After playing this bastard on and off for so long, I felt they needed some proper presentation, lest they keep simmering in my brain forever. More about them on the following:
The members of the general public know them as the Illuminated Illusionist, the artist behind the most fascinating displays of practical magic on Mahogany Hall. “It is like seeing a true sunrise on the surface!”, the public says. The Dean of the University, who lent them a lab for oneiric research, and the socialites they offer their particular services to, know better: Mx. W. Warden is the Scarred Silverer.
Often loud and reckless, most footmen feel their stomach sink when the Silverer’s Corpulent Carriage arrives. If the aftermath of the night is just a broken mirror in the parlor, that’s a win. At least they didn’t turn the kitchen in a tropical jungle or let loose a profusion of weird birds this time. But still, all servants admit that their patron’s mood improves dramatically following the Silverer’ appointment. So, as they protect the fine china from the visitor’s, er, tendencies, they do so with hope that it might get them a generous raise afterwards.
In the honey dens of Veilgarden, the Silverer’s bohemian companions often have a laugh at the pretentiousness of having “Scarred” on one’s alias, when all they have to show for a scar is a faint line under the eye that seems almost painted on. They usually answer that “that scar runs much deeper than what you see in the surface”, but a certain night, when the mood was right, the Silverer answered simply by letting their warm, passionate persona cool into a stern look, their dark grey eyes resembling more sharpened steel than the usual spring raincloud. The air became colder as all candles suffocated under an energy, a WANT, a NEED, a DRIVE that could drag one from the depths of Hell to the end of Haven to see fulfilled. And as soon as it arrived, it passed: The Silverer began retelling another of their curious tales that ended in feats of boastful cleverness, and it was as if that wounded interruption was but an illusion. Whatever scarred them to such an extent could be put aside, now. It didn’t truly bother them any longer.
… Some years ago, an agent received, along with their usual coded messages, two newspaper clippings in Portuguese. One was from the February of 1892, and was about the brutal murder of a British-Brazilian railway entrepreneur, his wife and his elderly parents, all in the family’s manor and in their beds, the bodies found in the morning. The only survivors were the entrepreneur’s younger sister and his baby daughter, both who were asleep in another wing when the slaughter happened. The other clipping was from May of the same year, declaring the surviving sister as missing after leaving her niece with her own aunt. It included a photo of said woman, under which the agent’s contact scribbled “The Scarred Silverer?” Indeed, there was some resemblance between the woman and the Silverer, but a yellowed, smudged photo in a newspaper from Latin America could look like anyone. Besides, was this worthy investigating? Could this be used as blackmail? Or would it just be a mistake, attracting the ire of someone who killed their entire family? Or maybe they didn’t do it, but were insane enough to go after the one who killed their entire family? Either way, there where players in much more aggressive positions for the agent to consider. He threw the clippings on the fireplace and went back to his codebreaking.
