“It looks like you are flaying someone alive. Do you want help with that?”

  Ever attentive to my actions and needs, VIRI remained vigilant to offer help and advice. Sometimes she actually knew how to do things that I do not, but this time, I have several lifetimes of experience which has refined my handiwork.

  “No, VIRI,” I thought back to her in my mind. “I got this covered. Thanks though.”

  Naturally, she goes through the whole routine of confirming my choice and offering to help later. That part does get old. She is still worth it, as her knowledge of the occult is disturbingly verbose. I’m not certain that there isn’t any vocation or technique she doesn’t know.

  The [Cult Leader] before me quakes beneath the ministrations of my blade. I’m not exactly a [Butcher], but anyone with a Blessing themed around food preparation or cooking knows the related skills, if not actual Skills. While I have both, I don’t need the crutch offered by Skills. With deft strokes and a practiced hand, I remove bits of flesh from what was once a proud dwarven woman. She moans in pain, not yet screaming, but the hot coals that will be pressed into her exposed fat and muscles will probably elicit such contrition.

  I am no stranger to this sort of work. Necessity had mandated my familiarity with such undertakings, but that does not mean I enjoyed my work. This time was different. Not that I normally delight in intentionally causing suffering, but this woman had offered a means of cathartic release for my dismay at the assault on Chooka.

  No, not just assault. Such a word dances around the issue. Chooka was raped, brutalized, ravaged, nearly murdered. And for what? To get at the Emperor, perhaps. My blades and other instruments of persuasion will suss out the truth.

  Tamadora stills my hand as I reach for the hot coals. With a shake of her head, she opens her palm to reveal a small bar of metal, one side of which is studded with spikes both long and sharp. I take the offered object and place it on the coals, taking the moment to inject my audience with another dose of stimulants. After all, I can’t have her passing out on me.

  “You know,” I say as I take a nearby needle and jam it longways under one of her fingernails. “I happen to be very familiar with all the local cults, and even many abroad.” She replies only with a moan that evolves into a small scream. Rude of her to interrupt, but I have worked with worse. “However, I have never seen a cult like yours. It must have taken a great deal of effort, skill, and discretion to inspire so many people to join without me knowing. I feel like I could learn a thing or two from you. And that is what we are here for, after all, to learn from one another.”

  With the spiked bar ready, I remove it from the fire. Red hot, I maneuver my tongs and press the spikes deep into an exposed bit of muscle on her leg. Her body trembles in pain as a shrill scream escapes her throat. Her eyes stare at me with murderous intent, but given her bindings both physical and metaphysical to restrict her body and Blessing both, such actions on her part are rendered impotent.

  “It’s okay if you are shy,” I responded while nodding my head knowingly. “It can take time to build a relationship and learn to open up. I will see to it that you receive the best and most thorough education I can offer. You have earned my attention, and I would be remiss to not shower it upon you.”

  We both know she is never leaving here alive. Her only reprieve is to spill her guts about what she knows so that she will be granted a swifter death. However, my work has only just begun. I had been all prepared to help meet the endless demand for food for the troops, for the battle would begin any minute now. Instead of seeing to my normal duties and advancing my Blessing as a [Line Cook], I am here with her. [Cultists] do get up to unethical things, and as a variant of a [High Priest], I certainly get credit for my current work, unsavory as even I may find it.

  With great care, I apply my knife to another patch of skin. I wouldn’t want to nick any arteries and have her bleed out, nor puncture a vital organ and cause her to die. With those considerations in mind, there are so many parts of the body that are, strictly speaking, not vital.

  “You know, a good team-building exercise could help us bond. I think we could play a little counting game.” She responds with a bit of whimpering, so I take that to mean that she wants to participate. “Did you know that, for most races, half of their bones are in their hands and feet? Just a little over a hundred of the buggers. I figure I can count them for you, and you guess which bone I am counting. Sound fun?”

  I take my pliers and begin with one of her fingers. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know the names of them, but it's the first big bone in the finger as it connects to the hand. I squeeze down and twist until I hear the expected sound of a bone snapping.

  “That’s one. Do you know what bone that was?” I ask with the same gentle voice that one would use with a small child. She screams in pain, again, which really isn’t coherent enough for a correct answer. “No? That’s okay. I’m sure we will eventually find a bone you know the name of. This will be a little adventure of ours,” I continue as I look for a new bone to break.

  This process continues for a while before a mental communication from Nabonidus tells me to leave the room for a while.

  “Oh dear me!” I exclaim with mock dismay. “I forgot a roast in the oven. I will be back soon, but Tamadora here will keep you company in my absence. I’ll see you soon.”

  I depart the room and wait outside the door. Nabonidus had invested a portion of his attention to this interrogation, and his insights were pivotal to us extracting the required information from the [Cult Leader]. Who she is, where she recruited her members, what gods she serves, and many other questions would need to be answered before long. Teamwork will make the dream work, and so, we will work together to solve these mysteries.

  The dwarf woman, fully lucid thanks to a cocktail of drugs pumping through her veins, eyes me with suspicion, contempt, and most importantly of all, fear, as I pace back and forth. My eyes never leave her, and I stay my hand lest I act in haste and cause her to expire.

  I spend this time formulating an image for my next word. I rarely speak, for my cursed voice impacts the world around me too violently and invasively to be polite. It takes effort to sum up the entirety of one’s feelings into a single word, but for this one, I will press upon her the full weight of my displeasure.

  Nanu I respect, but I do not love her. She is competent, helpful, wise, and powerful, but she is also competing for Father’s attention and affection. I know I should love her, for she has been nothing but kind to me, yet the thought of sharing Him with her rankles me. I am the Broodmother, not her, and she should know her place. It aggravates me more that she possesses greater skill as a lover than what I have, for when we share a bed to trade Traits, she flaunts her experience over me, which causes as much physical pleasure as it scathes my pride. I could hate her if she sucked at her job, but alas, she has centuries of experience.

  It-Has-Pockets, my ‘mother’ of sorts, was the vessel that helped Father craft me. We share no resemblance or mannerisms that I am aware of. She acts more like a friend to me than a mother anyway. While I do enjoy her company, I don’t respect her very much. She is a skilled swordsman and dancer, but other than that, she has little else to contribute. She is still immature and too carefree, and until she grows up, she will always be one of Father’s favorite playthings to me. I can see the appeal, for she is fun, but that’s the limit.

  Skull I admire, for she is loyal and competent. However, she is always at Father’s side, right where I want to be. All that she is, I wish I were, and yet, my Blessing has taken me down another path. Yet, she sees her duty not as a burden, but a bountiful opportunity to live her life to the fullest and to make Father happy, so I cannot begrudge how serious she is in her sacred task.

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  Alterez I tolerate. He is but vermin, a little weasel that has somehow tricked everyone around him, but not me. I do not trust him, for he always has some scheme or another that leads to less than honorable outcomes. Father trusts him, and so by extension, I must deal with him. Although, in this interrogation, he is proving to be quite adept, so I may magnanimously cut him some slack. Though I am loath to admit it, he even made me smile once with his silly antics.

  Nobonidus is incredibly useful, and so I allow him to reside at The Wayward Oasis. His insights into the future have yielded tidy profits for me and have ensured that few headaches ever come my way from rowdy patrons. He has always been polite to me, and so I value him as a most treasured asset to my flight. That doesn’t mean that we are chummy.

  And while there are others that I have mixed feelings for, Chooka, above all, save Father, is the only person I love, respect, and admire all at once. I find no fault with her behavior, attitude, or in the manner she treats me or others. Father adores her, and when they have shared their bed with me, I find even myself enraptured with her charm. Perhaps that is part of her talent as a [Courtesan], but I feel like she could have the Blessing as a [Street Sweeper] and still she would amaze even me. I would move heaven and earth for her, for during our time when she mentored me in my craft, she had ever been positive, loving, supporting, and patient with me and my… taciturn and harsh personality.

  And now this wretched dwarf, this vile scum of the world, this complete waste of a person, she dared to assault Chooka, to sully her honor, and assault her person! I want to rip this dwarf limb from bloody limb, to break every bone in her body, to melt the skin off her, to rip out her heart and crush it before her eyes! I want to rupture her soul, to bind her spirit in eternal torment, to personally escort her to the deepest and darkest hell and fling her in! She hurt Chooka, which in turn hurt Father deeply, and I cannot forgive such a transgression, nor can I permit her continued existence unless every second of it is consumed with perpetual anguish. I would ravage her in mind, body, and soul a thousand times over before I would even consider offering a token of forgiveness.

  The once-tranquil waters of my mind had been cast into a turbulent squall, the crashing waves reflecting my raging emotions as I consolidated my image for this prisoner. All the hate, anguish, and hardship that I had endured, every misdeed against me and those I care about, and the totality of my rage were encapsulated in my one word for her. From the depths of my soul, that word floated to the turbulent surface, setting chaos and destruction loose once more. And then I took that one word and offered it to her as I leaned in to whisper it into her ear.

  “Torment.”

  Her body seized up as the tendrils of magic woven into my voice took root within her, burrowing beneath her skin, and consuming her very being. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her whole body spasmed with pain unimaginable, every nerve in her body screaming that most primal of sensory inputs. Her skin, what remained of it, ruptured and sloughed off in heaps. Bones cracked as organs crumpled. Her eyeballs melted in her skull before lighting aflame, her teeth shattered, the shrapnel from them shredding her mouth and tongue. Her lunges and throat became scorched as if toxic fumes had left desolation in their passing.

  Her mind became filled with visions of terror, despair, embarrassment, and failure. Every regret came to the forefront of her mind, every mistake and missed opportunity that had festered within her had burst within her psyche. Her very soul, while immutable, could still feel anguish, and in that moment, it felt nothing else.

  And just as her body found itself breaking apart, so too did it mend itself. Bones snapped back into place as errant blood returned to her veins. Flesh mended itself as if never damaged. And the whole process sprung anew, the cycle continuing as her flesh warped and melted into unnatural contortions. Without abatement, she suffered a death that would not come, a final mercy beyond her reach, beyond any measure of clemency due to her.

  I had become so consumed by her torment that I didn’t notice blood streaming from the corners of my own eyes until it dripped off my face and onto the floor. I had dove too deep into those depths, seeking to grasp powers beyond my reach. With trembling hands, I used a cloth to wipe away the blood price for bending the World to my will. A pittance compared to what my conviction would allow for; I would be making similar payments in the future. Any price is worth seeing Chooka’s attacker brought to understand the error of her ways.

  I stayed with her and watched, every moment of her torment a balm for my soul. She would learn the meaning of torment, and then, some day in the distant future, she would finally know the release of this mortal life by the embrace of death. Until then she would live, and her mind would not be able to break from the strain. That offered me enough time to convince whatever gods watched over this retribution that she deserved for it to continue tenfold in the afterlife.

  With my Emperor indisposed by caring for Chooka, there remained few capable and trustworthy to investigate the circumstances of the attack. I had confirmed with the guildhall at World’s End that Chooka had left due to an urgent summons by her attaché. With that information confirmed, I made my way to his office at World’s Hope.

  As an [Archivist of Secrets], I have a small yet useful toolkit to assist me in investigations. While such may not be my forte, such Abilities are enough to get by. Going through the paperwork, the various books and documents, that is where my talents will shine best.

  The staff had not seen anyone enter or leave, at least, no one that seemed suspicious. The door showed no signs of forced entry, and it remained shut and unlocked. The room had not been tossed, and other than the bloody corpse of the attaché with his throat slit, nothing had been disturbed. He sat at his desk, his body leaned back into his chair, as if he had been caught unawares with his head yanked back before a knife made introductions to his throat.

  A small void in the blood spray near the left end of the desk suggested a book had been there at the time of his death. Otherwise, the effects of the death did not appear to have disturbed anything, not even by the death throes and frantic grasping of their former owner. [Check Out] allowed me to see the scene as it had happened. Ghostly apparitions play out the death and the contents of the room. The suspect is noticeably missing, so he or she doubtlessly is a professional with Abilities to avoid such attempts at divination.

  Not much to glean from the whole affair. The attaché had died within seconds, or at least fell unconscious due to blood loss, then died afterwards. The missing book had been taken shortly thereafter, appearing as if the suspect had tucked it away in his or her coat, judging by the height and the orientation of the phantom book that floated in the air.

  Looking further back, before his death, I see that the attaché suddenly goes catatonic for a few moments. His limbs moved as if puppeteered by an unseen force, his hand writing in the Message Log on the right side of the desk. The message itself likewise moved as it had been picked up and pocketed, and the words written within it matched the message that had been delivered to Chooka.

  Sadly, the missing book could not be read because it had not been opened. The book had no title or iconography upon it. However, a member of staff would likely know of its contents or nature. A few interviews later, I discovered that the book was part journal, part ledger, that the attaché used for personal records. That meant that secret ledgers and code phrases were in it, the contents of which could not be read by anyone other than the owner due to many powerful enchantments. And with the previous owner deceased, that meant that many measures of confidentiality and security within the Guild had become compromised.

  Priority messages would need to be dispatched to every guildhall, to inform every guildmaster of this security breach. Each region had its own codes and protocols to help insure that an information leak would be contained, but that still would be a lot of paperwork to process. Messengers, along with serious protection details, would need to deliver the news far and wide, which would detract from the manpower here at World’s Hope. And with this attack occurring so soon before the battle, it could hardly be a coincidence in timing. Whether some enemy from the world beyond lay behind this, or instead, an opportunist saw an opening, I know not.

  However, what I don’t know today could become well known facts tomorrow. My hands may be largely tied here at World’s Hope for the foreseeable future, but there are other agents that can be sent to sniff around in my stead. While I would be loath to delegate something so personal, I will admit, others are better suited to such an investigation, for the Emperor employs people with all manner of Blessings. This assassin lives on borrowed time, for once the Emperor becomes free of any duties to personally defend World’s Hope, no stone would be unturned to find the ones behind this.

  The initial investigation concluded, I hastened to contact certain riccen individuals that had developed a very particular set of Skills in their lifetime. This yet-unknown cult would soon find itself rooted out; we had but to commit our resources to such a venture. Pacts were made, coin and enchanted goods changed hands, and within the hour, a whole host of specialists set off to see what they could find on the matter.

  Satisfied, I returned to my Emperor. He still carried Chooka in his arms. I remained silently by his side after informing him of my findings and actions. He nodded along, his face contorted in a slight frown, for he still worried for his love. He expressed satisfaction in my work, muted though it may have been by his mood.

  Together, we watched as Chooka came to. Though relieved by her recovery, apprehension remained thick in the air as the hundreds of thousands of souls gathered here bore witness to the portal activating. The War of Bone and Ash had begun.