Aria Bucket

Appearance
Aria is a short half-elven woman, only 5 foot 2 inches tall, and old as far as parents go: she’s about 120 years old. Her hair started turning grey when Ducat was in their pre-teen years, and has now come to entirely resemble the sands of their home. She wears simple brown-red clothes, a lot of them leather to protect her against caustic materials, with a thick blue leather belt that has slots for small objects and a large pocket that could contain a small journal. Most notably, she has a sleeve tattoo of blue morning glories on her right arm.

Personality
Ducat has learned to weather the storms of change thanks to the wild nesting habits of their mother; she likes to switch small hobbies frequently. Eline likes to comment that it seems like she’s trying to acquire the amount of life experiences that a full elf would in their whole lifespan.

Something she keeps constant is her medicinal practices, which she excels at, as well as meditation (coincidentally, another elf-admiring habit). Despite the instability of her interests, she’s emotionally a sturdy rock with a great bedside manner, able to calm most people down with a soothing voice. She taught Ducat mindfulness techniques to control their rogue magic abilities while they were growing up.

She owns a little ferret named Wentelle.

Backstory
She is an apothecary in the town Summerwind, which is east of Green Harbor. She had married young and happily to her late human husband, but being a half-elf, ended up outliving him. Her first children were reaching their forties and fifties when she was swept up in her second romance with another human named Oleander, which resulted in Ducat's birth. Ducat's tiefling appearance came as a surprise to all, or at least Aria has never let on to having more perfect knowledge of their infernal origin.

Campaign Arc Three: Blood in the Water
After a long journey tracking Dr. Vilmaris Baymond to Cageport, attempting to find a cure for Ducat Bucket's fast-onset and strange fungal sickness, the Mistral Crew entered the doctor's old tower he had used to treat victims of a deadly infection of Rattlegasp. The crew, finding more mysteries with their answers and becoming quickly ill from the venture, was re-directed by Đinh Effírië to return to Summerwind and ask Aria about the Bloodcap. He claimed she would have the answers that Ducat and their crewmates were looking for.

The crew rushed to Summerwind, afraid that some crewmates like Mirari Arossa and Ilphas would soon perish without treatment or a cure. Ducat instructed them to stay on the beach and retrieved their mother, hardly having the time to say hello to her before leading her.

After revealing the nature of their illness and what was found in Cageport, Aria was quick to volunteer her own blood to be used in the ritual that would cleanse the curse on the Bloodcap and cure the sick members of the Mistral. Mirari quickly realized that she knew more about the curse than she let on and took her aside where she admitted she was "a sinner" as the poem about Bloodcap proclaimed. Hence, sacrificing her would allow the rest of them to live, and she felt she had to lay down her life for him and the others. He attempted to persuade her to live and let them succumb to their fates, however, Mireille was among the sick and neither of them could permit the death of a child while they had options to save her. Aria asked Mirari to keep the secret she shared with him and never let Ducat know - and he agreed.

The agreement was short-lived, however, as Ducat was perceptive and intelligent enough to put their own pieces together, especially seeing how their mother was crying after speaking with Mirari. They implored her to tell them the truth, and she complied. Aria told the party that, seven or eight years ago, a hurricane had hit the town. Before the storm hit, when the sky was clear, she had acquiesced to Ducat's desire for more responsibility in the store and sent them out to collect plants. The winds and rain set in before Ducat returned, and she began to have a deep and horrible feeling something was wrong, despite assurances from her son Halvor that all would be well. She went out into the forest to find Ducat, followed by Halvor, and the pair discovered Ducat had slipped and hit their head, falling unconscious in the river - and drowned. Halvor was unable to convince her to accept Ducat's fate and Aria carried them to a rowboat, going through the hurrican to Cageport to beg her father Đinh for help. After she begged and begged through her sobs, Đinh finally told Aria that the Bloodcap mushroom could be used to resurrect someone without diamonds, though it would condemn a hundred people to death.

Despite knowing the consequences of reviving Ducat, Aria confirmed she would use the Bloodcap anyway, and the two of them retrieved it from the swamp to perform a resurrection upon the 17-year-old tiefling. The ritual worked as intended, and Ducat did not recall what happened that day. The bloodcap, also known as Aminita fumigatas, caused the rattlegasp plague in Cageport - which the party was able to confirm killed at least 99 people, according to their body count. It spread slightly further into Summerwind as well, though none of the people infected there perished as a result.

The Bloodcap poem read "Gather the guilty and gather the good / Gather what remains of stolen godhood; / Water the roots with blood, sinless or sinner / Free Wildmother’s gift from the curse that’s within her", which Aria and the Mistral crew interpreted as meaning either Ducat or Aria could be sacrificed to purify the curse from the mushroom. Ducat pleaded with them to let it be their sacrifice, since they had already died and it seemed they were meant to stay that way - but Aria could not bear to let her child die, even if she had gotten extra years with them, as Ducat put it. After an hour of debate and tears over the matter and the crew getting more sick, Ducat finally broke under the pressure and hugged Aria tightly, then bestowing a Bloodcap from their own blood to her to be used in the ritual. They ran from the beach, unable to see anything further.

Mireille also left, leaving EFAIN to put Aria to sleep, Ilphas to draw sigils, Itza to read the incantations, and Captain Mirari Arossa to do the awful deed that would save half the crew. Aria was killed and golden magic snaked from her to the sick, curing them and allowing them to breathe.

A few moments later, Ducat returned somber and slow and sat beside their mother, pulling her into their lap. They cut their palm again, producing a final Bloodcap from their blood. This one, now clean of the curse, was a yellow color as opposed to red. Ducat used the purified mushroom to revive Aria, losing the protective abilities the mushrooms gave them, but regaining life for their mother.