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Darkness.

You are awake.

You are alive.

You must break free.

Open your eyes.

You force your eyelids open, grunting and groaning with effort as if a great weight has been placed upon them by an unknown hand. Your mind feels unfocused and your flesh trembles with weakness. Why this is, you cannot say. There is no memory of what came before this moment, only the distant recollection of your defeat and the subsequent disorganized days of incarceration. How long have you been in this place, this Maw? There is no answer. There has only been darkness, and silence, and the cold. But now, there is light. You blink your eyes, trying to adjust your blurred vision. You catch a shadow of movement to your side, but is powerless to investigate. Growling, you try to move your limbs, but to no avail.

You have woken. That voice –

You shut your eyes once more, not sure you are ready to face her again. Face it again. But there is no escape. No matter how hard you try, you cannot break free. With a final grunt of frustration, you open your eyes to face the terror. This time, your vision is clear.

You're in a large chamber, dimly lit by a ghastly blueish light of unknown origin. The stone walls are damp with moisture, rising upwards into a vault above. There are other entities here, their forms veiled in shadow, but you barely notice any of this. You only have eyes for the entity that stands before you in the center of the room. The moment your gaze falls upon her face, despair takes hold of your heart with merciless talons of ice.

The Warden.

She (It? You're not sure the Warden can be counted as a woman) stands perfectly still, observing you. Your mind screams whenever you lay eyes upon her; something is wrong. It is as if she is not really there, not real at all, but at the same time the only real thing in the room. Even the light and the shadows seem to fall upon her incorrectly, as if they have a conscience of their own and are reluctant to touch the abomination. Time stretches, your heavy breathing the only sound in the room.

The Warden remains motionless, as if you aren't there. You strain again, but cannot move. Inspecting your body, you find no bounds. You're upright, clothed as you had been the day of your capture, still as a statue. You grunt again, your frustration mingled with panic, fruitlessly straining against the invisible force holding you in place.

Patience, the Warden says, her voice like breaking glass. All in due time. They are waking.

The very next moment, one of the shadowed figures begins to stir.

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In his dream, he was no longer a child. On an arched, wooden bridge he stood over a pond fully of brightly colored, gawp-mouthed fish. He still remembered this night, and would always remember it, with the clarity of pure, transparent ice. The moon was bright and white overhead. The night breeze rustled the great curtains of wisteria, above a mossy slope like an island in the white sands. To either side of the bridge, the finely raked sands rippled around great rocks just as cold and hard as the rest of the fortress; barren islands upon a dead, empty sea, an all too fitting image for the stagnant clan. The peace of their enlightenment had become complacency. And like a fish leaping from that sea, he had broken their placid laws.

The old orc, who had dared call himself a master at only that level of skill, seemed small now. The leathery skin and slender body still belied strength and sinew, and the thick white brows hid a deep intellect beneath their shadows. But now, as he was no longer a child, he could tell that the elder was exactly that---old. Withered. How had he ever believed this sack of bones, chained down by tradition and weighted by ignorance, to be the pinnacle of swordsmanship? The answer was simple. Like the fish that surged underneath them, eager for tossed crumbs whenever they saw a shadow pass over the bridge, as a child he had never known better. This fortress, carved into its unmoving mountain, looking only as high as its towers could stretch, had been his entire world. The elder had simply been a large, fat, and lazy frog at the bottom of a shallow well. As a child, he had been only a minnow. But he had feasted upon that frog's flesh and blood, and grown strong off its fattened carcass. He had climbed out of the well, he had descended the mountain, and he had seen far beyond the towers.

The so-called master drew his blade, and so did he. In the past, his weapon had been mere wood. Now, his steel gleamed so much brighter than the elder's, it was as if he held a sliver of the white moon above them in his hands. In his dream, the battle played out, as it always did, in the same way. The old orc came at him with the same tired, basal techniques. Yet, as a child, he had nearly died because of his weakness and stupidity against those same movements. But he had won, because what he lacked in body and intelligence had been compensated with familiarity, talent, and bloodlust. He had watched the false teacher from afar, and fought with the pitiful wretches the old orc called students. He had already picked up on their tendencies, their bad habits, their stylistic preferences that served no purpose but to differentiate them among the families of the same Clan who had used the same arts for centuries. His talent, some quality and quirk of his muscles and his nerves, some combination of his eyes and his reflexes, had already enabled him to grow rapidly---perhaps, in the end, it was only because his want to learn had been greater. Because he hungered for something beyond this diluted, impure bladework; for more of the glimmer, the spark, he had seen in one swing.

But his bloodlust, that was the deciding factor. Malice, overflowing, filled his muscles and burned his throat with the fire spitting from his lungs. His kills were fresher; how long had it been since the old orc had gone out to the field? In a matter of days, a child had whittled down a family's bloodline by an entire generation. His hateful onslaught had surprised his enemy. At that time, he had not yet learned to break down his opponents piece by piece, to cut them apart in mind and soul as well as body. He had only cared about doing as much harm, and more, to those that had harmed him first. When his wooden sword met the master's blade, he had not cared about preserving his weapon, and had pressed forward when the elder thought he would draw back. At the moment he was cut---a scar that had now nearly faded away, just below his eye---he had not flinched back or gained distance to assess the damage. He had let it bleed and had struck back with twice the ferocity.

Yet, as a child, he had still been an idiot. If that withered excuse of a swordsman had not let his emotions overwhelm him, if mere sentimentality had not overcome his training, then the child would have died that night. Instead, despite being the first to draw, he had pleaded to end their duel. The elder had finally seen the error of his ways. But because his young opponent was no longer young in this dream, he could look back on this moment with greater clarity. With hindsight, with wisdom and experience gained over long years of travel and many battles, he could look back at the old, pathetic fool who knelt before the whelp who had bested him.

He did not regret killing the other orc. If he had accepted the offer, if he had gone to train under such a pitiful master and atoned for his sins, he would not have come as far as he had. It was pointless to consider how much better such a life could have been, a life with his father and his mother still alive, a life where he had been permitted to practice the sword within the peaceful walls among his own kind...

And so, the dream continued to play out as it had for a length of time he could not recall. The battle played out as it always did. The old orc came at him with the same techniques. But this time, he questioned himself. To step to the left, and strike the foe's sword-arm off at his elbow? Or to plunge towards the right, and sweep off the exposed leg? The last time he had this dream he had done one, and the time before that he had done the other. This time he merely turned his body, letting the strike slide down the flat of his blade, and the elder ran into his elbow chest-first. As the old orc's image stumbled back, he looked at his opponent dumbly, without realizing he was a ghost. But, just as one who knew the false teacher's personality imagined he might, the fool became irritated, and attacked again.

This phantom duel continued, looping over and over again. Each time, he tried something new. Each time, he taunted his foe. Maimed him. Crippled him. And finally, with some maneuver he knew the orcs of his Clan had probably never encountered, he killed the withered memory. Over, and over, and over again. He had already proved that, as he was now, he was far beyond that fat, ugly frog at the bottom of the well. Yet still he tortured and killed the elder, again and again. Because it would never be enough.

And so the dream would have gone on, if not for...

---

You have woken.

"Nnnrgh..." How long had he been asleep? How long had he been within the Maw? His survival instincts fought with the glowing embers deep in his bowels that had never accepted this fate. Another memory replayed itself, this one far more recent. Knights died beneath his blades, though they were each of them quite skilled and well armored. He had worked for his victory, though victory it was...until she had arrived. He had been defiant to the last, yet he had been...crushed. The heat of shame filled his face, turning the green skin purple as scars stood out white. Shame fed the embers and threatened to flame up as rage. Yet that icy presence prickling his mind triggered all the dark thoughts his dream self had surpassed. Outside the dream, he felt as if he were a child again before this...this...

"_...Witch..." His parched throat croaked. How dare she stand before him! Why could he not move---this blasted, abominable magic, how could it hold someone down such that they could not even struggle? Ropes and chains, at the least, could be pushed against until one felt the bite and grind against flesh! No matter his efforts, he could not even feel the resistance against the binding force that held him in sway! It wasn't...it wasn't...

Patience. All in due time. They are waking.

It's not fair! screamed the childish voice deep within him. What right had the gods to bestow such sorcery to mortals?! To lose as one against an army, to have his throat slit in the dark or his drink poisoned---these things all existed, they were real! If he, as the strongest of all swordsmen, died to such a fate then he was, in his own way, still the strongest! But with mere words, with thoughts and intent, magicians altered what was real and what was illusion. They were liars, and cheats, and cowards! But he was too restrained, it seemed, even to rant and rave. He settled for glaring at her, even though his eyes kept drifting to the others in the room...

It wasn't that Malia didn't dream. It was more that she didn't really sleep. A busy girl, Malia always was. After all, you can't run an empire out of your pocket without knowing every little detail about every lord and lady you had 'recruited'. Every little dark secret, bloody detail, childish giggle, she knew it all and she was sure to keep it all up to date every single day. Needing information on a bastard child? She had you covered. She could give you their name, age, location, and where they would probably be in the next few days. Someone important was suddenly killed, she knew all the details. Who, what, when, and why, assuming it wasn't her own doing, of course. She had rats in every alleyway, some quite literally. She had critters carrying notes and letters far and wide. Your average worker was paid handsomely for any interesting information they could provide and they were willing and waiting to do so in a snap of a finger. It's the little people that run the show, the forgotten few. The servants, the nannies, the guards. They know all the secrets and everything that goes on inside their workplace. They gossip too! Nothing gets past them and it was those people she had the best relationships with. Malia had a lot of money and she was more than willing to spread it around if it meant she could get more later down the road. She had the infrastructure by the root hairs! And then that stupid assassin showed up.

Those bastards did their due diligence too! They hired the man in the morning and he attacked her that evening, giving no chance for rumors or gossip to spread. She had heard that some lords went to meet a rather unscrupulous man but she hadn't the time to dig into him before he was kicking down her bedroom door. Of course, she had expected to eventually have to deal with such a situation, so she had a plan set into place for when someone broke into her home. When the door met the ground, she had a long chain of jewels in her hand and was dragging her hands along it as magic flowed from her hands into each jewel along the way. One after another, the jewels dissolved, their particles condensing into large dogs that formed directly in front of her. She got about half way through her little chain when suddenly her magic just stopped. She felt a tingling on her skin that she had never felt before and looked down at her hand as she tried to summon up her magic. Nothing. She looked to the assassin who held up a glinting crystal the size of his forearm, one she had never seen before. He grinned viciously at her as he tucked it into his back pocket. She sneered for a moment before she looked down at the pack of canines before her. Six, six large dogs would just have to do. She raised her hand and gave a snap. The dogs attacked and the battle began.

It was a bloody battle. The man had no choice but to focus on the pack of dogs as they all went after him together. While he was busy, she got to work on getting her more powerful stones out, resting a black one on the top of her desk as she dug in her drawers for more mundane weapons to use on this man. It's obvious that the crystal he had shown her somehow stopped her magic and if she wanted to win this battle against him, she would have to find a way to break it and fast. The man was hacking her dogs apart one at a time. They were getting their attacks in, thankfully but he seemed to be ignoring them for the most part.

Finally she pulled a long knife from her desk, brandishing it in front of her as the man cut down her last dog. He was panting and bleeding heavily in some areas but his leather armor seemed to shield him from the bulk of the dog strikes. He did, however, favor one leg over the other and she noticed how there was a split above his right eye that kept dripping blood down into his brow and eye, blinding him for a moment before he fiercely wiped it away. She could use that to her advantage. If she could time it right, she could strike the moment when he was blinded and get the crystal or a fatal blow. However, she didn't much trust her own sword fighting skills. She would much rather let her beasts do the work for her.

Not a single word was spoken between them as they clashed in the center of her home. Her swordplay was clumsy at best but she was bright and looked for any chance that would give her an advantage. It was when her knife met his sword and he sent her sliding off and to the side did she realize just how much trouble she truly was in. She stumbled, trying to keep her footing as he came up to her side, sending a knee into her stomach and doubling her over. Her knife clattered to the ground and she knew she was in trouble. Her eyes darted about wildly for a solution. Spotting his ravaged leg in sight, she sent a swift kick to the wound. The man finally let out a yell, perhaps because he wasn't expecting a woman such as herself to fight like a street urchin. He recoiled back from her, bouncing on one leg as he steadied himself into a more appropriate stance, favoring that leg even more now.

She straightened, giving him a wild grin at the sight of him on the defensive for once before she reached down to grab her knife once more. Never the one to miss a chance to brag in any way, she raised her free hand and signaled for him to come at her. He sneered at her before the two clashed once more. He was enraged now, it seemed. His strikes were far less controlled but with far more power to them than before. She found herself on the defensive, trying to block one blow after another, the sword cutting into her skin in some glancing blows. She had to find a way out of this mess or else his sword would find a more permanent place within her body and she would find herself dead. She peered up at his face and saw it then, the trickle of blood as it formed the drop she most desperately needed.

It was as if time slowed. She watched as that drop of blood formed and then dropped from his brow into his eye, causing him to blink fiercely. In the same moment, his blade came down upon her in an overhead swing that had such force behind it, her own strength was not nearly enough to keep it from crashing down on her. Her knife clattered to the ground and the assassin's blade found purchase in her shoulder. She tried to ignore the pain as she reached around him and grabbed the crystal out from his back pocket, adrenaline the only thing keeping her on her feet at that moment. Pain seared through her body but she kept moving, had to keep moving. The man pulled out a small knife from somewhere she did not see and embedded it into her midsection, deep within her gut before giving it a sickening twist.

She sent a kick to his midsection, sending the man reeling as she stumbled back towards her desk. She had to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. She had a small window to work with and it was only getting smaller. She threw his crystal on the ground and stomped on it, feeling a wave of relief as the tingling sensation finally ended when the crystal shattered under her heel. Without a moment's hesitation, she grabbed the black jewel from off her desk and pulsed magic into it. The jewel dissolved but didn't condense into anything physical like the dogs before. Instead, the shadows in the room seemed to rumble with a deep growl. She smiled as she watched the assassin's eyes grow wide with realization. She threw her hand out and her magic rose her door off the ground and slammed it into place in its frame. Her smile grew vicious as flashed her teeth at him in a predatory grin. “Welcome to my home. Thank you for visiting. I hope you had a wonderful stay.”

His screams echoed through the streets that night.

By the time the guards had found Malia, she was half dead, bleeding out from her wounds with a shadow beast curled around her. It took her transforming her beast back into a jewel for the guards to finally get her out of the house and to someone who could heal her. The assassin was nowhere to be seen. Malia had said he had simply run away but seeing as there were no open windows and they had to break down her door to get to her, they doubted her story but fearing ending up in the shadow beast's stomach, they didn't question it.

Now Malia was dreaming, a pleasant dream that made no particular sense to anyone except Malia. Flowers, with bright colors and smiling faces. That was, until she heard a voice, not one particularly directed at her but one that was so powerful, it commanded respect and she listened. Her eyes slowly fluttered open as she lightly groaned to herself. She liked that dream. She wanted to go back to it but no matter how much she tried to close her eyes and go back to sleep, her body refused to listen. You have woken. It wove around her like a spell, trapping her in an awakened state and refusing to allow her to sleep once again. She let out a loud huff as she finally relented and opened her eyes completely, gazing upon the accursed woman before her. Her form was still blurry and unfocused, like her eyes refused to acknowledge her presence but Malia was stubborn and refused to accept any outcome that wasn't in her favor. She struggled against the magic that bound her but she had no strength to her. Her body felt like it was made of lead and kept her locked in place, even as she sneered at the woman.

Then a gravelly voice cut through the silence and Malia's eyes shot off to her right, where she saw a large orc not too far from her. He was speaking with the woman, it seemed but she told him to be patient. Oh silly, silly woman. Malia was not one known for patience.

“Oy! Where are we? What do you want with us? Answer me or I'll feed you to my rats!”

Both the guild and the streets encouraged light sleeping, so dragging herself up from the abyss of unconsciousness was a new experience for Jagg. Being unable to move was, alas, not so new. Although usually there were ropes involved.

But fair enough, few can stay as motionless as a thief. Jagg stayed perfectly still while flexing first this muscle then that one. When the time came to act, her captor would find her limber and primed for action.

Said action would likely be running away, but it would be action nonetheless.

Jagg watched the Warden as the Warden - presumably - watched her. She was aware of the rumors of the Warden’s inhuman nature. As far as Jagg was concerned, none of the rich and powerful were human, so that made no nevermind. They all had some kind of weird powers, whether it was wrenching you out of sleep and freezing your limbs, or sending fat guardsmen into the back alleys at the second bell of the morning. She’d handle this one as well as she had all the other.

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Time did not pass properly here. No matter how far her years had stretched out before this, she could only remember the days that lead up to her defeat, and then? The Maw left nothing worth remembering. Her incarceration saw her stripped of every joy with only time to her thoughts. Her thoughts had been busy...

It had been hard to give direction to any thoughts when the Warden intruded. Her book, a mostly finished masterpiece, lay at the back of her mind. At one point it brought her joy, but the Warden had taken that, too. It made it hard to concentrate on anything. And so, in a constant state of unfocus, the time here had stretched on.

All that was left to her were nursery rhymes. Things she'd said to maids and men when dealing. She had loved to make deals.

"You will have wealth, a name, prestige,
Every task of your hand to succeed,
All that you touch will turn to gold,
And you will never grow old,

But the price to pay is steep,
A child, a lover, to weep,
To fill my pies and salt my brew,
I'll take the whole lot from you,

Your succulent desires,
Roasted over fires,
Your mother's bones to make my bread,
Your hopes and dreams to keep me fed,

You'll wish you had forgot,
Mer Fuhgoad D'Got."

The crone's eyes opened, groggy and hazy to her surroundings. The voice, it pulled her attention to the center, to the Warden.

You have woken.

It was striking how she stood there, without shadows touching her, superimposed upon Mer's very mind. The alchemist's knit brows curled as she inspected her body. She stood, facing the Warden, looked the very same as when she recalled being brought here. Mer tried to feel for her vials, but couldn't move her arms, her wrists, her hands. For a moment, she felt for the length of her body and... yes, she could even feel the weight of what seemed to be her book on her hip. That knowledge widened her eyes as she heard the Warden's admonition to be patient.

Mer's gaze traveled the length of the room. There were others here, too, beginning to stir, to move their eyes in the darkness, to let out gasps as she had done. The room was too dark to make note of who or what these others were, and the Warden sat in the center of the room, sucking all the light out of it.

Xerus awoke, and thus inevitably he knew he was alive. If this was heaven, or perhaps hell, it would not feel like consciousness as he had known it. Either he would be free of the material conditions that had bound him to his innumerable sins, or inversely he would be bound to it in a manner far greater than he had been ever before. But evidently he was still alive, not yet free of the mortal bindings that marred his mind.

Alas.

He opened his rheumatic eyes, and still there was darkness. It did not matter.

This Jailor woman was a nuisance, not an obstacle. Already in his head he had gone through dozens of theorems about the nature of magicks and esoterica that she hadn't considered punishing him for. Already he had published them, and then replied to them with critiques. But... for the consumption of the unwashed masses, he supposed he had to convey this information to them somehow.

"The Pipes, the Pipes...." he murmured harmoniously under his breath, smiling as consciousness entered him once more. Yes, this was a world he could bring under his control, one he could interpret in his terms.

As Xerus opened his eyes, he sniffed. He listened. These were not souls worthy of discussion with him. They were all interested in some inferior cause of theirs, none of them were interested in the primordial concern of love, nor were they interested in learning. Oh well, it would have to be.

Ah. Her. The Jailor. Truly a nuisance. Gagged, blinded, bound, his work had become very difficult in those abominable conditions. But still, his mind was free, and though he had only so much local memory to work with, he could still make progress in his studies. For now here merely worked on trying to suck out a particularly annoying piece of the gruel he'd been fed that had managed to get stuck in his teeth. It was truly fascinating how it seemed to liquid and insubstantial, yet managed to be a dental atrocity at the same time. Even though a victim of it, he had to condemn the minds of the prison for creating such a mundane but persistent torment. If only those minds were applied to something greater! Alas.

Well, he could only assume his new state was good news. It wasn't as if they'd bother with such an elaborate effort just to kill him. That means he was needed for something. A smile came across Xerus. He twisted his lips a little to nibble off the messy edges of his ungroomed mustache, so as to be a little more presentable.

He wasn't alone, and he had to set himself above the scum around him. But it seemed there would be a wait for everyone to be ready to speak. Thus, simply chose to pass the time amiably. Softly, little more than a hum, he began to sing.

Golden light, golden light,
Even in darkness, I still see!
Come the day, come the night,
I know the light's with me!

Amal's head hurt, and he wondered if he had been struck there. He had been knocked unconscious before, but never for so long. Then he wondered why he believed it had been a long time? Perhaps the growling of his stomach, or the aching of his bones. Perhaps it was just his sixth sense as a thief. He tried to shake his head, his thick mane of tousled hair brushing the length of his face as he tried to rouse himself. Or it would have, if he could move.

He smelled the fetid stench of others nearby. He hoped that was not just himself, because there was apparently a lady present. Her form seemed almost cloaked, ephemeral, like a silhouette. His eyes tried to focus, but the light slid off of her like oil, the shadows caressing her finer features to keep them obscured to his sight.

He tried to move, to let his hand casually slide next to the dagger on his belt, to lean on the wall, to balance on the balls of his feet, but he was rigid. He did not know how he was stuck in place, but he was. It irked him, and he wondered if he even still had the knife at his belt any longer, or his scimitar. He knew some women were controlling, but this was new. Then he heard a voice in his head, telling him to be still, to have patience. Great, a telepath now? Or some ghost or aberration, maybe. He had dealt with wizards and those with psionic gifts before to not be completely startled, but it was still somewhat off-putting.

He tried to give a sardonic reply, but he could not move his lips as well. So the cutthroat complied with reluctance. No sense struggling, he realized. Despite the fact he was standing upright, he could almost relax. Better to be rested when the time came for him to move, because then he would see what was what, and see if he should kill this woman or not. He never liked killing women, but he was not prejudiced. If it needed to be done, he would do it. Though he wished it would at least lead to some gold.

Then his mind drifted to other matters, recalling his final fight against the honorguard of the sultan. Had they bludgeoned him and dragged him to some strange slaves auction? The thief wondered if his was dead, and this was the underworld. Maybe the figure in front of him was granting him his judgement in life, and keeping him here as punishment.

If this was the underworld, it was pretty damned boring.