Aranea woke up back in the cell, gasping for air as she jumped up. She looked around and saw Yuki and Sly working to bandage the wounds of Kaleb and Kate. Crudely made bandages were on Aranea’s arm and on her torso as well.

"You woke up. I was worried," Yuki admitted, "When they dragged you here; I don't know what drugs they put in you, but you were hallucinating and howling for at least half an hour."

"I ate something, that's all," Aranea said as she stood up to assist her friends. Kate was still in deep shock, Kaleb was awake but still stunned, and Kate was panting heavily, "Where did the bandages come from?"

Yuki nodded at the bag and buckets of food near the door: "No idea. Sometime after the guards dragged you here, the door opened for a short moment, and a whole bag of them appeared. Later, guards brought us some meat, "Whatever these sick bastards want to do with us, at least they don’t want us to starve. Thank the Spirits for bandages, Kate is bleeding out. Badly."

"She will not die. She can’t," Sly licked his lips, sounding like he was trying to convince himself, "The rest does not matter. Limbs can be replaced. The mental state can be improved. Morale can be restored. The only important thing is to keep them alive. Everything can be fixed as long as you are alive…" He repeated these words like a mantra.

Kate moaned as her eyes opened wide in shock. She looked around in disbelief, and something akin to horror ran in her eyes as she understood that she couldn’t move. At all. But then she forcibly calmed herself and took a deep breath.

"Aranea," She asked, "Is Kaleb fine?"

"Yes, I am fine," Kaleb whispered nearby, sitting down so Kate could see him. "You stupid idiot. Why did you do this?"

"What? What did she do?" Yuki asked.

"We were strapped to a strange machine that fed us... I don’t know, some pain into us. I felt like someone was taking me apart. Blaguna explained that it was a game: if one of us maintains silence until the end, we can all go home," He laughed in a strained voice. "We all knew that she was lying to us. She warned us that the first person to scream would lose a limb. When…" Kaleb gulped in horror before continuing. "… I screamed, Blaguna sawed off my leg. Then she put us back into the machines and started taking the "shirt" off Kostya. Kate insulted her again and again, forcing Nokto to stop the procedure to take away one limb. Eventually, Kate was left without limbs. When Kate lost consciousness from blood loss, Nokto gave the choice to Kostya. One will lose his "shirt". It was up to him to choose who. Kostya chose himself to be the victim."

"Shirt?" Sly asked.

"Blaguna makes a cut around your waist. Then she grabs your skin and pulls it up. While you're still alive," Kaleb looked forward in horror, "The bitch skins you alive. The only reason Kostya even survived for so long was because Kate distracted Nokto by paying with her limbs."

"It does not matter!" Kate tried to stand up but failed, "Aranea! Please, I beg you, kill me, kill me now!"

"Kate, I will get you out of here…" The wolf hag tried to calm her down. She had trouble believing this lie herself. Maybe the scout was right. Maybe they should…

"This does not matter, you idiot!" shouted Kate in panic, drool falling from her mouth. "I need to die, don’t you get it?! If Kostya is still with them, then it must be because of me! If I am still alive, then he will be killed!"

"Kate, cut the bullshit." Kaleb told her strictly. "Our situation has nothing to do with you or your curse." He let out a laugh, ignoring the pain.

"It does, you fool! You saw this during battle, when I hurt myself, things turn around!" Kate screamed at him in desperation. "Kaleb, Aranea, Sly, Yuki, please, I beg you. I am sorry for everything I ever did or said to you, but I need your help right now! If I am still alive, then this means that the curse forced Kostya to take my place. Unless I die, then he will be…" She stopped as the door opened, and guards armed with rifles stepped inside.

Without saying a word, they shot darts at Aranea, Yuki, and Sly. Aranea dodged the first dart, but the next two hit her. She felt a strange dizziness in her body as the guards grabbed her body and dragged her out of the cell, ignoring Kaleb's screams.

The guards drag her, Sly, and Yuki across the floor. Aranea could see how people in other rooms were trembling in fear at the approach of the guards. The woman who begged for a quick death was now lying unmoving, face down in a pool of her own blood. As the guards dragged Aranea away, she grumbled as the rough stone floor came into contact with her body. Slowly, she managed to close her fist. Her right paw still refused to obey her.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Before she could do anything else, guards dragged her into a new room. The sole source of light was a lamp covered in dry blood on the ceiling. Smirking, Yasen was standing near the exit in the room, scared to hell. Geldi was standing near the exit as well. Her face was pale, and some animal horror was in her eyes. A brand new, shiny terminal was standing in the room's corner, the sole thing in the entire room clean from traces of blood.

"…And look at the promises of the Reclaimers!" An enormously large figure clad in dark red armor yelled passionately from the terminal's display. From head to toe, the figure was covered in heavy armored plates, and hands in armored gauntlets that looked like they could crush an entire tank were thrown up in righteous fury. The gauntlets on this person looked weird. Instead of having a place for individual fingers, each gauntlet was fashioned after an excavator bucket, allowing the person to grab and maim any foe, but leaving no space for fingers. Dark robes covered the body from the waist to the toes. Long golden horns came from the helm, one ocular lens on the helmet was an orange color, the other lens was a solid black color. The voice resembled a fierce sandstorm, and yet there was some undeniable charisma in this voice, it drew you in, pulled you in like a tornado.

"They promise restoration, peace, and unity! Yet because of them, the entire city is now in ruins!" The image changed, showing the ruins of a city destroyed by the power of Blaguna Nokto. "I know there were some who doubted my words. I admit, even I had my doubts! Yet gaze with your own eyes at the result of the Reclaimers' handywork, the only unity they bring to us is the unity of death! Even now, they are slowly creeping toward our lands, attempting to take by force what they do not rightfully claim! We forced the horrors of the Ravaged Lands to stand back! My friends, my comrades, you are the backbone of our civilization, through your hardships, we broke the backs of the mad, the evil, and the corrupted! We, all of us, restored order and peace in the Ravaged Lands, and now we must bend our backs to new overlords?!"

The voice of the figure changed, becoming calm and gentle. "My dear friends, I want to address you as a fellow person from our homeland. I know that, for some of you, the enemy seems scary. I know that many of us will perish. Yet we know, as no one else does, that freedom does not come cheap. Will we stand aside and watch how our children lick the boots of self-proclaimed saviors? Are we to see our cities destroyed? Are we to see our daughters prostitute themselves to soldiers from afar for scraps of food to feed their families?" The voice changed yet again, the recent storm of passion in it came back, rising to a crescendo as the figure screamed in fury, "To hell with them! We will see the enemy dead, we will topple their fortresses, we will pillage their treasuries, and we will hang the bodies of our enemies from the walls of our cities for daring to even show such insolence! The Ravaged Lands are, and always will be, free! Hail to the Resistance! Long live freedom!"

"Heh, King is turning on the heat." Yasen smirked upon hearing the speech.

"Turn off the terminal. We have a far better show before us." The woman calmly told Yasen.

Two chairs were standing in the room, and one chain was dangling from the ceiling. On the right side of the room, there was a pot of bubbling liquid on the gas burner. Rails ran from the place where the chairs were installed to two round metal devices at the end of the room. Blaguna Nokto, dressed in a black leather coat, was standing in the middle of the room, playing with a knife. She was humming something; from the sound of it, it sounded like a song. Upon hearing the guards, she turned around and smiled. Her pupils were still too big for her eyes. Her damaged lips were healed, but her skin looked like dried paper.

"Just on time. Strap the females to the chairs, the male is to be put on the chain." She critically checked the locks, after the guards finished with Aranea and the others.

"The wolf girl is injured." Blaguna stated, looking at Aranea. "Explain to me this, Yasen."

"Uhm… They're just barbarians, lady. She probably had a scuffle with one of the prisoners, that’s all." The regulator responded in a frighteningly loud voice.

"Ah, that’s all," The woman eagerly nodded, "Good enough, good enough. You are to visit me tonight. Let’s give you a healthy dose of "drowning" to loosen your tongue. And that is all." She snapped angrily at Yasen's attempts to argue.

Then Blaguna nodded and came to Sly, playing with a knife.

"Name and rank?" She threw the knife in the air with her right hand, catching it with her left hand.

"Sly, male of the Wolf Tribe." Sly responded calmly, while he was slowly regaining control over his body.

The second question was, "How many scales does Wyrm Lord have in total on his body?"

"How could I know thi…" Sly screamed as Blaguna cut him in a seemingly casual motion.

Nokto cut the flesh on Sly’s left side and slammed a metal tube into the wound, causing the wolfkin to scream louder as the leader of the regulators ensured that the tube would stay in the wound. Nokto sliced another hole in Sly’s skin and put another metal tube into him. Then another. And another. Sly moaned slightly from pain, and Blaguna took the pot in her bare hand, ignoring the heat of the metal.

"What is the meaning of this?! He can’t know the answer to this question!" Yuki shouted, trying to break her restraints. Aranea silently tried to do the same, struggling with all her might.

"That's the point," the Regulators' leader responded with a shrug of her shoulders, "Can't punish others for nothing. This sets a bad example."