Faith

Faith is a powerful thing. Faith can be blind, unconditional, it can be based in knowledge and hope. It is a tool to be used, a weapon to be guided, flames to be fanned. A man without faith is lost some would say. Once faith is found, convictions can be borne. A man with convictions can be dangerous. Hense faith itself is dangerous one could surmise.

Thoughts like these once filled the mind of Darnell Thosin, a man of the cloth for a sect of priests that worshiped the once mighty God of Knowledge. They were few, and cowardice had made the High Priests into fools. They locked and secreted away tools and books, hiding gifts of their God away from unworthy or prying eyes. Yet Darnell had always sought was forbidden, he'd always tread dangerously close to the line of immoral.

Knowledge was power, knowledge was a gift, knowledge could be blessed unto others. Knowledge is what he craved, he hungered for it ravenously. Gnawing at pages and pages of old tomes, devouring scrolls and information. It was in the pages of a long forgotten tome did he find a secret, a question. If he could answer it, perhaps finally they would see him. They would see his power, his gift, and he would bless them.

Many moonless nights he'd stare up into the void, searching for knowledge, as his faith demanded of him. He'd made items through his faith and knowledge that allowed him to look even closer upon the heavens. To search the darkness for something, anything. His nights became sleepless, if he was not searching his dreams were full of unrecognizable shapes and patterns, colors that didn't exist, visions of beauty, and great terror. He would often awake sweating, screaming, his world in disarray, before reality snapped back into focus like he'd seen something he shouldn't and a sheet had hastily been thrown over the offending something.

He continued to stare into the night sky, reaching out to touch with his faith but receiving nothing. He continued to stare, seeking answers, none came. Many years were spent repeating this cycle. This quest, this need to find faith and knowledge.

When they took away his way to view the void in close, he simply stared with his naked eye. When they took away his eyes he followed it with his mind. Always he looked into that terrible darkness. And those forced to leave his plate began to fear him, those that studied his mind did as well, those that kept him locked away. They feared him the most.

Soon after taking his sight, he began to stop eating, a month after that, he stopped drinking, he sat in his windowless cell, watching the sky through his mind's eye. When he did not die their fear only grew, they became desperate and paranoid. Like the void filled his mind he filled theirs.

They came in the night, to do the unthinkable. There was no struggle, no exchanged words. A knife was driven into a blind man's back, into his heart. He could feel the blade, every slow instant, and as he died. Time became still.



Words, mindless gibbering, sounds, a cacophony, silence, thunder, the smell of blood, the feeling of power, laughter, roars smells, sounds, tastes, sensations atop sensations atop sensations atop sensations.

A gift. Cosmic. A pact, a bargain? A deal. Signed eternity, laughter, blood, pain, pain, blood, stars. The stars are so beautiful. This shade of
He watched as it faded, the color of, ' , the sensations of joy and sadness. He wished it would never end.




It fell to Earth, cradled down into its form, locked away, wrapped in chains, too much, but there must be more, more must be made, it must bless them with this knowledge.


The corpse was being dragged through dim halls, torch light casting horrors upon the walls as a draft ripped through the cavernous passageway. Two men pulled a rope attached to the corpse, wrapped in burlap and bound with thick rope. Even in death their fear overwhelmed them. These faithless fools. They would be the first to be enlightened. He would bless them, as was his gift, his duty, his curse. This world of dull shades and fleeting mortality, being here, was the curse.

Slowly, carefully, he slipped free his second gift, he peeled it free of his flesh, the first piece of many. The blade was deeper than night, a black so intense it stole the very light that touched it. Short, curved, with a handle that resembled the root of some horrible tooth, hardened and carved with symbols of his new faith.

He waited, no need to breathe, no need to move, no need to worry over his body. His flesh itched down to the muscle but scratching it away, would have to wait.

Finally the men stopped, one began to fiddle with keys while the other moved towards the corpse. He loomed over it, fear written in his features, anger based in irrationality. How far they've fallen. The blade cut through the sack and ropes in a smooth easy motion. He grabbed hold of the man's leg, pulling himself up he dug the blade deep into his thigh and opened his femoral. He screamed, and fell to the ground as the corpse clawed its way up his robes, using the horrible dagger to pull itself along. The other man was pounding on the door, screaming for help, then for mercy as the man he once knew as Darnell the Voidlost, rose to his feet, and began to approach, a blade, so dark, clutched in his hand.

The massacre of the last temple, of the God of Knowledge. Was survived by none.