All Bjorn had on him gear wise was his bow and several knives. One of which used to be Tayla’s dagger. Kairon’s posse was mostly through when looting their farm. They took Bjorn’s armor, his sword, Meira’s staff, Alaric’s shield, and Rickie’s sword. Making it so as he left his farm he was barely prepared for a fight, but he would get there.
He walked across the bridge and across their well manicured fields. As he walked, memories of his and Meira’s time together here plagued his mind. He walked in silence with Caiden right behind him. At the edge of the forest he paused and turned around to look.
Most of their work and efforts over the last few years was still standing. Aside from the burnt husk of what used to be their house the view was beautiful. He stood there for a few seconds looking at where he spent the majority of his life in the Eld so far. Regardless of what happened with his quest of vengeance he would never come back here. Too many painful memories. A single tear slid down his cheek. There would have been more but he had no more tears left to shed.
Just like that he turned and walked away from his only home in this land. The pair walked in silence for the entire duration that it took to get to Aiden’s farm. The path cut right by the edge of the clearing and fields that the man had made over the years.
As Bjorn walked past it a voice called out to him. “Hey shit for brains.” It was Aiden, he was sitting on a stump that ran alongside the road. Undeterred by the angry voice Bjorn kept walking.
“Hey fucker. Did you hear me? You better stop right there. You and I have some unfinished business. Now that you don’t have your bitch of a mage here to protect you you own me a pound of flesh.” As he stood from the stump he grabbed a makeshift mace that he had cut and shaped out of a branch. He started to walk over to Bjorn.
For his part Bjorn didn’t react to the provocations and just kept walking forward. Caiden however had something to say. “Shut up dad. He isn’t in the right mind.” Caiden moved forward to try and get in between his father and Bjorn.
Aiden brandished the makeshift mace at his son. “You stay out of this. This is between me and him. A man pays his debts, and this son of a bitch has racked up quite the bill.”
Caiden pushed the mace aside and tried to get in his fathers face. Aiden was not having anything to do with that and pushed Caiden to the ground. He raised the mace to strike his son, then he thought better of it and kept walking towards Bjorn.
Bjorn hadn’t stopped moving throughout the exchange and was nearing the edge of the clearing. Aiden quickly caught up and blocked Bjorn’s way. “Move out of my way Aiden. My rage is for someone, that someone is not you.”
“Like hell it is. You broke my arm. Now that you don’t have your mage wife to protect you I am going to collect what I am owed.” With that Aiden raised his club and swung it at Bjorn.
With the nub of his left hand he raised it up and caught Aiden’s wrist. Before the farmer had time to react Bjorn withdrew Tayla’s straight dagger from his waist with his right hand. The dagger shot forward once, twice, three times. Each strike making contact. The first strike caught Aiden in the abdomen, even in his anger he struck with precision. It ended up in the meat of his body missing the most important organs. The second strike caught him high in the chest as his body reflexively curled to protect the injured part of his stomach. It landed right between two of the ribs, slipping easily between them and puncturing the lung underneath. The last strike dove into the meat of this deltoid. A full 6 inches of metal sank into the exposed and unprotected muscle.
In a matter of a few seconds Aiden’s body crumpled to the ground. Each strike by itself would be devastating, especially to someone who had never trained or been in combat. No single strike would have been enough to kill Aiden, nor had the combined damage of all three strikes been enough. Instead the farmer was in shock as his body locked up in a rictus of pain.
Bjorn finally stopped his single-minded walk forward. He knelt down to the bully and looked him in the eyes. Just a few seconds earlier he had a look of arrogance, a look of surety, and a cocky little smile on his lips. Now however while Bjorn was looking into the eyes of Aiden he only saw fear.
“Listen here. You think that Meira was the one who helped me beat you in a fight last year. She was the one who stopped me from killing you. This time it is your son, if it wasn’t for Caiden’s love for you you would already be dead. You should thank him every day for the rest of your pitiful life that I didn’t kill you. I believe in second chances, I don’t believe in third chances. Lucky you apparently Caiden does. This is your last chance. If you ever raise your hand to your children or ever say anything about Meira ever again I will come back here and end your miserable existence. Do you get it?”
Aiden didn’t respond at first. So Bjorn stabbed the dagger into the ground a few inches away from his face. With his right hand he grabbed the farmer by his scruffy mop on top of his head and forcefully lifted his head to meet Bjorn’s eyes. “I said, do you understand?”
“Ye-Yes.” He stammered out as his brain finally understood something he couldn’t the year prior. That was that all this time he had been afraid of Meira, when in reality he should have been afraid of Bjorn. Now that he understood his mistake it was too late, he had made the man mad.
With a sigh Bjorn withdrew the dagger from the dirt and he took the blade and began to clean it on Aiden’s clothes by wiping the blade back and forth across the cloth. When he finished he stood from where he had been kneeling and sheathed the dagger on his back. He left Aiden there with blood slowly pooling under his body.
He began walking towards town again. When he passed Caiden he stopped and looked down at the boy who was staring up at Bjorn in shock. “If you want to save your fathers life you should hurry and apply pressure to the wounds before he bleeds out.” With that he left the clearing.
The next twenty minutes Bjorn walked in silence in his own company. The only sound was the crunch of his boots on dried leaves, as the thoughts as they ran through his head.
When he entered Leefside the town felt off. Normally when he walked into town he would see kids running around, playing, or laughing. There normally were adults walking through town talking as they ran their various errands around town. Not this time, it was as if a dark cloud had settled over the entire town. Things were still, it felt as if an oppressive presence had settled over the entire town.
Bjorn crossed the clearing that was used to house gatherings and the traders. At first the feeling that covered Leefside put Bjorn on high alert. As he walked through town however he began to relax. Here and there he saw signs of life, things that signified to him that Kairon’s lackeys hadn’t returned. He would see a small head peeking out of windows here, a woman bringing in water there.
As he walked he passed people he had made friends with over the years. Either they understood the look on Bjorn’s face, or they thought he needed his space. Whichever was true didn’t matter, the end product was the exact same. He was left alone as he walked through town. He slowly made his way to Hunter and Charissa’s house.
When he drew near Hunter was sitting outside on a chair. “I figured I would see you today.”
“Where is he?” Bjorn asked.
Hunter normally looked old, his hair was grey and he was wrinkled. Today however he looked ancient. Even though he was old he still exuded a feeling of confidence and steadiness. Today he looked sunken and frail. “I think we should talk about this. You aren’t yourself, I know you want to see them killed, but that won’t make you feel better.”
“To hell with your ‘kind wise words’” Bjorn said that while making air quotes with his fingers. “You have Killian in your custody. That man held me down and made sure that I couldn’t do anything to help Meira. He stopped me from going to her as I watched her choke to death. That bastard has to pay and I will make sure that happens.”
“He will pay, but not like this. We will make sure that he pays for the crimes and hurts that he has committed.”
“FUCK YOU. That man forced me to watch as she was violated. Don’t talk to me about what he deserves. He had knowledge of the rest of Kairon’s party and where I could find them. You will take me to him. You will leave me alone with him. Look me in the eyes when I tell you this. If you continue to get in my way I will burn this town down to get to him. Do not test me on this.”
Hunter finally met Bjorn’s eyes, something in his eyes must have convinced the elder that Bjorn’s words weren’t idle. He held his gaze for a few seconds. “Very well. He is inside, whatever you do to him please don’t make too much of a mess, I don’t want to have to clean the room.”
“Thank you.” Bjorn put his foot on the step that led inside the elders house. “I am going to make a mess. There is that shed on the south side of town that no one uses anymore. We can move him there, that way you don’t have to do any cleaning.”
“I can get Tom and Elron to move him over there, if you wait here.”
Bjorn didn’t say anything, just a light nod of his head.
Charissa came out of the house and she walked down the steps and past Bjorn. Not a minute later she returned with two men who Bjorn was fairly familiar with. The three of them walked into the house and a few minutes later emerged with a man dangling between them. Throughout the ordeal the day before Bjorn never actually got a view of Killian. Quite simply the man looked average. He was a human, he wasn’t especially attractive, but wasn’t ugly. Not tall and not short. His skin was the color of caramel, his features round if not a little chubby. High on his cheek a bruse was still forming from where he must have been hit while trying to escape the village.
As he was being drug out of the house his eyes wandered as if he wasn’t fully aware of what was happening to him. That was until he laid eyes on Bjorn. Even though the man was standing there with an almost blank expression, his mere presence wrought a fear response. They locked eyes the entire time that Killian was being drug away, which remained until he was well past where he could see Bjorn.
He didn’t follow after the pair at first. Instead he just opted to stand there and calmed himself down just a little. When he first laid eyes on Killian he wanted to jump on the man and rip him apart right then and there. That wasn’t going to do, he needed information out of the man, he needed to get it somehow. Even in his anger he realized that if he went into this without a plan he would fail. He needed to know as much as he could about Kairon and his lackeys.
He stood there and first took in a deep breath and held it. Mentally he imagined he was taming the sea of rage within. He envisioned his anger as a sea and the sea was turbulent and flowing in many different directions. The sea had no direction or purpose. When he let out the breath the sea didn’t calm, but it started to slowly flow in one direction. Each time he took in a breath and let it out the waters became more and more directed. Eventually even though the sea was still violent it seemed to be flowing all in one direction.
A prompt appeared in front of his vision as he stood there.
Congratulations you have gained the skill: Inner peace. Many people think that inner peace comes from quieting your emotions, by suppressing them. That isn’t the case, inner peace comes from you learning how to accept what is inside and controlling your emotions. Every emotion is useful in the right circumstances and the right quantities.
Congratulations you have advanced your skill level in: Inner peace. Reaching skill level 2. Your emotional stability has increased by 2%. Your resistance to mental manipulation has increased by 1%
Bjorn didn’t think that he would get rewarded for his own personal journey. The numbers from his skill growth seemed like it should do something but currently it felt negigable. If there was a difference he didn’t know what it was or know how to feel it. But numbers go up, so something must have happened.
Finally he began to move. Hunter had just stood there waiting for Bjorn to finish whatever he had going on internally. When Bjorn stepped down off of the steps and began following Tom and Elron, Hunter followed after the man. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to get through to Bjorn but he wanted to be there. There was little doubt in Hunter's mind that if he continued to stand between Bjorn and his prize that he would have been killed.
Bjorn made his way through the town with Hunter in tow. He didn’t know about Hunter following or just plainly didn’t care. They made their way through town heading towards the small shed on the outskirts of town. Now as Bjorn walked more people were out and waiting to see what would happen. They talked amongst themselves in hushed tones. All talking stopped as the small procession drew near and once they passed the hushed voices sprung to live again.
It didn’t take long to make his way to the shed. Leefside was a decent sized town and it was built in such a way that its footprint was bigger than it should be. Instead of being built in clearings the town had been melded into both the landscape and the forest. Hunter and Charissa’s home was close to the center of town, making it so that they could make it wherever they wanted to fairly easily.
When Bjorn approached Tom was just closing the door to the shed. He saw Bjorn coming and stepped away from the door, bowing his head slightly. “We tied him to the support beam.” He said as he got out of the way of 220 lbs. Of pure muscle and fury.
Bjorn didn’t respond, instead walking past the two men and opening the door to the shed and stepping inside. The interior of the shed was actually quite small. It was only 5 feet by 7 feet, just large enough to keep water off some stuff, but not large enough to be considered for storing large quantities of stuff. It had long since sat abandoned as a layer of dust was everywhere. Whoever had built it wasn’t a great builder as there was a wooden support beam that had been built and attached to the apex of the ceiling. If it had been built right then there would have never been the need.
True to their word Killian had his hands tied behind his back and around the support beam at the same time. The man looked up with horror clearly painted on his face. He watched as Bjorn stepped into the room and they made eye contact once again. They held it for a long second before Bjorn closed the door behind him.
On his walk over here Bjorn was trying to figure out the best way to get information out of Killian. For some reason he doubted the reason would work on the man. He also doubted that he would give up anything easily. By his guess Killian would be just as afraid of Kairon as he would be of Bjorn. He needed to walk a line. If Killian thought that there was no way to survive then he wouldn’t tell Bjorn what he needed to know, why would he? Might as well spite Bjorn one final time before he died. If he did survive he needed to feel just as much if not more fear for Bjorn than he did for Kairon. He needed to overcome that fear.
Bjorn didn’t know that Killian would fear Kairon for a fact. He came to that conclusion purely on the level of Killian. Kairon being level 43 and having several different professions meant that he undoubtedly had power, that he was stronger than almost anyone and everyone he had come across. Being a professed mage meant that he had to be powerful with his magic, whichever that was as well. Based on the way that Kairon talked to his lackeys he didn’t seem a kind man. Killian on the other hand was level 7. The difference between Kairon and Killian was a whole order of magnitude different. The gap was at least like a 1 year old and a fully grown adult, if not more.
Bjorn started to move around the room. Mainly he walked around Killian looking down at him. As he paced around the bound man he could see Killian slowly becoming more and more agitated. “So Killian-”
When Bjorn started speaking Killian immediately cut him off. “I don’t know anything and wouldn’t tell you even if I did.” His words were hasty as if he was trying to get out of something.
“I figured that would be your answer. Unfortunately I don’t believe you. Also unfortunately for you. Anyone who traveled with Kairon had to know just a little. The way I see it, you can tell me what I want to know and I will kill you quickly and with little pain. The other way is that I can slowly tease the truth out of you.” Bjorn stopped walking when he was in front of Killian and he knelt down so he was eye level with the frightened man. “I want you to decide which way this goes. I have one way I want for this to go, but make no mistake I will get an answer out of you one way or another.”
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“I don-” Killian began. His words were cut short when it became obvious that he was going to deny knowing anything again. Bjorn’s fist, now empowered by his new found strength, shot forward and slammed into Killian’s side, going straight for the kidney. There was an exhale of air as pain shot through the man’s body. His vision began to swim as stars danced across his vision.
“From the sound of your voice when you told Kairon and Zain that you wanted to play a little more I am guessing you are a torturer. The joy I heard in your voice more than let me know who you were. My question to you though is, have you ever been on the receiving end of it? Have you ever been tortured? Oh they look in your eyes makes me believe that you haven’t. No one has ever done to you what you love to do to others. Does that scare you?”
Killian didn’t answer, instead he just continued to look up in fear of the man kneeling before him.
“There were stakes that were driven though my wife’s hands. Was that you? Did you do that to Meira?” Bjorn stood up and walked around behind Killian, he reached into his bag of holding and withdrew the hammer and one of the nails that he had stored in it. When he grabbed the nails they were all different sizes in both diameter and length. The one in his hand was close to 2 and a half inches long.
He placed the head of the nail against the skin of Killian’s upper arm. “Speak.” When Killian didn’t respond Bjorn brought the hammer head in contact with the nail head. With the first strike the nail sank into his body. It went in surprisingly easy, almost sinking all the way to the head in the flesh. At the same time Killian let out a scream of pain. “Oh come now. That wasn’t that bad, It will get worse from here if you don’t speak. Besides, I hate it when nail heads are sticking out of what I build.” He struck the nail a second time, sinking it to the head in Killian’s arm.
This elicited another scream. Bjorn knelt there calmly waiting for the screaming to end. Eventually it died down. “Are you going to speak?” He asked the man. This time instead of just looking up in horror he swished some saliva around in his mouth and spit on the ground by Bjorn’s feet. He would have gone for Bjorn himself if not for the pain addling his mind.
“Alright, fine. I can do this all day long.” He picked up the next nail, this one was one of the nails that they used to build the roof support beam. It was a quarter inch in diameter and a full 4 inches long. He got up and moved around to the back side of Killian and knelt down once again. He placed the nail right at the elbow. He pressed the nail into his body with just enough force that there was little doubt where it was going to go.
“Tell me what I want to know and this can end.” After a few seconds of silence Bjorn took the hammer and hit the head of the nail. This time the nail didn’t go in easily, based on how easy it was to drive the nail through the flesh he figured that was normal. This time however the nail head met the bone in Killian’s elbow. Bjorn swung considerably harder putting enough force into the swing that hopefully it should do the trick. It did.
With a crunch the nail penetrated through both of the bones in the elbow and continued to travel through the body and into the wood. Seeing how it wasn’t fully settled Bjorn hit it again with the same amount of force. The nail easily sunk through the wood and bit into it. He put entirely way too much force into the second blow. When the nail bit into the wood it didn’t stop, it continued to move deeper into the wood and together the nail and the hammer began to crush the flesh around the spot. When he was finished with the swing the nail head pinched the flesh underneath distorting the flesh underneath. The rest of the flesh around it sprung back in place but there was a small crater around it where the flesh underneath couldn’t return to normal because of the head.
Congratulations you have gained a new skill: Torture. There are many different ways and reasons to use torture. Some use it nobly to get information that can be used to save others. Others use it to feed their sick perversions. All of that matters little, as it takes a special kind of someone to first gain and then train this skill.
Bjorn just smiled with a wicked glee and kept working. It ended up taking a total of 5 nails dispersed all over Killian’s body for him to finally relent and start to speak. One in each of his elbows, one in his upper arm, one through his deltoid, and finally one through his shin. That last one was what broke Killian’s will. He was just speaking gibberish to Bjorn until he put the next nail on his ankle. From there Killian finally broke.
“Please, please! Stop it! Stop pleeease!” His words were thick with tears and sobs of pain. “I will tell you what I know, just please stop putting nails into my body.” Bjorn remained kneeling there with the nail over the ankle and thought for a moment. After that moment he raised the hammer up to bring it down on the nail. “NO! PLEASE! STOP IT!.” He called out.
Bjorn left the hammer in the air for a moment before letting it drop back down. “Speak.”
Killian nodded his head vigorously and began to speak. “I joined up with Kairon’s crew around a year ago. Since then I was their torturer. I don’t know much about the group as a whole. They are mainly a secretive bunch, they didn’t tell me much.”
Bjorn raised the hammer up again. “Wait wait wait wait! I know a little, but it isn’t much. Kairon doesn’t trust me. I don’t know if that is because I don’t have a profession. I am still 3 levels away. He seems to be closer with those of us that had a profession than those of us who didn’t. But then again I am still fairly new to the group in comparison. The only one of us who was newer was Zain.”
Dissatisfied with what he was hearing so far Bjorn brought the hammer down on the nail head. He didn’t apply the amount of force needed to have the nail penetrate bone, but enough that it put pressure on the bone underneath. Just enough for Killian to feel it.
He screamed in fear. When only a small amount of pain assaulted his mind instead of the pain from a crushed ankle he quickly stopped and started speaking again this time faster. “I don’t know his end goal, why he does what he does. What I do know though is that we were camped 10 miles south of here and 3 miles east. We were going to move on today and head south east towards Escar.”
“Do you know where you were heading?”
“No I didn’t.” Bjorn raised his hammer again. “But I do know what brought us here.” This made Bjorn lower his hammer and look at Killian quizzically. “ This forest that is now wild used to be under the control of a grove elf empire. I don’t know what led to the downfall of the empire, but Kairon was looking for something. Your little village wasn’t the only one out here. Jarred isn’t the only one of Kairon’s agents working in the area. He was sent out here to look for something that I don’t know what we were looking for.”
“Did you find it?”
“Again, that I don’t know. Jarred was the scout, we only picked him up that same day that we attacked you. Jarred doesn’t seem particularly liked by Kairon as well, and he was going to leave well enough alone. That was until he found out that you were an alchemist and your wife was a mage. In parts like these he figured that the two of you were going to be rich. He might have raided you just because your an alchemist. You have no idea how hard it is to get potions out here in the woods. Kairon is a wicked man. When he found out about you he ordered the attack.”
Upon finding out that Bjorn’s status as an alchemist was what contributed to Meira’s death drove him into a fury again. Red hot anger flooded his body and Bjorn raised the hammer bringing it down with enough force on the nail. It drove straight through the ankle underneath and through into the packed dirt underneath. A high pitched scream escaped Killian as the pain receptors in his ankle overwhelmed his mind. The screams combined with sobs of pain.
Bjorn stood and had to make a few laps around the building so he could once again align his bloodlust with what needed to be done. Each calming breath barely did anything to control the fury but eventually he got it under his control. By the time he did Killian’s screams and sobs and died down to just sobs.
Finally Bjorn calmed down enough and he made his way back over to Killian and knelt down in front of the man. “Continue.”
Killian took in a raspy breath. “The only thing that I was able to make out through conversations was that whatever we were out here to get was supposed to be a powerful artifact. I don’t know anything past that, I swear.”
Bjorn pulled another nail and placed it on the other ankle. “I SWEAR IT! I don’t know anything else about that.”
Bjorn nodded. “Tell me about the group.”
Eager to not have his other ankle crushed Killian began to describe the group. “Kairon seems to pull the worst or the best out of everyone, depending on your perspective. Theon is a rogue, he has long since been able to gain a profession, I don’t know why he doesn’t. He is a mean son of a bitch, he was the one who came up with the plan for your son. He is the type of person who will wound someone just to see who comes to help.”
“Vivian is a vicious killer. She has no love for anyone. She is extremely precise with her bow. She loves to hear screams, even though she has the ability to end her target's life with a single shot she would rather wound them and listen to their cries of pain. She loves to hear people beg and plead for her to end their lives. I think she loves the power of that.”
“Vincent joined the crew a while ago. For a half orc he is surprisingly cunning. He likes gaining people's trust just to betray them. I don’t know why he wasn’t put on scout duty, that is exactly the kind of thing that gets him off. He likes to sit and wait and strike when it will do the most damage both physically and emotionally.”
“Sonia is completely infatuated with Vincent. To a degree that seems unreasonable. She is so beautiful and the only one who could conceivably be considered kind. At least kind for the company she keeps. Her celestial heritage just makes her more and more lovely as she ages. She does anything and everything that Vincent does or tells her to do. She is more of a loyal dog than a person and Vincent revels in it.”
“Zain is in it for the money. He doesn’t care what we do or where we go, as long as he can turn a profit. He likes to waste the money that is given to him on booze, prostitutes, and gambling. More often than not though he gets angry at the prostitutes that he does hire. He has choked out or stabbed to death more than one prostitutes and we have had to kill the rest of the brothel because of it. Each time Kairon tells him off, but ultimately he doesn’t care.”
“Gnack is like a force of nature. He is big, strong, and dumb. If it could be said that anyone in our group isn’t malicious it would be him. He isn’t smart enough to harbor those feelings. The only thing that he wants to do is eat, that is his driving factor. But not everything works for him, it has to be meat and it has to be fresh, and finally it has to be from a humanoid. I don’t know how Kairon keeps him in line but as long as those three conditions are met Gnack is almost reasonable.”
“You should know everything that I have to tell you about Jarred. He is a man with perversions that he only wants women who refuse him and struggle while he gets what he wants. Ramsey is the same kind of man. He likes to force himself onto strong women and see how long it takes to break them. When they finally go to compliment all of the fun is lost for him and he quickly ends their lives from there.”
“Brog has an obsession with putting objects into people's bodies. In more than one way. He likes to see how well people’s bodies can handle having objects inserted in all openings. He likes to see how well they can last before their bodies rip. He also likes to impale them on spikes and spears and other sharp objects. He likes to watch as they slowly die.”
“Tslla is an odd one. He doesn’t really interact with the rest of the party. He stays mainly to himself and he stays on the outskirts. I don’t really know much about him, but no matter what the rest of the group is doing he always either helps or partakes in the actions of the rest. My guess is he is more lizard than he is humanoid. The way he moves and talks.” Killian stopped and his body shivered, which it immediately regretted as the muscles locked up to attempt to stop the involuntary action.
He stopped talking and took a few breaths a rictus of pain on his face. Finally he began to speak again. “Luna is a crazy woman. She is just as much the group whore as the group healer. She makes sure that everyone knows that she is willing to fuck anyone and anything at any time. She is sadistic, she is just as likely to cut or bite something off as she is to pleasure you. I think that is why she began a life as a mage, so she could mutilate people’s sexes and use her magic to repair the damage she did, just so she can do it again. Almost no one in the group will touch her though, as she is just as willing to mutilate her companions as she is to mutilate random people. You saw how she looks though, she is very attractive, it isn’t hard for her to find men and even women willing to fuck her any time she wants. She is willing to sleep with both sexes."
“That leaves us with Kairon. As you could probably tell he is the leader of the group. He doesn’t have any fetishes or proclivities like everyone else has, at least as far as I can tell. He seems to have the ability to attract people like the rest of us though. Everywhere we go he seems to be able to find the pariahs of society and draw them to his cause. We seem to pick up people on the regular and he gives them a place to go. After they are a member of his gang it seems like they go farther and lean in more to their worst part of themselves. I don’t know if its an ability that does that or something else. Either way everywhere he goes he seems to gain new followers.”
Bjorn took in the description of each of Kairon’s followers and believed Killian, what he described fit perfectly with what he experienced. “What about you? Don’t you dare sugar coat it or try to deceive me. I will be able to tell.” Bjorn obviously had no way to tell if Killian lied other than his own intuition, but he didn’t know that.
“Me?” Killian asked for the first time in the conversation he looked apprehensive as if he didn’t want to admit to something. “I am the group torturer, I wouldn’t say that I am overly good at my job, and it is something that they force upon me.” He blatantly lied.
Bjorn just sighed and raised his hammer once again. The apprehension turned to one of fear. “Wait wait wait! I lied, I am sorry.”
“I told you I could tell.” Bjorn stated matter of factly and brought the hammer down on the nail driving it once again through his ankle and pinning it to the floor. It worked just fine the first time and basically was driven home with one blow. Bjorn raised his hammer and brought it down once again with the same amount of force as the first blow, completely crushing the bone as well as driving the nail further through his body.
Another painfilled scream escaped Killian’s mouth. Bjorn waited for him to finish his scream. “I told you not to lie to me. And yet you did it. Now you pay the price for what you have done.”
“I am sorry.” He took a ragged breath, his voice extremely raspy. That last scream was loud enough to potentially rip his vocal cords. “I am good at my job, and love doing it. I am almost to the threshold where I can become a professed torturer as long as I have the levels. I have an almost obsession with torturing people. I love to hear their screams, I love to her them plead for the pain to stop, I love to see the panic in their eyes when they realize that no matter how much they beg and plead I will not stop. I have spent years of my life perfecting the trade. I am really good at maintaining the pain while gauging how close to death they are. That way I can inflict as much pain as possible before they die.”
Bjorn’s expression changed from one of hatred to one of disgust. He made up his mind what exactly he was going to do to the man in front of him, but first. “Do you have any other important information to share with me?”
Killian must have decided that the longer that he could keep Bjorn talking the longer he could live because he jumped at the chance to keep talking. “Yes! I can share their habits, how they set up guard, how they move. “ Bjorn began to shake his head. “I can tell you where we have been, how they all fight. No! Please! Don’t do this.” A whine entered his voice.
As he had been speaking Bjorn just kept shaking his head. He moved around the man and grabbed several different nails. The pleas for Bjorn to stop and his attempts to appeal to Bjorn’s humanity fell on deaf ears. Those same pleas soon faded into obscurity as painfilled screams began to emanate from the man. Bjorn returned to driving nails into the body of the man. Just like how he described his love for torture Bjorn tried his best to copy that as he tortured the torturer.
He took his time slowly working around the man's body pounding nails into him one at a time. It took 7 more nails in more critical parts of his body before he screamed loud enough that he fully ripped his vocal cords and after that there were no more eligible words that came out of his mouth. It took 4 more nails for Bjorn to rupture an important enough organ that his screams stopped, and he slumped, but he wasn’t fully dead yet. The last nail, a 10 inch long nail that they had used to fasten the large beams of the frame together, ended up in the middle of his forehead pinning it back against the wooden beam behind him.
Finally with Killian dead Bjorn received the xp notification and he knew for sure that the torturer was dead.
You have begun to fulfill your oath of vengeance. People left to kill 12/13.
For fulfilling a part of your oath so quickly after it has been made you have been gifted with increased xp for this kill.
Level up!
You gain +1 to strength and you gain 5 free points to distribute.
Done with his gristly work and with a purpose Bjorn opened the door of the shed and stepped out. To his surprise there was a gathering of townsfolk all standing there in a simi-circle around the shed. They watched as a man that they thought they once knew stood there vindicated. They all stared at Bjorn with looks of horror and fear upon their faces. The sounds that they heard coming from the shed was more than they could handle. For the first time they realized that they were living with a monster, he was a monster in sheep's clothing.
Instead of standing there letting them silently judge him Bjorn began to walk. As he moved closer to the group they began to part making room for him to move through them. While the villagers were making room there was one who walked forward to meet Bjorn, it was Chrome. He held out his hand. In his grip was a metal hand made of what looked like steel.
“I made this for you last night, I figured you would be needing it.” Chrome said.
Bjorn reached out and took it from Chrome and stuffed the hand into his bag of holding. He nodded to the round dwarf and made his way through the crowd moving out of town. No one in town so much as got in his way or tried to talk to him as he went. The only thing that happened was everyone looked at him with either fear, disgust, or sympathy.
When he reached the edge of town he was met by Adriana. She had traveling clothes on, a heavy cloak, a pack slung across her back, and finally her bow tied in place as well. From her posture it was clear her intentions. To head off her Bjorn spoke. “No, I can’t take you with me.” His voice was surprisingly hoarse as he spoke.
“Like hells you can’t. You loved Meira, so did I. She was like a mother to me, she was the only mother I ever knew. You are not the only one who deserves revenge.” Bjorn opened his mouth to speak but Adriana just soldiered on. “I have made up my mind on this, I don’t care what you say or what you tell me. You can not stop me from coming along or following you so you might as well let me come.”
Caiden walked up behind Bjorn and placed his hand on his shoulder. “I promised you that we were going to be coming with you. But ultimately this scares me, and someone needs to look after my father after what you did to him. I will be staying here, I’m sorry.”
Bjorn turned to look at Caiden and met his eyes. He saw the same frightened boy he saw all those years ago. He had done a great job hiding it but Caiden was still a boy. Regardless if he let Adriana come along or not he wouldn’t bring Caiden. It would be like leading lambs to the slaughter. Instead he reached into his bag of holding and pulled out the deed that his companions earned from Duke Dornan all those years ago. With a quick mental thought he transferred ownership of the dead to Caiden and nodded.
“That’s alright. Do what you must.” With that he clasped Caiden on his shoulder and then turned and left Leefside behind. Adriana waited for Bjorn to pass her before she ran over and quickly gave Caiden a hug. She whispered something into her brother's ear before she ran after Bjorn.
