Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

see how he responds. Regardless of whether he clenches up or spills his innards, we leave him alone for, say, a week. No talk, no contact, no yelling. Just stony, perfect silence as his food is put through the door, his chamberpot emptied, the hall outside his cell is swept. I think you'll find that after the third or fourth day, he'll try and engage with anyone he knows is sitting outside the door. We could learn all kinds of things.”

“Uncomfortable, but not extreme,” I replied. “I like it. Suri?”

She struggled inwardly, clenching and unclenching her jaw. After a minute or so, she turned away from us.

“I'm going to go train with Kitti for a while,” she said, her voice taut with suppressed rage. “Teach the girl how to defend herself. You guys talk to Jacob. If I have to listen to him, I'll rip his fuckin' jaw off.”

I looked to Vash. “Does gelding count as torture?”

The monk shrugged. “Only if you don't use anesthetic.”

Suri sniffed, chuckled, then stepped forward and wrapped me into a tight, stiff hug. I kissed her on the side of the head. She hugged Vash, next, thumping him on the back, then went to Karalti and clapped her on the calf before slumping off toward the castle.

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. “Phew. That went better than I thought it would.”

“She's changing,” Vash said, his brows knitting. “She's learning more control. But she's hurting, Dragozin. She's hurting a lot.”

“That’s a shame,” Mehkhet murmured.

“I know.” I thought back to Karalti urgently straddling my hips, her hair spilling like a fragrant curtain over my face, and a pang of guilt twisted like a knife in my gut. “She wiggled out of sharing a room our last night here. I won't let her do that tonight.”

“Don't. She needs you.” Vash heaved a deep sigh. “Anyway, shall we take our new guest on a brisk drag to the dungeons?”

“We shall.” I laid a hand on Karalti's leg. “Tidbit?”

“Hmm?” She swivelled her head around like an eagle, Jacob flopping limply between the points of her teeth.

“Release the prisoner!” I proclaimed.

She giggled, and spat the man to the ground. “Phooey!”

“Ugghhhn.” Jacob landed awkwardly, tumbling over on the flagstones. His HP ring was pulsing red. By the look of things, he had, indeed, pissed himself. He was also covered in dirt and dragon drool.

“You're lucky you didn't Strange, you piece of shit.” I put a boot to his shoulder and pushed him onto his face, took out some rope, and made up some cuffs with it. “Welcome to sunny Myszno. As Voivode, I'm hereby arresting your ass for the crime of conspiring to assassinate the Countess.”

“Countess...? ACK!” He froze as Vash rested the toe of his heavy cleated boot on the side of his head.

“That's right. Countess.” As I finished knotting the ropes, something interesting happened. I got a notification of a kind I’d never seen before.

[With the authority of the Volod of Vlachia, you have arrested Jacob Ratzinger. Jacob's status is now Prisoner [Kalla Sahasi]. You may access his Inventory.]

“Awesome,” I said aloud. “Let's see here...”

I focused on Jacob and got a wheel of options. One was to submit an arrest report to Ignas, in case we wanted to stage a proper trial. Given he'd admitted to hiring an assassin, there was some merit to that. I would bet Ignas had some nifty Super NPC powers when it came to dealing with player crimes. One of the other options was his Inventory, so I made a tag in MY Inventory - 'Jacob's Stuff', then went in and stripped everything. And there was a lot. The dude was loaded.

●        Bluecrystal Mana x 5

●        Greencrystal Mana x10

●        Red Mana Stone x1

●        500,000 Dakhari dinar

●        Spellglove of the Angelus (Broken)

●        Arch-Magus Robes (Broken)

●        Boots of Haste

“Hey! Stop! That’s mine!” Jacob finally began to struggle, blubbering into the dirt.

“Shut up.” When he was stripped down to his underwear, I turned him over and squatted over his chest. He flushed red as I grabbed his jaw and squeezed until his mouth opened, and made strangled sounds of protest as I ran my fingers over his gums.

“M'NARR!” His eyes widened. “Wha ar you do'in!?”

“Searching for lockpicks.” I checked his back teeth, looking for false crowns or hidden razors. “Probably doesn't have anything in the old prison pocket, though. Hey Jacob - you shove anything up your ass recently?”

“Whah?! NUH!?” he sputtered.

“Good man.” I stood up, hooked him under one elbow, and hauled him to his feet.

“You've done this before,” Vash remarked in Tuun, taking position on the other side.

I grimaced. “Too many times.”

The fight seemed to leave Jacob as we half-walked, half-dragged him to the dungeons, passed through the entry, and maneuvered him down the stairs. I'd only been to my dungeon once before. It was weird to think that I had a dungeon of my own now: I'd been a prisoner down here, kind of, closed into a box of sand after Ashur the Demon tried to vampirize me. The air down here was thick with the smell of old rot and mildew. There was one large-ish room at the back that was almost like a crypt, and a row of three cells. We took him to the back. It might have been the interrogation room once, but now the room stored several ornate stone sarcophagi. Each coffin was full of Napath desert sand. Once the door was locked, Vash and I threw Jacob on the floor.

“P-Please!” he squeaked, backing up along the floor like an inchworm. “Don't hurt me! I never wanted to do it! I never wanted any of it! It was all Nicolas! He was-”

Before he could finish, I kicked him square in the balls. He cut off with a little wheeze before crumpling forward.

Vash arched an eyebrow. “I thought you said 'no torture?'“

“I’m not trying to