What I'd like to say is that when I woke up, strapped down to a metal table in a dark room with a single lantern in the corner, I saw a hot babe. A kind of monstrous, not quite human but human enough girl that can go on the front cover of a story like this. The type of girl who you can definitely see is alternative, but not so alternative that she wouldn't be liked by a mass audience. The kind of vampiress or wolfgirl or something that can lounge languorously on furniture.

The thing that hung over my face, a tendraled monstrosity of a cuttlefish head on a tall cloaked body, was certainly not that.

I screamed, I'll admit it, I nearly pissed myself too. I strained against the metal chains that were tied around my wrists. My bare arms were visible to me, as I'd been stripped out of my shirt and left in nothing but my pants.

"And it awakens, how nice." Said the creature somehow. It's clattering beak underneath the fountain of tentacles clicked as it spoke. It moved around the room, revealing itself further. I really wish it didn't. "Are you in pain?"

"N... No?" I said.

"Good, that will be our control state."

I noticed the metal tray covered with implements. There were syringes and scalpels and a bone saw. I felt my blood start to fire up as I once again struggled. Usually it’d run cold, but… well, you’ll get it in a second.

"You will call me Nill, I am here to examine the artifact."

Nill stood about, eh, six and a half feet tall. The mass of his body was covered in a black cloak, from which his arms sprouted. The long spindly things were sort of normal, aside from the four long fingers at each hand. He had the head of a cuttlefish, but the tentacles reached down further than one of those, nearly fully across his chest. He didn't look very moist or aquatic either. At this point, I mentally cataloged the thing as a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’.

"The fuck are you supposed to be?"

"Nill." He repeated, "I am a Mind Reaver." He motioned towards his twisting tentacles, "Do not worry, your brain is safe for now. I shall only devour it once you are dead."

"Where the fuck am I?" I stammered out, trying to sound a lot tougher than I felt. And failing, obviously.

"You are inside the Jester's Coin hideout, in my personal examination room. It is a... 'thieves guild', if you want to use such silly nomenclature." He dismissed the idea, "A crime syndicate, perhaps. I have been made aware it is a business with which you are associated."

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Hmm... you have been on my table for an hour as I prepared my station. I don't know when Gravel collected you." He took a syringe and, with very little ceremony, jabbed it directly into the nape of my elbow. "You are just full of questions, aren't you? I think it's time I had a few answers of my own, though."

"GAH!" I struggled as he drew blood. The blood sparkle silver, like glitter in a viscious red fluid.

"How interesting. The infernal power seems to coalesce in the blood. What do you know of it?" He covered the spot with a bandage over a piece of cotton.

"Uh..." I didn't see much way out of this, and hey, any amount of time this crazy thing spent talking and not using that bone saw on his table was a blessing. "Not much...? It's a demon thing?"

"Ah. So you know nothing. Allow me to educate." Nill said, taking into his hand a scalpel. "The Ruby of Ashkatort is actually a vessel of the titular devil, it is a home for it. The necklace itself is merely ornamentation, but the ruby houses this creature. You may feel as though it gives you power, but rather, this is merely feedback from it draining you of yours."

He stabbed me in the palm.

"GAH!"

"Observe the vibration of the chair, the excited state of pain. The ruby is exasperating and enhancing the sensation.”

He stabbed me again.

"FUCK!"

"This is part of the process. By dawn it will, of course, rend you from the inside out, as painfully as possible, to further power itself. Until then, it will feed on your experiences. This connection, I expect, is made within the chest cavity. The necklace is embedded in you, with veins of sorts connected around your heart, injecting your blood and nervous system with anchors for its drainage. With this, each sensation you feel, pain or pleasure, is its sensation."

"Stop fucking stabbing me!"

"What did you experience when it first bonded to you?" He lifted the scalpel again.

I didn't know if he'd stab me if I answered or not, I had to hope though. Hope is what you need to make it through every new day.

"I exploded and threw a guy through a wall?" Sweat was pouring down my face, I was panting, I think I was having a panic attack.

"Ah. That would be the immediate feedback reaction. I'm certain you've experienced other manifestations of the experiences with the necklace, yes?"

"Sure...? I broke some stuff...?"

"Ah. Of course you did. That would be a physiological manifestation, the infernal power coming out through any way it can. The mouth, the palms, the air around you. Of course, I'll need to learn more about that as well. All completely random, I imagine."

"But- No, I was channeling demon power! I... turned a bunch of gravel into slag!"

"Really?" Nill looked surprised, or at least, I think he did. It's really hard to tell when you're talking to an octopus, "That is... interesting."

"Yeah, a-and, last time, when I had sex, I felt it... building up, y'know?"

"That is not supposed to happen... it should instantly come out, as blood from an open wound... do try to restrain it then, this will only take a moment."

He dragged the scalpel cleanly across my shoulder. I felt my flesh split with hot pain. Blood hit my neck as it splattered from the incision. The slice lit up my entire body, I felt fire up and down myself, exasperating the agony I was undergoing.

I screamed, I could do nothing else.

"Very intriguing. Did the ruby enhance or decrease your pain."

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"Fuck you!" Not my best line, I'll admit.

"I will take that as a yes. I will, of course, remove the necklace for you. I may, however, need to carve the heart out to do so." He motioned the dripping scalpel towards my chest.

I whimpered, still struggling as the agony and warm blood seeped across my shoulder. I felt it go cold on the table as it coated my back.

"Ah. No." He took another thing from the tray, a needle and thread, and began sewing the wound on my shoulder closed, "We cannot have you die of blood loss yet, I have many many more short experiments I'd like to run before dawn. Vivvie quite detests when I expend their men on my fancies, so I would rather get all the information I need out of you. There wasn't even a visible reaction, no fire or manifestation there. Tsk tsk."

I barely heard any of that, I happened to be screaming in agony the whole time. This fucking demon in my heart or whatever the fuck was certainly not goddamn helping either. Each time the needle pierced through my raw bleeding flesh, it stung out like a hundred wasps on fire had attacked it. My fingers went numb, my feet were cramping from how hard I was squeezing my toes together.

The pain certainly didn't leave when the wound was then bandaged. I would be upset that it might get infected, but the scalpel didn't seem too dirty before he stabbed me in the fucking hand with it.

He picked up the bone saw.

"Fuck." I whimpered out as his strange cephalopodic eyes started measuring up my limbs.

"Uh, Nill!" A girl shouted after flinging the door open. It bounced off the wall with a loud clang, shaking the table slightly.

She was a scruffy chick, with a bandanna across her neck. I sized her up pretty quickly, and decided that she was my best friend. Anyone distracting this crazy sonuvabitch earned that title.

"Ugh. Yes?" Nill turned, spinning with a snakelike slickness.

"Vivvie needs ya."

"Now? Of all times?" He slapped the bone saw back on the tray and pushed it away from himself, "They know they ought not to bother me whilst I'm working, don't they...?" Nill put a hand to his face.

"Dey said dey're REAL sorry, but dey uh, said it all. Sarcastic, and stuff." The thief muttered as Nill now stood over her. The girl mumbled a bit, “It’s about… dat dead cultist Gravel brought… and dat box he had…?”

"If I run out of time on my experiments, I will need to find another subject." Nill stated, looming over the girl, "Remember that." He slid out of the room, followed by the girl, who closed the door behind them.

My eyes darted to and fro, across the room. Something had to give, my luck couldn't let me down now! I mean, dying here? No way. Besides, I am… y’know, telling you this story now, as I fall off a building.

I noticed the tray had rattled when the girl threw open the door. Said tray was near my fingers, since Nill had lazily pushed the rolling table away from the door and closer to me. I tapped it a few times and heard the rolling of something on it... then I saw the syringe on the very edge.

"Ugh... bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea." I tapped the tray a few more times, until the syringe fell in my hand.

I tried to think of Jill and Mittens, and... hell, even Serene, anything to take my mind off the fact that I was now slowly increasing the pressure in my grip.

I don't think I could've kept my mind away from the situation when the thing finally exploded.

Pain shot up my arm, and I clenched my fist harder. It was important not to let go. Even if I desperately wanted to. That'd probably let me bleed out... but I also increased the grip, tightening, forcing the broken shards of glass further into my skin. It felt like fire was building up in my hand as the glittering blood oozed from between my fingers and drenched the table.

I forced that fire down to my stomach, and pulled it back up my arm. Each inch of my limb scorching as though I forced it into a blacksmith's forge. But I kept it, I kept pushing it, all of it, every bit of it, into my hand.

Then, my hand yanked up.

Metal slag splattered my clothes and near instantly cooled, the chain broke into shards and fragments and drips of burning metal.

I slammed my fist down on the other set of chains on my left hand. Once, twice, three times, and finally the chains gave way and I could get my hand loose of them.

With my left hand freed, I gave up some pressure on my right to end the intense agony that filled it. It still hurt like a bitch, I'll admit.

Sitting up, I grabbed at the tools. The bandages and pliers and alcohol came in useful, even as I squealed and bit my tongue and groaned. I might not have gotten all the glass, but the blood was getting all over my arm so I doused it in alcohol and bandaged the damn thing.

The locks around my ankles were as cheap as they got. With just two of the scalpels and a busted up hand I managed to get my feet out of them. I thanked the god for apprentice locksmiths as I finally got to my feet.

I fell against the wall at first, but managed to make my way to the door. I grabbed and pulled.

It was locked. Of course. From the outside? Seriously?

I clenched my bloodied fist, feeling the shards of glass that remained digging into my muscles and nerve. I thought of the lasting damage, of how painful this was, and the door squealed open.

The door handle was a glowing hot, but the lock itself was just completely shattered. I stumbled out.

The room beyond was... weird. There were pictures of some strange nightmare entity strung up just about everywhere, including small idols to them. Some kind of glowing pink creature that I decided against comprehending. Whatever god this creep worshiped, I didn't want any part of it. This isn't foreshadowing or anything, I really don't want to see this eldritch creep's weird body pillow ever again.

I snuck from Nill's room and made my way down the nearest corridor. The stonework seemed to be the same kind I found in the sewers, likely this was a section which was repurposed and refurbished to serve the purposes of The Coin.

I meandered the halls, hugging the left wall as I stumbled from doorway to doorway. I felt like I was navigating a labyrinth, and when I saw an actual minotaur having a smoke, decided to navigate it in a different direction. There weren't as many guards as I'd expected, but then again, I don't know why I expected them at all. Who would patrol a thieves' guild? Who would break in to their own office?

Each random turn took me further away from that insane monster man and his bone saw, so every turn was a gift from the gods and saints as far as I cared. As I made my way down a corridor, my eyes landed on a rogue turning the corner towards me. Before he could spot me, I slammed my shoulder into the nearest wooden door and shoved it closed behind me.

I pressed my back against the door, listening at it for any running feet. Hearing nothing, I turned my face to see Jill, Serene, and Mittens all sitting at a table across from another girl. She had a ratty outfit typical of the thieves around here, and two braids of orange hair that hung down from the sides of her head. She looked slightly familiar.

The table was empty save for a bottle, and the rest of the room appeared to be just some storage closet for barrels and boxes.

The girl started to stand up, "Oi lad, what're ya-"

Jill planted her foot on the edge of the table and grabbed firmly onto the pigtails of the thief, yanking her down with the full weight of a goblin jumping from a chair.

Jill landed on the floor first, the girl had to do so only after slamming her head hard enough on the table to make sure she was going nowhere except the ground, so it took a bit more time.

I walked to the table, and wordlessly, grabbed the bottle in the hand that still functioned. I threw my head back and poured it down my throat. The fluid was ice cold, a refreshing experience after the mix of heat and pain I had experienced. My throat went from parched to quite slick in a matter of moments. However, it didn't feature the burn I expected of the moonshine they'd be making down under the city, and had a slight salty taste.

I tossed it behind me after drinking and let loose a loud belch.

Serene waved a wing in front of her mask. The ornamentation of it was quite different to when I last saw her. In fact, now, she was wearing actual robes.

While her wings were completely free to the air, the rest of her body had quite comfortable golden silks laid across it, holy robes laid over each other with a symbol of the Shian Church, a mask over three rings, laid down the front as a vest. Her mask was the sort that didn't block the bottom of her face, allowing her expression of disgust to be quite clear.

Jill laughed, and I smiled at her. But the laugh was a bit too hard for comfort, and it wasn't the 'I was scared my boyfriend was going to be dead and now I'm laughing because there's nothing else I can do' kind of laugh, nor the chortle of 'My boyfriend just burped and I'm a goblin, so I don't find it disgusting' I've heard her make in bars. It was a much harder, much firmer laugh at the expense of someone.

I looked at Mittens.

"Well." Mittens said, showing no change in expression, "I'm certain the next time you make love to your husband, you will have a much higher chance of being impregnated, as I was hoping would be the case for my patient." She nodded towards the unconscious girl crumpled on the floor.