Under A'akr's castle there was a network of tunnels, with rooms of diverse sizes and shapes. One of such tunnels had a series of small rooms with bars instead of doors and led to a bigger room, with chains on the walls and strange torture instruments. Mostly for show now days, since the wizard didn't need to use such crude methods to make people speak. Sitting in a strange chair, with her hands and legs cuffed, was a girl, in her mid-twenties, mid-short dark hair and light-green eyes. She was looking at the wizard, straight to his eyes, not a blink of fear in her. Her mouth remained shut, and she acted as if not hearing the wizards question again.
"Girl, I have ways to make you speak to me. And then I have all this equipment around you. I bet I could get a few words out of you with those."
She gave a faint smile and said, her first words since she had been captured - "Bring it on." - Challenge in her eyes and in her voice. The wizard turned his back on her, blew the pair of candles next to the door out, leaving the room in darkness, and walked away. He came back almost a hour later, with a huge syringe in his hands, smiling. Waving at the candles, they came back to life, and she could see the smile in his lips and the evil shinning on his eyes as he spoke - "This is a truth serum. One of my.. Experiments. The syringe is a bit big, because I normally use it to kill horses. But don't worry, I disinfected it. Now, give me your arm. Oh, wait, you can't." - He was smiling as he injected her with the dark purple liquid, and she shut her eyes and mouth restraining the scream she wanted to give.
"It should take about twenty minutes to act, there's no use in trying to fight it, so I'll tell you all about the serum." - He sat on a different chair, a normal one, and started lecturing her, looking at her eyes and checking her pulse from time to time - "Have you ever heard of the russian SP-117? Well, I found a formula for it once. It's supposed to make those who take it talk of everything, and people can't lie when they are drugged with it, nor will they remember it the next day, not so far from a huge drunkness. This isn't SP-117, SP has no color nor taste. But more importantly, some people are immune to it. So I mixed it with amobarbital. Now, amobarbital is a anti-insomnia drug when taken in pills, but if I give it by intravenous route, it becomes a truth serum. And then there's thiopental. It's a pain-killer so you won't feel pain. It will also make you unable to resist answering me."- He looked at his watch, and smiled. Leaning back on his chair he kept going - "Last but not least, I put some amaranth petals in the serum, to make it prettier. It should be kicking in now, your limbs are numb, your thought process should be harder, and you must be starting to feel like you'd want to talk to me, so don't fight it and let's talk. What is your name?"
She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it firmly, shaking her head. He smiled and asked again, and again until she spoke, against her will - "Ariena."
He clapped slowly - "See? It was easy. Next question, Where are you from?"
"I don't know."
"How come you don't know?"
"The tribe's xaman found me next to the link when I was still a baby, wrapped inside a t-shirt. The tribe wanted to leave me there to be eaten by the lions since I was different, but mamma Anpaka said she would keep me. No one dared to say no to her, she was a powerful caplata and..." - "Sorry, a powerful what?" - "Caplata, a sorceress that serves the loa with both hands, a conjurer of all magic, good and bad. They all feared her, so she took me to her hut and raised me to be a caplata like her. The tribe finally accepted me a few years back, and gave me my last name Siyokalibe, the girl from somewhere. Three years ago a man came from the link and killed mamma, during the night. Unfortunately I was the only one awake at the time. The tribe divided between those who believed me and those who thought I had killed her. Me! Killing my mother! Never!" - All this time, the wizard was sitting, nodding with his head, and writing down on his notebook, without speaking, not to disturb the girl's train of thought - "So they banished me to the caves that over look the trees. I come to the village every now and then to heal the sick and they come to me when they need potions. The rest of the time I spend it looking for the murdered of my mother in other links. It was in one of those links I found the gauntlets of lightning, and many other things I have at my cave. The day you and your barbarians came, I was in my cave, from where I can see the HyperLink. As soon as you left the link I ran to village and the rest you know."
The wizard smiled, got up on his feet and petted Ariena's head - "There, good girl. Now I will let you sleep" - he took another syringe from his pockets and injected her in one swift movement - "and when you wake up, I will want a reply to my proposition : either you join me and A'akr in conquering the System or I will take your secrets by force. Think of it this way : I can lead you to the man that killed your mamma Anpaka and you can have your revenge."
Still with a smile on his lips, he got up and blew the candles again before leaving the room and the girl slowly fading into oblivion...
