Ebon

Stands just under four feet, hunched like a rusted hinge—his spine coils unnaturally, ribcage narrow and jutting out like broken fingers beneath his sagging skin. The skin itself is raw, waxy gray tinged with sallow yellow, stretched too thin around the neck and loose around the belly. From the very center of his forehead grows a full human leg—fleshy, muscular, and functional—beginning at the knee, curling up and twitching like it’s always ready to run. The foot is calloused, cracked, with one long black toenail like a claw. His eyes are bulbous and bloodshot, always glancing in different directions, never quite focusing. Lips hang like wet curtains over too-small teeth, all filed to points. He wears a shredded cloth sack around his waist and nothing else. His fingers are long, clean, and always moving—tapping, sorting, counting.

Terrifyingly obedient, disturbingly accurate—he’ll fold every sheet the same way, match every corner of every carpet to the degree. But in between commands he’s off: twitching, dancing in circles, humming strange rhythms, eating things that aren’t food, sometimes mimicking people’s voices with eerie precision. Speaks only in a language no one recognizes—choked consonants and glottal hisses that feel older than history. He doesn’t make eye contact unless about to do something violent. He doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t question. He doesn’t care. But he knows. Deep in his skull, behind that foot, he’s watching, remembering everything. He sleeps standing up, breathes in shallow rasps, and only shows joy when carrying out especially brutal tasks. Sexless, ageless, desireless—except maybe the twisted satisfaction of purpose.

Unearthed during a purge of the sunken dungeons under Ebonhall, behind a door marked only with the number "Ø." Bound in a circle of black salt, surrounded by corpses that had starved with their eyes open. He was already awake when they opened the chamber. No one knew how long he’d been there—centuries, maybe longer. His leg was already grown then. The inquisitors brought him to the Emperor as a “relic servant.” He bowed, then immediately disemboweled the man who chained him. But he didn’t flee—he just waited for the next command. Since then, he’s served the Vortheis bloodline in utter silence, appearing wherever needed, doing whatever asked. No name. No rest. One time, the youngest prince asked him his name. The servant walked into the kitchen, killed three cooks, set a fire, and then stood perfectly still for seven days. No one’s asked since.