Role

Chapter 2

Exposure was simple enough to engineer. Cutting was such a messy business,
and quite prone to complications. Simple discs of the substance placed
against the skin were far better at establishing reactions and
affectiveness of the current countermeasures. Of course, the skin scarred
over time and left quite an unsightly appearance, but there was far less
blood. A much more humane method, undoubtedly.

Of course, most of the specimens did not last long. Fragile and often
sickly already, orphans made for such transient subjects, but needs must.
Sometimes he was blessed with one with a particularly resilient fortitude.
These were rare and valued finds, and sometimes they could last a full year
or more on his table.

Ralshamar was one such specimen.

The young drow fought in the beginning.

Or, he liked to think he had. After seven months, the pain had stripped him
of much. Memories had been the first to go. There were vague recollections
of a time before the burning, of air that did not smell of sizzling meat.
Of a sky not made of stone.

That was what he clung to when the burns would split open, when blood would
bubble up from beneath the discs of mithril upon his skin and the tall
shadow who brought the agony would click his tongue and mutter to himself.

He would see the sky again.

And he would see the tall shadow burn.