In the shadowed expanse of the Immortalis estate, where manicured lawns stretch under perpetual twilight, Nicolas selects the croquet grounds with deliberate intent. This is no mere whim of a deranged mind, but a calculated theatre for his cruelties, a place where the genteel facade of Victorian leisure fractures into something profane. The hoops stand sentinel, wire arches glinting like skeletal remains, while mallets lie abandoned, their wooden heads stained with implications far removed from polite games.

Nicolas, that eternal predator cloaked in aristocratic poise, draws victims here because the croquet grounds embody the perfect inversion. Book One lays bare his philosophy: violence must mock the ordinary to achieve its sublime horror. The grounds, with their orderly pegs and measured distances, represent the rigid structures of society he despises, the very norms that once bound even him. To spill blood amid painted wickets is to desecrate the sacred, turning a parlour diversion into a ritual of dominance. Canon confirms this as his recurring motif, the estate’s lawns serving as both lure and altar, where the absurd collision of whimsy and gore amplifies his control.

Consider the mechanics of his choice. The open vista allows no escape, yet the scattered obstacles—hoops, balls, pegs—force improvisation, heightening the victim’s terror through unpredictability. A swing of the mallet that should send a ball rolling instead crushes bone, the thud echoing across the grass like a perversion of summer afternoons. Nicolas revels in this contrast, his sardonic laughter mingling with screams, as detailed in the estate’s grim chronicles. It is not randomness; it is precision. The grounds’ elevation ensures spectators from the manor house witness the spectacle, reinforcing his supremacy over kin and captive alike.

Deeper still, the selection reveals Nicolas’s warped nostalgia. Once a participant in such games, perhaps in his mortal youth, he now repurposes them to exorcise ennui. The canon timelines his transformation, post-ascension, when idle eternities demanded novelty. Croquet, with its rules of turn-taking and restraint, becomes the ironic frame for his unbound sadism. Victims are positioned at starting pegs, commanded to ‘play,’ only for the game to devolve into slaughter. This absurdity underscores Immortalis’s core: immortality strips away humanity’s veneers, exposing the beast beneath in the most banal settings.

Thus, the croquet grounds are no accident. They are Nicolas’s canvas, where violence achieves grotesque poetry through juxtaposition. The blood soaks into turf once trod by ladies in lace, mallets wielded by gloved hands now slick with viscera. In this stage, his absurd atrocities find their sharpest edge.

Immortalis Book One August 2026