NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 433215" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VI, Part 24Delem screamed in pain as the dull head of the kabbak-johr brushed his side, the plain metal burning like fire as it touched his bare flesh.  He spun around, feeling like he would pass out from the pain, knowing that he could not.  He was barely able to bring his own weapon around in time to deflect the next stroke, and the next after that, but then a solid blow caught him in the chest, and he was falling backwards, everything around him lost in a haze of pain. When had recovered enough to become aware of his surroundings, he saw that he was on his back on the jagged stone, looking up at the horned visage of the demon who had struck him down.  “You are weak, human,” it said to him, its voice thick with contempt.  Delem tensed slightly, expecting anything, but the demon only turned and walked away.  Slowly the sorcerer lifted himself to his feet.  He watched as the demon crossed to the far side of the unevenly shaped room, and replaced the kabbak-johr on a rack among the numerous other unusual weapons that hung along the entire length of the wall.  Delem saw that it had taken up his own discarded weapon, a guisarme with a heavy iron haft and a serrated blade of black metal, and placed it up on the wall as well.  Delem half-expected the demon to say something else to him, but it didn’t even look at him again as it turned and left via the steep staircase that led back up to the cavernous halls above.  Delem was left alone, breathing heavily.  He felt pain in various parts of his body, but had grown so familiar with that feeling that mere physical hurts barely troubled him much any more.  Not that such tolerance helped him any—the demons were perfectly able of devising fresh torments that would strip away whatever shields he had constructed, delving him into new depths of suffering and despair.  Left completely alone, he debated heading back up to the complex, but ultimately decided to remain here.  He walked over to the wall of weapons, examining them.  He’d already learned how to use many of them, after a fashion, although he was no warrior and he doubted that he ever would be able to wield blades in the way that Lok, or even Benzan had.  Thinking of those two names, even incidentally, brought new pain that he couldn’t easily ignore, so he squashed the thought and turned back to the weapons.  They were all ugly, brutal things, awkward and difficult to use.  Many of them inflicted pain upon the wielder as well as the target, even when used properly.  He ran his hand along the surface of one, letting the physical pain drive away his inner pain, if only just for a second.  He didn’t even bother with the line of blood across his hand.  It would heal, or it wouldn’t; it didn’t really matter, here. As always happened when the demons left him alone, his mind drifted back to the audience—when had it been?  Time was so intangible here, in a place without days or nights or even simple physical reminders like the need to eat or sleep.  Sleep—ah, what he wouldn’t have given for just the simple oblivion of sleep!  Here, whenever he was bludgeoned into unconsciousness or otherwise incapacitated by a demon’s whim, the only dreams that came were those sent by them.  Even his own thoughts weren’t his own, a reality that he knew only too well.  Was he insane?  There was no way of knowing, but he supposed just being able to ask the question was a good sign.  He laughed at the absurdity of it, the sound as always surprising him, the noise sounding as though it was coming from a different creature’s throat.  Ah yes, the audience.  It flooded back into him now, when the glabrezu had brought him before his tormenter, when he had looked into the face of that being which now... owned him, owned him in the same sense that he had owned his own thoughts back when...He’d recognized him immediately, though he couldn’t say where or when he’d gotten that knowledge.  There was something familiar, though, something from his past life, a niggling reminder of...The thought was overwritten by the words in his mind, playing over their conversation once again as it already had a thousand times before.“Welcome, Delem.  I have been watching you for some time, now, even before you came here, in fact.”“Why?” A simple word, with so many meanings.“I have had an... interest in one of your companions, but must admit, that of all your little band, you, Delem, always fascinated me the most.  There is a certain presence to you that lies just beneath the surface, something that your friends never fully saw.”“Why have you done all of this to me?” Not that he expected an answer from such a being, but he had to ask the question, could not keep it inside him any longer.  He was already shaking, trembling with the combined force of a thousand emotions running through him.“The torments were necessary, Delem, for you to rediscover who you are—what you are.  And see, you have recovered your powers, and in fact will grow stronger, under the proper... guidance.”“What do you want from me?”Laughter.  “Why, nothing at all.  After all, anything that I could want from you, I already have.  Make no mistake, Delem, you are mine now, as much so as my sword or my palace or my slaves, here.”  In an unnecessary display he had reached out toward a hezrou standing nearby.  The stupid creature had started to come quickly over to them at the gesture, only to begin a horrid mewling as it suddenly halted, as if it has struck a wall.  He formed his hand into a fist, holding it up for several long seconds, and the hezrou had flailed and cried and begged as its body began to collapse under it.  Finally he had released it, relaxing his hand, and the demon melted into a putrid heap of ruined flesh on the floor.  “Why don’t you just do the same to me, then?” Delem had asked, the words coming from somewhere deep inside of him.  “Ah, there is that fire inside, still burning.  You still have much to learn, my Delem, but I will leave you with one final thought.  I realize that you have little reason to trust any of us, but take it for what you will.”“There is a way out of here, Delem... a way that you can get back to Faerûn.”Delem fell back into the present, turned away from the wall of weapons.  He’d pressed too deeply, and he could feel his blood pooling on the floor beneath his hand.  No matter.   He heard scratching noises, and turned to see a half-dozen dretches gathering near the base of the stairs.  They respected him, now, respected his power for all that they were heavily resistant to his fire.  Another lie, that had been.  Still, he sometimes thought back to that day when he at least had believed that he could strike down the demons, savored the way that it had felt to be the one inflicting, rather than receiving, the pain. He lifted the kabbak-johr from its rack, holding the heavy weapon in both hands.  It hurt just to hold the weapon, and it was slick as the blood from his hand smeared on the weapon’s shaft.“So, another test?” he shouted, to no one in particular.  The dretches wouldn’t care no matter what he said; the creatures were blindingly stupid.  But they were tenacious, and as they lurched forward a certain eagerness shone in their dark eyes.  Delem met their rush, unaware that the same feeling was reflected in his own eyes.</blockquote>

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