Out of the Darkness #4 - Captive

Allison Nilesia awoke to confusion.

Her thoughts still raced from the dream she'd just had, and a most vivid one at that, though she had difficulties recalling specific details. Weird. After all the years of schooling her mind, why would ...

... She felt cold. That finally served to pull her back fully into awareness. The coldness originated from, what could ... restraints ... shackles? And what was that acrid smell? Best to open her eyes, but slowly, just a peek through her eyelashes ...

Inexorably, her eyes opened wide.

She was hanging suspended in mid-air, about two feet above a glowing sigil painted upon the floor. Purple bands of force tied her hands behind her back and kept her feet tightly secured, and as she strained against them, pain jolted through her limbs. Again, she tried, out of the sheer stubbornness that had saved her so often, but there was no gain to be had.

Slowly, fear crept in into her mind, and she regarded her surroundings more closely for the first time, her thoughts focused on escape and punishment for those that had done her wrong. But there was not much to see – only darkness. There ... seemed to be several doors leading out of the room, but she couldn't say for sure that this wasn't just her imagination tempting her. There was a rectangular object on the floor to her right, and some kind of creaking coming from the floor... wood, maybe? Or metal?

*****

Steps, echoing in the darkness. Allison's ears perked up, trying to gauge numbers and kind of those approaching. One, two ... no, maybe just one, but four-legged? It was too synchronous to .. no, definitely, two now, for...

...the door (she'd been right!, some subconscious part of her noted) in the wall directly opposite her opened, and a low glow emanated from the corridor beneath, making the entrants formless, menacing shades at first. After a moment though, their presence triggered something, for the walls of the room lit up in an indistinct gloomy light.

She squinted and tried to make out details. The first of her captors was robed, the face shadowed beyond a cowl that served to cloak all of his (her? its?) features save for an elongated snout that poked out of it. The figure moved gracefully though, and Allison suspected that the wide-cut robe in fact concealed a very lithe figure.

The other was ... massive. A fiend of some sort, horns and spikes protruding from his muscled body, clad in a plate armor of abyssal green steel, and bearing a huge claymore at his side. When she met his eyes, their glow bored into her mind, and for an instant she felt as if she was probed, her thoughts ripped from her, her feeble mental protest ridiculed and ignored by the force that was this Other. He held contact for just a few moments, but after he released her will, she gasped and felt spent, somehow ... empty.

"Wha ... what are you, you bastard?"

The robed figure snickered, but the sound came out only as a choked rattle. The Other silenced her with a motion of his upheld hand, and began to slowly circle the factol. She tried to keep him in her sights, as foolish as she felt about that, because deep inside she knew that should he choose to kill her now and here, she would not stand a chance against him. This opponent – this criminal, she quickly corrected herself, seeking solace in familiar thought patterns – was beyond her abilities, and if she were to stand a chance, she would have to resort to subterfuge to gain an advantage.

"What am I indeed, little fiendling." He smiled, but if there was any mirth behind his expression, it was from some hidden agenda of his own devising that he cared not to share with her.

"Thou art not the first one to ask that question. Now, don't thou regard me askance – I shall not name them, for those who art dead shall not be mentioned anymore. They have descended yonder into the realm of oblivion."

Nilesia grunted. First, being captive once again, and now having to play games? What rotten luck was this?

"Let me rephrase that, then, you big, ugly berk. Why have you captured me? Where do you hold me? For what purpose? I swear, once I get out of these binding spells, I will hunt you down in whatever kip you choose to hole up in, and be it the demiplane of ooze!"

He gave her a quizzical look. "Ah ... more questions thou hast. They shalt serve thee well in the days to come. Fear not, my sharp-tongued devilspawn – thou shalt not die, not yet. I still hold some use for you, albeit a mere shred ... Keep thy mind occupied, for it shall be the first part of thy Testing. Defend thyself 'gainst the coming madness. When I speak to thee again, and thou art yet thy own most virtuous self, we shall talk more of what I require thee to do."

He turned on his heel and strode out of the door, accompanied by the robed figure, leaving the factol only to watch his back in frustration. The light flashed once and went out.

It was then that Allison Nilesia began to see the shapes slowly stirring in the darkness.

*****

"Was that really necessary?" asked the Marauder, after she had shed her wide robes, revealing her usual garish garments beneath. She set the razorvine crown upon her head and smiled. "Though I must say I liked the way her request to "pike it" turned into a scream when we hadn't even closed the door and taken three steps."

The Lie-Weaver smiled deviously. "Yes", his mind replied enigmatically, and the body he had chosen for today's occasion mimicked him.