1 Sinister

Saint Jericho - "I swallowed the darkness. It did not swallow me."

As I paced towards the king of Bastion, a sea of blood surrounded me. My own steps caused ripples in the red pools, and in the eyes of the once noble ruler, a madness born of fear refused the sight in front of him.

Dozens of corpses decayed on the ground and across the walls. My clothes remained clean at the center of this massacre, even though I was the titan who ripped them apart. I wanted to eat what was left of these people, yet I withheld that desire from those around me. Few things estrange a person as quickly as eating your enemy’s remains.

The lavish tapestries carried the colors of Bastion, white and green in honor of their god, Gaia. Twelve gems circled the leaves of a vast tree, and a ring, smooth on the inner edge and spiked on the outer one, encompassed the entire spectacle. The roof above us arched over a hundred feet in height while a gold trim embroidered the white marble that composed the entire spectacle. The large windows allowed light onto the king’s throne at all times of the day, creating an illusion of holy grandeur as long as the sun passed through the sky.

Intimidating the man who sat upon that throne proved far more difficult than I anticipated, yet I never doubted my own talents in that regard. Even before Deluge molded with me, I already owned a peculiar glint of cruelty. That malice grew over time, and at that point in my life, I’d evolved into a rather callous creature.

Drawing from that ruthlessness, I listened to the king’s words without sympathy. He spoke them in a voice intermingled with absolute disbelief and fervorous panic,

“What are you?”

I lifted an arm covered in the black, scaly skin of a hydra before a set of burning white talons grew from my fingertips. I grinned with sharpened canines and the slitted eyes of a predator. I growled out in a deep, haunting voice,

“I am the death of your god and the beginning of a new era. I am the darkened one.”

The words left my lips with a strange impact. On one hand, the king paled at the declaration, yet on the other, a colossal golem stood in silence while the queen of razor’s floated overhead and giggled. A light smirk formed on my own face before I leaned closer and said,

“Now tell me, where is the remnant of Gaia?”

The king’s eyes glanced around without any hope for escape as he said, “Is that why you’ve come here?” After he realized there was no hope for freedom, his eyes hardened before he hissed, “Do you intend to kill our people then our god?”

I laid my face in my hand for a moment before I lifted my face towards his. As I did so, I said, “What is it that you want?”

The king glanced around in confusion before I continued speaking, “I ask as a form of insurance. You see, the best way for ensuring someone’s compliance involves knowing what they hold dear. In your case, I may guess at a few of the more important pieces.”

I lift a hand out towards my side, glancing towards the claws on my fingertips as I say, “On one hand, you care for your own life and the life of your guards I’m sure. The guard’s lifes served as an example of my potential for destruction. Your own life, on the other hand, may be bargained for yet.”

I clasped my stretched hand into a fist as blood coagulated on my fingers while my claws retracted. With a tone both cruel and adamantine, I say,

“Refuse me and I will kill each of your relatives in a wave of carnage your empire has never seen, and in the wake of my massacre, your precious empire shall fall and collapse, along with your lineage.”

The old man’s face cringed and wrinkled as drops of sweat dripped down his forehead. After I gave him a curt moment of deliberation, I snapped, “Then this is the end of everything-”

He shouted, “No, no...I’ll tell you. Just...please, leave my family out of this.”

I raised an eyebrow as I said with a serene calm, “I’ll leave you alive as well if you just give me what I want.”

He blinked for a moment before he spoke with disbelief dripping from his words, “You would spare me?”

I grinned as I said with a near familial warmth, “I’m not quite as demonic as your religion would believe I am. I’d rather not kill you.”

My amiable smile transformed as the light in my eyes dimmed while my smile warped until a crooked grimace appeared, both violent and menacing. With a voice like ice, I said, “Though the proclamation of before still stands.”

His eyes glanced around at my companions before he closed his eyelids, and after deliberating for a second, he said without opening his eyes, “The remnant is within a crypt underneath Saint Jericho’s chapel. You’ll find it in the catacombs.”

As he finished his words, a spark of realization caused the hairs across my skin to bristle while a smile encompassed my face. This smile carried no warmth, however. The expression opened my eyes far too wide while the sharpness and number of my teeth made my face both inhuman and sinister.

With the king gasping in horror, I turned towards Aether and Razor as I said, “It appears as though the Arcanum is Lying to Joan.”