Editing Jessica Casabien (section)

==Abilities and Art==
Specializes in [[The Ruins]],<ref name=":1">“Jessica-”<br><br>“What do you need?” she asked.<br><br>“Perimeter?  And warding our immediate vicinity?  Ray and I are doing some of it, but if you could keep outside interference at bay, and layer our defenses?  The closest realm to the Devouring Song is the Ruins, and that’s your specialty.”<br><br>“Sure.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref> but a generalist.

She's able to construct wards<ref name=":1" /> by drawing protective [[circle]]s on the ground in chalk.<ref>Jessica went to get more stuff for drawing lines on the ground in chalk.  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/out-on-a-limb-3-z/ excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref><ref name=":2">He handed out the walkie-talkies.<br><br>“You guys were using these when you came to get me in the Ruins,” Jessica said.  She was drawing out a circle.  Essential things had already been gathered within.<br><br>“They work anywhere.”<br><br>She nodded.<br><br>“Hey,” Nicolette said, joining the conversation by sidling up to Zed, her shoulder touching his.  She seemed happy, in the midst of all of this.  Her best self.  She looked in the direction of Brie, who was dealing with the four participants.  “What’s up with you and her?  Are you a pair?”<br><br>Jessica snorted, then bailed from the conversation.  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref> She has little wooden animal figurines that power or are otherwise linked to her diagrams.<ref>Children advanced, touching and pressing against the invisible wall that extended up from the circle that Jessica had drawn out.<br><br>Jessica held out a string with a wooden owl figurine on the end.  The string was fraying visibly.  She held up another, this one with a frog.  Same thing, but slower.  “Both wards are getting chewed up.  Outside barrier is going fast.  She’s bringing in help.”  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref>

She was also able to draw out temporary bindings in her own blood to hold the [[Hungry Choir]] inside [[Brie]].<ref>Jessica reached them first.  Zed pointed at Brie, and Jessica began using blood from her own wounds to make lines on Brie’s skin.  A temporary thing.  She’d need something more lasting.  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/out-on-a-limb-3-z/ excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref>

She was able to cure a snakebite somehow.<ref>It took four and a half hours to get sorted out at the emergency room.  Eloise hadn’t been a ''huge'' help during the event, but in a situation like this, she was in her element, manipulating connections and smoothing things over.  It helped to ensure the hospital staff didn’t ask too many questions about the people with all the bite marks, blood loss, the various venoms running through them… it had only been a few poisonous snakes, and Jessica had been able to help with that.  The benefit of having a wide knowledge base.  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref>

She can make her eyes flash and turn pure black,<ref name=":4" /> presumably the appearance of her [[Sight]] to the awakened. Her Sight doesn't dramatically transform the world for her, since it's important for her to see the world as it is.<ref>“Yeah.  I’ve heard people theorize that the Sight might lean on these sorts of things, depending on who we are.  Desolate ruins for anger, darkness for fear and apprehension.  Cold for mourning.”<br>“I See the world as dark with laser outlines,” Zed said.<br>“I see the world the Hungry Choir brought me into,” Brie said.<br>“Yeah,” Jessica replied.  “I don’t see anything too different.  I needed clear vision, going in.”<br>- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/16/vanishing-points-8-3/ excerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 8.3]]</ref>

She explores deep parts of the ruins that involve leaving her body behind, braving the dangers that place carries for immaterial beings.<ref>“I’m surprised you’re in the beginner class,” Lucy said.<br><br>“I have a very piecemeal education.  More piecemeal because I’m not always here.  I was self-taught, until recently.”<br><br>“The Ruins, right?” Avery asked.  “Or is that insensitive?”<br><br>“The Ruins, yes.  Insensitive, not too much.”<br><br>[...]<br><br>“If your body is physical, then the Abyss is… deeply unpleasant.  And the Ruins are like…”<br><br>“A walk in the rain?” Avery asked.  “In a creepy place?”<br><br>“If you say so.  Sometimes dangerous, but mostly wearying, nothing more.”<br><br>“Right.”<br><br>“But if your body isn’t physical, if you’re a ghost, a spirit, or if you’re astrally projecting, the Abyss is little more than a dismal sightseeing tour, and the Ruins are like trying to walk on the tongue of a giant who is trying to eat you, starting from the soul, then moving to the heart.  To get where I have to go looking, I must leave my body behind.”  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/05 Excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.6]]</ref> She can use this to travel. The experience is stressful and feels like an eternity, and requires some recuperation afterwards, but takes only a short time.<ref>“Is it a long trip?  Going back and forth?” Avery asked.<br><br>“Yes and no.  Yes, because I go through the Ruins and every minute can feel like months.  No, because I leave at lunch and arrive before dinner.  Then I recuperate.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/05 Excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.6]]
</ref><ref name=":8" />

She's able to create a blue fire that's powered by mostly forgotten positive emotions that can keep negative [[Echo]]es away,<ref>She stood by a small blue fire.
<br>...<br>“Can I share your fire?”<br>The girl studied her.  “If you fuel it.”<br>“With?”<br>“Here?  Good, mostly-forgotten memories.  You reach out to the fire, push it out-”<br>...<br>The echos were staying out of the fire’s light, gathering in a mass at the edges.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/08/02/let-slip-20-1/ Excerpt] from [[Let Slip 20.1]]</ref> and presumably vice versa.
===Basics===
Her [[Implement]] is a heavy, extremely worn yellow raincoat. It has some protective effects.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":7" /> She can "lose track" of the snacks she keeps in it's pockets, so they never run out.<ref name="7.9e1" />
===Tools===

She collects treasures from the Ruins as part of her work. She has a glow-bug in a jar that can drive away Ruins denizens for a short time with it's light.<ref>Snow was pointing at a distant house.  Where every other place seemed so dim, unlit within, there was a warm red light glowing within that place, to the point it lit up the exterior walls.<br><br>“In nearly any other circumstance, I’d go there,” Jessica stated, staring.<br><br>“What is it?”<br><br>“Treasure.  Distilled power.  Echoes and things shuck off goodness, joy, and serenity here, and those things are pushed away by the grief, sadness, and despair.  Those scraps gather and concentrate in a hallow, which pulls in more.  Most are small.  An apple that glows with a light within, in a dark part of the Ruins, or a small mouse that warms like a fireside without burning flesh.  Even those are valuable.”<br><br>“That doesn’t look small,” Avery noted.<br><br>“No.  Which makes me think it’s bait.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/16 Ecerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 8.3]]</ref><ref>“Rough patch ahead,” Jessica announced.<br><br>She could talk in the midst of all of this?<br><br>Jessica reached into a pocket, then lifted up a bottle with what looked like a firefly within.<br><br>It flashed, flickered, then glowed, shedding a broad orange light.<br><br>Echoes scampered out of the way.  Four, five, or six indistinct shapes, slick and fishlike, pulled away from the gloom.  Avery hadn’t even seen them.<br><br>“Hurry.  Go, go, before it dims,” Jessica told them. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/22/leaving-a-mark-4-10/ excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.10]]</ref><ref name="7.9e1">“When I get a chance to learn or do something new, I start with the essentials.  Stuff that lets me stay in the Ruins longer.  Because not much ruins my day more than seeing a glimpse of what I’m after and then having to leave it behind because I have to come up for air.  Or food.  Or light. [...] Power concentrates, down there.  You might see something bright or something that still glimmers, when so little can.  Sometimes that’s an echo, or a bird in a rusty birdcage that some skinny guy is carting around.  The trick that lets me ‘lose count’ of my snacks and never run out was one of those things.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/gone-ahead-7-9/ excerpt] from [[Gone Ahead 7.9]]</ref>