Piers Devereux

He comes from money (clearly, look at that name). His parents wanted him to get the best education possible, so after seeing their son's grasp of his arcane abilities and hearing rumors of the school's impressive (if somewhat...odd) studies, he was sent to Byrgenwerth College. There he befriended Micolash (whom he found intelligent but insufferable), and the two became study partners. He hated Byrgenwerth's atmosphere, but wasn't about to make a scene himself, so he found the friendship...mutually beneficial. Piers became known as the straight man mastermind for Micolash's antics, and the two together were a dangerous combination of intelligence and charm. When Micolash began recruiting other students for his cult, Piers was behind him like a shadow. When the school of Mensis was founded properly, he was one of its head advisors. As it turns out, he didn't dislike the atmosphere of Byrgenwerth as much as he did the feeling of being controlled. Nevertheless, he's very much got the energy of "all the world is my game these people are pawns in it" (says the man being played like a bass clarinet)--he's not totally aware of exactly How Far he is in the Mensis mindset; he acts and tells himself that he's just here to help his friend, but sir YOU died in the Mensis ritual with everyone else. He lies to himself about how much he believes in the cult's beliefs, he lies to himself about his deep curiosity for the eldritch truth--calling it instead a "desire for intellectual stimulation"--he lies to himself that one of the reasons he stayed as long as he did is because he deeply needs to feel wanted, needed; liked, and he got that in Mensis.....he lies to himself like it's an Olympic sport. He has to, to keep himself sane. He didn't even fully understand Micolash's delusions of grandeur, or his talk of the cosmos (though it rubbed off on him and he memorized the words, he didn't quite know what he was saying), he did have a very simply human hunger for power, and this allowed him that. He got Much more than he bargained for.

He has a mini boss fight in the Nightmare in which he summons enemies for you to fight from a distance, and if you get too close he has a similar stunning AoE attack to the brainsuckers, and drops a neat item which I have not designed yet whoops. However, if you talk to him before attacking, he gives you a quest to go kill Edgar for him, since he can't be bothered. If you do this for him, he will give you the item instead. He smells like dark academia and dry rot, and the spots on his shoulders below the cage have actually abraded away in a rotted sort of way. His handwriting is thin and very neat (he was tutored in penmanship, and he cares about appearances quite a bit), with lowercase L's that dip into the line below the one he's writing in. Someday his smug demeanor will snap like plywood in a tsunami...perhaps it does when you kill him in his boss fight....

I like to imagine before he died during the ritual with Mergo, watching his classmates die around him, that he Realized

These are his Friends.

Oh god.

Oh god, what have they done-

And then he's dead and in the Nightmare and goes haha! I'm not gonna think about that! :)

He was brought into the Nightmare by Micolash to be the Host for the rotting, parasitic dream, but he's always been clever at staying in the shadows and wasn't interesting enough, so Micolash was latched onto instead.

intro quest line: "Can't you see I'm reading, Mi--Oh, you're a Hunter. And a clever looking one, too... How odd. Not like the fools out in the valley. This will be interesting... "

intro fight line: "So it's a fight you want... Pity, you almost impressed me."

when he kills the Hunter: "dismissive gesture Maybe next time you'll think twice about interrupting my reading."

at half health, when his attack pattern changes: "Let's be reasonable about this. You want to make it out of here alive; so do I." -- the Hunter is given the option to stop the fight here, and if they choose yes, Piers asks for a blood vial "in good faith" before continuing the conversation on good terms. The option to give a blood vial is offered twice, if refused the first time he brings up that the Hunter did, in fact, attack him first, and it's not an unreasonable request.

when he's killed by the Hunter: "No, no--They're all gone now; I can't wake up--"

when the Hunter comes back to him after killing Micolash: "Oh, you came back? You have good timing, I was just-...Hunter, whose blood is that..." and you are given the option to either tell him or lie.

if the Hunter returns wearing Micolash's cage, he only says "oh no" and begins running to the palace--no further dialogue can be gathered.

when the Hunter reenters the palace after Micolash's death, preceded by laughter: "Look who it is! ....come back for another crown, have you?"

when he's killed by the Hunter after Micolash is killed and he's become the Nightmare's Host: "Silence....blessed silence...."