03-07-2015, 07:38 PM
The air was heavy with the uncomfortable silence that followed Magus’ stunt. Both he and the old man had locked eyes, and although the wizard seemed much more at ease than the old man, neither dared break the silence that had befallen them.
The weight of that silence grew more and more unbearable, until finally, the soft scuffling of the hideously scarred man’s boots against the bloodstained stone floor broke it. A groan escaped the man’s lips, weak at first but tinged with fury at its end. He scrambled to his feet and whirled around to face Magus and the old man.
By the look on the disfigured torturer’s face, he’d have loved to rip Magus’ throat out, had the old man not motioned for him not to. He seemed like he was still considering it, despite the order.
The huge bearded man, on the other hand, seemed conscious but in no mood to get up off the ground. That suited Magus just fine; the last thing he needed if everything went upside down was one more person trying to artfully rearrange his bones and organs.
“Shocking,” the old man finally rasped. “Really. Most impressive. What is your name?”
“What’s yours?” Magus retorted, folding his arms across his broad chest. It was childish, sure, but Magus earned the right to be a little annoying after the old fart and his torture crew tried to burn nonexistent answers out of him.
“My name is Lud,” he responded after a time. When Magus didn’t respond, he continued. “An independent Prime, eh?”
“I’m looking for Omni. My allegiance is to anybody who can help me get to him for as long as it takes to do so, and nothing more,” the wizard replied. “I am called ‘Magus.’”
“I see. Still, I’m not fully convinced,” the old man began, turning to walk down a hall which terminated at a dully-hewn brick wall. The cobblestone floor in front of it was illuminated by a patch of sunlight crosshatched with the silhouette of prison bars. Lud gestured for Magus – and the pale, scarred man – to follow and continued down the hall. “You’ve disabled my bodyguard and almost did the same to one of my best men,” the scarred man scoffed, “-and you didn’t even try to run or attack me. Hell, you don’t even know I exist.”
Magus responded with a disinterested monotone. “Given one of the men I dispatched was your bodyguard, I’d assume you’re either in charge or you’re close to the person who is.”
“You’re correct,” Lud flatly confirmed. “I am the leader chosen by the People’s Army. I oversee everything: our security, our military strategy and operations, our contact networks, our financial assets and holdings – everything. And if you’d known any of that already,” the old man drawled with the same, smug disinterest Magus had shown him. “One of us would be dead.”
Lud withdrew a key from a small leather bag. It hung from his neck against his chest from a thin, faded leather strip hidden behind his robes. He unlocked the cell door at the end of the hall and swung it open.
The doorway led to a set of stairs that rose up out of the small dungeon. Flickering light cast down from the top of the stairs. Lud made his way up with Magus and the menacing torturer in tow.
Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Magus realized they hadn’t exited the dungeon at all. An armed man in armor had been patrolling, and snapped to attention when Lud made his way to the top of the stairs.
“Sir,” he saluted by raising his palm upward near the left side of his head, and then continued his patrol, his sheathed sword softly clinking at his hip.
“Duncan, wait,” Lud called.
The patrolman stopped and spun on his heel to face the old man. “Yes, sir?”
“Take us to the spy from Sendai, would you please?”
“Yessir, right this way,” the guard marched quickly now, his armor softly clanking and jingling as he went. Magus followed behind the old man, his cape billowing out behind him.
The guard marched to the end of the stone-brick corridor, cells on either side, and stopped with his back to one of them, next to the door. One look into the cell was all Magus needed to understand why the guard chose to face away from it.
Inside, chained to the wall, was a miserable-looking man who had been horrifically abused. His face was cut up, bruised and swollen. Blood encrusted his lips and various cuts on his face and neck. A ratty piece of cloth was tied around his head, over his eyes.
His bare chest bore cuts and burns all over, and blood stained his tattered pants. Most alarmingly, his right leg simply ended above the knee, a white rag soaked red with blood tied off on the stump. He was trembling.
“We caught him four days ago. He’d been working within the organization as a double agent. We’d been suspicious for some time and then finally caught him trying to send information back to Masamune,” Lud explained. Magus hid the fact that these names meant nothing to him, and simply listened. “Needless to say, your arrival shortly thereafter seemed quite suspicious indeed.”
“You think I came here to rescue him.”
“Or silence him before he talked. A little late for that, I’m afraid. He endured all of it without saying a word, until his leg was taken. That was enough for him to tell us everything he knew about Masamune’s operation in Sendai.”
There was a pause before Magus began. “I see. And why have you brought me to this man?”
“To kill him.”
Magus couldn’t have heard that right. “Pardon?”
“I want you to kill him to prove you’re not working with Camelot or Sendai.”
“What would that do to prove anything?” Magus protested. “Without a doctor, the man’s going to die anyway, and by your own admission, any secrets of value he may have had have been compromised already.”
“Aye, but Sendai and Camelot are allies. Even an assassin wouldn’t kill one of their own without a reason to.” Magus looked at the poor soul. After what he’d been through, death would be a comfort.
“I kill this man, and you’ll help me get to Omni?”
“You kill this man, and I can trust you enough to work out a deal. You seem like a formidable character, indeed. Liberty has many enemies. You help us put some of them down; gather our strength. We’ll put you on the right road to the devil you seek,” Lud offered.
“Is he a threat?”
“Does that matter?”
So this what the attitude the ‘People’s Army for Democracy and Change’ had behind closed doors. He wondered if Lud would dare reveal this barbarity to his followers. No matter. Magus didn’t have any right to be outraged at Lud’s callous disregard for human life; he’d done worse things. And lived to regret them.
“Fine,” Magus replied, withdrawing the terrible makeshift knife he’d relieved from the thug who had guided him here. He’d already revealed some of what he was capable of; no sense in laying all his cards on the table in front of a man who might just as soon want him dead. A knife would be just as effective as a blast of dark energy, albeit messier.
“Don’t use that ugly dull thing,” Lud scoffed, rifling through his robes before withdrawing a wicked, curved black blade akin to an assassin’s karambit. Lud held the weapon out to Magus with one hand and gestured for him to hand over the home-made knife with the other.
Magus made the exchange and held the karambit in his hand. It was well-made, balanced, and clearly razor-sharp. He looked from the knife to the man hanging from the wall, past the bars of the cell.
“Understand that once this is done, we go on to do whatever it is you need me to do right away, and then we’re done. If I’m not on my way to Omni in short order, I won’t keep helping you.”
“Of course,” the old man replied while gesturing for the guard to open the door to the cell. As soon as he heard the creak of the cell door being opened, the man chained up inside began to thrash and wail.
“No!! Please!! I’ve told you all that I know!!” he began weeping. He continued thrashing against his chains, looking all about, even though he couldn’t see through the blindfold. “Please don’t hurt me anymore!!”
The arch mage stepped into the cell and suddenly found himself struggling to breathe, as though the air had become much heavier than he was used to. Magus couldn’t keep his eyes on the man he’d been ordered to kill. The poor fool was spent already, and Magus was to kill him simply to prove a point.
Schala was still lost out there, in time. Magus swallowed hard. All of it, all the terror and suffering, it had been done to save her. What was one more soul? He looked down and closed his scarlet eyes.
But the ends didn’t justify the means. Killing this man, even in the name of the greater good, would be a hellish thing to do.
Still, he thought as he coolly strode across the cell and near the chained man who still thrashed and wailed, he was already going to Hell.
Magus slammed his palm against the man’s forehead, pinning him against the stone-brick wall, and with one quick flick of the wrist, he slashed his throat. The man thrashed and sputtered for a moment as Magus turned and walked away, and then went still, hanging limply against his chains as his murderer exited the cell.
He made to hand the blade back to Lud. “No, keep it. You might find yourself needing it.”
Begrudgingly, Magus wiped the blood off on the rag that the prison guard suddenly offered him, and tucked the blade into his belt, handing the bloody rag back to the guard, much to his chagrin. “Now what?” he growled, no longer making an effort to hide his restrained outrage.
“Now…” Lud seemed to think for a moment. He’d have seemed a wise man with his robes and long, white beard, and the hat atop his balding head, if not for the matter-of-fact way he went about committing atrocity. “Now I should introduce you to some of our followers. I’m sure you think we’re a terrible bunch of people after what you’ve seen and done-”
“After what you made me do,” Magus spoke softly, but the venom in his voice carried anyway.
“Quite so. Even good men are made to do terrible things from time to time. If you would come with me you will see, we are fighting for the greater good. Camelot is a Verse of oppressed people, Magus,” again Lud started to walk, gesturing for the wizard and the torturer to follow. “We are fighting to throw off that yoke of oppression. And to do that, sometimes we have to resort to acts of savagery, because we are fighting against acts of savagery.”
The weight of that silence grew more and more unbearable, until finally, the soft scuffling of the hideously scarred man’s boots against the bloodstained stone floor broke it. A groan escaped the man’s lips, weak at first but tinged with fury at its end. He scrambled to his feet and whirled around to face Magus and the old man.
By the look on the disfigured torturer’s face, he’d have loved to rip Magus’ throat out, had the old man not motioned for him not to. He seemed like he was still considering it, despite the order.
The huge bearded man, on the other hand, seemed conscious but in no mood to get up off the ground. That suited Magus just fine; the last thing he needed if everything went upside down was one more person trying to artfully rearrange his bones and organs.
“Shocking,” the old man finally rasped. “Really. Most impressive. What is your name?”
“What’s yours?” Magus retorted, folding his arms across his broad chest. It was childish, sure, but Magus earned the right to be a little annoying after the old fart and his torture crew tried to burn nonexistent answers out of him.
“My name is Lud,” he responded after a time. When Magus didn’t respond, he continued. “An independent Prime, eh?”
“I’m looking for Omni. My allegiance is to anybody who can help me get to him for as long as it takes to do so, and nothing more,” the wizard replied. “I am called ‘Magus.’”
“I see. Still, I’m not fully convinced,” the old man began, turning to walk down a hall which terminated at a dully-hewn brick wall. The cobblestone floor in front of it was illuminated by a patch of sunlight crosshatched with the silhouette of prison bars. Lud gestured for Magus – and the pale, scarred man – to follow and continued down the hall. “You’ve disabled my bodyguard and almost did the same to one of my best men,” the scarred man scoffed, “-and you didn’t even try to run or attack me. Hell, you don’t even know I exist.”
Magus responded with a disinterested monotone. “Given one of the men I dispatched was your bodyguard, I’d assume you’re either in charge or you’re close to the person who is.”
“You’re correct,” Lud flatly confirmed. “I am the leader chosen by the People’s Army. I oversee everything: our security, our military strategy and operations, our contact networks, our financial assets and holdings – everything. And if you’d known any of that already,” the old man drawled with the same, smug disinterest Magus had shown him. “One of us would be dead.”
Lud withdrew a key from a small leather bag. It hung from his neck against his chest from a thin, faded leather strip hidden behind his robes. He unlocked the cell door at the end of the hall and swung it open.
The doorway led to a set of stairs that rose up out of the small dungeon. Flickering light cast down from the top of the stairs. Lud made his way up with Magus and the menacing torturer in tow.
Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Magus realized they hadn’t exited the dungeon at all. An armed man in armor had been patrolling, and snapped to attention when Lud made his way to the top of the stairs.
“Sir,” he saluted by raising his palm upward near the left side of his head, and then continued his patrol, his sheathed sword softly clinking at his hip.
“Duncan, wait,” Lud called.
The patrolman stopped and spun on his heel to face the old man. “Yes, sir?”
“Take us to the spy from Sendai, would you please?”
“Yessir, right this way,” the guard marched quickly now, his armor softly clanking and jingling as he went. Magus followed behind the old man, his cape billowing out behind him.
The guard marched to the end of the stone-brick corridor, cells on either side, and stopped with his back to one of them, next to the door. One look into the cell was all Magus needed to understand why the guard chose to face away from it.
Inside, chained to the wall, was a miserable-looking man who had been horrifically abused. His face was cut up, bruised and swollen. Blood encrusted his lips and various cuts on his face and neck. A ratty piece of cloth was tied around his head, over his eyes.
His bare chest bore cuts and burns all over, and blood stained his tattered pants. Most alarmingly, his right leg simply ended above the knee, a white rag soaked red with blood tied off on the stump. He was trembling.
“We caught him four days ago. He’d been working within the organization as a double agent. We’d been suspicious for some time and then finally caught him trying to send information back to Masamune,” Lud explained. Magus hid the fact that these names meant nothing to him, and simply listened. “Needless to say, your arrival shortly thereafter seemed quite suspicious indeed.”
“You think I came here to rescue him.”
“Or silence him before he talked. A little late for that, I’m afraid. He endured all of it without saying a word, until his leg was taken. That was enough for him to tell us everything he knew about Masamune’s operation in Sendai.”
There was a pause before Magus began. “I see. And why have you brought me to this man?”
“To kill him.”
Magus couldn’t have heard that right. “Pardon?”
“I want you to kill him to prove you’re not working with Camelot or Sendai.”
“What would that do to prove anything?” Magus protested. “Without a doctor, the man’s going to die anyway, and by your own admission, any secrets of value he may have had have been compromised already.”
“Aye, but Sendai and Camelot are allies. Even an assassin wouldn’t kill one of their own without a reason to.” Magus looked at the poor soul. After what he’d been through, death would be a comfort.
“I kill this man, and you’ll help me get to Omni?”
“You kill this man, and I can trust you enough to work out a deal. You seem like a formidable character, indeed. Liberty has many enemies. You help us put some of them down; gather our strength. We’ll put you on the right road to the devil you seek,” Lud offered.
“Is he a threat?”
“Does that matter?”
So this what the attitude the ‘People’s Army for Democracy and Change’ had behind closed doors. He wondered if Lud would dare reveal this barbarity to his followers. No matter. Magus didn’t have any right to be outraged at Lud’s callous disregard for human life; he’d done worse things. And lived to regret them.
“Fine,” Magus replied, withdrawing the terrible makeshift knife he’d relieved from the thug who had guided him here. He’d already revealed some of what he was capable of; no sense in laying all his cards on the table in front of a man who might just as soon want him dead. A knife would be just as effective as a blast of dark energy, albeit messier.
“Don’t use that ugly dull thing,” Lud scoffed, rifling through his robes before withdrawing a wicked, curved black blade akin to an assassin’s karambit. Lud held the weapon out to Magus with one hand and gestured for him to hand over the home-made knife with the other.
Magus made the exchange and held the karambit in his hand. It was well-made, balanced, and clearly razor-sharp. He looked from the knife to the man hanging from the wall, past the bars of the cell.
“Understand that once this is done, we go on to do whatever it is you need me to do right away, and then we’re done. If I’m not on my way to Omni in short order, I won’t keep helping you.”
“Of course,” the old man replied while gesturing for the guard to open the door to the cell. As soon as he heard the creak of the cell door being opened, the man chained up inside began to thrash and wail.
“No!! Please!! I’ve told you all that I know!!” he began weeping. He continued thrashing against his chains, looking all about, even though he couldn’t see through the blindfold. “Please don’t hurt me anymore!!”
The arch mage stepped into the cell and suddenly found himself struggling to breathe, as though the air had become much heavier than he was used to. Magus couldn’t keep his eyes on the man he’d been ordered to kill. The poor fool was spent already, and Magus was to kill him simply to prove a point.
Schala was still lost out there, in time. Magus swallowed hard. All of it, all the terror and suffering, it had been done to save her. What was one more soul? He looked down and closed his scarlet eyes.
But the ends didn’t justify the means. Killing this man, even in the name of the greater good, would be a hellish thing to do.
Still, he thought as he coolly strode across the cell and near the chained man who still thrashed and wailed, he was already going to Hell.
Magus slammed his palm against the man’s forehead, pinning him against the stone-brick wall, and with one quick flick of the wrist, he slashed his throat. The man thrashed and sputtered for a moment as Magus turned and walked away, and then went still, hanging limply against his chains as his murderer exited the cell.
He made to hand the blade back to Lud. “No, keep it. You might find yourself needing it.”
Begrudgingly, Magus wiped the blood off on the rag that the prison guard suddenly offered him, and tucked the blade into his belt, handing the bloody rag back to the guard, much to his chagrin. “Now what?” he growled, no longer making an effort to hide his restrained outrage.
“Now…” Lud seemed to think for a moment. He’d have seemed a wise man with his robes and long, white beard, and the hat atop his balding head, if not for the matter-of-fact way he went about committing atrocity. “Now I should introduce you to some of our followers. I’m sure you think we’re a terrible bunch of people after what you’ve seen and done-”
“After what you made me do,” Magus spoke softly, but the venom in his voice carried anyway.
“Quite so. Even good men are made to do terrible things from time to time. If you would come with me you will see, we are fighting for the greater good. Camelot is a Verse of oppressed people, Magus,” again Lud started to walk, gesturing for the wizard and the torturer to follow. “We are fighting to throw off that yoke of oppression. And to do that, sometimes we have to resort to acts of savagery, because we are fighting against acts of savagery.”
![[Image: Magus.jpg]](http://rpnexus.com/sig/miscsig/Magus.jpg)