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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GodOfCheese" data-source="post: 1581858" data-attributes="member: 19170">Zara's Tormentor Revealed“Hah!  You remember me!”  The taunting voice is close now, its source seemingly level with Zara’s head as she sits bound to the chair.  “Truly, I wondered how you could possibly have forgotten...” When the hazy light finally illuminates the figure, it sparkles, as though covered in fine jewels.  Slowly, it resolves into a childish form carrying a child-sized walking stick.  “...my melodious voice?”But to Zara’s eye, benefiting from her emerging memory of the spoken voice, the figure is that of a halfling.  A sadistic halfling from whom she and her companions had been accidentally parted deep beneath Millington.  The same sadistic halfling who had later abandoned his other companions in their moment of need while Zara herself could only watch.  “So, you now seek to betray me as you did Noella and Sonali, Milo?”“I haven’t betrayed you, Zara,” the voice retorts.  “It’s you who’ve betrayed me... not that I feel like caring one way or another.”  He blinks, and his expression seems to grow severe.  “Maybe I do care.  You left us*, down there in that demon-filled maze!”“We did not abandon you!  We were cut off!”“Mushroom milk!”  Milo exclaims.  “You hid behind the door when the invisible demons attacked!  You took Effrem with you, the only one of us who could have seen them!”  His eyes bore into her as his voice lowers murderously.  “I find that coincidence hard to believe.”Zara growls at the halfling defiantly.  “What did you expect us to do?  We were trapped!”“It’s a shame, really.  I rather liked Sonali,” Milo muses.  “I find it pleasurable to spend my time in the company of attractive women.  I suppose that’s why you killed them, wasn’t it, Zara?”  He frowns.  “Jealousy?  And I thought you were Noella’s friend...”“I did not kill them—you did!”  Zara wrenches at the cords around her wrists and legs, jerking the chair forward as she lunges ineffectively at Milo.  The chair wobbles and bounces, but doesn’t tip over.  Milo takes a step back, putting a little more space between himself and the wriggling monk.  “Wasn’t me who abandoned them to their deaths, woman.  I was lucky to escape with my life.”“Liar!  We watched you through the magic mirrors!  I saw you use your magic to escape when the attack began!”  The memory rises in her throat, bitter like bile, of Milo teleporting away, leaving Noella, Sonali, Korith Darkstone, and the crazed refugee to die.  “Your cowardice killed them all!”  She verily roars with hatred and frustration.  “Untie me so I can kill you!”Milo smiles a smile that Zara can’t see, but can practically hear.  “No,” he says gleefully, though he keeps his distance from the enraged apparition who was once his companion.  “See, I’m going to let you stew in all that anger and frustration and then feed you to a good friend of mine.  Yes, someone I’ve met in the wandering months,” he gestures in the empty air between himself and Zara.  “...since you and last I parted company.”Zara’s brown eyes flash like smoldering coals in the dark, her teeth bared in feral malice.  She says nothing but glares at her short opponent silently.  Her body stills as she forces calm upon herself, as though trapping a fierce storm of enraged hatred within the iron vessel of her discipline.“You’re going to die without honor,” Milo says disappointedly.  “You could at least die with a smile...”---* Zara and Milo parted company in Chorok's ever-changing maze.  Zara's half of the party was investigating a room filled with magical scrying mirrors and Milo's was out in the hall (this was a tactic Milo himself suggested because he knew there were traps in that room and he didn't want to be in it if they were set off).  Invisible demons closed the door to the mirror room, which caused the maze to reconfigure itself.  In the blink of an eye, the room with Zara's party was moved randomly somewhere else in the maze.  Having no idea where they were, Zara and her party could only scry on their comrades with the mirrors.  Milo Dimension Doored out, abandoning his party-members to die outnumbered. </blockquote>

Verification