the mechanical man...

[thornax]

There he was - as both a criminal and a traitor. Thornax lay in the dirt, hidden under the branches of a short fat tree to protect his burns from the sunlight.

Remembering back to before the fire, before any of this, to the times when he lived in peace. Before he had destroyed and abandoned his town, ravaging all he could before making off with the valuables, he had peace - or the closest he had ever come.
These thoughts often came to Thornax's mind during his days of travelling, but he always brushed them away in search of a better, brighter land. When he had finally found these lands, greatly due to the directions left by his old friend Geod, he was sure this would be where he would spend the rest of his life. He now figured to an extent he may have been right. Now he was nothing.

After arriving in Mechana, a land of great technological advancements, he soon found Geod, sitting at a café in a swanky district of the capital, Medula. After being reunited with Geod, Thornax was told of his friends new esteem in the city. Being an educated, sly, and well trained man, Geod had been promoted quickly to the Mechanan Guard, a highly prized, but rare occupation in a nation with such a large population. Thornax assumed this was only so the ministers of the city wouldn't have to deal with him as a criminal.
Thornax was initially placed in a floor job at the Grand Alchemist factories, capping bottles as they flew off the assembly line. Behind the backs of his supervisors, he often played around with the chemicals, creating new and more powerful potions. He did not often create anything too extraordinary, as to stray from danger, but one day he had brewed what would soon be considered one of the greatest marvels of alchemy in history.
He had created a batch of potion, which reacted anything it came in contact with into gold. After quitting his job and moving quickly into the upper class of Medula, attracting much of the wrong type of attention.
Soon it was discovered that the key to Thornax's rise to grandeur was due to his artificial wealth. He was forcively recruited by the Mechanan Guard, as an Head Alchemist for the purposes of creating an arsenal of potions. For somebody caught illegally producing gold, he believed he had hit the jackpot; instead of going to jail, he was given a respectable and influential job in a thriving nation based around industry.
However, he wanted more. He knew he was next in line to become Minister of Alchemy and Chemistry, if the current minister were to die suddenly.
On the day of a tour of his laboratory by many head officials, including the Minister, Thornax had rigged a bomb to go off - which he would blame on a freak reaction between two chemicals.
All was going as planned, until Geod entered the room, apparently carrying urgent documents for the Minister.
Right by the door, Geod was well within the range of the explosion. As Thornax heard the final tick of the wiring cycle he had set for the bomb, he knew he had murdered his best friend.
As the explosion rang out through the room, a bar from a brewing stand pinned Thornax to the side of the room which he had planned to be safe. Stuck to the ground in the most ironic of ways, he was consumed by the flames he started.

He woke up in a hospital, told he was the only survivor and that he had suffered burns across his whole body. He was given bronze augments with which he would be able to move his body.
He left the hospital as soon as he possibly could, and left Mechana, consumed with guilt.
He knew where he had to travel, back to where he had found peace the first time.

After arriving back to the land he called home, covered by armor, masked and robed, he sat and watched from under a tree as a lone dwarf was busy building a bridge down in the valley.

((IS BACK!))

[Leech]

((Rule 9 applies to everyone