Nina
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 331 
Registered: Apr 4, 2021 10:46:08 GMT -5
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Post by Nina on Dec 26, 2022 9:12:35 GMT -5
 Some dreams are darker than others... |
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 26, 2022 9:14:08 GMT -5
Sleep proved unbearable sometimes. To lie down on the cold floor of the Clocktower, among the moving, silent gears, reminded Gray too much of what he had lost. The gears had not truly gone silent – Nina would have commented on the change - They were just beyond his hearing. Yet to go away meant heart-rending dread, yearning for the one thing in the world that had fully understood him; that he had understood. The Clocktower had broken Gray so artfully.
So the little cave in the limestone cliff was Gray's compromise. It sheltered him when he could no longer bear the pain. Yet, when he needed to, he could simply roll over on his stone bench, and reassuringly find the black Tower through the opening just a stone's throw away. Occasionally, blankets or rugs would spontaneously appear in his cell. Sometimes, the man could follow cause and effect enough to know that Nina was worried about him. Regardless, he neatly rolled them up and put them to the side. He could not tell his former apprentice, just as he could not tell her about the missing tick-tock, that he was weaker even than she'd thought.
He could not tell her that he couldn't handle blankets because they felt WRONG. When people's minds long for safety, they cling to the familiar. Gray, even more than most, had a deep need of having things 'just so'. Millimetrically precise, perfectly weighed, his. This world, it wasn't his. So he slept on his back, fully dressed, as if in armour. The limestone was roughly polished – a castle's wall, turned inside out. The weather was mostly kind enough to allow his fancy, and when it was not, the man rapidly slipped in and out of dream.
He had not spoken to Nina about the times he'd fallen into other people's dreams. Once, she would know, someone had almost died. He had not told her that after she released him from the Clocktower, it happened again. For to do so would risk actually talking to his former apprentice, beyond the basics of daily life. It would risk starting a conversation about what exactly they represented to each other now.
It was easier to dig his cave, cook the food that Nina caught out of a budding frustration that she never grilled fish statistically, and not think about it. Gray had structured his mind to break in layers under the Clocktower's weight; he was good at not thinking about things.
However, as the former assassin, executioner and torturer of the Azure Archipelago well knew, just because you ignore things, they don't exactly go away...
A day, like any other. Better. He had exhausted himself by picking away at the limestone, and nearly pushed himself beyond his limits by adventuring that information when Nina asked. When he lay down on his rocky bench, it was the most content he'd felt in a while. He closed his eyes.
Perhaps it was familiarity. Perhaps it was magic. Maybe it was pain. But something drew Gray's spirit, that had gotten unmoored earlier, away.
He found himself in front of a door. It was a door he knew. On the other side, many times, he had broken people. It was what you did. He opened the door, and found himself in an unfamiliar room.
A man was tied to a solid wooden board (had to be solid, Gray judged, to cope with potential convulsions), tilted such that a dark-cloaked figure could easily work on his face. One of the victim's eyes, a beautiful emerald green, was pinned open in place by magic. Tick-tick-tick, reassuringly, a needle contraption in black-gloved hands pierced the surface of the iris. Tick-tick-tock, dots of light, of magic, were left behind. Glimmers on a gem.
Gray remained silent. To interrupt such painstaking work would risk damaging the canvas.
He wondered, rather miffed, what the other dark-cloaked man was doing in his room.
In silence, he looked around to find his bearings. The bound man, Gray now saw, had scars on his chest. Familiar. Yet not something he'd caused, something niggling in the back of his mind told him. He would have to consider previous injuries, the torturer reflex kicked in, when working on a person. Those damned guards...Then Gray looked up at the victim's face, and the realization of exactly who it was that had been worked on struck him.
As that happened, Gray awoke inside the dream. It would be an odd sensation for others, as an uninteresting shadow of a bookcase became a man in cloak the colour of soot. With a tilt of the head, the hood fell over his shoulders, revealing glass-sharp eyes, white hair caught at the back, and a face considerably less sunburnt than the last time he and the victim had met. The ticking had stopped.
“Ah.” He said, to no one in particular. “Is this where you keep the poisons?”
The door closed behind him.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 280 
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
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Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
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Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
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Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 28, 2022 21:16:09 GMT -5
"What is the old saying? The only difference between poison and medicine is the dosage?"
The voice that answered wasn't Alden's, Alden had a rich tenor that was often colored by his emotions or lack of them. A voice that was filled with life, purpose, and the weight of years. This new voice was almost sibilant, the tone strange in that it sounded courtesy, pleasant even, but there was also something lacking. Perhaps due to how easy and pleasant it sounded while the speaker continued to drive a needle in and out of the eyes of a boy who couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen.
"So depending on how literally you wish to take that saying, yes. The poisons were kept in that cabinet. Though if you are looking for the distilled and concentrated ones for assassination, those weren't kept in this room."
If Gray cared to take a closer look at the speaker he'd find them rather plain in many ways. The heavy brown robe that was draped over their body was thick and heavy, a slightly richer fabric than a simple monk might wear but the style was similar. It made fine details of the speaker's build hard to discern, though they appeared to be of about average height and quite slim.
A closer examination on Grey's part would provide a few more interesting details. The speaker had their hood drawn shrouding their features, though it was possible to pierce the darkness and see that under the hood they wore a mask. A simple one made of carved and lacquered ebony wood, it didn't appear to have any eye holes though as no gleam of white could be seen. Though, perhaps their were eye-holes and simply nothing stared out from them. As the last, and perhaps most disturbing, detail of the speaker were the hands that wielded the needle. No flesh or muscle, only slightly yellow bones that never the less moved as nimbly as an expert tailor's as the speaker moved the needle.
"But I wouldn't spend too much time looking for them. Indeed, if I were you I'd turn around and walk out that door. You shouldn't be here and you so very rarely enjoy what happens next."
The speaker finally paused and shifted the void under the hood finally turned to consider Grey.
"Ah, my apologies, I am getting ahead of myself. It's a complicated situation I am in. An introduction is in order this time, I believe. I am what remains of Pride, the person who turned the Alden you've come to know the last few days into a weapon. Well, in a sense, again it is complicated. I might try to explain it further if you stick around, I make no promises of it being coherent. Holding him at bay is... again, complicated."
Pride shrugged their shoulders and let out a laugh, it was a cold dead thing completely void of anything like humor or joy yet the sadistic amusement still came through.
"If you aren't going to leave, perhaps you'd like to join me?"
With those words, a chair appeared on the other side of the operating table.
"You can stick some needles in Alden's eyes, he won't remember it but he has humiliated you often enough. Perhaps you'll get some catharsis from it? Sometimes you do, not always."
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 8, 2023 14:20:50 GMT -5
The chamber was bare stone, windowless, perhaps underground. Only a few shelves and cabinets, plain and functional, occupied the walls. They were lit by a glow that seemed to come from all around. Gray slipped by the wall in the direction the masked man had indicated, to give himself time to think. It was the first time that someone other than the dreamer interacted with him. Although perhaps that too was Alden's consciousness, broken into torturer and victim. Gray himself was familiar with nightmares in which he was powerless, made and broken once more, made and broken, made and broken all over again.
He was clenching a lockpick between thumb and forefinger before checking that the cabinet door was even locked. A clink, before he'd even realized he opened it. He should leave, he thought, considering the masked man's words. That Alden had similar nightmares felt like intruding on something too personal.
Yet the bottles and vials on the black oak were calling to him. Their matte sheen hinted at expensive clear glass, dusted over. When he reached for one, its contents trickled syrupy with age. He struggled to read the labels, but they dissolved into gibberish. Even the colours inside seemed to shift when he looked away. Had he reached the edge of the dream? At the masked man's warning, he simply grabbed a smaller vial, assuming its contents strong, and popped off the lid. But he did not leave.
Downing the contents, Gray walked towards the main stage. And waited.
His throat burned. His temples crackled, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. For a moment, he could feel within his breast the boy's pain, and the masked man's delight at it, as if they were his own. Yet slowly, his emotions faded, leaving him clear-headed and with a throbbing headache, as if he'd ran up a mountain in pure morning air. Ah. It was that, then.
He could have made himself unseen, but he remained there, a dark, inconvenient witness. He commented not on the boy, or on the craftsmanship of the runes. Not until the masked man called Pride turned to talk to him.
“Ser.” Gray's voice was firm. “You misunderstand me.” Yet he found himself moving closer, not even walking but somehow finding himself in the other chair, for it was his role, wasn't it, and dreams were ruled by habit more than by any conscious choices one might by day take. He found his own needle in his hand, a curved one, and found himself explaining: “Pain is an art. A universal emotion, some say, but it requires a deep understanding of people in order to fully draw it out.”
Distractedly, he wondered if this Pride was the real one, and Alden but a dream, for the mists had showed they minded not time or death.
There was a kernel of wrongness in his stomach as he twisted the needle in his hands. In the way that a chef would side-eye a glutton, Gray did not trust Pride. Had they met before...?, and there were other suggestions that Gray did not like, of what he himself was or how he felt. Suggestions that aimed to control. Gray clung on to the bitter kernel of feeling. He could not dismiss the thoughts outright – for in order to negate, the mind first has to imagine, and the dreaming mind may be too tired to make that second step. All the man could do for now was maintain control over his own self. He was who he was, and-
'You, Ser, are a liar.'
From one of his pockets, Gray pulled out a contraption of metal and glass, with overlapping lenses, that he attached in front of his eyes. He could see the magic clearly then, forgetting that his betrayal of the Tower had cut him off from this wonder. He could see wisps of light, and the way the runes connected across Alden's body. So clever. So cruel. The boy would never be able to control them. The ink wasn't magical, as he'd first thought – the tiny scars left by the needle simply carved a path for the victim's remarkable inner life-force to flow in, at which point it became self-reinforcing. The ink was merely a guide.
“Shaping people, however, is more of a science.” Gray continued, calmly. “I would personally limit the flights of fancy to the absolutely necessary.” He looked deep into the boy's eyes. “Trust me on that.” His gloved fingers patted his hair. The tip of the curved needle struck the cornea. Tap-tap-tap, gently, up and down, without even bothering to reach for the ink. As far as anyone could guess, he was continuing the rune pattern with a sharp, precise hand. For a minute or two, he was deep in focus, only pausing occasionally to brush the boy's forehead with his sleeve and remind him that he was doing great.
“Yet, somehow, I find I must congratulate you on your obvious results.” He finally turned to Pride again. “Alden has surpassed my own apprentices in an important way. The last test that a weapon has to pass.”
His tone betrayed nothing.
“...to defeat its predecessors.” Gray spoke. “You must be so proud. For you are dead, and I am not.”
Gray's smile was a dangerous one. In dreams, words have power.
“I think you promised an explanation.”
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 280
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 10, 2023 12:02:53 GMT -5
There was no visible reaction from Alden as Gray took his turn. The young boy stared straight ahead unblinking, unmoving, only the slight rise and fall of his chest gave any indication at all that Alden was still alive. If Gray took the time to really study the runes, Alden, and what was being done he might finally pick up on something interesting. Alden was not the source of power for the Runes. Indeed, Alden's role within the circuit seemed to be as a repository for magical energy that was generated by the runes. Exactly what the source of power for it all wasn't obvious from what was currently visible.
"Oh, that's a good one. You are correct, I am very dead. Or well, Pride is very dead. It is entirely frustrating to be and not be at the same time, especially when I am being infinitely more than I ever dreamed while at the same time being so much less."
Pride let out a chuckle as he spoke, the sound of laughter so utterly devoid of humour was more disturbing than endearing. The robed figure splayed skeletal fingers and gestured about the room as he continued.
"Omniscience, even partial omniscience, isn't something that is easy for a mortal mind to wrap its head around. Of course, my mind is no longer mortal but it gets so convoluted have you spent much time wondering how you would process being in more than one spot at a time? Processing all of the information available to you as you exist with perfect continuity of being?"
Pride opined on this subject as he gestured and waved his hands. There was a growing hint of something in his voice, a mania or anger. It was heated whatever it was the creature in the robe animated with passion as it continued.
"One way to adjust is to grow, to absorb, to take on more minds to make managing things easier. Become part of an infinite whole, only exist as an individual when focus is reduced and reduced until you are you but living through an infinite multitude you can barely process. All for one man's misery, a spider-web of cracks across infinite realities repeated again and again in a beautiful engine of suffering."
As he said this Pride let out a peel of joyless laughter that told Gray all that needed to be said of Pride's mental state.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 17, 2023 13:39:29 GMT -5
No, that was wrong.
No man would have a soul strong enough to fuel those runes. No normal soul. Even with multiplying graphemes, of which Gray could glimpse a violent-purple one inscribed onto Alden's nape of the neck, the risk of bursting into a pile of ashes would be great...
(then again, the runes were somewhat distorted from what he was used to-)
...Unless the runes were connected to some-place else. Just like the wire he had woven into Nina. The thought clicked into place like burning-cold metal through flesh. Tap-tap-tap, his work continued. Pride droned on. Yet the longer Gray continued, the more he found himself distracted by an itch in his off-hand.
Gradually, the sensation became unbearable. He pulled down his sleeve.
On the inside of a white forearm, there was a scar of two letters that he had etched in to remember. A name. He did not remember the letters being mouths.
Toothed and black-mawed, they gnawed at the edge of the scar. He pulled his sleeve back up.
“Just a mystery itch.” He quietly excused himself.
An itch for mysteries. He nodded towards Pride to continue.
If that person was interested, it could mean everything and nothing. Gray knew he may have already lost. He may have blinded Alden, or led to Naoki's death beside him. Everything could happen in dreams, and the path he took, squelching with magic, had even fewer boundaries. No control. Yet all he said in the end was:
“Why?”
His hand stopped, one finger resting on Alden's eyebrow. Like many of his clients, Pride didn't realize that the verdict had already been made. Yet he may still offer information.
Quietly, with difficulty, as if the words were not quite words any longer, Gray asked.
“Are you of the Tower?”
The last word broke in his mouth. His magic-sense flickered off.
It felt almost that for as long as he'd played Pride's part, the dream could lumber on. Whether it was trying to absorb him in it, Gray could not quite tell. All he could do was act from reflex. The needle sunk deeper, deeper in the eye, until it reached the other side, and this time it didn't hurt. Rather, the pain vanished altogether. Then Gray's entire hand followed, as he seemed to inscribe with a flourish something in a space that wasn't quite space, twisting something that wasn't quite time, pulling a thread of magic through other runes in shoulders and chest with a precision that was increasingly frightening.
“You know what I think?” Gray spoke. “I think you're just a dream. A shard of trauma that forced a soul to grow around it. You're part of something greater because of the human – of Alden's very human need to look for reason.” When he pulled back, he also flicked away the magic contraption fixing the eye open. “So I trust.”
He looked in Alden's eyes, and said:
“One day you'll step on kinder ground.”
...Knowing that that very reminder could kill them, for people like him and the dreamer would not accept being vulnerable.
But one could only act from reflex in a dream, and Gray knew himself as The Betrayer.
“Alden, perhaps you're the better person here...to see the truth.”
As energy flowed between runes, they shaped another between them. Too complex, too frail to exist in reality as he'd made it. But here, it had power. He had only seen it in one place, on a stone tablet.
The Truth.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 280
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 21, 2023 19:13:05 GMT -5
"Why? For the suffering of course."
Pride said with a chuckle as though it was the most obvious thing in the world as he continued to inflict pain without hesitation. His skeletal fingers clicking together almost seeming to create a melody. It was fast paced and frantic but with a steady rhythm, the ticking of a clock set to double speed.
"A single soul indelibly marked by its master cast out in the realm of creation. To cast into the vastness of all that could ever be and become infinite with every flip of the coin. Such a simple idea to generate power, awareness, knowledge. What matters if the shuffling of a deck of cards might be faster when the chain can start in many ways."
The fingers stopped and a finger thrust at Gray's face. Another low laugh echoing out from behind the black mask but this one was different, there was a hint of true joy in it now. But the injection of emotion didn't bode well as their was something sadistic within that laughter a glint of blue in the darkness of the hood.
"Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't of the Tower? Or perhaps your tower is of me? What does it matter, it all serves the same end no matter the god you worship we mortals, you mortals, all mortals pay their due in the end. A feast for things far more powerful than ourselves."
He paused then and let Gray speak and after being accused of being nothing more than a dream, Pride started to laugh. To laugh and laugh as the magic flowed and Alden's body began to convulse. For a moment something strange happened, Alden began to vibrate and as he did there were flashes of different versions of him, different styles of hair, tattoos, piercings, hundreds of little differences but always the scars, always the same features, always the suffering.
"Oh hush now dear one, go back to sleep."
The hooded said as he gently stroked Alden's hair and the vibrating stopped and things settled down. He raised his gaze at Pride and there was that hint of... Azure. Azure eyes. How strange that was the only way to think of them as a skeletal hand reach up and removed the mask to reveal a skeletal face.
"Not the most dramatic reveal is it? Oh gosh, the guy with skeleton hands has a skull face. I suppose it is what I get for recruiting a lich."
Pushing to his feet the skeletal man takes off his robe revealing, of all things, a bright red uniform with gold trim and white pants ending in a pair of perfectly polished black boots.
"I do have to say I like the attempt. I mean it was clever, turning the dream onto itself but come now. Dreams are just as real as anything else you should know that by now Gray."
As he said this he made an elaborate flourish producing a top hat from nowhere which he placed upon his head.
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jack, Jack O' Bones, the Ringmaster of a little circus that sits on the nexus of just about every evil version of reality that's worth visiting. It's really unfortunate that you had to intrude on one of my side projects but hey, even with short notice, I think I can give you a proper experience."
A cane appeared in his hands and he brought the tip of it down with the last word. As it struck the cobbles Alden sank into the ground which tremble and shook as it fell apart to be replaced almost instantly by ivory bone. The walls of the room falling away revealing that they stood in the middle of what looked to be a massive tent. Five large rings set on the ground made of gold and etched with unfathomably complex runes. Outside the wings sat an audience of unfathomable horror, devils, demons, ghosts, eldritch horrors from beyond the stars, hundreds of thousands of millions of them stretching around them. If Gray cared to try and do a 360 to take them all in he'd find that the audience seemed to always hold new members, never anything that looked exactly like one he'd seen before.
"Demons, devils, evil entities of all sorts today we have a very special guest. Please welcome Gray, he isn't smart enough to walk away when someone tells him suffering is in his future. Lets see if that's just how he gets his kicks or if he is just that stupid!"
Jack raised his hands and the audience let out a cheer that would haunt the deepest reaches of Gray's psyche until the day he died. Whenever he felt the need to imagine what hell would sound like, he would only have to look back on this nightmare. As all around him mirrors, of all things, were emerging from the bones.
"Uh oh folks, you see those mirrors. You know what that means its the return of a fan favorite. Its time for Gray, 'master' of the clock tower to see how fares against the one, the only, the Mirroooooooooooooooooooooooor Maestro."
As if on queue a figure stepped out from a mirror directly in front of Gray. They were wearing a head piece that completely enclosed their entire face. The front of it a flat surface on which a mirror was mounted Grey's own face reflected back at him as the crowd takes a baited breath as Jack comes up next Gray and puts an arm around the assassin's shoulders.
"Now, I know this must be a lot to take in. But how are you feeling? This is a pretty dangerous act you are going up against. Do you think you can handle it?"
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 23, 2023 16:28:55 GMT -5
The scenery shifted. Walls fell away like paper creations, stone and wood and soul burnt away in the span of a breath, leaving behind the hollow landscape of an immense field of white bone. Gray took a step forward, and his step felt odd. The ringmaster's voice reverberated uniquely off the surface. Between his fingers, the man could still feel the imprint of a needle. He threw his gaze in the distance, to what appeared to be spectator stalls, and despite the fact that he could glimpse individual entities, they seemed at once impossibly distant and incomprehensibly infinite, as if he were a bug gazing upon the dots on the sky. Had he won? Had he lost? Was it even Alden's dream in the first place, or simply a twist of his own psyche?
The crowd's laugher ran through him, tap-tap-tap.
The motifs were there. Suffering, ritual, indulgence. Gray spun on his heels, guarding his back as all around him, mirrors rose up from the ground. If he told Alden what he'd dreamed of, he would be revealed for the madman that he was. (Worse: He's be revealed as stupid). Yet Gray knew very well that pain could be used as fuel. If this was real, or a dream...
He supposed there would be no difference if he won. Not unless his mind created this nightmarish world where before there had been none.
In dreams he did not know his limits.
The ringmaster Jack spoke, Jack of the Bones that had replaced Pride, and as he introduced Gray and his 'opponent', something odd seemed to happen. At first it seemed perhaps a trick of the light, brought about by the mirrors that still grew, slower, around Gray. But soon the effect would be unmistakable.
Gray's hair was lighting up with glitter.
When he breathed in, he smelled the pine resin used to keep in place the bits of crushed mica. Now they were popping up on details of his clothes, too. His ponytail lifted up without him touching it, revealing the gear-shaped brand on the back of his head, before a silver glittery scarf covered it.
When Jack put his arm around him, Gray seemed to lose a foot in height without even noticing, and stepped to the side as if in a dance before his younger self grew back up. On his face he had a mask, not flat like Pride's but a skintight silvery thing around the eyes that made him look mischievous.
“I am concerned that I may damage something precious. After all, out of the two of us, only you know the rules.”
He spun in place, arms open wide. A glow pulsed beneath his tunic. How could he ever explain that in this dark land likely dredged from the depths of his imagination, he felt at home? Understood. Possibly appreciated. He spread his arms as far as they would go, as if to encompass all the audience, and an impossibly bright, needle-like light slipped past his collar and up, up into the sky. Mirrors reflected it ten, a hundred times over. Embarrassedly, he folded his cloak back over.
“There is one problem.” Gray admitted. He tried to step to the side, but by then the path had become mirror. “I LOVE the Circus.”
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 280
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 26, 2023 15:32:16 GMT -5
"Oh, I like the attitude. You are going to do very well. Even if you are dumb enough to think there are rules."
Jack said with a cackle of amusement as Gray sculpted his body into a new form. Of course, if Gray tried to extend the dream logic beyond his own form he'd find that the rest of the current reality he sat within was immune. He'd yet to realize that while Gray himself may only be occupying the space with his dream self, they had left the realm of the dreaming. Despite Jack's words, there were rules to this little game for him. Since he was only there in spirit, he couldn't be permanently harmed nothing done to him within The Circus could harm his mortal shell. However, he could most certainly be hurt which might have, normally, woken him up but he'd soon find that the circus wasn't that easy to escape from. There was only one path that would let Gray get back to the real world, his real body, and the game would be him figuring that path out.
Jack's laughter faded and with it so did the ringmaster, the creature simply vanishing from the ring leaving Gray trapped within the newly made labyrinth of mirrors with the Mirror Maestro. The Maestro hadn't spoken since being introduced just observed Gray. Now though it started to move, striding toward Gray and with every step he started to change. Gray's reflection hadn't left the mirrored face even when the assassin had stopped looking at it and the maestro's clothes were shifting, a raised collar, a bit of glitter, a long cloak, and a masked face that looked identical to Gray's own.
"Of course, we love the circus. Entertaining people isn't something that we can cock up so badly we drag down an entire kingdom with us, is it? A better use of our talents than playing at being a spymaster. But that isn't going to stop you from trying to worm your way into Naoki's good graces now is it?"
The words were spoken in Gray's own voice, using the same tone he might have used to chastise Nina for getting ahead of herself. His expression set into a line of disgust and disapproval, open disdain for the reflection he was staring at.
"I mean honestly, look at you. You know that you are meddling in affairs you are too stupid to really understand and you are flaunting your ability to sculpt your dream body."
This insult was followed up by an attack. The other Gray drew a familiar sword from his back and lashed out with the executioner's blade with speed the old assassin hadn't possessed since his youth.
"You are nothing but a clown Gray, you belong in this circus of suffering."
Just how much suffering there would be Gray would find out if he didn't manage to dodge. The blow wasn't meant to kill, only to injure, to draw a line across Gray's chest that would bleed and burn with pain like the real thing.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Feb 13, 2023 16:11:50 GMT -5
“A pity.” The boy said. “For if there are no rules, then I shall have to make my own.”
His eyes flickered in a frown, as they briefly regarded the place the ringmaster used to be, before turning to face the Mirror Maestro. The opponent was growing more familiar by the second, plays of light and pseudopods of molten silver flowing into strands of white hair and cool blue eyes on a young face. Too young, part of him regarded. The executioner sword on his back seemed almost larger than his malnourished figure. It seemed impossible that the stick-like arms could carry it.
The cold voice was just as familiar.
“It was never about that.” Young Gray spoke. Back then, he trusted himself too easily. “Naoki is competent, and I admire competence.” He continued, while striding around the place of mirrors, maintaining distance with his double. To anyone who knew whom Gray had been working for, it may have been ironic. Technically, the truth. Technical truth. “I however could not worm my way closer without a certain problem being...out of the way.” The boy pondered. He pointed up. Past the edge of his palm, he whispered loudly. “Do you think he would mind me killing his protege?”
Gray could not lie. Implications were not lies. But would the Maestro be bound by the same rules?
“You are likely mistaken.” Estimations were not lies. The boy tapped his chest. “This is who I am.”
Beliefs are not lies.
“Mirror. Silver.” Muttering, he brushed one of the reflective walls with his gloved fingertips. How to get out? He was tired, he wanted to go and find the trapeze. There was a word on the tip of his brain.
“Foil.”
Contrast, fabric. Reflection. 'Paperthin,' his thoughts warned. Then the other attacked, and all the reflexes from his training came back to Gray-the-trapeze-artist as he rolled to the side. There was a dull sound, as the sword struck a mirror wall.
The boy stood up, with a line burning across his ribs. He supposed that old life would never really left him go. In his hands he held long, needle-thin daggers.
He swirled and struck, before retreating at a safer distance. His own weapons seemed flimsy, unable to bear a single hit from the executioner sword without breaking. Unlike the sword on his back and its copy, they were not enchanted. But they were his preferred weapons, not the weapon he was bound to. And so Gray aged a little bit more.
“Have you ran away with the circus too?” Teenager Gray asked. He tried to circle his opponent, a seemingly casual walk that at times broke closer, teasing the danger-zone with feints, and at times broke into dance. “Or were you taken captive by its charm?”
His words matched the pattern of his steps with eerily perfection. He had always. Liked order. Rules. Law. His voice was captivating, not the flat, toneless monotone that was his nature, but the charm he had learned. At times, his voice seemed so vivid that Gray's presence, grey-cloaked and armed, seemed to simply disappear.
“It must be such rewarding work. Getting to break people down to their cores. See their truth.” He spoke from the side.
His voice seemed to come from ahead, but he was at once everywhere and nowhere, reflected in the mirrors yet with the mind unable to quite focus on him.
“Of course, I can save you the trouble and just spill out my truth.” Gray spoke, with the grin of someone who would break down a sand castle just before another could.
Suddenly he was too close, with a pommel aiming hard for the sword arm, and a dagger tip for tickling the kidneys.
“I am you.”
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 280
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
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Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
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Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Feb 17, 2023 13:40:19 GMT -5
"I'm your reflection Gray, you can lie to the mirror but the truth will always be reflected back."
His own voice mocked the assassin as Gray tried to assert his own belief against the mirror's truth. Of course, there was a root of the latter in the former that was what made it easy to cling to. Just like there was a kernel of belief in the mirror's truth that would make it hard for Gray to dismiss.
"A certain problem? The man took pity on you and tried to save you from yourself and you plan on killing him? I shouldn't be surprised. We did kill our master for trying to do the same. But what trap do you think you can lure Alden into?"
Because there was no way that Gray could do it fairly, they both knew that from the last time they'd confronted the man. Then again, maybe Gray truly believed he had a chance, after all, he thought he could bring his own rules to a place he didn't understand. A point that was driven home as his attempt to distract and turn the situation back only resulted in pain.
The pommel landed cleanly, the dagger went for the kidneys, the mirror shattered and Gray as showered with broken glass. Cruely mocking laughter echoed from all around as Gray's reflection stared back at him from the dozens of hundreds of mirrors he was surrounded by. The teenager was gone and the bitter old man was back and taking sadistic glee at seeing his counterpart bleed.
"Really, I am you? That was the best you could manage to try and take the teeth out of this. Let me show you how it's done, here is what you are Gray. You wanted to spill your truth out to the audience after all so why not hold it out to the crowd and show them all."
A moment later an object sailed out from one of the mirrors to clatter against the smooth bone of the floor. It came to a skittering halt at Gray's feet, staring up at him from the ground like the eye of an iron god, its truth reflected in Gray's own gaze. It was a brass clock gear with a hairline fracture that was almost invisible to the naked eye but it stood out for Gray. If someone were to put that into a clock or machine, it would eventually buckle and break.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 128
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Feb 18, 2023 16:59:50 GMT -5
Pain. Pain seized his body, as the young man slowly fell among bits of broken glass. The brand on the back of his neck burned once more. There was no sound, no motion, just pain and the feeling of transgression, the sensation of his spine being ripped out from the neck down to the very last nerve and crushed, like roots of a weed about to be burned-
-until the other spoke again.
Gray gasped, spitting blood as he did so. He realized he was on the floor, bleeding from tiny cuts on his face. His own grin watched him from every shard of broken glass, shaking and blurry. It wasn't the glass that had struck him so.
Unbreakable oaths. His life had been bound to the Clocktower thus. You will not lie. You will not kill the Master of the Clocktower. You will obey...He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Those bonds could not be broken; if they were, he would break with them. The Mirror Maestro had become him enough to reflect his soul.
“Help me.” Gray pleaded to himself.
He struggled to get up, and slipped off the shards. He took off the sheath of his executioner sword, and used it to prop himself to his knees. He had done something while his eyes were closed, but he couldn't remember what.
The mirror had cut into his beautiful grey cloak, and his serviceable grey kosode-top. Through a long slash on his wrist, it revealed the mouths. The skin around them was black as if infected. Nearby, his flesh has sunken and swelled, and as he looked at it, skin slipped to the side, revealing something white and soft.
An eye. Gray hid it in shame.
“We've been through this before. Many times.” He turned to the closest mirror. His voice was weary, and the pain had turned to numbness. Soon, he knew, he'd rather have back the pain.
Sound of the gear hitting the floor startled him. He tilted his head, slowly. In that moment, its weight felt greater than the world. He felt compelled to pick up the object, its memories of guilt and pain twisting between his fingers.
“Hitting where it hurts. Is this the only thing you're good at?!” There was only a hint of roughness in Gray's normally calm voice.
“I can appreciate that, you know. Pain...You will help me figure out my way to your core.” He spoke his words like a mantra. His eyes were fixed on the brass and a blurry reflection that wasn't quite his. “Because I am...”
He stood up, using the sword as a cane. His hand lifted the shameful, painful, beautiful object.
“Just a broken gear. Faulty. Flawed. Finicky. Failed.” He spoke.
“And yet...” The glittery scarf still hung around his neck, now spotted with blood.
He took a step between the dazzling mirrors. Then another.
“I will go on.”
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