Coldstrike

Valeryia is a five foot-five inch female human assassin from the ice planet of Valhalla and the daughter of the commanding officer of the 362nd Ice Warrior Imperial Regiment. She has straight waist length jet black hair that she wears in a high warrior pony and ice blue eyes. She carries the standard equipment of the Vindicare Temple, a Exitus Rifle and Pistol, a Spy Mask, a Stealth Suit with her emblem (an icicle with wings in a circle) in black on her right shoulder, plus a Catachan Night Reaper knife given to her by her father that he acquired from a Catachan he saved on one of his missions. The blade has an inscription carved into the blade in a rough hand that reads “LET HELL FEEL MY BLADE”.

She was dedicated to the order of the Vindicare at the age of five but would later return to her home world at the age of fifteen when the planet was attacked by Orks. After the invasion was halted after six months she decided to remain on the planet with her own people and family unbeknown to her temple head, who tracked her down a year later. She was forced back to the temple and and given ten lashes for her actions, but took all of her punishment and treatment with great respect and acceptance, taking full responsibility for her actions saying “If I die, I will die loyal. My actions were my own, for my loyalties to my family and people are matched only by my loyalties to the Emperor”. The head of the temple decided that she would be spared further suffering and execution if her loyalties to the order and the Imperium were proven.

She was then sent with three other assassins (who were tasked with observing her and ending her if she showed any signs of falsehood or wavering) to the ice world of Betailis III to put an end to the blasphemy of the Ork Trarkox. The other assassins, being less adapted to the harsh, frozen climate were unable to match her in her ability to blend with her environment and her agility in a snow storm. One night, after realizing the true purpose of her companions, she left them and vanished into a raging storm to find her target, knowing that she would be far more productive on her own. After finding the Orks three days later she waited on the side of an ice pillar until Trarkox showed himself. When he finally appered he wasted no time in rallying his army and setting out at a fast pace to a nearby mining city. Unable to secure the shot she had to fallow until she could guaranty the kill. She fallowed them to the city, and watched as they started massacring the people, that was when Trarkox, standing at the front of the army, raised his Power Hammer and let out a bone chilling war cry, only to be silenced by the shot from Valeryia's Exitus Rifle. The horde of Orks fell silent as their leader died and became greatly confused and disoriented, only to be overrun by the people who took this chance to regroup and fight them off.

After leaving the people to recover their home, Valeryia returned to her landing sight, expecting to be put in shackles or shot on the spot, instead she finds her craft and companions gone, and they had been for some time. She believes they either declared her dead and lost to the storm or abandoned her believing her to have run off again. She decides to wait at the site until the return knowing that news of Trarkox's death will travel fast to their ears and they will return to try and find her. She hopes.

She waited in the same spot for two weeks off of nothing but her nutrition store in her mask. When they eventually returned for her, she was on the verge of death because her food had run out and had to be transported in a state of cryo-suspension in order to preserve her life. After returning to the Vindicare Temple, she spent three months under close observation by doctors. When asked why she waited instead of running like she did before she responded by saying “If I were to have died, I would have died loyal”.

Valeryia worships the Emperor with unfailing devotion, dedicating her life and eventual death to his service and the killing of his enemies. She does not believe him to be just the Emperor, but the he is HER Emperor. Her loyalty to him is greater even than her loyalty to her order and family. She is a firm believer in Machine Spirits and treats her wargear as a part of herself, caring for it as she would a member of her family. She is only of the age of eighteen, but is highly respected amongst the assassins in the temple, and a particular favorite of the younger ones because of her unusual loyalty to family.

Even after the events of Betailis III the people of her order, and even those who know of their activities still referred to her as “the one who ran”. As she grew to detest this name more and more each day, she swore never to remove her mask in front of anyone she did not trust or like, so that no one could identify her. As the people of the temple began to ask her who she was, she only told them “Coldstrike”, thus the temple dwellers began to call her by that name.

She was sent on a mission to kill an Eversor assassin who had gone rouge on a mission and was lose on a human world. When the Eversor Temple had tried to retrieve him he killed the entire team. While in route her lone carrier was attacked by a group of pirates with four Infidel-Class Raiders. As her ship was being overrun and the surviving crew members were cornered, the captain managed to get her and the remaining members of her group into some access ports that would take them to escape pods while he and the crew fought their way back to the command room. When they made it to the pods, a group of pirates came down the hall after them to try and prevent their escape. One of her team members, a thirty year old male assassin who had been with the order his whole life, died holding them off so the rest could escape. Her and the rest of her team were launched from the ship while the crew attempted to take as many with them as they could eventually crashing their ship, or what was left of it, into the nearest enemy ship.

As the pods raced away, fire from the enemy ships began to take them out. A blast from one of the cannons, as it hit the pod next to hers, damaged her navigation system, throwing her far off course.

After crashing on an unknow world, she was forced to survive and find a way to contact her order so they could come get her, or at least so someone can finish the mission. As she travled the planet looking for a way to contact the temple, or to escape the planet, she came across a group of Space Marines who had just witnessed a Blood Angle, one for their own, succumb to the Black Rage and die in the midst of innumerable foes, crying out “In the name of our Father, you shall die for your heresy!!”.

After escaping the planet and returning to her temple, Valeryia was dispatched to the Pleasure World of Askelphion Secundus were a corrupt noblemen was known to hang out, gambling away embezzled money and soliciting prostitutes. The Temple Head, knowing her identity, sent her in alone to take him out in the most subtle way possible. In private. Using her lineage as the daughter of a commanding officer of one of the Imperial Regiments, she was able to get into one of the casinos that her target was known to visit on his frequent trips. Wearing a long black dress with a high back to hide her scars, she went to the bar where she spotted him at one of the tables. After making eyes at him for some time, he had one of the servers give her a drink and a message with his room number. Later that night, he thought it was going great, she undid the back of her dress, only to reveal to his horror, the scars of her treason. She then pulled out her Night Reaper she had hidden down the back of her dress, and killed him upon his bed. She vanished that night form the casino and hotel without anyone seeing her. The body remained undisturbed for three days, before it began to smell. Once discovered the wounds on his body were untraceable and they never could identify a potential suspect.