Chapter 151: Chapter 147

Eric’s eyes shot open as he awoke to an intense blooming pain in his wrists and ankles. His moan was muffled by a gag forced into his mouth, and it took several panicked seconds before he realized he was laid out on his back, still in his suit, his limbs stretched out. Everything was bathed in a blue light for some reason. The pain muddled his ability to think, to even remember how he got here from his shack-

 

“You know,” came a man’s voice, soft and thoughtful, momentarily distracting Eric from his predicament, “Now that I look back at it, I’ve been naive.” The speaker came into view, a young man in a black coat looming over Eric from his left side. He wore a concerned frown, staring blankly down at Eric as if he weren’t even there. 

 

Eric let out muffled moans, pleading through the thick strip of metal jammed between his jaws for freedom. The man’s eyes refocused, as if finally recognizing his presence, but he didn’t seem to care at all. 

 

“It’s a burdensome thing, being depended on,” he continued after a short pause and walking out of sight. “And somehow it’s worse when everyone looks up to you… When you see them doing their best to make it up to you, even if you never asked for it, never wanted it. Showing weakness makes them worry, and fuck does worrying them make me feel worse.”

 

As he got used to the pain, Eric realized he could hear the soft footsteps circling over his head. He also was shocked as he shifted and lifted his head once more to find the source of his agony - his wrists and ankles had been impaled by short metal rods sticking out of the corners of the cold table Eric was laid over. The growing terror dulled the throbbing pain in his wrists and ankles enough that Eric swore he could actually feel the rods themselves, as if his nerves had seeped into the metal.  The room he was in was circular, and the entire chamber was illuminated in a soft blue light.

 

His mysterious captor rambled on, and despite the fear in him Eric couldn’t do anything but listen, hoping to find a clue to his intentions. “I thought I did a good enough job,” the man sighed, “I should’ve known better when I started to give those kids a comfortable life. Should’ve planned things out better.” He came into view again briefly, walking into Eric’s right field of vision and then leaving it with a few steps.

 

There was the tinkle of metallic objects just out of sight, and for some reason the sound made Eric tremble. True enough, the captor entered his view once more, with a small hooked instrument and a scalpel in his hands. He was still half-speaking at Eric, the tools in his hands bobbing and weaving to the words. 

 

“There is so much bullshit out there, you know? So many loopholes, so many gray areas that I’m oblivious to until they appear for me to realize that, oh shit, flesh fusion isn’t considered a malicious thing, so my codes and wards to keep out any offensive eldritch things were useless.” There was an annoyed huff, and the man’s stare focused intensely on Eric. “It’s a pain in the ass, you know? If I shut down neutral energies, they can’t use the detection and identification runes, which might lead to even more trouble. But if I have to specifically exclude that fusion bullshit, it’d mean I’d have to do the same for every other phenomena that we might encounter…and only after they’ve potentially done terrible damage to the kids.”

 

Eric didn’t know, he couldn’t comprehend half the words he was hearing. But for fear of his survival, he nodded his head enthusiastically while muffled affirmative noises left his gagged mouth. It seemed to have done the trick, because his captor suddenly seemed to register his presence. There was a moment of blank staring before he reached down to pull out the gag, leaving Eric to sputter and cough for glorious, unhindered air.

 

After a few gasps, he shamelessly and immediately went to groveling. “Puh-please man, whatever it is about your kids, let me go and I can help you. I’ll do everything I can, I swear.”

 

The smirk he got in response made Eric’s stomach drop. “You are being helpful right here.”

 

“Wha-? No! Please! Let me go, I haven’t done anythi-”

 

All amusement and eccentricities left the stranger’s face, and he suddenly took on a severe expression. “Oh, you’ve done plenty, Eric from the Rust Cleavers. Not to me and mine, but still… One rape could be argued as peer pressure, and Nora could be convinced to defend you with two, but with so, so many more?”

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It clicked then who he was dealing with and he desperately yanked at his arms and legs despite the tearing pain. Still trapped, Eric broke down into a weeping mess as he begged and pleaded for mercy. “Please, I promise I’ll change! I-I’ll leave and won’t come back! I won’t lay a hand on anyone again, I swear!”

 

A glowing green crystal, sharp and dagger-like, floated into view, and Sev’s smirk returned. “Don’t worry, you’ll do all of those right here. Now, as good as it is to let some things off my chest, it’s time for work. Time dilation doesn’t mean time stops outside of here, after all.”

 

The gag shot into Eric’s mouth and aborted any further protest, and all he could do from then was to scream as the scalpel left Sev’s hand and slowly hovered down onto his chest…

 

*****

 

I spent four realtime hours in the time-dilated chamber, going through an entire gang we scooped up in Philadelphia. It was frustrating work, trying to figure out further intricacies of the console when it came to the eldritch, but I’d say it was time well spent in the end.

 

Also turned out to be good self-therapy, to be able to fully vent in a room where even my AIs couldn’t listen in. Might be cliche villain of me to monologue, but talking to doomed prisoners was almost cathartic, I’d say. None of them could get out of their fates to tell anyone, and even if they could tear themselves out of their fused bindings, they couldn’t operate the teleport beacon to leave.

 

The severe limitations of the time dilation rite meant severing the room from nearly every contact to the outside world, electrical connections included. Made it hard to apply to many things, but as personal chambers, dungeons and private labs? Perfect. Just had to make sure to reestablish connections once the time dilation was turned off.

 

Anyway, I was able to refine the protective rituals a bit more thanks to the research, but now that I knew what to look out for (at least for now), there was still a massive vulnerability in the sense that a lot of non-malevolent/malicious things could still bypass them. 

 

And seriously, fuck the definition non-malevolent. A decaying mist is considered bad, but if cast in the right way, one that transmutes the lungs to crystal, leading to asphyxiation, is not. The wards will bounce off a bolt of energy that would flay the body completely, but not one that causes the body to split out like an exploded view schematic…again, if the rite is conducted in a certain way.

 

I eventually found a compromise of sorts by having the armor protections involve keeping the wearer’s body in one unadulterated piece, though it’d mean any battlefield trauma that involved missing body bits would require getting out of the armor for healing emitters to work. That, or the trooper disables their armor’s eldritch protections. Hopefully, I don’t have to see either method come into play anytime too soon.

 

On my troopers, I mean. I already tested it on the raiders, that’s why I know healing arches won’t do shit.

 

There was a bit more research to do, but for now there’s enough notes to send over to NOD (hehe) and watch Madison almost surely go apeshit at the results.

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