The Skin

*"This artifact will protect your soul."*

*- William Everlast.*

The skin is a mysterious mask made from leather, with holes in its shape to create a face resembling an exaggerated smile, with two huge eye sockets. It is made from a rough leathery almost skin like material, and seems to be innately cold, rejecting heat. The mask has made appearances only a select few times throughout 'March Onward', first seen by Val Everlast in life through his final interaction with William Everlast, and seen again on Dr. Marrow, and finally seen once more on the Faceless Mother in 'Witnesses'.

## Dr. William Everlast

The skin is an artifact which was originally created by Dr. William Everlast as a way to handle the energies of Ebony in a safer manner which protected the soul from being obstructed or destroyed by the effects of said Ebony. The mask itself went through the process of experimental testing for a long time, with the original prototypes for the mask being made of a material more resembling porcelain.

Though effective at reducing the effectiveness of soul manipulation at the hands of the likes of Ebony, the original prototypes proved ineffective at negating long term effects.. After Dr. Everlast's experience in Origin however, he created a second model, named fittingly, 'The Skin'. This was made from the skin of Prisoner, who's souls have a natural resistance to these corruptive forces.

The vestiges of Prisoner soul in the mask creates a barrier which the effects of soul manipulation is unable to cross effectively, which when worn makes the wearer effectively immune to the effects of Ebony. This mask not only cut the mortality rate of Dr. Everlast's expeditions and experiments in half, it skyrocketed his progress in the development of Daemonic technology, which remained consistent until he became Prisoner and subsequently, was Shattered.

## The Other Masks

Of course, this was not the only model created, the prototypes still remain, never destroyed, and still hold a fairly potent resistance to the manipulation of soul, however, they also serve the purpose of preserving soul, lowering the likeliness of madness. The first model had no face, only two sockets for the eyes to peer from, it held only a rudimentary level of preservation, maintaining few of the traits left behind after corruption of the soul. The second, third and fourth models however, saw the inclusion of emotion within the carvings of the mask, and a denser amount of vestige in order to increase the potency of the mask's anti-soul manipulating ability.

The final models, were two almost identical masks, the first was smoother, and made from Prisoner skin, and the second was a tad rougher, yet showed no signs of flaw, also made from Prisoner skin. Dr. Everlast used the second model himself, and the first model has been lost somewhere within the remains of the Origin laboratory.

All models were also imbued with a sorcery referred to as Immuno-Shattering, a supernatural hex which amplifies the intensity of the exertion of emotions from the soul, which acted as an additional barrier which would be too intense for a corruption to pass, however came with the side effect of amplifying one potentially dangerous emotion; Hate. The consequences of this side effect was seen in the Shattering of Subject Red.

It should be noted, that even with the progress in developing the mask, no model ever held full immunity to the effects of Ebony, even with the most perfected of the models, it was always possible for drops of corruption to leak through the cracks of its defense.