On the Edge

Jon sat down on the roof tiles on the edge of a 80-foot drop across from the Slaughtered Lamb.  He watched the entrance to the tavern.

Inside the tavern was his client, Mallfort du'Paige.  Mallfort was a warlock, who had come to see him the night before.

"Someone wants me dead, Mister Chess," he had explained.  "The reason why is unimportant; what I want from you is protection."

"I don't do bodyguarding work."

"This isn't that - I know when and where the assassin will be.  I want you to stop him when he tries."

"How do you know?"  Chess was professionally curious now - most forms of divination magic were not quite so precise.

"Never mind how I know... but there is 500 gold in it if you find him and stop him."

Jon paused, considering. 500 gold was a lot of money, and Jon's cash reserves were kind of low after his extended absence.

And so Jon found himself at the roofline of the area of the Mage's section of Stormwind, watching the approaches, waiting for a fellow with a crossbow, full of ill intent.

While he had been skulking on the roofline, he had a visitor.  A Ren'dorei mage leaped from the saddle of her dragonhawk, landing gracefully on the slanted roof tiles.

"Good evening, Lynesia," Jon said.  His voice was a flat monotone; it was all he could do to not throw down one of his smoke grenades and invoke his shadow magic to escape.  He cursed his own cowardice.

"Jon, what happened?  I thought you were dead?" she said.  Her transformation from Quel'dorei-masquerading-as-Human to her new form as a Void Elf was an interesting change.  She had always been slender, but her features and form had taken on an almost delicate refinement.  She was, if anything, more breathtakingly beautiful in her natural state than she had been in her disguise as a Human.

"Light knows that might have simplified things.." Jonathan mumbled, and then winced at the stricken expression which danced briefly across her face.  He had forgotten that Elvin ears heard everything.

Jon looked up and captured her gaze.  "Here is the short version:  they took me off the streets of Stormwind, and took me somewhere - I never knew where.  They tortured me as punishment for welcoming the Ren'dori to the Alliance."

"That makes no sense, though" Lynesia replied.

"Most of the Ren'dorei were Sin'dorei, and many within SI:7 consider them Horde operatives and spies - and those who welcome them as traitors," Jon continued.  He talked about the beatings and injuries administered by the person Jon called the Unsympathetic Man, about the Sa'Diablo drug they'd used on him to make him an addict, about the psychic assaults and invasions done by the Dark Lady.  About how he had been rescued by someone he couldn't remember - just images of dark wings and bloody wolf claws.  How his body had been left on the doorstep of the cheese shop in Stormwind.  How a holy priestess of the Light had cured his physical wounds. How he couldn't sleep for the nightmares from what the Dark Lady had done inside his head.

How the craving for Sa'Diablo haunted his days.  How the withdrawal from Sa'Diablo made its victims resemble Wretched mana addicts.

He had asked Lynesia to not trust him overmuch, as he was not sure how far he could be trusted.  He knew only that the Dark lady had entertained herself with his broken mind; when Chess had felt his mental defenses crumble, he had done his best to retrench and hide Lynesia's existence from his thoughts. he had no idea as to whether or not he'd been successful.

As far as he knew, Jon Chess was still a target; he had no idea who the Dark Lady or the Unsympathetic Man was, or whether they'd been killed during his escape.  Until he knew more, anyone Jon Chess cared about was a potential target.  Lynesia deserved better than to wear a tabard with a target sign.

For Jonathan Chess, finding the Dark Lady and the Unsympathetic Man was was the highest priority; not for justice.  While they were free, they posed an existential threat to Chess, everyone Chess loved, and the Ren'dorei he had sought to welcome.  Maybe he would find some peace of mind, maybe the Kirin Tor had a cure for Sa'Diablo.

Maybe not, but it didn't matter.  Taking the Queen and King, as well as all their pawns, bishops, rooks, and knights, off the board was Jon's new goal in life.

Not Quite An Interrogation V

((Reserved for the story of Jonathan's rescue by Pipa))

Not Quite An Interrogation IV

"Well, Jonny... have you come to your senses yet?" the Dark Lady had asked.

"Yes.  The Void Elves are a menace, and must be destroyed," Jon affirmed eagerly.

The Dark Lady closed her eyes, and Jon could almost hear her voiced incantation.  She smiled.  Jon flinched.

"Ah, your lips say the right thing.  Progress!" she said.  "Your mind, however...your mind says 'tell her what she wants to hear, whatever that is!'  Not an unexpected response - I do want you to please me, after all - but it is not enough for you to say it."  The smile left her face. "You have to mean it."

The Dark Lady was a Shadow priest.  The Unsympathetic Man had broken Jon Chess' body; the Dark lady would break Jon Chess' mind.

Shortly after Elling Trias had hired Chess, he had sent him to Ravenholdt Manor in the Alterac Mountains for training.  He had built upon his basic knowledge of poisons under the dwarven alchemist Smudge Thunderwood.  He had learned the dirty tricks of close knife compat from the orcish Master Kang.  He had learned the ins and outs of sleight-of-hand from the sin'dorei Myrokos Silentform.

Jonathan had learned how to discipline his mind from the kal'dorei landscape architect, Simone Cantrell.

"Have some Thistle Tea, young raven, and clear your mind of distraction.  Now, imagine yourself by a riverbank," she had instructed.

Jon had closed his eyes, and done as she had asked.

"See yourself take mud from the riverbank.  Sculpt the mud into a brick," she continued.  Jon pictured himself making a brick out of the mental river clay.

"Place the brick down in front of you - see how the Light bakes it to hardness?  Now, make another brick.  Place it next to the first. Now, again. Again.  Keep going.  Feel the weight of the bricks in your mind.  Build a wall."

When Jonathan had done what she had asked, and had completed a wall that stood just a little higher than himself, she said "Now, prpare yourself!"

In the landscape of his mind, the wall he had build shook.  Somethign was striking it from the outside!  It took a dozen strikes before a spectral version of Simone was able to break through his imaginary wall.  The shock of his mental wall crumbling shocked Jon awake.  He opened his eyes, only to discover that he had fallen to his kneesunder the psychic onslaught.

Simone had brought him to his feet.  "Well done, Jon Chess!  A very good effort for your first attempt.  Please feel free to come back when you have the inclination, and we will do this again; it is only through practice that your mind can learn the proper discipine and skill."

Jon had gone back every day until Lord Jorach had deemed his training complete, and had sent him back to Stormwind.  Jon had continued his practice, just as he had continued the physical training, the kata taught him by master Kang, and the dexterity exercises of Myrokos.

It took the Dark lady two weeks to batter his psyche into submission.  Then she began to play.

His jailors were relieved that Jonathan no longer screamed out loud.

Not Quite An Interrogation III

(Post reserved for Pipa)

Not Quite An Interrogation II

Chess' days began to settle in somewhat of a routine.  A jailor would come in the morning, and deliver a pot of some melange of boiled grains with the occasional odd bit of greasy meat - no doubt accidental - contained therein.  

After his one and only meal for the day was finished, the jailor would leave, taking the bowl with him.  Jon would have a short time, his wounds stiff and painful, until he was visited by the Unsympathetic Man.  He was a human, standing a little shorter than chess himself, with the same kind of lean, whipcord build so common among those working for SI:7.  The fellow would haul Chess up from the ground, and set him in a heavy-framed wooden chair.  Then the fellow would pour an alchemical healing potion down Jon's throat.

A potion laced with Sa'Diablo.  Sa'Diablo was a substance made by Warlock alchemists using soul shard fragments drained from living creatures.  Ingesting the substance magically healed physical damage, while filling the user with euphoria.  It was mildly hallucinogenic and very addictive; withdrawal from the drug caused symptoms similar to the Wretched mana addicts of the Sin'dorei and Quel'dorei.  

Jon had overheard the discussion of the Dark Lady with the fellow in charge of his ordeal, who Jon had named the Unsympathetic Man, on the other side of the cell door.

"Break him, and don't feel you need to be overly gentle about it - we can heal what damage you do, and if you go too far... well, while I would prefer to break him and rebuild him to my leash, there are others to use."  The Dark Lady had laughed.  "There are always others, are there not? But I digress - break him, and I'll rebuild what is left."  

After the potion came what the interrogation experts of SI:7 referred to as "conditional stress", which started with beatings and often escalated to other unpleasant tactics.  Broken bones.  Shattered teeth.  Flayed skin.  All administered with a professional care to leave Jonathan Chess able to scream his vocal chords raw into the night.

The session would end when the Unsympathetic Man would douse Chess with cold brine water, and leave him to shiver and ache in the darkness.

Jon last track of how long this routine had gone on.  He had prayed to the Light for rescue.  He had prayed to the Light for the simple surcease of death.  Jon had tried using some of the shadow magic he had learned from books taken from the arakkoa of Veil Shadar, books used by outcast priests of Anzu, their Raven God of dark power, but even these rudimentary skills failed him.  Jon speculated that in addition to Sa'Diablo, they had laced his food with a mixture of Dust of Deterioration and Essence of Agony, long known to inhibit all manner of spell-casting.

((Yes, I still have the recipes for the long-removed Rogue poison making!))

For Jonathan, the worst part is that they didn't seem to want any information from him.  They asked no questions, even when Jon was long past being able to deny them anything they wanted to know, even if he had to make things up.

One day, the routine was broken.  After breakfast, Jonathan was left alone; no beating, no visitors, no cold brine water.  He spent the day shivering in anticipatory dread.  Worst of all, he knew this tactic; how you gave your victim a rest and the hope that perhaps their ordeal was finished - and then you smashed that hope flat.

When this happened again on the second day, he wanted to cry, although with relief or terror he couldn't say.

He was almost relieved when the Dark Lady came visiting after breakfast on the third day of his "vacation".

Not Quite An Interrogation I

Jon Chess laughed in the darkness of his cell, a high-pitched maniacal sound, teetering on the edge of madness.  The guard outside his cell flinched at the hollow resonance of the laugh, but wrote the occurrence down in his prisoner log. 

Everything Jon Chess did or said was faithfully written down.

Inside the cell, Jon felt ashamed of his outburst, but could not help himself; any surcease or mitigation of his pain was eagerly, desperately sought.

He remembered hearing the story from his gnome mage colleague and friend, Phred.  She had relayed the story while the both of them had been safe and snug in the Pig & Whistle tavern in Stormwind's Old Town section, while under the influence of perhaps one too many Hearthglen Ambrosias.

"One of the new students had said 'Mistress Groll, will you do a magic trick for us?'.  So Mistress Groll had brought the new student up before the rest of the class, and announced she would do her famous Time Distortion trick.  Without warning, Mistress Groll had kneed the poor kid in the balls.  The kid dropped to the floor, clutching his privates in agony.  Mistress Groll had said 'Notice how every second seems stretched to an eternity?  We don't do tricks here; we work with primal arcane forces.  Tricks are a cheat for mountebanks and frauds!'"

They had taken Jon Chess from Dalaran at night before he could reach the section of the Underbelly where he would be safe. They had rendered him senseless, and he had awakened in his vault-like cell, his wrists and ankles bound by chains of iron.

They had not even asked him any questions before the beatings had begun. A very unsympathetic fellow with gloves laced with lead shot had done quite a thorough and professional job of softening Chess up for his first interview with the woman he was to call the Dark Lady.

"Jonny, Jonny Jonny... has it come to this?  Treason, Jonny?  really?" she had begun. Jon had wondered if she had known how much he hated to be called "Jonny".  She probably had.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Chess had replied. "I am no traitor."

"That's not what I hear, Jonny... I hear you've been making life easy on the so-called Ren'dorei which foul the Alliance.  Shame on you, Jonny... you're a smart guy. You must know they're Sin'dorei at heart - why would they work against their own families?"

"They've been cast out by those families, they are Ren'dorei now," Chess said. "Since a handful of Alliance bigots pushed the Sin'dorei to the Horde in the first place, this is our chance to make it right.  Our king believes it so; welcoming them can't possibly be treason."

"I am sorry you feel that way, Jonny.  We'll have to talk again about that later," she said. "But for now, I have a thing to ask, Jonny.  It is very important.  You see," she explained, "they ARE traitors, and you need to be punished for helping them and betraying your own people.  Your. Own. People.  Do you know who I mean when I say that, Jonny?  Your own people?"

"The Alliance."

"No, Jonny... think smaller."

"Humans?"

"Smaller."

"Stormwind?"

"Closer, but no, Jonny.  Your own people are SI:7, Jonny, and you put them in danger by welcoming these blue blood elves."  She laughed light-heartedly.  "Oh, I like that, I must use it later!  But Jonny... You are refusing to see.  So let's give you some time to think, and consider your feelings, shall we?"

The Dark Lady left Jon Chess alone in the darkness.

Apologies!

I apologize for the lack of new content.

For two months now I have been absent from game because of a double-wrist Carpal wrist strain.  It is slow to heal because I write for a living, and them doctors bills ain't cheap!

And so, while I work - ever so slowly - on the Chess Kidnapped character piece, there are lots of stories I can't write, in the name of recovery. How the Light priest Priann has healed Jon's shattered body, and has made a start on healing his soul and psyche.  How Lynesia reacts.  How SI:7 reacts.  None of this is being made explicit via story, and it grieves me, because it's all great RP that deserves to be told.

But I have to balance recovery with storytelling.  perhaps when I am recovered, I can work some into flashbacks!

Thanks for reading!