Quorum: Only skin deep.

[Baalthemar]

*************************************** Warning adult themes! ***************************************

It was a cool night, laying on top of the covers of the bed Drinn and Nathandiel had made up for him, Baalthemar was breathing softly, he tried to calm himself down. His body glistened with sweat, his skin itched he felt hot he had removed his clothes to help himself cool down, but every muscle in his body felt like it was oozing acid. A powerful ache in his arms and legs kept him awake.

Since the trial it was getting harder to tell what was real, and what wasn’t. He would sleep but when he awoke it was hard to tell if he was still sleeping, he had stated to see things that weren’t real, he didn’t dear tell Nathandiel about this, he had been so kind to him it didn’t seem right to burden him more.

Sighing and forcing himself not to think about it, he looked up at the ceiling with his remaining eye slowly moving his hand in and out of view, getting used to the blind spot in his vision.
Watching his fingers slowly slip out of view, he smiled. I must look like such an idiot, laying here with my hand waving around.


Baalthemar sat up and put his bare feet on the cold floor, slowly he stood up stumbling slightly as his weight hit his legs, sending a fresh wave of pain up them. He groaned and went looking for something to take the edge off his pain.

Nathandiel had a fine stock of numbing drugs and some firewater from his pack would wash them down well.
Walking to the drug cabinet and pulled out some pills from a glass jar. He had seen Nathandiel give him these before, he shook out two of the bitter tasting pills onto his hand. Holding them in his palm he took a half full skin of fire water from his pack and in a fluid motion popped the pills in his mouth and chased them down with a few large mouthfuls of firewater.

Stumbling back to bed with a head full of firewater and drugs pumping in his veins, Baalthemar throws himself face first onto the bed, still clutching the skin of firewater he falls asleep.

His world spins into darkness, he stands alone and naked, in darkness. His breathing echoes in the void, he was outside again. He had been here before, the same wet grass, and night sky. “What is this?” he spoke into the void.

Dark shapes moved around him, formless at first but slowly gaining form. They were the dark outlines of his friends: A tall troll hunched over, a slight undead, an elf knelt patting a small dog, a softly giggling troll girl.

*You think these are your friends?* a voice from the void laughed cruelly. *They knew! They watched, you are nothing to them.* All at once the shapes started talking with disgust.

“Know your place, supplicant.” “Just another elf.” “Silly boy, you don’t know what your choices have done.” “Idiot, you wasted a perfectly good eye.” Baalthemar stood and looked at these things that wore the faces of his friends.

“Bah, Lies” He spat “I’m Grim. They are my family, why would they want to harm me?” Baalthemar questioned the shapeless void. More cruel laughter. *You are just a tool to be used and thrown away to your “family”* the last word dripping like poison.

One at a time the shapes take a step forward.
*This one expects you to betray them, and waits for you to slip up, so she can pour her suffering onto you.*

*This one sees you as a play thing, to enjoy and then discard when he has had his fill of you.*

*This one sees you as the good little soldier, to live and die for their mandate, you are nothing more or less than a skilled blade to her.*

*And this one. There is no brotherhood between you, he doesn’t care if you live or die. None of them do. Some of them even long for it*

More shapes formed behind his friends, people he respected, officers and leaders of the Grim.

*They knew what they were doing to you, they watched as you changed into a monster. And they did nothing to help.*

Baalthemar felt like he was being crushed. Had he been wrong this entire time? He had given so much to the Grim, was he nothing but a tool? A sick experiment to further the cause? Was his life so meaningless that they would willingly do this to him? These thoughts swarmed his mind. “I… “He paused his voice stuck in his throat “They couldn’t” fighting to push back the feeling of betrayal.

*Ah but they did, some of them were in the dark about the truth but those that were meant to take care of you knew, and many of your “friends” said nothing.* The voices cruel laughter taunting him.

*You have no one to blame but yourself. You trusted freely, and again it has proven to be your undoing.* Baalthemar fell to his knees, and his head sunk. Softly he spoke. “What do you want?”

The shapes vanished into smoke, returning to the formless void that spawned them.
*I want to show you a new life, free of this torment. A simple life, much like when you wondered the wilds.* Baalthemar remembered his time spent in the wilds, free to do as he liked, free from people hunting him. True freedom. He had left that life behind, its loneliness has taken its toll. “Why?”

The voice softened. *Because “Dawnsorrow”, you can be so much more than a tool. You could be a force of nature. And I want to help you.* Before he could say anything his eye opened and he was alone again. The voice and its offer gone, the void that taunted him vanished by the dawn light, still face down on the bed.

He felt strange. His skin felt tight, like he was covered in filth, and he needed to feel clean. He headed to the bathroom. He winced at each step as he walked. Nathandiel’s bath would soothe his body and clear his mind.

Baalthemar entered the washroom and looked at himself in the mirror, his skin was pallid and swollen, almost like a corpse left too long in the water, the waxy like texture made something twist inside his guts.

He looked at his hand, his finger nails were a strange colour, he pushed on one gently, it moved slightly. What? He pushed harder and the nail started to pull away from his finger. Baalthemar gasped as he watched his nail slowly pull away from his finger, thick stings of pink mucus clung to the nail as he removed it from his finger.

He dropped the nail into the sink and looked at his finger again, there was something dark and hard under the mucus…
Morbid curiosity compelled him to find out the truth, he wiped away the mucus and pulled at his skin, he couldn’t feel it.
Am I dying what is this? Baalthemar pulled at the skin of his finger, it tore away, peeling away in a large chunk about the size of his thumb. There was no pain, no blood.

There was skin underneath. Wet skin, he pulled at his hand twisting and tearing the skin off and dropping it to the floor, like some sick glove made of corpse flesh. He looked in horror at his hand, it was his flesh, but not. The new skin and nails were a darker colour. It looked as if he had been working in the sun for months.

Something deep in his mind was pulling on a thread that was slowly unravelling him.

His heart was pounding as he continued his morbid undressing, slowly at first, starting with his arm he tore and ripped the skin, stopping at his elbow. The flesh splatted onto the floor like discarded meat. Shaking he looked at his arm, it was wet, and the fresh air made it feel cool.

Baalthemar looked back at his reflection in the mirror. What is happening to me? He pushed the skin around his cheek, it would not springing back like healthy skin. Hands shaking, he slowly pulled at his cheek. The skin tears away at his eye socket and slides down in a large rip like torn paper, the chunk of flesh still clinging to his face.
He roared in horror, his mind finally buckling to what he has witnessed.

Panic set in, Baalthemar started tearing at his chest and arms, frantic to remove his skin, and end this living nightmare, the sound of slabs of flesh hitting the cold washroom floor softly echo off the walls.

Slowly he calmed down, looking at the growing pile of flesh at his feet. Taking another look at himself in the mirror. Half his face was torn with a few short strips of flesh hanging off his jaw, his chest exposed the darker skin highlighting the few scraps of his pale flesh still clinging to him. He could hear footsteps coming closer, someone had heard his scream. Slowly he turns to look at Nathandiel, flesh still hanging off his face and waist.

Baalthemar looked at him with terror in his eye, voice shaking. “I think something is wrong with me…” He takes a slow and shaky step closer to Nathandiel, slipping slightly on some of this discarded flesh. “Help me…”

[Nathandiel]

Help him? I need to end him.

He stood in the doorway, a hand on the jamb, stunned into stillness. His lips parted but he said nothing. "I. . . ." He started. He swallowed and tried again, blinking several times as if that would take away the unbelievable sight.

"I . . . you need an integumentary system; nothing can live without it. It's the largest organ." He blathered, resorting to the information from textbooks long since closed and forgotten. "You can't lose your skin."

He looked up and down Baalthemar, quite convinced he was hallucinating. If he had really been seeing what his eyes said he was seeing, Baalthemar would have been in shock, unconscious and in a horrendous amount of pain.

"You . . . need surgey." He managed and took a step back. ". . . or magic."

Whatever Baalthemar needed, it wasn't something Nathandiel could provide.

"Don't move. . . . I'll get help."

He turned an ran, sure he'd lost his mind but very unclear how that could have happened. He raced and out of the home he shared with Drinn and hurried outside, shouting for The Grim to come, calling for help.

[Khorvis]

[[ Baal has a lot of voices in his head. You know, Reapers get full medical coverage under the Mandate, including reimbursement for a psychiatrist. Of course, that basically involves a trip down into the felmancers' sanctum and reprogramming by Greebo, and that doesn't usually end well (see: Acherontia). But, just letting you know it's available and we generally consider our package competitive! ]]

[Baalthemar]

He had reached out for help and Nathandiel had ran. He was alone in his horror, there would be no soothing touch or calm words for Baalthemar. So this is what it is like to have your friends abandon you. he thought.

His face twisted into an unnatural grin, and he laughed. Softly at first. “Heh, ha..haha” This is what I get, they will try to kill me when they come, I’m a monster, a freak fit only to be put down.

Baalthemar had seen the look on Nathandiels face when he came in, he was horrified and repulsed by him. I need to run, I need to survive. He thought.

Something slowly coiled around his spine, it was cold. It stole the air form his lungs. *Yes, you need to flee Dawnsorrow.* a voice whispered into this ear.
*but you must act quickly, there is no time for you to dwell on these thoughts, let me help rid you of them.* He felt himself falling, darkness wrapped him and his connection to the world was lost.

He could hear his heart beating, his breath was heavy, it sounded distant. A warmth filled him, and a soft voice whispered to him, *Wake up Baalthemar.*

His eye opened and he was crouching behind some snow covered rocks behind the guilds garrison, he must have ran from Nathandiel’s garrison, heading out into the wilds and doubled back. Why he couldn’t remember doing that was a question for another time, a time when he wasn’t being hunted.

Baalthemar looked over the rock edge and looked down into the garrison, he could see people moving around, yelling about something. Getting the pitchforks and touches no doubt, going hunting for the monster.

He would need to sneak into the garrison and gather some gear that he had stored. I’ll run find out what’s wrong and come back, maybe they won’t kill me if I can find out the truth. Slowly he crawled in the snow toward the garrison, he would come up behind the herb garden, Syreena had a hut round here. He would need to be careful.

[Aziris]

((This thread has been continued HERE on TNG))