ECCE ÑÄSKYA TAWAR-NIM

kHatrækerccī Uktūrī//kãššäknā mēma ya… postak’ēskhnā hænsushkā grendelī, wēbnäknā wäknā.

puhlāllan?

ENGLISH

GREETINGS AUTHOR

Biblioteko Æterna //tutorial for Grendel, Book of Time, called The Sword

LEVEL 1 INFORMATION NOW AVAILABLE

Species: Daemon

Aliases: Clio, Li Tieguai, Xolotl, Höðr

Height: 178 cm Weight: N/A

Appearance: As with all daemons, Grendel’s appearance can vary. He cares less for aesthetics than some of the others, and his base form is usually skinny, scruffy and angular. Grendel’s skin is the colour of ancient bronze and his hair is the deepest black- but lit by the flicker of distant stars. Since he lost the use of his eyes, he tends to wear a blindfold, or dark glasses if he’s attempting to pass as human. As with the others, Grendel has little preference with regards to gender. Unlike the others, Grendel most notably carries a cane. While he doesn’t need it to navigate, he uses it to focus his abilities, as the others do with their bracelets.

Strengths: Grendel is, without question, the most magically powerful of the daemons. His primary ability, FULL STOP, moves whomever he chooses outside of the normal flow of time allowing for what seems to be instantaneous action. BLINK is a lower-grade, personal-only version. His arsenal of swords- like Caim’s guns – carry a wide range of effects and can cut through virtually anything. Unlike Caim or the others, his weapons can deal very real and lasting damage to humans. Durandal can be utilized as BINDING BLADE, pinning an opponent without killing them. Of all the daemons, Grendel is the most pragmatic.

Weaknesses: Physically, Grendel is among the most fragile of them all. While this means he’s still several times stronger and more durable than a human, a hit that Amon would shrug off could deal him serious, if not fatal injuries. His time-shifting abilities make him difficult to hit, luckily, but he is cautious in combat when at all possible. His cynical nature frequently makes him difficult to interact with.

Personality: Sardonic, bitter and prone to making mysterious proclamations. Nearly all of the daemons (and as rumour would have it, several of the Authors) are slightly terrified of Grendel thanks to his careful management of his “brand” as he calls it. In reality, while he loves teasing the others, as the oldest, he is utterly devoted to trying to keep them safe. Occasionally from themselves.

Coded by: Author Remesh Yoshi, The Lord of Void, Sage of the first element. Grendel shares his author’s utter disregard for the laws of physics and a nearly pathological need to have his nose in everyone’s business while pretending to not care.

Combat skills: While Grendel’s human form is blind, his ability to “read” the history of an area and see ripples in time more than replace that sense in battle. He is a master swordsman in a hundred different styles, and his ability to move himself in and out of time- either in FULL STOP, or BLINK, make him a vicious, unpredictable opponent. Grendel has very little qualms about fighting dirty or using whatever he can to achieve victory, sometimes to the discomfort of his companions.

Grendel’s ultimate strike bears the call DIMENSIONAL BREAK [description locked]

Non-combat skills: The majority of Grendel’s powers are non-combat related. PROVENANCE and MEMORY allow him to view the history of object, people or places and create visualisations of a target’s deepest memories. REWIND allows him to skip his consciousness back in time in short bursts. While he can’t change events through this, it allows him to review situations to better deal with them in the future. DECAY allows him to speed up the breakdown of matter.

Passive: All daemons are capable of what they call “background updating” – able to sense and adjust their stored data based on ambient information. Updating gives them the appearance of shimmering as data moves about. They can also actively update when in a new environment.

Notes: If Caim is the soul of the daemons and Amon is the heart, Grendel can best be considered the sarcastic drunk uncle. He enjoys mainlining social media like a drug, trolling both his companions and those around them, and maintaining a wise yet vaguely menacing presence.

The only ones unfazed by Grendel’s demeanour are the Twins, whom he has a particular soft spot for.

There is a method to his madness, however. As the guardian of time, Grendel struggles with the enormity of what he perceives. The vastness of history, the constant chatter of possible futures (Grendel does not see the future, as every moment, new possibilities are born and die, he simply sees the ebb and flow of probable courses, and the number of potentially horrible things in many weighs on him). By playing the sardonic fool, Grendel grounds himself.

He is not prone to giving inspiration, and has in fact, been known to punch historians and physicists alike in the face with little explanation beyond “do better”. He has, however, deep and palpable contempt for humans willfully blind to history, and especially revisionists seeking to edit knowledge of the past to further their own agendas.