User:Lesli

General Info
Lesli Steelspark is the sister of Kelsey Steelspark and a pilot and mechanic for the Gnomeregan Airmen. Her squadron is based out of Ironforge, but she has since been deployed to various locales, including Toshley's Station, Wildhammer Stronghold, and most recently Fizzcrank Airstrip.

Appearance
Lesli is leaner than most gnomes, with brown hair and green eyes that are rarely seen behind her goggles. She favors light plate armor when she is on the ground, but while on sortie dons a leather flight suit similar to those of her fellow airmen. Her goggles are handcrafted and therefore different in appearance from those of her fellow aviators, one of several "improvements" she has made to her gear against Airmen regulations.

Personality
Headstrong and often immature, Lesli has a penchant for drink picked up from her dwarven fellows and is regularly the first one into and the last one out of any barroom fisticuffs. Her off-duty actions have caused her to be reprimanded and publicly labeled a "radical", from which her callsign ("Rad") is derived.

She tends to outwardly reject authority, but after several attempts to resign and make her own way in the world, has come to realize the extent to which she depends on the discipline and predictable order of military life, and has always returned. Her general demeanor is one of curiosity and intense focus, but she opens up while flying or drinking (and often talking about flying). She considers her flying machine to be her truest friend, and - apart from her constant "improvements" and modifications to the vehicle - keeps it in immaculate condition, suggesting that her personality is mildly obsessive.

Formative Years
A native of Gnomeregan, she has always been lean for a gnome, an inborn trait that promised great success for her as she followed her sister into the rogue arts. To her family's chagrin, she demonstrated more interest in technology than in subtlety, and spent more time tinkering with various devices than she did following her sister - an arrangement the elder Steelspark was only too happy to accept.

Eventually, Lesli's general love of technology found a focus: flying machines. Having observed the devices inside Gnomeregan, she vowed to one day build one herself, and began seeking out whatever literature and instruction into their mechanics she could find. Her constant presence in the Launch Bay eventually caught the attention of some of the pilots there, who directed her to the mechanics that serviced their machines. Around this time, Lesli began her informal studies as an engineer under the machinists and mechanics that serviced the gnomish air fleet.



Gnomeregan Incident
During the Gnomeregan incident and the ensuing evacuation, Lesli lost contact with the outside world, as she was working intently on her nearly-complete flying machine in the Launch Bay at the time of the radiation venting. Fleeing the area to find her parents, she discovered that they had holed themselves up in an electrical closet with several other gnomes to wait out the irradiation. She joined them and rode out the incident for days, as her companions became increasingly weak and sickly from the trace amounts of radioactive gas that were seeping into the room. After exhausting their limited supplies, Lesli - the least affected by radiation sickness - ventured out to search for more, only to discover that the city was still teeming with troggs and that many of the others had evacuated. Upon her return to her parents and companions, she found an empty closet with shattered machinery and signs of a struggle. Fearing the worst, Lesli began to search for her parents' attackers and began scavenging whatever items of mechanical value she could find with which to equip herself.

Several months of hiding and searching for mechanical odds and ends resulted in her creation of several rudimentary wearable devices and other means of protection. Thusly equipped, she began to search the ruined city for survivors. Eventually, her inventions began to malfunction and run down, leaving her defenseless once again. While fleeing a small band of troggs, she stumbled upon the Clean Zone, where she met one Myrie Lightspanner, a Holdout Medic that tended to her injuries and introduced her to the Holdout Warriors, with whom Lesli remained until Operation: Gnomeregan and the subsequent rescue of many of the trapped gnomes, including Lesli and Myrie, by S.A.F.E.

The Gnomeregan Airmen
Recovering her battered flying machine from the Launch Bay, Lesli enlisted in the Gnomeregan Airmen and, after demonstrating her flying skills and knowledge of machinery, began flying solo reconnaissance missions in the Eastern Kingdoms as far as the Blasted Lands, where she observed the Dark Portal for the first time. While stationed in Ironforge's Military Ward, she became familiar with - and quite enamored of - dwarven brews, leading to several disciplinary actions by her superiors. After one such incident, her commanding officer admonished her in front of her squadron, remarking that she was "too unpredictable" and labeling her a "radical". Her response, "I'm ok with that, as long as I'm a free radical," garnered her support among her fellow pilots and earned her the callsign "Rad".

She has resigned her position several times, but always returns to her squadron and re-enlists. Her superiors, intending to both help her to move on from the structured lifestyle of the Airmen (upon which she depends but curiously does not fit well) and to get her out of their hair, have deployed her to various faraway places in the past, including as a liaison for a cross-organization mission to Tanaris, where she was reunited with her sister, now the head of Gnomeregan Covert Ops. Upon her return from Kalimdor, she was sent through the Dark Portal to rendezvous with another airman at Toshley's Station in Outland, and from there sent to Shadowmoon Valley, where she was immediately turned around and sent home to Ironforge for reassignment.

Upon her return from Outland, Lesli was sent from Stormwind aboard a ship to Borean Tundra, to support Gnomeregan's refinery efforts at Fizzcrank Airstrip, where she spent some time before receiving a summons to return to the Eastern Kingdoms, where she enjoyed a brief leave of absence.

Lesli is known to have recently been deployed at the behest of her sister in joint Gnomeregan Airmen/Gnomeregen Covert Ops reconnaissance missions, notably one into the depths of Gnomeregan to ascertain the validity of rumors regarding Mekgineer Thermaplugg's status and defenses.



The Present
Lesli has been returned to active reconnaissance duty, and is among the top choices to establish and maintain a temporary base camp for extended monitoring of areas of interest. Her exact whereabouts at any given time are either classified or unknown.

Out of Character Information

 * Lesli is a player character on the US server Silver Hand.


 * Lesli is comfortable with both in character and out of character communication, and switches between the two freely.


 * Lesli's "in character" or "out of character" state can be seen via the MyRolePlay or compatible addons.
 * This should be seen as a general suggestion only, as she will respond to both in-character and out-of-character statements in like fashion at all times.