Post by Emiliania on Aug 8, 2021 3:19:47 GMT
It was a great day. The sky stretched its weary body across fields of bright orange, a reliquary for the toasted scent of charred houses as they expired. The crystalline moisture of the old logs whistled in a cascade of harmonics amid the heartbeat of combustion where sap melted and took flight. The guttural moans purged of those who fell prey to the flames joined in as a barely discernible lower foundation, a specific trait that could only be achieved by the way their throats fried to an elegant dark brown texture within the oven. All the yellows and purples in the surrounding gardens of a once-town square, conjoined into a black mass that jetted outward before seemingly disappearing altogether, replaced only by the lustre of the flames that echoed through it. Masonna stood amidst all this, feasting upon this delicacy for the eyes, where a half charred soon-to-be corpse dragged its sorry flesh across the floor towards him. The word upon her lips was obvious even if she’d been too thoroughly roasted to enunciate it.
“Why indeed,” he responded, his voice jagged and high. “You complained in great detail of the smoke billowing out from the wildfires beyond, and we were *cough* gracious enough to hand each of you a pocket of clean air by which to breathe. You’re really going to be displeased at me for then–ha-hahhahuh replacing the smoke in the air with the wildfire? So ungrateful.”
His voice pitched up, and was subsequently carved into fine syllables as he lost himself in the irony and began laughing, each note seemingly different from the other. It was distinct enough to perfectly illustrate his lunacy regardless of where it echoed. It was a laugh that might have explained to some degree his actions, for in this response to a service request submitted by the town, conscripting the help of a capable young mage to purify the air, he had instead burned the town down, and took exhaustive lengths to make sure its occupants wouldn’t die of smoke inhalation. It was in his nature to do so just as it was in his nature to laugh in such a way, they, along with each and every aspect of the blood mage seemed inseparable.
After all, when he was but a child he could produce a list of all the local housepets he’d disposed of after lengthy periods of examination and experimentation. Born Akio Kenneth at the time, he was in the early stages of what seemed to be a naturally evil progression. With it, the knowledge he gained was as esoteric as it was useless for the rest of society. He could practically enunciate every sound a cat made when it was under extreme distress, and knew just about every specific reflex that existed on its body. As he began studying magic, his own nature continually leaked into his spellcasting, placed neatly behind the guise of experimentation. Where he might have played the part of imaginative wizard with a natural attunement for dark magic, he would later go on to commit and invent nearly every ethical violation in the arcane world. This was somewhat typical of your average blood mage, or necromancer, but Akio was all of this and more, and his crimes were not specific to other human beings and animals. In fact much of his later studies involved experimenting on the spells themselves, torturing and violating them to the point where they yielded effects that seemed to be immediately contradictory to their intended purpose. Tortured magic like this would become his bread and butter, his favorite tool for orchestrating murder, chaos, and mass destruction nearly everywhere he went.
Taking up the occupation of a lone wolf hitman, he was known for having a particular inefficiency in how he orchestrated killings. With a particular taste for psychological torture, he relished in murdering individuals right in front of their loved ones, and while he performed his actions from a range, he was often within view, even if he was disguised. Not only were his killings made out to seem deliberately personal, but he also delighted in the senseless tragedy that came with the fallout of such things, preferring the likes of a bomb to a single projectile. Because of this, investigators had difficulties profiling him, since he seemed to be all parts serial killer, vengeful murderer, and terrorist, but his indiscriminate taste for bloodshed earned him the reputation of an urban myth.
Yet he was not. At some point one investigator tracked him down, but the result was what no one could have expected. This particular investigator, after all, had been possessed by a demonic entity many magnitudes greater in power than those at the higher echelons of current arcane intelligence, and this exact entity, Mara, reached out to Masonna, calling him by his true name, and declaring him his champion. With that offering came gifts of further power and progress that transformed Masonna into the man of today. Sheathed at his side was none other than Irja, once the name of a goddess. Subjugated, the bones were taken from her body and used to imprison her flesh, before they eventually took the shape of a crude divine weapon which was then used to slaughter her worshippers.
Her consciousness remained very much alive and active, witnessing the genocide of an entire people at the hands of none other than Mara himself, who then found Masonna to be a suitable caretaker for it. The agonized screams procured from its history were carved into tiny slivers by the still living flesh of the blade, and were barely audible even to the most perceptive. The handle of a small lantern looped around his open palm, as it swung two and fro. The souls of the dead gradually fled to its seemingly limitless vacuum, seeking the refuge of a lighthouse, but finding a cold prison instead, the lantern’s pale blue flame a false beacon for them as they expired in the heat of the burning town square. It housed many more souls than the meager number he’d harvested in the area, but the defining characteristic for him was the manner by which their energy was tainted by their final moments.
Painful memories were strong memories, and they not only weighed on the world but on him as well. It showed in the way his spine gradually twisted over the course of his life, and the many scars married to his body. It would not be too long before he was rendered unable to move, and yet unlike many he seemed to not mind it in the slightest. In his late 30s he looked to be almost 60, lurched over and in robes. It was the look that steered many younger lads away from arts such as his own and yet he enjoyed it. The real damage seemed to be to his own soul, which he had conducted numerous experiments and surgeries on such that it resembled wilted lettuce more than anything else. He wasn’t simply utilizing it for sacrifices to gain a surge of power, either. He physically split it into near unrecognizable entities for the sake of producing what could be only described as true divergence. The scarred bodies of life force were thus altered to irreducible complexity, with that of his speech being vastly different in its fundamental character, than that of his heart, or his limbs. These fragments of the soul wandered in unison, combined by his single desire for catastrophe and suffering. While this may have yielded benefits in his eyes, it did not help with his degrading sanity, as different voices continuously occupied the same space. He could perform one action and then veer off course to a radically different action, with the same degree of intense, unwavering resolve as before. It would have been a recipe for disaster for just about any standard spellcaster, but Masonna was anything but. There was but one code he lived by, and it was anything but complicated.
Suffering, in whatever form it took, was more righteous and holy than anything else.
“Why indeed,” he responded, his voice jagged and high. “You complained in great detail of the smoke billowing out from the wildfires beyond, and we were *cough* gracious enough to hand each of you a pocket of clean air by which to breathe. You’re really going to be displeased at me for then–ha-hahhahuh replacing the smoke in the air with the wildfire? So ungrateful.”
His voice pitched up, and was subsequently carved into fine syllables as he lost himself in the irony and began laughing, each note seemingly different from the other. It was distinct enough to perfectly illustrate his lunacy regardless of where it echoed. It was a laugh that might have explained to some degree his actions, for in this response to a service request submitted by the town, conscripting the help of a capable young mage to purify the air, he had instead burned the town down, and took exhaustive lengths to make sure its occupants wouldn’t die of smoke inhalation. It was in his nature to do so just as it was in his nature to laugh in such a way, they, along with each and every aspect of the blood mage seemed inseparable.
After all, when he was but a child he could produce a list of all the local housepets he’d disposed of after lengthy periods of examination and experimentation. Born Akio Kenneth at the time, he was in the early stages of what seemed to be a naturally evil progression. With it, the knowledge he gained was as esoteric as it was useless for the rest of society. He could practically enunciate every sound a cat made when it was under extreme distress, and knew just about every specific reflex that existed on its body. As he began studying magic, his own nature continually leaked into his spellcasting, placed neatly behind the guise of experimentation. Where he might have played the part of imaginative wizard with a natural attunement for dark magic, he would later go on to commit and invent nearly every ethical violation in the arcane world. This was somewhat typical of your average blood mage, or necromancer, but Akio was all of this and more, and his crimes were not specific to other human beings and animals. In fact much of his later studies involved experimenting on the spells themselves, torturing and violating them to the point where they yielded effects that seemed to be immediately contradictory to their intended purpose. Tortured magic like this would become his bread and butter, his favorite tool for orchestrating murder, chaos, and mass destruction nearly everywhere he went.
Taking up the occupation of a lone wolf hitman, he was known for having a particular inefficiency in how he orchestrated killings. With a particular taste for psychological torture, he relished in murdering individuals right in front of their loved ones, and while he performed his actions from a range, he was often within view, even if he was disguised. Not only were his killings made out to seem deliberately personal, but he also delighted in the senseless tragedy that came with the fallout of such things, preferring the likes of a bomb to a single projectile. Because of this, investigators had difficulties profiling him, since he seemed to be all parts serial killer, vengeful murderer, and terrorist, but his indiscriminate taste for bloodshed earned him the reputation of an urban myth.
Yet he was not. At some point one investigator tracked him down, but the result was what no one could have expected. This particular investigator, after all, had been possessed by a demonic entity many magnitudes greater in power than those at the higher echelons of current arcane intelligence, and this exact entity, Mara, reached out to Masonna, calling him by his true name, and declaring him his champion. With that offering came gifts of further power and progress that transformed Masonna into the man of today. Sheathed at his side was none other than Irja, once the name of a goddess. Subjugated, the bones were taken from her body and used to imprison her flesh, before they eventually took the shape of a crude divine weapon which was then used to slaughter her worshippers.
Her consciousness remained very much alive and active, witnessing the genocide of an entire people at the hands of none other than Mara himself, who then found Masonna to be a suitable caretaker for it. The agonized screams procured from its history were carved into tiny slivers by the still living flesh of the blade, and were barely audible even to the most perceptive. The handle of a small lantern looped around his open palm, as it swung two and fro. The souls of the dead gradually fled to its seemingly limitless vacuum, seeking the refuge of a lighthouse, but finding a cold prison instead, the lantern’s pale blue flame a false beacon for them as they expired in the heat of the burning town square. It housed many more souls than the meager number he’d harvested in the area, but the defining characteristic for him was the manner by which their energy was tainted by their final moments.
Painful memories were strong memories, and they not only weighed on the world but on him as well. It showed in the way his spine gradually twisted over the course of his life, and the many scars married to his body. It would not be too long before he was rendered unable to move, and yet unlike many he seemed to not mind it in the slightest. In his late 30s he looked to be almost 60, lurched over and in robes. It was the look that steered many younger lads away from arts such as his own and yet he enjoyed it. The real damage seemed to be to his own soul, which he had conducted numerous experiments and surgeries on such that it resembled wilted lettuce more than anything else. He wasn’t simply utilizing it for sacrifices to gain a surge of power, either. He physically split it into near unrecognizable entities for the sake of producing what could be only described as true divergence. The scarred bodies of life force were thus altered to irreducible complexity, with that of his speech being vastly different in its fundamental character, than that of his heart, or his limbs. These fragments of the soul wandered in unison, combined by his single desire for catastrophe and suffering. While this may have yielded benefits in his eyes, it did not help with his degrading sanity, as different voices continuously occupied the same space. He could perform one action and then veer off course to a radically different action, with the same degree of intense, unwavering resolve as before. It would have been a recipe for disaster for just about any standard spellcaster, but Masonna was anything but. There was but one code he lived by, and it was anything but complicated.
Suffering, in whatever form it took, was more righteous and holy than anything else.