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Noelina
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re: Draft: Lys Escapes Iron Horde

I was clearing out some old hard drives and came across this file.

This was a draft of a short story I started writing where "sane," magic-less Lys escapes Iron Horde torturers on Draenor.

Events in-game didn't quite go the right direction for this to actually happen, but it was fun to write.

Consider this an "Alternate-Alternate-Universe Draenor" version of events if you want. :P
Noelina
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re: Draft: Lys Escapes Iron Horde

The orcs kept trying to torture information out of me. It wasn't working, much to their growing frustration. They'd tried a lot of different techniques - breaking my fingers, cutting my skin, ripping my hair out, beating me with sticks - they hurt like fel, but I could ignore it. I'd had worse. They had no idea what I'd been through. I wanted to laugh at their ignorance.

Dweomre's physical abuse had been orders of magnitude more excruciating than anything these amateurs could think up. They hadn't even invented thumb screws, for heavens' sake. Again and again they tried to break me and nothing they did ever got to me. I found that terribly amusing. I wanted to laugh.

The "inquisitor" was going to try the searing brand again. I had four marks on my back already, and none of them had been particularly agonizing. If he got really creative, he'd brand me, lash the area a few dozen times with a makeshift whip thing, and then dump salt on the wound. That might get my attention. Knowing this guy, he wasn't about to get that creative any time soon. Well...not for a few more days anyway.

It was kind of an interesting proposition, wondering how long it would take for them to cause me real discomfort. My money was on a month.

They'd gagged me at first, but when it became evident I didn't make any sound, they gave up trying to re-tie the filthy rag when I worked it loose. Maybe if I grinned at them enough they'd try pulling teeth. That could be interesting.

Inquisitor stomped over to me in those great iron-shod boots he wore and waved the yellow-hot brand in front of my eyes. I was lashed to the table facedown, so he had to stoop to make sure I could see it. "Now, this is how things are going to go," he growled, as if I didn't already know the way he wanted things to go. "You WILL tell me where your little band of friends are. I don't care how many times I have to burn you first, but you WILL tell me." With that, he stood, moved around to the side, and applied the brand to the skin of my back.

I heard the hiss of searing flesh and felt the burning as my skin was incinerated and muscle cooked underneath the iron. The pain was there, but it felt kind of far away, so I just ignored it like I always did. He removed the brand for a moment before reapplying it in another spot.

My only reaction was to heave a bored sigh. This was gonna be a long afternoon.

----

I lay on the table again, face up this time, staring at the ceiling. The last branding had been two days ago. Since then they'd - unsuccessfully -tried waterboarding. I don't think they really knew how it was supposed to work. Yesterday I was left alone in my cell. They were probably trying to come up with some new torture method I would actually care about. Hah. Good luck with that, morons.

As I lay there in the semidarkness awaiting my torturer's inevitable appearance, I contemplated the last few days. The torture sessions weren't having the effect that Gromak - that was the torturer's name - wanted. But I thought I felt something inside me starting to give way. It wasn't my will, of that I was certain. It could have been my sanity, but that just didn't seem likely. I didn't know what it was, so it didn't worry me. I knew they weren't going to kill me. They needed information, and they were willing to wait a good long time for me to crack.

As I lay there pondering, Gromak made his usual noisy, clomping entrance to the torture chamber. He held up a great big knife so I could see it. "You know how this works," he said. He sounded grumpy. I couldn't really blame him. Of course I knew how this was going to go. He'd cut me, and I'd just lay there and wait for him to get tired and wander off. He started cutting.

To say that the lacerations didn't hurt would be a lie. They were, however, not threatening enough to warrant more than an occasional flinch. Honestly, I thought half the cuts tickled more than they hurt. I almost giggled. This was not going as he wanted it to. Then I got an idea.

"Okay! Okay!" I suddenly cried out. "I'll talk!" He stopped cutting and perked up somewhat. "About time! Now tell me where your friends are making their camp." I whimpered, trying to urge my eyes to tear up a little. I don't think it worked, but he seemed to buy the act anyway. "Up the mountain! In a little dell with a spring in the middle. Just follow the stream! That's where the camp is!"

"How many of you are there?" Gromak demanded, waving the knife in my face. My blood dripped off of it. I bit my lip to keep from giggling at the sight. "F-Fourteen," I stammered. He held the tip of the knife threateningly close to my eye. "Fourteen! Fourteen!" I repeated, in a shrill voice that I hoped sounded panicked. "Including me..they've all got bows and are good at using them, especially at night..." That last part was true - well, mostly - but he wouldn't buy it after I was done.

He grinned wickedly in the red glow of the fire pit. "Good little prisoner. Didn't I tell you you'd cooperate eventually?" He gloated, patting me roughly on the still-bleeding shoulder. My shoulders shook, and actual tears sprang to my eyes as I struggled to keep from laughing in his face. The idiot must have mistaken it for weeping. "Don't go anywhere... We'll talk more later." He clomped out the door and barked a few orders to his troops. It took him a while to get a hunting party assembled. Then he went off to tell his boss.

Three hours later, Gromak stormed back into the chamber, grabbed a handful of my hair, and yanked furiously. "You think you can play games with ME? You think you can lie to GROMAK and get away with it!? I'll teach you to lie, treacherous, long-eared bi-" Whatever the rest of his outburst may have been was cut off as I suddenly burst out laughing. I couldn't help it, this was hilarious! Here he was, so desperate for any kind of information from me that he chomped on to the first thing I told him no matter how stupid it sounded. Served him right!

My amusement, while highly self-satisfactory, only enraged Gromak further. He grabbed the carving knife in his meaty fist, slicing it into my flesh with reckless abandon. These cuts were deep, and they burned and tickled like lightning on a kitten's whiskered. The sensation only made me laugh harder.

Gromak went at me for ten more minutes, somehow avoiding any vital areas, the act of brutality seeming to calm his temper even though my only reaction was to keep on laughing.

At last, he put the knife down, not wanting me to bleed to death before I gave up the truth. Arcs of pain and that wonderful tickling sensation ran across my wounds, my head swam, I felt light-headed and oddly euphoric even as my muscles quivered uncontrollably from the trauma. At last my laughing fit calmed enough for me to speak.

"You think you can hurt me? You think I'm ever going to bow to your pathetic attempts at physical discomfort?" He glowered over me, and I laughed in his face. This experience reminded me quite a lot of the time Dweomre had flayed me alive. It didn't come close, but it was vaguely similar design. I stopped laughing to catch my breath again.

And at that moment, something sparked inside me. I felt a sudden rush of strength from some inner reserve that had gone untapped for the longest time. My magic was back. I grinned up at the orc, and from the expression on his face I could tell that unsettled him. "You have no idea what you're dealing with," I said. While he was distracted, I worked my left wrist free of the restraining strap. My thumb broke with an audible snap, but I laughed again, and he didn't seem to notice.

He growled at me. "You will tell me the truth eventually, she-elf. Be it tonight or tomorrow or a month from now, -I will break you-. This I swear." I gazed up at him with dreamy eyes, looping my left arm around his neck and pulling his face down right next to mine. He grabbed my arm and yanked, but I held him there. "I always liked it when you talked like that," I whispered.

That took him by surprise. I seized the moment and bit his nose. I let go of him as he recoiled and clamped both hands to his face, roaring in a mixture of pain and fury. That was funny, too. I laughed, then extended my arm and blasted him with a surge of arcane force strong enough to lift him off the ground and slam him against the opposite wall.

As he fell to the ground, I used my left hand to loosen the strap around my neck, which wasn't easy and made my thumb give off protesting tingles. Sitting up, I worked my right wrist free and then my ankles. I was oozing blood from everywhere, but that didn't bother me. I was getting out of here.

Swinging my legs off the table, I got to my feet just in time to see Gromak struggling off the floor. The impact must have cracked his head against the wall, because he looked dizzy. "What kind of-" he managed before I hammered him with another blast of energy, slamming him against the wall again. "Oh, hush, you. Don't look so surprised."

Then I marched over and kicked him viciously between the legs. He doubled over in agony. For a torturer, this guy sure wasn't very tough. I didn't care, he was going to pay for cutting up my perfectly good uniform. Moving over to the fire, I grabbed the brand, checking to make sure it was hot. Nice and yellow. This would be fun.

I was about to smash the glowing brand over Gromak's head when Mortimer entered the room. "Lyssa, what are you doing?" I looked over to Morty, then back to Gromak, then smashed the orc over the head with the fire brand. "Smashing an orc over the head with a fire brand. What's it look like?"

Mortimer sounded urgent. "There's no time for that! We've got to go!" I casually kicked Gromak hard enough to shatter a rib. He groaned from the pain. I was kind of surprised the blow to the head hadn't knocked him out cold. "Are you sure, Morty? This'll only take a few minutes." Mortimer stepped closer and took the still-glowing iron rod from my hands. "Yes, Lyssa, I'm sure we don't have time for this."

I looked over at him. He was kind of dusty and looked like he'd just been in a fight. "Do you know the way out of here?" I asked. "'cause I don't."

Gromak coughed and growled from where he lay on the dirt floor. "You'll... never escape.. not from...here..." I extended both my arms and turned him into a rabbit. Well...rabbit-like. The fingers on my right hand were all broken so I lacked that expressive fine motor control that magic sometimes requires. He ended up small and furry with four legs, anyway, which was what I was going for.

I picked the sort-of-rabbit-thing-orc up with my left hand, causing more waves of protest from my thumb, and shushed him soothingly. "Shhh. The adults are talking now. If you behave, I might give you a cookie later, okay?" I didn't have any cookies, but if I found one on the way out of this little dirt hole, I'd give it to him.

He struggled, so I threw him on the ground and stomped on his little furry legs. I felt a lot of bones break. Man, that felt good. I picked him up again, wagging a broken index finger in his furry, agony-filled face. "Ah-ah-ah. That's not behaving."

Mortimer cast me a concerned look before leading me out of the chamber without comment. The compound was mostly dirt and wood. Orcs got in our way, I set them on fire or froze them solid or blasted them apart with raw magic. I must have been quite a sight, dressed only in undergarments, bruised, scarred, burned, and bleeding from all over. The orcs tried to fight at first but eventually the word got out that I was a crazed psycho killer or something so they all ran at the sight of me.

Eventually we got up out of the cool, sheltered area and above ground. A small contingent of wolf riders were waiting for us. Mortimer tore into them with his saber and I just blasted away with my magic. I knew a lot of great spells for killing orcs with, but at that moment I wasn't really all that fit for weaving magic so much as just throwing big bursts of the stuff around. It was hilariously effective, though.

On the way out, we passed by the wolf pit where Gromak kept his mean eating machine. I held up the injured bunny-orc-thing and smiled at him sweetly. "Guess what, orc? We're going to play a game. It's called, can you outrun a hungry wolf?" Panic filled his eyes and he began to squirm. I had seen him toss draenei slaves into that pit for sport. They never got out. He kept his wolf hungry for just that reason. He knew exactly what I had in mind.

"Lyssa, is this really-" Mortimer began to protest, but I tossed the bunny-orc-thing into the pit before he could stop me. "No," I cut him off. "It's not necessary. He deserves it, though." With that I blasted the door off of the wolf's cage and moved on. The polymorph would wear off soon, giving the orc at least a small fighting chance. Part of me thought even that was too good for him.

We were well over the first hill before I heard the screams. We didn't look back.
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