How Gertrude Robinson Would Become An Avatar Of Each Fear

The Buried - Gertrude has heard the phrase “buried by work” before but this takes it to a new level. She had intended to be outside the building when she blew up The Archives and ended things once and for all, but Elias catching her in the act made her to have to pull the detonator faster than she hoped. Now she’s buried under the rubble of her life’s work, not nearly as frightened as she should be. There’s something almost…comforting about being packed in tight by all the things that used to keep her awake with suffocating dread. Maybe it’s the fact that the building that was often times her tormentor is now sealed away, reduced to nothing more than parts for the dirt to take, but this isn’t nearly as bad as it should be. It’s almost nice to feel the end first hand, and she doesn’t feel nearly as weak as she should ….it’s almost like she could push out of the rubble….if she wanted to.

The Corruption - Gertrude used to be a bright-eyed young women who just wanted to stop something as simple as The Desolation. She doesn’t know when her work started to corrupt her, but it did. Maybe it was that time she left a sandwich on her desk for days while she tirelessly combined through statements. Maybe it was that time she pulled a statement covered in mold from the cabinet and simply put it back, unwilling to let that knowledge go. Maybe it was that time she got sick and was covered in a rash that could only be described as “completely repulsive” and yet still come to work anyway, fully aware that her her assistants could catch her disease. Regardless, Gertrude gave into The Corruption at some point. She’s just not sure if it was caused by the filth or her work environment.

More Undercut

The Dark - Gertrude has spent a lot of her life wondering if there’s a way to server herself from The Eye. It seems like it should be possible, but no matter which path she takes she never seems to get closer to freedom….but she’s never taken this one before. She didn’t want to give herself to The Dark to blind The Eye, but that’s the only logical solution. The Eye can not be shown what it can not see, and there is nothing to see in a room full of darkness. It’s a bit desperate, sure. But desperate times call for desperate measures that she’s more than willing to take.

The Desolation - Gertrude knew there would side-effects to binding herself to Agnes Montague. Yet…admittedly she thought more along the lines of hot flashes or initial blinding pain than becoming an Avatar of The Desolation. Granted, she’s not as surprised as she should be. She knew she was already walking a fine line by destroying the ritualistic dreams of fear followers with fire, especially due to her own history. But she never thought that tying herself to Agnes would be the thing that finally made her trip. Though she supposes it makes sense. To have a part of Agnes meant to have a part of being too. Oh well. It’s an…unfortunate consequence, but not something that Gertrude’s scared to embrace. In fact, her newfound avatarism could be very useful in her end goal of destroying The Archives….

The End - Oliver doesn’t try to blink awake as he swings open the door to Gertrude’s office. He need’s to know why the veins that lead him here are thicker than any other he’s ever seen. Still, he’s not entirely prepared for what he see’s. Surrounding a desk are still figures that are wrapped in dark veins. One is a blind man who’s veins sprawl across his chest like a stab wound. One is a women with cobwebs in her hair who has veins wrapping around her like burns. The women who stands beside her glances at her with a look of fury, with the veins that wrap around her looking just as similarly caused by flames. Near the back is an older women who’s veins wrap around her throat like they’re suffocating. And in the middle, sitting at her desk, is the oldest one of all of them. She’s not wrapped in any veins at all, a startling conclusion to make as she looks up at him with eyes that are so cold he’s only seen them in corpses. “It would be best for you to wake up now. There’s nothing for you to learn here, we are one in the same.”

The Extinction - Gertrude is old and tired. She knows that she isn’t going to live forever, and for her, there is no thought that’s more terrifying. It’s not even her mortality she fears. Well. Not not entirely. It’s the thought of what the world will become when she’s gone. What will happen if one of the rituals succeeds? Will the world become a living hell that no one can escape? Will all her sacrifices be for nothing? That would be the worst-case scenario. Even complete human extinction would be better than the fear’s winning. Forbid the thought. Gertrude doesn’t want to think about it that way, but maybe nothing existing at all would be better than everything existing under the fears…Maybe she already knows what she needs to do as she pulls a letter from Adelard Dekker from her desk and reads it over with careful concertation.

The Eye - *Gestures toward the canon*

The Flesh - Gertrude knew that she was taking things a tad far when she had collected the entire Keay family in a book of skin….but she just can’t justify letting all their knowledge slip away. She serves The Eye after all, it’s her job to preserve what information she can. Though….she has to admit there’s something interesting about the skin itself. It feels much more like animal skin than she would assume, and visually it doesn’t look much different either, other than the writing. The words are necessary to summon them of course, but if removed then she’d just be looking at…meat. She really needs to stop this line of thought. Before she erases the words to make sure of her hypothesis.

The Hunt - Gertrude is always looking for another ritual to stop. It’s because she has to of course. If she doesn’t stop the end of the world then no one else will. But she has noticed the way she starts to sweat with anticipation when she realizes another ritual is about to start, the way her heart pounds with excitement when she zero’s in on the location of a ritual. She knows she’s stepping dangerously close to the hunt…but what else is she supposed to do? Not keep chasing? Of course not. If she did that then the world would end, and if the world ends, then there will be no more ritual’s to go after. There will be nothing else to hunt. And she can’t have that.

The Lonely - Gertrude has lost so many of her assistants. Some of those loses were caused by her own hand, but they still weight heavy on her when she walks into the quiet Institute and sits down at her desk that no one visits. If she really needed someone to talk to then she has Leitner or Elias she supposes, but they’re more of “means to an end” than genuine connections for her to share. She’s even not sure the last time she had one of those. Maybe it was with Emma, but that was far more one-sided than she assumed. Maybe it was with Michael, but he was too far in the dark to truly know her. Maybe it was with Eric, but she can’t deny how slighted she felt when she realized he chose Mary over their work. So, maybe she’s never really had a connection with anyone at all. But that still doesn’t make the quiet in the air any more bearable. She doesn’t even feel like dealing with when fog starts rolling in and surrounds her desk with no time at all.

The Slaughter - Elias was never as subtle as he wanted to be. Gertrude knew that he would rather see her dead than see The Archives get destroyed, so she had to make a plan. One that involved getting him first. She knew that it would be her undoing. Elias was the “beating heart” of The Institute after all, and killing him would end herself as well. But Leitner was ready to set the flames, and that was enough consolation as Gertrude moved toward Elias’s office with a pipe in hand. Of course, that was five years ago, and what she did wasn’t her end. More like her rebirth. As it turns out, the one way to not be killed by a binding ritual to bind yourself to something else. Another entity. Gertrude hadn’t intended for that entity to be The Slaughter, but as she felt The Institute start to take her strength she couldn’t ignore the way it called to her. She took it’s deal. And the people around her have paid for it. Ask what’s left of Leitner.

The Spiral - Gertrude had full intentions to sacrifice Michael to The Spiral. It wasn’t personal. She liked him well-enough and even felt pity for him in odd moments, but the fate of the world doesn’t care about any of that. Neither does the flu apparently. Just a few hours before they were supposed to go to Russia, Michael apologetically called to say that he was ill couldn’t make it. It was the worst case scenario, but Gertrude has always been good at improvising. She made the hard choice to sacrifice Emma Harvey instead….a choice that turned out to be a mistake. Gertrude hadn’t even finished explaining the map before Emma looked up at her with eyes full of raging curiosity and shoved her hard through the door. Gertrude didn’t have time to react. She landed on the carpet of an endless hallway with a sharp thud and racing mind as the door slammed shut behind her. It was only then did she realize what Emma had been doing to her other assistants, and, as it turns out, The Spiral’s hallways are a very bad place to spiral with the realization that you’ve been betrayed…

The Stranger - After spending so much of her life trying to stop ritual’s, it never occurred to Gertrude that she’d be participating in one. But that’s the exact type of irony that Nikola find’s hilarious, so Gertrude can’t say she’s in any way surprised that Nikola used her skin to fashion her into a doll meant to witness the unknowing. That is exactly what she expected of her. Thankfully. You see, dolls have a more free will than one would assume, and having a questionable amount of skin isn’t going to be what stops Gertrude from stopping the world from ending. She’s going to stop the unknowing. Inside or out it.

The Vast - Gertrude’s connection to Jan Kilbride went a little deeper than just simply a man she had to sacrifice. She resonated with him when he shared his feelings about people being nothing more than ants in an endless universe. She felt that way plenty of times after spending her life dealing with something so extraordinary as the fears. Looking back that should have been her warning that she was becoming someone too suited for The Vast, but she didn’t realize it until she couldn’t stand to be near the buried ritual pit without being overcome by vertigo. Not that she can change it now. She’s just a tiny speck in a big game, anyway.

The Web - The new hire, Jon, doesn’t spare the old women who’s apparently his boss a second glance. He’s busy with his own work, and he just wants to get a cup of tea from the machine before he settles back into his desk for the day. He doesn’t notice the cobwebs that lace her hair, or the stone-cold look in her eye that is the only indication that the frail old lady act is nothing more than a puppet show meant to trap people in her web. He doesn’t even notice the way she shoves files in the wrong places with far too much precision for it to be a true mistake. He’s busy in his own world, slapping down the cobweb that’s for some reason behind the tea maker.