The Carrion Maker

[*Shia]

It was often the more macabre and grotesque of assignments that reached the Elf's desk, and there lay a chest kept tightly sealed and usually hidden away in a bottomless pouch at her waist for safekeeping. As it were with many dark artifacts such as what lay before her, it was always best to approach their study with a severe lack of eagerness, for wizards far more powerful and wise than Shia might fall prey to their enchantments had they let down their guard.

The minute flame that served as the room's only source of light had very nearly burned through the length of the candle's wick by the time the Elf gathered the nerve to unlock the chest before her and she peered within it at the object it held.

At first glance, it appeared as a hunk of flesh, the forearm of a fully-grown Half-Orc. But upon closer inspection, it was clear the flesh on the object's surface had multiple different sources, with many different textures and shades of skin, arranged in such a way as to lack a logical pattern and held together by what appeared to be scar tissue, as though the various bits of flesh had healed together to form natural seams. Jagged ends of bone caked in dried blood punctured the many fleshy patches along the rest of the artifact as if powerful impacts over the years of its existence led to the shattering of its internal structure so severely as to puncture the skin and were then left untreated. It's width narrowed gradually toward one end, and there at it's narrowest protruded a steel bar wrapped in the faded and torn leather that served as the weapon's hilt. This was without doubt the most gruesome of weapons the Elf ever beheld, and she was sure whatever crafted such a foul item had a similar fondness for enchantments equally vile. She dared not touch it.

[*Scintilla]

It was a vile thing, that much was true; the simple action of opening the latch upon desk-bound chest one that filled the room with uncomfortable, skin-crawling aura. Preserved flesh stitched and stretched had hardened to solid mass, lacquered to leather-like sheen with dried ichor and bodily fluid. Beneath the elf's studious gaze, unsurprisingly, the 'weapon' remained still; scars resultant of stitching casting eerie, uneven shadows on pale flesh in the waning light of flickering candle.

The longer Shia looked upon the item, the more uncomfortable she would come to feel. A sickening feeling in the pit of one's stomach that reflected manifested thought: something was off.

[*Shia]

There were few within the prison so vile as to have earned a sentence so severe as to become the Elf's test subject, and so it came as little surprise when her request for one was declined. Indeed, much of her craft was done beyond the Cage, in the infinite planes that anchored themselves to it, largely owed to spells of conjuration having no effect within it. But she need not venture so far this time, for while none currently within the prison may have earned her punishment, (this was largely a matter of opinion, as far as she was concerned) the city itself housed an innumerable population of guilty or soon-to-be guilty and were therefore worthy of punishment. The trick was being at the right place at the right time.

Murders and muggings are a common sight in Sigil, within the Hive and below the city in particular, and it was the latter that Shia chose to skulk about in. Cycle after cycle the girl explored its depths, invisible and disguised in a simple robe, and discovering nothing of note. Her Factor had impressed upon her the urgency of her assignment at every opportunity, to which she would internally lament his refusal to provide a subject. Time was indeed ticking.

But persistence is eventually rewarded, and nearly sixty cycles after she was given this assignment, she came across a scenario in which to test her hypothesis. The circumstances were far from ideal, but it had to do, and that is how a gang of three cornering a fourth became her unwilling subjects.

From where Shia stood, she could barely make out what they were arguing about, not for the silence but in the broken Common tongue the four spoke in. The fourth stood clutching something that glinted in even this dim lighting as he waved it about angrily in the faces of the other three.

"Oi's moine! 'S me share 'o - ou!" the fourth man had been struck cleanly at his jaw and he toppled onto his side, the man standing in the center of his three assailants having had enough of their little argument. Hitting the ground, the man pulled a small blade from his side and lunged at his assailant, pushing him backward and away from the other two until they collided with the wall across from them. The dagger moved swiftly, repeatedly penetrating the man's flesh while the two struggled against the wall. The others then moved to assist their companion and pulled the dagger-wielding man from him, knocking both onto the ground with the bleeding man pinning the other.

"Woi you!" he grunted and, while keeping one hand on the man's chest to keep him pinned to the floor, began pummeling his skull with his fist. Shia could only stand there and watch as each impact was met with a sickening crunch of bone from the sheer power of the strikes thrown. It was clear the man had succumbed to his injuries, but still the beating continued until one of the trio took hold of their leader's arm.

"Stop, stop, he's gone, mate," he said and gestured to the deceased, now left unrecognizable."You're bleeding, here," the man had gone to inspect the gashes left behind by the victim's blade, but was promptly pushed aside as the other then stood to look down at the bloodied mess his fist had made, but clutched his side and showed the symptoms of high blood loss. Indeed the color had faded from his face, and he spat blood off to his side.

"Search 'im," he commanded, and Shia acted swiftly, placing the item she held near one of the men while they were preoccupied with stripping their victim down and then retreating. It wasn't until one of their feet pushed up against the item that it became noticed. "Wot's this, then?" their leader asked, having caught the gaze of his companion to something else on the ground and stopping him right as he had reached for it. He laughed. "Stinkin' rat! Ah knew he took more'n his fair share!" he bellowed and took a firm grip of the weapon by its hilt. "Ah knew it... ah knew..." his voice trailed away and Shia watched as the man's eyes went wide and empty, and the Elf hid a little further.

The two companions stared at their leader's back, clutching what items they had found on the corpse and moved with a start when he suddenly turned back about in an instant. One of them opened their mouths to quietly ask, "Yer alrigh' - " the impact of the weapon against the man's skull was swift and brutal, its wielder having swung it in a sideways arch so quickly that it had cleanly severed a third of his skull from the rest and sent its contents splashing onto the wall and floor. His body toppled and convulsed uncontrollably atop the ground with blood and brain matter oozing from the gaping hole left in his skull.

The remaining thug stood there, frozen in shock, wide-eyed and shivering while the other stood across from him wearing a malicious grin. They stood there in silence, merely staring at each other for a moment, but the instant he attempted to flee, he was gripped at the collar of his shirt and thrown to the ground. Shia turned away and merely listened to his cries for help accompanying the sound of his bones crunching beneath the repeated heavy swings of the weapon.

It didn't take long for the cries to cease, and Shia peeked at the scene to see the man still beating the lifeless corpse. She stood a safe distance away and allowed her enchantment to fade, revealing herself before whistling to get the man's attention, and he perked up at the sound, peering over his shoulder to the girl and his lips curled to that same empty-eyed grin her wore earlier. Charging at Shia, he held the weapon above his head and only made it a short distance before he collided with an invisible wall that wrapped itself about his body. Trapped in her spell with his arms pinned to his side and his feet dangling off of the ground, she squeezed her fist, constricting the hold of the enchantment and causing his bones to snap in places. The man's shrieks grew louder and blood spurted from his mouth as his internal injuries grew more severe, but still he struggled in her grip and Shia then approached and severed his hand at the wrist with a dagger of her own in a single, quick slash.

The weapon fell heavily to the ground and Shia watched as the man regained his senses. Where before there was mindless rage, now was a look of deathly illness, and he had gone limp in the enchantment's grip. She made note of this as she tucked the weapon away safely into its chest.

Leaving the corpses where they lay, she returned to faction headquarters with the prisoner in tow.

[*Scintilla]

Cutters speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, yet that, in itself, is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts; for no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel. This was a lesson being learnt in the twenty third numbered cell of the Mercykiller Prison - taught not by a man, but a woman of elven blood and vibrant hair. It was here Shia's victim had been brought, dragged in a twisted wreck of broken bones and shattered limbs; left to rot in the dim light of barred four walls. So far, the Hiver's screams of pain and pleas for released had gone either unheard, ignored, or both; thus leaving the man to struggle through each passing hour with ragged breaths and waning consciousness.

However, any whom might be studying the condition and reactions of the man's state may come to realize several interesting details of note. First would be the thin sheen of sweat attributed to the basher's beaten and bloody form, one that coated the entirety of flesh; both bare and clothed. Closer inspection of cracked lips yielded blue stains, prominently at corners at upon gums at the arched meet of teeth, if one managed to get close enough during bouts of delirious detachment that pressed hand and forearm stub against bloody ear. At times, the Hiver would lean over, parting his lips to retch upon the cell floor; though it was hard to determine whether or not this effect was one induced by testing.

Additional attempts at submitting the dying man to the malefic aura of the weapon yielded little by way of reaction, save for the simple, writhing distance he attempted to put between he and it with pained intonation and a ghastly scream as any ordinary humanoid might at the sight of such a thing... or Shia herself.

Study, no doubt, continued.

As time passed with fruitless results, one might begin to question whether the weaponized abomination of stitched flesh had, in fact, any bearing on the confrontation at all. Yet, as the possibility of failure loomed at the conclusion of numerous hours, there sparked the smallest of seeds. Hope, easily disguised by the disconcerting manner in which Shia might swear she saw the cured hide of the weapon subtly shudder. Surely a trick played upon her eyes in the dark of the room, or so she might assume, until... somewhere at the back of her mind, faint as the breeze that carried it, the elf hears a whisper.

"Help... help me...."

[*Shia]

So much of her time was spent in the prison depths, specifically within the four walls of the laboratory, with bricks so thick that not even the cries of the fortress's tenants penetrated them, that the faint call for help unmistakably came from the item before her.

If indeed the item took flesh and bone from its victims, then could it not also be possible their very souls were contained within it as well?

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Shia submitted her report to Factor Andor, her commanding officer, who in turn had suggested she seek out another for his guidance, and so the girl made her way to the Fest Hall, the Sensate headquarters, and stopped before the woman at the entrance hall desk.

"I'm looking for Factotum Quinn."