-Layer 1-

Caer Akris

Yelena

Appraisal: Success

Morphology: Carrion Vermin

HP: 5/5

She watched the little rodent scurry about her cell with absent eyes. Its nose twitched in the air for a moment, taking in the musky scent of the sweat that glistened on her naked body, mixing with the intoxicating aroma of her dried blood smeared across the walls and the bars of her cell. When she found the minute reserve of strength within her to tap her toe on the cold stone floor of her cage, the little critter scurried off away from its prize. It would wait out there, in the darkened tunnels of the dungeon, until its prey had expired.

She made herself blink reality into existence. Her eyes, by this point, had become accustomed to the shadowed walls that acted as her new home. In isolation she had waited, hearing the screams of the others they'd brought down here for their own amusement - hacking and hewing away at them with their grisly, rusted tools and pawing at the women with their gnarled hands. Most didn't last long. She pitied them as much as someone who still had the strength to fight against her captors could pity those who did not have the power to resist.

Or had had that power long since beaten or betrayed out of them - sacrificed for a single moment of peace before their deaths.

They administered the same treatment to all the prisoners - entering their cells every day, beating them, scratching them, cutting them open to see what they could mess with. Or, to see what truth they could extract. The Don had many enemies, apparently, and his orders were clear - they would kneel before him, or they would suffer the slow, agonizing death that the Everloft's own sick magic helped provide.

It was the Glancer that stood beside the Don - the cloaked, scarred man known as Knox. The one who had repaired the leg of the kid she'd cleaved clean through, and the one who came with the torturers on their daily visits, saying nothing, hearing the screams and showing no emotion at all. He was there to stitch together the wounds again, to close them up when they got the answers they wanted - or when the men had simply had enough fun. He was a 'healer' - and that was the sickest irony of all. With his particular talents, they could turn a man inside out, rend him limb from bloody limb, and then put him back together again like a patchwork doll, ready to be worked on again the next day.

But when they came for her, they came knowing they would pay. That was her goal - they could slash away at her body, they could try and lay their hands on her, they could mock her valor as an Argent as much as they wanted - in every case, she'd pay them back in kind. Last time, a sickly Tilonxeel man called Lesky had come to administer his little tortures. He came with snapping pliers and his own sharpened claws, but as he held her down and tried his first incision, he'd realized the mistake inherent in not binding her legs.

She'd smiled all the time she strangled him with her bare thighs, lifting him into the air by her manacles so he couldn't fight back - his squirrel-arms being too short to even graze her legs. When they found him in her cell they found him with his eyes barely attached to his head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and his little arms still twitching, trying to reach for the tools of his trade.

It had taken four of them to bind her legs after that, and even then, one of them had lost their teeth in the process. When the scarred Knox brought Lesky back, he didn't even sniff in her direction ever again.

When tears came, she held them back. They were for her alone. When she screamed, she let her spittle fly into their eyes. Her body was hardier down here - so hardy that her skin alone felt like a layer of armor draped over her muscles and bones. Pain ceased to exist. The real torment came after, as she recalled the treachery that had damned her to this place.

Every few days, the one called Nils came down and sat himself across from her cell, smiling his impish Yok'ra smile, and telling her that her little companion was long gone. He'd abandoned her. Run off at the first opportunity. And then he went on to reiterate the same sorry line he'd been trotting out every time he came to see her:

"Look, this ain't no place for a lady," he would say. "'Specially not a young'un like you. But yer makin' this harder than it has ta be. I'll tell ye again: pledge yerself ta the Don and all this'll stop. On ma word, ye can trust that."

They'd share a look across her cell bars that told both of them what the other was all about. She fixed him with her cold stare that made his blood boil beneath his scales - a stare she hoped, with all the fury in her veins, would communicate the depth of her hatred to him. He looked on at her with a look of professional apathy. To him, this was just business. Another day, another kid to carve up.

So when she leaned forward, spat at his feet, and told him his Don could come down here and try to collar her if he wanted a new slave, he did nothing but yawn, crack his neck, and rise to leave.

"Y'know, the Don's told the lads to keep their dicks in their pants with you," he said. "But if yer gonna be like this, you better believe I'll let 'em have a crack. Maybe then ye'll be some use ta us, eh?"

She said nothing. He said nothing.

Then when she blinked, he was gone.

She thought for a moment that she might have imagined him. She always did find that having an enemy in front of her gave her more motivation than being alone with her demons.

And her partiuclar demon hadn't stirred at all since she'd been imprisoned down here.

She would not call to him, and he did not creep into her mind. She'd endured all the pain they'd thrown at her, but even she had to admit that now, as the days blurred into eachother, and the concept of light became as hazy as her belief in her own strength, her remaining conviction was beginning to dwindle.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Di," she whispered in the confines of the dark. "What would you think of me now..."

...

It was in this sorry, barely conscious state, that he found her.

Her eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught of light throwing itself through her cell bars and displaying her skin - utterly without blemish. Skin that should've been bruised beyond recognition.

But the miraculous nature of the Glance's healing properties was not what dominated her thoughts in this moment.

Instead, when her eyes finally forced themselves to bring the bearer of the torch sitting on the stool before her into focus, she opened her mouth to let a vindictive growl escape from it.

"You."

"Yeah," he said, as though nothing had happened at all. "It's me. The thief."

She strained against her chains, grunting with the futile effort of her attempts, casting her eyes then over her naked body with a mixture of shame and revulsion.

"Relax," he said. "You're acting like I've never seen a pair of tits and ass before. Oh, and kids don't provide me with titilation, despite any rumors you may have heard. Marius of Corbeck is many things, but a ped-"

"MARIUS!"

He gulped down his quip and tried to make eye contact with her. She saw in his eyes then the tell-tale glimmer of regret. If a scoundrel like him could really regret anything.

"Now," he began as she continued to struggle. "I'm sure an Argent like you can understand that there's a certain base instinct at the root of every creature on this earth called "self-preservation", and that sometimes its one's self preservation that must be adhered to. We're no use to anyone if we're dead. And, luckily, my keeping us both alive has led to our best possible chance of getting out of this mess. Now, I'm sure you maybe maintained some small degree of resentment towards my inaction up there. But I'm sure that now you've taken some time to calm down and apprec-"

"You traitor!" she spat, lunging forward to kick at the bars and thus have an outlet for the fury of her heart.

"...Okay, you're still angry."

"Angry!?" she screamed. "You're actively helping those who sent me here to suffer! You're just as much the reason I'm debased - my honor thrown into the dirt by these fiends!"

"Fuck honor," he said, moving close to the bars and meeting her stare. "I'll say it again: I'm the reason you're still alive. Holding on to your precious 'honor' was your mistake up there, and if you keep throwing away rationality in favor of it, you're gonna end up dead and buried."

He sank back into his chair, wiping his dirt-caked face. Only now did she notice the odd, sticky tar-like substance that coated his clothes and skin. But behind it she could see clearly the mark of his attire: he was wearing the same cloak as the assassins that attacked them - the same dark desert garb and scarf all the hoodlums in this cesspit wore. And now that she strained her eyes, she could tell that he carried another such uniform in his arms.

"And I don't want you dead," he sighed. "On that, you can trust me."

"What do you care?" she lashed back at him. "You have no idea what I've endured down here."

"Did they force themselves on you?" he asked with sudden renewed energy. "Did they even touch a hair on your-?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?!" she spat. "You just keep your eyes on mine!"

"No," he murmered to himself. "No, I guess not. Their concerns are...scientific. Just like he said."

He dropped his head to the cold stone floor, watching the blood-and-shit-smeared Carrion Vermin play about his feet.

"That's something."

"Something?" she snarled. "Do you even know what they do down here? Each day they come with their tools. Their scalpels. Their hammers. Their blades...and each day they cut. Or they beat. They do it over and over and..."

She stopped. The memories were too fresh. Too real.

"...and you barely feel a thing, do you?" he finished. "To you, even though you see them slice away at your skin, you feel little more than a pinprick."

She snarled at him again by way of response. How he'd known was beyond her, but he was right. The pain was dull. An ache that throbbed against her muscles. The sight had appalled her the first few times. But, compared to the pain she'd experienced at the hands of Voidspawn possessed beasts in the land above - what would now forever be for her the land above - these little tortures were nothing.

"You're stronger now," he said with a little nod of reassurance. "A Guardian's skin isn't like the rest of us. Its thick. Almost like a thin layer of armor itself. Guardians are supposed to withstand pain. That's their entire purpose."

He pressed his head against the bars of her cage, so that their faces were only inches apart.

"An Argent girl with a strong mind, strong values, strong arm, and now a strong body to match," he whispered. "Maybe what they say is true - this bastard place chose the perfect class for you. Moulded you into something that could bear a load. Then it brought you down here to carry it..."

He pressed himself closer, so she could smell the scent on his breath. Sweet, actually. Like Elderberries from the Yarruckian forest. So sweet that she forgot her rage.

For exactly five seconds.

He flew back with a yelp of agony as she kicked him right in his balls and left him flailing around beside the rats.

"Alright, alright!" he wheezed. "Maybe I deserved that. Jeeze! Hurts like shit when someone else does it to ya."

She regarded him with a look of disdain, letting her leg fall back to dangle below her.

"So you've been learning, have you?" she asked. "You've been up there studying, supping on berries with your new best friends, while I've been left here to rot."

He rose to a crouch, rubbing his groin with a groan.

"Studying," he said. "Socializing. Watching. Planning. Plotting, and waiting. For the right moment. Turns out that's right now."

With her curiosity piqued, he went on with a little mischievous smile.

"See, you're the reason I'm still alive too, Yelena. You, and whatever's in there with you."

Now, her face changed. She looked on him as though from afar. She knew the truth in his words - and she knew that he at least believed them. Why else would he have come here? Why risk it - conversing with a prisoner that he himself had condemned?

If this is part of some long-term game, she thought. Then he's not only dangerous, but one of the slipperiest rogues I've ever known.

She swallowed her pride and fixed him with new eyes. The time for justice was not now, when she was vulnerable.

But it would come.

"Alright," she croaked. "Tell me what you're planning. No lies. No half-truths."

His grin only widened.

"First," he said. "I'm gonna unlock your cell. Then, I'm gonna give you these new threads. And then we're gonna go see the Don again, and your gonna pledge yourself to his service."

She almost laughed.

So he was their new whipping boy, here to do their dirty work for them?

"I find that hard to believe," she said. "I am sworn to serve only the line of Argent until my dying breath, so unless you've got some powerful hypnosis under your command, I doubt you'll convince me to pledge to that monster up there."

He chuckled under his breath. "Everybody's a monster, huh? Well, I don't have hypnosis, but while we're nice and comfortable here, why don't I tell you what's going on up there? Because, believe it or not, you're supposed to save the day."

Now it was her turn to scoff. "I'd see this profane place burn before I'd ever lift a finger to help them."

He came right back at her. "You might just get your wish. It's not these guys we'll be saving."

She wasn't sure why she was listening to his words. Words were his art - and the most dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. Even now she didn't quite know what line he walked, and what muddy moral waters he was dipping his fingers into.

"Tell me what you know," she said. "Preferably without that stupid smile."

He bit his lip.

And not in any way that could be considered inviting.

"Its a long story. Maybe its best if I start from the beginning..."