The Aftermath

You wake feeling rather comfortable in what feels like a bed. Opening your eyes you see you are in a square room of some sort, and indeed you are laying comfortably in a bed. Looking around the room you can make out two doors. You start to sit up and feel a dull ache on the back of your head. You raise your hand up to rub it, but you realize your glowing arm is gone, and instead you are staring at your stump again. You aren't sure how you feel about that, but you quickly switch hands to rub the bump on the back of your head. Closing your eyes you accept the pain almost grateful that you can still feel pain as you weren't expecting to wake up.

Opening your eyes back up again you are startled by a woman standing at the end of your bed. More concerning to you is the slight glow surrounding her. You dart your eyes over to the doors and see they are still closed, and seeing that they are, you are surprised she was able to move so silently.

"That door" the woman points at a door "is locked. Do not bother attempting to escape. The other door is unlocked and leads to a bathroom with full amenities. I suggest you at least use the bath" she finishes.

"Where" you begin to say before you watch the woman fade away to nothing. "At least I know how you were so quiet" you say to yourself. Giving yourself a sniff you realize she isn't wrong about the bath. You never really cared about what you smelled like, but washing off the grime and stench of travel appealed to you, so you make your way into the bathroom. It takes you a moment to figure out how to get the water going, but you are soon drying off from a nice relaxing warm bath. As you exit the bathroom you see John sitting in a chair waiting for you. You pause feeling startled and ****. You quickly scan the room for any sort of item you could use as a weapon, but you don't see anything that would be better than your fist.

"Hello Sean" he says.

"Hello" you reply warily. "Am I to be your prisoner then" you ask him.

"That all depends on you. For now you'll be confined to this room and the adjacent bathroom. We'll bring you food and entertainment, and I will stop by for chats" he tells you. You roll your eyes at the thought of it.

"Not a fan of having chats with me? Can't say I feel differently, but I'm willing to believe that you can change Sean. So let's chat. Where did you get that arm of yours? It had a whole array of spells in it. Did you know whoever put that on you could track your location and even control the arm themselves. It even had a spell I can only assume was meant to kill you and a very painful manner" John asks you.

"The tracking and killing me part...no, the control...yes. It was...painful" you respond dryly.

"It was the soul inside it that was causing the pain I'd imagine. I had a chat about that with my resident mages actually. Not a pleasant spell using someone else's soul as they informed me. Very...well, let's just call it morally questionable. Though significantly easier to cast I'm told. Removing the spell was surprisingly simple when the soul itself helps you so it can finally escape its torment. So who gave you that arm" John asks again. It isn't that you have some sort of loyalty to the Mistress or the Cult of Wendel...but it's John, and you'd be helping him by answering.

"I get it. I really do. I came along and turned your world upside down the very first time we met, though I'm not going to sit here and say you didn't deserve it. I caused you great pain, and I can't imagine it was easy living with one hand. At least until you were given the new one, which I have taken away as well. Whether I agree with it or not doesn't matter, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to help me even a little bit. I will say this though. I have to assume that your relationship with who gave you that arm has soured a bit now that you've failed to capture me. Maybe even to the point where they would kill you on sight and consider you an enemy. Would that be pretty accurate" he asks you sounding surprisingly sympathetic. You let out a sigh knowing he isn't wrong. The Mistress has probably told her troops to kill you by now if they ever saw you, and you involuntarily shivered at the thought of seeing her in person again.

"As I see it, we have a common goal. We are both trying to survive the wrath of the same person" John states. The door behind him opens and the same glowing woman steps into the room with a tray of food. She walks up and sets it at the end of the bed. John stands up and the woman moves beside him. She snakes her arm under his, and leans her head against his shoulder.

"I'll leave you to eat your breakfast for now. Just think things over for a bit. We don't have to be enemies Sean. We don't have to be friends either, but we can help each other survive. Allow me to offer a gift. I promise it won't be as devious as your previous one" John says and then holds his hand out towards you. Your eyes widen as golden trails of magic wiggle and wave through the air towards you. You almost want to run away as you aren't sure what he's doing for a moment, but you don't give him the satisfaction of seeing your fear. The trail of magic focuses onto your stump, and like a loom, the trails weave themselves into a pattern. You watch in shock as a forearm forms, followed by a wrist, then a palm, and then each individual digit forms until the weaving stops. The golden trails explode into small particles, like a winter snow, and they fade away before reaching the ground. John drops his hand back down, and turns to leave.

You test the new arm by opening and closing your hand into a fist, and then wiggling your new fingers individually. Somehow this one feels...safe. You almost reflexively want to thank him, but you don't feel like giving him that satisfaction either. You watch as the door shuts behind them, and then you look back at the meal they left you. You had some thinking to do it seemed, and you might as well do it with a full stomach you figured.