While it isn't a devil's banquet (a 'loth's banquet instead), the following is a rather unique dinner that I wrote up for my Storyhour (warning, lots of blood):
[sblock]
The black oblivion of unconsciousness lifted along with the black cloth hood from over Malcolm's head. A brilliant spotlight focused upon his face, burning his eyes and forcing him to squint and attempt to turn his face. A vaguely insectile hand roughly grabbed his jaw and forced him to look forward as another, similar hand painfully held his hair and some sort of tentacle or tongue wriggled near his ear. A third hand grabbed his left arm, pressing upon a nerve in his wrist and forcing his fingers to release wide. A fourth hand gripped his index finger and forced something around it, a ring of some sort.
Where was he? What was going on?
He struggled to move and found the act impossible. He was seated, his upper arms were bound at his sides, and his legs were lashed to the chair.
"So good of you to join us Malcolm." A mockingly concerned voice called out from beyond the nimbus of the spotlight. Without his eyes yet adjusted, he could make no identification, but the speaker was female and confident, arrogantly so. "I trust that your transit here was swift and comfortable? Hmm?"
A buzzing sound resonated within his head, and the hand grasping his hair constricted tightly. Answer her mortal!
"Where am I?!"
"No no no..." The distant voice chided playfully. "Malcolm you're not quite understanding just how this works. This evening we'll do doing quite a bit. Some dinner and entertainment, much like any evening of mine, but to start things off, I'll be asking questions and you'll be answering them. You don't get to do the same."
"Who the bloody hell are you?"
A gloved fist backhanded him suddenly, causing stars to flash in his vision, and then the myriad of hands on his person were forcing him back up and looking forward.
"You stole something from me Malcolm, or at least one of my couriers anyway."
The woman's voice was unhappy, but not furious. Likely he'd be beaten but he hadn't done anything to merit anything more serious. That line of thought was normally appropriate for the mortals that Malcolm had worked with prior to his arrival in Sigil. Under those presumptions a little bit of mouth could defuse things, earn him some professional respect, even if it was rude.
"See?" Malcolm wisecracked. "You answered my question."
"Break every bone in his right hand." The woman's voice was utterly devoid of concern or empathy. There was no momentary pause where reason overruled ethics or socially constructed moral limits.
The clawed hand on Malcolm's jaw moved down, closing like a vice around his forearm and holding it in place. What happened next he couldn't tell, it happened so quickly and the pain nearly caused him to black out, but it was likely a hammer that slammed into each of his fingers one by one in quick, professional succession. They had broken a man's bones before and they were very good at it.
Someone was screaming, loudly. They were whimpering and howling, begging for mercy. They were apologizing for having stolen something. Malcolm inwardly winced at the agony in their voice. Light then returned to his eyes and he realized that he was hearing his own voice.
"That's such a beautiful sound." The woman sighed, relaxing as if she were seated in a cushioned private box at the opera. "Oh, and one of you not already predisposed, fetch me some wine."
"Red or white your Fiendish Majesty?" One voice obediently asked.
"Given the proposed dinner menu this evening, I'd have to suggest a red. Nothing too sweet, something deep and complex to provide a contrast I suppose. But depending on certain factors that we won't know until it's time to prepare the meal, bring a bottle of Sauternes as well, and a crisp white if the chef serves the sweetbreads."
He could barely feel anything in his right hand beyond the fierce, constant ache of crushed, bleeding tissue. Yet through the pain his eyes were finally adjusting to the room's harsh light, and he could finally make out who was speaking to him, talking about her dinner and wine pairings while watching his torture.
The room was relatively small and the walls were hung with multiple layers of heavy, black cloth, presumably to muffle the noises of screams. A pair of tieflings dressed in black flanked him, one of them smiling and holding a bloody hammer. Malcolm avoided looking down at the damage to his hand, just based on the pain he knew that without a cleric's aid, it was probably going to be crippled or lost. Something larger and inhuman stood behind him, its tongue periodically licking alongside the back of his head.
"Let's start over Malcolm." His captor spoke from where she sat directly opposite him against the far wall, seated upon a cushioned throne, legs crossed and a glass of wine delicately held in one clawed, opera-gloved hand. "It seems that we've gotten off to a bad start."
She wasn't human or fiend blooded. She was a full-blown fiend of some sort, essentially a humanoid jackal groomed and primped like a self-obsessed princess. She wore a long and tight fitting, wine red gown, opera-gloves of the same color, and a purplish black under-bust corset. A dozen jeweled rings, earrings, necklaces, and a ratty tangle of coiled razorvine atop her head completed the baroque and wholly out of place ensemble, unless you also counted the ruby-red polish applied to the claws on her toes and hands where the gloves were open to display her fingers.
Something passed over Malcolm's mind, a series of fingers brushing against his consciousness that were cold and distinctly different from the buzzing, alien voice that had touched his brain earlier.
"It is a nice gown isn't it?" The fiend put a hand at her breast and smiled, looking not at her prisoner but at her reflection in the mirror. "Given the color and material, blood doesn't stain it nearly as much as other outfits."
Two other figures stood between Malcolm and the fiend, both of them on opposite sides of the room from the other. The first was another of her tiefling guards dressed in well cut, expensively tailored black clothing. Unlike the others however he wasn't carrying any weapons or objects of torture: he was holding aloft a heavy, ornately framed wall floor-length mirror. As far as Malcolm could tell, his only purpose was to hold the mirror aloft for the fiend's vanity. Half of the time she wasn't even looking at Malcolm, but rather staring at her own reflection in the mirror and admiring herself in an obnoxious display of rancid vanity. The final person was also a tiefling, but this one wore an ivory white chef's jacket and matching pants, his hair neatly tucked into a white cap. A series of knives and other kitchen implements were stuff into his belt and the table at his side bore the requisite objects of a fantastically high-end kitchen: pots, skillets, bowls, cutting board, and to the side, constructed into the wall, a stove-top and oven.
"Dinner and a show." Shemeska the Marauder smiled at Malcolm and idly held out her left hand. As if on cue, one more newly arrived tiefling handed her a wine glass and poured it full of wine to match her dress. The room operated like a ferociously rehearsed stage play at her desire.
Malcolm looked at the mirror, and in its reflection he could see the creature that stood behind him. The chitinous monstrosity that stood there was easily twice the size of anyone else in the room, and occasionally the tongue that he'd felt touch his head was more a tentacle tipped with a lamprey-like mouth. The creature was a vaath, a native horror of Carceri's second layer of Cathrys, but Malcolm didn't know that, nor was he aware that they fed on their victims both their flesh and their fear, burrowing into their brains and experiencing things through their eyes as well as showing the victim the torture from that end as well. Malcolm was one of the Clueless, only recently arrived in Sigil, and so he only saw it as some horrific fiend. In the reflection he also saw the shard of crystal forcibly embedded into its forehead, leaking a greasy, greenish light, and how its glazed eyes looked to the Marauder for its each and every action.
"Whatever I have done to you Madam, I am truly sorry." Malcolm's tone was genuine as he understood the depths of his mistake.
She didn't bother to respond in words, nor even to look at him as she admired herself in the mirror and addressed the tieflings that flanked her victim, "Is the ring of regeneration firmly in place?"
"Yes your Fiendish Majesty." One of the tieflings drew a serrated filleting knife and the other a bone saw. Still at the table, the chef began sharpening his knives while a dozen sauces reduced and side dishes waited for a main course that was nowhere to be seen at his station.
Malcolm's eyes went wide as he understood what was going to happen.
Taking a sip of her wine, the fiend closed her eyes and savored the taste on tongue and nose. The moment passed and Shemeska the Marauder opened her eyes. Looking directly at Malcolm she smiled, licking her lips, "Proceed."
***
A tortured, gargling moan filled the chamber like hellish chamber music, providing an undertone accompaniment to the delicate chink of golden tableware on fine porcelain, the chime of rings on a fine crystal goblet, and flowing, articulate commentary on the meal.
"This is truly spectacular." The Marauder gently dabbed a napkin to her lips. "I genuinely did not expect to enjoy the taste of the sweetbreads as much as I have, nor to find the meat as tender as it is. My compliments to the chef... and to Mr. Malcolm."
Shemeska raised her wine glass in toast to the man being tortured and vivisected half a dozen feet away.
"The seared liver was remarkably rich, the Carpaccio dish with bitter Minethys truffle, lemon, garlic, and flesh taken from the psoas major was clean and true to expectations and..." She paused as Malcom's lung's regenerated to the point where he could finally begin to scream again. As if listening to an operatic aria of sublime artistry, she closed her eyes and listened to each note of agony, trembling and biting her lower lip after a minute when her victim's lungs collapsed again, silencing the pitch back to a ruined moan.
"I'm so rarely this true to myself Malcolm." Opening her eyes again, she licked her lips and smiled, displaying a dichotomy of painted purple lips and bloody jackal's fangs. "Public appearances being what they are, I can only indulge myself in this way so very rarely. The meal has been excellent, and even more so, your suffering."
The fiend smiled and motioned casually with the hand not grasping her wine glass. The torturers nodded and the chef shuffled the pots currently on the flame for others, preparing for the next array of dishes.
"Would Her Fiendish Majesty be ready for the next round?" The chef's voice was disturbingly upbeat and anticipatory, reflecting a genuine desire to show off his skills for an appreciative patron. Whether by pride and ethics dulled by experience, or by genuine sociopathy, the chef ignored the hellish nature of the scene in its entirety, from the moaning, bleeding man, the smiling, well dressed torturers, and the freshly cut slices of human cheek and tongue braising on his stove-top.
The next twenty minutes proceeded just as before, with the Marauder's servants vivisecting their victim and her chef preparing the highest of haute cuisine from the extracted organs and meat, producing and naming each with a flourish.
"Flash fried, thinly sliced ear dressed with white truffle infused honey."
The Marauder inhaled, savoring the smell before tasting with a pair of golden chopsticks.
"Crisp baguette with a topping of liver pate with dried cherries and pistachios, dressed with mustard, sorghum, and arugula."
"Spectacular." The fiend cooed as she took the first bite, and then motioned towards Malcolm's ruined form with the plate in her hand. "I would be truly remiss if I didn't offer to share. Seriously mortal, this is sublime. You simply must try once your tongue regenerates to the point that you can taste."
The bloodied mortal turned his head away, wincing in disgust, blinded by pain, and gagging on copious amount of swallowed blood and fluid accumulated in his lungs.
"I insist," The Marauder approached and stroked his bloodied cheek with her claws before wrenching his jaw open with a revolting sound of breaking bone and cartilage. "Focus on the taste Malcolm. Trust me when I say that it will help for what the chef has planned for the next course."
She chuckled and resumed her seat, sipping at an alcoholic aperitif to cleanse her palate before crossing her legs and stretching with a contented sigh. "Tell us chef, what bit of genius is next?"
"If it would so please you Madam," He bowed and nodded to the tieflings flanking Malcolm. "A preparation of marrow served within the extracted femur with the ends still fresh, the center excavated and carved prior to its use as a container for the cooked yellow stroma."
Shemeska smiled and tapped her painted claws upon the arms of her chair. "That sounds truly delectable chef. But I have an additional request."
The tieflings paused in the midst of sawing open Malcolm's pelvis to expose the acetabulum and the glistening ball of the femur.
"I hate to be a glutton, I really do." The Marauder's voice was honeyed with false sympathy. "But I really do want a second preparation of the poached sweetbreads."
"... whhhy?” Malcolm seized and choked on the blood filling his lungs, alive only on account of the ring that caused his flesh to slowly regenerate and a second ring belatedly placed upon his other hand relieving him of the necessity to breath. “Whhy al you doinnng his? Pllees...pleees…"
"Malcolm... Malcolm..." Shemeska chided, placing the fingers of her right hand upon his tongue, pinching its tip between her thumb and index fingers. "You'll understand eventually, but for the moment, the meal is hardly over, and honestly, you haven't screamed nearly enough to my tastes."
The arcanaloth's eyes glowed with a lurid flicker of purple flame and with a soft, barely perceptible chuckle she pinched her fingers together, planted her left foot against the mortal's chest and pulled.
The sound of tearing, ripping flesh was drowned out by Malcolm’s apoplectic shriek.
"I don't think that I'll be wanting more of this," Spattered in blood, she dropped the two feet of tongue into the chef's hands with a careless shrug before retaking her seat. "But back to what I was saying before, if you would, once you've removed the femur, if you could crack open the chest cavity again to harvest the thymus a second time. Oh, and additionally, one of the kidneys for a pie later would be lovely."
***
If not for the agonized screaming that erupted in fits and bursts, the chamber would have sounded like any other high-class dining room in Sigil with an open or adjacent kitchen. The rich smells of food though were undercut with blood, perfume, and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh, and all the while the air filled with the sounds of sizzling pots and pans, the sound of knives on cutting boards, and the more refined and elegant clink of dinnerware on fine porcelain and soft murmurs of appreciation.
"The second course of milk-poached sweetbreads was spectacular." The Marauder smiled and held her hand off to one side to accept a small shot of crisp raspberry sorbet. Her palate thus cleansed, she gestured to the chef. Ignoring the suffering mortal only a few feet away, his blood spattered her dress, stained her teeth, and congealed upon her bejeweled finery. "What then for the next course?"
The chef's eyes sparkled as he smiled with unmitigated pride, "Her Fiendish Majesty will be dining upon a human Chateaubriand cooked with white wine and shallots moistened with demi-glace, topped with a tarragon butter and lemon."
Through the preparation and consumption, the fiend seemed to lick her lips more from the agonized screaming than from the dish itself, though both were truly inseparable as far as a meal concerned an entity such as herself. Over the next two hours the process continued with three further preparations of haute cuisine, interrupted only by a lengthy monolog on the fiend's part. Chuckling and sipping appreciatively on a glass of brilliant green Chartreuse liqueur, she speculated with rapt self-absorption on what prominent fashion trends bubbled upon the horizon of Sigilian high society, which she approved of, and which she desired nipped in the bud rather than have to endure wearing it.
Without magical intervention, Malcolm would have long before died of shock or hemorrhage. Mangled, posed, and harvested, only his face and digestive tract were intact, with much of the rest of his body broken, carved out, excavated, or amputated for the fiend's table or simply for her perverse aesthetic pleasure. What she allowed to remain intact however was only there to allow him to see, hear, and taste each and every dish during its preparation and then forcibly fed a portion by the fiend that stood behind him, all while providing his own screaming, wailing feedback.
"Am I boring you Malcolm?" The Marauder stood and walked over to the weeping mortal. There she paused, sipped the digestif in her hand and smiled. The meal was over, the pitch of the mortal's suffering had reached some subtle inflection point of agony, and it was time for something else.
Dressed in blood-spattered gown and glittering regalia, Shemeska kept a hand on her chest above the corset, holding herself steady and in place, breathing deeply, nearly erotically so as she approached and for the first time lowered herself to eye-level. Eyes wide she sniffed like a hungry jackal, tilting her head first to one side and then the other in a remarkably bestial fashion before leaning in further, closing her eyes and licking the tears from Malcolm's face. He could smell her breath with its mixture of blood, ash, and the assertive aroma of herbal liqueur, and for a moment her mind brushed his and he felt the paradoxical dichotomy of adoration and abhorrence filling her mind as she tasted that visceral manifestation of his suffering.
Purple painted lips peeled back to show jackal's fangs, her eyes glowed fiercely, and then the veil of culture reappeared as she took a cloth and delicately dabbed her lips clean of blood and alcohol.
"Malcolm," Her voice was cold and tinged with the faintest hint of amusement, "What exactly made you think that you could steal something from me?"
"It had nothing to do with you." Malcolm's tortured voice repeated an answer that he'd made a dozen times before that evening.
"How arrogant does one have to be to steal from a being of arrogance made flesh?"
"I didn't know that I was stealing from you!"
Sever his left foot. Shemeska's telepathic call rang out to every mind but her victim's.
"Where did you intend to sell the items that you stole?"
"Anyone who would buy it. It didn't matter! I don't know!"
Sever his right hand
"What was the first thought in your mind when you saw me smile upon your hood being removed?"
"You are beautiful madam. Truly beautiful!"
Shemeska smiled and leaned forward, kissing him upon the lips and leaving behind a trace lipstick, "Keep that memory treasured and well in mind then..."
Pluck out his eyes one by one, and set them in a bowl of Armagnac That statement was spoken to everyone, Malcolm included.
"One final question for you," Shemeska put a finger to his throat, feeling the blood irregularly pulse through his jugular. "Are you afraid to die Malcolm?"
"Yes, yes I am." He shuddered and momentarily his eyes rolled back in his head as his body -magical healing or not- threatened to simply collapse and die. "Please have mercy. Please don't kill me."
"Why not?"
"You're beautiful Lady Shemeska," Malcolm's voice broke and he descended into pleading, half-coherent platitudes. "I'll do anything for you. Anything! Say it and I'll do it. Anything. Please! Please! ANYTHING!!"
"Good..." Smiling coldly, Shemeska slowly and deliberately removed the multitude of rings and bracelets from her hands, placing them upon a golden tray carried by one of her servitors. One by one the others exited the room, leaving her and Malcolm alone. She licked her lips, stood up and stretched her head side to side. She cleared her throat twice while Malcolm wept in thanks, whispering prayers to every power he yet remembered the names of. His error was momentary as the Marauder spoke her next words. "Then I think that we're finally ready to truly begin then!"
Snapping her fingers, the lights extinguished, leaving the room in darkness cut only by the purple, ethereal glow of her eyes and the inner light of the soul gems dangling from the jewelry upon her ears and throat. Placing her hands upon his remaining fingers, she removed the ring of regeneration and spoke, not in planar common, not in the language of magic, but using words learned from another, Shemeska spoke in Baern. The words rattled the air, bringing tears to the fiend's eyes and the trembles of ecstasy thereafter, while the target of her blasphemous speech received the opposite. Upon the edge of death, Malcolm heard her words clearly through his fading consciousness, but otherwise he saw only fragments and snapshots of imagery through the pain: her fangs, her tongue across her lips, flame within her eyes, and the palpable touch of the words like slithering tongues and nimble, razored fingers as they broke down his mind, his memory, and seated themselves within his brain as a second, nearly autonomous creature, watching for the moment when it would take control.
[/sblock]
