Suffering Artist

Gaspar Brent, a successful local artist has been horribly mutilated and now lives mindlessly in a catatonic state. Upon the completion of his last work, a painting of an unusually strange series of lines and angles, Brent was “attacked” by an unseen assailant. Should he ever recover, Gaspar Brent will never paint again - the “mutilator” hacked both of his hands off at the wrist. The hands were nowhere to be found. The painting is missing as well.

Possibilities

1 Gaspar Brent was kept awake for weeks before the completion of his final work. Plagued by nightmares, the only thing that gave him rest was his painting. The nightmares were sent by a Dr. Nathan Hargreaves, a devoted priest of Hastur who needed the painting as a votive focus for an evocation of one of the Unspeakable One’s avatars. He removed the artist’s hands in an elaborate ritual of torture that was used to guarantee that he would never produce another painting like it.

2 Gaspar Brent knew the angles of the painting were unlike any others in the history of art. A morphine addict, Gaspar Brent was given to “dreams” and “visions” on a constant basis. It was from these that the inspiration for his most recent painting came. Unknowingly, Brent worked at the ancient diagram until one evening, in the midst of an inspired state, his hands pushed through the canvas into an extra-dimensional space where he felt a horrible and dreadful gnashing of fangs upon his wrists. When he withdrew them, the Hound of Tindalos that he had evoked, held tight to its prey. Upon seeing the beast, Brent went insane, buckling under the actuality of what he had done. Biting through, the Hound retracted back into the painting, taking the artist’s hands and sanity with it. Before Brent’s maddened eyes, the painting then crumbled to dust.

3 Gaspar Brent is not as well off as he used to be. Having spent his last cent on luxuries beyond his means, he borrowed money from a local mob family and has no means of paying it back. After repeated threats, Gaspar Brent went to the Don to beg for mercy and a means by which he could return the favor. After sending his thugs to demolish Brent’s studio and take anything of value (including the painting), Don Carriagi had Brent beaten within an inch of his life and his hands hacked off at the wrist. After his stumps were bound with filthy wads of gauze and twine, Brent was left on his doorstep, terrorized to the core.

© G Holochwost