• Dark Spark

Dark Spark is the first deputy quaestor of the Archmagical Sconce of the Isle of Yore.

Early Life

Dark's father is Dark Coals and her mother is Chert Spark, residents of Fireburg on Tephra Island. Dark Coals, a metallurgical mage, is part of a family descended from the colonists of Tephra Island who settled there during the Catastrophe. Chert Spark, a resident of Sparkle City and a graduate student in History at Radiance University, travelled to Tephra Island to consult CDAN for her studies. While there, she met Dark Coals; they began a relationship that continued via correspondence after her return to RU. When she graduated, she took up a post as an instructor at Fireburg College and married Coals in 3601.

On 1 Fruits 3608, Dark Spark was born to Chert and Dark Sr., their second foal and first filly. (Her older brother, Flinty Coals, was born in 3603.) She was a pegacorn, the first in her father's family, but one of several in her mother's extended family. (By the 37th century, the rate of pegacorn births to pegasus-unicorn couples in Sparkle City had reached 1:2000, up from approximately 1:20000 in the pre-Harmonic era, and a vast increase from their extreme rarity in the Golden Age.)

Dark Spark had a mostly uneventful childhood, though darkened by the death of a childhood friend in an industrial accident in Fireburg's burgeoning machinery district. Dark's father testified as an expert witness in the resulting court case, which she attended as an audience member. She was late to receive her cutie mark, not apparently attaining it until her first year of secondary school; her cutie mark was for chemistry. It was later revealed that she had Primary Asemiosis ("cutie mark delay") and that her purported cutie mark was fake. She later obtained her real cutie mark, for hunting motile vegetables, to her surprise.

Dark did well in school, getting the best marks, unsurprisingly, in chemistry. She attended a boarding school, the Crosswands Academy for Magically Gifted Fillies, for secondary schooling. She played hoofball on the school team. She thought she might pursue a career as an alchemist or maybe a lawyer. After graduating secondary school, she enrolled at Fireburg College, where, she was secretary-treasurer of the pre-law student association for two semesters. She tried out for the varsity Hoofball team, continuing her interest from secondary school, but didn't make the team, competition being very stiff. She ultimately decided to study the emerging field of chemical magic (distinct from, but related to alchemy). Dark graduated from college with honors, majoring in magical science with a minor in chemistry in 3630. She worked for a few years for her father's smelting business, meeting her future husband Amide Bond, who was a visiting scholar at Fireburg College. She married him in 3631. Shortly after becoming pregnant with her first foal, she received an offer of a scholarship to Eastern Ponyland University to study forensic magic, through a program sponsored by the Oneiric Curacy. At EPU, she earned a master's degree in Forensic Magic, and interned at the Docktown office of the Archmagical Sconce of the Isle of Yore. Her foal, Amino Spark, was born in 3632. She graduated from EPU in 3635 and was hired by the Sconce as a Specialist Custos.

Career

After completing training and a probationary period, Dark Spark was assigned as an assayer and forensic alchemist for the Sconce. Her duties included testing alchemical products for safety, efficacy and purity. She was based mostly in Docktown, though her work required frequent travel to other parts of the Isle of Yore, causing some difficulty with her young family. Fortunately, she received a promotion to Assistant Deputy Quaestor of Artefacts, based in the New Canterlot headquarters of the archmagical sconce, which required less travel. She had sought this position eagerly, as Amide was from Solaria on the Lake and wished to return to New Equestria.

Dark's career in New Canterlot made good progress. She received recognition from the incumbent archmage for her successful investigations into several consumer protection issues involving defective potions or enchantments, and for an investigation into tainted alchemical pharmaceuticals from Akashic Labs, which proved to be a case of sabotage by the disgruntled employee of a distributor. In 3640, she was promoted to Second Deputy Quaestor, supervising the Artefacts and Safety divisions of the Quaestor's Office.

As Second Deputy Quaestor, Dark was noted for her rigorous approach to systems-based safety and root-cause analysis in investigating magical industrial accidents. She conducted the investigation into the poison joke extract release from Docktown Alchemical Works in 3641, which caused several deaths in the Rootpatch Ward of Docktown. Dark saw the owner of the works imprisoned by the Sconce on obscure violations of magical law after the local criminal justice system refused to prosecute him. Although the owner was only imprisoned for six months, the maximum sentence the Sconce could impose for class three maleficarum, he was a prominent and respected citizen and the event caused friction between the Sconce and the Docktown Autonomous Region's government. Some claimed that the Sconce's actions had been politically motivated, since the conviction and imprisonment took the owner out of the running for a Docktown Governing Council seat. An attempt on Dark's life was made by a deranged political extremist, shortly after a related court appearance in Docktown, but she was back on duty as soon as her doctor would allow. She also supervised investigations into corruption among the leadership of the Sparkle City Guild of Enchanters, who were condoning the sale of defective protective enchantments by members in exchange for bribes, and into a panic concerning rumors that pegasus carts made by certain manufacturers were spontaneously disenchanting and falling out of the air, which proved to be untrue.

The incumbent archmage was pleased with Dark Spark in spite of the political controversy she had generated in Docktown, and recommended her to the Quaestor for the position of First Deputy Quaestor when the previous First Deputy Quaestor retired in 3645. As First Deputy, her primary portfolio areas in the Quaestor's office included Magical Science and Counterintelligence, but in practice the First Deputy assisted the Quaestor with any appropriate matters of importance to the Sconce, serving as a general executive agent of the magico-legal establishment on the Isle of Yore. In that capacity, she joined a secret expedition to retrieve extinct life-forms from Equine prehistory. To her surprise, she got her cutie mark as an adult, for motile vegetable hunting. She also participated in the marehunt for the rogue magical scientist Dr. Twilight Hour, and played an important role in arranging negotiations with the Dread Dimensions entity Mel-Anhu.

Personal and Family Life

Dark Spark remains married to Dr. Amide Bond, a unicorn and an associate professor at the Queen Nightfall University in New Canterlot. She has one child, Amino Spark, a 13-year-old pegasus colt. Amino enjoys model railroading, and in her free time Dark often helps her son with building and painting miniatures. The extensive setup is kept in the basement of the New Canterlot townhouse in which they live with Amide's parents, across from the Circus Meridian downtown. Dark enjoys painting, particularly portraiture. Besides painting a number of friends and colleagues, she has made several paintings of historical alchemists and scientists. Her painting "Akasha, Bearer of Honesty," won second place in a New Equestrian art show in 3642.

Dark Spark and her family are regular patrons of the New Canterlot Light Opera. She enjoys camping, though her husband doesn't really share her enthusiasm for it, and she sometimes just goes with friends from work. She got Amino to join the colt scouts, but he wasn't that into it either and quit after a few years.

In 3643, a political extremist attempted to assassinate Dark Spark for her perceived role in the loss of a Governing Council election earlier that year (by having the candidate endorsed by pegasus supremacists prosecuted for his negligence in an industrial accident.) Immediately after the attack, it was unclear if she would ever fly again, but she managed to do so after long months of physical therapy and rehabilitation. Today, she is a decent flyer, though not as good as she was before the attack.

Dark Spark rarely sees her parents on Tephra Island, and her father is unhappy that Amino is not being raised in their religion. She is actually closer to her in-laws.

Her ambition is to become Quaestor someday, perhaps even archmage. If that doesn't work, she might go into regulatory and safety consulting for magical industries. She does not practice magical life extension, but is considering starting.

Dark Spark is the 10th-great granddaughter of Princess Nova and Flint Spark, though as some of those couples were obscure or illegitimate (one her ancestors, Silent Spark, was fathered by an anonymous university student in Docktown), she is not a noble. She is aware of this as an old family story and has no particular reason to disbelieve it, especially as some of her older living relatives remember meeting the Lady Sooty Spark, whose liaison in college gave rise to that branch of the Spark family.

After PRPG3

After returning from her secret mission, Dark Spark attempted to reconcile with her family on Tephra Island. She also took her son on a pilgrimage to the Mountain of Ashes. However, she remains mostly non-religious. She began to practice magical life extension in 3646.

In 3647, Spark became the Quaestor of the Archmagical Sconce of the Isle of Yore.

In After her son left home for college, Spark accepted a position as the curial quaestor of the Innominate Curacy in 3651. Her role there was largely as an inspector general of the magico-legal system, answering to the curatrix and the Harmonic College of Archmagi. She was elevated to Archmage of the Sconce of the Nameless Desert in 3670, at the age of 62. She retired from service as a government wizard in 3681, though she remained a voting member of the college of archmagi.

Although she did occasional regulatory consulting work, and irregular work for the curatrix (i.e. adventuring) for much of the century to follow, her primary work after her retirement as archmage was as a painter. Spark died in 3819, aged 211.

Skills

Dark Spark has a keen analytical mind, and a good practical and theoretical command of magic and alchemy. She used to be a strong flyer, but now is only an average one, owing to complications from the attack she suffered. She has an extensive knowledge of magical law and the regulations concerning magical industry. She has good managerial skills, having acted in a supervisory capacity for years now. She knows quite a bit about metallurgy and about a variety of industrial and craft processes, from her time investigating related matters. She knows something about railroads, from her son's enthusiasm, and how to fix model locomotives and other paraphernalia.

Appearance

She is a light grey mare with a pink and white mane. Her true cutie mark is three serrated leaves overlaid by a diagonal straight-bladed sword; prior to obtaining it later in life, she had a false cutie mark resembling an atomic orbital. (Depicted below.)

Dark Spark, in her travelling uniform.

CategoryPRPG3 CategoryPlayerCharactersPRPG3

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