched her face.  His heart pounding like a drum, Sando leaned forward to make out the words this poor soul silently whispered: My... son... save.... upstairs.... left.... room.... they... will.... come... back....
Then her struggle ended, and her head sank slowly to her chest. Although he had a bad feeling about leaving her like this, Sando turned around and quickly but nonetheless silently approached the stairs. The faint smell of demons was getting weaker as he walked up to the next floor, which told him the woman must have set her tormentors on the wrong track about the whereabouts of her son. No time to lose Sandoval rushed into the room the woman told him.
But it was empty.
Forcing himself not to panic Sando took one step further into the room. But the child was nowhere to be seen. He knew that the demons could come back any second, so he had no time to lose. Sando pulled his sword and concentrated on the runes laid into it. Speaking their names in a certain order he released a spell known as the “life-sight”. This spell lets the mage see all sources of life even through walls, and so it was easy for him to find the chamber under the room floor where the boy was hidden. But as he pulled the boy out of his hiding place he noticed a fluttering light in the woods, closing fast. Judging of its hue and form there was no mistake. It was the demon returning.
Sando’s blood was boiling with rage and thirst for revenge, but he needed to calm himself knowing that he needed to safe the boy. He had to act fast as the demon would be here in a few minutes.
All of a sudden an idea struck Sando. Once more he concentrated on the runes. But this time he was going for a spell more concealed and sophisticated. After he was finished, Sando pressed the boy onto his chest beneath his coat while jumping out of the window into the woods. With the last drop of his strength Sando called the runes again, this time using a spell knowing as the “cat”, giving the mage unearthly speed and agility.
He was already half a kilometre away when the lightning bolt he summoned struck the hut, setting it on fire. Silently the warrior spoke a prayer for forgiveness while he ran through the night...
 
Sandoval was instructed by his foster father personally in the ways of the blade mage. He soon showed exceptional skills with combining runes for effects unseen in the past, earning him the reputation to be some sort of magical prodigy. But as his power grew, Sandoval’s personality withered. Fuelled by the misanthropic force of the angel of death inside his soul, Sandoval’s contempt and disgust for all thinking beings grew year by year. All this peaked when Sandoval’s foster mother was killed during a training accident by one of the students. Only the calming influence his father had on him was the reason that Sandoval didn’t kill the student to take revenge.
He then went on to the journey every blade mage disciple has to take. But through his journeys over the western continent his loathing for all sentient life only grew.
He hated how people would ask him to banish evil spirits they themselves created through their deeds. He despised how the strong exploited the weak, and how the weak when given power started to exploit also. He detested how people went through life without seeing each other, feeling each other, just thinking about themselves.
But most of all he hated himself and his self-awareness, showing him everything he hated was mirrored in his very self.
Sandoval returned as legend among the blade mages, but as a man torn inside.
But fate showed mercy with him. Through the darkness of his soul fell a ray of light bearing the name Caoimhe. (Gaelic for kind) This women saw into Sandoval’s soul like no other, and thus she noticed that all this man, this strong fearsome warrior, was lacking was a shield. A shield to ward of the darkness of the world. So she became that shield, and it where this few years they spent together when Sandoval was free of the corrosive power the angel of death had on his soul.
But fate soon turned against Sandoval again.
It was one sunny day midway into summer when all Sandoval lived for was shattered.  He and Caoimhe were on duty checking the seal of the dark prison, like so many days before. But this time something went wrong.
The crystal that imprisons the demon lies deep within a cave at near the hidden village. The cave opens into a huge dome, with a natural bridge made of stone spanning over to an equally huge column. At the side of this column stairs lead down to the place where the crystal lies.
This stairs where made for titans feet, it was said, and that it would take an army to shatter these steps.
But this day, just when Caoimhe set her foot onto the first step, the dark prison trembled with such might and power that these steps shattered like they were made of wood. Sandoval managed to grab her hand, but now they were facing a big problem. Even from the distance Sandoval could see that the crystal was destabilizing, that deep cracks began to wander over it like spiders. Caoimhe desperately needed to get down there and seal the crystal, before it was too late.  But without the stairs there was no way getting down there in time...
Sandoval’s heart stopped when she looked into his eyes, dangling over the abyss. In them lay, beneath a sea of tears, goodbye. Then she let go, casting the spell that would seal the demon while she fell. She was dead the instant her body touched the ground.
Without his shield, with the darkness around and in him free to take reign again, Sandoval’s Soul was shattered once again. Now all that keeps him alive is his sense duty, and his feeling he owns Caoimhe watching over the seal she died for protecting. But deep within his heart he wishes it to shatter, for the demon to break free, to take his revenge on the one who destroyed everything he once loved.