Well, well. Look what we got here. (Wrenmae)

[Phoenix]

Breakers hands were as dirty as the rest of him, jagged fingernails tearing and poking at Shrouds skin as he captured the young man’s wrist, yanking him forcefully across the room to where the chains hung. The manacles bit in the soft flesh, the chain rising up to hang through a ring hung in the ceiling; once the other wrist received it’s cold bracelet, a simple tug of the chain brought Shroud to the tips of his toes. Another yank stretched his arms to their capacity, his feet barely able to touch the floor.

“That’s more like it. Comfortable?” An easy chuckle as Breaker moseyed back over to his roll of equipment. The chair skittered and bounced as it was dragged over the uneven floor, clattering to a halt directly in front of where Shroud hung. The dim, flickering light no longer impeded his view of the tools as the various pieces now sat directly under one of the dancing torch flames.

Watching smugly just at the edge of the pool of light, the torturers eyes danced with a maniacal hunger, gaze locked on Shrouds face as he watched his prey for any sign of weakness or fear. He knew the orders of the tools, waiting for the young mans gaze to flicker back to one in particular or perhaps a slight widening of the eyes that would tip him off to which tool frightened the strung man the most.

Shroud gave him nothing. Detachment and an air of boredom kept the prisoners face a blank slate. His eyes drew carefully over the line of tools once, twice and then focused on the wall behind the cage he had just been freed from. A white-hot raged flared from behind Breakers eyes, blinding him with the need to hurt. Whatever had made him this way left no room for denial.

The tool on the very end was picked up, a flat strip of metal with a myriad of holes along the length, the sharp edges of the holes pointing out the opposite side. Thin, white strips hung from these shards, looking eerily like flesh.

“See this?” His voice was no more than a deep growl from somewhere in his chest, the words barely audible as the anger lay heavy over everything. “I used this for lunch.” The metal slapped against his meaty hand, some of the white shreds dislodging and dropping to the ground. “Do you know what this is?”

If Shroud was inclined to answer, Breaker would interrupt him, a thick hand lashing out and striking him across the face. Spittle sprayed, a red foam gathering at the corners of the young man’s mouth. “I didn’t give you permission to speak.”

The tattered, filthy shirt that barely covered Shrouds back was easily torn away, exposing the boys flesh. It glowed in the firelight with an unhealthy pallor, malnutrition taking its toll. The metal was cold as it was pressed to Shroud’s stomach and held there for a second. Breaker seemed to change his mind, raising it instead to the pale flesh of his upper arm, just above the sensitive skin of the armpit. The spikey side was laid down, Breaker putting enough weight behind the motion that it broke the skin in a few places.

“It’s a cheese grater.” Still keeping the pressure, the bigger man quickly drew the metal across his skin. There was a sick tearing sound as dozens of little spines caught and ripped the skin. “It grates things.” The rumble was pleased now, even more so if Shroud cried out. Blood dripped and splattered, coating the floor between the two men with the crimson droplets. Again and again the grater was brought down on the same spot, the metal tearing into the meat of Shrouds arm. Only when he cried out would Breaker relent.

“Who sent you here?” It would become a familiar question. The grater was traded for a rolling wheel on a stick, sharp thorn-like spikes radiating from the wheel. This was traced along Shrouds body where ever flesh was exposed; bloody, slowly weeping holes were left it it’s wake.

After attempting to write his name in Shrouds flesh with his wheel, which failed miserably, Breaker lashed out. Quick as a blink, he drew back his foot and slammed it forward, the ball of his boot smashing directly into his kneecap. The snap, crackle, and pop of breaking bone and cartilage and the tearing of sinue filled the air. Over it all, Breaker roared.

“DOES IT HURT YET”

[Wrenmae]

Hung by his arms, toes barely drifting over the spotted stone floor, Shroud was a silent prisoner at the first, staring directly at his captor with coal-black eyes and controlled fury behind a mask of flesh. He hadn't the means to attack his captor, not yet. Instead he strained at his bonds, his toes barely able to touch the ground. His wiry muscles strained, desperately trying to keep his arms locked together, but it wasn't long till they disconnected and left him with arms that tingled like a thousand tiny beetles burrowed in and out of his skin. Breaker was speaking, but his words sounded like dull murmurings. Time had done to Wrenmae's body what no torturer had. It had worn away at his inhuman vitality and health, starved him in the darkness, weakened him. Now his mind was in bitter shambles, Djed rising slowly to his commands and only fracturing him farther. No more Hypnotism, not today, not for awhile. For daring to clear his throat, he earned a smash across the face. His vision blurred, everything spun and he tasted the iron hue of blood on his tongue. Without even asking the first question, the torturer put his grater against Shroud's skin and tore, shredding up lines of flesh and scouring his body with holes and angry red furrows. Shroud screamed, deep down inside his body, his throat threatening to vomit up the noise, but he held it down, stared at the captor, stared at him. And brought Djed into his mouth. He paused to break between swings, his meaty chest heaving, sweat catching in droplets on his beard. By the lantern light it seemed he glittered with a thousand dirty diamonds clutched in curly hair. He screamed, could barely hold his own against the unrelenting pain...but never spoke words. On came the wheel on the stick, spines that traversed unmarred flesh and left gaping wounds behind. Shroud passed out once or twice, perhaps more, perhaps less. It was difficult to measure time by the passage of the blades across skin, the agony that seemed a part of him then, the way his mind roared. It was only when the item was laid down again, when Breaker stepped back from his bloody handywork with a grunt of contentment, that Shroud spoke. "I was...I was sent..." He struggled with the words, his mouth weak and trembling. Breaker stepped forward, grinning, taking the boy by the dislocated shoulder and pulling him close. "I was...sent...by" He leaned in close, the fool. No knowledge of magic, none...and it was the last act of rebellion the mage had within him. The last directed cold, knife he had up his sleeve. Or below his tongue. Breaker pushed an ear up to the boy's mouth, too far to be bitten, but close enough to hear the faintest of breath carrying the sound. "I was sent by Death," Shroud breathed, pulling the Res within his mouth up and pursing his lips "She wants you to know that she's waiting for you." Before Breaker could turn away, Shroud blew the thick stream of Djed into Breaker's ear and converted it into wind, plowing into the mans skull and rupturing the inside of his ear. Roaring, the torturer fell back against his table of tools, sending them scattering across the ground. Shroud laughed weakly, a chuckle as he spit blood from his cracked lips. Breaker was furious, mindless rage motivating him as he grabbed a meat tenderizer off the back wall, running his finger along the jagged edges at the head of the hammer. Shroud closed his eyes, assuming for the last time. The Torturer charged. Brought the hammer down first on Shroud's cheek, blinding agony that sent him spinning, snapping his jawbones, and then across his body, leaving bloody canyons in his flesh, shattering bones, and reducing his body to torn flesh and muscle. Somehow. Somehow...Shroud clung to consciousness, but only barely. Just enough to smile, the pain overwhelming his mind. He came of his own accord, there was no one who sent him...and now this fool would kill him... At least he left a mark to be remembered by.

[Phoenix]

Breaker bellowed like a wounded bull, swatting at the intense buzzing that now filled his left ear; Shroud had completely destroyed the torturers eardrum, and he would pay.

The red anger that filled the violent mans eyes became a bloody veil, obstructing every rational thought or judgement the man might ever hope to possess. Staggering, the first tool that came to hand was wielded and brought against the captive young man. Cracking, snapping and the awful squish of damaged flesh seemed far away and distant to the torturer as he swung time and time again.

Breaker no longer cared if his prisoner was awake or alive, the pain he inflicted was no longer from enjoyment but sprouting from a feral need to hurt whatever had hurt him. The torturer was a simple creature, and he probably wouldn't stop his assault until Shroud lay in a bloody pulp on the floor.

Neither men noticed a coalescing of the shadows by the door, a movement barely visible to the untrained eye.

One moment, Breaker was swinging wildly at the bloodied form of a man, while the next found him crumpled on the floor, holding his head and screaming in agony; it was a high pitched scream, the type that works it's way from a humans throat when they no longer have control of their bodies.

"Wrenmae." It was the voice of chaos himself, twisted and sharp and impossible to pin a description on. The shadows moved around him, cloaking him while they seemed to writhe and jump in a sickening fashion. Darkness wasn't supposed to move that way.

"Wrenmae, awake." The young man stirred, rising from the bliss of unconsciousness into the pain that was reality. "I have use of you, Wrenmae."

[Wrenmae]

It was not Wrenmae, but Shroud that came to consciousness again, glazed glare through one good eyes watching the movements of the shadows with languid interest. It could have been the blow to the head, his body dying, any number of things. The voice...it spoke in a way that he could not define, almost as if the words themselves pushed into the air of their own accord, eschewing the common practices of voice. He tried to speak, mumbled blood and broken teeth, fell silent. He was called. The feeling of power was like electricity, dancing across his skin as dark shadows embraced his hanging form. Cold, hot, at once everything and not, his body could not decide how to feel. It excited him. It terrified him. "A guest," Shroud mumbled, spitting a split tooth, "Pardon me for not bowing, I'm a little tied up at the moment." A small grin twisting across his blood soaked features. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was broken. His one good eye tried to focus on the darkness, quantify it, measure it. He was gien and understood nothing, everything was in chaos, in confusion. Even the howls of his torturer sounded strained and distant. "Heal me, free me, and my service is yours, nameless lord of shadows and smoke."

[Phoenix]

"To beg the shadows for help shows weakness beyond imagining.." The voice was a whisper and a crackle, the shifting of broken bones beneath flesh that rose above the cries of the downed jailor with ease; the ears listened for this voice above all other sound while the body cowered and instinctively shied away. "What use to I have of cowardice?" A dark chuckle then, and more crunching of bones seemed to fill the small room along with an overwhelming feeling of enjoyment. "What makes you think it'd be so easy as to ask?"

With the shadows coalescing and shifting as if caught in a breeze, the faint outline of a man could be seen, perhaps intentionally, though no distinct attribute stood out from amongst the chaotic darkness that lingered in the middle of the room. Shroud would feel his emotions roiling, unable to control the odd surges of laughter, hatred, sadness and an ecstasy so exquisit it lasted forever, though it was only a second in real time. Wild ideas ricocheted throughout the broken young mans head, each crazier than the next.

Shroud would feel eyes upon him throughout, a heavy gaze full of judgement as well as consideration. The moments dragged by, the silence a torture unto its it own and far worse than anything Shroud had experienced yet. This man...creature....being was a mystery of which he had never encountered. Try as he might to figure it out, any time the young man focused too hard on the what or who was before him, his head would erupt into a terrible agony would sear the thoughts away.

"Vyat has you." It wasn't really a question, nor was it really a statement even looking for confirmation. It was a hard fact. He knew it to be true, and there was a quiet musing among the discord of sounds that was his voice. "Interesting." It was a mused word, rolled over the tongue as if this information tasted exquisite.

The lighting flickered as the shadows moved, drifting and jumping around as the form slid over to the chair still bearing the torture devices. The cheese grater was hefted by an indistinguishable hand, held aloft in the weak light so that the drying blood that coated the metal shimmered and seemed to flow. "So what makes you so special? What do they want?"

[Wrenmae]

It hurt to laugh. Split teeth and exposed nerves, blood painting his nose and lips, he wore a cannibal's grin. The thing, whatever it was, it burned and pleasured in ways beyond imagining. Tears mixed with crimson, his chest rose and fell with fear and desire, pain and anger. He could not think of it, could not look at it. So he closed his eyes, forcing it from his vision. He spoke to a voice, a hundred voices, a thousand voices, ONE voice. Just the voice. But even trying to define it as that seared his mind with fire and wrote agony upon his slivered flesh. "What IS cowardice?" Shroud hissed at his nameless torturer, every bit more terrifying and imposing than anything he'd seen before, "Is it the mewling whine of children? Is it grown in hearts too afraid to fight? You say cowardice, I say opportunity." He laughed, his words torn with uproarious laughter followed by a choked sob. Swinging on dislocated shoulders, swinging, always swinging...between sanity and the tipping point. "Should I spit at you? Should I kick with my legs? Is that what a brave man would do? Petch, I am broken, I am useful to none and die as I breathe." A tooth popped loose and fell from his mouth, bouncing on the cold floor. "A coward survives, a coward breathes, and when brave men fill each other's guts with steel and their petulant honor, a coward lives to take what's left. A coward sticks his sword into that brave mans back who's too fool to take a craven as a threat." His skin was melting, no, hardening, no, it was air. And fire burned its merry burn upon his mind, brands of agony, piercing certainty. Uncertainty. Chaos. "Have you no use for cowardice, my lord? Have you NO use for a servant who lives rather than dies? What strength of arm do dead men have to carry out your whims? What glory IS there when bodies molder to dust? I am a survivor, I will survive. I will do what it takes to carve my name on the corpses of my transgressors...and if you will not help me, I will do it myself." He shouted blood and agony, a great sob of laughter that choked his constricted throat. "Vayt, God of Plagues, you know him? Tell him his marked sends him regards." Laughter again. "That god has a sense of humor in irony," Shroud choked, giggling and then gnashing the stubs of his teeth in agony, [color=#ac8166]"He could have chosen anyone, my brother, my father, but he chose the weak and dying at the cost of his family's life. Or maybe he chose the strongest, the one who would survive in those unforgiving petching mountains." Sobs. Gasps in ragged symphonies. Shroud opened his one good eye, the other shut, swollen, maybe blinded, "They wanted me to suffer," He said, looking at the figure and wincing in agony, averting his gaze, "They don't want the plague to touch their accursed city. Fools. By being near me they became the swollen pestilence spewing things they so feared...and I am all the gleeful for their short sighted ignorance." He could not go unconscious, was not allowed to go unconscious. So he existed at the precipice of agony, stepping out over empty air into an abyss of agony that curdled the very fabric of his brain. Mind shattered, mind torn, he was Shroud and yet so many, and all of them were crying and laughing, hoarse with torture. "And," He gasped, shaking, "What do I call you, Lord visitor to my torment?"

[Phoenix]

"I am no lord of yours, little weakling." There was contempt in that voice, and if a face could be seen it would most surely be sporting a glower. Or worse. "Are you always so insolent to those who help you?" Shroud was given the impression that the entity glanced contemptuously around the room, stopping pointedly at the cage, torture devices, and the still writhing Breaker. "I have helped, after all, wouldn't you say?"

The shadows condensed and expanded, floating closer towards where Shroud still hung, leaking and oozing all over the place. "I could leave you hanging here. Broken. Dying. Just leaving would not hinder me in the slightest. The door is right there. Shall I go..?" The voice was soft, void of all its previous chaos, replaced instead with a sharp condescension lining every word. Shroud had been mistaken, talking to this being as he had. Obviously he was dealing with something more than a mere mortal. How could he have been so foolish. He would have to think carefully before opening his mouth again.

"Defiance is not rewarded, craven. All those who taught you to fight back tooth and nail were wrong. You shall pay for it." Without warning, the dull and throbbing pain that was the torn flesh under his arm flared in intensity until the fingers of unconsciousness plucked at the edges of Shroud's vision. "How dare you think you could stand up to me. You know not even who I am!" the last three words boomed, echoing painfully around the room and vibrating endlessly on the eardrums. A blink of an eye, and Shroud found himself a hairs breadth away from those chaotic shadows. The closeness to them made his flesh crawl and he knew he shouldn't touch them.

"You have not proven yourself to me with your bold words, coward. Here you still hang, and here you will stay if I wish it to be so. What say you to that, boy"

[Wrenmae]

Agony was much like wine, aging in perfection till it was resplendent transcendence. Wrenmae had never been obsessed with pain nor the process of life. He had taken it all for granted, the muscles beneath his skin, the beating of his heart, the way his blood clotted rather than flowed out. What he felt now, in the presence of this...other, was beyond anything he could have grasped. His mind simply shattered to behold it, and only Shroud's tenacity kept the young man from losing himself completely. It had been a long year. The agony stole his voice, his words, the entirety of his breath, and for several moments he simply twisted on the ends of the chain, dangling like meat in a butcher's shop. He felt like meat in a butcher's shop...but even the carcasses there were treated with more care than his careless flaying. If this...thing, left him here...as he was, now. He would die. Never had he come so close to death before...not since the mountains and Vayt. There had been a god there too...is that what this was? Was he doomed to see gods at every moment his life would pass to Dira? What was so special about the thin storyteller anyways? The presence of those shadows clutching at his skin seemed to embolden the prisoner, keeping him from unconciousness if only to distance himself from any vestige of the darkness before him. It was terrifying...but he laughed, tears pouring from both a ruined and whole eye. Whatever this was, it wreaked havoc within him. It was the essence of chaos. "My apologies," Shroud muttered through broken teeth and bleeding lips, "How would you have this dying man address you?" Blood poured from his chin and patterned slow splatters on the floor beneath him. "I do not know you, but I gather you do not help people often. What is it that I can give to you, or prove to you, to make this effort more worthy of your time?" A sob wracked his thin frame and he was limp again. There was simply no more strength in his muscles to try and hold himself up. Only his head moved, rolling on weakened shoulders to look past the shadows...not into them. Do not think of them, do not define them. He couldn't afford to be unconscious. If he did, he'd never wake.

[Phoenix]

There was a long, long silence while Shroud clung desperately to his consciousness. The chaotic being said nothing, did nothing to help him. It just watched while the little human struggled. Breaker had long since stopped moving, his limbs stiffening in weird angles as rigimortus set in.

"That could easily be you, Wrenmae." He spat the name, using it as a whip and making the young man visibly flinch. Shroud could be no more. He would have to learn to repress that bold, rebellious side. Wrenmae was weaker, more readily broken.

Tendrils of the shadow extended like fingers, wrapping around the bace of the dying man's throat. Where a gentle pressure started, gradually cutting off his air supply, Wrenmae quickly felt the pains of suffocation. It was not an easy death, nor was it comfortable. It was painful and it was humiliating. The body fought strangulation even of it's own accord. "Fight back, little one, I dare you."

Whether it was cooperation or the loss of blood and restraints, Wrenmae barely moved as the blood built up in his brain, the rest of his body starving for oxygen. It wasn't until consciousness was completely gone, shoulders strained to their absolute max as the dead weight of the young body tested them. He was still alive, but barely.

Rhysol smiled and released his grasp on Wrenmae's neck. His form solidified, the chaos and shadows evaporating until a tall, lanky and evil looking man stood in the middle of the room. Inky, shoulder length hair whipped in an unseen wind as milky white, pupiless eyes bored into where the young man hung.

"You'll be given a task." The voice was the same, indistinguishable and frightening. "I was to choose you but..." a roll of those bony shoulders and a dark chuckle "Well, defiance is a path I do not approve of. You will know when and what you will have to do. Shroud will tell you, but you must not let him loose. This I order you."

A long, graceful and fluid step forward brought Rhysol to where the man hung. A single white finger was extended and pressed against the faint pulse beating at the base of his throat. Though it had been gradually slowing, the touch made the pulse jump and race, color quickly returning to the dying man's face.

When Wrenmae awoke, he would ne alone but with his dead torturer. He would not remember the words Rhysol spoke, nor would he remember any identity of the god. His wounds, while not healed, would appear to have occurred weeks ago instead of hours. His left hand would also be free of it's manacle, the chain that kept him strung having slithered out of the ring and leaving that bruised and battered body slumped on the cold floor.

[Wrenmae]

When Wrenmae beheld the corruption, the chaos, he almost fell to darkness again, his mind desperately unable to make use of what swirled before him. Agony, suffocation, nothingness, the ends of traitors and cowards held him before slowly releasing and finally abating. He barely heard the words Rhysol spoke. Shroud? What was that? Some name? Something? He had awoken to agony, a body slumped beneath him. He had witnessed chaos, the purest and simplest expression of madness in every soul, in every mind. Now he listened, his body yearning for release, for words. Would that he could have help, could have release from this agony. His very sense of self was shattered, beaten and broken beyond the ken of normal torture. His mind lay shattered, his will devoured, the dead torturer beneath him scarcely spoke of anything but utter desolation. And this being could murder him in an instant, in any instant. He was nothing to it. He nodded as the being spoke. A task, yes, a task. Of course. Let it be anything so long as his life could be spared. The one known as Shroud, the self styled egotist and rebellion in Wrenmae's mind, the protection necessary to keep him from utter madness...it was the only strength left to the young man. Without it, he was a broken, weak thing. And as such he awoke on the cold floor. For awhile he simply lay prone, his muscles aching. Somehow, his wounds had been healed, but the bones and muscles that were once torn ached like fire beneath his skin. Muted cries of helplessness choked in his throat as he reached for the body of Breaker. Keys, there must be keys. It was out of his reach. Instead he turned to the manacle that held him, held out his hand, and focused on the nothingness. The shadow, the eternal void just beyond this seeming reality of things and matter. For almost a bell he struggled to summon up the magic, his body wracked with fear and panic. What had he done to deserve this? What was that being before? Unanswered questions. Part of him wanted to simply lay down and accept his fate...to let the damages accumulate and ultimately claim him. Instead, a small black void appeared just a small ways from his outstretched hand. It was this void that Wrenmae used to cut the chain that held him, releasing his tired body to the ground. The bells that followed, the wandering in that lonely catacomb...those were times almost dreams in his own mind. His things were in a room where they had been thrown, and he gathered them with trembling hands. Zan was quiet, the familiar only a breath in his ear for this whole ordeal. Was he frightened? Was he in just as much agony as his master? He could have used the optimistic familiar. Outside it was raining, scouring the earth of its corruption and baptizing the young storyteller in new hope. He saw the clouds for the first time in far too long. He felt the rain. He felt the earth. He was alive... But he left most of who he was in the darkness below. He emerged broken, lesser... He emerged with a dark presence louring over his head.