Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-25828117-20190827204408/@comment-5583506-20190831173331

Rats skittered across the beams of the abandoned cellar. Moist gathered along the walls. With a rope hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling, tied around his wrists, the Imperial rapist groaned with frustration as he struggled to be free. His breathing was strained and his eyes were red from tears.His fingers trembled with pain, having had the skin of their tips removed. Even if he somehow was able to get himself out of the rope, it would do him little good. His abductor had been so kind as to hobble his ankles with a sledgehammer he could just barely see in a far-off corner in the dark.

But he could see his abductor well enough. She stood leaned over a table with an alchemy set, concocting several mysterious potions and brews. Her ghostly eyes fixated on the details, making sure that she didn't get anything wrong. She was a Khajiit. He didn't know her, but he knew that she had somehow managed to overpower him. He was a pretty strong man, yet she had easily gotten the better off him and dragged him down to this damp, accursed place.

"W-what do you want from me?" he whimpered, his voice hoarse from all the screams of pain.

She didn't seem to hear him. Either that or she completely ignored him. She just gave him a sudden uninterested stare before going back to mixing her potions.

"Someone sent you, isn't that right? Look, I really don't want to die. Whatever they paid, I'll double it. You hear me? I'll double it!"

The Khajiit continued mixing her potions. It annoyed him. His life was hanging on a thread, quite literally, and she was conducting alchemical experiments.

"Fuck, can't you hear me?! I'll pay you for letting me go! Look, I know why I am here, alright! I didn't mean to do it! She forced my hand! My boss wanted her dead, I just ... I just took what I could before I did it! It was her father who sent you, isn't that right?!"

The young Khajiit gave him another glance, observing him quietly for but a brief moment and then she went back to filling a vial with some white-glowing liquid.

"Are you deaf or something?!" He looked around eagerly for someone, for something that could get him out of this situation.

As his vision became clearer it soon became apparent to him that it wasn't your typical household cellar. Sharp silhouettes made themselves visible in the dark which made the room all the more resemble an ancient torture chamber than a place where you could store potatoes.

"By the Divines", he muttered in disbelief. "HELP! ANYONE?! HEEELP!"

"Tsk", the Khajiit said nonchalantly. "So loud. This one can't concentrate." She took a rag from the table, upon which the removed skin from his bleeding fingertips lay. It was completely soaked in red. She approached him and forcefully gagged his mouth shut. "Make no more noise", she said quietly, seemingly unfazed by the man's struggle and pain. "Khajiit needs her silence."

"Mfgghrrh!" the rapist groaned with the bloodied rag in his gullet.

The Khajiit then returned to her experiments. Whatever she was brewing over there, he expected that it would do him little good if he waited until she was finished in order to find out.

She observed him curiously, before she started to mix again, her eyes all lit like two pale lanterns in the dark. She didn't even look at him when the ingredients blended together. "This one will tell you why you are here, if you are able to keep quiet, yes?"

"Mffgh?"

"Should this one take that as a yes?"

He nodded. He was willing to do whatever if it meant getting out of here with his life intact.

The Khajiit woman approached and ripped the rag from his mouth. He could still taste his own blood on it. He was just about to ask her a question, but then remembered her conditions. Maybe she would take more than just his fingertips, and maybe even crush more than just his ankles, if he didn't shut up.

"You are wondering why you are here, yes? This one will admit that she was paid to come for you for what you did. And you are right about it being the girl's father. But that is not all."

He cocked his head and looked at her with confusion.

"You have not forgotten who her father is, have you? Syndicate leader Detritus Axium, currently locked in a feud with your boss. He not only paid us to deal with her killer in the most slow and agonizing death imaginable, but he also paid us rather handsomely to take your entire crew, by any means necessary."

He turned pale the moment he heard of 'slow and agonizing death' coming to the realization that there was no way out of this alive. On top of it all, her father was Detritus Axium. No one could top whatever price he had put on the heads of those responsible for the murder of his daughter.

"W-what do you intend to do with me?" he asked, swallowing hard.

"This one is going to give you the most slow and agonizing death imaginable", she explained without a single trace of emotion in her expression. "But not right now. This one is busy preparing."

He was about to ask her about what she was preparing, if only just to stall his own death, but he didn't get the chance as she all of a sudden started to undress before him. It all came off, and he wondered whether the Khajiit was insane or intended to have some naughty ways with him before he died.

But then she turned her back to him. In a matted black between her shoulder blades was the fur color in the shape of hand. No wonder she had been referring to his abductor as "us". The Khajiit was a member of the Dark Brotherhood, the Black Hand, to top it all off. He was doomed.

He thought that she had gotten naked for the sake of showing him the mark, but then froze up as she seemed to be casting a spell on herself. Her fur seemed to dissipate into nothingness, her hips shrank, and her muscles grew. She became somewhat sturdier in her posture and naked skin started to appear. In short there was no longer a naked Khajiit woman in front of him, but rather a man. And he recognized the stature and backside all too well, hair color included.

The assassin turned around and he realized it was like looking into a mirror. Even those ghostly eyes of hers had turned into his own eye color, even though the sinister gleaming was still there.

"You think they will let me pass once they see me like this?" she said in a haunting imitation of his own voice.

"U-unbelieavable", he muttered in complete disbelief and terror.

"Not unbelievable", she clarified, shaking her head, "Just not very likely."

She walked over to a table with clothes he had entirely missed out on in the darkness. She had prepared everything it would seem. She got dressed and soon he wasn't able to tell the difference anymore. Was he truly hanging here? Was this all some weird dream? A nightmare from which he would wake up from? No, it couldn't be. He was here. And there she was ... as him. A flawless reflection.

"I do believe the potion is ready", she said with his deep voice, even picking up on Imperial mannerisms. She didn't even speak in third person anymore. "Just one more ingredient left."

She steadily approached him with what looked like an awl. Sweat started to pour from his forehead. "Don't touch me!" he exclaimed. "Don't you come any closer! Please, no!"

The tool swiftly penetrated the side of his skull and he screamed in agony. She had undoubtedly made a hole in his head. He could even feel his ear turning wet with blood and other fluids. A cup started to fill up next to him as he thrashed wildly and screamed for all his lungs could muster, but to no avail.

The assassin then applied what appeared to be some basic healing magic, letting the wound seal itself up. "Can't have you dying just yet. Client's request after all." The deep voice sounded disappointed. "I think I am all set now."

"You are ... mistaken", he wheezed, having no strength length to withstand this torture. "You won't get inside. Not without the password. I ain't giving it to you, you monster."

His imitation cocked its head and looked at him quizzically. "But you already have. Just now." The reflection poured the matters of his own brain into the vial, mixing it around thoroughly, before raising it to the mouth and drinking the contents. The breathing was heavy, and the assassin seemed to be concentrated heavily, almost looking a bit intoxified. "The password is: 'For Blood by Blood'. Isn't that correct?"

His chin dropped. There was just no winning against this monster.

The assassin put the vial back in its holder and adjusted the clothing she wore as she started to ascend the stairs leading out of this dungeon.

"Please", he blubbered. "Let me out! LET ME OOOUUUT!"

"I'll be back in short. And then you will come to learn and experience the full limits of my imagination and my own interpretation of a client's demand: the most slow and agonizing death imaginable."

"NOOO!" he screamed as the cellar door slammed shut behind his abductor.

The thugs stood by in the district watching Andros Saxius return. Though he wore a new set of clothes there was no mistaking that it was him.

"Password?" one of them said. Even though they knew him well they had to go by routine.

"For Blood by Blood", Andros replied sternly.

"Alright, head on inside. Boss wants to have a discussion with you about the Axium girl."

"That's funny", Andros said. "I was just about to have a talk to him about it as well."

Kashya came back to her regular seedy tavern in the middle of the night when the work was complete. There was always a table reserved for her there, even though she had never asked for it. She believed it to be a compliment from the innkeeper, to dissuade her from ever trying to harm his family members. He didn't need to fear. He wasn't interesting enough to warrant someone wanting him or one of his loved one's dead.

She did believe, however, that the location of the table, at the far back, was meant as a slight. Not that she minded. She preferred a seat by herself, far away from the ruckus of the tavern.

Andros' and his entire crew were dead. It had been a long day, and Axium's daughter had been avenged. Not that she cared about social justice. It was a meaningless and nonsensical victory. She didn't care about the gold either. What mattered to her was knowledge. Death was always a promised price to be received when least expected. What good was life worth if one didn't try to find out as much about it as possible before they faced that final curtain?

The rest of the tavern all had their eyes on her, speaking to each other under a proverbial blanket of silence. They all knew who she was. Though perhaps not her name, they could tell what she was doing for a living, and to whom she owed her allegiance to. Even among these lowliest of the low, she was feared. She couldn't tell if she enjoyed it or not. Few were the things she enjoyed these days.

But Andros ... she had definitely enjoyed. Thanks to him she had been able to learn so much more of what caused the mind to tick when all hope was truly lost...