Seth Magnus's Story

More for me, he thinks. Lamenting his inability to get drunk with every drink. It had been nothing but one question after another since coming here. This world, this Garden. The fighting didn't phase him. The death. The killing. Those things were nothing to him. They passed into and through him. One moment to the next, not burdening his soul for even a fraction of an instant. He would drown this world in an ocean of blood if that is what it would take. One world, for the fate of all worlds. Fair trade. He breaths out a long solemn sigh, smoke spilling out of his mouth, and from there escaping under his arms as it hits the table. Weighing the lives of the few against the lives of the many... Yeah, he was good at that.

"Get your head in the game, Smith." He growls at himself. His voice ragged, brittle around the edges like broken glass. He was beginning to doubt he even knew who he was anymore. He was comfortable here. That's what scared him. What set his teeth on edge. He was never comfortable anywhere. Not in a long time. He was a predator. A self wielded sword, poised at the throats of everyone around him. He was irreparably broken. Those were the facts as he knew them.

At least. Before he came here. Now. Now, he felt sluggish. Off kilter, like he wasn't all of himself. The familiar beat of hammer on steel in his head, in his soul. No longer as comforting as it should be. The tempo felt wrong, the echo of the steel tinny too his ears. The fire. Felt cold. Like he was used to the sun, and all he had for warmth was a candle. It had never felt wrong before, now he felt like a stranger in his own skin, he remembered things he couldn't remember and white noise bled into the space where the memories should be. Blackness gnawed at the edges of his soul, oozing like disease into a gaping wound in his soul he was only now seeing. Accompanied by the screams, the plea of his name from a womans voice into his mind. A voice that filled him with such a sense of failure and loss that it was almost a physical thing. And the laughter. Always the laughter. As insane as it was evil. Laughter that made him want nothing more than to set the world ablaze and drown it in a sea of swords. Alien feelings assaulting him in such magnitude that he didn't even know what were his and what were not. He grunts as molten blood dribbles from his nose, only to be reabsorbed a moment later. he shakes the feelings off.

Fishing the card from before out of his breast pocket he idly traces his name with his thumb, the jagged brittle lettering almost seeming to mock him. "Why do you distress me so." He whispers to the world. Barely registering the man who had declined from sharing a drink from him before looming over him. Until he speaks. Wayland's eyes settle heavily onto the man, talking in his features again from closer up. Wayland laughs. The sound as brittle and as sharp as the pieces of a shattered sword. He wanted to ask how he planned to help him, when he(Wayland) could not even help himself, then strange man lay his pipe on the table and Wayland's world came screeching to a halt.

With a sound like crashing steel, hammer glanced off the side of the anvil and the notice of a thousand thousand blades turned towards the source of the discord. It settled into his forge like a thorn but the hammer started again. It was something he could only just grasp, because the pipe that was not a pipe still held the concept of metal, and that put it in his purview, if only just.

A rent opened where it touched, into shadow and nothingness and fire screamed forth to meet it. But, how do you burn chaos. Beasts moved beyond the shadow, stalking along in the wake of the dark. Twisting this way and that. Their movements incomprehensible to a mind built on structure Too many eyes, too many legs, too many arms, too many heads. They peered into the light, eyes curious and amused. Mouths filled with too many teeth smiling far too wide their ruinous hunger clear to all, and still the hammer carried on, the beat slow and heavy as if unsure, but every echo of steel carrying a note as inevitable as the tide, and ever so slowly his world twisted to find a place for them. Somewhere in the dark, away from the others they settled, ever watchful, ever patient and ever hungry.

Wayland came back to himself with a low roar. The sound like someone raking through shattered steel, but there was an undertone now. Something alien and unfathomable. Color and sound come rushing back all at once, it takes him a second to realize the lack of noise and he takes it as an excuse to be away from the disconcerting man, and his pipe that was not a pipe.

As he stands he realizes the feel of the air had changed. A chill seemed to have settled into the world and there was a feeling... Like, something familiar, something that shouldn't be familiar, something that. Could. Not. Be. Familiar. It set his teeth on edge. Made his blood flare in heat, his eyes coming to glow with inner light as his core respond to the sudden unexplainable hatred. He rakes his vision across the assembled people, all the while a constant growl comes from his mouth with every exhale, accompanied by copious amounts of choking ash and smoke, the growl slowly growing louder as his breath comes faster and faster. The sounds like tortured steel, like death, swords piercing flesh and the screams of those dying. The noise in his head almost deafening as the hammer strikes faster and faster.

He stalks forward almost against his own will, the grass curling and turning to ash from the heat being emitted by his body, leaving smoldering footprints in his wake. He moves toward the people coming down the hill with purpose he can't fathom. The box buzzing to life as he passes, flickering between "1-2", but the number are like shadows upon the screen, as if not really there but any looking could see them. His eyes scanning those returning, raking across Vinn and Luka as if not seeing them, glancing across River until they rest upon.

"You!" He roars, voice echoing across the hill like the ringing of blades. A taloned finger pointing at the thing in the suit and top hat, the heat rolling off Wayland's body making portions of his clothes catch fire, and the ground in a circle around him to burn, the air distorting around him. As he Points right between the twin orbs of orange light sitting in the middle of shadow that were its eyes. The shadowy numbers on the box ghost higher, flickering between "3-4".

"I know you." His mind, his very soul rebels against the statement, white noise and static deafening in his mind but it's met by the roar of fire. Fire that burn even him with its brilliance. It makes even the laughter stop, until it starts to howl in anger and for an instant he can hear laughter like the tinkling of bells. A sound that lift him up in ways he can't explain before he's drowned in the roar of the flames.

"I hate you." But I don't know why... The thought is poisonous, bringing the static back to his soul. His anger is like a physical thing, pressing into the back of his eyes. Willing him forward, willing him to shred the grinning monster before him as his voice carries across to those assembled. The heat from his breath so great that it was almost heavy, the shadowy numbers on the box creep ever higher, flickering between "5-6".

Words flee him in a rush of heat, with a clashing of hammer and anvil, a roar of fire, a thousand different battlecries, in a memory of steel. He's confused, terrified of his own mind. He does the only thing he can. He roars long, and he roars loud. Leaning towards the abomination before him, the creature hiding behind a smile. His taloned hands splayed at his sides ready to rip and tear, his feet set to fight, to charge into his enemies. The sound is different than before. Like a monster, a dragon made of swords and steel. Ash spills from his mouth as he howls, settling to the ground before him. Blanketing the grass that isn't already burned, the heat wave that follows after blowing it away from him. And the box ticks up a final time, a shadowy "7" appearing before Wayland simply stops. Toppling backward to stare at the sky, clothes smoking, his body cooling rapidly as the glow leaves his eyes, his soul/mind in turmoil trying to, once again reconcile itself. The numbers disappearing at the same time, the box goes dark.