Dread Fort Perilous - Legion X "Infortunatus"

Chapter Eight: Inquisition II

Deep within the wintry realm of the Black Inquisitor's office, Loran and the Sergeant face off against the Black Inquisitor's keen mind as they attempt to secure his favour with bribery and manipulation.

'I know you're lying to me about the Grimoires,' said the Black Inquisitor. He sat down in the snow and began to carve into the whiteness with the tip of his sword of ice. Loran peered at his work. It looked like a really bad drawing of a coffin-shaped box, with messy round scribbles on some of the corners and lots of triangles on the inside. It was quite clear to Loran what the triangles were supposed to represent: spikes. Lots of spikes. The entire inside of the coffin-box thing was made of spikes, that was how many there were. The Black Inquisitor is a genius, Loran thought. With so many spikes, he didn't even need to use the damned thing. He only had to open up the contraption, and lo! The very sight of it would cause screaming, he'd get confessions in no time at all.

The Sergeant looked upon the Black Inquisitor's messy artwork with some discomfort. '...I think we have a small misunderstanding.'

'Enlighten me.'

'You see, I do have the Grimoires of Akhenak, but I don't technically own them,' she said. 'They are the property of the Archivists - I simply borrowed them.'

The Black Inquisitor laughed. It was a cold, toneless sound, like the crack of brittle ice. 'One does not simply borrow from the Archivists.'

Loran shot the Sergeant a venomous look. You conniving scoundrel, she thought, glaring at the other woman with enough spite to kill. What else haven't you told me?

It was preposterous! Surely, as the Sergeant's number one minion, Loran deserved to at least know about her past misdeeds before being sent into a massive infinite realm of icy doom? Loran had no idea who the Archivists were, but she instinctively knew that messing with them couldn't result in anything good. Deep in thought, she hooked her thumbs over the rims of her Legionary trouser pockets. How much had the Sergeant kept hidden from her? There was more to the tale that she wasn't telling. Loran was sure that the Archivists didn't know about the Sergeant's borrowing of the Grimoires of Akhenak, and they didn't strike her as the sort who would take it lightly. Thousand Hells, just how many enemies does she have?! After this fiasco was over, she would ask the Sergeant some pointed questions, Loran decided. Those kinds of secrets were sure to stab them both in the back down the line if the Sergeant wasn't careful.

'- It was a completely legitimate affair,' the Sergeant continued, wearing the mask of utmost honesty as she swiftly avoided the subject. 'No grievances were caused. Besides, there are more pressing issues at stake.'

Yes, thought Loran. Many pressing issues at stake. Issues like a power-hungry maniac with magical abilities and a great dragon trapped in chains and driven to fury, bent on annihilating Fort Perilous and everyone on it.

'The captured dragon can be a great asset for the Empire, if used correctly,' said the Sergeant. 'My escort can testify to its offensive strength.'

'It was a massacre,' Loran recalled, reliving the terror of seeing the great dragon appear from the clouds like a raging hurricane, resplendent under the sun in its impenetrable armour of icy scales, wreathed in flames of blue. How it had caught the sorcerous bolt from her blaster megaturret in its colossal claws and swatted it away as if it were no more than a fly. As if the result of the most dangerous sorcery known in all the realms was worth nothing more than an insect. It hadn't even been trying! The rebel monster had simply flicked its wrist, and before Loran knew it, her megaturret was an obliterated wreck of howling flames. 'Sorcery is useless against it. Steel fails to pierce its scales. It took an entire division of the Mage Corps to take the beast down.'