Snippet #2473374

"The darkness will claim this place, and the rest of the Garden. We barely make it by as it is and soon the demon lords will stop bickering and mass together. It's a matter of time before the Garden is overwhelmed and used as stepping stone for the rest of existence...what we need are capable fighters, those strong of mind and body, those with good morals. We need to be able to rise from the bottom, gain allies and defeat corrupted guilds until the Garden can stand on her own two feet and push back the demon lords." The nameless leader had expanded upon his deception by passing through the table as though he were immaterial.

"I know all about you, everything you know, I know. Keep this in mind for the rest of the interview and pay attention....this is the only advice I will give you aside from to remember, this is not a fight, you are not simply weapons."

Pravus waited, taking the man's warnings to mind as he awaited what this man had planned for them.

"Live."

At that moment magic took it's course, shifting the world around them. The floor became a large stone dais suspended over a seemingly infinite void which separated them from the rest of the world they were previously in and their interviewer who looked on past his desk with no discernible change in facial expression. A pair of dark hands grasped the ledge of their current platform, pulling the rest of itself from the black abyss. Up upon their disc a darkened shadow of his father climbed aboard, standing up in a bit of a swaying shamble.

The man looked quite similar to Pravus. Both of them were wearing the same hat and cloak, tools could be heard rattling from underneath the concealment of his father's cloak. His father's facial structure appeared stronger than his although Pravus's features were currently obscured by his unique mask, making a facial comparison between the two of them impossible for any onlookers. His father did possess a rather long yet straight and thin black beard, making him appear wiser. The man appeared to Pravus as he remembered him the very last time he saw him before he left home to join the military.

There was a sense of realism to this encounter but there was one factor which he didn't even know was playing into this scenario. His speech was short which gave his secret manipulators little time to work with. Even though the scenario definitely seemed real he still remembered that this was probably the efforts and product of magic, illusionary or otherwise. He looked from the leader sitting so close yet so far away in his seat to the very spitting image of his father wrought from the shadows pulled up from below.

"What shame have you brought upon our family name this time?" Were the first words to come from his illusionary father's mouth. Pravus saw what this leader was trying to do to him, to push him using his own memories against him and see if he breaks or not. Still, even with that knowledge in mind it's words still stung deep inside his still heart. He could feel no pain but what this feeling was for him was the closest thing he could come to that.

Still, pain was temporary and he had endured plenty of physical pain in life. As for emotional pain he had known and carried on through suffering which held no comparison. Driven by guilt spurred by his father's death to carry on the family name only to watch as each one of his family, his friends and anyone else he knew all succumbed to the black spirit's touch until only he remained for just long enough to watch the entire world end with him. Even after all that and being resurrected with the memories of it all still intact he carries on. He knew this phantom was not his father. He did not know how they conjured forth such a construct to take on such a familiar form but he still suspected deception even with the tampering of his mind from other entities involved.

"You wish to test me again?" He spoke, still looking towards the facsimile of his father but clearly addressing the leader of the Nameless. "You will listen here son." His father attempted to draw his focus back onto the hateful duplicate designed to degrade his willpower. Instead of listening to it's demands he turned his back to it, now facing their host.

"Are you willing to forsake what you care about, for the life of another?"

He heard the whisper in his ear, the source from no discernible location even though the speaker was clear. His eye's gaze pierced through the black holes of his mask, staring directly at the leader now. He could still hear his father behind him but he made a conscious effort to ignore it while he spoke to his intended audience.

"Must we forsake what defines us to defend another person's moralities instead of the ones we all have struggled so hard to forge?" He responded to his question with a question of his own. The leader wanted to see them all act as more than just weapons so unlike a sword or a cannon he questioned the hand which controlled him. A weapon does not ask why it needs to kill who it kills, a person does. Unlike the path Aera had chosen, he would see beyond the puzzle set before him. To question reality rather than simply accept it as what it is.

"I honor my word, I fight for my comrades as well as those who I owe my word to. Magic and other means may be able to twist my mind and cloud my judgement but I still remain the culmination of every experience, every trial, every hardship and every memory I still hold. Even still, I shall succeed if I need to. If that means proving my fortitude mentally as well then so be it but I will ask you this: I have buried my past once, I ask you to not force me to do so once again." He asked of the man nestled at his desk, his voice still polite and calm despite that calm being challenged by the words of his father, the salt in his wounds.

As he was done speaking the phantom of his father stepped up behind Pravus, standing directly behind him with almost no space separating them. He brought his lips up near his ear, whispering directly into it.
"Go ahead. Go become another lackey for some warmongering warlord and abandon your family to sicken and die.
You make me sick."

Still, Pravus stood tall and firm before the Nameless's leader and weathered the burning pain of his guilt eat away at him from within, waiting for a response while his father's phantom wounded him deeper and deeper.