Quote: “Fear you? Why? Because you’re some dark terrible thing? You don’t know what fear is. Here, let me show you…”

Background:
These are memories that Jack is just now starting to regain. They will continue to evolve and grow as he regains his memory (pending my ideas and storyteller approval)

Jack was once a man like anyone else that much is clear. The last thing he “remembers” is going out to the well at the spring on the hill for water. No. It wasn’t water that he thirsted for. It was knowledge.

This section is not yet known to Jack himself and has only been tentatively approved by Dave and is in a state of flux
In truth Jack was once a man like any other. Ever charming it was said by some of his peers he could charm a miser from his last dollar or a nun out of her habit. Life was a game to be played, people were pawns to be move if you had the will and skill to move them. What’s in it for me was the question of the day. It didn’t matter what tomorrow held so long as his plans were good enough he would get what he wanted.

Jill

In his teenage years Jack may have done just that but once he met Jill everything changed. The two met as they attended college together and hit it off nearly immediately. As often a deep and abiding love changes a person and so it changed Jack.
Jack continued to be persuasive after meeting Jill but the beneficiaries changed. Where before he had thought only of his benefit with her help he started to see a wider world, a world that needed help, help that he could convince others to provide. Jill was headstrong and quick to action, Jack was no less stubborn but more thoughtful in his actions taking time to plan and focus. Just one look and she would catch on to his plan. One glance and he knew just where she needed him to be. It was uncanny how much they knew from just looking into the other’s eyes. The two complemented each other like a matching set of gloves. As so often happens Jack had no idea just how wide his world would become.
As the weeks turned into months together Jill began to open up to Jack trusting him more and more until she shared her deepest secret. Jill was a mage. Still fairly young in her power but it was growing with each passing day. At first Jack thought she was setting him up for some grand joke. Jill tried various ways of explaining her connection with the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn warning Jack she could find herself in deepest trouble if it was ever found that she had shared these secrets with him.

Seeing is believing
Try as he might Jack still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea. His girlfriend the woman who had showed him so much was something more than she had let on? “Can you show me?” he asked her eventually after thinking on the issue for some time. At first Jill was adamant in her refusal such things were not for the eyes of mortals. But Jack was as persistent as he was persuasive. “I know you’ll protect me.” he said infusing his words with the confidence and trust he felt towards Jill. “Just a peek and then I’ll know.” Finally Jill relented, she had traveled the roads of Arcadia before without a problem, surely her luck would hold for a brief trip.

So the two of them set off with Jill guiding them into the abode of the gentry. For the first few moments Jack kept a firm hold of Jill’s hand partaking in the same protections she enjoyed. This world alien and wonderful was almost beyond Jacks ability to endure. Then in a moment of curiosity he released Jill’s hand to try and touch a luminous orb that had appeared before him. At first it offered a slight tingle cold and hot at once like the air before the coming of a powerful storm. When he looked back Jill was gone and the orb had begun to change.

Jack Fell Down and Broke His Crown
Jack has no idea how long he spent in Arcadia. His keeper was a luminous beautiful being both wonderful and terrible. To her Jack was either a prize snatched away from a trespasser or a tribute brought by one who wished the use of her domain. Sometimes she prized Jack’s intellect and verbal skill encouraging him and engaging him in long discussions almost seeming to value his words. Other times particularly when the discussion turned to his previous life, or even more dangerously to Jill or his freedom she would punish him brutally inflicting physical and emotional punishment best left undiscussed. Some might have lost hope when faced with such a captivity but Jack had something many of the Lost do not. Every so often he would catch a whisper of Jill’s voice calling for him in the distance. Sometimes it seemed so very far away, other times quite close. Even though his early experiences with his Keeper told him not to call out in return it gave him hope that someday he would be found, someday he could return home to her. With that hope in mind Jack began to plan his escape.

Jack be nimble Jack be quick
Eventually Jack’s keeper wanted to show off her toy. Jack had been esspecially obedient to her whims of late. Finally he had accepted her as his rightful keeper. Slowly she began to send him unescorted to others of her kind allowing them to use him as they saw fit. Always Jack strove to please, to find out exactly what that Fae wanted the perfect servant. All the while Jack watched these fantastic and wondrous entities learning what he could of their secrets, their powers, and their ways, knowledge he would someday turn against them. Yet each time Jack returned to his mistress promptly keeping her appraised of the doings of her fellows and warning her of the desire and envy in their eyes.

Over time the various cohorts of Jack’s Keeper began to request Jack be loaned to them for longer and longer periods. Jealously flared among them giving Jack’s keeper both the increased standing of having such a demanded pet and the fears of having her favorite toy stolen away by another. What if one of the others stole him away. She had to be mindful, watchful, careful. But loyal Jack always returned until one day he didn’t.

Jack knew he didn’t have much time. He took the road away from his keeper as far as it would allow always traveling in the direction he had been told to go so as not to arouse suspicion. Along his way he cut free a smooth sleek staff from one of the many beautiful trees. At first the staff cut into his hand the wood biting his flesh as it was taken from its parent tree. Eventually though the stick accepted his touch molding to his hand. As he traveled his eyes scanned from some gap or thin spot in the horrible foreboding wall of thorns he had traveled by so many times before. At first he was successful in avoiding most of the thorns his staff moving like an extension of himself to ward off the worst of the blows. But as he progressed deeper into this maze of horrible spines, spikes, and thorns avoiding them all became impossible. At first the thorns merely scratched at him, occasionally drawing a small welt of blood from his perfect skin. Why was he doing this? Why not go back to the bliss with his keeper? some part of his brain asked. As if by answer he murmured a nursery rhyme brought forth from the recesses of his mind. “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.”.

This became his mantra as he pushed his way through the searing pain of the thorns. He had felt worse at his keepers hands but always his instructions had been accompanied by unbearable pleasure to counterbalance the dreadful pain. Now that pleasure was gone and only pain remained. As the pain intensified his words began to falter and break until he was grasping for them. “Jack and Jill…” he murmured over and over again holding to this core reason that he would endure such pains. Distantly he could hear sounds, horrible noises, grunting and squealing, terrifying sounds, yet he felt drawn to them for those same reasons, they were nothing like the melodious tones of Arcadia. Finally the thorns gave way and he collapsed in a muddy fetid mound piled next to a pen that smelled equally ghastly. “My my” came a harsh voice sounding like nails scraping down a chalk board “what have we here?” In weariness and terror jack’s world grew dark and he knew no more.

Vinegar and Brown Paper
When he came to Jack found himself in a bed of starkly white linens in a room that smelled strongly of herbs. His wounds had been bandaged and though his clothes were gone a robe rested on the hook within his reach. Numbly he fumbled for it nearly falling from his bed, finally though he put it on and tied it squarely about his waist. “Hello?” he called finding his voice strong and vibrant. “In here dearie” came that same harsh voice from before. Having little to do but follow it. Finally jack found the source a bent old woman her body bent and withered working over the stitching of a brilliant suit of purest white. “So you’re up and about Jack?” she asked her eyes deep and knowing. “Good, good, you’ll find your Jill yet I think.” The crone finally looked up from her work considering the man before her. “Yes, in time, though there’s much to do before then, and much that must be done to win at the game.”

“Jill…” he paused a moment his mind swirling at first there was only the memory of the pain of the thorns. Yet he snatched at it, there was more from his durance, he grasped at the memories but they drifted away like smoke on the wind, the pain was still too fresh and he could not recall anything to do with that name before it vanished away. “I don’t know who that is!” he replied bitterly sudden fear flaring. What if this woman was some kind of trick by his keeper? “I don’t even know who you are!” The anger quickly burned itself out but fear remained in his mind like a wild clawing thing. “Who are you?” he asked terrified of the answer yet seeking it all the same. This couldn’t be his keeper, she would never take such a hideous form or allow her beauty to be dimmed so. But if not his keeper than who was the crone?

The crone cackled merrily half mirth and half menace “Watch your tongue pretty boy before you lose it. You may call me Dame Dob though I dare say it took more the vinegar and brown paper to patch you up.” She looked back to her work putting the last stitch into the suit. “There, now try it on. Behind that screen there.” she said gesturing to the suit and then to a screen. “It should fit you nicely for the days to come. Go on, go on, then we’ll see to that stick of yours. Don’t doddle!” There was a tone of command in the woman’s voice that Jack dare not disobey.

Quickly he ducked behind the screen and put on the alabaster garment, along with shoes, and underclothes, all of which fit perfectly having been made just for his form. He had expected some rough spun clothes yet this felt light as a cloud of the finest silk. It felt odd to be in such clothes again and yet invigorating like something he had lost had been given back to him. “It fits perfectly. All of it.” he said as he stepped from behind the screen. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how I can repay you.” Fear twinged again at the mention of repayment. Nothing was ever free.

“Oh that looks just darling.” Dame Dob cackled gleefully. “I just KNEW they’d all fit you right. I give them to you ask a gift.” she offered no reply at Jack’s mention of payment but instead lifted the staff Jack had returned from Arcadia with. “A useful little tool.” she said finally. “But it isn’t yet yours. You must bind it to yourself, complete the bargain to make it part of you, it is the only way.” Her words were cryptic but she offered no further information nor did Jack ask.

“H..how can I do that? I don’t have anything to give.” What could he give? His memories were jumbled, even the clothes he now wore were a gift. “What can I give?” the words hung in the air as his eyes shifted around the room. From the crone’s work area where the suit had once hung there was only one scrap of material left. An eye patch. “My eye.” he said in a whisper his bright eyes looking around the room searching for something, something to give other than his eys. He hadn’t planned for this. He hadn’t thought of this. “The staff..” he said his throat suddenly dry his own voice croaking almost like Dame Dob’s. “If I complete the bargain it will serve me?”

“Yes.” Dame Dob promised her own voice seeming sweeter in the face of Jack’s croaking. “It will serve you down whatever road you choose to travel. But I warn you, your sacrifice will hurt. I can not spare you from that.” there was something new in her voice, something Jack had not heard in a long time. Pity.

“Do it.” He said in a gasp his heart thundering in his chest. He had been through so much, what was more pain now?

Dame Dob moved quickly, quicker than Jack had thought possible from such a withered frame. One moment she was at rest and then in a blink she stood by his side a vial filled with some clear liquid ready at hand. In the next moment there was nothing but pain. His left eye-socket exploded with agony that made the thorns seem a pleasant diversion. Yet no blood spilled to the floor the wound simply cauterized itself, where his eye had been a vacuous hole remained. Quickly jack closed his eye the lid sinking into the void left by the absence. The snatched eye he could see floating in the Dame’s vial still looking about.

“The bargain is struck!” Dob crowed thought there was little joy in her voice. “Put this on dearie” he said handing Jack the eye patch before bending over his staff and setting to work. The wyrd around his staff pulsed and bent with the crone’s efforts. Turning away from this mysterious work for a moment Jack tended to himself.

The patch fell into place perfectly stealing away the throbbing pain from the ravaged socket. Slowly Jack tried to move, to adjust to the world suddenly thrown into a sort of half darkness. Again fear gripped him. Was this some punishment sent from his keeper to remind him of the price of transgressions? Again he concluded it couldn’t be, this marred his form. That thought gave him some satisfaction, he had taken away her favorite toy and now she would never claim it in mint condition.

“Here Dearie.” Dame Dob called holding out the staff that he had borne from Arcadia. “It will serve you now, as it was once part of the tree it is now part of you. As you grow so will its ability to help you.” The crone picked up a set of car keys of all things. “Take these and be off Jack, you’ve stayed here long enough for now, I cannot risk any more attention.” Jack tried to speak but the Dame held up her hand forestalling any interruption. " Take the path away from my house, at the end you will find a car waiting. Inside is a map. Follow it till you reach Miami. Oh, and if you see Tom Hood, tell him the crone expects great things of you. Tell him I honor our bargain and keep my word. Do not speak of me to any but Hood. He will know how to help you find your Jill. But we will meet again handsome Jack, of that you can be sure. Now go." The Crone’s tone was warm but firm. He had been dismissed.

With his dismissal Jack took up his staff again. It felt welcome and familiar in his hands, a prop for his unsteady balance and a guide down unfamiliar paths. “Thank you.” he said honestly to his benefactor. “Thank you for everything. I’ll look for Tom Hood. I’ll tell him you sent me. Thank you.” his gratitude continued until the door shut. With that he was off down the path, towards the car Dame Dob had promised and the city of Miami beyond.

Description: Jack is an attractive, well-groomed Caucasian man in his late twenties or early thirties. Jack likes to dress nicely (but not ostentatiously), typically in white, cream, or off-white suits of linen or cotton. His main distinguishing feature is the white eyepatch, which covers the socket where his left eye used to be. Behind the Mask, one can frequently see a bright, pure-white glow shining from the cracks between the patch and Jack’s skin, almost as if the light were struggling for release.

Jack is almost never seen without his strangely-carved staff, though to mortal eyes it appears to be a simple cane or walking stick. Some people report that the staff’s presence gives them the willies, and many swear that the old man’s expression changes from time to time.

Storytelling Hints: Jack is exceedingly clever, and prefers to talk his way out of or around a fight if he can help it. However, the cost of always knowing the most devastating thing to say is that Jack often says just that, forcing him to bite his tongue or backpedal furiously when he says just the right thing to just the wrong person.

The murder of Preston Goldstein by the apostolic knights has taken a dangerous toll on Jack’s psyche. One act of mercy sparing Quit Luke resulted in the death of a man who should have been a non-combatant, with vengeance in his heart Jack vows never to show such weakness again. Blood calls for blood and Jack has no reason not to answer that call. With the loss of his would be mentor and no memories of his life before his durance Jack’s hold on reality grows more tenuous.

While Jack would never live like his associate Jim the Wildman, there’s something about the man that he finds compelling, and it’s not just his strength and combat skills. Jack respects that Jim is very intelligent in his own field, if not as book-smart or educated as Jack.