Sunk Cost

"You buying something or what?"
Sunk Cost
Player: @McSpazz
Origin:	Natural
Archetype:	Sentinel
Security Level:	30
Personal Data
Real Name:	Iliana Rentz
Known Aliases:	Sunk Cost, Sunk
Species:	Human
Age:	26
Height:	5'4"
Weight:	125 lbs
Eye Color:	Brown
Hair Color:	Brown
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Etoli Citizen
Occupation:	Unconventional Acquisitions Expert (Thief), Fence
Place of Birth:	Port Oakes, Etoli
Base of Operations:	St. Martial, Etoli
Marital Status:	Single
Known Relatives:	Cyrus Rentz (Father), Eve Rentz (Mother, missing)
Known Powers
N/A
Known Abilities
Thievery, stealth, research, tracking, marksmanship, combat maneuvers
Equipment
A beam rifle she named "Universal Key", grappling hook
Known to be snarky.

"I swear to god, if I hear one more person suggest blowing up a bank to get to its vault, I am going to explode."

Her Personal Collection

Sometimes Sunk comes across items she cannot bear to part with. Be they gifts from employers, carry emotional significance, or items that carry fun stories, she proudly puts them on display in her home as a means of showing that you don't need powers to find items of worth.

Roman Urn

This is probably the most boring of her collection, but it was the lowest valued piece from her first big haul. The job was pretty simple. Steal a luxury yacht from some St. Martial high roller that was using some fancy legal strategies to avoid paying his dues. The mission was pretty straight forward, but given the payout and the risks involved, she still hangs onto one of the items found on the ship that her employers offered to let her keep. Unlike the rest of her collection, there is no amazing story to put to it. Simply a memory of simpler times.

Funny Money

Found during one of Sunk's rare bank heists, this was actually taken before the bank was ever hit. This ATM was laying in a nearby dumpster and was was covered in dents and marks as if someone(s) had assaulted it with hammers and other blunt instruments. Curious to see what was wrong with it, she brought it home and tested it out. Much to her surprise, it seemed to be entirely functional. She had no issues depositing money to her test account. However, when she tried to pull the money back out, she didn't get real money. It wasn't even actual counterfeit money. Instead, it was a random assortment of Monopoly money from different versions of the game. To further her confusion, when she opened the machine up, she found that it had a few legitimate bills in it, but no monopoly money nor a means of printing it. Deciding that this was one of the most hilarious finds of her life, she kept it and put it on display in her house. She will occasionally use it on new visitors as a prank.

She just makes sure they don't withdraw that much.

Sleep Paralysis Button

Unlike most of her display items, this wasn't part of a job. Instead, this was something she was hunting for personally. Rumors were spreading of a strange mystical button that would do something miraculous. The stories were all varied, but she decided there were too many common threads for this button to not exist in some form. Thus, she entered the fray and joined numerous other treasure hunters and thieves to locate the button first.

While it was close, she managed to snag the oddity just before several others arrived and began to fight amongst themselves for the contents of the chest she had already plundered (and left a "too slow <3" note). While it certainly looked impressive, every appraiser be they mundane or arcane had little to say about it. It was simply a fancy button on a platform that seemingly had no purpose. After she could find no reason for the device to exist, she pressed the button out of frustration and, after nothing happened, went to bed.

That night, she had what she would best describe as a waking nightmare. She lay in her bed, eyes wide open but unable to move. The darkness was absolute and instead of the sounds she normally expected out of her home, there was absolute silence. That is until the deep echoing thrumming hit her ears. It sounded as though it belonged to a creature that dwarfed not only her but the city she resided in. If she wasn't already unable to move, she would have been stone still in a state of primal, absolute terror. She lay like that for the entire night, only being released from the horrifying vision in a blink after her alarm went off to indicate it was morning. The strange environment and thrumming halted with the call of her alarm and, as far as she is concerned, the button was the cause and is remaining under lock and key indefinitely.

She has no interest in learning what was making that sound...or if it wants its button back.

A Petty Hat-like Acquisition

If there is one thing that frustrates Sunk to no end, it's people who insist that people like her are inferior to metahumans or magic users. That's why when a particular witch put out a public challenge that mundane humans were incapable of infiltrating her home and stealing something, Sunk took it personally. It took over a month of planning and preparation, but Sunk did manage to break into the witch's sanctum. Once inside, however, Sunk realized that everything of value was hexed so thoroughly that she couldn't possibly get away with it without suffering a high cost.

However, Sunk can be petty and decided that what mattered wasn't that what she took had value, but showing that she was capable of doing it. So instead of taking something the witch expected, she instead took something simple: one of the witch's hats. While it was of exceptional quality and had a few built in enchantments, it was relatively worthless in comparison to the rest of the magic user's collection. But the point was made and, impressed with the accomplishment, the witch told Sunk that she was welcome to keep the hat without fears of appraisal...just so long as she shared how she broke in.

Given that pissing off a powerful witch wasn't high on Sunk's list of fun activities, she agreed. The hat now sits on display as a reminder to herself that, with enough planning, anything is possible.

Eatass Coin Made Manifest

It was supposed to be an easy job. She had a contact that wanted a more secure means of holding onto crypto currency. But this contact was also completely bonkers, so their best idea was to create a device that would take crypto and physically manifest it into the physical world. All Sunk had to do was go to a specific location in Cap au Diable and use a remote translation device (whatever that means) to steal from the wallet of someone within the university.

However, there was a minor problem. There was another valid target within range of the device who was technically closer. So that's who it stole from. Instead of Bitcoin or Etherium, Sunk instead ended up with a bag stuffed full of coins that had a poop emoji on one side and a butt on the other. After a bit of searching, she discovered that she had accidentally pulled from the wallet of Cryptocurrent who was chilling out on a donut innertube in the ocean nearby. His creation, Eatass Coin, was what was sitting in her bag and was worse than worthless. Given the price of Eatass Coin, she would likely have to pay someone to take this off her hands.

While the two are now friendly with one another, she never did get paid for that job. All she has to remember it for is a bag full of worthless manifested cryptocurrency.

A Nemesis Horse Escape Vehicle

In Sunk's mind, having to fire her rifle at someone else even once during a job means that she failed somehow. If she ends up having to shoot at many people, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Such was the case of her attempt to rob a collector based out of Mercy City. Her hope was to get her hands on some rare cybernetic components from discontinued models to sell on the black market. However, her contact turned out to be a rat and Sunk was, in fact, being used as a means of testing the building's security system. When she began to bag the cybernetics, all hell broke loose. Robotic sentries began to pour out of hidden compartments, turning the area into a free fire zone.

While she managed to hold them off, she realized that she wouldn't last forever. She needed to get out and the front door was no longer an option. There was one solution, however. There was a Nemesis rocket horse nearby that, based on it having no means of preventing someone from just climbing on, was not believed to be operable by the owner. Sunk, on the other hand, knew that there was a good chance that the vehicle simply would only work if whoever was riding it was wearing the right Nemesis garb. After some clever maneuvering, Sunk found and put on a pair of gloves used by Nemesis troops and, in the middle of a lull in the assault, got onto the horse, turned it on, and broke free via the skylight.

After a quick visit to her contact (to show how appreciative she was), she returned home and hung her new acquisition in her home. It's not every day you find a functional Nemesis horse.

A Baby Carriage Cannon

Normally, a mission to find a highly reclusive weapons manufacturer who specializes in shock and horror would be a hard task. Sunk had several possible locations with few leads, but when one of those locations was leveled in a massive, fiery explosion, she was very quick to get to the scene.

The nearly indestructible combat armor she was looking for was, of course, mostly scuffed in the crater left behind. What was more interesting to her was what was located not far from the center of where the explosion must have been. A child's carriage with what appeared to be a high tech rifle built into it. Why a baby's carriage? Why was it turned into a weapon? Was it actually the cause of the explosion? Sunk had none of the answers to this, but curiosity got the best of her and she took it home with her. While she was sure to take out some key components to ensure it cannot be fired, she still isn't certain if it was the cause of the explosion.

One hell of a conversation starter, though!

Mementos of a Oranbega Sortie

It was supposed to be an easy job. Steal a teleportation device from a mage and take it to the client. What they didn't tell Sunk was that the mage was inexperienced and they believed that the mage had modified the device. Getting it was easy, but what came next became a nightmare. Now tuned to bring the user to the heart of Oranbega, the modified device was practically on a hair trigger and quickly shunted the thief to the middle of hostile territory. Over the following 48 hours, Sunk sneaked, fought, and struggled through the city's native population to find freedom. After pushing her way through the maze, she finally managed to find an exit point to the surface and freedom.

Unsurprisingly, the client was unwilling to pay additional money for the trouble that their withholding of information gave Sunk. She walked away a little wiser with a few of the weapons she utilized to protect herself after she ran out of beam rifle charges. Suffice to say, she never worked with that client again.

A Creepy Statue

It isn't often you are asked to steal a statue from a building sight unseen. The statue was located on one of the older buildings in Port Oakes and was believed to have been put there by one of its previous inhabitants. Her client believed that the statue was somehow protecting one of the building's inhabitants as multiple assassination attempts had utterly failed at that location. Their task was relatively simple: steal the statue and bring it to them as proof of work done. Given its potential magical nature, they wanted it stolen and NOT destroyed.

What followed was several months of a combination of bribes and social engineering. By the time she arrived with a small crew to remove the statue, everyone believed that the statue was due for repairs and was simply being hauled away to get renovations. Nobody realized, of course, that the statue that was being returned was simply a cheap but convincing replica. The payday was sweet and it was the last she expected to see of the statue.

However, a few weeks later, the representative of her clients called in a frantic state. They begged her to take the statue off their hands. When she refused, they offered double what they paid for the job to take it in the first place. Unable to resist easy money, she accepted and soon found it sitting in her collection. To this day, she doesn't know why they were so desperate to get rid of the statue or why nothing has happened since. She has a few protective wards built into its display case, but it concerns her that she has never heard from the client again. She can't help but wonder why...and how much the explanation involves the statue now sitting in her home.

The Corpse Maker (AKA a Rikti Blade)

Sunk, these days, is not what you might call a conventional thief. Not flashy, not super powerful. Simple information collection and the implementation of a tight plan. While many modern day thieves rely on metahuman abilities and flashy tricks, Sunk focuses on tried and true methods. That, in part, is why she was hired to steal a stockpile of Rikti weapons from a Council site in the Rikti Warzone and simultaneously pin the blame of the theft on a nearby Arachnos cell.

No guns. No bodies. Get the goods and get out with the Council none the wiser over the actual perpetrators.

It took some doing, but she delivered. She was certain that this theft was part of a far greater plan, but her involvement ended there and the client appreciated her discretion. In addition to the payment, they gave her one of the weapons from the stash she took: a simple Rikti blade. While she had no use for the blade, she was flattered that they would give her something that on its own could effectively double her pay on the black market. Being more than a little sentimental, instead of selling the weapon, she hung it in her home as a reminder of a job well done.

While her involved was indeed concluded, she couldn't help but wonder where things were going to go from there.

Doomsday? This is where I keep my stuff!!

Sunk has no interest in jobs that would result in the destruction of the human race or of the planet. Not only does she fall into both categories, but she really doesn't want that kind of bloodshed on her conscience. She has had to turn away plenty of clients who couldn't respect this. However, the one time she made an exception to this wasn't when she was told to steal something to create a doomsday machine but, instead, to steal multiple parts of a doomsday machine and break what she couldn't to ensure it couldn't be used.

The job took some time and the vast majority of it was information hunting. In fact, the actual heist was only half an hour long. However, as she stared at the massive machine capable of causing the entire Earth to quake with magnitude 9.9 tremors, she came to decide this job was worth taking even if she never saw a cent. What lies in her collection now is the only piece of the machine that couldn't be easily destroyed. With the rest of its parts impossible to reproduce, she decided to hang onto this as a reminder: Not every payday comes in the form of hard cash.

The Ultimate Rifle (with a catch)

This rifle has changed many hands over the years and she was tasked with getting it. According to every bit of information available on the gun, it was a powerful psionic weapon which was capable of scoring a killing blow on the intended target no matter where they stood. They could be on the other side of the planet and the bullet within would strike true. While she would normally hesitate to give something so powerful to a client, she trusted them well enough to acquire it for them.

While she was caught in the process of breaking into the manor of its then owner, she was surprised when, upon discovering her target, he laughed and asked his guards to let her go and led her straight to it.

"Do you want it? You can have it. So long as you have the guts to use it."

The challenge was simple: If she could shoot it, she could keep it. He even offered himself as a target. The problem was that no matter what she did, she couldn't fire it. Something would happen that would prevent her from using it. A sneeze, a flash of light, something would always stop her from pulling the trigger. Utterly frustrated, she finally snapped and instead shot the rifle at a nearby vase and, to her surprise, the gun fired and struck true. As everyone stood in shock, Sunk bolted and managed to escape with the gun.

The client, however, was not amused. They asked her to wait in the other room while they worked to find a way to use the gun. After an hour of waiting, she came back to discover that every member of the small group had died of heart attacks after going out of their way to ensure there was no way they could fail to fire the weapon. In the end, she was left with a check and the weapon...and one less client.

She supposed that even some guns must want love and not war.

Bob

The story of Bob is mostly unknown to her. A literal skeleton in the wall of her home that was discovered when she tore down a wall to expand her storage space. She doesn't know who the skeleton once belonged to nor how it died. All she knew and knows for sure is that there is no way she is going to disturb the resting place of some mystery skeleton and risk a haunting. Instead, she closed the wall back up and placed a headstone at the wall. She has even come to sit at the spot once in a while and talk to it. Not that it ever answers back, but she finds it oddly comforting.

History

Early Childhood (1996-2002)

"We had it really good, you know. I don't know where I would be if things hadn't gone belly up. Maybe I'd be managing dad's business. That would have been nice..."

Sunk (2002-2012)

"That...that bitch Ms. Liberty took everything from us on that day. She took my dad's business. She took my mom's confidence. She took my dad's pride. She took my god damn future as I watched on! Nothing was the same after that. I almost wish she threw Thermonuke at the docks and just killed us all. Let's see her spin that into a PR victory..."

The Cost (2012-2020)

"What else was I supposed to do? Throw myself into the arms of the Family? Hell no. I wasn't about to turn myself into one of their flunkies. I had to find my own way through the world. Without my dad. He made it pretty clear I couldn't rely on him anymore."

Sunk Cost (2020-Present)

"Sure, I might not have been rolling in money...but I finally had shit figured out. I had a proper business and "