A year and a half.
That was how long I ravaged the countryside with that parasite in charge. Reaver. The damned creature. A demon unlike any I have ever seen or read about. Reaver, a parasite feeding off not the misery of others, but the host. A year and a half of torturing me, seemingly for the fun alone.
The day is the sixth of Nix, 526. According to the healers, I have slept for nearly two moons. Reaver did not rest. Reaver did not let me sleep. Not one moment of sleep for a year and a half, only Reaver's terrible singing, manic laughter, and killing. So much killing. So much blood on my hands. I remember everything, for Reaver was keen to show me all the monstrosities he performed with my flesh. The healers say I should write it down. That it will help calm my spirit. I do not believe them, but if nothing else, people need to know what this creature is truly capable of.
From my last journal entry, not counting Reaver's inane scribblings, you'll see I made a terrible mistake, and inspected Reaver's shard. In Machtzopi, Reaver was paralyzed by the same magic void that brought so many mages to suicide. The moment I touched it, the damned creature was in complete control. I didn't realise at first, until I began laughing. I tried to toss the shard away, to no avail. Reaver was in control. And Reaver was powerful.
Using me as a conduit for his foul, corrputed forces, Reaver laid total waste to the camp. He forced me to watch as my hands tortured and slew my troops, and the civilians. Forced me to listen to their pleas of mercy as my hands carved their bodies to shreds. Forced me to taste their blood on my tounge as Reaver feeded. Reaver was unstoppable. A team of demon hunters might have brought him down, but normal men stood no chance. When Reaver was done, he skipped, singing, towards a nearby village. There, he forced me to watch as he tore apart the men, violated the women, before killing them, and did the same to the children. Again, and again, village after village, always to his cackling laughter.
I lost count. I do not know how many Reaver tortured and killed, but the number is somewhere in the thousands. Never a witness, never a survivor. I have learnt later that people thought there was a bandit group, a clan of marauders so violent and well-versed in magic that not a single person survived any of their raids. Three times, I heard, bandit clans were hunted down and exterminated, and people thought the threat was over. Then, seven moons ago, someone began to suspect that a dark wizard was involved.
I was caught by an expedition of paladins. Reaver managed to kill two of them, but I felt my body go stiff. After that, everything is a blur of pain. The healers said the exorcism took a full week, and that the pain of their ritual was akin to flaying, or the height of a childbirth. I cannot begin to tell you how horrible it was, for the moment it stopped, after what felt like an aeon, I fell asleep. That was two moons ago, as I mentioned.
I find myself startled by the smallest sound. A hooting owl brings forth images of children in agony, laughter brings forth the bale, bloodied, writhing faces of men I once counted as brothers in arms. My sleep brings ne reprieve, for they are full of nightmares so terrible that even when I die, I don't wake up. I am just thrown into some new hell.
The paladins say that Reaver is gone. At least the part of Reaver that was in the shard I touched. But I still hear his laughing voice in the back of my mind, still hear his taunts reminding me what he did with my arms. Even casting simple magic holds an echo of him, for it feels wrong, like I am channeling some demonic force and not arcane energy.
I do not know what to do with myself from here on out. What I do know is that I need to find answers, and bring whomever tricked me into that citadel to justice. I just hope I am able to do so without hurting more innocent people along the way. The last thing I want is the blood of another babe on my hands, or the tears of another widow to haunt my dreams.
Marth Coralax, remembering always.
- High priest of the Justiciar, titled Redeemer and Destroyer.
- Marth's alter ego, Reaver, is -not- a demon. Rather, it is a result of a demon's exorcism - a mental scar that won't go away. Reaver is, however, CE.
- Marth is deceptively strong in combat, though easy to misdirect when destabilized.
- Voice Actor: Michael Bell (Raziel)
- Theme song: Dragonforce - Soldiers of the Wasteland (Marth) / Blue Stahli - Takedown (Reaver)
- My name is NOT "Tom".
