Pride's Revenge[Closed]

Locked away from the eyes of the world in a charred, burned and cursed section of the forest. Jack remained in his outpost studying blood magi. The first few weeks had been awkward with the loss of his arm. Iskra had taken it from him and ever since he had not seen her. Nor had he particularly sought her out. He was in a strange state of confusion about the whole matter, in away. This was worse than death. His pride kept on paiing him more than Iskra’s poison. More than the feeling of the phantom limb that was no longer there. In a way, he was proud that she had managed to do as she had. But in another way. He hated her. Once again this was all just as it had been in the beginning. Jack the advocate of Jowan. A servant to a demonic lord. He was below the Hyena girl. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He wasn’t afraid of her, but what had once been a sense of a bond was now shattered. Instead a new bond took its place. One of unified. Focused hate and spite. The fight had determined his position to Iskra. Behind her. And Jack often found that was the best place to stab someone. Iskra was an animal. Perhaps she didn’t understand the emotional concepts of just what she had done. Just what this act would rend upon their once friendship. That now she had an enemy within her own midst. Jacks research into blood magic had now taken a more serious turn. He lifted a vial of blood to his eyes and looked at the warm crimson liquid within. His research was now focused on increasing his own powers, so that he could kill her. TTolerating what had occurred between them was not going to be possible.

EXP: 323
PWC: 302

The hardest part of the entire experience at least physically had been the use of one arm. He wasn’t quite sure on just how to go about his day to day activities at first without the use of his second arm. But its amazing what one an adjust to when they are left with little other choice. Such was the nature of the demons to adapt or die. So he adapted. But that didn’t mean that he was just going to live without the use of that arm forever. Jack was a fifted mage and he wasn’t going to tolerate the loss of that arm for long. So he was going to use his magics to see if he could construct himself another one. Or at least use the power of blood magic in an attempt to regenerate the one hee had already lost. One thing he was not going to do however was go to Iskra and ask her to return his arm. As far as he was concerned that arm the moment she took it was no longer his. He had disowned it. Deeemed it a part of Iskra. Part of the enemy. And he wouldn’t want it on him again. To wear such a thing would be an eternal mark of shame upon him. This experience allowed him to grow. And had brought him back to his old ways once again.

He’d chastised himself again and again as he mixed the bloods and watched and waited for their reaction to the dark magic’s he pumped in. Back when he had killed Pride he had always said that reliance upon others, helping others only ever led to weakness. He had no problem keeping Iskra in line back then, but now. He had grown complacent and she had taken his power. His place and his pride. Not to mention his limb. So this was a return to the old way of doing things and all for the better in his opinion

EXP: 330
PWC: 310

If this had led to weakness then perhaps[s this wwas required. Of course he had been strong before. But team work unity helping one another in various tasks and goals. That had been the nature of the kami not the oni;. He had let Iskra away with too much, she had changed him and not for the better. Now it was time to go back, back to the way things were. Back when he trusted no one, back when he was strong. The voice of the man behind the door had been sneaking in a lot more too not just when he was awake but in his dreams as well. He had been telling Jack that the power of pride was no longer enough, that he had reached the limits of the power Pride could provide him with and that the only way to advance would be to dip into other section sof demonic power. And he was right. Pride alone hadn’t carried Jowan beyond him. And Jowan had admittedly been a master of that power. Jack had just enhanced his own by using blood magic and his own general sneakiness. But now Iskra had trumped him blood magic and all. Which had forced Jack into complete focus into his research. He needed to gain more power and it would start with the research he had already been carrying out on demons and the blood of the dragon they had killed. The blood, and the heart.

EXP: 253
PWC: 237

Working with only one arm progress had been slow on that front but he had been making some. The kami blood for one had proved extremely useful in dehumanising the blood. The only issue however was the fact he refused to bring the holy nature of Kami inot his own body. Whilst he didn’t doubt that his own cursed blood would resist and twist the holy power into darkness. He knew that the procvess would likely end up weakening him as opposed to strengthening him. So he needed to find something else to weaken at least temporarily the power of his taint before he unleashed it upon the heart and the blood of the dragon. And that alone was going to be difficult. THe taint had before shown that its clearly virulant nature was going to overcome anything that the dragon blood had as far as strength goes and make it demonic in nature. Too demonic. Adding more demoness to him wasn't going to grant him any additional power. He had to find some way of blending that demonic nature with the mystical strength of the dragonn kin in order to create something newa and more powerful than both. But finding that way was just what was eluding him. He felt however the answer was somewhee in the blood of the Kami and in his own veins. But just what was that secret that was eluding him. WOuld he be forced to take that holy power into him? No. He wouldn't. He'd have to find another way. And with that. It was back to work.

Exp: 284
PWC: 265

New experiments required new subjects and Jack wasn’t particularly in the mood or state to be getting them himself. Rather he sent out his soldiers to go ahead and kidnap some of the locals from the villages nearby. He wanted to spend te majority of his time on the blood and the experiements with magic and gathering thing lke that when ehe could easily get hi sown minions to do so for him was just foolish. He had to focus on what was in front of him if he was to have any chance of defeating Iskkra. It was realism if nothing else. He placed the b,ood upon the table and separated it into three pools. Sending out just the slightest slither of his magic each time to activate the power within the blood, feeling the taint within each of the separate pools. The taint within his blood was virulent and it spread consuming everything that it came into contact with. The only thing that he had found capable of countering this was the blood of the Kami. Whatever was in it seemed to be in direct opposition to the taint. He referred to this holy power as the blessing. And was possibly the reason why he felt so sick when placed around Kami. Not physically sick but sick of their presence. An intolerance of their existence. Jack moved his hand to a case of vials at his side, he poured down onto the table human blood. It was placed in the centre. Almost immediely he felt the power of the taint from the pools that surrounded this one. The taint from those pools seemed to spread out in an attempt tp copsume that in the middle. The blood however didn’t move, but the aura of the taint was almost beast like, roaring with power circling that of the human blood. He thought about it at this moment and everything he had learned up to this point about the blood and that made sense. He then took one of the vials of Kami blood and spread a small circle of it around the human blood, Neither touching, as if the Kami blood had mixed with the human then the blessing would have tainted the experiment

exp:404
pwc:375

.

The point the circle of Kami blood was completed he felt the blessing begin to collide with the aura of the taint of his own blood. It was an interesting phenomenon. And thats when an idea occurred to him, If he could do the same with the kami blood. Surrounding the dragons blood with something, if not the blessing that would hold off the taint. Then it would be a successful experiement. The only question was finding out just what could do it. And ultimately that was going to be no easy task. He knew at the moment that the blessing held of the taint. But he needed to find something else that would successfully hold off demonic power. And thats when it struck him. Jack rushed oer to the other side of his outpost and hunted through the books that he had both written and collected until he came to one specific one. The one given to him by the human he had possessed and given the power to invade the gates of the radiant city and reclaim his daughter from death. The one who had accidently summoned him and clumsily placed him within a sealing circle. And there was the answer. He opened the book and saw the inscriptions of the ritual. These markings had the power to contain demons and their power, when plaed in a blood magic ritual circle they could do so. It was a particularly powerful spell if pulled off correctly. So. Jack had to experiment. He wiped the table clean and placed more human blood down on the table once again surrounding it with his own blood. As before the taint began to reach out growing closer and closer to the the human blood but since the blood of his own couldn’t actually move by itself the taint couldn’t reach it only stretch out its influence. At this point Jack took the edge of his cane sword and began to carve into the table the markings of the ritual. And oddly it had the same reaction upon the curse as the blessing, and was without the abomination of the kami blood. This revelation brought Jack as close to happiness as a demon could get. Excitement. Elation. Those kinds of feelings. Now he just had to figure out the odd way in which he was going to get those markings into the context of the blood itself. And that was going to be something that required a lot of thought.

exp: 450
PWC:432

At this point in the dark and silence on his own Jacks thoughts about the past few days began to mix and culiminate just as the blood had on his table. The seething hate for Iskra still permeating through him. He could not believe that he had been foolish enough to let the girl into his trust. At this point he was reminded of the naivety of himself i the first couple of years of the dawn. His time with that hybrid woman. His time with Jowan and the others. He pricked his finger on the blade of his sword, the finger of the one hand that actually remained. A few drips down on the table in front of him and he brought his magic into it, moving the blood with his power over blood magic into the shape of a face, the face of that woman. He placed that finger in his mouth, the warm feel of the blood on his lips and in his mouth. Iskra had said that there had been no one with his blood or with his scent. Either she had died or Iskra was simply not good enough a tracker as he had thought. Regardless. It had been twenty years. He looked at the blood again, and it moved into a vague shape that resembled the face of Iskra. Again, hate welled up inside of him. The phantom vice grip upon his shoulder with the missing arm pained him once again. He would have his revenge.

EXP:260
pwc: 252

He wiped the blood angrily away with his hand. He had no more patience for this no doubt that soon enough Iskra would come around lookin g to pick the brain of the defunked arch demon for more of his knowledge. Remembering the question of whether or not he would teach her to read and write, back then there had been no problem when he had agreed to it. Iskra had been at least mildly respectable in her curiousity, But the way things had developed now he couldn’t imagine teaching her anything. Baring her presence and following her orders was going to be something else. He was amazed that even now he had the patience for it. Following Jowan had been one thing but he imagined Iskra would be something else. She would consider it her right and be far worse than Jowan. That man had at least been mildly cautious with just what he asked of Jack. Iskra however was going to consider herself the dominant one and the shameful things she would likely expect of him. Once again that boiling rage coming up inside of him. He could barely keep it contained. It was in his blood to reject such things. And thats when it hit him. In his blood. Jack remembered that little disease he had invented in the process of luring the Kami out. The red death. He had created it by making the life forms that lived in blood dangerous. If there were such things in blood and he was cpable of manipulating them. Then it was possible that he could mark them with the symbols that held back demonic power. By doing so, the symbols would keep the taint from infecting the dragon blood, thus keeping the mystical power of the blood whilst keeping intact his demon power as a totally separate source of strength. But it was the process of marking them in the first place that would be difficult. Discovering their existence had been one thing and manipulation was more clumbsily done than he would like to admit. So actually marking them without breaking them, it was going to be a process that would require a lot of time and concentration on his part. And whilst this place was supposed to be the quiet retreat that he required for his blood magic research.. Iskra could have popped in at any moment and ruin the entire process by demanding that he do one annoying task or another. So he was going to have to find somewhere else where he could do this task in peace, or at least somehow make sure that he would not be disturbed by Iskra. He’d already asked his soldiers stationed here to keep everyone out including her but if she really wanted in then she would simply tear them to shreads and strut in like her own business. There was little choice other than to conquer this polot of land utterly by moving more of his soldiers in here. He imagined that the numbers of Rage would liley bolster the support forces. And even Iskra he imagined would think twice when faced by the red giants of fire. At this stage Jack turned to the boy orphan who laid in the corner. The boy was mostly kept by Jack in order to keep that Kami in line with his plans, although now he had little use other than “ pet”. Jack clicked the fingers of his remaining hand and the boy slowly got up and walked over. “ Go tell one of the guards I want a message sent to Jowan. I want to increase the numbers of soldiers stationed here, bring half of rage”. The boy nodded and toddled off. He was obideiant. Kept so by daily drainings of pride and of course, Fear. After all if he failed to do as Jack commanded then there as only ever going to be one fate for him now that Iskra had taken hold of the Kami. Death, quick if he was lucky at all. And considering his history in the city of Mare Maris he doubted highly that the boy had been blessed by lady luck. Then again, if he remained a loyal servant then perhaps Jack would reward him. Perhaps.

EXP: 763
PWC: 757

Regardless of his current miraculous breakthrough considering his main roadblock in his creation he was going to have to perform far more tests on his subjects in order to perfect anything and ensure that this worked before he risked using his most precious commodity in the experiments. First he was going to use humans attempt experiments on them using the demonic blood without using the dragon’s blood. He had after all although quite a bit of it. A limited amount. Dragons weren’t really the most common creature that flew around. And whilst he had rained the entire body of blood he did not have an unlimited supply to use. And that which he did was going to be used sparingly. For now he still did have some of his subjects but they wern’t going to last long, particularly if he was fooling about with things as volatile as those creatures within the blood. So he got one of them out and tied them down onto the table. Bringing over a chair and sitting in front of the subject. He took his sword and opened up a small cut in the wrist of the subject, some blood began to leak out, this would provide and entry point for his magic as well as the taint. He took a vial of his own blood and poured it on. With his senses he began to feel the taint over taking the man. With that, he closed his eyes and concentrated, followed the taint through the blood and focused in on one of those life forms. As he did he began to make the wwork of inscribing the magic onto the body of it. And then. When ti was almost complete. Without warning. The man began to shake and tremble. Blood frothing at his mouth. Before he turned his head and died. Jack sat back. “ Ah....that could be a problem”.
exp:341
PWC: 317

So now he had l ittle choice other than to figure out just what had killed the human and how to avoid doing it again. It was his eduated guess the athe amount of dark energy had somehow had an adverse reaction on the mans system as far as the taint coursing through him went. Liekely it had created too much dark energy. Far more than the mere human body could handle. For whatever reason the blessing didn;’t have the same effect. Much like the taint it was kind of virulent upon the blood. But it wasn’t such a way for humans, those creatures seemed to be immune to its touch. Which may have been a useful discovery in immunising himself against the blessing in the future. So if the infusion of dark energy in the carving of the runes upon the life forms then perhaps injecting the person with blood already effected by the treatment was the answer, in doing so he would avoid the death of a living subject. And perhaps would be creating something useful out of the experiments. Hybrids perhaps but useful none the less if for nothing more than experimenting on further. He grabbed another vial and laid it in front of him, concentrating his magic upon it. He felt the movement of the power within the blood. Flowing the taint. Honing it like a blade to slice to scratch those marks into the life forms. So tiny and fragile that even one screw up with what he was doing would have resulted in the death of the little creature. And then its use was over and he would have to start again. Of course there were thousands of these things and they multiplied. By scarring them with magic like this they would replicate this spells effect and it would continue to build. And hopefully. Hopefully. He would be able to gain more from it for use later. Once he was done. His head pounding and mentally exhausted. He poured half the vial into another Since these things replicated keeping it in another vial would make sense at least to him for later use.

exp:391
pwc:359

Once again another subject another test, this time though he forced the subject to drink the blood that he had already prepared with the life forms marked with the ritual circle. He knew that direct ingestion would likely take awhile to kick in. So he sent the creature back to its cage for a while longer. Spending the next four hours creating further modified life forms within the vials of human blood, till he had at least 9 vials worth. At this stage his mental state wasn’t what you would call healthy. Exhaustion was clear on his features. But he did not require further use of magic for what was to come next. After he was satisfied that the human he had forced to drink the modified blood had digested it. He brought that human back out from the containment cells and laid him down upon the table. Brining out a vial of his own blood and pricking the human on the finger, and rubbing it in. As before he felt instantly the violent spread of the taint through his system. And at first he had thought it was a failure. But then, something odd happened. The taint for lak of a better word. Changed. The humans blood didn’t give into the taint but father pushed its way through it. The taint. And the blood of the human remained both separate entitires within the same body. This was in his opinion. A success. The human laid on the table however was writhing in pain. Likely this was down to the changes that would be imposed on his system as a result of the new form of life. After all this was no mere hybridisation. This was a tainted human.
exp:312
pwc:289

Jack sat back in his chair after draining his experiment of pride restoring a small portion of his own strength. But then mental exhaustion wasn’t going to go away with that little. He was going to need to rest his eyes. He had been up for far too long. The time he’d spent experimenting had been well worth it. Coming across a lot of new breakthroughs in this little game of his. He didn’t much care for the little things but those concerning his idea, his brain child. His creatiuon concerning the mystical power of dragons. Now that was important to him, and it was that which mattered the most along with the discoveries that came to bring him closer to reaching that goal of the creation of. Well. He didn’t really dare think it. Its said that once to say something aloud is to make it undone. So he would leave those thoughts for now. Merely using thee experiments as building block towards reaching the heights of that goal. Still as much as these steps had been big in reaching theat faraway goal. He was still some time away from actually realising it. And as much as he hated to admit this working alone on things as much as it reserved his secrets to himself. Was something that was highly unproductive. Things moved too slowly.. If he had himself working on one idea and another on another, a fresh brain to take over when he was like this mentally done in to continue the research. An assistant of sorts. But then there was a mental warning moving through his mind. Relying on others was weakness, his own lack of an arm was an eternal reminder of that. Gripped a single fist and what felt like gripping the other. It was strange how that worked, how the other hand felt somehow as if it was still there despite not being so. The lack of the nerve endings and the sudden abruptness of the loss was likely behind it all. Still he didn’t like it, but for now there was little to nothing that he could do about it.
exp:389
pwc: 359

After his rather relaxing rest in the out post, hee began to think once more on his research. However he didn't quite like to think that he'd have to continue doing so in the one armed form that he was currently inhabiting. It limitd a lot of what he was going to be doing, and didnt register much for carryingthings back and forth between his research desk and the table for expeeriements itslef. He didn't much like the way things were turning out in that respect. But there was little choice but to adapt to how things were at this very moment and point in time. Until he had mastered an ability that allowed him to regenerate his arm he woud be forced to do so. Besides. This allowed him to undertake another kind of research into his blood magic. It presented a silver lining to an otherwise cloudy day. His blood magic would let him be able to do things that were usually impossible. It was known that if a limb once severed was reattached in a certain ammount of time then that person would gain partial if not full restoration of that limb. They would not have to live with the suffering of an amputee. Jack was of course no human. He was a demon ad likely if his old arm was restored to him. Regardless of the time that had passed he would be able to adapt it into his body once again and keep full control of it as it was. However as he had put before doing such a thing would be an eternal mark of shame upon him like a medal but with a sort of reverse effect. That wasn't to mention the fact that by now it would probably be covered in bite marks and be relatively chewed knowing Isrka and her carnivorous nature. Again that resentment building up inside of him. It wouldn't be long before itt exploded. But he'd have to keep it in check somehow. Still the cloud on that silver lining was there. If he was able to perform some kind of prosethetic transplant. But no. He wasn't quite skilled enough to do that yet. But then again, he wasn't the only blood mage out there. It was quite possible that although blood magic was considered semi taboo among demons and humans alike that there was a demon out there like him who was perfectly willing to delve into the dark secesses of the body to unluck the power within the blood and use its darkness appropriately. Nay as it should have been used. Perhaps at this stage thats what he needed to advance his research further. Someone to learn from. Then again that brought him back to the point of serving masters, something that as a demon of pride he never did well in the first place. But if he was going to make any progress he was going to have to swallow his pride. And go ahead with it, he remembered though the last time he had swallowed his pride. It was upon confirming Iskra as more than just a tool to him. But then she never considered him anything other than that. There was the laughter of the man behind the door. So he had finally woken up. He wondered just why the man behind the door had awakened now. Just what had he offered him to bait him out of silence. Its just rather odd, it seems like Im having dejavoh honestly". Jack didn't quite know what the man behind the door meant. But in honesty he didn't think tat the yellow eyed demon knew what he was talking about half the time either. But then that was the nature of madness demons.

EXP: 666
PWC: 631

That however to him brought on more of a question of just what the man behind the door meant whenever he spoke as he did. The madness demon was something else. Even Ceila was wary of him and she was the former leader of madness.And probably still would be if it hadn't been for the fact that Pride had some time ago gone on what could only be described as a sort of crusade against the lan of madness, but well not much could be done about that now. But still the man behind the door was a bit of an enigma to him, and onne he didn't enjoy poking at. He was dangerous. More laughter in his head. And then silence. For now there was little to do though othr than continue what research he had alrready began to put into play. It seemed that over night his soldiers had managed to make it from the depths of Pride's Bastion ad made it to his location. Which was good. He'd have more soldiers to keep up his ranks heere and hold down the fort so to speak. Next thing that he was going to have to do though was to secrue more land if for nothing else than to keep farming these people for his blood magic experiments. If he kept kidnapping people from the surroundinglands then he didn't doubt for a second that the liege lords of those lands would begin to get suspcicious and not that Jack was afraid of handling himself or had any faltering faith in the ability of his demonic troops to brutally murder any do gooder who tried to enter the temple.

EXP: 291
PWC:284

Few were the times that Jack ever looked back and regretted his own actions. Such were the ways of the pride demon. Accept everything you did as done correctly. At least in your own sense of perspective. Other creatures might not feel the same way but intimately those creatures didn’t much matter in the broader spectrum of things. But there were some times that he looked back and wished that there were certain actions that he could have done slightly differently if not all together in another way. But then again that’s just the way he was and things like that don’t tend to change all the time. He stopped writing and put the edge of the quill to his mouth and thought. For now Jack placed away the books that he had out concerning the heart of the dragon and walked over to one of the book cases concerning his research on the spirit of the vampire. Thus far those experiments had produced enough fruit to at least record. Although they did have their own flaws. It seemed for example the vampire spirit was directly tied to the emotional point of hunger, something that he had been trying to find a counter mandding point to without actually falling into the trap of using t himself. Hunger was powerful. Powerful but ultimately dangerous.

exp:250
pwc: 246

He could use the power of the spirit in his blood magic to unleash powerful restorative magics on himself in the form of stealing the blood and life of his enemies. But it came with the price of desperation, the same addiction that the vampires faced all the time. And that asn’t something that he particularly wanted to be on him every time he used the restorative powers of blood magic. That hunger for life energy was something that was so consuming, not always for the victim. Lately he had worked it down, creating a technique for the intake of blood that was in the typical old vampire way. Merely biting into the opponent and ingesting the blood. Perhaps that was the main method of controlling their hunger’s imply taking one target at a time instead of losing themselves into the absolute frenzy. He tapped his chin and opened the book concerning that and began to record his theories and findings on that spirit and the research that he had done within. However at the same time hunger could be used as an effective form of control. If a particular person could be infected with that hunger for blood in the similar way to a vampire then Jack could easily find a means to controlling them being a mage of blood himself. If he could have a way to both suppress and aunmleash that hunger at will. Perhaps the secret lay within both the power of the vampire spirit and the power of the glutton itself. At that point he stopped writing. It had been some time since he had returned to hell in order to face the glutton. But in truth he didn’t think that he had the power yet to beat it particularly maimed as he was.
exp:326
pwc:319

He had plenty of forces stationsed at the prides bastion and the seat of Pride and fully trusted Ceila and Jonah to keep things safe from the hunger thralls and from what he had heard from the weekly reports they had been doing particularly well on holding the land. Jonah had even begun to ask if he was sure they didn’t want to build something in the vast wilderness. Jack had begun to wonder on that on. It probably would make things much easier as far as anything went. But his interests weren’t in ruling a people or creating his interests lay in sheer destruction. And destruction wasn’t beholden by creation. Jack continued his writings at this point deciding he had gone a little off thought and putting his mind back to focus was a main idea. His recent experiments had mostly been focusing on the transplants from one creature to the next imbuing the mystical properties to another whilst keeping them intact. That on top of the vampire spirit. Both lanes ofresearch had led into other tasks that he hadn’t foreseen but had ultimately been useful to his over all persuit of power for the fight against the glutton. But in his rise for power he had gained more enemies and that of course required him to gain even more power. His own truth agains tIskra was coming to hold, Those who sought power would ultimately place themselves in even more danger than they ewere in when they were simply prey. There were rumblings here. He knew that the man servant of Iskra was against him, and Jack certainly sought to slay Iskra even if she for now had no intent to slay him.
exp:317
pwc: 309