The guard was physically imposing, and Jerome saw that it was level 15. He gulped. There was no way he would be able to fight a level 15 guard. He couldn’t even think of an excuse to lay hands on it and add it to his transformation queue.

“Hey Rik, hey Nak.” It waved at them lazily. “Cutting it a bit close today, aren’t you?”

Its manner, despite what seemed to Jerome to be an intimidating level, wasn’t that of a highly trained soldier. It was closer to that of a mall cop. What level were their elite forces?

“You know how it is, getting up in the mornings,” said Rikan. Covering for them as usual. Rikan seemed like he might be a good friend if he wasn’t a) a gnoll, and b) standing in the way of Jerome accomplishing his goals.

Jerome thought about running, but he remembered the vast feelings of wrongness that would be incurred by trying to move away from Rikan. The only way he knew to escape that magical leash was to kill Rikan, and there was no way he was going to do that in front of a level 15 gnoll.

Why was he here? Knowing that might allay some of his fears. As they walked into the building he looked at the skills he inherited from Nakat, trying to figure out what exactly his job was. He found two:

Soul-crafting Level 9 (Level 0, 0%)

Surgery Level 4 (Level 0, 0%)

Soul-crafting and Surgery. Interesting. The second one he understood — surgery was just cutting into people to fix them — but the first, soul-crafting… what the hell could that mean? It was clearly something Nakat did a lot; Jerome only got half of Nakat’s skill and it was still level 9.

Jerome must have hesitated or stopped walking or something, because Rikan turned around and put its hand on his back comfortingly. “Once we figure this out we can go back to how things were. It’s just one more experiment. You did it before, and that’s the whole reason we have this city, this kingdom. The reason our race can be unified. They reason we’ll be elevated to the status of a Great Civilization. Now you just have to do it again. Give us the keys to their power and make them a part of us.”

Stolen story; please report.

Rikan opened another door and Jerome stepped through it.

In the middle was a stone table, fused with the floor as if it had been pulled up from the very earth. Stark white stone covered with stains of brown.

Off to the side was a tray covered in scalpels of various sizes.

Surgery.

Two other gnolls were in the room. Both beefy level 9s with clubs. One carried an oversized set of keys.

More guards.

“You sure took your sweet time today,” one of them said.

Rikan stared it down, despite being clearly no match for it in a fight. “Science can’t be rushed.”

The guard averted its gaze and tried not to cringe.

“Get today’s subject,” Rikan commanded.

The two guards obediently filed through a second door, which they left ajar. Inside was what looked like a prison.

Through the door came a cacophony of human voices, each in various shades of grief and misery.

A key clinked in a lock and parts of the chorus died out while others got louder.

The one that was loudest, the one that stuck out the most, was that of an older man.

“Take me,” he said. “Take me, take me. Don’t take my daughters. Please, take--”

A blow cut him off.

Jerome glanced nervously around, trying not to give away any of his feelings. How did gnolls show feelings? How did they hide them? Did gnolls have feelings? Rikan clearly did, of at least a limited sort.

More importantly, how had he gotten himself here? Why had he chosen this gnoll, out of all the possible gnolls in the town, to impersonate? If he had just made another choice he could have been far away from here, ignorant of whatever happened in this building.

Blissful.

There was a feminine scream, a blow, a dragging of skin on stone, and then a clink of keys in a lock.

“Careful,” said a gnoll’s voice. “We’ve only got twenty more.”

“Nineteen. One killed itself. Grew claws — that was its unique — and slit its own throat.”

The two gnolls came back with a girl, dragging her backwards so her bloody heels scraped the floor.

She was hoisted her face-up onto the table with little care for any bruising that the action might cause to her naked, unprotected body. Then they took five thick leather straps and wrapped them across her, one at her neck, one at her chest, another at her hips (which had extra loops to hold her wrists) and two more over her legs. The straps attached to both edges of the table, and when the guards tightened the straps it held her flat against the stone, unable to move.

She offered little further resistance.

She was about Jerome’s age, with skin like dark sand, terrified green eyes, and a thin fragile frame that had known hardship.

Rikan placed a scalpel in Jerome’s trembling hand.

“Come on, do it,” Rikan urged. “Find her soul.”