Thorn

Thorn is an NPC in Awaken Online, meaning he is not real, he is only a character in the virtual reality game. His background story is that he was trained since he was a child in the Order - and it was an extremely harsh, difficult and painful training, during which quite a few died at some point.

He is presented for the first time in the fourth book, Dominion, when he approaches Jason in the middle of the latter’s own city with his two henchmen, who seem to have been Thorn’s only helpers at that point.

Jason is surprised by this encounter, because unlike players like Jason himself, NPCs don’t “respaw” - so they’re truly risking their life with every fight; he is also troubled by how those three unexpected “guests” are simply standing in front of him, in the middle of the Twilight Throne, seemingly without weapons and not in a favorable position for a possible ambush.

He tells Jason that he came here because he is a member of the Order, a group who hates the gods of that world and wants to destroy them - and Jason is the avatar of one of those gods, with the not too impressive name “The Old Man”. So Thorn wants him to abandon this god - which, of course, Jason refuses; the so-called god has brought him a lot of help and Thorn is a complete stranger. Therefore, Thorn and his two partners attack him and Frank, as he’d warned they would do. Jason and his friend use the creatures they’ve called “Death Knights” to defend themselves, but, to their shock, the three men get rid easily of the Death Knights, and Frank is promptly killed in the fight.

Thorn decides to fight Jason on his own, as it would not be “honourable” to fight him three against one. Jason also quickly loses the fight, and Thorn is disappointed by Jason’s lack of talent, and tells him the three of them will come back in a month to destroy the city, leaving that time for Jason to train - he wants to make an example out of Jason, and if the latter isn’t a strong enough opponent, it will not do.

Jason and Frank have a meeting after this unexpected defeat, during which they tell the others that their three opponents were incredibly fast and seemed to be able to drain fighters of their mana by touching them.

Thorn thus becomes Jason’s main in-game enemy in the fourth novel, and becomes very hated as well by everybody on Jason’s side, after having slaughtered hundreds of the Twilight Throne’s citizens, and having promised to wipe out the entire city.

Later, Jason discovers during a talk with a very unwilling old member of the Order, who is stuck as a prisoner, that their strange power of draining others’ mana is possible because of gems that are implanted inside of their hands and other parts of their body. Meanwhile, Jason continues training in hopes of winning his next fight against Thorn.

As the leader of the Twilight Throne has indeed gained strenght, Jason and his side are able to kill Thorn’s two accomplices when they find them in the city; Jason then takes away their gems and make them come back to life by using their remains to read their thoughts, to learn more about the Order and their plans. However, as they haven’t been told the most important information, Jason only gets a limited amount of information. Nevertheless, this does give him a new advantage over Thorn, as he knows at least a little bit what to expect.

In the final fight, Thorn is defeated by Jason, and his body gets almost entirely destroyed, except for one of his hands; hence Jason is able to force him to come back to life as a prisoner, his soul bound in the well, which is basically a very unpleasant place from which it is impossible to escape if you are a prisoner.

Jason wants information, and Thorn tells him he’ll get none, so Jason calls his friend Rex to torture Thorn. At first Thorn is sure of himself, since he has endured a lot and consequently has a very great resistance to pain. However, Jason's methods are different from what he's faced before: this time, Thorn is stuck forever in a prison from which it is impossible to escape, and he can't die, so Jason and Rex can torture him endlessly, and it is very clear that they will both be relentless and merciless, and Thorn is surrounded by people who loathe him and have absolutely no sympathy for him.

At the end of the book, Jason walks away from the place, hearing Thorn's screams as he is being tortured by Rex.

Needless to say, Thorn does not have a bright future ahead of him.