The Profane King

Four Knights kept watch from beyond arm’s reach, though arms were no worry for them here. Each stood stiff and saluted as Moira entered the cell, each one posted at their corner. On either side of Moira, closer to the center, were two new Confessors, surely untainted by whatever plots the prisoner had concocted by using Lazarus and Redd. Between them all, suspended from the ceiling by chains and holding up the new mana-draining wires that led down to two mana-converting machines, was what could only be described as a coffin of quivering mercury.

The perfectly square shape jittered and shook on its liquid surface as something inside of it fought to get out. One of the Confessors, an old and bent man with a wart-ruined nose, worked with his eyes fluttering and his hand waving about as he continued to manipulate the liquid metal. His fellow, a gray but merely middle-aged Confessor, simply watched on as the man worked.

“What... What is this?”

“My Warden,” the taller Confessor stated as his partner continued his work, “this is Confessor Hugh Clover, a veteran of the Order who heads our holding facilities in the western Americas. And this,” he said with a flourish towards the twitching lump of quicksilver, “is one of our most enhanced interrogation methods.”

No... this isn’t... this is wrong...! To Moira’s horror... the Lady did not agree. Maybe it’s not what it looks- “... What are you doing to John?”

“We are periodically discomforting him while feeding him a strained oxygen supply in an effort to earn his cooperation. Despite his impressive physical resistances, it turns out the Warlock still needs air to breathe, making this one of the very few interrogation tools-”

Laksha spoke the truth… and the only reason the Lady didn’t warn Moira was because this was somehow… acceptable. Lady help me… help me understand… no, this is wrong, this can’t be- “What are you doing to my husband?!”

The room was stunned. The metal briefly pulsed as the old man controlling it nearly swiveled in place. The taller one’s eyes nearly bulged from his skull. “... W-What-?”

What evils had her father banned that were so heinous as to let this pass? What more had come to be? Had that Artificer truly fought them so bitterly as to get himself killed? Moira’s vision of the Order began to fragment… and she could not bear to look upon the freshest evidence of John’s vision. “I want to speak with him,” Moira commanded.

The Confessor looked about nervously as if doubting the very words he heard. “He has only been under for a few minutes this time, my Warden; if you could wait the full half-hour to ensure maximum chance of cooperation-“

“Now, Confessor.”

The taller man fell silent. The ancient one’s gyrating motions slowed, and the metal began to harden as it withdrew and reshaped around its contents. A face began to appear in the metal sea: first as an outline of a scream, then, as the metal withdrew from tear ducts, the eye sockets, and the nose, a very real, screaming face.

Moira felt her stomach twist as she heard the animal cry come from the panic-stricken face of her lover. Viscous steel pulled out as it was violently puked from lungs it was asphyxiating a moment ago. The metal over his left Eye remained: like the restraints that anchored the mana-drainers to his body, it was part of a separate set of bindings that kept him from exerting his will over those in the room.

With his mouth and throat finally cleared, the fluid silver then shrunk down to his shoulders and hardened into a perfect lump of polymorphic magisteel. John’s gasps for air turned to coughs. His right eye struggled for moisture and against light he had been denied for hours; his throat slowly moistened as he regained his voice. At last, after a tortured minute of Moira hearing John recover from persistent near-****, his eye finally came to rest on the red headed silhouette of his wife.

Guilt and shame swelled in the Warden, but this spite and fury had to come to an end. “John... I didn’t know they would...” Didn’t I? Wasn’t it he who told me? Lady guide me, what kind of idiot would I have to be to think they’d treat him with a soft touch and gentle words? How did I come to believe-! “... John, we know about Tricia’s plan to rescue you. We know you can communicate with her. We know she intends to attack us with the support of your summons, possibly even with the help of those criminals in the rogue mage guild, Collide.”

John fell into silence. His eye seemed glassy and distant.

“John, I don’t want any of them to be hurt... but if they attack us, I don’t have a choice. They won’t succeed; you might be getting them all killed or captured.”

John’s silence continued. The Confessors looked to the floor as they waited to resume. The Knights stood ever vigilant, unmoved by all they had witnessed.

“You’re endangering them all... you’re endangering everyone just to keep a Cabalist safe.” Moira gave John another moment. His eye flicked to and fro, perhaps to the feet of the Confessors, perhaps beyond them. His vacant gaze fell back to the floor underneath him. Moira felt her throat tighten in anger. Did I do this to... yes. I did this. “All of you: leave us.”

“My Warden, is that truly wise?” began the tall Confessor.

“I will not repeat my order.”

A stunned silence quickly became a uniform obedience, and soon all had left the husband and wife alone as the door bolted shut behind them. Moira repositioned herself to try and get within John’s line of sight. His eye didn’t shift away... but it didn’t acknowledge her either.

Her hands reached up to caress his cheeks. “John, please... please tell me you’re alright.” Moira’s eyes burned as she kept them open for any stray flick that indicated he was still there. “Please...”

---

Nine hours ago

John surged against the lumpy, body-numbing steel that engulfed him almost perfectly, but it showed no sign of wear even as he put his new strength talent against it. The effort occasionally sent out a reverberating impact in the gaps of the metal that let him swing a finger or toe; if any of those Knights nearby cared, they made no indication of it.

The fatigue on John’s Mind was wiped away by yet more pop-ups.

Daily Quest "Hot for Teacher" completed!
+20,000XP
+2 stat points
+2 skill points
+2 summon levels
+$100,000 [sent to Summoner's Temple]
+1 vial of sleep wisp essence [sent to Summoner's Temple]
+3 bowls of vampire ash [sent to Summoner's Temple]
+1 cup of never-ending ramen [sent to Summoner's Temple]
+1 surgeon's dagger [sent to Summoner's Temple]

DING! You’re now level 25!
+10 stat points
+1 paragon point

Before his second battle against Lord Brighton, he had been level 23. I guess they're really getting into the swing of things in that time barrier... but if I'm earning a fourth of what they earn, and I'm still leveling up, then where are they on the leveling scale? Thoughts of his would-be rescuers were all that kept him from going stir crazy; that he could make no escape without being immediately reported, or even fathom what that escape would be, hemmed the Gamer in. His options had dwindled to surrender or waiting patiently.

Fairy? Alysha? Anybody? A long silence...

<Still just me, you tied up tungsten turd.>

John was shocked at how happy he was to hear Juniluny’s voice. Keep trying to contact them and tell me the moment they return.

<You’re... you’re really still hoping they’ll save you, then? From all of this?>

John prepared for a bitter argument with his ****, but the door began to unbolt. That long hallway to freedom was revealed once more... but it was not Moira, as John had hoped, standing there in the doorway. Instead, two old male Confessors, one of them more like a gnarled root with skin than a human being, marched in with an eagerness that put the Gamer on edge.

“Good evening, Mr. Newman,” the “younger” of the two greeted. “We would like to ask you a few questions, if you’d be so kind.”

John did not reply.

The taller man exhaled audibly through his nose with the slightest whistle. “As a Confessor, it is my duty to extract answers, Mr. Newman, and not to revel in extracting pain… even from one who maimed our prestigious leader.”

The older man nodded with a sadistic grin. “Enough of that, Frederick; our guest is bored, and so am I! We will stop when we have our answers, Warlock, and know that we will detect your lies when you speak them.”

"I'd need questions to answer, first, right?"

The taller joined his hunchback friend in smiling darkly. “Would you really give us answers to our satisfaction?"

"The Lady works in mysterious ways, right?"

"I'm afraid that's God you're thinking of," chuckled the tall one, "whereas the Lady has no love of mysteries."

"So you guys believe in both?"

"I fancy myself an amateur theologian, Mr. Newman, but I'm afraid this is not the time or place for such a conversation."

"Give us the Cabal witch," coughed the cranky one, "and we'll leave you be for the night. Wouldn't you like that, boy?"

"Here." John struggled in his bindings. Nothing happened.

The Confessors looked about. "What?"

"I'm giving you the finger."

One of the Knights snorted but very quickly fell back to his stiff upper lip.

The only other one who seemed amused was the taller Confessor; his smile burst into an unsettling grin. "The Lady’s work is never done.”

John continued to feel confident... until the metal around him began to shift and morph. Even this was fine until a fat tentacle of what looked to be molten silver suddenly shot forward to fight its way into John’s mouth. Panicked, at first by the implications of Internet anime porn and then by the feelings of the tendril forcing its way down to his lungs, John’s attempt to inhale for a scream was not prompted until the first bit of metal soaked into his eye socket.

The pain was... new. Whatever protections Gamer’s Body and Inviolability offered him kept his eye from being dislocated or his throat from becoming warped or torn... but the minor tick in HP ill-represented the sudden, panicking agony of feeling his lungs fill with cold, steel ****. He was drowning. He was drowning. His body screamed it with every nerve that burned in his mind as he convulsed against the forbidding grip of his bindings. The tightness in his head as metal poured into ears, sinuses, and throat carried horrific pain and animal fear into his very flesh as he simultaneously suffocated and felt the metal twisting and pulling at his skin from all directions. He wanted to scream as it grew too great, but he had no space in his lungs to produce such a simple relief. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This hurts so fucking-- aaaaaaAAAAH!

<Calm yourself, whelpling Master of mine! It's hardly even a ****, naught but fancy waterboarding-!>

John's mental screams continued to fill Juniluny's ears. She could not escape them; her orders to man the psychosphere remained. She gritted her teeth and bore them in a manner that she never had to when she tortured slaves.

After what felt like hours of this agony, the metal slowly withdrew, and as consciousness and pop-ups threatened to make John pass out, he finally felt the first freedom to breathe. Greedily, his lungs sucked at the air as the liquid metal refused to be breathed in again. John's right eye was cleared and his sinuses emptied. He remained more fully engulfed in the metal block, now a blob of amorphous steel, but he could see the grinning, nearly-dead Confessor as he waved his fingers about. The tall one continued his smile even as he checked a steel watch on his wrist. "Forty-nine seconds..."

"No permanent damage," the old man hacked, "and I went in deep, even tickled his alveoli, tried to inflate his lungs to burst, nothing! When that silly little turncoat suggested we had a Warlock whose flesh did not give, I could scarcely believe it, but lo!"

The tall one raised an eyebrow. "What if it had given, sir? Perhaps we should have a Hospitaler near, just in case..."

"Bah! I'm twice the Hospitaler as any of the children here," the creature cackled, "and three times the Confessor you are! If you're feeling squeamish-"

"That's quite enough. Mr. Newman, what say you? My fellow here can carry this on for hours--and if his heart outlives his curiosity, days--if you continue to refuse to help us. You will not last, Mr. Newman, by no fault of your own: he is very good at this." The old man approached nearer to John, his wrinkled face mere inches from John's blurred vision. "Come now: turn over all the criminals and secrets you harbor. It cannot be worth all of this suffering... not your suffering, nor the Warden’s.”

In the Temple, Juniluny began to tremble uncontrollably. She felt like she would puke as a sudden, disturbingly familiar feeling gripped her: fear. She had felt John's pain, as much as she tried to consult him through it; it was a horrific empathy that she never had to suffer in her days of relative freedom of torturing her own prisoners. She would not have beared even an hour more of such pain, not to preserve anyone... and given John's apparent dislike for her-

"Fine... here: take her," came the strained voice of the Gamer.

Juniluny let her body rest against the console as she stood on the stepping stool. Her hands lifted from the console as she buried her face in them. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt tears well up. She was afraid; she was terrified, knowing now what it would feel like to be in the Order's clutches. Why had she hoped she would be safe? Why did she think this idiot boy would actually protect her? She cursed John Newman, damned her alleged master, her alleged keeper and protector, for all his empty words, the same sort that-

"You're... giving us the finger again, aren't you."

"Both of them this time," John laughed dryly as he stared the old man in the eye.

Juniluny dared to put her tear-stained fingers back on the console... and chuckled sourly as she saw the bitter faces of the enemy.

You used Copycat! Command Magisteel copied!

The metal engulfed John once more. Juniluny continued to clutch the console as she shook in **** empathy.

John hadn’t been much for politics; he knew waterboarding seemed wildly unpleasant, and he didn’t pretend he could hold up against “enhanced interrogation techniques” like Frank and the other knuckle-draggers in high school might’ve claimed. But if it was anything like this… violation, this denial of breath and constant entreaty of his **** made by nameless strangers, he began to understand the implication of ****. Minutes turned into real hours; they did not cease save to sip the mana they drank from John’s soul to help continue drowning, barely saving, and re-drowning John. His reflexes and body were not merely tricked; they truly asphyxiated him, again and again, and slowly learned the geography of John’s mortality. His only way out now was too risky to do with a room full of Confessors and Knights. He had to wait... which meant he was as much theirs as they surely believed.

Level-ups popped up; John soon lost too much sense to read them in those rare moments where he was allowed to surface, ****, and regain his sense of self enough to keep refusing to cooperate. The burning in his lungs was eternal; the desire to surrender, to end this for anything, was kept at bay solely by a will reinforced by the Game. Even then, John dreaded, wailed, and cried as his body was wounded, his lungs and eyes invaded, and his tormentors seemingly amused. Whose fault was this? Was this his just desserts? Did John truly earn this? Impossible. Who was to blame? John had the easy target: Lord Brighton. This was his fault… so why wasn’t Moira helping him? How could she let this happen? The thought twisted in John until he slowly shrank into vanishing into his own mind… and in there, in the dark pit of his only sanctuary, those who were at fault were tallied and weighed. Whoever came first to see this handiwork… yes. Juniluny's calming words could not balm this torment. He would need time, peace, and love... and none were to be found in the bowels of the Order.

There would be a judgment.

---

DING! You’re now level 28!
+10 stat points
+1 paragon point

John's mental fatigue wore away... but this time, at least, his renewed mental fortitude was not met with yet more horrific suffocation. How many times had he come close? How many times was he so near giving Juniluny up as they pushed him beyond his limits? He had suffered a Hell that words failed to capture... all at the hands of the Order… all at the behest of whoever he knew would come to see their handiwork. He saw them waiting outside through the door, through reality, as they stood: silhouettes of empty, black husks… and eyes and mouths made from blooming golden roses amid the color and vibrancy of reality. The Knights and Confessors, like shadows lit by golden bouquets sprouting from their heads, were filled with the twisting stems that pulsed with the blood of faith; those thorned shafts all led out from their bodies to coalesce around the single, magnificent rose, a bloom that made pale reflections of all the rest… a radiant clutch of petals that opened before him. The Warden. He looked to Moira, to her guilty face, to the pain in her expression as she begged him to give up...

"No… was it…” John’s heart twisted with fury. "It was you?"

Moira's blood ran cold at the sound of that voice. "John... how are you...?"

"Speaking? I'm pretty surprised myself... I mean, after they played with my internal organs as hard as they did… all while you waited... maybe even watched."

"John, of course not- I'm not going to let them continue! But I need your help: to justify stopping this, and to start any kind of reform-"

"... Justification?" John's eye looked beyond Moira, to the weave of the Dream... to the tethers that frayed and suffered near him, to the vacuum nearby that marked Galley's continuing existence... and to the knot of golden strings of light that filled Moira. "You... ha... haha... you need justification… to stop this? This is justified until I convince you otherwise?!"

"I don't... I just want to help you- damn it, John!" Her halo flared to a radiant glow as the Lady's light shimmered from behind her eyes. "Listen!"

John’s eye bored into her soul… he searched the Dream in her, found that single, frail petal… peeled it away… and found the words that would most wound that fragile flesh.

"Please… stop helping.”

It cut through Moira with enough **** to send her stumbling backwards. Her eyes burned as she was stunned. She had no words; her guilt had been run through.

“But really, it’s fine… in fact, I think your timing couldn’t be better.”

Moira's brow furrowed. Something was wrong... not just with John's voice, though it alarmed her greatly, but something else. Her eyes scanned the room. What was it? She looked to the chains... to the mana-suckling machines, and to the ugly lump of metal that trapped her husband... just as the magisteel began to quiver. Is the Confessor still controlling it? "How so-?"

She realized what was wrong: the hum of the devices had suddenly dipped once the procession of Knights and Confessors left. In fact, those mana-drinking machines had fallen all but silent. She was not familiar with their workings; certainly, she didn’t know the sound of such an arcane engine winding down… as it did when it was dead and inactive.

You used Copycat: Command Magisteel!

The lump of quivering quicksilver exploded, expanded, and stretched in every direction to pass the peripherals of Moira’s vision. Her shield blasted onto her arm as she raised it instinctively, but the metal did not touch her; instead, the vast tendrils and gallons of gray shot past her in a complete arc to slam into the door, sink into the bolts, and crush and break all the mechanisms it found. Moira looked back and watched in shock as the metal continued to drill through stone and bend steel rods with combinations of liquid pressure and magisteel welding until the door creaked and groaned. The door’s mechanisms sputtered; the Knights were trying to re-open the door, but it was already stuck fast.

The sudden rush of additional metal from behind Moira as she looked at the door. The soft impact of flesh on stone. Moira spun around and saw John as he kneeled on the floor from his landing. His bindings had melted to join the rest of the magisteel in sabotaging the door: now it began to seep upwards to pull steel panels from the ceiling nearest to the doorway. All around John, some three dozen brass plugs at the ends of long hoses sputtered and spat small bolts of blue lightning as they tried to connect to any source of mana. John walked clear of their reach… and closer to Moira.

She backed off until she heard the rending of screws above her. The first square of reinforced metal popped away and was quickly floated, upside down, towards the doorway. Finally over her stunned state, Moira drew her warhammer from her shield as she offered a prayer and readied to break down the door with all the might the Lady could loan her. "Let no wall stand before the might of-"

A firm grip on her extended warhammer... and not a strike to her body, for he already knew the futility of trying that for right now. She went to pull it away. He activated Kinetic Condenser... and promptly sent the warhammer rocketing into the wall across the room. The steel barrier dented; the warhammer head was bent slightly from the violent impact.

Moira offered a brief cry of pain as her fingers nearly broke from the sudden, violent disarming. John was too close and dangerous. She had ****; she knew he’d survive, but she had to start working to knock him out before he repeated his last tricks. "The Lady stands!”

-692HP

The pillar of light scorched the ground and ceiling as it passed judgment on Moira’s enemies… but John remained unphased. She knew he would be immune to all the bindings that relied upon the mind. She had only one sickening choice: to use her father’s blade, offer the prayer of mercy, and put John through that same agony once more. Her hand went to the basket hilt… and found its fingers diving into metal sludge.

"I've had quite enough of that."

Magisteel had crept up Moira’s leg to wrap around the hilt of the blade and its sheath. Its approach had been too casual; her shield had not snapped to deflect it as it now did the additional tentacles of steel that flew from the labors at the door. Her holy relic deflected them perfectly… only to get wrapped around as the metal drew inwards to begin locking up the joints of her armor. Moira still tried to pull the blade, and her hand, free, but to no avail: the quicksand-like silver already had her. "John- stop this!"

"Were you going to stab me with that again, Moira? Do you have any idea how much it hurt? I thought you liked me."

Her relic shield soon became bound to her body, pinning it as more streams of metal came to restrain her.

"I thought you loved me. In truth, I thought it would be your father and his Knights... but I guess I should’ve known! Daddy’s girl could’ve gotten me free with a word, couldn’t she?”

”John, this isn’t you! Whatever it is, fight it-!”

”You don’t even deny it.” Moira’s eyes began to burn as John’s accusation bore into her. He was right… but how could she when he was like this? “I can't believe they fucked up this bad, though... Would you like to hear how it happened?"

You cast Move!

"John, stop-!" Moira continued to struggle as her shield tried to spin her about to uselessly deflect the metal strings that continued to wrap up her armored form. Soon she felt it seeping into her armor and underneath her garb. ”The Lady stands- what?” Another pillar of light should have crashed down on the magisteel, John, and everything else surrounding the Warden... but none came. She felt a sudden void inside her as she tried to reach out to the Lady through her prayer; confused, she looked back... and blinked at the four trails of wire that were nearly pulled taut by being plugged into the growing patch of magisteel around her fingers and the sword.

Lady Moira Brighton
Level 30 Warden
<Champion of the Golden Rose>
HP: 3,760/3,760
MP: 0/802

With the machines no longer neutralized by the Eye, they happily drank all the mana out of the Warden. Finding it easy to continue working his prisoner as he spoke, John decided to multi-task: he had 52 stat points, 2 skill points, and 5 paragon points to allocate, after all, and there’d be no better time than now. "They put two layers on me: the restraints, which were pretty stiff and consistent in shape, and then the rest of the stuff. Both were made out of this 'magisteel' crap, which, man, I think I could become quite the fan of."

"J-John-!"

"Anyways, the restraints covered my Eye, sure, but they also didn't want any chance that I'd get the plugs loose this time... so they sunk them into the bindings that covered my Eye and wrapped me up! They made it PART of the metal covering my Eye instead of attaching them with the plug interfaces from the last setup... which meant the two devices--and the restraints themselves--were merged into a single device! I mean, that’s a pretty loose and shitty rule, if I’m being honest, but that’s how it worked! I realized that, by neutralizing the plate in front of my Eye, I could neutralize the mana-drain whenever I wanted... but to what end? This time there would be no chance at escape before the whole army came down on me, and I'd still be wrapped up in metal..."

John shoved all 52 points into Agility and two Paragon points into Greased Lightning.

Achievement unlocked! “You're coasting through the heat lap trial”!
You have 100 or more agility and unlocked Greased Lightning! Maybe now you’ll see ‘em coming!
+10,000XP
+5 AGI

Not satisfied, John continued distributing his points: all three remaining paragon points into Hack: Search and both skill points into Armor of Baldr. He looked about but found no new pop-ups on any way to get out of this Hell hole. Well, so much for that… but maybe it’ll be useful once we’re out of this barrier.

TWITCH MUSCLES 0/5
Agility now contributes to HP, adding +1HP per point of Agility per point of this paragon talent.

HACK: DESTROY 0/3
Allows for the destruction of a Kingdom by shattering its Throne, dooming the realm to a slow destruction. While a few means exist to destroy a Throne, Hack: Destroy allows the user to pillage its Dream value in the form of any mixture of soul gems, XP, or raw contents: by destroying the Throne, the user gains 20% of the value of that Kingdom’s existence, rounded up, per point in Hack: Destroy. No living beings or intact souls can be extracted this way. Kingdoms doomed with Hack: Destroy dissolve at half the normal speed.

He barely glanced at the new routes stemming from his filled Paragon talents. For now, he had done all the preparation he could… now he just had to finish what he had inadvertently started.

Moira continued to squirm and curse as she felt her beautiful armor creaking from strain. "The Lady's light cleanses foul magic! ... Damn it!" But the metal continued to pool inside her armor. Soon the weight of the extra metal, and the pull of the metallic tentacles, was too much; Moira fell backwards and sunk her body into the waiting pool. “No-!”

"Yeah, I thought it was pretty foul too… but anyways, I still also needed a way to get free... and thankfully, your creepy little Confessor gave it to me: he kept using that damn spell until I realized it was my ticket out of this!"

CREAK.

The armor snapped open, and soon the Warden's thin layer of cotton undergarments were bared to the air. Her gauntlets, around which her shield had been secured, were dissected and the metal remains were carted off along with the relic shield as Moira continued to struggle for freedom. The shield detected no blows raining down upon Moira; it offered only the resistance of her will calling upon it as the magisteel carried it towards the door. She reached for the steel gunk wrapped around her right hand on the sword, the obvious source of the mana drain; unfortunately, John had all the mental resources he needed to program the magisteel. It happily let her fingers dig into it... only to now trap both of her hands against her waist.

"That just left waiting... waiting for Lord Brighton to show up, and waiting so I could finally have him alone in a room, this time with the advantage... and without having to worry about anyone else once I neutralized his entourage in here. But I started to realize the truth of things… I’m not here because of him. I’m here because of you. Still, I didn’t want to leave Tricia and the rest to deal with Lord Brighton, but... if he doesn't have that sword with him..." As if on cue, Moira's fingers were pried from the blade and stuck to her hip. A smaller pool broke away and lifted that potent sword to present its gilded length to John. He casually lifted it by its sheath and held it aloft as he looked it over. "... then I guess they can probably take him out on their own."

"John, you're making a big mistake! The Order is not just me and my father! It's-!" Moira's voice cut off as she felt her Vow Keeper disengage. John's Eye remained fixated on it as the metallic ooze slipped the forged panties, along with her spliced greaves, off of her legs. Her few offered prayers had already left her pussy moist even in this horrific turn of events. He wont listen to me... does he think he's won?! If he even knew what he was facing- no… don’t tell him about Laksha! Surprising them with her is the only advantage we might have at this point! Desperately she continued to vainly struggle against the puddle of shackles that adjusted to fight her. Her relic shield continued to groan against its restraints as it tried to rush to her arm... but that groaning subsided as the shield touched the door and was slowly lifted towards its center. "No... no...!" Her shield was pressed flat against the black door and then drowned in magisteel, sealing it into the barricade against rescue. Her arms were now pinned against her back and, with a new, abdomen-encircling restraint, were trapped along with all the mana-sucking plugs attached to her.

The rest of the metal suddenly withdrew from the Warden and slid away with the bounty of her ruined armor. Moira was left with only a thin, sweaty layer of cotton over her torso as the shattered remains of her suit were crushed, compounded, and merged with all the rest of the metal used to seal the door; the shield, as one of the first pieces so used, remained unharmed but entombed in broken armor and steel plates. More metal panels were dragged into the same effort; with only the fixture-bearing panels being left overhead, those lights began to blink as the room was torn apart.

Moira scrambled to stand up without her hands. She was disarmed, almost naked, and terrified as she was left alone with John... who looked her over after disengaging his own Vow Keeper. His turgid prick flicked up as the chastity belt slammed into the ground.

"John, please... snap out of whatever this is! I know there's a good person in there, and whatever happened to you here can be cured-"

John raised a single finger to his lips. "Shhhhh." Moira's lip trembled as she tried to consider some prayer that might work here... some prayer that didn't rely on the energy of the soul. No such prayer came to mind; such communion required nothing less. Her eyes went to her warhammer, still buried in the far wall and damaged. "Don't interrupt." She shook her head, clearly confused by John's stilted words. "We're discussing the plan..."

"W... What-?"

"I told you: your timing was incredible. You thought I could call the attack off? How could I?"