A necessary use for an immoral tool

John woke up to the sight of an unfamiliar face. It belonged to a man that was probably in his forties. The man, who was sitting in a chair nearby to John’s position, had a smile slowly creeping across his face as he began speaking.

“So, you’ve finally decided to wake up,” the man began. His smile had by now settled on his face, showing perfectly white teeth that were just crooked enough as to become creepy. When John went to respond, he soon noticed he could not open his mouth. Attempting to look down, and panicking somewhat, he noticed his mouth was taped over. He also noticed that his clothes were quite different. Consisting of simple black pants and a shirt. The man continued looking at him, and when he noticed John was attempting to speak he said something in an ominous tone. “For now that’ll remain shut. There’s no use for your scared babbling, but I promise you’ll have plenty of answers to give later,”

John began looking around the room, his attention no longer completely absorbed by the man, who was still sitting. He also noticed a dull pain in his back beginning to appear, though the reason for it was quite unclear to him.

He was in a small dark room which was covered mostly by various devices and implements which were very obviously used for ****. A few of them even still had blood on them, a fact which only made them more horrific. One of them, a cage like device with spikes protruding from its inner frame, had obviously been used recently, as the blood on it was still fresh and flowing. The man was sitting in one of the corners of the room, right in front of where John was lying, which was on a small table, with his hands and feet tied to it with leather straps. Before the now immobile young man could look around the room further, the man who had captured him continued.

“I’m quite sure even you are not naive enough to not be aware of your own situation, so I’ll skip the introductions Ember surely already gave you,” He spouted in spite, laughing. John was surprised to discover he knew the spy’s name. “I was sent here to stop your arrival to the council, and give my employers some answers. That is exactly what I’m going to do, and for your sake, you really should cooperate,” He continued, a slight tone of warning entering his voice. While talking, he stood up from his chair. The man who had yet to identify himself to John was huge, easily standing at almost two meters, and a hulking brute of a man. Even so, he radiated an air of mystery that John could not explain. He was wearing completely black clothes that almost seemed to mask him, but yet they also made it so John could barely take his eyes off him as he was standing there.

John was sure the man had continued speaking afterwards, but he could hear none of it. His mind was too busy racing faster than it ever had, both in fear and in some attempt to find a way to escape the situation. The thought crossed his mind that he might be able to use Modify Emotion to get out of this situation by doing something approximately similar to what he did to Frank. As he was not in a life or **** situation, yet, however, he was more hesitant to use the ability which he had now understood was quite obviously an **** measure. One that could easily fall out of his control or backfire. The second thought he had was to attempt to fight his way out of there, but without more information that seemed to John to be a bad idea. He also pondered once again attempting to charm his way out of the situation, but for that he would need to know far more than he currently did. Needing understanding of the man and his abilities, he went with the only method of getting it he had apart from the man giving it to him himself, Observe.

There were too many questions to ask upon viewing that sheet, most of which John knew he would not get answered in this short time, if ever. First and biggest of which was the quandary of why an operative of the Council would want to stop an escort by another operative. However, he had no time to ponder such a mystery. Instead, John looked to the weak point in that sheet. The one thing that might get him out of this situation. Fighting his way out now seemed entirely futile. If Graham truly believed that he knew nothing, however, a belief John was quite happy to reveal as true, then there might be a peaceful way out of this situation, with hopefully minimal consequences.

At this point John’s captor had grown tired of the young man obviously ignoring him and walked up to the table upon which he was lying. Pressing a small button that was placed on the underside of the table immediately upon reaching it. A moment later a small shock went through John.

Damage taken: 5 HP lost

It was a sort of biting feeling, as if somebody had snapped a thousand small metal jaws everywhere on his body. It was made worse by the flaring up of the dull pain in the Gamer’s back as it coursed through his body. Leaving him grasping for relief for a moment. The feeling was at the very least entirely unpleasant, though it did tell John that even with Gamer’s Body he would still feel pain, a welcome notice when faced with the advent of ****. Graham soon began speaking again, sure of the direction John’s attention would take this time.

“Now, I’m not going to repeat myself again. You will answer my questions, or you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?” He said, waiting until a small nod was given by John as a response. “First, who are you?” He asked while removing the tape over the Gamer’s mouth. As soon as it was off, John began to speak as quickly as he could. If he wanted to avoid getting tortured and probably killed, he would need to answer those questions that he did have the answers to.

“I’m John Newman. Up until about a few days ago I was a completely normal teenager. But then a day after my eighteenth birthday I suddenly got powers. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, really, and I still mostly don’t. Because of that I just continued on in my normal life. That was until I met Ember,” John was slowly going through his answers, choosing his words carefully as to not give more information away than was needed. If his captor did not know of his various exploits during the past few days yet, it would not help anybody if he learned of them. “when I did, everything changed. I found out for sure that somebody else had powers of some kind, and the first one I met threatened to kill me,” He continued and noticed Graham was mumbling something under his breath in response.

“Sounds exactly like….” John couldn’t catch all of what Graham was saying, but it was still a strange way to respond.

“After that I mostly continued on living normally until Ember came back, and now I’m here. That’s all there is to tell really, I don’t really know anything about the Abyss Ember hasn’t told me,” John concluded, slightly annoyed at having to tell the same story again.

“Hmm… That does fit with the information I am aware of,” Graham told him. “Ok, second question. What powers do you have and how do they work?” John quickly responded, once again attempting to inform his captor of only what was absolutely necessary.

“My powers are based on videogames, but I don’t have too many. For the most part I just have a spell that gives me the ability to see some information on others. A spell that allows me to sense people’s minds, and one that allows me to charm people,” John quickly said, attempting to note only those spells he had already told the Council of through Ember from his memory.

“And this spell that lets you see information, did you use it on me?” Graham asked, his tone showing just a hint of curiosity. “I am interested to hear what it said,” He continued, laughing eerily.

“Yeah, it didn’t seem to work though,” John responded in a flat tone, lying.

“Interesting…” The hulking man mumbled under his breath. “Now, third question. What do you know about the Council?” Graham asked, his pace quickening.

“Nothing, really. I just know it’s called the Council of Exploration and that Ember works for them,” John answered, twisting the truth once again. Luckily, it seemed Graham did not know enough to disbelieve the young man and his lies.

“She told you nothing else?” Graham asked, though his continuation moments later told John he was not looking for an answer. “Regardless, I should ask you a final question. Do you think I’m a fool?” He said, his face taking on an even stranger grin than the one he started with.

“What?! No. Of course not,” John said, his mind racing in an attempt to understand the man’s odd response.

“Then you must think I don’t know how to differentiate a successful scrying spell from a failed one?” Graham retorted, his grin expanding. That was the moment John realized he had truly fucked up. He knew then that a drastic measure would prove necessary.