Mikari Thalsford is an explorer... and a good one, at that. Her skills don't just stop at exploration, in fact; in addition to being highly skilled in the art of wilderness survival, Mikari is an expert navigator of the Tenka Jungle and all areas surrounding it that are devoid of modern civilization. Not many people can claim to know much of what she knows, and that fact keeps her in high demand among those who've done their homework before picking out a hiree.
That's not to say Mikari is swamped with high-profit requests everyday, as looks can be deceiving. She doesn't exactly look like other explorers in the same line of business, who generally tend to wear heavy leather clothing over their beefy musclebound skin and never leave home without a machete` and a pickaxe. Mikari, on the other hand, is slender and agile... lightly-built, and clothed to match. She has no regrets about the discrimination this causes, because she doesn't wish to attract the "mindless" patrons that those other hunters take on every other day.
Mikari's current residence is in Garist, which borders two jungles and is within view of a large mountain range, making it the perfect ruin-hunter's living space. Garist is a worn-out little town, on the western frontier of the country of Talachia, and only displays bits and pieces of the country's signature technology - usually rusty and green-colored from exposure to nature. One of these tokens is in fact Mikari's mode of transportation; an old but sturdily-built pontoon biplane which she uses for travelling between all different points on the continent - preferring to avoid major population centers, not to mention political red tape.
Mikari can fly the plane fine by herself, but for most jobs, especially ones with long trips and more dangerous navigation, she has an unofficial partner named Zachary who act as pilot. He's only about 22... young enough, and actually a pretty normal guy despite his usual company. He gets a 1/3rds share from Mikari's hefty earnings, which is well-worth the work he does considering Zach usually ends up guarding the plane while she is off doing the dangerous stuff. Plus, he knows full well what usually happens to anyone who crosses Mikari, which makes him a fairly trustworthy associate either way you look at it.
All things considered, Mikari is a bit... smartmouthed. She rarely hesitates to let her tongue fly, oftentimes even to the people who hire her, with occasional swearing amidst her favorite slang. Consequently, the only people who make friends with her are those who know how to respond to her verbal jabs, or occasionally those humble enough to swallow their pride and ignore them. Such people sometimes act as her drinking partners, but she's a tough drinker to keep up with. When she's not on a job, Mikari has also been known to make more than a few coins drinking 200-lb. men under the table. ^_^
Mikari's choice of weaponry seems more suited to climbing rockfaces than combat, as her favorite weapon is a grappling hook with a spear-tipped end. However, she's finds that it is twice as useful as a whip and has many of the same functions (minus the lion-taming part). She can usually modify a whip into her own style of weapon, or if neither whip style is practical at the time, knives are handy too.
Mikari is actually the product of a very out-of-the-ordinary upbringing which few people know much about. Born in a jungle village and raised in a life of constant travel, she is half human and half Tenkali, a race which is confined to a few remote villages within the Kankeela jungle, centered around the village of Tenkala. The Tenkali are slightly different from regular humans, but not to the extremes that beastmen often fit - among their characteristics are elongated legs which make them a few inches taller than normal humans, slim build with smaller muscles that are stronger for their size, and an acute sense of hearing that reaches into the upper ranges of high pitches.
While they are VERY friendly, the Tenkali are also quite isolated, more due to the the land has been for centuries than a desire to keep outsiders out. Isolation has worked in their favor, though, to prevent assimilation by larger countries such as Talachia. Mikari's unlikely mixture of races, however, was the product of a romance between a jack-of-all-trades archaeologist and a villagewoman from Tenkala.
Mikari's Tenkali mother, unfortunately, died less than two years after Mikari was born. Her father was heartbroken, and couldn't bear to remain in the village of his loved one for the memories it kept bringing back. He turned instead to the other loves in his life: archaeology, anthropology, and exploration. The young Mikari spent a good deal of the rest of her childhood away from civilization, following small excavation parties led by her father, while learning about survival and ruins excavation herself from Dad and his comrades.
Mikari never talks about what happened to her father, and where he is now, but she refers to him as though he's passed on, whether or not that is actually true. It sounds possible that she never bothered to find out, so she may not really know for certain herself. But either way, she doesn't really feel obligated to tell anyone.
To anyone who knows Mikari very well - which doesn't account for very many people - it's obvious she's avoiding the issues of her past, and trying to forget many things. What will happen once she gets drawn into the little adventure our little group is going on, and ends up having to face her past? Mikari's home village of Tenkala is across a small channel on the southwestern side of the continent, but she left it when she was so young that she hardly remembers anything about it, much less how to get there, although she has had very vague suspicions - all shadowed in denial. Someday soon, however, she is going to have to face up to the fact that she has a rich, wonderful, and exotic history of people in her background... whether she likes it or not!
Updates—spoiler warning!
The details are not yet entirely clear, but upon visiting Tenkala village, the party discovered that Mikari is at least part Tenkali and apparently spent the first two years of her life with the Tenkali, though she doesn't remember it. The reasons for her long absence are unclear, and Mikari is not terribly eager to discuss the matter with the others. However, after the group rescued the long-lost Tenkali relics from the jungle temple, the village chief, Jahla, offered them to Mikari for safekeeping and to help her in her journey. The relics are two bracelets with some kind of forest magic in them; Mikari has not yet decided whether to accept her heritage and the relics, though she feels some kinship to the Tenkali now, after fighting to protect their village.
