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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joachim" data-source="post: 1289646" data-attributes="member: 9531">New BeginningsDreadmaster Amal slowly paced outside the door to the interrogation chamber, hands folded in front of him.  The screams coming from inside the chamber told him that Hazimir, the church’s ‘inquisition’ expert, was doing exactly as he had been told.  Break the subject’s will, but do not kill him.  This prisoner had too much information to let it die with him.Amal appeared to be an unremarkable man, in more ways that one.  His height and build did not suggest that he was a great warrior, nor did he have the commanding presence so common to the senior clergy of the Black Hand.  What Amal did have, more than anything, was a well-deserved reputation within the church of Bane.  His fierce loyalty to Fzoul Chembryl, coupled with his deadly skill as a spellcaster made Amal one of Fzoul’s favored servants and internal enforcers.  The other Banites had nicknamed Amal ‘The Hand of Chembryl’, a title which he silently embraced.  Those members of the church jealous of Amal’s position derisively referred to him as the ‘Fzoul’s Handmaiden’; none, however, would dare refer to him by this moniker in his presence.  When Fzoul had dirty work to be done, Amal was generally the one to do it.  High priests of Bane were afraid when Amal appeared in their temples.  His arrival too often meant that someone was going to die at Fzoul’s command.  Too often the condemned was the High Priest himself.The screaming from the next room subsided.  The door opened, and Hazimir stepped out.  Dried blood caked his hands and outer garments.  Amal knew the blood was not Hazimir’s.  Closing the door, Hazimir grinned and whispered, “He is ready milord.”  Amal nodded, opened the door, and strode inside.  ‘Hazimir is very good at his job…’, the Dreadmaster mused.Amal closed the door behind him.  Before him, strapped to a wooden chair, was a naked middle-aged man, obviously badly beaten.  Three of his fingers had been removed and one eye had been sealed shut with a branding iron, Hazimir’s torture device of choice.  Amal noted several similarly ghastly wounds across the man’s body, but Hazimir had done as told:  Dorian was maimed, but not dead.Amal went to the man, his voice level but sympathetic, “I don’t want to have to keep letting Hazimir hurt you, Dorian.  Really, I don’t.  We know there is a Harper safehouse in this city.  We know you know where it is.  You are going to tell us, or Hazimir is going to have to….”  Amal’s voice trailed off.Dorian began to sob, “No more…No more…keep that monster away from me!!”  Amal knelt beside the prisoner, gently placing his hand on Dorian’s shoulder.  The cleric spoke, “I swear to you that if you give me the information that I have asked for you won’t have to worry about Hazimir anymore.  I swear he will not hurt you ever again.”  Crying and nodding, Dorian began to speak.  He told Amal everything, including the location of the safehouse and the number of its inhabitants.  Dorian would have implicated his own mother if he thought it would keep Hazimir away from him.  Amal knew that man to be telling the truth to the best of his abilities due to the divination he had cast previously allowing him to discern falsehoods.When the man finished speaking, Amal smiled slightly before speaking, “Thank you Dorian.  You have made Bane proud.  But, you have been assisting the Harpers in your own city, and for that you are guilty of treason.  I am sure that you are aware of the penalty for treason.”  Amal stepped back and retrieved a silver holy symbol of Bane from his belt.  The holy symbol was covered with Infernal epithets and curses.Dorian’s eyes grew big, and he sputtered, “No!  You promised you wouldn’t hurt me anymore!”  Amal shook his head, and coldly responded, “No, I said I wouldn’t let Hazimir hurt you anymore.  I didn’t say anything about me.”  Amal began casting a spell, one he knew all too well.  Dorian’s torso became alight with dark fire, and the fire spread, soon consuming the hapless commoner’s entire body.  Within seconds there was nothing left of Dorian, excepting fine ash and the chair that he sat upon.Amal replaced the symbol on his belt and strode out of the room.  When he opened the door, he saw one of the young acolytes standing at the door, waiting.  No doubt he heard what had just transpired.  Stammering, the acolyte spoke, “M-m-m-m-m-master Amal.  You have a visitor who has requested an audience with you…”‘Funny,’ Amal thought.  He wasn’t expecting visitors.  He looked the acolyte in the eyes and demanded, “Who would dare visit me unannounced and expect an audience on short notice?”The acolyte quickly responded.  “I have never met her before.  She says her name is Entropy, and that you would know her…”</blockquote>

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