[Torture Location]Doing your duty[Solo]

[Clyde Sullins]

3 Fall 511 It seemed to be a more or less normal day, going as many others had. Clyde was on his way to a class at the Institute, when a pair of Ebonstryfe soldiers approached him. Clyde was startled when he noticed they were approaching him, had he done something to call down their anger? As thoughts rushed through his head, they stopped before him, and one spoke in a deep threatening voice, which was very intimidating. "Clyde Sullins! By order of the Ebonstryfe, you WILL come with us, to fulfill your duty as required for a citizen of Ravok, and a student at the Institute. " One thing was for sure, he was informing Clyde he would be doing this, not asking him. Clyde would go along one way or another, whether he wanted to or not. You did not say no to the Ebonstryfe. Clyde tried asking what he was being asked to do, or were he was going, but the two men just looked at him, in silence. Finally, Clyde nodded, and walked to the men, saying he was going with them. One took out a thick black blindfold, and roughly tied it over Clydes eyes, blocking out all sight for him. They obviously did not want him knowing were he was going. Then he felt arms slip under each of his own, and pull him along, as they walked at a fast pace. Clyde was pretty sure that if he did not keep up, they would simply drag him off to wherever they were going, so he did his best to keep up with their fast pace. For what seemed like hours, they walked, Clyde having no idea were he was. He was pretty sure they were going in circles on purpose, trying to throw him off. After a while, he gave up trying to recall the turns, and just went along, starting to get a bit out of breath for walking so fast for so long. Finally they came to a stop, and a hand ripped the blindfold off of his face. He was standing in a hallway, which was all made of stone, though he could not really tell much detail from the dim light the torches were giving off. As he was about to ask what was going on, the two men left, and a door screeched open, letting out screams of pain from inside. A man with a leather apron covered in blood stepped out, wiping his hands with a bloody rag. "Ah, so you are here! They found someone with the skills I needed! So you are my little apprentice for the night? Come along, come along, we have much to do!. " Still with no idea what was going on, Clyde followed the man, trying to avoid the blood that was dripping off of him in his wake.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde followed the man along the corridor for a bit, as he went from one door to another. Finally he seemed to have found the one he wanted, and led Clyde inside. They both went in, and Clyde quickly took in the sight. Obviously they were in some type of dungeon, or torture chamber. Once more the walls were all made of stone, and most of it was ill lit. But one wall was well illuminated, which was the one with a man strung up on it, with shackles and chains attached to his feet and hands to keep him in place. Most of his clothing seemed to be ripped to shreds, and what little was left barely clung to his flesh. He looked like he had been there for a while, being tortured over and over. And now they wanted Clyde to help? What could he do? "Well now, as is known to the Ebonstryfe, one of your skills is fire reimancy is it not? While I am a have many skills as a torturer, magic is just not one of them. So I will guide you along, and you will slowly torture and kill this traitorous man as our laws require." Of course Clyde was shocked by this. Being asked to torture a man to death! How ghastly! How could they expect Clyde to do such a thing? Clyde had never even killed a man before, and here they were wanting him to do this? "Surely... Surely there are others who could do this? Those with more experience in the art of torture? I... I doubt I would be very good at doing it..." The man let out a snort of derision, and waved his hands as if to wave away Clydes words. "You will do just fine, that is why I am here to direct you. Besides, you would not be thinking of disobeying an order from the Ebonstryfe would you?" The man quietly walked up behind Clyde, speaking in a whisper in his ear. Though fro being quieter, it seemed all the more intimidating and threatening to Clyde. "Did I tell you what this man is here for? He disobeyed an order from his superior... His commander ordered him to kill a woman, who turned out to be his wife... When he refused, the commander killed her himself and he was sent here to be slowly and painfully killed... The Ebonstryfe does not take kindly to those who cannot follow orders..." Having said that, he once more walked over to the man, and spoke in his normal tone. "Now, I assume you now a good bit about reimancy. What we want to do is to fill the man up with your res, similar I believe to how you initiate someone into the magic. Quite a painful thing on its own. But then unlike in reimancy initiation, you will slowly transmute the res into fire, burning him slowly from the inside out." "Cooks them quite well, and much slower and more painful a way to die than external flame. So you go ahead and start off getting some res prepared. Why don't you test your res out a bit by burning his extremities, you know his toes and fingers and such..."

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde took in a deep breath, and slowly let it out. He resolved himself to what he had to do, even though he really did not want to do it... This was not a good time to find out if he was squeamish... But for his own good he would have to do what he was asked.... Clyde concentrated for a moment, gathering his res. After a few moments, he let out a breath, and along with it a bit of res. For starters he made some solid res, since he would be slathering it on. Once he went to invade the man with it, he would need to use gaseous res. The torturer motioned for Clyde to get started, and so he slowly walked to the man. Gathering a blob of solid bright silver res before him, he guided it with his hands. Slowly he moved it over, and let it smear over the mans hands and fingers. Finally he was more or less ready, and so he took a step back. Holding one hand up, he snapped his fingers, transmuting the solid res into flame. All at once there was a flash of light, and a bloodcurdling scream rang through the air. It took Clyde a moment to realize that it was his own scream... Drowning out even the sound of the torture victims shout of pain... The man directing him let out a short chuckle, a grin now spreading on his face. It was hard to tell what he was enjoying more, the pain on the victim being burned... Or Clydes reaction for the things he was making Clyde do.... Waving at the mans hands, he bent close, taking in a deep breath. "Ah, freshly burnt flesh, I do love that smell! What about you, do you like the smell your magic has created, from burning the skin right off of a man?" However he did not get a verbal response as Clyde began to feel sick. He quickly rushed across the room, to a dirty bucket, and heaved into it, getting sick from revulsion and the smell thick in the air... "Well that was a decent first try, now on to the feet!" The man said, far to happy to do his job.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself, which probably would have worked better if the air was not thick with the smell of burnt human... But it did help him a bit, and so he slowly cleared his mind, trying to ignore what was going on around him... Breathing out, he blew out some more solid res, collecting it into a blob. Motioning with his hands, he moved it along over to the man, and slathered it over both of the mans feet... Then taking another step back, he did the same as before, and snapped his fingers, making the feet of the man burst into flames, burning the flesh off of him. There was another scream of pain, and then the man slumped in his chains. But at least this time Clyde kept from screaming, and did not get sick, though he felt queasy. The interrogator walked over to the man, putting two fingers to his neck, and nodded. "Just unconscious... Don't worry, I can wake him up." He quickly slapped the man across both cheeks, and he stirred, awake to his pain. Finally the torturer took out a dagger, and sliced open both of the mans palms, making him jerk, but much less than the flames, as it was somewhat numb from being burnt. Nodding at Clyde, he motioned for him to do the final step. Clyde stood there, closing his mind to everything else... Completely focused on his body and the energies within him, he delved into his reservoir of extra djed he kept for casting magic, and began to expel it as res. With each breath gaseous res came out of his mouth, and from each of his pores a bit of res came out of his body, a cloud soon floating around him... Finally when he had a good enough bit ready, he stopped extruding the res, and with several motions of his hands, brought it up into a large gaseous ball in front of the prisoner... Finally he opened his eyes, and made a series of sweeping motions, bringing trails of the res to meet a few parts of the man, one to each of his hands, and a larger trail over his face to his mouth and nostrils. Finally ready, with one final motion, he pushed forward with both hands, and the res forcibly entered the mans body, making him jerk and choke as if water was being poured down his mouth... Just the entering of the foreign res into his body alone was painful... How bad would it be soon?

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde kept on pushing the res in, forcing more into his body... As he did the man increased his jerking and spasming, till he was more or less spasming non-stop. He started issuing gurgling sounds, as if he was drowning, and res seemed to be oozing out from around his eyes... He looked pleadingly at Clyde, wishing for anything for it to stop, but Clyde knew what he had to do... With one final snap of his fingers, there was a pause, and then Clyde knew he had killed his first man... And in a rather gory fashion. Flame issued out of the mans throat, burning his lips off, and it kept going, as more and more fire built up inside of the man, trying to find a way out. Though he could not see it, the mans organs were burnt and shriveled in a moment, and in another his eyeballs exploded with a sickening pop, and eye juice pored out the mans eye holes... His entire body was turning black and burnt, and yet he was still alive, and thrashing around... Finally the pressure was to much, and several places exploded with the burnt flesh left, his stomach ruptured and flame billowed out, and two fingers on one hand and a toe on a foot fell of, a small shriveled bit of what was once flesh... Finally it all came to an end, as his entire body was burnt to a crisp, shriveled and dried out and smaller than it once was... The weight of the lower part of his body was to much, and the brittle burnt bones of his wrists snapped, along with his ankle bones, and he fell out of his restraints to land on the ground, what was left of his hands and feet remaining held there... And when he hit the ground, he sort of fell apart, black dust billowing up into the air making him cough, and his flesh and bones breaking into little bits all over the floor, scattering over Clydes feet... Clyde tried to turn away from the sight but just could not... And finally he felt a hand on his shoulder of the torturer. He turned to see the man smiling at him. "Well that was a good job for your first try, though you might want to go a bit slower next time, and only ignite bits of the res at a time, starting inside his legs and arms, and finishing inside of his chest and organs and head... That way there wont be so much pressure... Though the eye thing was nice, I have never seen the eyeballs explode like that..." Walking him along to the door, he led him out into the passage, still smiling... Turning he noticed that one of the torches was out, and still smiling, muttered that "he would get that." With a smooth motion he shot res out of his mouth, and sent it up to the torch, and with a snap of his fingers turned it to flame, lighting the torch once more. Smiling even bigger, he looked over at Clyde, seeing his utter confusion... "Oh, I guess I forgot I could do fire reimancy... My bad... Well thanks for the help..." A moment later everything went black, as a sack went over Clyde head blinding him, and he was led off speechless to were he had started.

[Lazybones]

Thread Complete! Notes: I understand that you were given permission by an ST to use the Ebonstryfe for this thread. I have a few notes about how you utilized them. Although I understand this is meant to be traumatizing for Clyde, parts of this thread felt a little gratuitous—being violent for the sake of being violent. It was interesting, but I'd like to see a little more depth and creativity in the story rather than just overt cruelty. The Ebonstryfe are ruthless, but they're not aimless sadists. I don't feel like this is a faithful representation of Ebonstryfe torture techniques. Remember that Rhysol, the Black Sun, and the Ebonstryfe love to deal in subtlety. Keep in mind too that the Ebonstryfe won't just pluck someone off the street to conduct a torture session, unless their aim was to exact some kind of punishment from Clyde. Wanton suffering is not the aim of Rhysol, and not the aim of the Ebonstryfe. Also, as Clyde pointed out, the Ebonstryfe would have gotten someone more qualified to conduct this operation, from within the organization. I'd like to request that if you want to use them in your threads again, please me more specific with what you intend with them so we can avoid this kind of misrepresentation. ^_^ Thanks! Clyde Award : Skills: Reimancy +3, Meditation +1, Torture +3 Lores: First Kill, Smell of Burnt Human, Eye Popping Excitement, Fearful Obedience, Abduction