Karina Oblay

Karina Oblay is an orphan and planeswalker from Festenya. After living on her own for nearly two years, she was possessed by Okus and shortly afterwards brought to The Arena. During this time, she got a temporary job with the Seventh Circle Initiative and was given Kirino Oblay's planeswalker spark. After freeing herself from Okus, she befriended her now girlfriend, Hannah Delcarlo-Nisita and was invited for a permanent position in the Seventh Circle. She currently lives on Volaria.

Karina is able to use the Arena's temporal anomaly to synchronize with other Arena-goer's timelines. Because of this, the years of Karina's timeline will appear out of order, and will be paired with a relative timeframe in years after she sparked (X KO).

Early life
Karina was the only child to a poor Festenian couple, who were not really prepared to raise a child. While her parents meant well, Karina developed issues with guilt and self-doubt at a young age.

When Karina was 8 years old, her parents were killed by a vampire settling debts. Karina escaped, and with no other family to run to, began fending for herself in the city of Festenya. She slept during the plane's short days both for safety against vampires, and prevent freezing during the long, cold nights. For nearly two years, Karina survived on her wits and whatever she could find in the massive city.

At 10 years old, Karina found and wore a hat that was Okus in disguise. Okus possessed the child, and after a few weeks on Festenya, entered the planar portal and brought the pair to the Arena.

Okus's Possession
Okus brought Karina to the Arena as a way to covertly build its strength and locate a more powerful host. Being disguised as a child allowed it to operate safely and usually outside the notice of the planeswalkers it was following. Despite, or perhaps because of, this two entities on the Arena took special notice of them: Kirino Oblay, an empath who was aware of the hat's possession, and the Seventh Circle Initiative, who hired them to begin training as a spy due to their apparent skills between Karina's experience surviving the Festenian streets and Okus's illusions.

After multiple interferences with Okus's spell by Kirino, the pangolin Wiejis, and an explosion caused by the robot Base Zero, Karina began breaking through Okus's spells faster than expected and making little actions against the hat or influencing the hat to act more as she would. While effectively dreaming during the initial parts of her possession, Karina was nearly fully conscious after Base Zero's attack.

Nearly two weeks later, during the final moments in the battle against Kirino Oblay, Kirino offered her spark to the possessed Karina, which Okus gleefully accepted. The hat reported its new planeswalker status to the Seventh Circle's Interim Director Rettai Ba'alzur, who expanded their internship to the Division of Exploration. That night, while puzzling out why Kirino would give the hat the key to everything it had ever wanted and dooming the child, Karina tricked the hat into knocking itself off her head, freeing her from its possession after many months.

Life on the Arena
Karina was finally free, and found herself in a far better life than the one she left behind. Afraid that telling the truth to the Seventh Circle would result in her being sent back to Festenya and losing everything, she kept the hat a secret and continued living as though nothing had changed. Over the next few days she would take the last name Oblay in honor of the woman who helped her, was officially adopted by Aiden of Sunspear, spent as much time as she could with Hannah Delcarlo-Nisita as she recovered from aether exhaustion, and was given an Entelan transceiver by Hannah that would allow the two to contact each other even when Hannah left the Arena.

Mysterious Plot
After Malextros's attack on the Arena, mysterious occurences started happening across the plane, and to Karina's eyes, all the attacks pointed to Okus having returned. She told her mentor Reyhsia in secret what had happened to her with the hat. Reyhsia took this information to Deputy Chief Hana Cheyn, and asked for any information on the plane Rhak. When refused, Reyhsia, who had been possessed by Okus herself the entire time, attacked Hana, and unleashed chaos across the Arena, including releasing a dragon on the rest of Arena Station, performing an anti-magic attack against the assassin Arina Nisita, performing a damaging sonic attack on Officer Lumen, and distracting the geomancer Aylin with a fragment of Malextros left behind after his attack.

During this attack, Karina was trapped in her room and unable to do anything, until she was rescued by Hannah. The two of them and Aiden sought out Reyhsia, but found that she had already nearly killed Chief Cheyn, and had been left for dead by Okus, who had already fled the plane after determining the Seventh Circle truly did not know anything about Rhak. Thanks to the efforts of Doctor Timotar Arueth, Reyhsia was revived and Karina came clean about all that she had been through with the hat. After her confessions, she was given the Sunspear by Aiden, who told her he would be leaving for a short while, but he would see her soon.

Aiden's Death
The next night, Karina returned to Aiden's shack, where she discovered his corpse and had flashbacks to finding her dead parents in a similar manner. The problem was exacerbated by discovering that Hannah had been hurt and her tunneler damaged as part of Okus's attack. She asked Hannah to stay away from her, as "everyone that helps me gets hurt." Hannah refused and stayed with her through the night to console her. That night, Hannah had a nightmare and attacked Karina in her sleep. With assistance from Hanska Myemii's cat, they determined the source was one of Tshosiech's demesne. The two of them sought the help of Hanska, who was able to bring the spirit of Aiden out of the Sunspear to speak with Karina.

Hannah and Entela
During Hannah's last days on the Arena, Hannah kissed Karina and confessed her feelings for Karina. Karina returned her affections, but was initially hesitant between being worried for Hannah's safety and doubting her own self worth. Hannah helped alleviate her fears, and when Hannah returned home to Entela, Karina left with her for a few days.

While in the aether tunnel to get to Entela, Karina had her first run in with the Arena's temporal anomaly. Hannah left for the Arena 14 years after Karina had, and while leaving the Arena, the two initially began going back to their respective timelines. Thanks to having the spark of Kirino Oblay, an oldwalker chronomancer, Karina was able to push herself to Hannah's timeline.

As Karina prepared to return to the Arena, Hannah finally broke down and admitted her own troubles with being left alone and feeling unloved. Karina insisted on staying longer to help Hannah through this, as she had done for Karina multiple times on the Arena. When Karina returned to the Arena the next day, her first stop was to tell Arina how her daughter felt about her absence. She convinced Arina to return home for a short time to see Hannah, and she would expedite her permanent return for Hannah's sake.

Leaving the Arena
While trying to return "home" to the Arena, Karina accidentally planeswalked to a plane she didn't recognize (Agahia, Kirino's home plane). On this plane, she discovered the Oblay Sanctuary, a cabin with her name on it on the otherwise uninhabited plane. While she would not learn the truth for some time, she had built this place on her original timeline, and it would become her home over the next few years.

When Karina returned to the Arena, she was informed of her timeline hopping ability, that the Division of Recruitment and Training would no longer be operating on the Arena, and that she was welcome to continue working with them due to the work she had done after the hat. From here, she would begin a standard education on the plane of Suldefsra while also doing Division of Exploration training on Tena.

Further actions on the Arena
While no longer living on the Arena, Karina still needed to visit the plane in order to visit Hannah. During these visits, she began being attacked by Dokucu. One of these attacks resulted in the spirit of Melody, Aiden's wife, being destroyed, and caused Karina to finally begin discovering her spells by casting telekinesis and NO MORE LIES for the first time during the fight.

During the trials of Rudara, Karina completed the Trials of Order, Solidarity, Renewal, and Sacrifice, earning the Token of Tribulation and Rudara's blessing. Along the way, she met with VIA again, and promised to help her home, leading VIA to EPIC, and following her into the confrontation with VI. During this, she picked up a telepathy spell from Sara Ylerne, and used it to communicate with VIA.

Some time after this, Karina encountered and began investigating the Book of Stabbing. Upon using NO MORE LIES on the book, it stabbed her in the stomach, face, and leg. This caused her to unlock her bloodweaving spell from Reyhsia, which she used this to stay conscious long enough to get help. During recovery, Karina promised Hannah she would spend as little time on the Arena as possible from now on for her own safety.

Heiress vs. Usurper
In 382 VY (83 PM, 1 KO), Hannah was kidnapped by Master Sylvares of Shaidosta. Karina became the first to learn of her disappearance, and went to Sara Ylerne of Entela and Arina Nisita for help. During their meeting, Sylvares contacted Arina to taunt her and bait her to meet in Shaidosta, where one of them would kill the other. Karina demanded she assist in rescuing Hannah, which Arina reluctantly allowed at Sara's insistence.

Karina restlessly waited with the Shaidostan resistance for several days before they launched their attack on the city. During the chaos, Karina infiltrated the prison where Hannah and broke her out. As Hannah recovered from escaping the antimagic field, the two of them tracked down Arina in time to find her being nearly kiled by Sylvares. Hannah was able to cast Sovereign Stasis, freezing and then killing Sylvares before she could finish off Arina. Karina was able to stop Arina from bleeding out, helping her recover from her failed assault.

Arina would take her place as the new Shaidostan Master, once again leaving Hannah, and causing Karina to spend more time on Volaria so Hannah wouldn't have to be alone.

Adopted Family
In the summer of 69 PM (1 KO), Reyhsia would take Karina to her home plane of Tirvana to learn the land and culture of her adopted mother, and to meet Ve’aja, the Tirvanian goddess of blood and families, and Reyhsia's patron goddess. Ve’aja took great amusement in the fact that Reyhsia had finally found a family on her own terms, and was interested in the curious future of it.

Shortly after, Reyhsia would introduce Karina and Flynn Skara, another young planeswalker Reyhsia had taken under her wing previously, although had not adopted like she had Karina. Nonetheless, Karina and Flynn would quickly consider themselves effectively sisters and meet up often even while not living together.

Monsters of Chikyu
During 71 PM (3 KO), Karina regularly visited the plane of Chikyu, studying the plane's wide variety of creatures and learning their unique spells to add to her arsenal. There she teams up with Amber, a quilava, and Luna, an umbreon. When Luna goes missing, Karina begins searching through the darker corners of the plane to find her, instead finding Sanaito and working with her to free Ema from the Rocket Gang. While she would spend weeks returning to Chikyu, she would not find Luna again.

After some months, Karina would join Ema and Sanaito on their return trip to Hoenn, attempting to lend a hand and learn from the diplomatic interactions between the two regions that had now found each other. While there, the three of them would get tangled up in the political turmoil that had escalated into terrorism in Ema's absence.

The Extraction Project
In 386 VY (87 PM, 5 KO), Fulmen Delcarlo was killed on Virilin, taking a heavy toll on Hannah. Karina spent as much time by her side on Volaria as she could, officially making Volaria her home during the process.

Karina's Explorations
During 73 and 74 PM (5-6 KO), Karina would go on several small adventures across the Multiverse under 7CI training, as shown during Karina's Explorations.

Volaria
In light of the Extraction Project, Volaria began allowing refugees from other planes escape to Volaria, although these refugees, dubbed "extraplanars," would need aether inoculation procedures done to protect them from the aether content of Volaria's atmosphere. Many of Volaria's citizens became unhappy with the arrangement, however, with protests of the practice beginning to rise and escalate into harassment of the extraplanars. Karina would try to defend her extraplanar friends as the Volarians anger grew, and would find herself caught in the crossfire now as well, being not from Volaria herself.

Skalor
On Skalor, Karina occasionally assisted Pidge in deliveries to learn how to traverse the Multiverse's trade routes and back alleys. Eventually, Karina would ask Pidge for help learning mechanical things as well, hoping to be able to make something to impress Hannah with. Here Karina would learn more about Perfection on the plane, who had been developing biotech unlike anything Skalor had seen before.

Duwinda
Karina initially treated the plane of Duwinda much like she treated Chikyu before it, investigating and documenting all these strange creatures she'd never encountered before. But where the people of Chikyu had welcomed this approach, Irbek did not, instead attempting to run Karina off of the plane and confiscate her field notes. Irbek had unpleasant dealings with the 7CI in the past, and did not want to risk them endangering Duwinda with their "help." To his surprise, he found Karina would, eventually, agree with him, and would do what she could to dissuade undue action on the plane from the 7CI.

Usona
Flynn had taken Karina on many questionably safe escapades across the Multiverse, but this time she had something quite different in mind. Both girls were aware of Mei Liva, another planeswalker that Reyhsia had attempted to take under her wing many years before she had successfully done so with Flynn and Karina. Flynn wanted to track her down, both as she was an honorary sister, and for her ability to take memories from people, with Flynn and Karina both having more than their share of bad memories they wished they could forget.

While the two girls did not know Mei very well, she knew of them from Reyhsia and entertained their plans when they finally tracked her down on Usona. Rather than take their requests to remove their memories, she gave them a short tour of the plane, explaining its history to them: That the denizens of Usona had once sought a similar thing, and received it. But they would find forgetting their sorrows did not cure sorrow, for some the same problems would return to them, for others they would just find more problems they wished to be rid of. And so they would forget, again and again and again, until for many of them, they just became shadows of their former selves. After her tour, Mei returned to their offer. She would take their memories, if they still wished, but only this once.

"“I can take what haunts you. But I can't take what it's done to you. And I can't promise it'll make anything any better. But... it shouldn't make things any worse.”"

Ultimately, Karina decided to keep her memories.

Strixhaven
In 75 PM (7 KO), Karina began studying at Strixhaven as the final leg of her 7CI training began. Keeping up with the magic college proved challenging for her, especially with her ability to learn magic tied to having to copy it directly from others, earning her the derisive name "Copy Girl" from some students. The introduction of the sport Pentaga did help Karina turn her reputation in the school around, but also added more pressure on her academic work.

Spells and Equipment
As an untrained child from Festenya, Karina had almost no magical talent. However, upon gaining the Oblay spark, she has also gained access to many spells, most notably Inquiring Mind.

Inquiring Mind
Using the empath bits of Kirino's soul, Karina is able to feel how a person is casting a spell, and with suitable powers and practice is able to replicate that spell herself. She is able to slightly modify and combine spells she learns this way given enough experimentation.

Spells Karina has learned with Inquiring Mind: Additional spells Karina has learned, either from Kirino's spark or through methods other than Inquiring Mind:
 * One More Second, a modified version of Kirino's One Last Second. This spell gives Karina and up to one target a real-time second of "bullet time," causing time to flow much slower from their perspective.
 * Telekinesis, a slightly modified version of Arina's telekinesis that casts from mana instead of aether.
 * NO MORE LIES, a combination of Doctor Arueth's Zone of Truth spell and Pidge's Truesight spell, using the Sunspear as a substitute both for the source of divine sun magic for the Zone of Truth and artifact for Truesight. The spell requires an incantation of NO MORE LIES and creates a circular area where illusions are dispelled and statements the speaker does not believe are silenced for the duration.
 * Telepathy, a slightly modified version of Sara Ylerne's telepathy that casts from mana instead of aether.
 * Bloodweaving, a slightly modified version of Reyhsia's bloodweaving using red and white mana instead of black. Karina has yet to pick up the mastery that Reyhsia has, so is unable to work on such as large scale yet
 * Zerospace, a limited version of Experiment Zero's signature spell that allows her to summon certain objects to her, even across planes. Karina can set up a single enchantment on a small area, currently a trunk in the Oblay Sanctuary, and link items to the enchantment, which she is then able to summon from or send back to the enchanted area.
 * General Hydromancy, which she is learning from Mabil Fardancer.
 * General Electromancy, which she was learning from Fulmen Delcarlo prior to his death.
 * Aether manipulation, which she learned from Hannah Delcarlo-Nisita.
 * Ink manipulation, which she learned from Sevid Fese.
 * Proximity alarms, which she learned from Lettie Wormwood.
 * Nightvision, which she learned from an unknown member of the 7CI.
 * Waterbreathing, which she learned from an unknown member of the 7CI. It allows her to breathe underwater.
 * Firebreath, which she learned on Chikyu. It allows her to breathe fire.
 * Shadowball, which she learned on Chikyu. It produces a destructive ball of shadows that can pierce some solid matter.
 * Sandveil, which she learned on Chikyu. It surrounds Karina in a localized dust devil that obscures her exact position.
 * Psywave, which she learned from Sanaito. It briefly disorients those it hits quite badly.
 * Frostbreath, which she learned from Onigori on Chikyu, but struggles to use.
 * Planeswalk
 * Call for Aid, an empathic spell that acts as a cry for help for nearby or specific allies.
 * Word of Opening, an unlocking spell left over from Kirino.
 * Timewalk, a spell that allows Karina to jump timelines from the Arena. The initial cast requires traveling with someone to synchronize with them, but further uses of the spell can reach that timeline without their presence. When Karina returns to the Arena, her timeline is "unsync'd" back to her native one.

Equipment

 * Entelan transceiver, a wrist-mounted communications device given to her by Hannah.
 * The Sunspear, a tall, nearly weightless, and nearly indestructible spear given to her by Aiden. Contains the spirits of Aiden and his daughter Rose.
 * SIGHT, a pair of goggles with a Truesight enchantment, allowing the wearer to see through illusions.
 * Hand of the Fallen, a chilling six-fingered gauntlet she purchased from Rixos. It fits to the hand of the wielder, and allows them to tap into considerably more mana than they'd normally have access to at the cost of massively exhausting them afterwards.
 * Hyle's pearl necklace and the Token of Tribulation from Rudara's trials, two nonmagical necklaces that she often wears.

Familiar

 * Karina is often seen with Amber, a quilava from Chikyu. She appears as a large weasel that is able to produce flames on its body and from its mouth.

Planes visited

 * Festenya
 * The Arena
 * Kinshala
 * Volaria
 * Agahia
 * Tena
 * Suldefsra
 * Tirvana
 * Skalor
 * Chikyu