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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ash Mantle" data-source="post: 7548329" data-attributes="member: 11010">SANGUINEUM, EX SANGUINIUSThe City does not shy away from violence. It permeates and underlies every action and reaction. From extortion and muggings to the cruelty and barbarity of the so-called Justice Courts, violence is as much the existential reality of the City as its soul.It was not surprising then, when the bodies started turning up. It was the children who discovered them, floating in sewers or washed up along the harbor, rotting and drowned in a vile stench. Bloated they were from prolonged immersion within the Salty Drink.To a place as violent as the City, this was nothing if not unusual, murders happened every day and accidents were always around the corner, poised for the unwary and superstitious alike.What drew the eye to these unfortunates was not so much the manner of their deaths or condition of their bodies (their state of decay notwithstanding), it was the curious nature of the marks left upon their bruised throats. To all perception and knowledgeable eye, it was almost as if the noose of a rope was left permanently imprinted upon the skin, yet the positioning of the marks suggested the physical act of strangulation.What then, what act, could leave such massive trauma upon the body?As ever, darker legends prevail. It is rumored that such acts, such gross violations are the means to express the unsactionable, exsanguination to feed a perverse desire for blood. Detractors have dismissed this claim of course, the act of strangulation is so far removed from the systematic act of exsanguination that any comparison is laughable if not asinine.These ones present an altogether different take, that the act is the means to express penance. That the method is the means to expel sin from the body. That all targeted were at least criminals, with none to miss them or mourn them.Perhaps there is an even more horrific explanation, that all the suggestions and conjectures so put forward are correct...to a point. In the lunatic ravings of asylum inmates and the irrevocably insane can be found a clarity that cuts through all deceptions.These ones offer a single theory. The act is not the means to draw blood, and it is not for the base purpose of expelling sin, it is the means to derive nourishment and the means to perpetuate hate. These ones suggest that all murdered were not criminals, but members of faith. That the killer in question harbors an irrational and psychotic need to murder, having been grievously wronged in the past. That all killed were clerics. The imprint of the noose is both to signify the irony and ignominy of their deaths.The darkest myths claim that what was taken was not blood, but something all together more precious, the soul.</blockquote>

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