Chapter XLIII: Baen Fior (Cont.)
“And what to do while I await for the saviors of mankind to awake? Hm….I think I shall rest.” He knelt again, this time letting his head hang down and his eyes slowly close. “Yes……I shall prepare for my battle with these foul fools.” Baen’s eyes slowly sealed tighter and tighter….his mind slowly drifting off into the past….into the memories he long abandoned. He could see the image of Adelia floating through his mind….her smile glowing across her face as she looked at him. Her hair fluttered in the unfelt wind, her body echoed and called out to him, her eyes sparkling with the kindness never shown him. He could see her fascinated curiosity…this was the image he first remembered…the image of his first meeting with Adelia.
Slowly, the University began to form around him…the books…the creatures that dwelled within every room. How had he gotten there? Oh yes…he remembered. He had been hurled from Cion Sky and struggled to find his ways from the Jikama….soon he had pulled himself free, his mind a twisted blur…no true memory of who he was……though there was the echo in the back of his mind that his name was Baen…Baen Fior. The creatures in the swamp that he had encountered cringed at the name and bowed before him. So he had set off for Azurat City and then found his way to the University, still lost in who he was and what his goal was. It was there that he was told that some mysterious benefactor…..some strange man had told him that it was his duty to study in the room of quietude. There he would learn the art of peace and the ways to silence the dark voices that chattered to him when he slept. It was there that he had read….he had read about himself. About the great peace brought by the banishment of the one known as Baen Fior. It had made him angry….but his mind still remained gone.
He had spent his time studying every book with intense fury, eventually conquering the entire room of quietude…pretending that he had cut the voices off from his mind. Instead he had focused on learning how to cloak his mind from more than just his own dark thoughts…he had learned how to cloak them from all. He had then made his way to the dark magics room, saying that it was obviously there that he could best study and then be able to instruct those on how to overcome the darkness, for he had the powers of quietude, but needed to know the nature of the dark powers in order to counteract them.
It worked. He was placed there after several days. Days passed as he devoured the dark magics…the ways of wielding fire and black magic…the ways to manipulate shadow and how to call upon the beasts of the dark world. Finally, he conquered all that it had to offer and devoted his studies to other rooms, devouring each and everyone with curiosity and a growing hatred as he read more and more about his own self and how he had been treated. Soon he remembered all that had happened before he had been plunged to the Jikama…and with swift movement, he cloaked himself from all men’s eyes. None even knew he still studied within the University…until he had saw her….. her.
She was a beautiful and unique girl, with the dark shadow swirling around her. He had felt a sudden urge, a sudden call to investigate her…to remember her. He had not known then what the odd feeling in the back of his mind was…..but now….oh now he knew. They had forced him to love her….those bastards had forced him to fall for a girl that would seek to undo him; it was but another torture. And so he had struck out in wrath when he discovered this truth, forcing his way out of the University and killing all he encountered. Even then, his plans were boiling in his head perfectly….and he marched straight for the Knowing Orb with no fear…….and then she intervened. She intervened! It was a cut straight to his heart, and the pain that she had brought him would never leave her…and unending scar of woe and trickery brought on by his once allied Watchers.
He had skulked off into the dark recesses of the planes, nursing his wounds and lamenting the loss of his one salvation. Was this the way it had to be? What if they had let her love him….had let them love each other? Would they have lived happily….would all be perfect? Who knew now…..no one. Finally, he had pulled himself from his woe, his eyes flaring with the fires of the Knowing Orb and of Adelia’s question. He marched off into the world and set about his plans once more….but the Watchers had bested him…..all his planning had failed. His trickery with the shadows of deception…his leading on of Blackheart and the heroes…..all his evil….all of it failed him in the end. Even the assassins had failed him…..for where were they? Were they not sent out to kill the heroes? And all were dead and gone now, he supposed.
Slowly Baen’s mind once more returned to Adelia: she was calling out to him from her unconscious mind. She had given in to the darkness..and he could see her eyes warping…slowly changing within his mind. Still, she struggled against it….for Baen was no fool. Had he given her all the darkness that she could hold…if he had made her exactly like him…a being purely made of evil and deceit…..then they would……
“GAH!” Baen rolled away, his mind being drawn out as he drew his blade and rose slowly. There, standing before him was Blackheart and the others, all awake, all had risen to fight against him. Baen reached down with his gauntlet and wiped the small amount of blood trickling from under his left shoulder plate. “So you all rise to battle me now, hey?” He glanced over at Adelia’s still unconscious body. “You fight for your little friend?”