Returning to the Scene

[Moryldar]

"That distinction is purely academic, Chrishton." said Moryldar as he approached the altar with his tray of torture tools.

"If I were you I would be much more concerned with things other than," he plopped the tray down onto the stone beside Chris' waist to emphasize his point, "academics."

Again his forceful smile warped his face into an expression that barely managed to mimick joy. He looked over the man's filthy and homeless appearance while plucking a thick, needle-like tool out of the tray. It looked like an enlarged version of a dentists' pick, viciously curved at the end.

"You may look and speak like an idiot, Chrishton, but I know you better."

Chrishton's face twisted up, pinching up near the cheeks and forming a frown with his lips. He was trying to look insulted, but Moryldar ignored it.

"You ran around our city for weeks causing trouble, stealing from our citizens, not to mention killing our guardsmen. I want to know how you did it and why you're here."

He pretended to clean some dirt off the tip of the pointed thing with his thumb ponderously.

[Blood Ravenous]

Ryxa would have punished Chrishton with a few more painful touches, but refrained from doing so as Moryldar responded in her place. She kept silent and still, looking at the needle raptly. The use of torturing devices was quite alien to her despite her profession. She never had use for them. They couldn't do everything that her magic could. Seeing them used would be a rare treat.

By this time the battlemage's anger had lowered so a slow simmer, clouded by the excitement of the upcoming torture. She knew this man wouldn't divulge himself so easily. Yet, she waited expectantly for what he had to say. Her eyes finally drifted from the upraised and mysterious needle and watched Moryldar, then Chrishton. She was intent on picking up any nuances in their expressions or voices.

[Chrishton Radu]

"Fuck yer bullshit charges. I ain't killed nobody an' ya know it." He had renewed energy now, forgetting about the torture implements as he yelled back at the Judge. "We all know yer doin this fer tha fuckin' vampire so ya kin quit with yer legal garbage an' get ta tha fuckin' point."

Truth was Chrishton didn't kill anybody. Not that he knew of anyway. He did steal things, all the time in fact, but that was a matter for the regular guard and not the Judges and battlemages. Well, perhaps beating up the guardsman was a bit much... And blowing a hole in their headquarters so that he could help four other inmates escape -might- justify the treatment he was getting. Might.

That didn't matter though. It was about the vampire. He was sure of it. They were all just his stupid cronies. Sheep. Minions. Retainers. They wouldn't admit it, but Chrishton was certain it was true.

"I'm here 'cause I wanna be here. Feck ye."

[Moryldar]

Moryldar was unswayed by Chrishton's words or the disrespectful tone he was using with a judge. Chrishton was just another man in a long line of men who Moryldar would break and then never see again. All he did was shake his head, and trade the curved tool he was holding for another, straighter one.

"That was the wrong answer, Chrishton." He said calmly. "You are here because you are a criminal. The sooner you understand that, the less painful this will be for you."

He took the straight, pointed tool, which looked essentially like a nine inch nail with a handle, and pressed the tip of it against the topside of Chrishton's hand. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, Chrishton didn't try to pull his hand away. He was daring Moryldar to do his best. What a fool.

With an effortful shove from Moryldar, the nail went into his hand, between the bone and tendons, and out to the other side where it was stopped by the stone. Moryldar looked from the hand to Chrishton's face again, and asked.

"Why did you come to Marn?"

He angled the tool so that it pried a larger hole in Chrishton's hand, setting forth a steady flow of blood but more importantly pinching a group of nerves, grinding the tendons against eachother.

[Blood Ravenous]

"We all know yer doin this fer tha fuckin' vampire..."

Vampire? The only one she knew of was in Shim. She always thought that it was a rumor that one lived in the mansion there, but over the years she had started to pick up that it was true. A very powerful vampire, in fact. What did Chrishton mean and what connection did he have to all of that?

Ryxa's attention returned to the torture at hand and watched as the nail went into Chrishton's hand without flinching. Instead, the satisfied smirk appeared on her face. An odd gleam was starting to come to her eyes that would be creepy to behold. Her fists opened and closed again and again as she watched silently, wishing she was the one ramming the sharp point in.

[Chrishton Radu]

Chrishton's face contorted and twisted as muscles tensed up, no longer under his control, but responding to the painful signals shooting up his arm. Pain was a familiar friend to Christon. His visits were never pleasant, but they never lasted forever. The violent protests from the nerves in his hand marked pain's return once more, and Chrishton greeted him as well as any man can greet an unwelcome guest. He accepted the fact that pain was here, and had the decency not to struggle too hard against his presence, not to complain, to be a good host so that pain would pass through and be on his way without too much trouble.

Worse was yet to come, for sure, and Chrishton prepared himself to give way to it. When the pain got bad enough, he left his body and became an observer, distant but still somehow in control. He welcomed that feeling, but for it to happen the torture would have to continue until it was unbearable - until his conscious mind could not comprehend it, gave up, threw down its cards, and walked away from the table.

He kept himself going with that knowledge. Knowing that the inevitable conclusion of whatever Moryldar did to him would be peace, he did his best to hasten it. The more angry he made his torturers, the more the would do to him, and the sooner it would be over.

None the less, time was going very, very slowly. He remembered Moryldar's question, and didn't know how long had passed before his answer. His voice strained to stay calm.

"I heard it was nice here this time a' year."

[Moryldar]

Moryldar frowned and pulled the nail from Chrishton's hand. He knew that there was a good chance torturing the man would get him nowhere. Nowhere at all. He had seen men like that before. Any man who believed in his cause enough to die for it had a resolve.

In fact Chrishton was a man without a cause to speak of. He was not in shackles because of a certain belief. He held no convictions and no allegiance to anyone but himself and to his god, Inari, who was too strange a god to say that he had any real purpose. Chrishton was there and he didn't truly know why. He didn't care. He was not afraid of Moryldar's torture not because he knew he had to endure it to keep some dream alive, but because he was not afraid of death and because he knew the pain was only temporary. He was, in many respects, insane.

This insanity shone through Moryldar's tortures. Every question Moryldar asked was met with something more absurd than the last.

"Why are you here?"
"Because I left my hat."

"How did you hide from us?"
"I wore a wig."

Moryldar was a very skilled torturer, and at a point he knew for certain that what he was doing to Chrishton was going to accomplish nothing. After that point he continued only for the sake of continuing. He didn't get mad, despite Chrishton's best efforts to that effect, because he knew that Chrishton was only going to die in the end, whether he talked or not. As the blood pooled up around the altar, Moryldar used him as a tool to show Ryxa not only how to hurt a man in unusual ways, but also that sometimes torture for its own sake was just part of the job. She seemed to enjoy it, and he knew why she was a battlemage. When she wanted, he let her try her spells.

He broke Chrishton's knuckles, several on each hand. After the knuckles were gone came the nails and then the flesh. He flayed it from the most sensitive parts of his fingers and palms, without making the blood gush. The whole time he yelled and flexed, and gave smart remarks about Moryldar's aged appearance and growing gut.

"They always pay too much attention to the hands." He told Ryxa after an hour of working on them, referring to other torturers. "The hands are easy, but once they can't feel anything in their hands, you need more to work with. Until the next day of course, when the hands heal over, and you can begin again."

He explained that feet were just as good as hands by doing the same thing to them as he had done with his fingers and palms. Chrishton writhed and groaned, but stopped crying out loud. He showed her nerves in Chrishton's knees that made his whole body jump off the table when they were touched. By this point, he was in another place, and the pain didn't mean anything. He stopped making noise, and was on the verge of passing out.

***

The porter approached them at the Altar and informed Moryldar that there were guests coming. Three hours of talking, prodding, and breaking things was enough for one day. Nothing came of it, and by tomorrow the man would be dead anyway.

Moryldar used a cloth to wipe off his hands, and had the orderlies unshackle the barely conscious prisoner to be dragged off to his cell. He looked at the blood, and then to Ryxa.

"You will need to take care of the next ones. I have no more time today."