Nicolas DeSilva, that peculiar son of Primus and Boaca Baer, views the world as his personal stage, every interaction a scripted farce, every victim a reluctant performer in his endless carnival of cruelty. From the moment he tore a child from his mother’s arms and dumped him into Irkalla’s demonic classrooms, Nicolas has orchestrated chaos with the flair of a deranged impresario, demanding applause from an audience too terrified to boo.
Consider Corax Asylum itself, that festering monument to his whims. No mere prison or hospital, it is a theatre of the grotesque, every corridor a proscenium arch framing his petty sadisms. The banqueting hall stands empty save for his solitary feasts, the library hoards his unshared scribblings, the chapel awaits conversion into yet another venue for his ‘magnificent works of art’. He rounds up inmates for meaningless speeches in the meeting hall, not to inform but to bask in their captive attention. Mirrors line the walls, clocks clang discordantly, ensuring no soul escapes his perpetual surveillance. Even the washrooms spew sewage in open mockery of hygiene, a deliberate affront to dignity.
This compulsion to perform permeates every act. He lets Lucia, the second Immoless, escape her cell only to orchestrate her recapture as ‘run rabbit’, complete with taunting echoes and pulsating mirrors. The hall of mirrors warps reality into a labyrinth of her own distorted screams, reflections of flayed inmates leering from the glass. Bored of waiting, he summons Chives to convert the chapel into a theatre, indifferent to the irony of desecrating a house of prayer for his profane entertainments. His letter to Behmor, lamenting floating chairs and escaped patients, drips with exaggeration, a missive penned for dramatic effect rather than solution.
Fashion becomes costume, every suit a declaration. He discards garish orange silk for black with burgundy accents and a thigh-length plaid jacket, crowning it with the tallest top hat in The Deep, a hat so exorbitant that challengers lose their heads. No milliner dares rival him; the last who did found his head on a tavern sign, his daughter vanished. Horology masters his pocket watches, yet he fiddles endlessly, complaining of levitating chairs that spin when sat upon. His gramophone spins a rotting head, Demize the First, preserved by magic for companionship, cackling commentary on his fool’s attire.
Even intimacy twists into theatre. He spies on Allyra boiling vampires, morphs into raven form to watch unseen, then manifests with brandy and a toast to his ‘victory’. Their first union on the carnival teacups, her atop him, ends in frustrated denial as he withdraws before her completion, sneering that it is a shame she will end broken. Yet he gifts her Ghorab the raven, a messenger that doubles as tracker, ensuring her every move feeds his script.
Why this ceaseless performance? Nicolas craves control through spectacle, for in the gaze of others, even terrified inmates or spectral heads, he affirms his dominion. Alone, he is the fractured son ripped from maternal arms, educated in hell’s ledgers, forever compensating for that primal loss. The asylum’s filth mirrors his inner rot, its tortures externalise his appetites, its mirrors reflect his multiplicity. Every hat shipment sparking plague, every escaped Immoless recaptured in farce, every tribute flayed or boiled proclaims: Nicolas directs, and all must play their parts, or perish off-script.
Immortalis Book One August 2026