Before Skrakch had even fully recovered his consciousness, he could feel the panic rising in his throat. His stomach churned and undulated as he was bodily dragged through a dimly lit corridor. The shadows from the torch scones danced and flickered across the walls so you couldn’t work out what were simply harmless shadows and what could be some kind of horrific creature ready to tear you apart.

Much like the outside walls of the Butchery, there were no furnishings in sight, just cold and unyielding steel on all sides. The only thing Skrakch could really see beside the moving shadows was the occasional splash of blood that no one had bothered to wipe up.

He was still being ferried along by his Wraith kidnappers, though they’d finally stopped their infernal shrieking.

‘Though that’s probably just to enjoy the god awful screams in the air.’

The sounds of the tormented citizens screaming were so loud that Skrakch doubted he’d be able to pick out an individual’s specific cry of terror, but the Ratling had heard plenty of similar screams in his life.

He could make out vocal explosions of rage and angry threats, belted out with such force as if to cut the target of their ire. Underneath those shouts, he could hear desperate pleading as people begged for their lives and offered up coin, no matter how large or small the amount.

Skrakch had heard plenty of his own dying victims, but it was the wordless screams of fear that had Skrakch bracing himself as his Undead captors pulled him towards the source of the cacophony.

Their ghastly hands gripped his arms and squeezed his flesh in vice-like grips, hard enough to cause bruising. It was like a warning, a ‘little treat’ of things to come.

What scared Skrakch the most was the fact that there were no apparent security measures in place as they moved further into the Butchery’s depths, no sign of any Undead Guards watching the perimeter.

It was as if the Tomb-Makers simply didn’t need any in place… because no one lived long enough to make the attempt.

It was that fear that had him frozen, unable to free himself from the Wraith’s grasps. They moved him toward a large doorway, his ethereal captors remaining mostly silent but there was a sense of celebration in the air. They were clearly proud of bringing yet another soul to the chopping block.

Skrakch just stared down at the floor and tried to count the distance back to the entrance, as he heard a heavy door open. He was dragged through it, the floor changing to a dark gray marble.

‘All the better to remove the blood easily no doubt.’

He could’ve been dragged for minutes. It could’ve been hours, Skrakch had no way of knowing and he… found himself not caring.

The simple act of being brought into the building had done something to him. He could feel it deep within his soul. It was like every positive emotion had been snatched from his soul. Hope, happiness, confidence…all gone.

He felt like a shell of a Ratling. It had to be some kind of spell, or perhaps some kind of potion, although what that spell or potion was, Skrakch hadn’t the faintest idea.

All around him the cacophony of sound continued. Screams, shouts, begging, bargaining…his fellow citizens were doing it all. He could hear the pleas of the damned echoing off the walls as he was dragged onwards and onwards.

He’d once read a theory of a special part of the Butchery, reserved for those who would be given a slow death. They would be cut into and dissected for weeks, months, maybe even years at a time. They were known as ‘The Goners’.

Soulless pathetic creatures that had once been human but were now disfigured husks that would shuffle around, only able to communicate in a series of pain-riddled groans.

‘Who would have guessed I’d be hoping I’d die quickly…’ Skrakch would have laughed at the absurdity of the idea, but he couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh at his own hubris.

Suddenly, Skrakch was slammed down onto his back, painfully colliding with a hardened marble surface. He felt leather restraints slide over and then tighten around his wrists and ankles. A large orb of light shone above him, obstructing his vision.

All he could smell was blood and putrid flesh. The Wraiths silently drifted off and left him there. He heard a door closing and then the place was plunged into darkness.

Was this some form of torture? Some kind of sensory deprivation designed to make him descend into madness? All he could feel was despair. It was stifling.

Minutes…hours…days later and the light above him came on again. Flinching away from the searing light, the Ratling could feel a cold hand grab his chin and force his head from side to side.

As his eyes finally adjusted to the light and his tears, he found himself staring straight into a pair of soulless blackened eyes. They stared down at his restrained form unblinkingly as though assessing him.

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The nose and mouth of this pale human creature was covered by a leather mask, similar to those the Dwarven miners on the outskirts of the city would use when in the pits.

But this was no happy-go-lucky miner. The pale man loomed above him, impassive like an executioner. And he, Skrakch, was the one about to be executed.

Skrakch watched as this newcomer pulled a tray of surgical implements closer to the slab he was trapped on, the pale skinned creature idly tracing his fingers across sharpened tools with a smile crossing his bloodless lips.

The vampire, ‘and there was no way it wasn’t one’, swept his whitened hair back as he plucked a crystal from the tray and tossed it into the air.

The crystal began emanating a sickly green colour as it activated, tangling in the air and slowly revolving in place.

Distracted by the sight as he was, Skrakch didn’t even notice the vampire as it grabbed its next tool until the bloodlust-addled creature turned its attention back to him.

A potion bottle was forced to his lips and tipped so that the vile liquid flowed into his mouth and down his throat, forcing him to swallow it. It tasted bitter, with a metallic aftertaste. And no sooner than when he’d swallowed the last drop, the Ratling felt a numbness come over his body.

He couldn’t feel the cuts and grazes from his journey, and when he tried to lash his tail to the side it barely moved. Hells, Skrakch didn’t even feel it when he let it drop back down onto the stone table he was tied to.

“This is the third recorded inspection of a living Iskrin.” The vampire suddenly spoke, stepping to Skrakch’s side and placing its palm on the Ratling’s chest.

“The specimen is in good condition, and due to its unique nature, is not bound by our treaty with the Empress.” It chuckled. “A rare specimen indeed and, perhaps, a treat one must savor…”

It was only when the vampire placed one of its unnaturally sharpened nails against his fur that Skrakch finally found his voice.

‘Wait, stop! This isn’t-‘ Skrakch struggled to yell out, but his lips wouldn’t move correctly, and his cries only came out as a wordless mumble.

Glancing down at Skrakch, the vampire didn’t even bother to halt his report as it plunged its nail deep into Skrakch’s chest.

With a sickening squelch, Skrakch’s tormentor began dragging its nail downwards as the Ratling felt his flesh pulling apart at the seam.

While his sense of pain was completely dulled, all Skrakch could focus on was the sensation of his chest splitting open as the vampire gutted him from sternum to his hip bone.

“Sedation is holding up well,” The vampire continued, before reaching down to pry open Skrakch’s chest with a resounding crack. “Interesting, specimen Three’s heart is located on the left of the torso, previous inspections had the heart on the right.”

Skrakch could barely focus on the vampire’s speech as his body began to struggle to survive, blood spilling into his lungs as they desperately struggled to pump.

He waited with choked breath for his self healing to start kicking in. Every Iskrin was born with a naturally increased ability to heal from their wounds but… Skrakch had never had the misfortune to test such a severe injury.

Still, if he was lucky it would at least mend some of the wound, maybe even enough for him to try and make a break for it.

But he wasn’t feeling his blood flow slow down…he couldn’t feel the accelerated coagulation that would normally happen to stem the blood loss. His skin was refusing to knit back together…

This wasn’t just sedation. This was something else entirely…and he couldn’t force his mind to focus on what it could be. An enchantment? Some kind of advanced potion?

He could feel his mind drifting towards unconsciousness. But Hells, even his damn eyelids seemed to be paralyzed! It was as if this vampire wanted him to watch himself be eviscerated…

Skratch couldn’t think of a worse hell. It had been one of the most feared rumors he’d heard about the Butchery. Not only were you torn apart, but you were forced to bear witness to it. They had ways of keeping you alive, people said, to prolong your agony and suffering. Skrakch had merely shrugged it off as pub talk. Stupid stories and idle chatter in an attempt to frighten those who would gather round to listen.

The vampire continued to mumble away to himself as he poked around Skrakch’s insides. The Ratling could see the sharp shining blade as it plunged into his stomach, saw it move in a swift arc as it sliced his organ open for the contents to be examined.

At each cut, Skrakch prayed with increasing fervor for it to end. He didn’t believe in the Gods Above, not really, and yet he silently willed them into existence now, to save him from his grizzly fate at the hands of this monster.

But absolution failed to come.

The vampire delved into his open digestive system and started to pull. Skrakch could feel the motion as something started to give way inside his own body. It sounded disgusting, wet and sloppy as the vampire continued his mission.

Skrakch was forced to watch as his intestine uncoiled from his body and at that moment, trapped in the prison of silence and immobility, he let out a long, loud internal scream of terror…

———————————-

And on and on, the visions flashed past as the Purene Ruby seemed to have a never ending stream of potential deaths that it was all too willing to subject Skrakch to.

Time and time again he watched as his skull was caved in, his neck was snapped, or he tripped and fell down a flight of stairs only to land on an unlucky rock.

There were so many visions that his mind couldn’t comprehend them all, only retaining little snippets from each death until finally he was back in his own body, staring down at the artifact that had haunted him for what felt like days.

He wanted to scream, to smash the artifact, to destroy the source of the vile images, but more than that…

‘How many times did I watch myself fail? Not once did I become a Chosen before I died.’ The thought was sobering enough to cut through the rest of his emotions, and he let the Ruby fall through his fingers as Skrakch staggered to his feet.

‘It’s pointless. It’s… all fucking pointless?’ He couldn’t believe it. Even now, it seemed so unbelievable. At the back of his mind, Skrakch had always assumed, deep down, that he’d make it. That he wouldn’t end up dead before his next birthday…

Skrakch could hear the others calling out to him but he couldn’t focus on them at the moment. Instead the Ratling staggered to the warehouse door and threw it open before stumbling out into the rain.

He only managed to make it a few steps before he slipped to his knees and began to clutch at his stomach. In all his years in Dray’Mel, he’d never felt this… alone. This cloying sense of dread that threatened to crush him underneath a tidal wave of self-loathing.

So Skrakch did the only thing he could do.

He fell to the ground and began puking up his guts, tears streaming down his face.