Blessed are the deranged: for they can never experience true despair

Blessed are the helpless: for they can never harm those they love

Blessed are the deceased: for they can suffer no more.

- Andanian Chronicles

“Kill me, kill me please! Just let me die, I beg you!” Naomi begged tearfully as the patient witch stitched yet another batch of organs back into her body before reapplying her regenerative talisman. A burning flame of pure crystalized torture swept through her entire being for the sixty-sixth time as the witch’s cells spread out swiftly and fused into Naomi’s body. For a brief moment, the human-witch hybrid organs functioned just as intended, but then the precarious balance swung completely out of control as the transformed cells devoured her weaker human ones and her innards degraded swiftly into a dangerous tumor-like growth that threatened to turn her entire body into a shapeless slime.

The witch groaned with disappointment as she rubbed tiredly at her eyes and activated a burning talisman to cauterize the invasive growth from Naomi before it could inflict further damage on her already ravaged body, “Just one more time, I think that I was really close just now! Just one more time and I’ll get it right for sure!” Lily nodded with a forced smile of encouragement.

“That is what you have been saying for the past dozen days! But the pain has just gotten even worse!” Naomi wailed in horror, “Please, I don’t care about magic or anything anymore. Just let me die in peace, please Teacher Lily… don’t hurt me any longer!”

The princess sighed with exhaustion as she ladled out the final dregs of the anesthetizing potion she had brewed, “Here this will make all that big bad pain go away…” Lily petted her whimpering subject in a clumsy attempt to comfort her as she fed the numbing drug down her throat.

“Please, that potion doesn’t even come close to suppressing the pain I feel! Just kill me Teacher Lily! I can’t! I just can’t do this anymore!” Naomi screamed desperately as she squirmed weakly against the steel bindings pinning her to the bloody surgical table.

The princess mused thoughtfully to herself, “According to my elder sister, the ability to withstand pain is what makes a witch superior to any other Talented. If you are unable to endure this tiny little discomfort, you will never be able to utilize all your abilities to their fullest. You need to be brave, I want you to be my bestest apprentice ever! We can’t have any fun if you aren’t strong enough…”

Naomi glared hatefully at the witch looming over her, “Easy for you to say! You aren’t the one suffering, I’m the one that has to pay the price for each and every one of your bumbling mistakes. Why don’t you try feeling the same pain I’m feeling? You’ll understand soon enough how horrible it is!”

“Okay! Thanks for your help.” Lily agreed cheerfully as she leafed through her stack of talismans, “I have just the spell, this handy magic allows us to spilt all our senses equally between us. My sister devised it to help me concentrate on using more of my power at once! If you can split the discomfort with me, I will probably be able to use twice as much magic as usual. You always have the best brilliant ideas, my most royal apprentice!”

“What? Huh?” Naomi’s torture clouded mind failed to process the new snippet of information. And she nodded eagerly as the witch tagged them both with a matching pair of charms.

“Thank you, Naomi.” A single tear of relief trickled down Lily’s bloodstained cheek as she took a deep preparatory breath. “Here, you’ll definitely need this. Even my sister can’t take all that pain when I turn up my Talent. And please try not to bite your tongue off, I didn’t make any spares of that.” The witch shoved a bandage into the perplexed puppy’s mouth before she could change her mind.

Then the palace of Saadian was shaken to its foundations as Lily poured her soaring Talent into her apprentice’s mangled body and Naomi finally understood the true meaning of regret as she was transported into a realm of utter consuming pain, an agony so great that she never thought could even be possible. The puppy would have opened her mouth to scream, but the pure torture coursing through her nerves was just too vast, and her utterly overwhelmed mind cowered within the darkest depths of paralyzed insanity in a futile attempt to survive the unimaginable onslaught.

“This feels so much better, it’s been awhile since anyone agreed to siphon off some of the discomfort I feel.” Lily heaved a grateful sigh of relief and she straightened up with a delighted smile as if a huge burden had just been lifted from her shoulders. “Oh, my cute little adorable apprentice,” she praised the now motionless girl as she caressed her rosy cheeks, “thanks for volunteering your help. I feel like we can truly accomplish great things together! I can’t wait, I must introduce you to elder sister once I retrieve her from the Vaishyans!” Then the witch of Andania sang cheerfully as she bent over the child of Saadian and weaved her blood and magic deep into her body.

…

“Nyan!” Mirror yelped as she was jerked awake suddenly when she slid off the roof and smacked down onto the courtyard below. The kitten blinked with surprise and scuttled off to her chambers before the alerted palace guards could investigate the disturbance. “Ugh, I’m so dirty dusty again!” Mirror pouted as she brought up her hand to her lips and began to groom herself, “Owwie!” She groaned as she licked at her reddened sunburnt skin, “I’ve overslept again and I’m totally starving!” She sighed softly with a languid yawn as she flopped onto her bed and filed her nails absently against the finely crafted wooden headboard. After several long moments, the kitten cocked her head to the side, “What was I supposed to do again?” She frowned thoughtfully.

“Fishes!” Mirror exclaimed suddenly as she nodded to herself, “I want to get some happy fishes with Aryan, but first I have to dig up that witch. I wonder if they stuck her alone inside the ground to protect her from scavengers? But surely no animal would be stupid enough to eat that evil witch while she was sleeping.” The kitten scrunched up her face with distaste, “But that means that I’ll be all muddy and dirty again, why must I always do all the work? Maybe I can convince Aryan to do the digging for me!”

The kitten smiled contentedly as she began striding towards the nearest window but she hesitated as she perched on the windowsill and spun back to eye her chamber, “Oh but I mustn’t forget the clothes, god Dagon says that I can only take off my clothes with Aryan. All because of some strange custom as humans don’t have enough fur? Grr… these very naughty clothes, where did they sneak off to while I was napping?”

…

“What am I?” The child crucified against the damp surgical table croaked softly. Her dark blue eyes snapped open suddenly and the blood pooled throughout the room vanished abruptly as it was sucked rapidly back into her body. Her dark brown hair had been bleached as white as snow and her tanned skin had been reduced to the purest white porcelain. She strained against the large iron nails staking her to the wooden slab beneath her and the entire table shattered into splinters beneath her newfound strength. Then her primal instincts kicked in and her stomach growled loudly as she eyed the remaining plies of organs beside her, “Food!” she screamed as she stumbled forward with desperate famishment and filled her mouth with piece after piece of warm quivering flesh.

“Ugh… I think I have a headache from using all that power. Did it finally work this time?” Lily groaned as she struggled upright. The witch blinked with momental confusion as she stared at the empty splintered remains of the solid wooden table before her. Then a small triumphant smile crept onto her lips as she eyed the child beside her, “Blue eyes, I did it! I always knew that it was possible, but elder sister never believed me… oh but the hair’s the wrong color, maybe I should have asked Krall for a piece of his body instead…” She mused thoughtfully to herself as she strode towards her transformed apprentice, “Hey N…”

“Get away from my food!” The untamed child screamed furiously as she twisted around and struck the approaching witch with all her strength. Lily’s eyes widened with surprise as the blow squeezed the air from her lungs and hurled her forcefully against the wall behind her. The child darted forward in a blur like a wild beast and the room was shaken as she pinned the witch down by the shoulders. “You will also be my prey!” The child drooled ravenously.

Lily nodded her head calmly, “Ah you must just be a little confused after the transformation. But eating me would probably be a very bad idea. You see, according to my elder sister…” The witch’s eyes widened with wordless surprise as the child silenced her by clamping her jaws tightly around her throat. Lily shoved her attacker swiftly away from her but the child’s teeth tore a ragged hole through her jugular even as they were separated. “Whew… safe!” Lily sighed with relief as she ignored her rapidly healing wound and brought up her hands instead to catch the blood spraying from her damaged throat, “People always stare at me funny whenever I walk around with red drippy clothes… Yes, I must always act normal, look normal, think normal…” she muttered to herself. Just then she happened to glance at the child who was chewing viciously on the scrap of blood and flesh in her mouth, “Stop!” she screamed in horror as she dashed towards the child, “You mustn’t swallow!”

The child grinned victoriously as the living morsel slid soundlessly down her throat, “This is amazing, I can already feel the strength flowing through my body! I’ll consume every scrap of you till there’s nothing left!” She gloated, “I’ll… help…” her expression of overwhelming glee was suddenly replaced with a mix of extreme agony and horror as she clutched at her stomach which had swelled up uncontrollably like an overblown balloon. “Arrgh!”

“Nooo!” Lily screamed as she darted forward and channeled an incandescent flame that blasted forcefully into the distressed child to excise her swiftly deforming body parts. Her wild uncontrolled attack tore her target into pieces and sent tremors snaking through the foundations of the earth.

The abused remains of the child’s smoking head bounced about repeatedly before finally coming to rest at the witch’s dainty feet. “Hehe… hahaha…” the ravaged head laughed and sobbed with alternating mania, “How am I still alive?”

“Oops?” Lily shrugged as she cradled the head against her bosom. “I was never very proficient with memory modifying magic. I must have messed up somewhere when I tried to edit out the wonky parts of your mind.” The head was rattled about as the witch shook it forcefully as she waded through the rubble strewn chamber, “Hello! Anyone still in there? Hang in there dearest Naomi! I’m sure saw a couple of leftover organs somewhere just now, so I can fix you up in just a couple of minutes.” The witch hummed cheerfully to herself as she dug through the rubble strewn chamber to retrieve the necessary parts before positioning them neatly on the gore encrusted ground. “There, just as I promised. Even better than new!” Lily concluded smugly as she clapped her hands excitably, “Now we can have lots of fun together! I know, why don’t we start with some hide and seek?”

“Eek!” The restored child trembled with helpless terror as the eager witch loomed over her like a predator about to devour its prey.

“Oh, come on Naomi! Don’t you even remember your dearest gentlest Teacher anymore?” Lily pouted as she shoved a massive bundle of talismans at her. “Here, I stuck all your memories into these charms. You will need to regain at least some of them if want to use your powers. Remember this, a witch’s magical potential is exponentially correlated with the percentage of memories retained. If you manage to forget too much about yourself, you won’t be able to use even the simplest spells!”

The child received the witch’s gift with barely masked apprehension. “My memories? What do you mean by memories?” She muttered skeptically as she tugged out a single talisman from the bundle before resting it tentatively against her forehead.

“So? How did it go? You didn’t break yourself again, did you?” Lily questioned anxiously as she eyed the silently shaking child.

“Ugh, what… why was I hung upside down for two whole days?” The child muttered with tears glistening in her eyes.

“Excellent! It’s working after all.” Lily beamed cheerfully as she tugged out a bundle of dimeritium chains from a nearby closet. “Let’s speed this up just a little more!”

“What are you going to do to me?” The child muttered dubiously as she backed away from the smiling witch.

“Don’t worry, just relax.” Lily replied with almost guileful simplicity as she trussed her apprentice from the neck down with the magic suppressing bindings before she could begin to resist. Then she hummed happily as she snatched up several dozen talismans and stuck them all over the child’s body, “Tell me if it gets really bad and we can skip the worst ones!” she instructed as she activated them all at once.

The solid steel rails of even the darkest dungeon cells were rattled violently as a new source of barely suppressed magical potential flared swiftly into existence. And the screams, the fresh tortured screams resounded throughout the dungeon yet again. As Naomi’s still nascent mind was forced to relive all the concentrated pleasure, pain, happiness, and sorrow she had ever experienced throughout her lifetime.