LogFAQs > #970545926

5. Arion (who some have come to know as William Knightley)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/7/AAcguBAADmuX.png

Yeah, Scarlet's been guessing this one for a while, but ultimately the man who was once known to be Arion was for sure never going to fall out of the top 10 for me. From the very first weeks of the campaign, as Bloodfruit was still really trying to find her footing within Z'onn Z'orr in Checkmate, there were two men she found herself returning to time and time again as mentors. One we'll hear from in a bit here, and the other was Arion.

Arion was an asshole. He was consistently rude to Bloodfruit, and even ruder to Flippy, going on and on about the incomparably long life he had lived up unto that point. He was an Atlantean who had spanned generations upon generations, and a magician with ability unparalleled within the Oblivion Bar, and he could frankly be as rude as he wanted to be because everything he said was true. Arion was indeed a near-immortal with more combined wisdom and experience than perhaps anyone else within the bar's walls.

And Bloodfruit, naiive and eager to learn, put up with his early criticisms and cruel wit because, frankly, she needed to. She needed that wisdom and experience if she was ever going to establish herself as a worthy member of Checkmate, and she couldn't not establish that, given that she was already on thin ice with some of Checkmate's major denizens and was far from having a surplus of allies in either Z'onn Z'orr or Oblivion. And to her surprise, Arion took her up on this, for the same reason any of the magical community's skeeviest members might take in a myhtical creature: blood.

In her time since leaving Faerie, her blood was her most powerful asset. It's what she used to survive, and it was made clear that that's what it would ultimately take for her to thrive within the walls of Z'onn Z'orr. She ultimately made a pact with the Shadowpact to provide her blood as a way to maintain the magical wards that protected its inhabitants. This drained her heavily and left her out of commission for a while, but it was ultimately worth it to establish her as necessary. And she couldn't help but feel like maybe she had earned just a glimmer of respect from old Arion, as eventually, when she came to him finally asking for help, he took her under his wing in a way.

Her blood had been sold for its magical properties, but she'd never learned to use them on her own. It was Arion who taught her to make glamours, and healing tinctures, and protective wards and even her signature Carbnculo tincture, a magical tonic that allows her to find rare and valuable items hidden from sight. She returned to him again and again and again, learning from him lesson by lesson and becoming a proper alchemist in her own right.

Then the rumors started. I don't remember what originally set it off, but the word within Checkmate's agents was that the Arion we knew and loved-- err, tolerated-- wasn't actually Arion, but an imposter. And Bloodfruit... I don't want to say she believed it or didn't, necessarily. She had never heard of Arion before meeting Arion, so him not being Arion wasn't all that terrifying of an idea. Everyone's got secrets, as she knows full well. Whoever Arion actually was, he was still the one who'd been mentoring her, helping to make her into who she'd become. And then what happened with Brennus happened, and Arion was gone. She never once met William Knightley.

Hint for #4: This character holds a significant, independent role within either Z'onn Z'orr or Oblivion.