MENS REA

The Fallen Spellcaster

"You are now one of those versed in the black arts. You do not forgive. You do not forget. You strike down those who have hurt you. You laugh as you scorch the flesh of those who humiliated you and your friends. You sneer as they plead for their very souls... then you crush them."

This is what I have been taught.

Hatred.

Hatred is my sword, justification is my armor, and fear is my banner.

For I am a Black Archmage of the highest caliber, and my name is vengeance.

You may ask why I am so calloused, so hateful, so utterly willing to wipe out entire towns at a mere whim. I shall tell you. Then we shall see if you are capable of spewing some diatribe on love and peace and all that mortal nonsense.

You shall learn.

Just as I have.

My tale begins like so many other tragic ones- I was one of the pariah children in a large city. I never knew why people hated me.

Was it the glasses that I used to study magic? Did they see the item I use to see accurately with, and decide I deserved a miserable life?

Was it the fact I had no interest in bows and swords, and instead gazed in wonder at the works of the arcane? Was that their justification for making me miserable?

Getting beaten up was common, by both children and adults. I was a child- how any adult could justify throwing rocks at me or kicking me is beyond my knowledge even now, except for the simple explanation that they were evil personified.

But it wasn't rocks that hurt the worst, no. It was the humiliation.

Sometimes they would decide I wasn't fit to wear clothes. They would strip me of everything and parade me back to my house, beating me with sticks. My parents complained to the law, the priests, everyone. They all laughed and said it was good sport, and that they were just kidding around. They would occasionally make an announcement on my behalf to try to get people to lay off, but nothing more.

More beatings and strippings. More bruises and broken bones and bloodied lips. I was 11, and the whole town was against me for no reason at all.

Except for one girl.

When I was hurt, she would bake me cookies. She was my age. Her name was Calra.

At 11, I was in love. She was too, with me.

Then they found out.

What they did to me was nothing compared to what happened to her. She was taken from her home by force, stripped, beaten, humiliated as I was, and...

...the men...

They raped her.

They raped the only person outside my family who cared.

Then they killed her by hanging her by her wrists in the town square. With no food and water for three days, and her parents forbidden to see her, she died.

That incident brought the town to its senses, I'm told. There was a mass attendance at the church, and self-flagellation and repentance for their horrible treatment of me and their... ungodly, unholy treatment of her were made.

I could not forgive.

I could not forget.

I was sent by my parents, to prevent me from "doing anything rash", to a school for the black arts. Let me state now for any who read my tale that sending an emotionally distraught, oft-bullied child to a place to learn destructive magic is not exactly wisdom of the sages material- if I am to understand, though, I was sent because there was a convenient vacancy and it was far, far away.

A teacher- jaded, scorned by outsiders for his potential- saw to my studies personally. On hearing my story, he declared that someone should punish those guilty.

It then struck me that guilty was exactly what those vermin were. Not enraged mobs, or 'caught up in the moment' or any other chocoshit. It was guilty, pure and simple.

It was then he told me those words. "You do not forgive. You do not forget."

I did not forgive.

I did not forget.

And with each spell of devastation he taught me, each manipulation of my anger and hatred into elemental force he instructed me in, I saw her bloodied, shamed face. I saw the women, men, and children laughing as they beat her. I saw the guards smiling as men five times her age did horrible things to her.

At age 18, I had mastered Ultima. It was not an easy task, nor a pleasant one, my very being groaned with the threats of being sundered apart as I absorbed the spell, and were it not for my admittedly obsession-fueled willpower I would be but a babbling broken shell of a man, but I endured, and the spell was mine.

My teacher gave me but a grim nod of approval as I lay there, hair on my arms smoldering, as a sign of his pride in me. He then said to me, "You are ready. It is time to show those who hurt you and your friend the folly of their actions. Remember- you do not forgive, you do not forget."

I was ready. In every sense of the word, I was prepared to go back to that place of pain and shame and do a macabre show and tell.

It was time. Oh Gods, how it was time. Overdue, in fact.

I returned home. The people greeted me with plastered smiles and cheap gifts, and asked forgiveness. In the tone that seven years away from home was more than adequate time to forgive years of beating and humiliation, and the degrading and murder of the girl I loved.

I smiled. They beamed, they must've really thought I was ready to forgive them.

It is impossible to describe the looks on their faces when I grabbed one of the boys who had tormented me, punched into his stomach with a magic-enhanced fist, and let loose a Fira spell to cook him- from the inside out. The only thing I dare say would come close is the facial reaction one might receive if one were to tell a mother her newborn child is healthy, almost allowing her to hold it, and then punting the babe out the nearest window.

By the time I took an old woman, froze her legs solid, shattered them, and then sent a Bio spell down her screaming maw, I think they got the idea that I was not in a friendly mood.

They ran. Wise, but too little, too late. Thundaga sent around twenty of the cowards to a scorching death. A well placed Blizzaga spell crushed fifty or so in tombs of ice.

And a flare spell aimed at a building buried hundreds in rubble. Many were merely trapped in the stone rubble, and I had become loathe to pass up opportunity to demonstrate my newfound prowess…

I heated the rock to the melting point, hearing their screams as their bones were smelted into a morass of molten rock and steel girders. How delightful- to be buried and cremated alive simultaneously.

The guards came with their spears, their swords, their clubs. Many I simply dispatched with wide-area spells. I wanted them to suffer, but my mana had limits, and there was much to do that day.

I found, one by one, those who had raped her. One I turned a fraction of his blood to a potent, corrosive acid. People can produce some odd screams when they think their blood is on fire. Another I killed by instilling in him a hallucination of carnivorous insects wriggling in his skin, and in his attempts to remove the non-existent intruders with his sword, he only managed to remove a fatal amount of blood and flesh.

The others died amusing deaths. One I convinced, through another enchantment, that his fellow soldiers were in fact demons, and off he went, battling them to the death even as I prepared a Firaga to scorch the lot of them. Another I hexed his bones into growing long, sharp bony tendrils that slashed him from within. I think I actually threw one into a conjured pit of acid. Or was it lava? I forget, honestly- it was a rather chaotic two hours and as much as I had hoped to savor the carnage, self-preservation and total annihilation of my enemies was the top priority.

My interrogations of certain persons quickly quelled any remorse I may have experienced- apparently, Calra's parents had been conveniently executed for "treasonous acts". I can only imagine what atrocity of theirs warranted death- did they offer succor to another pariah in my absence? Did they demand justice for their daughter? Did they have the unthinkable audacity to leave before the town could kill them too? I regret to say the persons who could answer such queries are no longer capable of doing so.

At the end, only my parents- for their unconditional protection of me- were spared. And they, in horror, asked me "How could you do this?"

How?

How?!

"Simple, dear mother and father. I was beaten and humiliated for 11 years, which made for a shitty childhood and no one ever really did anything about it. Oh, and the one girl who showed me a speck of kindness? The people killed her, after, of course, beating and torturing her, so I was kind of upset."

Of course, I never really said that. I blew them both into the next life with an Ultima spell.

I don't regret it. People who act all righteous and "violence is never the solution" when bastards get what's coming to them deserve to die.

My reign of terror, as it has been called, continued from village to village. I looked for a village who had no pariahs, no cruel caste system. I found none. The villages who I saw and failed to meet my guidelines were burnt to the ground.

They were simple rules. How hard is it to simply decide not to make someone's life miserable for petty reasons?

Apparently, for many people, this is an epic feat. So I left a lot of dead bodies in my wake.

Of course, I looted what wasn't blasted to smithereens and sold it to various black market merchants to fund my masterpiece plan- I had defeated my enemies, and to the victor goes the spoils. Don't preach to me about respect for the dead. That notion left me when they took Calra's violated corpse down and burned it so as not to leave any evidence of their abominable acts.

I now have my own tower, filled with arcane beasts of my own design. I have named several guardians after various human flaws- Malice, Apathy, Rage, Cruelty, Vanity. There are others, but I am far too occupied with the centerpiece creation to go into detail.

It is called "Vindication", for it is my vindication in my quest to end the cycle of suffering. On activation, this world, and all life on it, shall be swiftly, painlessly ended in one supernova of raw, unchecked destructive energy. It is my final creation, so I must spare no expense.

As I toil, I use the flames of hatred generated by a childhood of abuse to forge my dark engine of destruction, channeling the anger into my work, all the while knowing that this is it. This is my final act in a tragedy that has gone on for far too long and has caused me far too much pain.

But even I must rest.

And when I do, I see Calra's sad face. Tears streaming down her face that I, for all my power, cannot wipe away.

And I know, by some horrible divine revelation unspoken, that it is not the suffering she endured that she weeps for, but the suffering I've endured- and that I've caused.

I remember the taste of her cookies and her smile, and I start bawling and my servants, fearful of my power, pretend not to notice.

She will see, though. They all will. They will see that I am right! I am ending the vicious cycle of pain, humiliation and suffering started by the gods! I am ending it here, with a machine forged by my very will!
The Gods will nod their heads in wisdom, and Calra will smile, and they will all agree that what I did was for the best when we are all beyond the veil of fear and lies!

The Gods must agree with me in some way! They wouldn't of let me go on this long if I didn't have the most noble of intentions! They know my cause is just!

MY CAUSE IS JUST!

...

...it has to be... it can't be any other way... I can't take back what I've done... it has to be right... the gods aren't so cruel as to allow me to make such an endeavor if I am wrong...

...right?