He was there again.. In the dark, damp, just.. impure feeling dungeons of the citadel.. Surrounded by tools of torture.. Some of his own design.. Bound to a pole in the center of the room was a young woman, barely older than a young girl by the name of Anca.. Beautiful beyond compare.. Looking so much like his beloved Madeline it almost made him believe for a moment.. "Could it be her?.." But no.. It was not.. And this.. Mockery, this teasing appearance, reminding him so much of his dear wife angered him.. How it fueled his rage, that fate could -tease- him so... And he had his orders.. This woman could possess valuable knowledge for the war, this foolish young girl attacked Vincent in the outskirts, and now she was here.. In his domain.. His own personal world where he could weave -hell- for any who became his victims within.. But she seemed so innocent.. So pure... Unblemished.. Unmarked.. Untouched by cruelty, and malice...
In the corner silently watching stood an ezrite, how useful it was to have one capable of healing his victim, so he could make his work last all the longer... Speaking calmly, Vincent decided to start simple, "Give me a list of names of all active officers, and guard of ranks higher than private, tell me about them".. Silence for a moment.. Whimpering.. And then a almost pathetic, innocent voice replied "I-i don't know.."... Vincent wasted no time, picking up a club reinforced with iron, he slammed the club into her side, bruising, and breaking.. Her first pained cry sounded loud and clear, and Vincent for a moment hesitated.. He felt guilt in him, he felt ashamed.. And he felt sickened.. For a moment he saw his wife, and it was as if he had just struck his wife.. But only a moment, and that moment passed, replaced by a cold empty heart, that felt no shame, no regret, no sadness at what he was going to do.. And he saw instead of his wife, just the same mockery of before, the tease of being so close, yet not the same..
The ropes binding her creaked as her body shifted instantly to the other side rapidly as the club thudded into her other side, breaking, and hurting.. Her cries resounded through the room, rang in Vincents mind, but Vincent did not care. "Answer my question, you must know something wachter witch".. "I DON'T KNOW!" *CRACK* *THUD* *SMACK&* the club struck three times in rapid succession, striking her chest, her arms, her legs, bruising, and breaking skin. Her chocked cries did nothing to sway Vincent from his cold, determination, the malice now evident in his tone.. Now he didn't care if she answered him or not, he was going to make her suffer, make her hurt.. For being a mockery, a mimicry of what he had lost, and could not find, in her he saw his lost wife, and it drove him to fury.. And that this girl.. Would not just end it quickly, would not just give him an answer, anything, just angered him more.. For a minute he beat her with the club relentlessly, breaking her soft flesh, crushing bone, and maiming her beauty with each strike... He was destroying something pure.. Something beautiful.. And somewhere deep inside he felt.. Happy.. Sick joy.. Twisted pleasure at causing the pain he did, something dark in him was enjoying this, something evil in him wanted this.
"Heal her ezrite".. For the first, and definitely not the last time of that long night, the ezrite silently stepped forward and murmured prayers to her god, healing energies washing over Anca, repairing the damage, but leaving the memories of all the pain to linger.. Once she was "Fresh" again, and fully healed, Vincent set down his club and went to pick up his next tool.. Small pots of burning oil.. He dragged over a table near the post, and set several pots down on it.. "This is only the beginning doamna... But tu can end this.. Just answer my questions, starting with the first I gave tu.. If tu cannot even answer that then tu are useless to me... And I believe tu do know.. Tu just are enduring, won't speak"... Her whimpering cries nearly sounded begging "Please... I don't know anything.. You don't have to do this..".. Wordlessly, Vincent reached to one of the pots, picking it up and removing the top, the oil was still boiling hot from the large vat of it that he had prepared especially for this session.. With a glare, his emerald colored eyes.. So beautifully colored, yet filled with burning hatred and malice stared into hers.. For but a moment, before he emptied the small pot all along Anca's arm.. Flesh burning, boiling under the heat, blackening, and becoming ruined. Her screams filled the dungeons of the citadel, a symphony of suffering and pain... And he did not stop there..
Setting down the last pot of 5 pots, he looked at Anca.. Both arms burned, blackened, and marred, her legs mostly bare save for the ragged tunic she wore, what could be seen was just as horrid a sight as the arms.. And her stomach matching... "Ezrite. Heal her" The ezrite stepped forth once more, silently before praying to ezra to heal Anca, healing all the damage she could, flesh reshaping, but pain fresh in the mind.. "Multumesc ezrite, tu can step back now"... Vincent studied Anca a long moment before looking to his other tools of torture.. Reaching for a new tool he picked up a small, but thick iron hammer. Reaching forward he grabbed one of anca's bound hands and untied it forcing it down on the table he had pulled over, lowering her position on the pole low enough so her hand could reach.. "Answer me doamna, i will only ask once".. she glared at him, full of hate, awaiting her next torture.. she hissed at him "I told tu.. and tu know.. i don't know anything.." Vincent raised the hammer high before something caught his eye.. A wedding ring on her ring finger... The sight of it filled his heart with sorrow, longing for his wife.. which quickly became replaced with deep seething anger.. Yanking the ring off her finger he hissed at her "You'll never see your husband again if you don't answer me.. Your fate is sealed, your -mine- down here.. And I will show you endless nights filled with pain if you dare to not answer my question."
Anca gazed at him, then to her ring, but she remained silent.. Tossing the ring aside, with one swift motion, Vincent raised the hammer and brought it down on her hand with a loud CRUNCH, as the bones shattered, and powdered beneath the force of the blow, the room and corridors were quickly filled with renewed cries of agony... With a few more strikes, her other hand went, then one of her feet, and then of course her last foot.... *pulling her higher on the pole, the small girl's hands and feet hanged limply, malformed, and a nasty purple color, the girl crying softly now... Setting the hammer aside, Vincent decided to try something.. New.. Heading over to his tool table he picked up two sets of thick iron and toughened leather gauntlets and set them on his hands.. Reaching into a pack on one side of the room, he pulls out a small resin container.. Scooping out the contents of the container, he coated the metal over the knuckles and fingers of the gauntlet that rested over thick leather with the resin, and the metal instantly heated up to a bright hot cherry red, small flames flickering off the metal, his hands safe beneath the thick leather, he flexed his fingers observing his handiwork.. Walking over to Anca, he instantly slugged her right across the face, flaming heated metal impacting and scraping against the side of her face, charring her cheek, and breaking the bone in one blow, flesh easily being torn straight from her face from the heated blow.. And instantly her soft cries reached new heights, flooding Vincents ears with her pain... And again.. That sick pleasured feeling filled his gut...
For another 10 minutes he would slug, and beat her with the heated fists, burning, and ruining her flesh, breaking bones, and ruining her body with the horrid beating... After he finished, he removed the gauntlets and set them in a basin of water, steam hissing up... "Ezrite.. Repair her.." This time, it took a bit longer to heal Anca's wounds, mending her broken hands and feet first, then casting powerful restoratives, regenerative spells, and healing magic to repair the burns, and missing flesh.. Even fully healed, scars covered Anca's body from the brutal beat down.. Scars that permanently would serve as a reminder of her suffering for years to come...
For the next couple hours through the night, Vincent found different ways to torment her.. From whispering hopelessness into her ears, to beating her with different instruments, flaying skin with whip, cutting flesh with knives, melting and burning skin with oil, breaking fingers, crushing toes, stretching and tearing her body with a rack in the room, and all the while, the ezrite stood there.. silent.. grim.. not speaking, just healing when asked... And finally, just as Vincent himself began to become exhausted from lack of sleep, and having worked himself out torturing, and beating, he pulled the limp, and shattered girl to another corner in the room where a large iron maiden stood open.. She looked at Vincent with pleading, almost hopeless eyes.. Eyes begging for a final mercy that they know will never come.. She had already begged to die several times throughout the night, Vincent only answering her plea's with more pain.. He stood there a moment.. As if hesitating.. Staring into the spiked iron maiden, holding the young woman easily.. For a second all that was left good in him denied what he was about to do, refused to oblige with his body.. But it only lasted a second, before cold, crushing malice swept through his body driving out such thoughts and urges of mercy.. And with one strong heave, he lifted and slammed the girl into the iron maiden, seeing the last bit of remaining innocence in her eyes die and flicker out as he slammed the iron maiden shut with a loud sound, as if many knives had impacted the body all at one.. Blood leaked from the iron maiden.. And he heard whimpering.. So weak it cannot even cry out.. Just the whimpering of something dieing that has suffered so much that all sense of hope and feeling has died...
Stepping forward, Vincent opened the iron maiden, blood pooling on the floor, Anca's body limply falling from the device with a thud on the ground.. Rasping breaths hinting that little life remained in her from the many spikes that had just gored her body... "Heal her ezrite.. But- just enough so she won't be bleeding everywhere, enough to where she can heal on her own safely.. I want these scars to rest with her forever..".. The ezrite hesitated.. Then obliged, healing Anca, shock evident on the ezrites face from the brutality she had just witnessed throughout the night... As Vincent watched her heal Anca, he felt a cold creeping feeling.. Torches in the room flickered... The room seeming suddenly much darker.. much more evil.. as if the room had obtained some malevolent intelligence.. And he felt a chill race up his back, he felt as if he could feel the darkness of the room seep into him, the malevolence tainting his very being.. But just like that, it was gone... And the room seemed normal again, the cold was gone, the feelings gone... All he was left with was feeling cold.. And as if he had changed somehow.. But not the kind of change that you can see, a change inside.. But he also felt a nervous, anxious feeling.. As if the darkness could have done much more to him before it left.. But he had somehow resisted.. And emerged from the darkness with his sanity, body, and soul still intact.. "It is done domn" the quiet, sad voice of the ezrite snapped Vincent out of his train of lost thought.. "Bun.. We are done for today.. We will start again tomorrow.. We still haven't learned anything, and I've the feeling the doamna has many days like this ahead of her.. The ezrite visibly shivered and and just nodded.
Vincent dismissed the ezrite for the night, and dragged Anca to her cell where he tossed her limp, exhausted form into her small area of bedding... Eyes cast down.. With the heat of his hatred gone... the heat of the moment past he now felt his emotions return, and he felt regret.. And sadness.. He had taken this innocent girl, who had done no more than attacked him for a cause she had been led to believe was just and robbed her of all purity.. Of all energy, and strength.. He had pushed her physical limits past the breaking point repeatedly, and the girl would never be the same.. He had shattered who she was, and left only a nightmare of suffering in its place, of fear, and pain... The girl lay in her bedding pitifully, not turning to look at vincent, curling up, hands moving over all the puncture scars from the horror of the maiden, her once beautiful skin now marked forever by Vincents hatred... "Sleep well doamna.. Tomorrow.. I will.. I will.. We will just talk... Nu more pain.. Tu can just give me answers now that tu know what i am capable of... If tu don't.. I.. Won't have a choice..." The girl didn't even move, but her silence was far more effective than any response could have been, and it was almost as if a mental message had been passed in that moment stating clearly, bluntly, and accusingly "We always have a choice..".. Closing and locking her cell, Vincent turned to walk down the hall towards the stairs, head hanged ever so slightly in guilt, shame, and self-loathing.. Regret.. As he walked, he passed a couple garda privates, and they averted looking him in the eye, murmuring "Buna noapte lance corporal" giving him a salute.. Fear evident in their voices..
As he finally passed them and began walking the rest of the hallway, he felt that dark feeling creep up on him again.. The chill.. The freezing caress touch him, and he felt fear grow within him... The hallway darkened again and it felt like the walls were closing in around him.. As if the darkness were opening its arms, offering its embrace.. Teasing him with dark secrets no man should ever know.. Rushing down the hallway, his officer half plate clinking all the way, he raced to the stairs.. Trying to escape the darkness that beckoned him so.. And just as his foot touched the first step, he felt cold claws grasp his shoulders, burning talons caress his back, slimy.. slithering tentacles wrapping around his feet, and long snakes swiftly wrapping around his wrists.. And just like that.. He was yanked into the darkness, his screams echoing soundlessly, the torturer, the monster yanked back into the darkness where he belongs...
And just like that, Vincent awoke with a gasp.. The nightmare fresh in his mind... Reminding him of his past atrocity, the details and dark emotions becoming fresh in his mind as if he had just performed his dark deed.. Sweat glistened on his face, his body and sheets drenched in the sweat as well... Not even the soft, and luxury bed of the room he had in the governors hotel in port-a-lucine could calm and relax him... His room seemed dark.. And Vincent gazed paranoid into the corners of the room where the room was darkest.. His fear of "the darkness, and malice" kindled fresh... He feared that any moment the dark would rear outward and embrace him.. Twisting and corrupting his body, changing him to match the evil that rested within him.. He feared it might happen... He had seen changes.. After the ezrite that had worked with him went missing, the next time he saw Anca, her once beautiful eyes were black as night, black as tar, as if gazing into some deep horrifying pit... Her eyes had not been like that before.. She had changed.. And he suspected that the missing ezrite was her doing.. And he knew, one day.. She would try to get him as well.. And he would have to finish what he started and kill her.. or become her and her husbands prey..
Wiping his face, Vincent lit a candle and sat up in his bed.. "20,000 fang" he said softly.. How Badly Gavril and Anca must want him... And twice now he had come close to being collected for that bounty.. One time with Remi and Monica, the other with Magda.. But both times he had emerged alive in the end, and free... He would have to stop going to barovia for a while... Too many people that could possibly kill him and drag him to wachter lands.. or worse.. some who could capture him alive and bring him to a far worse fate than death.. "I can't die.. Not until I have found Madeline.. Not until I know she is safe.. And not without saying goodbye" Vincent spoke softly.. Yes, he would stay in port-a-lucine, where he could find work, train with his blade.. And possibly.. Find someone far more skilled than himself to teach him how to perfect his swordsmanship.. The occasional trip to Har'akir or Blaustien wouldn't hurt.. But he would have to be careful.. Definitely much more careful than he had been of late... But it's time to sleep... Vincent would have some busy days ahead of him...
