Stanley Steele

WARNING!:

Individual Stanley Steele is wanted for;
5,248 Counts of murder
396 Counts of armed robbery
68 Counts of Kidnapping/Ransom
1,355 Counts of jaywalking
1 Count of Grand Ethereal Escape

 

Reward for information reguarding his whereabouts

WANTED DEAD ONLY!

-- Frontier Wanted Bulletin

Stanly J. Steele is a highly dangerous bandito from the sun-scorched lands of The Frontier. Once thought to have been finally caught and hanged for his list of infractions a mile long, Stanley won a game of skill with Death and was returned to the land of the living a skeleton of his former self. His newfound lack of flesh hasn't slowed him down in the slightest.

Backstory

In some far-off lands, where the brutal star in the sky has licked the surface dry and life can only thrive in the ravines and canyons split open like hardened mud in a now dried-up river, there was once a man known to many and most as The Second Sun and his gang, The Silver Lining.

Known as such his path in life was one that left such a path of chaos and the dead scorched in his wake. Stanley J. Steele was a horrible person. An elf whose avarice would make him murder, shoot, steal, and triple-cross any who stood between him and whatever had happened to catch the flickering flames of his sights. His posse was known as such because at the very least it’d be quick if they found you first. He was hated by all, loved by none, feared by most.

They would rob banks, hold up political offices, not pay tips in bars, raid workshops, hijack railcars, jaywalking. Very, very few could ever hope to outshoot him, and those that could, couldn't handle the underhanded tactics he packed as a surprise. 

He was nearly unstoppable…

Nearly...

See, when I said he was 'hated by all', there's no "but"s, no "Except"s, none of the sort. And this included his own crew.

His fall from the top of the list came from the gun placed firmly by the back of his coat, and it fired one fateful day in the middle of another heist. The grand vault of the middle of somewhere town, the crossroads of 5 ravines had earned the place the title of Pentium Rose. It had nothing more to its name than the convenience of going through it to get somewhere else.

It was then and there that he was shot in his back by his second-in-command. The rest of his crew shut the vault, locked the door, and left.

The Sheriff at the time couldn't stop the crew, but he knew damn well Stanley himself could kill him and 50 of his best men before they could even draw a bead of sweat on their foreheads, much less think about drawing their guns. Even as injured as he was. 

So he made a choice. The best one he had. The only one he had. 

He kept the vault closed.

One whole week, Stanley was mad as Hell: curses, swearing, threats against everything and anyone, promises of the cruelty he'd enact. No one went into the bank, but his hatred could be heard by anyone in the center square. Felt by everyone in the town. And after the first week, the bank went silent. Not another word slipped out of the vault's sparse ventilation. But the Sheriff knew better, he could still feel the hatred seeping from the locked door. Legends say that by then it had caused the paint to peel off the walls, and the floorboards had become splintered and creaky. It was as if the man's vitriol was tearing apart the very bank itself, trying to get out.

It was an incredibly hot month, that year, the heat had even started leaking into the typically protected ravines. The Sheriff made the call to let him cook in that solid steel locker for two more weeks. 

Until finally came the day that they would open the vault.

A single shot rang out the moment the Sheriff peeked into the vault, and when he stumbled back his eye had been shot cleanout. His men rushed to shut it once again but he shouted for them to halt. One patched socket later they opened the door wide to see what had happened.

There, sitting slumped over at the furthest end of that steel cell, was what was left of the Second Sun.

He was burned, bad to almost the point of melting. Heatrash, dehydration, starvation. He was thin before but now Stanley was little more than skin loosely flaking off of bones.

And yet he was still alive.

Barely, mind you, but that hatred in his eyes hadn't dulled for a single, wheezing breath of hot, miserable air. He had taken a few threads from his shirt, tied his gun to his hand, his finger to the trigger, and having propped it up with precisely placed stacks of gold bars and bills, aimed at the door. He had the strength left to pull the trigger once, but not enough for a second shot.

As the Sheriff would later recall, this would be the only time anyone had ever heard of Stanley missing a shot meant to kill.

They brought him out to hang that noon. The almost corpse of the outlaw had to be hoisted by two other men to the gallows. The Sheriff wanted him dead, real and rightfully dead at the hand of the law he had evaded and made a mockery of for so long. Everyone in town attended, hell, people came from towns all around to cheer and jeer at the hanging of Stanley Steele.

He stood more so by the rope around his neck that day than by his own strength. But as he gazed out over the seas of attendees, spite in his gaze, he saw one face, one face in particular that stoaked the coals of his anger. His lungs drew in one last gasp, hot air burned dried lips and cracking windpipe. His tongue burned with one last spell at the ready, one last curse to lay. 

She was faster. With an aim from across the town and a pull of the trigger, a shot rang forth. His jaw was blown clean off, his final words inflamed and incompleted. His gallow caught flames as the floor dropped out from under his feet. The crowd cheered. After all, he deserved it and far worse.

But as he burned and choked on dry blood held down by a crushed throat, a curse wallowed in the burning embers of his eyes.

This was not the end of Stanley Steele.

Years later, Roughly 45 by his later count, Stanley was rumored to have risen from his grave to scorch The Frontier once more. Those who had seen him were run white with terrible claims that he had risen from the grave no more a man than a thin specter of his former self, empty sockets filled with twin embers of hate. While his flesh may be no more, the wight still held his spells and cruel aim.

Rumors flew of the many reasons such a villain had been allotted a second life, the most common being that he had somehow bested the Desert Death in a game of skill for his own soul.

Whatever the reason, his plights of revenge eventually saw their end when he was recruited by the Devil Karl as a part of the Contractors, individuals tasked with seeing various hunting down and correcting cross-universal disruptions.

Stanley has taken to the work like cold to brandy, his sights finding no end to the treasures he can plunder and the foes he can hunt to his non-existent heart’s content.

Personality

Stanley J Steele is, by all accounts that one could give, a villain.

Stanley’s cruelty seems to stem from nowhere more strongly than his own amusement. He simply delights in outwitting, tormenting, and pushing others to their limits. He’s dastardly, sly, scheming, and sprinkled with a heavy layer of dry sarcasm and wit.

That said, his layers of villainy and antagonizing remarks do slowly peel away to reveal the kind of person Stanley is at his core. He holds effort, skill, and creativity in extremely high regard, his training and preparations deeply reflecting these core ideals. He goes to great lengths in the field of mathematics and, while rarely if ever showing it outside of combat, could be considered a genius in the field. His attention to detail and care for the refining of techniques is especially reflected in his own equipment; each weapon and tool in his arsenal is crafted, maintained, and refined by him to a perfectionist degree. His observant nature is something that is hard to shrug off in any interaction with him. 

Stanley is clever as he is cruel, and as cruel as he is clever. He easily picks up on any weakness a person may have to throw in with his usual antagonizations. He cheats in any game in any way he can. He steals things simply because he can. And he is a master of intimidation and terror.

Still, while Stanley hoards wealth, collects trophies, and takes heads as much as any tyrant or marauder, he will also lazily admit that these things hold very little meaning to him beyond bragging rights or what they can be materialistically used for. Stanley takes the greatest pleasure in the act of taking these items. He lives for the moments, of heated shootouts, of stalking a bounty that thinks they have a chance of getting away, of the seconds ticking down to the count of a quickdraw. Stanley finds fundamental meaning in a “Take or Be Taken From” way of life.