Rituals, Regrets, and Really Dumb People

Chapter 7: The Power of Friendship and Sugar Gliders, Part 4

My torture chamber was something of a piece of art, I guess. I had it built with marble we could scrounge up from wrecks and smoothed, darkened stone from quarries. The entire room was slick and dark, with a few torches scattered about to add to the spookiness. I mean, we had electricity, some of the torture devices used it, but when I ran a torture chamber, it had to be medieval. Iron maidens laid between the small cells, racks, and tons—I mean tons—of candy corn in crates.

I mean, candy corn sounded like proper torture at the time. We found too much of it on wrecked C.o.N. ships.

I found my torture chamber bare of people; seemed only two were here. Lil followed me inside, but I waved my hand up to get them to stop. I didn't think I would need her help on this one; it was the torturer and that werebear bard from the other day. This surprised me, definitely thought there would be more here.

My torturer was a good man, did good work. He was burly, two heads taller than me and built like an ogre himself. I picked him for his gruff attitude, always wearing dark and leather hoods. He was born for this role.

I stepped up quietly and listened in to the torturer talking to the rural bard—John Wesley I think his name was—who was strapped down to the torture rack in the center of the room. Seems the torturer was punishing the bard in a special technique that was bizarre to me.

"You see, my mom stabbed my little red ball when I was a kid," the torturer said to John Wesley. Was weird hearing that come from a guy who looked like he would have been a roadie for a hair metal band or a biker. "That's when it all went downhill. I think my problems with other people stem from that. What do you think?"

The bard laid there staring up at the ceiling. He just kept nodding. I'd never heard my torturer talk about his life before Carcer to anyone, and he may have been doing this for days now. He had no torture instruments out, and he seemed to just be focused on talking.

"What do you think?" he asked the bound bard again.

"Good god, man, he is gagged," I said suddenly. I couldn't help myself. "What are you doing?"

"Huh?" The torturer turned around and looked at me, wearing that chinless hood-mask and spike-covered leather. The bard let out a muffled plea for help. "What brings you down here, milord?"

"You don't know of Typhous taking the castle?"

"No, no one has been down here to tell me anything for a few days," he told me. "Been—uh—hard at work milord."

He stood up and gave me a salute with a punch to his chest. I shook my head and rubbed into my eyes; I was wise to what he was actually doing to the bound bard.

"I can see that. Your little red ball, really?"

"Psychological torture, milord," he said, quick to cover up what he had said. "Look how it works on him."

"I can see that it is working on him. Either way, I'm taking the castle back. I guess since no one else is here, I'll let you get back to work."

The bard cried another muffled plea as the torturer sat back down to get ready to tell him more childhood 'traumas.' I quickly turned to leave, but I was stopped by Lilly, who'd been behind me. She didn't stop like I'd motioned for her to. I stared at her and she seemed to give me a stern glare in turn.

"Don't leave him here," she told me, meaning the bard. "You should be ashamed with yourself, allowing torture like that."

"Oh, it's okay, he's not even a human, he's a bard," I pointed out. "Dime-a-dozen string pickers."

"Mathias!" She sighed. "Listen, don't let this happen to him. And hey, you actiony types, you take bards along don't you? To play musical themes for you and sing of your legend and stuff like that?"