Ink
Personality: Ink is a nonchalant guy with a highly addictive personality. He tries to be cool and collected, but he tends to be too impulsive. He has a weak conscience and is somewhat untrusting, but he has a proclivity to chivalry or even kindness. Neither of these traits translate well to moral principles.
Biography: Ink was born to a prestigious noble family with a close relationship to the local royalty. As family tradition dictated, Ink was trained from a young age so that one day he may join the long line of Paladins in their family to have served as part of the royal family’s personal guard. (Note that “Paladin” here does not refer to Cavalry) It was a prestigious position. So prestigious in fact, that on a trip outside of town, his family’s caravan was attacked by cultists. Ink was knocked out as soon as the attack began, when their entire cart was flipped violently.
He awoke to a sharp pain in his chest where he found a marking of an eye over his heart. The carriage was in tatters and the horses were slaughtered. Blood stains with no bodies to claim them littered the place, and amidst it all was his parents. He didn’t recognize them at first, horrifically mutilated, but as he came to examine the scene, it became undeniable that it was them. By the time he had woken up, everything was already over and done with, and he had nothing left to do but grieve his losses and walk home.
It wasn’t long before Ink discovered that the marking of an eye was more than a simple brand of shame, but the indication of a curse, demanding mana as sustenance and making him soak it up like a sponge. At first he thought it was just hunger, but he had to admit something was wrong when he failed to resist the urge to eat his smaller enchanted weapons.
(Amusingly, he had absolutely no problem eating and digesting them.)
He visited the King, in search of a solution to his plight. The King, still a family friend, obliged, leveraging his access to some of the most talented mages around. While they helped him understand the curse’s mechanics, not a single one could lift the curse.
Ink learned to live with the Curse, getting candies enchanted as part of simple grocery shopping. These innumerable enchantments exacted a considerable toll on his funds. While his family was rather well-off, he had no income, and it was for this reason Ink decided to get a job. As a walking black hole for magic, he couldn’t exactly work around mages, so he settled for a simple job working for the city’s merchants. This went well until he realized how poorly it pays in comparison to his overall spending. Eventually he quits, deciding it’s not worth his time and effort and begins going on long, winding walks looking for a job that pays more. During one of these walks, he bumps into a foul-tempered mage who attempts to shoot lightning at him. He punched the mage and headed on his way, but apparently someone witnessed the scene and made a
very generous offer for the assassination of a certain wizard. His morality had sent itself off on a blazing funeral pyre, so he took up the offer.
All things considered, it wasn't that difficult walking into the place and stabbing the old man as he gawked confusedly at Ink, wondering how he got there without being magically detected. He wasn't even aware he was being assassinated until it was too late, as he was busy cutting himself with a fancy knife for some ritual assumably involving the blood circle on the wall and the live goat leashed in the corner of the room. Ink didn’t pay the whole set up in mind, and indeed, he only planned to get in and get out, but when he felt the shining presence of mana sitting on the dagger’s tip, he couldn’t help but have a taste.
If he wasn’t already, the taste of coalesced magic instantly had him hooked. He was taking this dagger home with him, for sure.
Though Ink never found out the exact reason he was spared, if it was to deter him from becoming a Paladin, it worked. He took up a wide variety of work over the years after that, most of it aimed at exploiting his curse, more often than anything else however, he simply stole magic shit to feed his insatiable hunger.
Eventually, outrealm demons made an appearance and in accordance with a visiting recruiter, the King decided to send some of the best warriors he could without compromising his city’s own self-defense. Knowing Ink’s curse and upbringing, the King sent him a request. While the royal guard of his own world seldom saw action and had painful memories attached, joining a different active military and getting access to the support of its clerics and mages seemed like a good idea. If for no other reason, it gives him a
reason to use his dagger, dubbed the Inkwell, to get another indescribable taste of mana.