Surrounded in a city of gold and vain, he sat alone in a simple
fisherman's hut just along the beach. The sky's darkness was pushed away,
an unwelcome guest on this festival night. Throngs filled the seaport of
Darkhaven, happy riotous, good-natured in the calamity of one year's ending
and another's beginning. The sound of such joy eroded the mood of Jarnax as
he sat alone on a simple table.
Not a month back his world had changed - in his hand he held a small locket,
the single possession of any worth in this empty abode. He had lived a
simple life, a fisherman's son who was another's fisherman's son... All
hiding from their dark past and the chain of poverty rooting their fate in
place. As he fumbled with the locket in the light of a candle, he opened it
and a wave of anguish crossed his face - inside the picture of a beautiful
woman and young boy. Pain and grief rolled over him like a tidal wave as
his sobs became heavy and uncontrolled once again. He closed the locket and
squeezed it tight, fighting to close the hole inside him.
They had left him... No, he shook his head - he let them leave. A ship had
arrived on the docks, almost like clockwork - a slaver ship. Most poor
families would watch from beyond the docks as the rich were rightfully
terrorized but on this day his wife hadn't come home yet. When the signal
horn blew, his world broke apart... See, it was "almost" like clockwork but
today was early. The events didn't matter now, it was the end result that
lasted forever. Their cries so filled with anguish, they seemed to tear a
jagged hole in his soul... Echoing to this day.
Some would say he wasn't strong enough. Some would say it was fate and out
of his control. Some would say he should move on, try to forget. Others
would have ended their pain indefinitely. Jarnax would have taken any
option, but he was just too damaged. Lost without direction, he held on to
their memory and grew angry... Angry at everyone and everything. Angry
without reason. Angered to finally move.
As he knocked the candle over and stumbled outside, his eyes were already
far away. The growing fire behind him pointlessly tried to reach him but
the flames bounced off as good as hard rain. His anger coated him like a
protective permafrost, the deathly cold within an ice beyond reason. He
stepped from his burning past and moved ultimately forward.
The Festering Soul
Contemplating the climb upwards, a small shower of sand falls from the
aperture high above. The climb itself was an easy enough task for Jarnax
but it was his meeting mere moments ago with Emnon that left him lost in
contemplation. Trekking round the mane of the unicorn corpse pinned to the
floor by obsidian shards, his eyes were drawn to the beautiful horn savagely
shoved within its gaping mouth....
"Devour them all."
Jarnax felt like suddenly eating the unicorn but fought against the impulse.
His damned acts had allowed him to willing allow demonic possession.. And
the dark feast created desires of pure gluttony. He was older now, these
twisted changes to his body were from being more "respected" within his
guild... After years of tireless practice he had finally grown. His eyes
focused as he noticed the lifeless husks of several locusts that had
engorged themselves upon the unicorn's flesh....
"Just as the locusts leave the lands barren, so shall you."
Emnon had taken Jarnax in - a guided path for a tormented soul that desired
but one thing: to shake off his wicked flesh and live with his anger
forever. A self mutilating mentality that drove Jarnax to desire the
unthinkable by doing the unforgivable. He would never be weak again... He
would fill his broken soul with the souls of the many. Even now a few souls
raged within his infernal weapon. No longer lost in thought, Jarnax looked
up once again to hear the howling winds outside his Master's palace.
"Use that anger. And I will reward you slave."
Foregoing the need to crawl upward, Jarnax clutched his two-tined fork with
unholy strength and launched himself into the air with a great leap.
Reaching the apex of his maneuver, he spun and landed in a wilted oasis
bereft of life. Jarnax closed his eyes for a moment of small prayer to his
Master before walking back towards the Citadel. A small murmur of words
before he opened his eyes... And a cloud of blood overtook the whites of
his eyes.
His anger would devour everything. He set off into the world...
Description:
An enormous man stands here as he draws attention from the public for
when most look upon this abomination they unwillingly remember of the shared
reality that is this cursed land. The creature's once pale blue eyes have
now become tarnished with bright red cracks of energy, turning this window
into his soul into a cracked mirror of power... A lack of sleep apparent
from the heavy sags growing beneath his eyes. His midnight-black hair was
at one point well-kept despite an obvious hard upbringing but it falls now
over his face as if through some sad attempt he could hide his demonic
visage from the world. Wiry hands open and close, rhythmically clenching as
if there could be some violent solution to his pain if only he could find
it. His face a volcano of emotion, a haunted soul that stares inward and
has now exploded with anger onto the world.
One of the most daunting features to mar this figure is that his once
unblemished human flesh has now began to decay - pocketed holes cover places
of his body, hived out as the infernal energies he calls upon drain his
essence. Large enough to create small honeycomb caves, a small gathering of
locusts have now taken refuge inside of his body. As they wander in and out
of their new home to explore the feast of Serin, the giant man takes no
notice.
Sharpened weapons hang from his hands without focus, a once ferocious
obsession that has come untethered - the dark whispers of magic bumbling
from his cracked lips.
