Cassandra King

"Hey there, hot stuff. I like your style and your weapon."

- Cassandra King

Cassandra King is a character in the M.M.O. The Secret World. Cassandra is a recruiter for the cult-like organization known as The Morninglight. She is a sexually active woman who uses her expertise in temptation and body-language to induce heterosexual men into joining the exploitative movement.

Dawning of an Endless Night introduction
Cassandra is first encountered during the story-mission, Dawning of an Endless Night, to combat the monstrous Draugr and discover their source. The Draug monsters made of animated dead mariners - re-purposed into sea-demons. The town of Kingsmouth, in Solomon Island Maine is under siege from zombies perpetually attacking from deep-within an extended fog from the sea. The zombies were the townsfolk of Kingsmouth who were called out to sea by a siren-like song and drowned, but were animated by the fog that covers the Draugr invasion force and dispatched by the Draug to attack the town - most bodies are used as zombie foot-soldiers, some are used as incubators though to hatch more Draug out of. After discovering the "life"-cycle of the Draugr, the Player agent will catch wind of the siren-song that lured most of the people out to sea. The song leads to an underground pipe-service center being used as the make-shift hide-out for Morninglight overseer Freddy Beaumont.

The Morninglight are a "self-help" group that use cult-like induction and brain-washing techniques, paired with predatory legal teams to bind enthralled members as legalized members until the organization is all they can and must devote themselves too, and yet still they have an even darker side than this. Freddy Beaumont is the friend of movement founder Philip Marquard, he knows how to use spells, magical objects and has a deep understanding of the darker side of the world that the Morninglight truly seek. At the time he is encountered in the tunnels, he is paired-up with Cassandra, apparently one of the main recruiters who is good at, as Beaumont puts it,  "getting the boys to sign over their lives for a snog". With the siren-song, Beaumont is controlling the Draugr army, he has the entire town in his hands but is only concerned with a sword brought by a local fishing ship - the sword itself being what the Fog is bound to and as an extent what dragged the Draugr to shore with it as the ship returned. Cassndra picks up on despite all the power Beaumont has he clearly can-not use it for whatever he wants. When Cassandra inquires why, Beaumont deliberately avoids he details to grand-stand on the Morninglight's over all vision for a glorious future, one where the world-tree shakes, the sun turns black and the gods fall. Cassandra likes the idea but Beaumont sees Cassandra is trying to manipulate him the same as she does for no-name recruits and tells her she is little more than the flavor of the moment; Insulted, Cassandra breaks-up with Beaumont and leaves him to his plotting. After scrolling through his research Beaumont makes up his mind to go somewhere to try to unlock his powers and leaves, allowing the agent, who had been eaves-dropping to try to pick-up on Beaumont's perspective to beat him to his destination.

The Pick-up
Outside the tunnel the local Morninglight chapter, headed-up by Che Garcia Hansson, have set-up a camp-site. Beaumont has assumed control of the chapter, and Che sees Beaumont as a celebrity figure, having been a person who actually met Marquard, whom he relates to being a figure like Jesus Christ. Che is cooperating completely with Beaumont. Che has been asked to have a package delivered to Beaumont, the tunnel team holding it has been cut-off and Che is concerned about getting the package to Beaumont quickly. Cassandra has just broken-up with Beaumont but it is implied Che does not know yet and either way he as been instructed by Beaumont to keep an eye on her. Cassandra offers to go get the package but Che does not trust her even slightly as she is known to be ambitious. The agent will have previously helped save the package for the Morninglight in order to ingratiate themselves to them to spy on them, it works well enough. Che does not trust the agent to handle the package, and does not trust Cassandra to hold her own against any monsters that may have attacked, so he sends the agent to guard Cassandra while she retrieves the package.

The Morninglight rendezvous had been attacked by the Phoenicians, a secret society who work as mercenaries for powerful people in the secret world. The agent and Cassandra will need to manuver past the booby-traps Beaumont had installed and trigger them on the intruders while the two go further inside. Cassandra warns the agent of each of the traps until they get to the safe-room with the package inside. As security is lowering, Cassandra states that it is better for everyone if the Morninglight do not get their hands on the package and asks the agent to just let her have it. As soon as the security is down and the agent reaches for the package, Cassandra uses an enchantment she picked up working with Beaumont to paralyze the agent and casually walk out with the package. Cassandra says she will see the agent again, after she has had some time to "grow-up" a bit.

Dawning of an Endless Night conclusion
At the final tier of the Dawning of Endless Night Beaumont has the sword, Excalibur. Through the mission thus far, background lore, and the events of the dungeon known as the Darkness War, Beaumont is exposed to be a fallen god, Loki, -the- Loki of Norse myth. Loki was kicked out of Asgard for consorting with the Eldritch horrors known as the Dreamers, and aims to get back at Odin by destroying the world. Beaumont was a powerful warlock but no god without the divine properties Odin robbed him of, however the sword restored them. Fighting the mad god will eventually lead to his defeat. The blade seems to have an odd power-system to it as any powers it grants leave as soon as it leave the possession of it's wielder, but also takes with it even their inherent powers and so when the blade is removed from Beaumont's hands even his previous magics are removed. The agent will be summoned forth by Beaumont's true sponsors, The Dreamers, and Beaumont will attempt to pick-up the sword again, however in his weakened state he can just barely move and he is cut-off by Cassandra.

Cassandra had returned to take the sword in Beaumont's moment of weakness. Cassandra is far more confident than previously encountered. Beaumont initially believes Cassandra has come-through for him and retracts his previous contempt for her, promising her a place at his table as he becomes the world's only living god (Odin and the other gods of myth having long since died to the Dreamers in Ragnarok). Cassandra laughs off the notion and takes the sword for herself. Beaumont, over-come with fear tells her she has no idea what she is dealing with and she must not touch it. Cassandra disregards Beaumont's pleas, knocks him out and walks off with Excalibur, the one thing that might have undone the Draugr's hold over Kingsmouth.

Epilogue
All three player factions, Templars, Illuminati and The Dragon, were concerned with getting the sword. All state the blade would have been nice to have but the main goal was stopping the Beaumont and this are satisfied with the results. The Illuminati (the faction with he best information network of the three), states unlike the other two factions they have pin-pointed where Cassandra is, or rather is moving and have agents following her. Excalibur is initially less tantalizing to the Illuminati that Cassandra herself, faction handler, Kirsten Geary, stating that opportunism like hers is priceless.

As the story goes on, more and more background information on what exactly was going on in Kingsmouth. The fog was an air-born version of The Filth. The Filth is a manifestation of The Dreamers dreams, under their rudimentary sway but not specifically controlled by them in their dreaming state. The Filth infects all it touches and the people consumed by it maintain only just enough self-awareness to be in constant torment at the lose of the rest of their identities as they become feral monsters. The Draugr were a form of Filth-infectees, made to look like creatures of legend popular to it's first Viking victims - followers of Odin sent to slay a prehistoric sect of the Morninglight. The Filth itself keeps appearing through-out the game as a central antagonistic force even as it's local users like Beaumont keep changing. The hold of The Filth is impressed to keep getting worse and worse - as even in death those infected find no peace, kept in their Filthy-mind-set in an endless nightmare. There are a variety of measures to ward off the Filth or cleanse souls that did not die of The Filth but were infected after their deaths, but there is no solid cure for those claimed completely by the infection. As Kingsmouth is covered with the Fog, it's remaining people are infected, but in the earliest stages before being completely taken over, most not even noticing anything is wrong - their few strange behavioral ticks chalked up to natural considering the tragedy and isolation behind the barricades. The only way to save the people of Kingsmouth and others who have completely transformed via The Filth is to recover Excalibur however; However Cassandra has continually evaded capture along with the blade.

Trivia

 * Cassandra is originally from Georgia and has been reported as missing by her family.