Thankfully, I made it back to the church without issue. The milladen had twitched weakly a few times, but for the most part remained subdued by the numbing chemical. I shivered and gasped for breath as the warmth of exercise warred with the rain’s chill.

Curate Ben’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of my burden, but he didn’t comment. He led me to the church’s basement and into a corridor lined with cells.

“What level of security did you want, Inquisitor?” Ben asked.

“Uh, let’s go with maximum, it isn’t human,” I said.

The curate went pale at that, but still said, “Maximum sir? You won’t be able to communicate with the creature once it’s placed in a tartarus cell.”

“Ah.” That made me pause. “Let’s go with the most security that will still allow me to interrogate the prisoner.”

Curate Ben nodded and led me to a stonelined room. The only things inside were a table and two chairs. The first chair was ordinary, something I would have seen in the Bitter Flagon. The second chair, however, was made of thick wood, reinforced with metal rods and bolted into the floor.

The chair was covered in restraints, and Ben helped me strap the receptionist in. The chains, clasps, ropes, and bands were made of dozens of materials, but all were all inlaid or dyed with scripture verses. It took a quarter hour to finish securing the milladen and by the end I would be surprised if it could move anything other than its mouth.

Of course, the mouth was what you had to look out for.

While I waited for the monster to wake up, I got out my journal. Somewhere between chasing the Decoction Killer, defending the Bitter Flagon, and my two incursions into the milladen base, I had hit level nine. It would really be nice if the game gave some sort of notification when you leveled. Levels are something a gamer should be excited about.

It’s the kind of thing I would bring up in a retrospective meeting, if I was still doing my job instead of being held against my will. My instincts still told me to jot down my findings, but I dismissed the thought with a shake of the head.

Level nine gave me a new attribute point and proficiency to play around with. I considered raising my constitution again, but the eight points I had there were serving me pretty well. The escape from the milladen lair had been draining, but proved that my current constitution was sufficient for even fairly strenuous tasks.

I decided instead to go with dexterity. Almost all of my martial skills relied on chaining attacks one into another. The faster I could make those attacks, the more deadly I would be. I considered choosing strength instead, to make the individual attacks hit harder, but with the vorpal enchantment, speed mattered more.

That just left a proficiency to choose. I drew a blank. What proficiency would even help me? Some tool, or maybe a weapon? I had no way of knowing what would come in handy. Another flaw with the game. I didn’t need to know every proficiency available, but players should have some clues as to how they can build out their skills. Maybe add non-player characters or journal entries that describe advanced proficiencies? Something to give players something to work towards.

For the moment, I decided to just hold off on the choice. There didn’t seem to be any limitation as to when or where I could take a new proficiency. I could just choose when I ran into an obstacle my current skill set couldn't overcome. As long as I could get to my journal that is. The unassigned proficiency wouldn’t do me much good in combat.

I put my journal away and poked the milladen’s strapped-down hand. He just hung limp in the restraints. Playing a hunch, I got up and pretended to fiddle with his straps. Watching intently, I let my hand ‘accidentally’ wander too close to the monster’s mouth.

My only warning was a slight twitch of the nose before the creature's jaw shot out faster than a punch. The flesh distended sickenly, like a goblin shark’s jaw, and human teeth turned into roiling needles in a heartbeat. The rows of needles clamped down…

And gnashed against my newly formed force shield. I wasn’t about to let my arm get chewed off again. Fool me once and all that. The teeth wiggled and clicked harmlessly against the frictionless surface as I pulled my arm away.

“Oh good, you're awake.” I circled back to my chair and sat down. “I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me.” The milladen just stared at me flatly. Being caught pretending didn’t seem to bother the monster.

“Where did you creatures come from?” No response. The pointed teeth slowly morphed back into human features. “How did you get to London? Why did you come to London? Why is the Decoction Killer trying to kill you?” Nothing I said seemed to get a reaction.

Well, time to try a different tack. I didn’t know much about torture, just what I had picked up from books or movies, but how hard could it be? “Your kind is incredibly resilient.” I took out my knife. “Still able to fight even with limbs hacked off and pints of blood missing.”

I rammed the knife into his stomach, between two rows of chains. “Which means I don’t need to be careful to keep you alive.” I twisted the knife, digging it into his guts. The monster’s face contorted in pain, but he made no noise.

“What is your goal here in the city?” Still no response. I dragged the knife across the troso and ripped it free, leaving a gaping wound. The septic smell from the torn intestine made me gag and I had to hold my breath to keep from vomiting. The rent slowly slowly reknit before my eyes. It oozed thick blood, but didn’t seem to phase the milladen.

Changing tack again, I stalked over to the door. “Curate Ben?” I called.

“Yes sir?” he answered from where he waited in the hallway.

“Could I borrow an elemental burner? And some pliers please.”

“Long or short handled pliers, sir?”

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“The short handles are better for precision work, like pulling teeth. The long handles give more leverage and power, so you can crush bones.”

Jesus Christ, this game. “The short handles will be fine, thank you curate.”

He ran off and I turned back to the milladen. “I guess bodily harm isn’t much of a threat when you can just heal.”

I set my bloody knife on the table and drew my shamshir. “But I wonder, can you regrow parts that are lost entirely? You're still working with a human body after all, there has to be a limit to what you can fix.” I studied the creature’s left hand where the individual fingers were shackled to keep them from forming a fist.

I brought the shamshir down hard, cutting through bone and sinking into the sturdy wood. The severed end of the finger rolled across the floor, a pale disk. I saw, with a mixture of revulsion and displeasure, that I had misjudged the cut and gouged into the index and ring fingers instead of just the middle finger like I had intended. Inquisitor Glokta would be disappointed.

The wounds started to heal, repairing the gouged tissue. While the index and ring fingers were soon fully repaired, the middle finger just scabbed over instead of replacing the missing flesh.

I walked over to the bloody chunk of finger and picked it off the floor. I set it on the table, where the milladen stared at it as it twitched feebly. “I’m sure you could reattach it, if I let you.” He said nothing and eventually a knock came from the door.

Curate Ben dropped off the elemental burner and pliers before retreating back to the hallway. I set the tools on the table and examined the burner. It was simple, just a slender tube held vertical by a flared base. I rotated a small dial set into the base and a two inch flame blossomed from the tube.

The pliers were more crude, just rough blacksmith’s tools. They worked fine though and I had no trouble picking up the chunk of severed flesh. “Sure you don’t want to answer my questions?” I asked. He just watched the pliers, expressionless. I moved the pliers over the flame and the smell of roasting meat filled the small room.

The milladen jerked violently and I flinched away, knocking the burner to the stone floor. The restraints held, but the heavy chair creaked threateningly. The rows of teeth were out again, and for the first time there was emotion in the creatures eyes; hatred.

“Well, that got a reaction,” I said, picking up the burner. “Would you like to talk now, or should we continue?” I set the burner on the table and relit the flame. “You have plenty of fingers to lose. Toes, ears, maybe we should try pulling those teeth you're so fond of?”

“I will never betray my pride,” he said with a sneer. The creature's voice was gruff and clipped, nothing like the stoner receptionist personality I had encountered before.

“A prideful monster? I guess that isn’t too unusual, just something I would expect from vampires, not body snatchers,” I said.

His sneer turned even more disdainful. “Not the emotion, simpleton.”

I got it then. “Like a pride of lions then. Does that refer to all the milladen, or only the ones here in London?”

He didn’t respond, just went back to the expressionless mask. If he refused to talk about the other milladen, maybe something more personal would work? “Why were you strung up like a chunk of meat when I found you? None of the others were separated from their host bodies.”

His face twitched at that, but he didn’t speak. With a sign I stood and readied my shamshir.

Just before I could bring the blade down, he shouted in a voice choked with rage, “I was there because of you!”

“Me?” I asked, confused.

“For failing to kill you, a meddler. Once could be forgiven, the human hirelings you killed were disposable. But twice? And with casualties to the Pride? I was in the livewell to await sentencing.”

“And you were separated from your human body to keep you from trying to escape?” I prompted.

The sneer returned, but quickly faded. “Even if I was of such a cowardly disposition, one of the human cells would have been sufficient for that. The severing was a preliminary punishment. An appetizer for the suffering to come.”

“And how does this ‘severing’ work?”

His mouth snapped shut and formed a tight line. Apparently that line of questioning was pushing it too far. I considered forcing the issue, chopping off another disk of flesh, but decided that it could wait. I had more important things to find out than milladen physiology.

“The Decoction Killer, Slinger called him the Painted Wolf in his journal. What can you tell me about him?”

The monster seemed to consider the question for a moment before deciding to answer. “A worthless dog, cut off from its pack and starving. Drivent to bite at the heels of its betters by hunger.”

“He’s one of you then? Cut off from the Pride?”

The milladen gave a choking retch that I think was supposed to be a laugh. “No, a dog could never be part of the Pride. He is just prey, like you.”

Human then. That matched with what I had seen from the Decoction Killer so far. But what did he mean about being cut off from the pack? Questions for another time.“The dog’s safehouse in the dead city, where is it?”

The monster didn’t answer, just went back to the blank expression. Again I was tempted to slice off a finger, but decided to go for a diplomatic approach.

“Surely it wouldn't be betraying the Pride to send one of your enemies after another. You have nothing to lose. Hell, we might even kill each other.”

He mulled on that long enough for me to consider using the sword again. Before I could, he finally spoke. “The dog is in the Old City?”

I nodded. “He fled there just before your attack on the Bitter Flagon.”

He licked his lips, the tongue longer and thicker than it should have been. “Marshview Hotel, just down river from the first bend.”

“Uh, do you have an address?” I said. He just stared at me. Whatever, I had a name, I could figure out the rest. This seemed almost a little too easy. Didn’t Slinger’s journal say something about a trap set for the Decoction Killer?

“And what will I find when I get there? What surprises do you have set up for the dog?”

The milladen favored me with a ghastly approximation of a smile. “You will see.”