The sky was dark and cloudy, not even a single star was present; a downpour was raining heavily down on a body laying on the dirty street.
Tears were rushing down the elven's face only to immediately get washed away by the merciless rain.
She got mugged and beaten badly by a group of crooks ambushing her, ripped all her belongings to pieces searching for anything valuable.
When they didn't found anything, they began breaking her fingers one by one asking her repetitively, trying to get any spoken valuables out of her, a dirty secret, a bank number; anything. But she endured the pain as it was nothing to the brooding corruption inside her body, she had nothing to lose anymore as she was already lost.
Every bone in her body was hurting, quite a few surely broken as well; her fingers were hanging lifelessly from her hands. She finally allowed herself to scream out the pain, briefly; carefully. Because the shadowy sensation in her head was whining with her, empowering her tested emotions to an unbearable degree.
She felt her blackened soul snapping in half under the pressure like a dry twig. The malicious spirit of a Wisp, who attacked her a few weeks ago, thrusting its arcane spirit through the burned flesh into her body, forcefully merging with her soul tainting what was once pure.
This spirit was feeding on her grief as one would only feast on a rich buffet and turned the grief into mindless anger overtaking her pain and sadness at an instant.
The elf's eyes grew dark, nearly black, only her orange iris was shining like a spreading pyre through the blood-filled darkness.
The air around her started crackling, first weak then stronger fierce and destructive.
She felt the jolts running through her broken fingers animating them like dormant finger puppets and felt the road yielding away from her supercharged body.
She floated upwards out of the dirt into an upright position with continuous thunder shocks supporting her broken limbs giving them strength once more.
Grinning maniacally the elf landed softly, her bare toes barely touching the wet soil. Orange jolts of pain and madness were crackling out of her black eyes and bent fingertips.
She started screaming to the sky, but it wasn't her voice anymore. Only the thundering tune of her electrical tormentor was rolling over the empty fields commanding the storm thundering above her:
"VENGEANCE!"
The elf was a confident pacifist, but the presence of it was twisting her believes into nothingness. No she was actively rejecting them allowing the formerly silent tormentor to rush into everything left of her taking the lead. They were craving blood. Craving to strike their tormentors down in the most horrifying way possible.
Craving to kill!
The elf wasn't able to see their faces but could grasp hold of the muggers' uniforms. She, no they knew where these awful people were living and they immediately started limping towards the destination leaving behind a trail of scorched earth. Fully ignoring the pain and fatigue nothing mattered anymore; only one thought kept the duo forged by pain running. One last burning wish was keeping her in the now unwilling to give in into the Wisp's control:
"I will claim the heads of those godawful bastards!
And if they don't reveal themselves then . . . I will just murder the whole fort!
Everybody in it has to die!
And you will grant me my satisfaction, my last burning wish!"
Tears were rushing down the elven's face only to immediately get washed away by the merciless rain.
She got mugged and beaten badly by a group of crooks ambushing her, ripped all her belongings to pieces searching for anything valuable.
When they didn't found anything, they began breaking her fingers one by one asking her repetitively, trying to get any spoken valuables out of her, a dirty secret, a bank number; anything. But she endured the pain as it was nothing to the brooding corruption inside her body, she had nothing to lose anymore as she was already lost.
Every bone in her body was hurting, quite a few surely broken as well; her fingers were hanging lifelessly from her hands. She finally allowed herself to scream out the pain, briefly; carefully. Because the shadowy sensation in her head was whining with her, empowering her tested emotions to an unbearable degree.
She felt her blackened soul snapping in half under the pressure like a dry twig. The malicious spirit of a Wisp, who attacked her a few weeks ago, thrusting its arcane spirit through the burned flesh into her body, forcefully merging with her soul tainting what was once pure.
This spirit was feeding on her grief as one would only feast on a rich buffet and turned the grief into mindless anger overtaking her pain and sadness at an instant.
The elf's eyes grew dark, nearly black, only her orange iris was shining like a spreading pyre through the blood-filled darkness.
The air around her started crackling, first weak then stronger fierce and destructive.
She felt the jolts running through her broken fingers animating them like dormant finger puppets and felt the road yielding away from her supercharged body.
She floated upwards out of the dirt into an upright position with continuous thunder shocks supporting her broken limbs giving them strength once more.
Grinning maniacally the elf landed softly, her bare toes barely touching the wet soil. Orange jolts of pain and madness were crackling out of her black eyes and bent fingertips.
She started screaming to the sky, but it wasn't her voice anymore. Only the thundering tune of her electrical tormentor was rolling over the empty fields commanding the storm thundering above her:
"VENGEANCE!"
The elf was a confident pacifist, but the presence of it was twisting her believes into nothingness. No she was actively rejecting them allowing the formerly silent tormentor to rush into everything left of her taking the lead. They were craving blood. Craving to strike their tormentors down in the most horrifying way possible.
Craving to kill!
The elf wasn't able to see their faces but could grasp hold of the muggers' uniforms. She, no they knew where these awful people were living and they immediately started limping towards the destination leaving behind a trail of scorched earth. Fully ignoring the pain and fatigue nothing mattered anymore; only one thought kept the duo forged by pain running. One last burning wish was keeping her in the now unwilling to give in into the Wisp's control:
"I will claim the heads of those godawful bastards!
And if they don't reveal themselves then . . . I will just murder the whole fort!
Everybody in it has to die!
And you will grant me my satisfaction, my last burning wish!"
Taken
Out of the view of the spirit
A condition that can usually only be acquired by the Purists fully rejecting the Veil.
The unnatural state of being devoid of any arcane influence for many generations caused those Purists to grow ignorant to the arcane portion of Prius.
The arcane animals, creatures of the Veil brimming with supernatural powers, appear usually friendly or indifferent regarding the humanoids possessing arcane traces in their Soul. But Purists are for them as alien as they are to the Purists; neither side views the other as full sapient beings.
Purists are for the creatures alien invaders of nature; malicious enemies of the Veil rejecting everything the design of the arcane stands for. To protect the nature they got created in, the creatures bravely sacrifice their life hurting the Purist in any way possible pushing their arcane spirit, that was holding its mortal body together, into the intruder, a self-sacrificing counter-invasion to destroy the foreign body like a virus from the inside.
Dead-set on destroying the unknown entity slowly taking over their body by shattering mind and soul of the now Taken, the spirit grabs hold on everything they can take over spreading from the emotional central across the whole body corrupting everything they touch claiming their superiority. The beast has to get tamed and converted to the Veil or it could cause harm to the soul of the planet; the creators of the Veil.
A fight that not only corrupts the victim but the parasite as well shifting its noble intentions into a craving to cause havoc adopting more and more of the pain, fear and anger their presence caused.
Out of the view of the victim
Out of the blue, the victim gets attacked by the wildlife around them, unaware why they suddenly wanna see them gone. One single wound caused by the aggressor could mean the worst for the Purist. Possessing no awareness nor knowledge regarding the arcane, the body never developed any barriers causing the scrape to remain a simple scrape and not a possible entry into their essence. If the victim got hurt they experience the aggressor starting cladding itself in a glow of arcane ligaments swirling around the beast's body. The eyes turn white and the aggressor drops dead in front of the victim's eyes.
But the arcane spirit swirling now dangerously around the hurt waiting for its time to strike; to enter the body through the caused wound.
If it manages to penetrate the marked gate all is over for the Purist; the forceful process of getting Tainted starts happening; but it feels wrong, it only hurts and the victim starts panicking, trying to subdue the alien feelings growing inside them. Unable to make sense of any of them, the Purist is prone to lose the fight failing to reject the attempted spiritual possession of the invasor making itself home like a parasite within your mind and soul.
The eyes of the victim get forced open activating arcane vision for the first time, the magic powers of the intruder starts growing in the Taken's belly causing them to use the 'granted' abilities for the first time.
Then they collapse.
Magic
The Taken is able to harness the Veil, just like any Tainted could casting low level spells.
If the invasor is in power, the host is however able to cause mayhem with self-destructive high-level arcane bursts of power destroying anything in their path.
It is not advised to attempt to Overstretch your mind as a Taken, as this mental journey will not be a healthy one gaining you anything but giving the parasite in your soul free roam to spread out.
The Invader
The state the spirit goes in a Taken state is unlike anything else. The spirit will neither develop a voice nor gain access to your sensory organs. It will lose all its humanity becoming a disembodied looming thread watching your every step from the inside, spreading its influence tightening its net with every wrong step taken. The very idea of having such a silent presence inside you is maddening for the host in the best case.
Even if it 'breaks out' through your explosive emotions altering your thought pattern, your morals; your everything, it will not do this at all consciously.
Every bad action taken as a Taken is your own action only encouraged by heightened emotions and lowered barriers.
Persecuted
Taken are mainly only issues in countries, where magic is seen as something bad, where people are living in abstinence for many generations.Over 90% of all Purists are living in Etherium which caused the country to have special forces available to deal with those dangerous menaces disturbing the sleep of the righteous citizen.
The shadow conglomerate has trained special assassins capable to take down those risks with ease, allowed to either execute the lost on the spot or take them in legally putting them after a quick-trial into the Blackstone Asylum, where the best scientists of Blackstone Inc. research on a cure for this dangerous condition.
"Another idiot, who dared to challenge the pest bearing beasts of magic and lost?
Another fool, who is now too dangerous to be left alive.
Well, well, well.
I will send a shadow hero to the quadrant to take care of the issue.
No worries, ma'am, you will be able to sleep tonight in peace."Fraudin Faust, headmaster
Mental Degradation
The few months that are now left for the Taken before they fully lost themselves are a journey that can be of grave pain or a silent killer.
It all depends on the host, how they are dealing with the issue.
Strong negative emotions are a gateway for the intruder to proliferate them causing the host to experience dangerous levels of the emotion. A weak brim of anger against one cutting the line gets enhanced in them desiring to slaughter the line-cutter cutting them to pieces. If the host doesn't manage to extinguish the emotion before the backup sent by the parasite arrives you will not be able to stop your actions, controlled now by the parasite, causing a bloody scene.
Any sign of mental defeat is time for the invader to spread its corruption further, if the eyes started blackening, the corruption actively corrupts the host in its very soul.
The moral compass gets permanently altered, the aggression levels rise, the craving for destruction resides now just behind one surface, ready to strike now without the parasite interfering. In that state, the parasite begins to slumber, leaving the host to themselves absorbing just enough to assure them immediately taking full control after the host can't take it anymore and ends their suffering.
"I honestly can't tell you, why or how I still manage it.
My eyes have gotten black months ago and it is only the constant warm attention of my dear Tess that keeps my spirits up.
...Preventing...yet another attempt to give in to my fate.
I can't let the corruption win; I don't want to do this to my family.
I want to die when it is necessary, not when it is comfortable."
Micor (14th month)
Great threat. Whitewolf games had "Jasons"- bodies (living or dead) possessed by powerful malice spirits that keep the body going and just want to kill. No or very very limited magic. These are magically fueled and wonderfully scary.
Quite interesting indeed! But yeah, Taken are scary, alive as well as dead. So scary in fact that shadows taking on the job sniffing out and fighting against the taken taking them down get celebrated as ‚Monster Slaying‘ heroes…regardless of if the host was still fighting against it or died leaving their body to the intruder. Micor had in the many months struggling with this condition quite a few breakout moments where he slaughtered innocent people until managing to regain control over his emotions. Being fully aware that he ‚was‘ technically all the time in control he grew terrified of himself. Oddly enough it got easier for him after his eyes sported now a deep black. Controlling his new evil self was more manageable than repressing his emotions alltogether.