Serina Callaghan

Life
Serina used to be a normal girl. She had a fairly average upbringing, a few friends at school, no particular subject she excelled in and nothing she really fell behind in either. Not overwhelmingly attractive enough to be popular, not ugly enough to be shunned. A life perfectly suited to sit right in the middle of the bell curve.

And then she did something that changed her life forever. She watched a video online proclaiming that the Government was putting mind altering drugs in the chemtrails left behind by airplanes. Initially, like anyone else, she laughed it off as absurd. But instead of doing her own research, she followed the links in the description, and was lost down the rabbit hole of conspiracy.

Her life fell apart after that. Because she couldn't stop seeing conspiracies everywhere she looked. She annoyed her friends into leaving by insisting they were ill-informed about the real dangers posed by the President being a lizard person in disguise. Although her test scores rose, thanks to her spending more and more time researching things on the internet, her social abilities suffered. If she wasn't trying to get someone to admit to something, or putting on an act to trick someone, she could barely talk to them like a human being.

Life went on, and she stayed behind. Stuck in the mindset that the entire world was hiding things from her. She gradually became more and more of a shut-in, delving so deep into conspiracies that she became an authority on the subject. Her Blog, Veritas Vigilator, became one of the most used resources for the more...troubled, and has enabled her to live simply off of the Patreon donations it brings in.

Death
Of course, she couldn't find all her information out simply through the internet. Sometimes she had to prove the local council were embezzling funds by actions breaking into the town hall and photographing documents. Or the only way to prove that a police officer was secretly an FBI plant was to break into ther home and look under their bed. She wasn't great at it, and quickly earned herself multiple breaking and entering charges.

Her need to find information was, of course, what eventually led to her death. She had a very promising lead about a meeting in a restaurant due for refurbishing. Something sinister and evil was afoot, so she broke in and started recording it. Unfortunately, she got caught doing so. The ones who caught her were kind enough to let her temper cool down.

By throwing her into the walk-in freezer, setting it to maximum chill and breaking the door.

She froze to death. Deprived of heat. Denied the knowledge she needed so badly.

When Marik offered her the bargain, she jumped at the chance. After all, his presence re-opened a bunch of theories she'd previously dismissed. Ghosts and monsters were real now.

Geist
Marik appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a nebulous blob of shadows held in a vaguely human shape by a very nicely made suit. Despite the only facial features he possesses being a pair of featureless, blank voids where eyes should be, he still gives off the impression of smiling constantly.

Marik seems to share at least a little of Serina's love for exposing things, as he genuinely supports her attempts to bring secrets and information to light. Sometimes. Most of the time he just does his best to fuel her paranoia or annoy her.

The Geist's favourite pastime seems to be making outlandish claims, or lying, to try and make Serina think another conspiracy is afoot. It doesn't work as often as he'd like. For some reason she just refuses to accept that he was JFK in life. Or that the commander of the Lizard People invasion is the guy selling hotdogs down the street.

When using the powers of her Geist, a string of ephemeral, shadowy tendrils extend from Serina, sinking in to whatever it is she's targeting. Altering someone's perceptions has them plunge into skulls, and freezing someone's heart has them dive into the chest, for example.

Personalities
Serina is a somewhat awkward soul. Somewhere along the way she's….forgotten how to be a normal person. She can fake it, of course. When plying someone for information she can be buttery smooth, or as subtle as a sledgehammer, but the moment she has what she wanted she will immediately snap back to her usual attitude.

She's paranoid, somewhat deluded, and absent minded. Easily excitable when she thinks she's discovering something secret, but otherwise she's usually reserved. Most often, she's found typing away on her phone, researching something or blogging a new conspiracy theory. She's also follows the attitude of 'The ends justify the means', which calling out the Government for having the same attitude. She does not see the hypocrisy in this.

Marik on the other hand, is best described as 'the kind of sleazy that a mafia enforcer desperately tries to emulate.' He's usually fairly quiet, looming in the background like a thug, and leaning on whatever object's nearest, but whenever he starts speaking it's usually to do one of three things. Insult something, make a bad joke, or try and annoy Serina.

Powers and Abilities.
Serina's obsession with making the world see things the right way, which just coincidentally happens to be her way, has manifested mainly as an affinity towards the Phantasmal Key, and the Curse Manifestation. Altering thoughts and changing what people see seems to fill her with that special kind of glee that children get pulling the wings off of flies.

The circumstances of her death have also given her an affinity with the Cold-Wind key. Her rage runs icy cold, and whenever circumstances require that she leaves her body she tends to frost over like meat left far too long in a freezer.

In the more mundane sense of things, she's got a few major areas of specialisation. She's good with computers, having spent far too much of her time using them and trying to stop the government from spying on her through hers. She's good at badgering information out of people, again through excessive practice. And she's a decent student of the Occult, having dove right into it after striking the bargain.