Brother v. Arkham: Signs of Life

[Brother of My Blade]

I wonder, at times, how a heart would feel.

I have every muscle and organ that a warrior could find necessary, and a few unique to the design of myself and my kind. Ligaments of enchanted leather tie muscle to armor and livewood skeleton. Fluid lines carry lubricants, stimulants, and electrolytes all over my body. An artificial liver sifts out foreign toxins. I see, hear, feel, smell, and even taste with every sense which has been endowed upon me. I have been trained to know each of these essential pieces of anatomy intimately. Weaknesses, strengths, strike zones, universal tells.

Signs of life.

And yet the very organ which announces life more steadily than any other, I am denied. I do not need it, therefore I do not have it.

Still, I long to know the feeling of pulsating muscle under my chestplate. For others to grasp my exposed lines and feel a rhythm to them, instead of their constant flow.

I have been told that the heart will quicken in times of activity and stress. That it aches when loved ones are distant or lost. That it leaps in joy. That it sinks in sorrow.

And I wonder how a heart feels.

[The Prophet]

Unlike the construct he would soon be battling, Arkham had a heart. He had just forgotten how to use it.

He feels sorrow, but it is like remembering sorrow. He feels joy, but it is just a shadowy copy, as empty and meaningless as the vacant pages of an unwritten book.

This is not what he had expected when he stumbled upon the Al Azif so long ago. How eager he had been to plumb the depths of man’s knowledge and unearth the ultimate Truths of reality. How naive! He remembered how his hands had trembled as he ran his slender fingertips over his treasured tome’s leather-bound surface for the first time, unable to contain his exhilaration at discovering such a momentous artifact. How foolish did he seem now!

Then, he had turned the page, and with this simple, seemingly insignificant action he had forsaken his race, his beliefs, and his very humanity.

The breadth of the cosmos had been exposed to his frail, unprepared soul. He had touched the divine, and the encounter had left his mind broken and his heart shattered. Over the course of his long life, he has failed to repair even a fraction of the damage done. In fact, the very opposite has occurred; he has continued to seek forbidden and horrifying knowledge that further robs him of the very things that make a man human.

And now? Now, he is little more than a vessel for the dark and dangerous things he calls ‘Gods’. He carries out Their will without question, and there is little humanity visible behind the pale steel of his eyes.

And now, those eyes were locked onto the newly-erected Church of the Silver Flame. While it's simple construction and rather nondescript exterior might cause a simple observer to call the building a place of worship, Arkham knew better. It was a place of pain, of violence, of death. Just like the one back home, Arkham observed, reaching out a hand and allowing his calloused fingertips to brush over the rough-hewn oak of the doors.

His gods required sacrifice, and he had jouneyed all the way to the Citadel in Corone to find a suitable body to offer to his Gods. They had refused the patchwork abomination that had been his submission, the one known as Hadewych; she had been far too simple to defeat, and her frail body had contained no blood to quench the thirst of the Old Ones. Now, he was in Scara Brae, eager to find a new victim that They would deem acceptable, but the rumors he had heard about his opponent were disheartening, at best. Apparently, the creature he had challenged was a construct forged of wood, steel, and magic - a golem. If this were true, it would not matter if he won or lost. Either way, the Old Ones would view his time in the Pagoda as an utter failure.

They did not look kindly upon those who failed Them.

Without further hesitation, Arkham shoved the wooden doors of the church inward, sending a rush of wind into the sanctified arena as he mutterred a quick prayer to his unfathomable Gods.