Flaying

Flaying is a dark inheritance passed to all with a Spark inside them. Any mage can tell you of the hunger. Each and every Spark seeks to grow and feed, pushing the mage to rely on their magic and utilize the Spark more and more as their mastery over their Domain magic grows. Sometimes, mages dream of devouring, regardless of the discipline, and can feel the raw, furious starvation of the Spark within them. Most easily marshal this urge and many mages do not consciously recognize it. However, they are all at least subconsciously aware that the Spark has changed them.

After Initiation, every mage gains the ability to Flay. Flaying channels the hunger of the Spark through a mage’s own soul and into the soul of another. This ability is usually only possible when the victim is severely weakened or close to death, when their resistance to such attacks is at its lowest. A Mage need only think about that bone deep hunger of the Spark as they take the life of another to begin Flaying. Mages who have written on the subject describe the sensation as a thirsty man tasting water for the first time in trials. The urge to devour it is overwhelming and to begin Flaying, it takes near a mastery of meditation to force oneself to stop. The Mage reaches into the soul of another and tears as much ether as they can through that soul’s conduit to Emea. This act savagely rends the soul and some would say even shreds it from existence, although there is no concrete proof either way.

Flaying takes several trills and is often drawn from the lips into the body, as though sucking the essence off the air. When Flaying, a mage can choose either to take this rush of energy into themselves…a practice which guards them against overstepping while utilizing more powerful spells for a few trials thereafter, or drawing the ether through their body and holding it within the body cavity. To do it the second way, the mage will often create a well out of one of the victim’s organs, crystallized into a moderate well through the ether that was produced.

However, this act does not come without consequences. Mages call it The Thirst and it is an addiction that begins the moment the mage begins to Flay. For the entirety of the Cycle after, the mage will be drawn, viciously compelled, to Flay again. The Thirst never completely goes away, but it can retreat into a dull ache if they manage to not Flay again the entire Cycle. Should they give in, however, the addiction to do so again several trials after will double. So on and so on. Most mage organizations generally accept that Flaying more than three times in a Cycle will impart a certain mania, a bestial madness that ends with the mage a soul hungry monster, roaming Idalos seeking victims. These loathsome beasts are often called Starved Ones and are hunted by almost any mage with a sense of duty. It is unknown if one can return from being a Starved One, but it is observed that a Starved One often mutates uncontrollably and are dangerously psychotic.

Of the Starved Ones, the Revealed are the most dangerous. When a Revealed succumbs to the Thirst they become a beast of another variant entirely. Rare, terrifying, dangerous. The Arcanavore.