I groggily open my eyes, a faint dream leaving behind not even a memory. That’s weird: I haven’t remembered any of my dreams before. Regardless, I begin to examine my surroundings. Firstly, I am stripped down to my underwear, but my inventory looks untouched. Secondly, I am locked up in bronze shackles in an X-shape which seem to be array-inscribed to prevent me from using my mana. Thirdly, I am still heavily injured from the fight two days ago, including some injuries I don’t remember getting. 13 HP does not feel good.

The most noticeable thing, however, is the dense white fog blocking all sight beyond a couple meters. I click my tongue down and listen for the echo. So, I’m in a cylindrical stone room with a diameter of about ten meters. There is a dome fifteen meters above my head, and the floor is too far down to get a proper echo through this fog.

Now that my situation is assessed, I turn my eyes to look at the mana suppressing shackles on my wrists. The array is sufficiently obfuscated that I cannot determine how it works without a more research on the subject, but I can at least see the three lines I need to sever in order to disable the circuit. I leave them alone for now, though, as cutting them would trigger an alarm. With nothing better to do, I continue to inspect the array.

After close to one and a half hours, a rumble resounds through the cell, which lasts for two minutes. Shortly thereafter, a man dressed in all black with only two grey eyes and a patch of pallid nose skin showing emerged from the fog half a meter below me, the fog blocking is legs from the knees down and whatever platform he stood on.

“Hello, my name is Robin,” I introduce myself. “How can I help you, mister – what’s your name?”

“I am Eighteen,” the man replies. “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

“I’m sixteen, but my birthday’s in a couple months. Um, could you let me out of here? I already missed a day of classes and today’s start in an hour; my teachers aren’t going to be happy at all.”

He suddenly steps forward and punches me in the stomach before asking again, “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

Still coughing, I spit out a reply, “Why did you do, th-that? That wasn’t very, nice.” If I had eaten something in the past ten hours, I would have vomited, but I guess starvation has its upsides.

He punches me again, this time hard enough to reopen a gash in my side. “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

“Can yyou come ba- tomorrar?” I say as I am getting dizzier. “I doh fee…” -l so good today. I pass out from the blood loss.

I wake up again from another already forgotten dream. Strength. That is all I can remember. This time, however, I’m not as heavily injured: the only injuries left are the scrapes on my wrists and ankles. Not even any scars are left, so they must have employed a decent healer.

My thoughts are interrupted by the same rumbling noise as last time, and when Eighteen emerges from the fog I hail him, “You are back so soon? It’s only been six hours.”

He ignores me and asks his same old question: “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

I likewise ignore him, “Oh! Did you bring me lunch? I’m famished, thirsty too.”

Suddenly, the chains holding my wrist lower bringing me beneath his eye level. He pulls out a curved dagger, grabs my left wrist, and cuts across the nerves and tendons. Waves of pain shoot up my arm. He speaks up, “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

I clench my teeth, unable to answer through the pain even if I wanted to. Eighteen seems to notice this, giving me time to recover. “Sorry, what did you say again?” I finally say after ninety-three seconds. “You asked it so long ago I forgot.”

And there goes my other wrist. The pain compounds with what was left of the first time. The chains slowly draw me back up, bringing me face to face with my interrogator. “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?” he asks.

“Do you want a kiss?” I say, before spitting on his face.

He slaps me across the cheek, my neck creaking in protest, then he takes the knife and presses it against my throat drawing a few drops of blood. “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

“Is this how you treat your girlfriend?” I ask playfully. I lean into the blade, turning the occasional drop into a light trickle, then continue, “If you wanted to play rough, you should have asked nicely.”

It is at this time he begins to pummel me. Every square inch of my body he can reach is kicked, punched, kneed, elbowed, and/or headbutted with a viciousness that quickly leaves me sore and numb. After too long to care, he stops and asks, “What were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to pick on little girls?” I whisper weakly, my throat too bruised to do any more.

This time he draws out a cat-o’-nine-tails with small glass beads in the knots and uses it to reach the parts of me his fist couldn’t. I gradually lose my ability to breathe out as the backs of my ribs break one by one and the tension in my arms pulls my diaphragm taught. I put all of my focus onto the task of breathing, both to block out the agony and to keep myself from asphyxiating.

I fail on both accounts. As my vision darkens, I hear footsteps coming our way.

You must become stronger.

I wake up an echoed voice stuck in my head. I try to remember whose voice it is but the soreness coating my body prevents that. They left the bruises alone, but at least they healed my bone fractures. I seem to have gained the skill [Pain Resistance II] as well, leaving me with little to complain about; except for the lack of food for three days, being imprisoned above an unfathomed pit, being tortured, and being stripped down to my underwear, which they probably tried to remove, too.

I then notice the young woman before me. She is dressed in the same black clothes as Eighteen, but her eyes are a dark yet lively purple and her skin, somewhere between the color of charcoal and molten iron. Noticing that I’m awake, she breaks of a piece of the loaf of bread in her hands and presents it to my mouth.

I happily take a bite, barely chewing it before swallowing. This continues until I have eaten the whole thing. After we repeat the process with a liter of water, I speak to her, “Thank you; I’m Robin by the way. What’s your name?” I wince a little as the pain flares angrily at my perky response.

“Um, I am Thirty-Three,” she glances away. “Why didn’t you just answer his questions?”

“You don’t look that old,” I reply, inspecting the only part of her I can see for wrinkles. “Are you supposed to be the good cop?”

Her eyes widen a little, but she quickly regains composure and asks, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you seriously not know about good cop/bad cop?” I ask with faux incredulousness. “That’s, like, what you learn the first day in Interrogating 101.”

She lets out a short sigh at my antics, “Look, depending on how cooperative you are, we are thinking about hiring you as a new member afterwards. You not only managed to almost sneak around guards who are far more experienced than you, when they had you cornered you almost escaped. We could use that kind of talent, so tell us: what were you doing in Lord Scarlatti’s office?”

“How about this, I will answer your first question,” I negotiate. “The reason I won’t tell you is because I was told not to tell you. It is as simple as that.” After I finish, she shakes her head in defeat and walks back into the mist.