Verloren

Augur Verloren

Verloren Vickaris Sylverius fer Luphtis • Canine (vykrest)
[vur-LOR-en • vick-AR-is]

Verloren is a somber and extremely reserved person, who constantly looks like he despises everyone around him – because he mostly does. Only happy when he's by himself working on personal projects of magic research, he tends to snap at people who try to get too close to him, typically by growling and sometimes biting them, especially if they dare touching him in any way.

A mage of exceptional skill, Verloren discovered that it is possible to use the souls of creatures – or people – as a source of magic. He dedicated his life to studying this form of magic, and achieved impressive crafts which gave him unbelievable power.

A “ref sheet" of sorts for him can be found here: [link]

Here I'll be adding some pictures of the characters, places, things. There isn't much for now because I want to reveal pictures alongside stories and lore through my tumblr instead of just spoiling everything at once in here. (Besides, although I have made a ton of sketches since July, the amount of actually finished relevant things is rather small.)

Reading the lore should not be super necessary to understand the story, but I have all this stuff in my head and I wanna put it down somewhere anyway so here it is.

Here's this mess of a story!

If it's too long (I know it is) there's a pretty short tl;dr at the bottom if you just wanna know something about this whole thing without having to waste hours of your day.

Some parts of the story might still end up being changed as I develop more lore. I'll update this page if that happens.

Part 1: Luphtis

1613 - 1628

Verloren was born in Luphtis, a city in the territory of Vykrest restricted only to their own kind, the vykrest wolfhounds. With somewhat more animal-like mannerisms and behaviors than the other peoples surrounding them and a culture with unique traditions, they were often considered rather strange folks to outsiders.

Vykrest pups are often born in pairs, and when they're not, the parents usually try for another pup shortly after because it's important to their culture to be raised with siblings. But Verloren was born a lone pup, and his mother died before she had a chance of having more pups. His father was deeply affected by the loss of his wife and became a rather cold and distant person, unable to provide his little pup with all the genuine love and affection a vykrest family pack normally would. Despite that, Verloren's childhood wasn't exactly awful, as he was far too young to fully realize what he was missing out on most of the times. When he reached the age of going to school, however, he felt somewhat left out, as every kid had a deeply bonded sibling to play with and he had no one.

But although Verloren grew up as a loner for the most part, he didn't mind it so much because he found comfort in the peace and quiet, in observing things in silence and putting his full attention towards what he was doing. And one thing he found that he could enjoy entirely all on his own was magic. Verloren began learning by himself from picking up books and magic supplies they had around the house, but his father quickly realized that he should put him in magic school, and Verloren appreciated that. There was just so much to learn, so many things to try and puzzles to solve. The challenge of learning new spells kept him forever entertained.

As he grew up, Verloren's skill became rather impressive. He had no doubts that magic was what he should work with, and so he sought to learn about it more deeply. The schools in Luphtis only offered limited courses, however, so when he turned 15, he moved out of Luphtis to go study at the Magic School of Luno-Vyke, one of the biggest magic schools in the region.

Part 2: Luno-Vyke

1628 - 1634

Luno-Vyke was another Vykrest city, but unlike Luphtis, there were no restrictions on species, although outsiders living there were still expected to at least respect Vykrest norms, so Verloren didn't feel too much out of place. In fact, he felt like he fit right in into the new school.

With an inquisitive mind and a particular interest in experimenting and the intricacies of how magic works, he easily made it through as one of the best in class. But at times, he was perhaps a bit too creative with his ideas, wondering about possibilities that would be considered utterly improper, such as the use of lucan parts in necromagic. Most teachers would dismiss his questions about things like this, but eventually he reached the right person to answer them, the old rook Master Eurelius Fergulean. He could tell that Verloren was the kind of daring youngling he liked to teach the most, so Fergulean took Verloren as his next apprentice, teaching him in private about the dark subjects he sought to learn.

Verloren was overjoyed that he finally had someone to discuss his theories with. Aside from the use of lucan parts to make spells much more powerful than average, he also had other even wilder ideas: to use not only the flesh, but also the soul of a creature. Although such a thing was entirely unheard of, it was known that magis originates in the soul before being assimilmated into the body, so Verloren thought there might be a way to bypass the body's limitations and pull magis directly from its source, from the soul itself. It seemed incredibly outlandish at first, Fergulean thought, but so did many other concepts over the decades that had turned out to work. He appreciated the young one's enthusiasm about testing his ideas so he provided him with assistance whenever possible, although he wasn't sure himself of how to even begin researching this despite his over one hundred years of experience.

After countless fruitless attempts, failed experiments and endless frustration but with a remarkable amount of perseverance, at age 20, Verloren finally managed to find the connection between a person's soul and their body, and extract magis from it. Both he and his master were beyond proud, and then quickly got to fine tune it and test other applications of it.

After about one year of further experiments, Master Fergulean thought Verloren was ready to be on his own. In Vykrest, the opportunities to work with lucan remains was very limited, but Fergulean knew that things worked differently in other places. Right beyond the border of Vykrest's territory was Houndsdagger, a kingdom that was part of the Shadowfell Alliance in the ongoing war. Although it was all kept very secret, Fergulean had learned from his connections that they kept prisoners, and that these prisoners were often used as source of material by the necromages working there. If Verloren became an augur of necromagic in Houndsdagger, he might be given clearance to obtain far more lucan test subjects than he ever could at home, with Fergulean's very limited supply.

And so, Verloren moved to the capital city in the kingdom of Houndsdagger.

Part 3: Early Houndsdagger

1634 - 1638

At first Verloren had a hard time getting used to the people outside of Vykrest. The culture was quite different from the much less social ways of the Vykrest that he was familiar with, but Fergulean had warned him and prepared him for it. Despite his best efforts, however, he was immediately seen as a little strange and rather unapproachable by everyone else, not only because of his antisocial behavior but also because of the nature of his research. Soulmagic, as he had been calling it, was simply nonsense to anyone else, despite him showing his working results. They argued that it was impractical or unnecessary, or that it would be even more morally dubious than using just the body, but he was not discouraged.

As he passed the Trial of Augury, Verloren earned the title of Royal Augur of Necromagic of Houndsdagger. Being an augur meant he would need to contribute to making magic crafts such as spells and potions for a variety of the kingdom's needs, from weapons to healing, from architectural to agricultural works. But that came with the benefit of being allowed to work on personal research using some of the kingdom's resources, not to mention the free housing within the augurs' building – the magorium – itself, which although was far from a luxury home, it was quite enough for Verloren.

While lucan-based necromagic was still frowned upon, the necromage augurs maintained a secret partnership with the keepers of the dungeons which allowed them access to the prisoners in jail for use in their research, no questions asked. The forbidden deals were not often revealed to newcomers so early, but Master Fergulean had been in contact with Grand Augur Brelyn, his very first apprentice, to recommend Verloren for his position as an augur. Trusting that her old master's new apprentice was as good as she was told, she took him into her team and quickly accepted him into their scheme. This would give him access not only to lucan body parts to use in necromagic but also lucan souls to research soulmagic with once he had a better grasp of his theories.

It was rather easy to fulfill the tasks he was assigned each day, so he had plenty of time to work on his research, but perhaps his biggest challenge was having to put up with everyone else. Grand Augur Brelyn was rather nice, but she was rarely around so the tasks were usually given by her assistant, Augur Mircyne, who was bossy and condescending. But she would come and go rather than stay around all the time, so the people Verloren mostly dealt with were the three other augurs of around his age that were also part of his team. Augur Finella was very chatty and could talk for hours about the most random things, always seeming to get a little too close for comfort. Augur Hawthorn seemed to really dislike him and he wasn't quite sure why. Augur Sellatrix was particularly difficult to read for him because she seemed enjoy being deliberately ambiguous about things. She had asked some questions about his work but he couldn't tell whether she supported or opposed it.

But despite the general disapproval from most of his peers, Verloren was able to do progress with his understanding of soulmagic. He learned a lot about how to use magis from souls and created several more powerful versions of existing crafts, which he would at times test with lucan subjects. Working with unwilling subjects, however, sometimes posed a challenge. Master Fergulean had taught him to be patient and respectful with his subjects, making sure to prevent their suffering even if it meant terminating an experiment before its conclusion. In addition to being merciful, his master also told him that talking could help earn their trust and make them more cooperative. Although Verloren was definitely not very fond of chatter, he would try to convince them that their sacrifice was for a noble purpose – for knowledge – and that this was a better destiny than spending the rest of their lives in a dungeon cell. While he tried his best at being nice, at times he'd lose his patience when his victims simply wouldn't cooperate. But even when he ended up killing them, nothing was ever really a waste since the primary use of lucans in magic was as necromagic material, and he often needed a lot of that in his soulmagic as well.

The best part of working with live specimens – lucan or otherwise – was that Verloren got to work at one of the secluded chambers, away from everyone's judgement. While he would do a lot of his work back in the main chamber alongside his augur tasks, as soon as he was finished with those, he would head to the secluded chamber and spend the whole rest of the day on his own. He'd then return to his quarters late in the night, quite a bit after everyone else had already left, without being bothered by anyone else.

Life in the castle was quite fine after all.

Part 4: Mid Houndsdagger

1638 - 1649

Having spent four years as an augur, Verloren was now much more confident about his position. He had proven his worth to the augury of Houndsdagger and was considered a highly dependable mage, although he had built a reputation of being particularly hard to work with due to his standoffish and at times straight up hostile nature. He was very efficient when working on his own, but he hated working with others and would often growl at and even bite people who got too close to him – a reaction that would have been acceptable in his homeland but which was very uncouth elsewhere. While his team had mostly gotten used to his attitude, most people were rather wary of him, having heard that it was most unwise to disturb or upset him or else one may face injuries.

Verloren's research was going quite well despite still facing criticism. His experiments were quite costly on materials, test subjects and magis input so they were still seen as inefficient and wasteful, but the knowledge he gained was worth it to him. At this point, however, he did have a couple people here and there who showed interest in his theories, especially Augur Sellatrix, who would sometimes ask him really good questions about his work. Although her interest was mostly on the spiritual side of it – the nature of souls, the way that magis exists within them and how this connection between the physical realm and the spirit worlds was established – she did have interesting ideas of her own which the two of them discussed, and which were useful considerations for his research. She had turned out to be a valuable ally after all, despite his initial uncertainty about her.

Another job an augur had to do at times was to travel to places around the kingdom or the rest of the Shadowfell Alliance to provide aid to other cities or help in missions. During one such trip, Augurs Finella and Hawthorn rescued the young former prince of Morclaw, Mitzer Tempestaros, whose entire family had been slayed by the Lux Ferox Dominion in a recent invasion. He was taken to Houndsdagger, and since he was experienced with magic, he joined the team of mages who assist the augurs. As he processed a carcass leftover from one of Verloren's experiments that hadn't quite worked as intended, he detected that it still had a soul in it despite being clearly dead, revealing that he was a soulseer, something previously unknown even to himself. The possibility of a soul remaining in a dead body was extremely intriguing to Verloren. After examining the carcass, he concluded that he had accidentally learned how to lock a soul to its body's skull, a discovery which allowed a lot more versatility in handling soulmagic, as it was much easier to manage a single skull than an entire body being kept in a state between life and death inside a complicated device which he had been using up until now.

As he studied all the new possibilities which had opened up to him, Verloren made interesting discoveries which finally managed to get everyone to reconsider the usefulness of his work. Things such as powerful and deadly injurious magic or reviving the dead under certain circumstances had gotten some private parties interested in his abilities. But after years of experiments and extensive testing, he developed something far more interesting to him: a workyn that could permanently enhance one's magic capabilities, which he initially called “Triangle Workyn of Ravenbone". Once he was completely certain that it was safe, he used it on himself, significantly increasing his own power. This was an impressive feat which he was certain that would lead to even greater achievements.

But there was one key problem with soulmagic: nobody who tried it could ever be successful in replicating his crafts, even following his schematics with precision. While Sellatrix worked with him, she told him that the way he developed his crafts was very personal, shaped around his own magis exclusively. The differences between each individual's magis were usually negligible, but perhaps dealing with things as complex as souls made it more significant. Being a witch, Sellatrix had a very keen sense for telling peoples' magis apart, so she learned how to work with his crafts by understanding his magis, becoming the first person to ever use soulmagic besides him.

Verloren wasn't very interested in reworking his crafts to make them easier for others to make, instead preferring to focus on improving and optimizing them first and then perhaps think about that later on. So in the meantime, he would occasionally take requests from folks who were interested in his work, usually asking for certain advanced crafts, rare ingredients or any kind of magic knowledge that was useful to him in exchange for his services.

And so, Verloren started to become fairly well known throughout the kingdoms.

Part 5: Late Houndsdagger

1649 - 1655

Verloren and Sellatrix had grown quite close. They would regularly collaborate on projects, but also would often spend time together outside of work. Their mutual disregard for others and for what's considered normal made them finally find a friend in each other. Towards the other augurs, his relationships had also improved somewhat. Finella had become a lot less obnoxious to him since he had first met her, and now that she had replaced Mircyne as coordinator, things were far smoother at work, so he felt he should thank her. And while he was certain that Hawthorn still mostly disliked him, it was kind of fun to duel with him. Mitzer, who was officially an augur since he turned 20, had been quite useful to Verloren with his soulseer abilities, and also had become one of the few who managed to have success with soulmagic.

Having his magis enhanced allowed Verloren to be incredibly efficient with his magic. He could make certain crafts with half as many materials, but also could put in practice some concepts that would have required an amount of magis exceeding that of a normal person's maximum pool. But as the power of his spells and workyns increased, so did the need for test subjects with higher magic skill to be able to test them. One of the ways that he could obtain what he needed was to request specific types of victims as payment for the magic services he offered to private clients. But at times, some powerful magicians would end up in jail, which could be really convenient. These folks were sometimes high-ranking individuals, who would often have resources to simply get themselves out, by a variety of means, no matter how serious their crimes were or how much evidence there was against them, so Verloren tried to be quick to claim them. He was told that he shouldn't mess with those people, because unlike the average petty thief or enemy soldier, those people would be missed if they disappeared from jail. But he mostly didn't listen, especially if the victim was someone he had met before and disliked, because he always felt a certain sense of satisfaction about manipulating and killing someone he thought actually deserved to die for once.

But as sneaky as he was when handling these victims, eventually suspicions started to be raised against him. There were rumors among the necromages across the kingdoms of how Verloren used far more victims in his work than any other augur. Added to his general hostility and unwillingness to work with some people he didn't like, he had already gathered several enemies. Powerful folks – criminals or otherwise – have allies, who take notice when they go missing after being jailed specifically in the kingdom where the rumored killer mage resided. These victims were often involved in greater schemes, and their elimination was inconvenient. So it was only a matter of time until the affected parties started to take action.

At first, they tried to handle things as they usually did: by hiring assassins. Verloren was difficult to catch by surprise and was able to dodge these initial attempts rather easily, but it certainly put some pressure on him, as he had to keep on edge at all times. And since he kept foiling his hidden enemies' plans, they continued to escalate the attacks. So Verloren started taking a more direct approach to this problem by actively seeking them out. He was aware from the start that messing with those kinds of folks could have consequences, but he felt that all of this just made them even more deserving of being reduced to lab rats by his own hands. After some investigation, he discovered that one of the Grand Augurs of necromagic at Houndsdagger's own magorium was coordinating this plan to take him down, so Verloren eliminated him without second thoughts. However, being a Grand Augur with significant influence in the council, this had been an important figure in many of his enemies' schemes, and a direct threat to them.

While Verloren was still somewhat praised for his work by some, it was well known that he was ill-tempered and menacing, and many others thought that his work had always been unnecessarily dangerous despite some of his achievements. With many of his enemies being Grand Augurs from other kingdoms, it wasn't difficult for the rumors about him to spread, turning even more people against him, including the leaders of the Shadowfell Alliance. Verloren had always been controversial, so it only took a little push for them to start taking the possibility of him being a real threat into further consideration.

Part 6: Snap

1655

The Shadowfell Alliance had been watching Verloren. His increasingly negative popularity was starting to become concerning to them, as even without solid proof of the rumors about him, they concluded that his ideas and his work as a whole could have damaging effects if he were to ever become part of Houndsdagger's council or in any way able to influence the king. So they requested that Verloren was removed as an augur from Houndsdagger and banned from the capital for some time, as they monitored him. If Houndsdagger denied it, they would be removed from the Alliance, so the king heeded their request. Verloren was given two weeks to gather his things and leave the capital, but he did not take the idea of having to sacrifice his ongoing experiments and resources very well. He tried to appeal and was denied, but in the process he learned that the main voice behind this decision was this new advisor, appointed by Shadowfell. So in a bout of rage, he went and killed her, thinking that without her, he could convince the king to change his mind.

He was then granted another audience with the king, but as it turned out, he had been careless in his kill and his crime had been discovered. Instead of being banned, he was now to be arrested, and all of his work seized immediately. Verloren was caught by surprise, and as the guards closed in on him, he grew desperate and attacked them. He demanded that the king reconsidered, but the king told him that his actions had just proven him that he should indeed be detained. But neither the king or the Shadowfell Alliance really knew just how powerful Verloren's magics had become. With his extended magis pool and his overpowered spells, Verloren broke through every protection in the highly-secured audience chamber, reaching the king and repeating his demand to his face, after slaying the council members around him. Not entirely powerless, the king attempted to resist, but since he showed no intention of resigning to him, Verloren quickly lost his patience and murdered him with a fatal spell through his chest.

Now the entire kingdom was after him, so he did the only thing he could do and proceeded to destroy any who tried to capture or kill him. The power he had acquired through his experiments on soulmagic allowed him to best almost anyone. Every person in power in the castle ended up dead, and Shadowfell immediately removed Houndsdagger from the alliance as Verloren reluctantly claimed the throne. He didn't want to rule, he wanted to get back to his research, but he wouldn't be able to do that if everyone was actively trying to kill him. As both sides of the war tried to invade what was now his kingdom, Verloren needed a better way to fight back. With the dead bodies piling up at the necromagic storage chambers, he decided to put them to good use, and developed a way to turn corpses into extremely magic-efficient destruction machines that could be commanded by his power. They had no skin and their exposed magically-altered flesh would eternally bleed, leaving a trail of red wherever they passed, becoming known as the blood army. But despite coming out mostly victorious from the conflicts, the kingdom was falling apart.

He could use some help managing things, so he turned to Sellatrix, the only person he truly trusted and cared about, and asked her to be his queen. Part of her wanted to accept his offer and help him because she did have feelings for him and she knew he felt the same, but she could not condone his actions and support him in the face of what he was becoming. So Sellatrix refused the offer, which was unexpected and deeply disappointing for Verloren. Shortly after, she left the castle, telling him she'd go live in a hut in the forest near her hometown.

Now feeling more alone than ever, Verloren was at a loss on what to do.

Part 7: Blood Reign

1655 - 1659

As Sellatrix refused his offer, Verloren had to find someone else willing to manage things, so he convinced Finella to be his regent and Hawthorn to be a general to command the army for him. It wasn't exactly easy to convince Hawthorn, and Verloren walked away with some scars from a fight with him, but in the end he agreed because Finella was set on staying so she could do something for the people of the kingdom.

With them in charge, Verloren finally had time to get back to his research. Mitzer had been assisting him in some crafts because he was the only person other than Sellatrix who had managed to work with soulmagic, so Verloren decided to teach him even more by taking him as his apprentice. With Mitzer being capable of making more soulmagic crafts, Verloren could fully dedicate himself to thoroughly testing the new self augment craft he had been working on, something that could greatly increase one's magis pool and regeneration by extending the capacity of the nodes to channel magis from the soul. But he would have to put a lot of time into making sure it was safe before casting it on himself.

Every time there was an attack, Verloren would personally try to take care of it, with the blood army under his command. After doing this for so long, he started enjoying it: obliterating his enemies, taking their souls, and if they were close enough to the capital, harvesting their corpses to grow his own army. He tried not to bother invading his neighbors because he wasn't interested in expanding his territory, but when their attacks were insistent, he would eventually lose his patience and take the fight to their lands, destroying their means of fighting back. Verloren never intended to claim the places he destroyed, but Finella insisted that if he just left them, they'd simply take over again and be right back at their door with twice as much reason to want him dead. So she took care of sending her trusted noble allies to rule over the conquered cities and kingdoms as part of their Blood Reign.

Things were working pretty well for a while, although Verloren was getting increasingly more hostile and eager to go on a killing spree. This whole ordeal had taken a toll on his sanity a bit. At times he would have regrets, he'd wish things could go back to how they were, he'd miss Sellatrix and wonder if he should stop. But the blood of his enemies on the battlefield helped him forget for a moment, as the hunting instincts of his Vykrest blood kicked in and everyone became a target to chase and destroy.

Once he finished testing his newest self augment and applied it to himself, Verloren was now unstoppable, and even more daring than before. His enemies were now pawns in a game that he would never lose. He enjoyed the thrills of destruction as he slowly embraced the figure that everybody saw in him, of a merciless bloodthirsty ruler.

But one day, he marched into the neighboring kingdom of Silversparrow as a response to their attacks. Overconfident as always, he breached into their castle and started to hunt down their rulers. But unknowingly, he walked into an elaborate trap expertly concealed with illusion magics. Once he stepped into the hidden workyn, he was caught into what he had always considered one of the most vile crafts in existence: the antimagus, a workyn capable of entirely removing one's ability to regenerate and manipulate magic. It took thirteen of Shadowfell's best mages to activate the antimagus against Verloren, but once it began, there was no escape. All of his magis was violently extracted from him, forming a purple orb around him and suspending him in the air. White needles of pure light formed around each of the magis nodes in his body, painfully burning into his flesh and destroying the nodes, ensuring that he would never be able to use magic again. Once it was finished, he was dropped on the ground, weak, in pain and in disbelief. He looked up at his captors, who appeared so proud of their success, but then he started coughing up a large amount of thick black sludge. A side effect of the antimagus, it was the residue of magis, corrupted and powerless. Due to Verloren's unnaturally increased magis pool, he had lots of it. Soon he passed out in a puddle of black sludge and the mages of Shadowfell claimed their victory.

The Blood Reign was over.

Part 8: Ironlich Prison

1659 - 1660

Verloren was sent to the Ironlich Prison in Silversparrow, a place reserved for very dangerous magician criminals. In there, he finally realized he had really lost every last bit of his magis, and was therefore entirely powerless. But that alone was not enough to break him. Defiant as ever, Verloren refused to let anyone get the best of him, and would often resort to violence through use of his sharp teeth. But after about a year in there, all the punishment and long periods without food he was subjected to due to his misbehavior were starting to get to him. With all hope of reversing the antimagus lost, he started to wonder why should he even try to stay alive.

But one day, he got a cellmate. Her name was Uravera, a secretarybird illusion mage who was captured after being chased for over a decade for her malicious trickery. She was fairly well known, but what the world did not know about her was that she wasn't just an illusion mage, she was an illusiomancer. Even without any spells on her, she could still make illusions, and she was excellent at it. When she was captured, she tricked the guards into thinking they gave her magis-nullifying binds and clipped her wings, while actually retaining all her abilities. And of course, she did not intend on sticking around for too long. So with the help of Verloren's knowledge of the place, she devised a plan that involved stealing explosive spells from the armory and blowing up the whole place, freeing not only the two of them but everyone else too. In the aftermath, Uravera and Verloren stole a gryphon carriage and made their escape as quickly as possible. And that was the last anyone else had seen of Verloren, as what happened next is unknown to history.

Uravera was headed west, towards the Wycks and away from all the mess in the Vellian regions. She didn't intend to keep Verloren around forever, so she said she'd drop him off at Vykrest since he was obviously from there, but he asked her to leave him a bit before that, at the Whiskerweave Woods in the north of Houndsdagger. Vykrest would not welcome him, and neither would anywhere else. He was far too well known, and without his ability to use magic, he wouldn't be able to use disguises or even stand a chance against being captured again. He had nowhere to go and nobody to seek help from... except perhaps one person. Whiskerweave Woods is where Sellatrix had told him she would go. Uravera thought he was crazy to want to search for a person aimlessly in a forest in the weakened and starved condition he was in, but she helped him get there anyway and wished him good luck before leaving, almost certain that he'd be dead shortly.

Part 9: Whiskerweave Woods

1660 - ????

It was a longshot, but if there was one person Verloren could think of who could possibly not want him dead, it had to be Sellatrix. He had to find her but he had no idea where she would be other than the name of the forest she went to. But it was an extensive forest and his body felt like it was just about to give up. After seven long days of wandering, surviving against the odds and chasing magpies in hopes of finding her, Verloren finally stumbled upon a trail and ended up at the door of Sellatrix's little house in the woods.

At first, Sellatrix was conflicted. Verloren showed up at her doorstep almost like a ghost from her past. She had tried her best to forget him, but she never really did. She helped him get back to health but she wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do. He was a mass murderer, but he had once been her favorite person too. Without his ability to use magic, he could hardly ever become a threat again anyway, so she allowed him to stay.

Sellatrix didn't know that living with Verloren would prove to be so difficult. He had always had a certain wildness to him, but it seemed like what he endured through the years since they had last been together had intensified it even further. He had become even quicker to bite without warning at the slightest discomfort, rarely communicating verbally about what even bothered him or what he needed, leaving her to guess based on Vykrest body language she was rather unfamiliar with.

Slowly over time, however, Verloren learned to tone down his aggressively defensive instincts and became more comfortable with Sellatrix. He still had strict boundaries and was never too fond of physical contact, but he longed to be with her at times. After so much time, he could finally enjoy again some of the little things they once did together back in the castle, like playing kothwish, watching the rain and having friendly disagreements about spirits. She was the only true friend he ever had, the only person he ever really cared about, and he was glad to become her partner, with the strongest of bonds like a true Vykrest family pack.

But of course, his state of powerlessness bothered him deeply. Now that he no longer had to go long periods without food, putting all the little energy he had left into simply staying alive, his brain was constantly at work trying to come up with possibilities to recover his magis. While Verloren couldn't run any experiments on his own, Sellatrix often helped him test out his ideas.

Several years went by until they both managed to figure out a possible solution together. A concept far from ideal, entirely as outlandish as soulmagic as a whole once was, dangerous and with no guarantee of success, but the slightest chance was better than an eternity of magicless existence. So, aware of the risks, they proceeded with it, knowing that this was an end... but hoping that it could also be a new beginning.

The story of whether their concept was successful or not, however, is a whole other beast on its own, like a “Story of Verloren, Vol.2". I'm afraid that's something I should save for another moment, as I've already got plenty of story to play with regarding this setting. For the time being, the events of Verloren's life up until this point shall suffice, but I can tell you that this is far from everything I have planned for him...