Nicolas in Immortalis and the Need to Define Every Interaction
In the shadowed annals of Morrigan Deep, where eternal dusk cloaks the deeds of the undying, Nicolas DeSilva stands as a figure both grotesque and commanding, a half-Baer bastard whose every gesture seeks to etch permanence upon the fleeting. Son of Primus and Boaca Baer, torn from his mother’s arms after twelve years among the Varjoleto warriors, he embodies the primal fracture of Immortalis existence, forever split between Vero restraint and Evro savagery. Yet Nicolas transcends this duality, his asylum a labyrinth of mirrors and clocks where interaction itself becomes a battlefield, every glance, every word, every touch defined by his unyielding will.
Corax Asylum, that festering edifice in Togaduine, serves not as sanctuary but as Nicolas’s grand theatre of control. Here, beds supplant coffins for his nocturnal amusements, straps and handcuffs render inmates pliant companions. He trades ravaged tributes to Irkalla for a fraudulent psychiatric licence, declaring sanity a myth to be disproved through calculated torment. Rusty scalpels gleam beside whips in the crypt-dungeon, while above, the east wing’s cells cram one or five souls according to his whim for discomfort. Mirrors line corridors, clocks clang discordantly, ensuring no privacy endures, no moment escapes his gaze. Nicolas demands definition: patients must neither hide nor predict his tortures, their world a perpetual state of exposure.
This compulsion permeates his engagements. With Lucia, the second Immoless, he stages escapes only to orchestrate recapture, her blisters and screams a symphony in his hall of mirrors. He whispers to unseen Webster, debates with the rotting head of Demize, his eyes flashing from brown to green as fangs elongate. The Long-Faced Demon emerges in lust or rage, skull stretching, features sharpening, yet Nicolas denies its existence, a fairy tale spun by the dead priest’s head. Even his reflection smirks back refined, bespectacled, while he loosens and retightens his tie in futile ritual.
Such multiplicity demands rigid boundaries. Interactions blur into performance: he crawls tiger-like among cells, complains of levitating chairs, pens missives to Behmor only to burn them unread. Fashion dictates his reinvention, orange silk discarded for black suit, burgundy scarf, thigh-length plaid jacket, tallest top hat imaginable. No taller hat tolerated, lest Sapari’s milliner suffer replacement by tavern sign. Top hats symbolise his dominion, as does the gramophone bearing Demize’s head, spinning to his screeching violin concerto.
Yet beneath theatrics lies terror of the undefined. The Electi’s Immolesses challenge this, their mediumship and defiance piercing his constructed reality. Lucia hears muffled thoughts amid clock-clangs and inmate shrieks, glimpses six Nicolases toasting her with dripping blood. He counters with cacophony, pulsating mirrors, electrified corridors, ensuring chaos drowns clarity. Even mercy is scripted: he drags her to the chapel, mocks her futile ritual over Elena’s empty sarcophagus, pins her with invisible weight as Webster bangs on glass.
Nicolas defines to endure. Primus’s fracture birthed Vero and Evro, but Nicolas multiplies selves, each interaction a stake claiming territory against oblivion. Asylum inmates, tributes, Immolesses, all must conform or shatter. In Morrigan Deep’s perpetual dusk, where Primus lowered suns and Lilith’s cults fester, Nicolas’s need carves order from flux, every scream a note in his ledger, every submission a victory over the void.
Immortalis Book One August 2026