The chamber Glaustro summoned us to was cavernous, yet runes and glyphs covered nearly every inch of the massive space. Circle after prominent circle of particularly dense runes lay on the ground.
Suspended above those circles hung the demons we had fought so recently.
There actually weren't that many, not when compared to the vastness of the room. Twenty-two traitors in total. That was the grand number of those who had survived the clash with our troops.
They hovered in the air, caught like flies in amber by the unseen force of the magic of the room. Glaustro had warned us to keep away from the circles. Until someone stepped on their runes, the prisoner within was completely oblivious to the world around them and under the effects of utter sensory deprivation. They couldn't even perceive their own souls in there. Just… darkness.
Buried deep underground as the chamber was, the atmosphere was eerie at best. Coupled with the dead silence of its occupants, even I felt a couple shivers travel down my back. And I'm a demon.
"What exactly happened?" I wondered aloud. "One second we were taking down the tavern group, and the next, things went pear-shaped."
"We discovered nine groups through all the spies your little scheme identified," Glaustro explained bitterly. "They had warded quarters, subtle guard rotations… the works. When I realized we were looking at actual groups of insurgents just waiting for the best moment to strike, I might have gotten a bit… overly enthusiastic."
"Don't blame you," Mia purred in response, eyes flashing as she took in all the prisoners.
"Not at all." I looked around, as if expecting Bronwynn and Methialia to pop up from thin air. "Where are the others, though?"
Glaustro didn't answer immediately. In fact, I noticed him visibly stiffen at my question.
My alarm shot through the roof.
"Glaustro? Where are they?"
"They are… recovering. I summoned the two of you here immediately, so we might extract some answers right away, but Bronwynn and Methialia did not fare quite as well as you did. You fought together. They did not."
His voice was… not colder, but duller than I was used to. Closed off. Nearly devoid of Emotion. When I took a peek, his soul was fully veiled and murky, concealing everything.
"They're going to recover though, right? I mean…"
I trailed off, unsure of what to say as worry gripped me. Sure, death wasn't permanent for us, but neither was it pleasant. Or free of cost.
"They will," Glaustro replied in that dull, cloaked voice. "Methialia managed to win, though only barely. The crispy ones are her captures."
He motioned to three sorry-looking demons, covered in burns at all levels of severity. Really, I had no clue how they were even still alive.
"And Bronwynn?" Mia pushed.
"He took some heavy injuries and is currently recovering in my quarters. He used his poison seriously for the first time today, and… none of his opponents made it. None of our soldiers on the scene did, either, which he didn't take particularly well. I will join him after this.
I nodded tightly, my eyes briefly straying to Mia. I could understand how Glaustro was feeling. Having someone you loved laid out like that…
The only reason Mia and I had managed to take down the Menace demon so easily was because we had fought together. I nearly drained myself to nothing just to pull off the massive crystal spell I used towards the end, and he'd tanked through that relatively well. Without Mia to finish things off, he might have managed to take me down with him.
And without Mia to handle the other demons so effectively, who knew what kind of mischief the dragon-lookalike would have gotten up to in that tavern?
Yeah, I didn't care how much snark anyone gave me in the future. Mia and I were moving together at all times while under potential threat of combat.
Glaustro's voice broke into my thoughts. "Shall we start? I want this done quickly."
"I concur. Maybe we can start with this one?" I pointed at the Menace demon I had just been reminiscing about. "I have a few questions I want to ask him."
"Very well. Let us do so," Glaustro rumbled, moving into position.
The second his foot brushed the outer runes, the demon's vacant eyes fluttered, then settled onto us. I thought he'd be angry beyond measure, or at least cowed. Instead, he just gazed at us blandly.
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"Right. I was expecting this. Though… props for the atmosphere, I suppose," he mused, glancing around at the vast chamber. "What questions can I answer for you, then?"
I stared at him. "What?"
"What?" he repeated, staring right back.
"What do you mean, what?! I was asking that! You are just going to… civilly ask us what we want to know?"
Honestly, I felt a little outraged. I was ready for spit, snarled insults, maybe a bit of back-and-forth. And here he was, so cavalier about it all!
"Kid…" He sighed. "I surrendered. I'm not here to fight to the death and suffer soul damage. I'm here because I was paid to be here. The second you overwhelmed us and had me by the balls, I was done. Good job, by the way. No clue how you snuck in, and that crystal spell was really something."
"Just like that?" I sputtered. "We win, you come in quietly, we're all friends here?"
"I'm a working man, kiddo. I keep to my contracts and I do what I'm paid for. Really, why do you think it was so easy to take me in?"
"Because we had you impaled and dead to rights?" Mia hissed, her ears flicking angrily. She looked as put-out as I was feeling. Probably because she wouldn't get to stab the guy a couple times in the name of extracting answers.
"Because I'm not putting in an ounce of effort beyond what is stipulated by my contract. Really, I'd prefer we get this over with. Maybe you can release me after? I'm through with this assignment. I was through the moment you made me."
"And the rage?" I demanded angrily. "You apparently 'went mad' when your ring broke. Why? What was the ring?"
"Ah…" He gave a tense smile, and I saw a flash of pure fury under the calm façade before he smoothed it out. "Sympathetic rings. What happens to one happens to the other. It can also contain a brief impression, or some words. My wife was wearing the second half of the set, and that was her warning. She was dying when she sent it."
I winced, though I didn't feel all that horrible, if I was being honest. If you were going to spy on someone, the least you could do was lay your life on the line.
Besides, she was just dead. She'd get better.
"We are going to need an oath from you," Glaustro growled, cutting into our chatter. "Swear you will not deceive us, withhold information, or outright lie. You will also share all information we do not think to ask about and which pertains to direct threats to us. Now."
The demon glowered at my colonel. His calm mask briefly slipped again, but he did as we asked.
The following chat was… revelatory.
Crewe had sent him.
As much as that was expected, it still felt like some kind of betrayal. Out of all the lieutenant generals, Crewe had been the friendliest. The one most likely to assist us instead of trying to screw us over. I suppose that grace had now been rescinded, in the wake of General Naberius showing such obvious favor to Glaustro.
Our new friend, who never did volunteer his name, was instructed and paid well to infiltrate our ranks with his wife. He brought with him a small group of subordinates and friends he'd gathered. Once he was in, he was to send regular communication back to Crewe whenever possible. And, if the chance arose, sabotage Glaustro's efforts on-world.
Obviously, he was also on the lookout for any talented individuals to poach. That was apparently a blanket order for all infiltrators. This suggested, at least to my mind, that most of the scum hadn't been instructed to act against us violently. They were spying and undermining, sure, but they weren't going to literally stab us in the back.
Not yet.
With the interrogation done, Glaustro executed our prisoner. The Menace demon had a brief moment of shock before the axe Glaustro had summoned for the job tore straight through his skull and down into his chest. Even I flinched a little at the sudden spray of blood and other foul bits that were meant to stay inside a person, then shot Glaustro a questioning look.
My colonel shrugged. "We couldn't keep him here. A Baron has tricks this facility might not be able to overcome. If he gets free and sets the others loose, we'd be in for a nasty surprise. And I wasn't going to let him walk," he finished with a snarl, drawing a nod from me.
I got it. Honestly, Glaustro's treatment of our soldiers was extremely generous. If the idiot had come forward as a Baron from the start, he would have been treated exceedingly well. Better than he would be under any of the big four, definitely.
To have that generosity spat on? It stung even me. I couldn't imagine how it felt for Glaustro, who had worked so hard to put together a fairly led and well-compensated army.
It was good for both Glaustro and Mia's moods, then, that the rest of our prisoners were much less cooperative. They had plenty of vitriol to vent at us, combined with all sorts of inventive threats and the like.
Mia even got me to lend her my soul blade at one point, just to really get some quality work done on a particularly mouthy prisoner. Glaustro's eyes widened at that, glancing back and forth between us, but he didn't make a comment. He was a little more focused on the actual info we were ever so slowly extracting through torture, and on monitoring our prisoners' souls to make sure they weren't feeding us nonsense just to get the pain to end.
Still, even with all the 'fun' aspects of the interrogation, what we learned from the prisoners left us feeling tired and anxious.
The lieutenant generals were out to get us. In every conceivable way.
We strongly suspected that, sure. But, and this is important, suspicion and knowledge are two entirely different things.
They had everything from keystones for recording astral coordinates, to blackmailed individuals within our ranks, to a slowly growing list of potential blackmail information.
My experiments, for example, had not gone unnoticed. One of the slain spies had even managed to gain entry to the little area I'd set up for my 'warlocks', and laid eyes on the soul of that recruit my sword was hungering after. That had apparently produced all sorts of wild speculation about what I'd done and why.
Bronwynn was also noted down as a priority target, due to his relationship with Glaustro. That sent the colonel into a towering rage. The unfortunate spy who relayed the information was chopped to bits within seconds.
We were being observed, dissected, and analyzed, systematically and carefully. I hated it. Mia hated it. Glaustro looked and felt like he was about to go on a Wrath rager.
If there was one fortunate thing in the sea of shit we were now wading through, it was that Breskwor and its secret were still safe. We'd been much more careful with it than with anything else, and the info the lieutenant generals could get on it was nonexistent. That, at least, let us breathe a sigh of relief.
Only briefly, though.
Then we went straight to planning bloody retribution.