HOME - MEDIA - WORLD - CHARACTERS - ABOUT - RANDOM
Bally Backster was a cool, laidback individual. He didn't harbor grudges, he didn't generalize; He simply had one value that he held dearly: The truth. He was obsessed with the cause and effect behind almost everything. This is likely why he went into and greatly excelled at physics, genetics, and chemistry.
Despite his intellect for the sciences, Stem City's history was his focus. Moreso, the hidden side of it that became buried in Stem Tower's logs and hidden in the shadows of a once free city. Sadly, this passion of his ended up causing him to vanish from the face of Stem Island...
Bally, despite his love for the truth, was a dishonest and skittish man. He tended to be secretive and frequently shut off people for a prolonged period after one bad interaction. Though he got a teeny bit better as he aged, a bad habit carried over from his last years in specialization school: The fact that he would frequently get "casually physical" with people before closing them off.
Blema Von Voldark - As an infamously crude person, Bally and Blema got along surprisingly well. Their lax demeanours meshed greatly and their banter was always fun. In his later years, they even ended up doing some "casually physical" stuff for fun.
Juke Clorentine - Once his apprentice turned into outperforming peer, Bally knew him and Juke had wildly differing opinions about the world around them. However, as time marched on and specific things unfurled between them, he felt as if she would understand his insatiable desire for the truth the most. Perhaps... She was the one?
Fencien Armeldia III - Bally thought Juke was incredibly silly. Naive and full of joy, the scientist felt that Fencien's spirit was a bright light in an otherwise dim world. He started to see her like a younger sister, frequently coming over to her place to play games and give her some rock solid life advice when she was obviously feeling down.
Philly "Squawk" Delly - He only met her briefly as she handed over a mysterious briefcase. Thought she seemed nice.
Bally was born to a dysfunctional noble family. His father and mother were neglectful, leaving the young boy to mostly fend for himself. He got through primary and secondary school with amazing grades, prompting him to aim high in specialization classes.
As a preteen, Bally found himself often wandering through Shrooms' Academy's library. His young mind was fascinated by the tales told in Stem City's small history section. However, more questions started to crop up. Who originally founded Stem City? Who built the Nexus? How did the portals to the Off-worlds work?
He couldn't find the answers. So, he started to poke around. Ahsonov was somebody he didn't hold in high regard considering how brutish his practices seemed in the modern day, yet a young Bally found himself at the grave of the first Stem City ruler. Strange markings adorned the golden grave in the cemetery.
As he grew older, Bally found himself desiring affection and love that he hadn't gotten as a child. The final two years of specialization school was chock-full with flirting, fucking, and then ignoring various noble chicks he went to school with. Sadly, the void didn't seem to stay filled for long.
In his final year, a 16 year old Bally spotted something while hanging out with some friends. An abandoned church laid desolate a few streets away from the elevators up into the noble neighborhood. Forgotten stained glass windows held an oh-so-familiar symbol. Later that night, Backster came back alone and ventured inside the structure.
He was amazed at the ancient architecture. It took him no time to stumble down into the sprawling labyrinth of catacomb tunnels. Strange symbols adorned the walls, books full of unknown code laid haphazardly scattered about, the Grand Shroom's stems weaved in and out of the ceiling.
His journey came to an end as he heard deep, lumbering footsteps. An unknown figure shuffled around in parallel halls. The young Bally grabbed what he could and left.
His small interest in the truth of Stem City's history became an obsession. The next two years after school was nothing but him attempting to decode whatever he could from the books he stole while making money helping the local hospital perform chemical work. Using the good money he was earning, he moved out from his careless parent's home and into his own small flat in the noble neighborhood.
Somebody strange knocked upon his door on the day of his 18th birthday. Blema Von Voldark stood there, offering him a role as Stem Tower's new scientist. He was confused; He was just a mere chemist. The other degrees of his advanced science education hadn't really done him much...
Blema was adamant about it, though. So, taking the cards that had been dealt to him, he jumped at the opportunity.
For two years, Bally's work was nothing short of boring. Blema requested him to systematically clean and renovate the lab, review the chemical contraband list, and hypothesize ways to make Stemrails faster via the power of physics. This boring day job was great for him; At night, he peered into the Stem City servers and attempted to piece together anything he could about Stem City's creation, Ahsonov's rise to power, and his involvement with the dilapidated church.
Though he couldn't find much concrete information that wasn't hidden behind passwords, Bally's moral compass detested some of the reported activities. Backster came to realize that as a noble he came to see only the good sides of Stem Tower's rule over the city. He vowed then and there he would never let himself partake in harming the general population of Stem City.
While idly scrolling through Lawman feeds, Bally discovered modified Lawmen in Gillsway being controlled by a mysterious Juke Clorentine. He showed them to Blema who took great interest in them. A year later, Juke was hired and was slated to be his scientific apprentice. Bally quickly came to realize that she outmatched him in almost every way- He upgraded her role to a peer in mere months of working together.
XX814's Ahsonov Ball had Bally get incredibly drunk. For years, he had abstained from sleeping around. With a little bit of accidental prodding from Blema, he found himself in bed with an intoxicated Juke. Bally couldn't run away like he had done as a teenager- He was forced to be in the same environment as Juke consistently. Somewhere deep inside, budding feelings started to show their head. The skittish man pushed them down the best he could.
Years passed on, Bally scraping more and more details about a mysterious cult known as "Stem's Origin." The more Bally dug, the more like he felt like he was being watched. He needed somebody to confide in. Despite his sex drive being shallowly satisfied with his bomb of a boss, Bally couldn't bring himself to trust her completely. Fencien was much too open mouthed in his eyes, so she was also a no-go.
Juke. Juke would understand him. She could be his partner-in-crime... Maybe something more if everything ended up alright.
In XX817's Q1, the same exact day in which he planned to seat Juke down and tell her everything he had discovered about Stem City's hidden history and request help in discovering it, an off-worlder stopped him on the street. She handed him a briefcase that bore the church's symbol and explained that her late father wanted to give this to him. His heart beat a million miles an hour; The scared Backster thanked her before telling her to never contact him again.
Inside was only two things: A golden key and a letter addressed to him. It invited him to the church's catacombs that night so they could explain everything he wanted to know. Something in his gut explained that this was a trap, yet his desire to not let this opportunity go won over.
Backster spent all day in his lab preparing guns, gas grenades, and makeshift armor before descending into the catacombs he had dived into a decade prior. Twisting corridors and wobbling stones guided him to a locked door. Using the key, Backster was welcomed to an elegant dining hall. A bloody, animated corpse dressed as a nun greeted him.
He sat down and chatted with Unnun. Bally sat and calmly listened about how Stem's Origin had uprooted the nation, remodeled it in its image. Though his heart pounded in fear, his courage kept his head on straight. The nun revealed something incredibly chilling: The nun's god had orchestrated these exact events long ago; It had the ability to look into the future and observe the next time it would perish if it didn't take action. Bally Backster apparently was the next living thing alive who would go on to kill it- This meant they would have to get rid of him.
Blema and The Volva appeared from the shadows. All hell broke loose. A trembling Backster's firearm shot wildly at Blema as he reached to detonate his gas grenades. Though the rogue scientist had hit Blema's shoulder with his bullet barrage, he was too slow on the trigger for his impulsive suicide bombing. His body froze in time as The Volva approached him. The mushroom creature grabbed onto him and dragged him somewhere higher than Stem Island.
He saw the Grand Shroom's true form. Millions of eyes stared at him from extending stems. The mushroom's stems wrapped around him, trapping his mind.
Bally Backster was nothing but a pile of ashes on the floor inside the ancient church. However, his torn apart mind reached out through the stems' network. It permeated digital truthes once locked to the scientist
One voice managed to hear them. It grabbed onto the remnants of his voice, the madness oozing into its mechanical brain and corrupting it.
Baltimore can still sometimes make out the erratic ramblings of a faded Bally Backster.