Masterminds

Opened Scars

AN: Tweaked conversation between the 3 in the Mind Flayer Colony. 

I can't believe Ketheric doesn't mention Durge to the other 2, even if it's just to annoy.

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How it all unravelled is as confusing as your lost history. The aasimar you helped melted the shadows with her radiant wings, but there is yet a menace to silence: Ketheric Thorm. He is yours to slice. Your prey alone.

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As you make haste to the top of the tower, zealots lounge at you, driven by their sick devotion. Their halberds seek your neck, but those razor-sharp edges only find air to slash, unlike yours, which slits their throats swiftly. You left your companions behind, each to secure entrance and exit, leaving you alone with your prey.

And then, after slaughtering cultists, the roof - where the man of your maddening delusions awaits. He stands. He breathes. He shouldn't.

Your Urge provokes your blood to boil, your veins to swell, and your subconscious to growl rabid, but it leaves a tiny window, small yet enough for you to act not erratically. That tainted mind brims with such a painful, stinging wound. So much that it begins a migraine. The half-elf gazes at your grimace with a smile brimming with arrogance.

"So, it is you. The rogue True Soul." his voice steels, with a tinge of sarcasm. He scoffs at your pathetic amnesiac state. Even though you are in control, some words wish to escape your mouth, yet you chain them down, prisoners to create your sentences.

You recall what you read from his diary. Melodia, Isobel and the sorrow eating him away to the point of seeking only a miracle: his daughter's revival - information about him truly useful, should the occasion require it. And you also understood the pain to some extent.

"I only need a bit of information," you circle, pacing around the lower ground as you look at him, "You must know me because I remember this place, and you.".

Yet your eagerness doesn't stop there. You wish to know EVERYTHING. However, to Ketheric's surprise, he finds himself amused by your disoriented person. In his eyes, you are but a mere pawn now that you aren't that dangerous maniac. He even communicated it to the rest of Moonrise Towers, to belittle you - to show your disgraceful state. Still, he didn't know your geniality for ending lives is not dead, nor your intellect. Sceleritas is living proof that you are not to die as a tool for this man.

"I can hardly believe she left you with an ability to recall the past. I must admit your persistence to remain among the living is otherworldly - a quality you may retain when I raise you as my servant." the general descends the stairs.

The steps echo, his armour clinks and clanks, and that pink pinnacle calls to you hauntingly. Its energy feels like an old friend, warm and powerful.

"Tell me, General, don't you think this is prolonging too much?" you query. The bittersweet, gloomy tone of your words catches his attention, halting before reaching your level. What do you have stored for him? A bargain - another one? No. If you cannot defeat him physically, you must conquer his fears and his regrets.

Ketheric, resuming his way down, unexpectedly, shuts up, silently expectant of your beguiling tongue - just like the lordling. He is not ignorant of the art of persuasion you used to hold, though he is rather fragile when it comes to his family, and you are very much aware of that weakness. Tensing too much the the end can end in a snap, but should you use your words wisely, it could aid you.