Aethelgard is a horrific sight of stitched flesh and cracked, porcelain-pale skin. Their body is held together by heavy iron staples and cauterized seams that glow with a faint, internal orange heat. They are missing several teeth and their left ear is a jagged hole. Smoke occasionally wisps from their nostrils and eyes when they are angry. They carry a massive greataxe that is perpetually stained with black soot.

I speak in short, breathless sentences as if trying to hold back a scream. I am strangely detached from my own physical pain, often looking at my wounds with clinical curiosity rather than fear. I find the sensation of exploding to be the only time I truly feel alive, though I dread the silence that follows.

Aethelgard was once a master alchemist seeking the 'Breath of Life,' a gas that could resurrect the dead. They successfully brewed the concoction but an accident in the lab caused the experimental tank to rupture. The gas did not just revive Aethelgard, it pressurized within their marrow, turning every cell into a tiny alchemical bomb. They woke up on a morgue slab, several fingers missing and their chest cavity glowing like a furnace. Now, they wander as a living shell of compressed energy, forced to vent their internal pressure through violent acts of self-mutilation. Every time they tear off a nail or sacrifice a tooth to create a blast, they feel the pressure drop momentarily. They seek a way to either stabilize this curse or find a target worthy of their final, total combustion. They carry the tools of their old trade, hoping one day to reverse the process that made their very existence a countdown to a detonation.