“Who cares about the world going blind as long as you’ve gouged out the other fucker’s eyes first? Not my problem.” - Lionel deShavo, also known as the “Vengeful Wraith”, mercenary and contract killer.

“Greetings, Captain and Madam,” said Sir Gorev a week after they caught the last runaway assassin. The dwarven mage had visited the company’s camp just outside the city walls – because they had so many people it would have been troubling for all of them to enter the city at once, so instead the mercenaries only entered the city in batches – and found Elfriede and Reinhardt in the midst of a sparring session. “I am happy to see that the Madam has recovered well.”

His comment was because Elfriede was pushing reinhardt fiercely in their spar that day. While both were naturally using edgeless training weapons – Reinhardt’s real weapon was far too hefty for training as even a light blow with it could have inflicted serious injury and Elfriede’s mithril-edged blade was similarly too lethal – and Elfriede was still complaining about not being in “top form” yet, the way she whirled and struck made the complaints look like self-depreciatory ones.

“Sir Gorev, what brings you here?” asked Reinhardt as he and Elfriede took a few steps back from each other and gave themselves a breather from the vicious-looking spar.

“Ah, I came to bring the Crown Prince’s compliments. The captive had volunteered quite a lot of information we managed to correlate with other intelligence gathered from other captives or our own efforts,” said Sir Gorev with a warm smile. “The Crown Prince also bid me to hand over the captive as agreed upon previously. He is now yours to handle as you see fit. His Highness only requests that you return his head intact.”

“About time,” commented Elfriede as she noticed the gagged, trussed, and blindfolded figure being led by two other dwarves following behind Gorev. The trussed up dwarf was naturally the runaway assassin who they captured a week ago, now sporting bruises and still-healing scabs likely remnant of the gentle care of the Crown Prince’s interrogator. “We’re free to do as we wish with him, aye?”

“As his Highness said it, boil him, fry him, whatever, he’s all yours. Just keep the head in mind,” replied Gorev with a rather forced smile that didn’t quite manage to hide his distaste. Dwarves generally abhor the idea of torture regardless of it purpose as their culture emphasized giving even hated enemies a proper burial. As such, their ideas of it tend to be far milder than what most races would have considered torture to begin with.

While torture itself as a tool for interrogation was less than reliable, often people had nowhere near enough time to use more insidious methods and defaulted to it. Of course, in some other cases, people did not even care about what their victims had to say at all. Some people would just inflict pain on others for their own enjoyment and nothing more.

Reinhardt knew that Elfriede had that sort of streak when some people really pissed her off, so he muttered a silent prayer under his breath for the poor assassin about to be relinquished to her tender cares.

“Ah, Loren, sorry to trouble you. Going to need you to do the usual,” said Reinhardt to Loren, the company’s water mage who then went to accompany Elfriede with quill and parchment in hand.

“Just make sure the bonus pay’s as usual, boss,” he replied with a rather solemn smile as he waved back.

“What is that about?” asked Gorev with curiosity as he watched Loren follow behind Elfriede wordlessly. The dwarf seemed to have no idea what was going on.

“Ah, nothing serious. It’s just that… people tend to talk a lot when Friede gets her hand on them. You wouldn’t believe what some people would say just to be killed already,” replied Reinhardt all too nonchalantly at the dwarf’s query. “Just in case, we have one of our guys who’s good at writing fast and is used to seeing blood keep her company to take notes. You never know, sometimes they might say something useful.”

“We have had Graf Harscape’s personal interrogator had his way with the assassin, and the man’s purported to be nearly as good as the Royal interrogator, so I don’t see the point-”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!”

A loud, shrill scream cut off Gorev’s words, one that echoed through the nearby area. To his surprise, the mercenaries at work continued to go about their business as if nothing happened, paying no heed to the scream of agony. Before Gorev could gather his thoughts to ask some more, the scream further intensified, and kept increasing in both frequency and intensity for the next hour or so.

Then there was a slight pause for maybe ten minutes or so, before the screaming started once more, even worse than before. The pause repeated itself another two times, before the screaming voice grew weaker and weaker, until Gorev could barely hear anything from the tent Elfriede had taken the captive assassin to.

“Curious, I take it? She should be nearly finished by now so I can take you along if you want,” said Reinhardt who had just returned from getting himself a quick meal, eating through the screams as if they weren’t there.

“I feel like I would regret this either way I answer, so might as well,” replied Gorev with some uncertainty.

Reinhardt brought Gorev to the tent where Elfriede did her work to the assassin and opened the flaps, his large form covering Gorev’s sight from what was inside the tent. The stench that greeted his nose was an unmistakable one, though. That of blood and other unmentionables, a stench all too commonly found on a battlefield.

Gorev saw Loren walking over with a stoic smile on his face and handed a sheaf of parchments to Reinhardt, and another to Gorev. He accepted them with some surprise and saw the densely packed row of writing in common on it, looking back at Loren with surprise in his eyes.

“He squealed a lot once he started talking, so I just noted down all he said,” replied Loren with a shrug of his shoulders. “Chances are a good part of what he said are just hogwash he thought would please us and get him dead sooner to end the torment, so we can’t vouch for anything here, but just in case there’s anything useful, I think it’ll be worth the while to check anyway.”

Gorev nodded numbly as he looked at the sheaf of parchment, then he made the mistake of turning towards where Elfriede’s bloody form stood. He saw the condition the captive assassin was in, even while Elfriede was in the process of removing the man’s untouched head from his neck.

Then Gorev turned his head in a hurry and vomited violently.