What Manner of Man or Beast?

In the time that had passed since Isaac had been brought to Nevaria by his missionary enterprise, he had come to accept the most singular nature of that place and even come to feel at home with it. He had come to accept the magical folk of the faery and the demon and others for who they are, rather than what they are and had even begun to form relationships with some of these people, however casual they may have been.
Yet destiny had set its gaze upon Isaac from his very first footfall upon the land of Nevaria and steadly, slowly, it drew its plans against him.
Nevaria was a most singular place indeed. His interactions with its denizens who had come from the mortal world had revealed to him the most curious notion that not all of the people had come from the same point in time and space that he had. Indeed, discourse with some people had enlightened him to come very curious notions concerning events that had not yet come to pass and it had take Isaac no small while to come to realise that some of these people had been brought to Nevaria from what one might consider the future. But some things, present, past, future and magical remained the same and the need for money was one such requirement that remained the same.
Such need had forced Isaac, over time, to seek out employment. His skills did not lie with the use of magic, despite his ongoing research into its properties, nor was he a doctor of medicine and since the Hatter took up the monopoly on ninety percent of the technology that were available in Nevaria, Isaac's choices were not abundant.
He came to employment with an establishment by the name of H&D Repair's. The establishment, owned by an enterprising duo by the namesof Abraham Humpty and Matherson Dumpty specialised in the repair and improvement of various goods that folk found did not work with the efficiency that they once had. Skilled with applied science and technology as he was, Isaac was not slow to master the skill of being able to disassemble objects and reassemble them in a fashion as to permit their function at thrice the efficiency than previous.
His research into the practical application of magic in technology were crawling along at a steady but certain rate, but took on a new turn when, one evening, he was visited upon by a Half Demon.
Jathick, a laughing stock of his own kind for the fact he was wingless and flightless, had heard tell in an unspecified social circle that Isaac was something of an authority with the laws of physics and had a working knowledge of flying machines. While the former of the statement held truth, the latter seemed to carry some embellishment with it. Nevertheless, Isaac received the Half Demon and his inconvenience.
Jathick explained that he would commission Isaac to return him to the skies. He stipulated at the outset that he would not accept any form of flying machine, no frame that he would have to strap to his person to achieve flight. Jathick wished to fly and freely and as naturally as his other Half Demon kind.
Isaac, somewhat set aback by this proposal, had never before turned away an intellectual challenge and so accepted Jathick's commission.
Isaac considered the problem and sent out a note that he wished to acquire as many winged creatures as possible. Birds, winged insects of all kinds, Faeries, though none came forth, all manner of winged beast. He even called that he should receive caterpillars and other grubs that would go on to become winged creatures to study how it was such creatures came to grow wings in the cocoon.
To aid him in his latest enterprise, he constructed a great calculating engine from various parts and components acquired from all manner of places, though mostly his place of work with H&D Repair's. He would work in the day, acquiring new parts from cast-off's and then, in the evening, set about constructing his calculating engine come the time that he could set it to work.
Weeks passed and the calculating engine had been set to work on attempting to furnish Isaac with answers to his questions and, in this process, it returned some rather remarkable results.
The machine returned that it was entirely possible that demonic power might be wielded by any creature with intent, not just Demons and Half Demon alike. Though it came with a stark warning that the result was incalculable and dangerous at best unless wielded by a creature born to the skill of wielding such power. The implications of this were unprecedented and dangerous to say the very least. If anybody at all learned that Demonic Power could be wielded without being such a creature, it would not bode well for Nevaria at all, indeed it might very well slide the powers enough to plunge Nevaria into a cataclysmic war. This intelligence would undoubtedly spell evil news for him should The Queen or anybody in authority learn of it. She would seek him out and have his head separated from its shoulders. It would have to remain a total secret from all but himself.
And yet the intelligence that the calculation engine had given him had also provided the solution to Jethrick's problem. It would be his own magic that returned him to flight, though much research would be needed to provide some sort of premise of a spell or incantation to be able to achieve this.
Isaac set about the construction of a new engine, one that he termed the Crisis Engine to hide the nature of its true purpose. The true purpose, as it was, of this engine was to tap into the aether to create demonic magic. In the seclusion of his dwellings after Jethrick had visited him to check of his progress, Isaac would begin his experiments using the Crisis Engine to tap into demonic powers and funnel them at objects.
Indeed the results were as unpredictable and random as the calculating engine had predicted they would. Birds would be turned to stone, stone to boiling flesh and physics would come apart at the seams and turn reality inside out. The experiments were undoubtedly fatal for anything living and extremely dangerous indeed.
Now, of the matter of H&D Repairs. Isaac had been noting that Abraham and Matherson had become increasingly furtive and withdrawn over the passing weeks. He would hear whispered words, and hurried movements from the corner of his eye. He paid it little mind in the hours of work. However one evening his curiosity got the better of him and he set out to learn of what it was that Abraham and Matherson seemed to wish to prevent Isaac from learning. He left work upon the pretense of returning to his place of work but instead circled the area near to his place of work and returned to the tradesman's entrance at the rear.
From the shadows across the street he bore witness to the arrival of several workmen in plain navy jumpsuits. They carried with them a large wooden crate, sealed. They hurriedly bungled the crate into the establishment where Isaac worked made furtive and hurried discourse with Abraham and Matherson and then took their leave at the hurry up.
Most curious was Isaac that once the men had gone and the proprietors had repaired inside, he set forth into the tradesman's yard and used his key to quitely, stealthily sneak within.
Matherson and Abraham had repaird to a room on the eighth story, tall as the building was. Many of the rooms spanning the eight stories were of no use and contained only dust and webs. Quietly and slowly he crept the staircase, on the lookout for a creaking step that would report his presence to the enterprising partners upstairs.
Upon reaching the eighth floor he paused at the only door along the hallway he was presented with. From within the room beyond he could hear the voices of Matherson and Abraham, engrossed as they were in a disagreement.
The two men seemed to be at disagreement about how best to execute the detonation of a large payload of explosives beneath the castle of the Queen herself. They spoke of her evil ways and that Nevaria could only again become Wonderland once she had been slain.
Perhaps they were just in their course to return Nevaria to the way it had been before the Queen of Diamonds has turned wonderland into a hell and then from there into the city people knew as Nevaria today. But Isaac was nothing if not moral and he could not allow anybody to die in pursuit of such a cause as noble as it may be. He stormed that room and confronted the two men in regard to their machinations, noting the large case of aging dynamite in the corner of the room.
Matherson and Abraham became somewhat hostile at being discovered, their plans learned by another and they flurried for their flintlocks and brought them to bear upon Isaac in counsel of his silence.
There was then a skirmish. Isaac rushed Matherson in an attempt to separate him from his flintlock. Abraham fired off a shot that missed and fell upon the case of dynamite in the corner. Matherson, witnessing the act summoned all of his strength to repel Isaac from his person, causing the physicist to stagger backward and fall through the french window, plunging him eight stories to his doom.
The explosion upon the eight floor was terrific.

Isaac had barely survived the fall. An awning had broken it, but the impact with the ground had broken him. He had struggled back to his lodgings and had been consigned to bed for many weeks thereafter, unable even to continue his research.
As he slowly recovered he became eager to resume his project and did so as best as his condition would allow. He spent many days poring over the history of Nevaria, which he learned had once been a far different place. Long ago the Queen of Hearts had broken the looking glass and much evil had poured into Wonderland. It told of a cheshire cat, a white rabbit, guard who had the semblance of playing cards. These beings had been distorted by the evil energies that had poured into the looking glass, twisting wonderland out of proportion. It spoke of how a girl who had come to rescue them, Alice, had failed to slay the Queen of Hearts in their final confrontation. The history became somewhat summary after that point and alluded only to the fact that Alice managed to escape the clutches of the queen and remained hidden somewhere in Wonderland. The Queen had gone on to continue her evil regime and renamed Wonderland Nevaria, making it her own realm as she saw fit. The evil energies had manifested themselves into new beings, Demons and other magical folk who had come to be the primary inhabitants of Nevaria.
It was an interesting notion, but Isaac considered that much might be learned if he could find the one he called Alice and subject her to some form of questioning. It was a passing thought that became overshadowed by his need to complete his research for Jethrick.
The research into the Demonic Energies brought forth by the Crisis Engine had gone stale. he had exhausted nearly all of his specimens and required something more than that which he had a disposal. He required a sentient being to test the full potential of the Crisis Engine on.
Later that evening when Jethrick visited Isaac at his home, Isaac reported falsely that he had made astounding progress and was close to providing a solution. He invited the Half Demon to stand upon a marked spot and toggled controls upon the Crisis Engine, explaining that this was the first of a treatment that would re-grow his wings. The intelligence was not entirely false as he believed he could get the machine to perform as he had described it to Jethrick, but without knowing how tapped raw demonic magic would react with creatures already of that ilk, he had no way of knowing whether it would be come possible.
With Jethrick in place, Isaac unleashed the full potential of the Crisis Engine upon the Half Demon and the result was a catastrophic explosion.

In the aftermath, nothing in Isaac's Home made lab made sense any longer. Things would float randomly mid-air, the properties of all things had been swapped around, the candles were now wooden and the floor wax, a teapot was now feathered with a beak where the only remaining bird he had at his disposal was ceramic and slightly cracked. Physics in that room were unravelled as the untapped magic of magical meta-essence poured from the abyss into that room.
Isaac raised himself from his prone position upon the floor, weak and in pain. He felt different in some way that he could not describe some manner of his being had been unalterably changed inside and he suspected it would not be long before he found out. He crawled across the wax floor to a piece of cake that he had been saving, a piece of cake whose properties had been swapped with the mirror upon the wall leaving Isaac with a delicious mirror for consumption and a large slice of cake in which to check his complexion. But what the cake revealed was no ordinary man any longer, for indeed he had changed. His skin was now black, not merely the black of the African Slave, but the black of the night, an Onyx black that seemed to cover the entirety of his body. His eyes were now distorted and inhuman, coloured, as they were, green with a slight glow about them.
He was horrified to be witness to such change and wondered what measure of being he had become, certainly none like the others in Nevaria for he was neither faery, witch, demon nor Bestet. It was with this realisation of change that something inside of Isaac overtook him. Some madness that bubbled to the surface like a beast of the deep sea and took stranglehold. He realised that, not being able to change form, he would not be able to venture through Nevaria without disguise but was unable to change form as the other creatures who found it necessary were able.
So then he foraged the city for items of clothing that would cover the maximum of his person. Some were clothes that had been discarded by new arrivals who had parted company with their mortal realm clothes in order to wear something more fitting for their new setting. He managed to acquire a large cylinder hat from a dustbin as well as some large, thick boots. Someone had donated a large and thick coat that would cover much of his person and so donned it. From an extreme distance in the dark he might have been mistaken for The Hatter himself, convenient since Isaac's grasp of technology would undoubtedly make him the interest of the hatter and, at worst, an enemy.
In his madness he pondered for days thereafter, pondered upon purpose and other things. He required more specimens to finish his research in the hope that, one day from now, he might be able to wield it for himself, that demonic power of meta-essence. He would have to acquire some specimens and, he determined, he would have to acquire them whether it was their will or not.
He fabricated tools to aid him. Gas grenades and explosive grenades packed into novelty egg-shaped egg-timers. He commanded his singing sword to instruct him in combat and, willingly, it obeyed. In those weeks that followed Isaac became an efficient killer and lover to the shadows. His grasp of technology, his combatant skills and his knowledge gained from the calculating engine, which lay smashed along with the Crisis Engine, would invariably aid him in the future also.
He looked upon the book again, the book entitled Wonderland and decided that perhaps it was time to unravel the mystery himself. To discern where it was Alice had gone wrong and why she had summarily vanished if she was even living still at all. To do this, he would have to be close to the Queen herself and so, he would set out to become the Queen's agent. Unbeknownst to even her Knave he would become her secret sword, the one she called upon in confidence to silently put an enemy at bay that she would rather the Knave would not learn of. He would take in her confidence and trust and slowly, surely, he would lower her guard so that she would speak of the history of Nevaria and that fateful confrontation between her and Alice in the hope that, one day, he might go about correcting it whatever the cost. One day, a long, long time from now.
But in these drawings of plans he also decided that he required an alias. Something for him to be known by by the masses other than his name in order to keep them from learning his true identity and chasing up false leads. And what name better to take up than the two noble men whose mistaken plans had brought about their death than Abraham Humpty and Matherson Dumpty. So then, he decided, he would be known to those who mattered as Humpty Dumpty.
The grin behind the concealing scarf he had liberated from a young man who had been lying in the street unconscious formed and his green eyes twinkled for a moment. He was now the master of Destiny.
But little did he know, that Destiny had not yet concluded its plans for the one known as Humpty Dumpty