Too Merciful

Death permeates this island. I find no living prisoners. Every human I come across is either strapped like the first ones — strung up on wooden posts, full of poisoned darts, or laid out on a table: their bodies spliced open, with crude anatomical drawings nearby detailing the human nervous and vascular systems. Many of these splayed corpses have those poison-filled needles poked in various pieces of viscera, and each had their gaze turned to the side; wide-eyed. Terror creases each of their faces.

I recognized one of them. He was a kinder old man who had been kind to me in my past life. He'd wave to me whenever I found enough courage to pull myself to the malaise that had become my every day. Occasionally he'd speak to me at length about his life; an old Korean war veteran nearing the very end of his life. He had six children, and at least twenty grandchildren, according to him. He should be with them now. Living out the rest of his twilight years. Passing on his sagely advice. Bile burns at the back of my throat, and rage boils over throughout my body like a too-full pot of water over a flame.

Occasionally, I'd come across a singular dog or ratman, pulling bodies off of the tables, or off the wooden posts and piling them in hand-pushed carts, toward the center of the island, where a bright, orange light blared through the night. Judging by the smell of burning flesh, hair, and fur coming from that direction I could assume what was going on there. To these I kill in the same manner; I break their legs, rip off their masks, drive all the air from their lungs with a blow to their gut, and stuff handfuls of the poisonous grasses down their throats before leaving them there to suffocate on the burning dust. Perhaps their suffering would ease the rage of the ghosts that haunt this land of poison. I catch glimpses of these ghosts through the dust raised by my footsteps.

As I near the great pyre that burned in the middle of the caldera, I notice a barrier of wind that covered an entrance into a cave; lit by the light of many sconces bored into the walls. White banners, stained with the red dagger of Roki Could there be prisoners inside, or was this the living quarters of those Efrans loyal to Roki? I could rush in to check or...

I wait in the shadows of a rotting, hollowed tree at the very edge of the ring of light cast by the pyre that consumed the bodies of the dead in the middle of the basin. There's something...strange about the fire. A kind of sadness oozes out of it, and in its flickering, I can see the figure of a being bound by chains.

"What is that?"

I ask the Shard.

"That is a fire spirit; a salamander." Came the response, "It has been bound by dark magic to keep this fire going. It's suffering immensely."

"Why is that?"

"By their nature, Salamanders are short-lived beings, unless they form a contract with a living being, taking form is incredibly difficult for them."

"Would I be able to form a contract with it?"

"No; it has to be a salamander drawn to your magic?"

"Could I free it?"

"By killing the one who bound it."

I was already planning on killing every rat and dogman in this dive, so it wouldn't be a problem. The poor thing would just have to wait until the end of the night for its freedom.

A dogman approaches the flame with a wheelbarrow full of bodies. I sneak up behind it and grab hold of it, and throw it to the ground.

"What the..." It growls as I slam my foot on its chest.

"What's in the mountain," I ask it.

"Why should I tell you?"

Earthen Spike.

I grow the spike barely large enough to start poking at the back of its neck. It must have felt that as it begins to yelp and scream.

"If you tell me, and stay out of my way, I'll let you live," I say. "Otherwise..." I glance at the bodies piled on the hand-drawn cart.

"It's a living quarter." It says after mulling over its choices, "Where we who work and make poisons live. We don't go down, except for prisoners and food."

"Any prisoners in there?"

"No." The creature shakes its head; knocking poisonous dust-free as the subtle movements shatter the dried poison grass beneath its head. "Just us."

"Thank you," I say.

"Now, you'll let me go, right?"

"Ah. I was lying."

I grow the spike, and it punches through the back of its neck; ripping off the mask as it grows out of the creature's mouth. I had already made up my mind to kill all of the enemies here tonight. I make my way back to the barrier of purifying winds. How many enemies were in there? I don't really know, however, it doesn't matter. Taking inspiration from my fight in the tower the night before. There's a guard posted out front; barely awake, and barely able to see through the thick miasmas fog as he leaned on his spear with his back pressed against the stone wall. Before it even spots me, I rush it, throw it to the ground and yank its spear out of its hands. While it tries to stand up, I stomp my foot down on its knee.

Snap.

It screams, and I reach down to pull off its white cloth mask. Its screams turn into hacking as the poisonous air fills its lungs, I bend down and pull up handfuls of the dead grass and shove it down its gullet. It gnashes its teeth and tries to bite through my arm. Even then, it doesn't manage to do much but draw a little bit of blood. I heal the damage immediately.

The thrashing draws the attention of something beyond the barrier of wind.

"Wait your turn," I tell the ratman on the other side.

Earthen Spike.

A stone spike punches through the back of its knee, and it falls down with a cry of intense pain. Cruelty and brutality were something that I tried to eschew. Every time I killed a creature, I tried to do it as efficiently as possible, but now? Now I want to make them regret their side in the war. I want to make them regret the cruelties they've inflicted on these people — Efran and Human alike. The creature's screaming brings forth a small contingency of guards.

Words that I can't read are carved in the walls of the cave, and strange runes as well. Wind mana flows into these wards, and flows out in the howling, the purifying wall that sucks in any and all miasma from about a dozen feet directly in front of the door. It would make sense that if I destroyed these words, and these strange runes, the barrier of wind would fall apart.

I tap the sides with the wand, and send waves of earthen mana into them....wait, shit. I throw my arms up to cover my face.

Crrrk. BOOM.

I'm sent hurtling backward as the contradicting manas interacts in the walls in an explosive fashion. Well. That's one way to destroy them I suppose. I pick the shards of stone out of my forearms and heal the lacerations. The ratman I had pinned to the ground looked as if he was the subject of a shotgun blast; blood oozed from wounds all over its body. All that was holding its slumped body now was the spike through the back of its knee. At least the barrier is down. Before they can react, I should act now.

"Dance for me, oh daughters of the wind."

A gale picks up around me and draws in the miasma in the air. It doesn't do much but spin it around me for now, but I close my eyes and focus on the shape that the mana takes; a dome around me. I warp that shape in my mind; pulling it forward into a cone aimed right at the entrance into the cave.

The howling wind forms a funnel; a wide-brimmed cone behind me, and a small, pointed one in front of me. The poisonous air whipping around me howls forward and pours into the opening just in time for a dogman to round the corner to check out what the noise was. It dies almost immediately as it tries to yelp out a warning.

Poison fills the mountain halls as the winds howl and howl. I pour in as much mana as I can manage. The creatures beyond yell out as they die their far too merciful deaths. Far, far too merciful.