Chapter Text
You were not always like this.
There was a time before the trials, before the sacrifices, before the saving embrace of the Entity, when you were still... human.
You cannot recall every single detail of the past - memory is a fickle thing - but you do remember well enough.
You were but a humble firefighter residing near a quiet town, your job consisted mostly of taking care of simple fires, nothing that could truly bring harm to anyone. You performed your work with a smile on your face. Life was good.
...And yet, there was always this hollow feeling of sort in your heart that refused to be filled no matter your efforts, it was as if something was always... missing. You hoped to one day find a way to quell it for good.
Then you began to hear them, the voices. Minuscule, barely registered whispers in the back of your mind, telling you to cleanse, to clean the filth which marred your life.
You never were a religious man, but even a simple person such as you knew that they came from a being infinitely your greater, so you obeyed them. Fires broke out more and more often, from small dumpster fires to great ones that threatened dozens of lives, and every time you extinguished them with fiery determination. Each time you did as the voices willed, that emptiness in your heart began to gradually recede. That was it, that was your calling.
You were diligent in your work, many painstaking steps were taken to bury any loose ends that could have lead back to you, no one ever suspected a thing. And if they did? Well, surely they wouldn’t be missed.
With each fire, with each cleansing, the whispers grew louder and clearer, you saw the world more clearly, saw it for what it truly was. It was not enough, there was still so much work ahead, so much filth. You needed to purge it all.
So many painstaking months of planning, incendiary caches rigged to explosives carefully spread across the town, near each building. The voices had to be obeyed, they were all that mattered, nothing could stop you.
Everything was in place, you needed only the right time before it could truly begin, and when a blazing hot summer day came, you knew it was the day to end it.
The cleansing inferno that ensued, the great conflagration, it was a sight to behold; the entire town went up in purifying flames. The voices were pleased, but they wanted more, you needed no further instructions— there was cleaning to be done. The fire department couldn’t stop you, they were too busy spreading itself thin in a vain attempt to contain your great work. They didn’t even know you were responsible for it all.
You charged head first into blazing buildings with your axe in hand. Innocents threw themselves in your path expecting freedom from their torment, they received a different kind instead. None were spared, you did not discriminate to whom your hands granted freedom, from children to the elderly, the sick and the healthy, poor and wealthy. All deserved freedom.
If only you could have seen your work carried to its end. After hacking a family into pieces, the hellish heat of the flames were dulled by a chilling mist, replacing the choking black smoke, inviting you into its midst. You stepped forth in it, trading the blaze of flames and creaking of burnt wood for a whistling wind and the crunching of dead leaves beneath your boots.
It was at that very moment you realized you had crossed the point of no return, this realm was the source of the whispers, salvation. Your first moments were of awe, for how could they not? This land was everything you could ever want.
The skies parted and roiling limbs descended from above, the moment you saw those spindly limbs and heard that bone-deep rumble you cast aside all doubts and fully embraced what came next. Your past life, what your old friends thought of you, all of it was now irrelevant, had always been irrelevant. Only from now on would things truly matter. You knelt in worship as the deity made itself known.
Your immediate cooperation pleased the Entity, you heard whispers telling you of what was to come next, you listened attentively. There would be slaughter, there would be sacrifices, but before any of that could begin, you needed power.
The Entity molding you like clay, it lit an ember within the depth of your soul, soon that meager flame came to grow into a raging inferno, scorching all flesh from your form until you were naught but a burning skeleton in the garbs of a firefighter. The hollow in your heart was gone now, replaced by that fire. The process gifted you with fearsome strength, stamina, and the ability to conjure flames. But most importantly, vision: The lands were ridden with filth - they still are - but your fire could purify them, scorch it clean until nothing remained but the soft crackle of fire.
Side effects included the changing of your voice into something much more guttural and gnarly. You also miss the ability to blink, sleep is much harder to come by when you can’t close your eyes.
The deity guided you towards your first hunt, deep in the mist you would find them, prey, and you eagerly prowled into its depths with iron willed conviction.
Your first trial was... unique, to say the least. For what you lacked in experience, you more than made up for with an enthusiasm that bordered on giddiness. You found yourself in the insides of a derelict farm, - later you would learn of its name, Coldwind Farm - a fog hid the horizon and the land was riddled with corn. Far away, the aura of generators brimmed a rich red. In the distance you could sense it; filth. Filth that must be cleansed.
Patrol the generators, find meat, sacrifice meat, please The Entity.
By chance, you stumbled upon a survivor relatively quickly, running head first to find them fiddling with the machinery. Once you laid your eyes upon theirs you were overwhelmed with disgust and hatred, never before had you ever felt this determined to maim, to kill, to burn. You flared up with rage and summoned your fire.
Perhaps you should’ve remained a little more level-headed: blinded with rage, you surged forward and assailed the lands with your flames. It seemed that in your initiation, The Entity had forgotten to properly attune your flames to its realm.
To put it bluntly, the entire trial was set ablaze. Whether or not such a result was planned, you do not know. Their screams however, are a fond memory. The following trials ensured the taming of your flames, they could only spread so much and last so long before petering out. But with the right offerings - those found in the Bloodweb in exchange for your diligent work - you can shape them in a way that homages well the first inferno.
That’s what your life is now in the Entity’s realm. Endless trials. Endless bounties. Endless slaughter.
You couldn’t feel more at home.