• PM To Join • Curses in the Gutter

[Narav]

"As I lay there, looking up at what easily could have been my demise, I found an eerie sense of calm. The monster above me had a mortal name, Fridgar, had a mortal body, but this magic had made him into something monstrous, inhuman. I've spent my whole life looking for someone or something to solidly levy my hatred against, for all the injustice I've ever felt. If it's the last thing I'll do, I will carve such monsters from the tapestry of this world's narrative with whatever power I can bring to bare. You hear me Lisirra? You see these words? I will use your power, your curse, to my own ends. Mages like that deserve to die. Maybe they all do. Maybe I'm the one to show them." -Narav's Journal

2nd Ashan, 717

Rain had come again to the slums of Andaris. Narav winced and changed his bandages. His wounds had reopened again across his chest, the thin furrows Fridgar had carved twoscore weeping a dark, bloody discharge. Narav could smell infection and sighed, reaching into his abilities Lisirra had granted him and lifting the illness from his body, storing it. He could 'feel' it, existing somewhere between reality and dream, a growing wound-rot and blood poison. In the dark, his eyes flashed with the Plaguedaughter's power and he rebound the wounds, discarding the bandages onto the wet alley ground.

From a small pouch he shook out the folded papers that held his medicine. The pain had come back again, creeping up his body and drinking his sanity in long, succulent slurps. Narav could clearly see the beast standing above him again, roaring, gleeful, drunk on his own power. Some part of the sailor could understand it, feeling as though the strength that coursed through their body was somehow limitless. If he had that power then, he'd have...

Crunch! The shovel cracked bone and dented in the Knight's head.

Yes. He'd do that and worse to Fridgar. Godryn hadn't deserved it, or had but not in that way. Fridgar deserved worse. "Damn your soul," Narav muttered, upending the white powder onto his tongue and swigging a gulp of water to wash it down, "I don't care if the King wants you alive. Justice," he chuckled, settling back against the alley wall, "Justice has no hold on the inhuman, like you." He clenched his hands, "Like me, I guess."

Already the mists of the drug were closing in around him, gossamer shrouds of numb that traced up and along his chest. He imagined the feet of butterflies, delicately massaging out the agony between the wounds the monster had left him as a parting gift. He shouldn't be taking this much but the wound were slow to heal and the pain was increasingly difficult to manage. Sitting and moving both yielded different agonies. His only escape was the pain killer the apothecary had lent him. It was the least the Knights could do, getting him medical treatment and the pain reliever. But he was a week of doses beyond where he should be and unsure if their generosity would extend much beyond what was provided.

He remembered Fridgar's foot, the way it healed almost instantly. Drawing his dagger, he held it out to the fading light of the day. "I need to find something that cuts you," He muttered to himself, barely feeling the weight of the blade on his palm, "I need to find something that hurts you, that really hurts you...and drive it through your ignorant eye."

[Djinn]

There they sat, the master and slave, controlling and controlled. She was seated at his feet, staring out over the vast emptiness of their domain, weeping. She always wept, and it drove him mad. Nowhere near as mad as she was, but it could not be far from it. The reality of the domain twisted and warped with each of her sobs, growing and disintegrating entire cities before them. The first that rose was Athart, turning to sand and sprinkling grains all the way to their feet, an ebb and flow of destruction. Then rose Scalvoris, swallowed not by water, but by his darling's dry weeping. Then, finally, Andaris, the shining jewel of the Mortals. He nearly spit as its buildings and towers crumbled, secure in their fracturing. Yet, amidst the falling structures, there shined one shape, a humanoid form, prone.

Garbed in the silken strands of substance dependence, the form lied prone, its arm raised. He couldn't see the object in the hand, but knew it was something of interest. Quickly, he rose from the throne, comprised of solid stone shifting into wood. Three strides put him within distance of the scene, and the woman scurried behind him on her hands and knees. As he drew closer, he could see the form, could hear its words...
The drug the apothecary had given Narav dulled his pain, sure, but not enough to truly help him. Instead, it turned a searing pain into a dull ache, coming in pulsating waves that washed over the affected parts of him. Yet as he lied there under the effects of the pain reliever, the dagger shimmered in his view. Blinking would do nothing to diminish the effect, though it only happened for eighteen trills. As soon as it was over, though, something was strange. As Narav lied there, the room seemed to move more slowly, and he with it.

Sluggish or no, though, he became acutely aware of the figure suddenly in the room with him. Seated nearby, a red-haired woman stared at him with baleful eyes, a steel collar with chain linked to it hanging from her neck, the other end held by a bland man with brown hair and dark eyes. He seemed inconspicuous, except that Narav was instantly drawn to him, as if he had what Narav needed. The man held the chain in his right hand, but held his left out. A step brought him to Narav's side, and by the time Narav could turn his head, the man's arm was on his.

"Lie there." There was only insistence in Mastes' voice, as if he were speaking to the woman at his feet. But he was not, he was speaking to Narav. "I can take the hurt away, you know? With a word, I can fill you with an ecstasy unbeknownst to you, a bliss so intense that the best whore on Idalos couldn't bring you within a trial of it. I could make you better, stronger... Or I could finish the job." He grinned, retracting the hand that touched Narav. The pain was gone, replaced instead with a heat that clouded Narav's head.

"With that puny knife, no wonder you're lying here like this. Was the quarry a bunny? Put it away before you finish yourself and end my fun." He grabbed the dagger by the blade, throwing it into the floor, point-down, at Kata's feet. She didn't flinch, didn't even blink. Instead, she stared at Narav's prone form, unable to see his face from that angle. It was probably in Narav's best interest it was this way.

"I know what you seek... Vengeance. I know what you intend to do... Murder. I can make it easier. Beg me. Beg me for the sweetest release..." And as quickly as the pain had melted away, it returned, unperturbed by the apothecary's powder. It was as if Narav had taken no medication since the wound, and it ached with such intensity that it caused his musculature to seize. "Ask and you shall receive."

[Narav]

Narav could see in shades of white and grey, the color snatched away by pain. Each breath teased the crevasse of his wounds. Each red puckered canyon shuddered and strained, knitting and unknitting. He could feel the agony, an acute brilliance, on fire, ever burning. Fridgar had left the passage of his fury in a talon signature. Marked as he was, by Lisirra and mage he preferred one to the other. No part of his journey had been easy, no stretch the cavalier adventures of a plucky hero. There was a darkness here, a shadow so complete it eclipsed the page. Ink joined ink till words were no more than an ocean of emotion, undulating waves of radiating agony, black as tar that spread from wound to wound and trial to trial like the plague inside him.

Perhaps he was the villain.

But how could he be with something like Fridgar alive in the world? Villainous intent bred villainous ends, but if his end could come the half step or two behind the savage, would that be enough? All his rage for destruction, a trade of coin for coin.

The room pitched dangerously, threatening to roll him out across cobblestone and filth before settling. The blade still sat in the palm of his hand but he was no longer alone. It took long, longer than Narav would have admitted to recognize the apparitions as real. Dreams lived in the shelter of agony, peeking around corners of ache.

Where the strange touched him, the pain fled. It gathered its bone-deep stakes and homes and vacated, lifted from him as if he'd been plunged into a cool river of healing. All that followed was the dull pounding dry-heat of passion, desire, an inferno not recently conjured but brought into sharp focus by the absence of pain. It was always there, the hunger and frenzy, buried beneath his assertions of civility and restraint.

The dagger was gone, snatched away in an instant. Of the two, the more remarkable was the woman in a collar. Her tiny form suggested weakness but in the back of his mind a dull warning groaned to life, stitching a cold shiver of freckles and laughing eyes. Lisirra looked small too.

Predators hide in the skin of prey.


He couldn't see the woman, not from where he lay. But the plain-faced man rescinded his gift and all periphery observation was drowned in the agony of returned pain. It was the first day again, waiting for the apothecary to mix the tincture while bleeding into his bandages. Fresh wide mouths, they screamed, he screamed, but it was a moan and slow to crawl from his throat and die in the open air.

Words again, so soft they might have been whispered but loud enough to vibrate through his muscles and collect in the shape of his agony. Within him, something struggled to tear free, a power that rose suddenly and then receded, leaving him in the pain.

"Please..." He hissed through gritted teeth, as if he could bite down on the wriggling worm of pain, sever it, "Please...make it...make it stop." He spit, saliva dribbling through the corners of his teeth, but Narav would not beg for death, not yet. He had faced worse, the spar of infected driftwood poisoning his blood. The beach.

"I'm not...done yet." He hissed, rolling onto his stomach and edging his elbows beneath him. His body shuddered, resisted the movement, but he slammed white-knuckled fists into the stone, cutting blood starbursts on his hands as he struggled to rise. "I won't die. I can't die. I'll see that monster dead first, I'll see them all dead." On his elbows, leveraged up he raised his head to look at the stranger above him, memorizing his face. "Please. Immortal or man, demon or apparition, I need the power to kill them, please...please. I cannot abide its existence." His body gave and he slumped, feeling as though his life were spilling out of those screaming wounds. "Please give me the strength to end his life...to fight those damn monsters."

[Djinn]

There was delight in his misery, both by the Prince of Plots and the red-haired slave at his feet. Mastes gently lifted the chain, prompting a weeping Kata from the floor to her feet, which were bare and covered in sores. As soon as the woman stood at full height and could see Narav, though, her demeanor changed. Baleful eyes locked onto Narav's, seeking in his soul the same madness that ate hers away. There was more than just hatred in her glare; there was depravity, a sense of the world gone awry in a way that most could not imagine in their sickest dreams.

Except this was Narav's sickest dream.

At first, Mastes was impressed with the conviction in Narav's voice, the determination with which he pushed himself from the mat. But it was fleeting, and Mastes pressed hard on his back, putting pressure on the wounds on his chest. It was enough to collapse Narav, and the man just cackled. There was no rhyme to his reasoning, just something to do for doing its sake. But as he removed the hand, Narav's pain vanished. Mastes smirked as the narcotic left his fingertips, a sticky residue remaining. He put each tip of his finger in Kata's mouth, and she sensually sucked the sweet release from his fingertips. With a pleasured moan, she fell to a heap on the floor, content in her contact.

Mastes lifted Narav from the mattress, causing a head-rush in the man. The narcotic strengthened him, though, offering power to legs that breaks before could barely support him for want of energy. The gashes in his chest, though still highly prevalent, offered little more than annoyance to the man. The substance made him stronger, faster... But there was something in him that resisted the effects, burning through the benefits quickly. With a gleam in his eye, Mastes smirked.

"So a monsters hunts a monster... Interesting." It was clear there was more to it than that, but the Immortal let it rest there. Looking down at the dagger stuck in the floor, Mastes sighed. He administered another dose to Narav, which flared his senses to life quickly. Mastes appeared in perfect clarity, Narav's vision improving far beyond that which it ever was.

"You can do so much better than that. There is a way, you know." Mastes smirked. "But you won't like it. It may cost you your life, long before you can take the Beast's." Mastes stared into Narav's soul. "Would you like to hear it?"

[Narav]

The stranger toyed with his agony, summoning it and banishing it like the shadows flee the lantern light. Narav could barely hold his own. His thoughts swam in wild directions, he was a child again on the deck of the pitching Deliverance. Edward chuckled as he stumbled from foot to foot, unable to stand straight was the waves crashed against the side. This was like that, but the unbalance was in his mind. They were Immortals, he knew this now. The way they glowered and grinned, the ease of their power. Lisirra had been the same in her twisted way, drunk in the stark truth of her superior power to the toy she tortured. This man was the same, cut from the very same skin and blown to life with some foul curse.

But still...the power.

Narav understood Fridgar in that moment, pushing through a sneering world he had lashed himself to a power, made it his, and devoured his own soul. The mage he was, the mage that had attacked his family, they were all the same. Hollow men. Walking carrion pushed ever forward by the pitch in their veins and the madness in their muscles. Yes, it was tempting. Would that he could be like this man, sneering and confident. Lisirra would not be so quick to make a plaything of him, no. Even that brute who tore his body would have cowered before him. In any other circumstance, Narav would check himself, unaware if he was being influenced by the power Lisirra had put into him.

But here? Now? His body coursing with chemical strength and his pain a distant buzz? He was far from examining his thoughts rationally. There was too much here, in this moment. The empty world Narav had lived in since Godryn seemed so much smaller now. Finally it seemed smaller. There was no infinity, no void of hapchance, there was power in this world. Godlike ability clutched in the hands of people like these...if they could be called people at all.

The stranger spoke and Narav listened.

Monster hunting Monsters.

Yes, Narav supposed, Lisirra had made him a monster with her brand.

He was holding the sailor, effortlessly strong, but Narav had the strength to stand again, perhaps to fight, perhaps to kill. The clarity clawed through his brain and for the first time his eyes focused on Mastes. Narav saw him, not for who he was but a hint of the man. There was a cold finality in that vision, a casual decadence that was both compelling and revolting all at once. These were not eyes any mortal should stare into long.

But Narav did not look away. To do so now would be to die. Disappointment was death. Boredom was death.

"The mage carved me like this in the space of a few breaths," His voice was steady, but his mouth twitched, "He hurled me like I weighed no more than a bale of hay. If I met him again, I would surely die." Narav swallowed and offered a tight smile, "What must I do to destroy him? No..." he paused, reconsidering, "What must I do to erase him from this world?"

[Djinn]

It was like Narav's words were a catalyst, sparking a clarity in the eyes of the broken woman on the floor. Swooping up, she appeared in front of Narav as if she'd teleported in front of him, and she glared deep into his eyes with a maniac's zeal. She tried to form a coherent sentence, tried to speak to him...

"Erase. Erase. Erase... him. Ruin." Her teeth chattered and she turned to Mastes, pleading clouding the malice in her eyes. He stepped forward and pushed her back, roughly enough to send her spiraling to the floor. For a brief moment, it appeared as if she would retaliate, but she did not. Instead, she lowered her head and whimpered like a beaten dog, left alone in the gutter to lick its wounds. A look of sympathy crossed Mastes' face, briefly, before he turned back to Narav.

"To kill the beast, you'll need a weapon. To erase the beast, you'll need to become the weapon. Do you understand?" Mastes grinned, and it wasn't clear if it was because his banal cliche was true, or he was leading Narav into his own web of deceit. Eyes that shone a little too wickedly traced Narav's every move, and it was evident that Mastes was bursting to demand something in return.

"See, I could give you the weapon. Even better, I could make you the weapon. But would your vengeance be sated? Instead, I'll offer you the tool... I will give you the means, and what you do with it will be your own to decide." With a smirk, he hefted Narav's dagger once again, this time balancing the tip on his finger with precision. The blade moved not at all, perfectly balanced on the Immortal's skin.

"All you need do is take this dagger and carve a portion of your leg. It need not be a large portion, perhaps a few inches in length. Seems a simple price to pay for the correct path, doesn't it?" Spiders never looked as smug with a fly in their midst. He held the dagger aloft, the tip still pressing a valley into his finger. The offer remained, hanging in the balance between the Tyrant of Trickey and Narav. From the floor, the lilt of Kata's weeping changed drastically, quickly turning into insidious laughter, bubbling from the hoary crevice of her wasteland mind. As she lifted her head from the floor, once again her baleful stare found its way to Narav. The laughter continued.

HahahahAHAhahahahHAHAhaha. HAHAHAH. The choice was clear. Accept the dagger, make the incision... Narav was given the opportunity to truly forge his destiny, to give purpose to the rage below his surface. Or turn from that decision, invite madness...

"The choice is clear." Mastes' voice was silk, and Kata's glare was broken glass.

[Narav]

"I'm not sure what I saw when I stared into her eyes. I'm writing this now to prove to myself that I did see it, that there was something there. Even now it slips between my fingers like a dream you can't quite remember. I don't think I want to remember. I don't think my mind wants me to remember. I knew her name was Kata. I knew it as easily as I would know Lissirra's eyes in any child's face. But there was something there, something behind the madness and ruin, something buried and reaching beneath the taste, color, the essence of mad destruction. I think...I think I saw someone trapped in there." -Narav's Journal

Reality was a thin tissue over a bowl of snakes. By forcing Narav to stare her in the eyes, Kata had writhed that tissue just a hint askew, momentarily revealing the multitudes of flexing muscles and dead, hungry eyes beneath the world. The skin of the world was paper and the madness beneath could break at any time. Narav knew that now, knew the truth that infants forget in their first moments born. He saw the void that lived in the center of each despicable act, the whirlpool of depravity had an eye and that eye had scorched his soul.

Then it was over and she was nearly hurled away from him, crawling on the cobblestone like a beggar. But Narav knew better now. She'd made a mistake, or Mastes had. His name was Mastes, that was clear now. Narav was not supposed to see that madness, or maybe he wasn't supposed to understand it. Maybe he'd been the one soul in a million who looked at just the right angle, put just the right shapes together. There was clarity in the heart of madness, a clarity so strong it redefined the truth. His mind was not meant to hold it, not meant to grasp it. Already he couldn't remember the details. Something about...snakes...or...bowls?

Mastes was speaking. How did he know his name? The last few trills were blurs, held together with patchwork understanding. Already the event was being buried beneath all the trauma that had reigned before. Yes. Erase. Yes. Weapon. Narav followed the point of his dagger, the words of the Trickery god echoing in his brain. Yes, he understood. What power did not come with sacrifice? Each weighty acquisition of blessing had been earned with strands of his flesh, arcs of his life, and the drams of his sanity distilled in neat, measured vials.

Kata laughed. Her name was...Kata? And there was someone trapped, inside? Narav shook away the confusing image and snatched the dagger from where it balanced. The blade felt strangely hot in his hand, as though it had been gently heated on a forge. He took it, looking down at it, marveling at the way it glittered now.

It wasn't much to ask. What more had been taken? What price was this?

"Let this blade be the one to take his heart." Narav said, but his voice was a strangers. Did he always sound so cold?

Down dipped the blade and scored a line diagonally in his leg, welling with the instant crimson birth of his blood. He held the blade, shaking, his body somewhere between rapture and agony and slowly turned his eyes back on Mastes.

"Let it be so."

[Djinn]

As quickly as he saw the buried individual in Kata's true soul, it was gone, a glimmer of a mirage. Instead, he found her orbs empty and violent, simmering rage beneath vitriolic hatred. The shimmering fabric of his reality, though, was tilted, thrown into chaos by the faintest idea that Kata was more than she appeared. But the thought was fleeting, replaced, instead, by Narav's determination to complete his life's mission.

As he took the dagger from the tip of Mastes' finger, he missed the pinpoint drop of pooling crimson remaining where the point once had been. A sly smile turned the corners of Mastes' mouth as his eyes followed every minute movement of Narav's muscles. Child-like glee filled his eyes as Narav slowly lowered the knife to his thigh, dragging the edge across to give himself to Mastes. Almost immediately, ecstasy washed over the Immortal of Tricks, and he leaned his head back and moaned in pleasure.

The Immortal's blood on the tip of the dagger mixed immediately with Narav's, causing an extreme itching across the surface of the wound. Where the blood welled, it turned black, congealing quickly. Fire ignited Narav's body as the narcotic seeped into Narav's femoral artery, where it was quickly pumped through his body. His muscles contracted, tightening and threatening to tear free of the ligaments and joints. Veins all over his body stood out, lines of grubs taut against his skin. The rush that went through him did nothing to temper the molten metal that surged through him, and his scream was caught in his throat. It was more intense a pain than Narav had ever experienced, but also provided a clarity forged in the throes of desire and withdrawal. The fire seared in his brain, leaving imprints of Mastes' laughing face behind his eyes. Narav needed more, he needed to cut himself again, to feel the elation of the edge bringing the blood.

The whole thing lasted four trills, but it felt longer than Narav's entire existence. Through the pain, a shadow exploded into motion, and before he knew it, Kata drew her tongue across the wound, her eyes never leaving Narav's. The black ichor clung to the soft sponginess of her tongue, and as it disappeared from the surface of the wound, so too did the sensations. Left behind was a primal hunger to experience the sensations again, but it was nothing more than a niggling behind Narav's psyche. It was a gentle prod towards Mastes, one that would allow Narav to sense him in any direction. As his vision returned to normal, Kata still licked the wound, which had now scarred over and appeared as nothing more than a childhood injury, pale against his skin. The more she licked, the more fervent her next, drawing from her a scream of rage when the wound was gone. She glared into his eyes again, and this time, there was no hidden woman. Instead, she was the pure and unadulterated essence of crumbling reality, ruin in its most destructive and natural form. Before she could react, though, Mastes grabbed her by the hair and yanked her away from the man. A twinge of jealousy flooded Narav as Mastes drew close but retreated with Kata.

"You have done well, Narav Kest. You have chosen the correct path to your destiny. Now, you have received the gifts of my pet and I. With these, you will bring ruin and calamity to your foes, and bliss and happiness to yourself. Now, I promised you a way to kill the Beast, and I'm a man of my word." For all his flaws, the Paragon of Ploys kept true to his word. Often, he phrased his words specifically to avoid lying, even if the goal was to trick. With a cunning grin, he ushered Narav to the bed again, sending a rush of release through Narav upon his touch. "So now I offer you a choice, young hunter. A weapon, or a war."

And with that, images overtook Narav's mind, flashing rapidly.

Make Your Choice...

Option One

The explosion of images was simultaneously jarring and enlightening. The first was a desert dune, scorching hot. Across it crawled a scorpion, which dug into the sand and disappeared from view. The next image was that of a man, dark of skin and hideously scarred, bearing a torch into the maw of a tomb. The third was a dagger, covered in dust and insects, placed meticulously in ages past in by an unknown figure. As the images stopped, Narav instinctively knew the dagger was somewhere in the Hotlands, buried and waiting to be found. This Path has Moderate-High Risk, and will likely have resonating effects far into the future. Should Narav choose this path, there will be TWO Secret Achievements to unlock, each of which, upon completion, will offer their own bonuses at the completion of the thread.

Option Two

Wrapping themselves around the other images, these images offered a distinctly different vibe. Settled deep in a jungle, there was a shrine built, not dedicated to any Immortal, but with a face carved into the stone. The face was half-jaguar, half-man, with lines tearing the two apart. Sitting at the base of the shrine was a shriveled man, bald on his head, but with a massive beard. In his hands rested a wooden walking staff. The image shifted to show a sea of younger men and women, with their noses pierced with wooden spikes and their skin scarified in horrifying images of half-beast, half-human faces. They sat on their knees, faces in the underbrush, seemingly praying to the shrine-statue. Finally, an image of Rhakros as a city flickered into his mind, fleeting more quickly than the others. This Path offers High Risk, and has THREE Secret Achievements to unlock, each of which, upon completion, will offer powerful bonuses at the completion of this thread. This Path will ensure long-lasting effects on Narav.

Mastes waited for Narav to float back into consciousness, his devious grin still plastered across his face. With eyes that never left Narav, the Immortal offered him another choice.

"You may choose now."

[Narav]

Kest.

It was not a surname he recognized, but it stirred something within him. Perhaps it was a memory, but who could tell in this whirlwind of pleasure, pain, and the shards of the reality around him. Idalos lost consistency, gained it suddenly, lost it again. He sprinted from a thousand fates and ends only to see the blood of his wound devoured by Kata. Kata who was and was not all there was of her. Had she realized he'd seen? Had she sensed the intrusion and covered it again? The memory was strong and soft at once, flexing and molding with everything else. It slipped through his fingers, it pooled in his mind, it gathered at the soles of his feet and weighed him to this silence.

This noise.

No. It was definitely silence. It was a loud silence.

Narav bucked as pain and pleasure both met, dipped into bows and danced throughout his skull. Sway, sway, and he saw Edalene bent roughly over a seedy bar table, face creased in desperate pleasure. He saw Danielle in silohuette from her window, clad in nothing but the night as she turned her face westward, to the stars.

He saw Edward, strong and fiery, quietly slipping a body from the deck of the Deliverance and into the sea. He wore an expression sown with salt and pain, but he still smiled. There were so many things Narav saw in those moments when the Immortal's blood wrapped with his own. The scar sealed and faded, lightning white.

As visions swam in his mind, Narav tried to center himself. He was a thousand pieces, the contents of a swarm as they bit and molted through the visions Mastes granted. A Dagger, the Desert, the half-face, A city in the jungle. He recognized none of these places as they passed but he might have guessed one was Nashaki, somewhere were the sun scorched the ground into dust.

"War." He choked it, spit it, and then gasped and spoke again, "I want war."

And in his heart...he meant it.

[Djinn]

"Damn right you do." Mastes' grin matched Narav's rage. It was as if he knew that Narav would choose the war, as if he expected him to take the longer path for the greater destruction. With a nod, Mastes stepped forward and touched Narav. This time, the rush was magnificent, as if his entire bloodstream had become happiness. Narav could not recall the last time he'd felt this good. In fact, he had never felt that good. The sensation was indescribable.

And so Narav fell back onto the bedding, overwhelmed with the feelings. It was as if his fingertips were simultaneously frozen and on fire, alternating between too cold and too hot. He could feel his eyes. He was acutely aware of everything in his body. But more importantly, he was acutely aware of Mastes' presence, hovering close over him.

"You're mine now. And to get what you want, you'll have to give me something that I want. You're to follow those visions to Rhakros, the Poisoned Jewel of the Queen of Decay. There, you will seek out a... shaman... named Alsohmm. You are to convince Alsohmm to join your cause by any means necessary. And Narav... Should you fail, ultimately, you will not like the consequences. Will he, my pet?"

And then Kata was straddling him, staring down into his eyes with murder in hers. She bit her tongue, hard, and let the blood drip out in small patterns. They hit Narav's forehead, searing into it, as Kata stared. He could feel the burn, like the skin was being eaten away by acid, and then... They were gone. Narav's eyes snapped open and the room was empty. His forehead stung with the remnants of pain, a ghostly imprint left where nothing had ever been.

And also... The wounds on his chest were significantly more healed. Though not perfect, and still incredibly likely to leave horrific scars, the wounds were bearable. He could stand and move without keeling over in agony. He had his mission, he had his means... And he had Mastes' power flowing through his veins, similar to that of Lisirra's. Alsohmm waited in Rhakros, unaware of the renegade mage hunter's mission. It was Narav's turn to strike at the mage that scarred him.