bipolyjack

pre-campaign stuff for my angel warlock


Tamriel Farthingale signed an unbreakable contract with his god, as did many of the young men in his elven village when the holy recruiters came through town. "The Divine Arbiter will reward your service with unimaginable power," they said, having no idea how that power would manifest. Tam was looking to be a back-line medic in the Arbiter's holy army, healing those injured in battle against the demons of darkness. It was just after he and the other new recruits had lined up and received their new names and the sacred brand - a twisting, curving sigil burned between the shoulder blades with a red-hot iron - that Tam, or Orion Demetrius, as he would be known henceforth, decided being a mere tool in the hands of the Divine was more than he'd signed up for. He tried to steal away from the temple, which was how he discovered the other, more practical purpose of the sacred brand: as he passed through the front gates of the temple, the sigil flared to life, making his back arch with searing pain, as if the iron were burning him anew. He collapsed, smoking, to the ground, a great weight settling over his heart as he realized how easily, how instantaneously the Arbiter could impress his disapproval at the slightest disobedience. They caught him, of course - the Divine Arbiter is an all-seeing god - and in punishment, bound him to the sole service of a particular angel, Abraxos, locking a golden shackle around his neck so that any who beheld him would at once know what he had done.

Abraxos, paradoxically perhaps, gave him great power, channeled through the shackle - the ability to warp the very substance of reality, sometimes in uncontrollable and unanticipated ways - but he also gained complete control of Orion's sacred brand. It was on the angel's whim alone that Orion burned, and in the early days of his clumsily defiant service, it was often. Orion learned how to earn respite. Action, directly contrary to an order or standing tenet, tripped the sigil, but neither angel nor god could read his thoughts, it seemed. He could seethe and long for escape and plot rebellion all he liked in the privacy of his own head, so long as he never spoke or acted against the angel directly.

The stronger and less controllable his powers grew, the more frightened Orion became of using them. The angel liked that. Orion may not have been able to read his master's thoughts, but the angel made his approval of Orion's "healthy respect” for his power abundantly clear in other ways. Orion traveled the wilderness with the golden shadow of the angel at his shoulder for nearly a year, honed his skills while carrying the weight of the shackle around his neck, the heavy anchor of dread slowing his steps. H met every challenge Abraxos presented to him with gritted teeth and grudging obedience, turned trees to glass, pebbles to hot coals, ponds to stone with a touch.

"Why this power?" he asked once, after spending hours changing each blade of grass in a forest clearing into a tiny rigid spike of metal. "What good is a field of needles against the demon armies?"

"The needles are but good practice," said the angel, in his inexorable voice. He towered over Orion's toiling form, his great arms folded. "Does not the speed of your ability increase daily? Demons are slippery creatures. It pays to be able to catch them off guard."

Abraxos, for his part, steered Orion away from cities and settlements, part punishment, part precaution. He would in time, said the angel, be deemed ready to reenter society. Until then, his only task was to obey.

Orion bided his time. His brand burned so infrequently now.

At last, Abraxos directed him towards a town. A tournament, he said. Anyone could enter. A fine test for Orion's talents.

A town might provide an opportunity for escape. Orion longed to be free of the chafing shackle; perhaps here he would find someone who could remove it for him. If he could conceal his intent from the angel long enough. "Will I be required to hurt? To kill?"

"Yes, if I command it."

Not a satisfactory answer, for a would-be medic, but Orion turned down the path towards the town with a kernel of hope in his heart.