An Unorthodox Interrogation

[Lorraine]

49th Ymiden, Arc 719

Company: Balthazar and the assailant | Theme: Danse Macabre | Thoughts: What to do now? | Mood: Cooling down

"I believe I'm quite fine..." Lorraine said to Balthazar her voice suddenly changing from its normal tone to a lower one more similar to Balthazar's than her own. "Or so I thought." She continued with a sigh acknowledging the strange occurrence in her voice. Her mutation from her magic had finally taken effect after her display the trial before. Though given her current circumstances Lorraine was a bit too preoccupied to put too much thought towards her voice.

"I'm glad this dumb oaf doesn't know how to use his hammer better, or he might have been trouble. At least now we have something to go off of I suppose?" She said to Balthazar before kicking the man's already injured shoulder with her foot. "This one is most definitely the man I spoke to who gave me directions for dealing with the corpse. If I had to guess those two are the ones who carried the corpse. Then all we're missing is the fourth person. Maybe our big dumb friend here knows something about that." Lorraine continued kicking the man's shoulder a couple more times, clearly angry about her door being broken down.

Lorraine dropped the hammer on the floor letting it sit balanced on the flat end of its head. Then she took a couple of steps over to the man's arm which still contained her dagger. Lorraine looked at her dagger considering reaching down and retrieving it from his wrist. Though with a trill of thinking she decided it wasn't a good idea to do so. Taking the dagger out of the stab wound would surely only make the man begin to bleed more, and they needed him conscious and alive if he was to serve of much use. Though it was a pity what was in the poor man's future after they had gotten everything they needed from him. Lorraine wasn't sure entirely what they would do with him, but she knew somebody had to put her door back in place. Maybe she would be merciful enough to give him the choice of dead or alive.

[Balthazar Black]

49 Ymiden 719

Balthazar's eyes widened slightly when he heard Lorraine's voice shifting to harmonize with his own. It was unusual but given the things magic had done to him he doubted it was something worth pointing out. Moreover he doubted it was something she'd want him to point out to her among the many other things they had to discuss at the moment. Balthazar looked at the two he'd killed and was overjoyed that Lorraine had spared her man, that meant they had someone to ask questions. Balthazar didn't quite enjoy what he felt he had to do to get those answers but he was prepared too all the same.

When Lorraine mentioned that she was certain her man was the one that had given her the body and that the only person missing was the fourth, Balthazar turned back towards the doors with his fists gently clenched as if expecting another fight but no one entered. It seemed the fourth really had just sent them this time. With the man's limbs trapped in the floor of Lorraine's home, Balthazar stepped over him to Lorraine.

"How do you want to do this?" Balthazar asked quietly so the imprisoned man would not hear. It wasn't likely the man was listening to them yet given the pain he was in but Balthazar wasn't chancing it. "I've extracted information a few times in my line of work but if you have a better method than chopping off limbs with portals or fire, please share." Balthazar knew his portals couldn't really sever organic material... but the man trapped in the floor didn't... most people didn't.

[Lorraine]

49th Ymiden, Arc 719

Company: Balthazar and the assailant | Theme: Danse Macabre | Thoughts: Interrogation? | Mood: Cooling down

"Ah well. I'm sure that if you do this sort of thing often for... work, that your method of doing so works well enough. Though if I had to offer anything, I do have a sack full of wolfmice that would love a snack. Maybe some toes or perhaps his hands." Lorraine responded to Balthazar looking over at the man's hand which was attached to his very damaged wrist. "I doubt he'll ever be using that hand again in any event. Though I'll leave the final decision up to you as I'm sure you have a more educated opinion on the matter." Lorraine finished looking at the man which laid in her floor. She felt ever so slightly bad for him. He certainly had nothing good coming ahead of him. Though Lorraine felt that he deserved what had happened and what would happen pretty adequately. After all, one should never try to take a life without being prepared to lose their own.

Preparing herself to hear Balthazar's decision on how they would proceed Lorraine moved over to the wall. She picked up the small sack from which she had retrieved the first of her dead wolf mice. She moved back over to where Balthazar was and gently poured them out onto the ground in a pile. It was a moderately disgusting site, but ultimately nothing compared to the other, more plentiful, sites in the room. Dropping the bag next to the pile of mice Lorraine then walked to where her fiddle sat in its case. Then she picked it up ready to use it if Balthazar decided upon doing so. Though after coming to stand again next to him Lorraine had a thought. "You know I don't believe anything is stopping us from using both methods. Morals maybe, but this is Yaralon. Everything gets done the Yari way here as I'm sure you already know. Still, I'll leave the decision to you." She said to him whispering to better conceal her words from the man on the floor.

[Balthazar Black]

49 Ymiden 719

Balthazar listened to Lorraine's propositions with a face of deep contemplation. He looked to the large man who seemed to be eyeing them in a sort of pissed of silence until Lorraine poured out the bag of dead wolfmice. It was that sight which caused the man's eyes to go wide and him to begin squirming with his entrapped limbs. Balthazar would have smiled had the sight not been too gross for him so instead he averted his eyes from the mice and watched the way the man was reacting to them. He was afraid. "Not a bad idea, you have the mice bite his feet to remind him where he is."

Balthazar held out his hand and began moving it in a circular motion as his ether surged forwards to tear through space. Balthazar conjured the ingress of a portal a few inches from the man's head and a egriss for it above them, then he grabbed the man and softened the earth holding him enough to jam his head through in ingress. The man's head popped out of the egriss above them and Balthazar gave him a slight wave. It would be an incredibly odd sensation, the pain of having wolfmice eat your feet while you watched from above.

"One chance then I shut the portal and take your head with it. Who sent you?" Balthazar asked the man's head floating above them.

[Lorraine]

49th Ymiden, Arc 719

Company: Balthazar and the assailant | Theme: Danse Macabre | Thoughts: Lets make him talk. | Mood: Cooling down

As Balthazar prepared his portal Lorraine opened her case and retrieved her fiddle. Then she waited for the sound of his portal opening to stop, after which she began to play. One by one the little mice in a pile on the floor began to squirm. They rolled, putting themselves upright so they could move. For every note she played on her fiddle they took a step almost as if dancing to the tune. As they reached the mans feet they began to tear at his shoes with their teeth and claws. Withing a few trills his low quality shoes became littered with holes and slashes, and within a bit the mice were working at his feet.

The man showed a surprising amount of resilience and was seemingly steeled on not giving up anybody. Though this only served to make Lorraine even more mad at the man than she already was. Who did he think he was to act like he had any sort of loyalty or morals now? He had gone to such efforts just to see both of the people he was working with die. Why should he care anything about the well being of the person who sent them to their death? Lorraine had an idea though. Hopefully, it was going to be the thing that got them their answers. She stopped playing her fiddle and set it down on the ground. This caused her mice to stop chewing on the man's feet, something that was undoubtedly a nice break for him. Then she moved closer to the man bringing her face down close to the side of his head.

"Such a shame isn't it?"She whispered into his ear. "I get the feeling that none of you were informed of what you were walking into. You see my friend here has done... quite a bit of damage to others who have attacked him. I myself, am my own special kind of monster. The person who sent you here knew that well. They knew that the three of you wouldn't be able to so much as hurt us." Lorraine continued placing a certain amount of faked pity in her voice. She was overplaying herself quite a bit, but that was just a part of the story. She needed the man to believe she was telling the truth, that he and his partners had been sent into her home under the assumption they wouldn't be leaving.

"I feel so bad for you, all of you. The amount of pain that I, admittedly, have put you through so far, and not to mention your poor friends. They'll never be working by your side ever again. You did break down my door and try to kill me though. I was quite mad." She said to him with a sigh. "I'm not that mad anymore, and I'd rather not any blood be spilled in my home. Why I would let you leave this instant if you promised to never come back." At this, the man would show signs of cracking. Almost as if he was ready to be set free and forgiven. "Such a shame though that I can't. My friend here needs answers, and he isn't very inclined to let you live either. Maybe, just maybe, if you tell us what we want to know you can leave here alive. Now who sent you here and where can we find them?" She asked the man getting up out of his face. It was about another bit before the man finally said something in return.

"I can't tell you the name. I don't know myself. None of us actually did. That snake of a woman never gave us any information or helped with anything. Look for the woman with the eye tattoo at the Crimson Arena. That's all she told us before we came here, and I'm sure that was supposed to be where we were going to meet with her. Now please just let me go. You've already killed the others, and I'll even help you find her. Just please don't kill me." He responded to Lorraine telling them what they wanted to know. Lorraine looked over to Balthazar to see if he was satisfied with what he heard. After waiting for some type of confirmation that he had no other questions for the man she spoke again.

"Don't worry at all. You've done good by telling us, and I certainly have no doubts that you will be helping us quite a bit. Now let me just retrieve my dagger so your wound can be patched, and then you're free to go." Lorraine said to the man offering him two pats on the back of his head. She moved down to his arm and quickly pulled her dagger from his wrist. He groaned a bit in pain but before the pain could really sink in the dagger had already found its new place in the back of his neck. It was a relatively quick death for the man and certainly something of a mercy considering the other routes the situation could have taken. With all of that done Lorraine turned to look at Balthazar her usual polite smile no longer on her face.

"Well, I do believe that's that. Now we just have to decide how we want to proceed I suppose. Though I'm sure you must have some sort of a plan." She said to him before beginning to move to clean the room up a little. It was an absolute mess from the fight, and wouldn't be able to be cleaned so quickly, but she was at least going to get started.

[Balthazar Black]

49 Ymiden 719

Balthazar watched Lorraine conduct her interrogation with methods he'd never considered. He normally didn't think about trying to sympathize or turn the victim against their employer, he only ever thought about making them more afraid of him than the person he wanted information about... and he was fairly good at that. He held the man firmly to keep his head from bobbing too much where it was sticking out of the egriss so that Lorraine didn't have too much trouble talking to the man. Every once in a while Balthazar would lower his throat towards the crackling rim of the portal just to make him fear the loss of his head again.

Then at last he spilled the beans.

Balthazar didn't even have the time to drive the man's head through the portal rim and collapse it silently as he had planned before Lorraine drove a blade into the back of the man's neck. Balthazar winced and dropped the man- breaking the portal edge, collapsing it and causing the man to be pushed out the ingress side onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. Balthazar had been to the Crimson Arena as a spectator before and it was a large place. Lorraine asked what the plan was and for the first time in a while Balthazar had nothing. His face twisted and irritated thought as he cobbled together the best plan he could think of on the spot out loud.

"The Crimson Arena is a big place to search and the woman could be anywhere. She could be a spectator or a fighter... there isn't any way to know without more information. Have you ever been to the arena? Could you navigate the audience well enough on your own to search for her in the crowd while I search among the fighters?" The plan was there but not refined. Balthazar saw the two points of attack but not how to access them. He knew they needed to search the spectating crowd and the fighters... after a moment Balthazar' shook his head. "I could join as a fighter and look around behind the scenes for someone with an eye tattoo. If you go in as a member of the crowd you could look for them there?" There were flaws in the plan Balthazar didn't see because the plan was made so on the spot, but Lorraine who was expected to search the entire spectating audience might realize that was a task easier said than done.

[Lorraine]

49th Ymiden, Arc 719

Company: Balthazar| Theme: Danse Macabre | Thoughts: What to do, what to do... | Mood: Thoughtful

Lorraine kept picking up the house as Balthazar began to speak about his plan. Though soon after he started speaking she would stop in her tracks to allow herself to better think about what to do. She had never been inside the arena before but she had seen it. It was, as Balthazar stated, quite a large place and it was going to be difficult for them to search it. Balthazar would be able to at least reasonably thoroughly search through the fights, but Lorraine needed to find a single person in the large crowd. It was going to be a people sized game of finding a needle in a haystack. Not to mention the fact that maneuvering throughout the crowd, which was destined to be bursting full of rowdy people, would be difficult.

Lorraine closed her eyes to focus on the situation. She felt like she had an answer that would help to solve some of the problems in the plan, but she just couldn't think of it. She took a deep breath thinking to herself. Then she was hit by a sudden wave of deja vu. Had she not just recently been in a rough situation in which she needed help? She had just the trial before outside of town, and what was it that she had been able to call upon to help her? Her magic of course! There was little else that she had that could provide her with such help that she needed. Though even with this sudden revelation Lorraine was still deep in thought. She began to formulate a plan in her head, working on and building off of what Balthazar had already said. With some trills of thinking she had an idea.

"Your plan is a good one to start with, but if you'll allow me to say there are some flaws. Firstly the act of searching throughout the entire crowd for a single person who will likely be on the move is a challenge by itself. Maneuvering will be far too difficult and our only identifying feature is a tattoo which might be hard to spot in a crowd. Secondly whoever this person that we're looking for is, while we don't know her identity, she knows mine. She was here when these men delivered that corpse, and if she has any sort of wits about her she'll recognize me there. The chance of her making the connection and either moving to engage me or fleeing is far too high." She said to Balthazar letting him know her honest judgments on the quickly made plan. Before she spoke again Lorraine moved to gather her mice and fiddle placing them in their respective cases.

"I do though have an idea that can hopefully help make the plan run smoother, with my searching at least. In necromancy, there is something that one can do in which they make a sort of intense connection between themselves and a single thrall. While I was never taught this technique if I can figure it out it will be quite useful to us." Lorraine continued holding up the sack which now contained all of her wolfmice, and showing it to Balthazar. "I can connect myself to one of these mice and use it to look through the crowd. These wolfmice are small, fast, and very agile. I can use one to look through the crowd much quicker than I could do myself. This also eliminates the possibility that the woman would recognize that I'm looking for her. The only thing is that I need somewhere where I can go to sit and be left undisturbed. It needs to be close enough to the arena that I can control the mouse throughout the entire arena, but it also needs to be relatively quiet and secure." She continued finishing her addition to the plan. Now she just had to see what Balthazar thought of the idea. She felt it was doable in terms of whether or not she could fulfill her job, but she would still let him have the final say.

[Balthazar Black]

49 Ymiden 719

Balthazar listened to Lorraine's critiques with an open mind because he knew his rough plan was not going to be the most functional. He'd accepted her task would be nigh impossible but he'd still proposed it to get the creative juices flowing. He crossed his arms and thought for a moment. He saw flaws in her plan that she might not have but he was waiting until he'd thought of an alternative to suggest or say anything. The result was a few moments of silence before Balthazar uncrossed his arms and spoke up.

"I agree. A wolfmice would have an easier time moving around but you face certain challenges from the rowdy audience at that size." Balthazar countered. "The first issue I see is that I don't know a Yari who wouldn't just crush the mouse beneath their boot when they see it and you'll have to be moving around a lot of feet. I also think you might have trouble getting a good view of everybody's foreheads from the ground. But you made very valid points that she'd know who you are. Do you have any birds? Perhaps they'd have an easier time going back and forth over the crowd in the search than a wolfmouse would running around the stands."

Balthazar paused in thought again as he tried to think of a place he could position Lorraine but this was not nearly as vexing a question. He was a defier and the Arena was on the ground. "As far as finding a place for you to be left undisturbed, I could tunnel under the arena for you and create a room that you could sit in. You'd be right under the arena so hopefully that is close enough for your needs. I would just need a little time to let my ether build up as I dig away the tunnel but it could be done."

[Lorraine]

49th Ymiden, Arc 719

Company: Balthazar| Theme: Danse Macabre | Thoughts: Let's go catch a bird | Mood: Planning

Listening to Balthazar's constructive criticisms of her plan Lorraine gave some more thought to her ideas. There were certainly quite a few flaws in the plan that she hadn't originally calculated, but it was nothing that couldn't be handled. She'd think again for another few trills going over Balthazar's words in her head as she formulated some new ideas for the plan.

"Hmm you do bring up some very valid concerns there. My mice may be agile, but most Yari are more physically capable than the average person from another city. I'd wager a good amount of them would be able to squash a mouse under their show. Even if that mouse happened to be being piloted by a human mind. Though considering that these aren't just normal mice maybe I can avoid the foot end of this issue altogether. These mice have exceptional abilities with both climbing and jumping, even in undeath. If I'm able to concentrate enough, with a little practice I could possibly have the mouse climb up onto the shoulders of the people and hop around like that. That would eliminate some of the issues with using the mice, though it might be a little more disruptive." She said to him bringing one hand up to her face, still in thought.

"Though even if I could successfully pull that off a bird might just be a better idea. I don't currently have any available for use, but it shouldn't be all to hard to get a hold of one of them. Well... I don't actually have much of a way to procure one, but I figure your magic would be quite a bit more suited to that task than mine. Do you think you could knock one out of the sky for me?" She asked him walking over to where her door used to sit before it was broken. She looked outside into the sky searching for the sight of a bird. It wasn't all too hard of a task and she was able to spot quite a few of them around. Though if they were lucky enough one might even come and land somewhere close to them.

"As for your idea of building a tunnel, I think that's actually quite a good idea. Though don't go trying to make it too spacious or fancy. If you're going to be signing up to compete in the arena you're gonna need all the ether you can get." Lorraine said to him before moving out into the area outside of her house. There, fortunately, didn't seem to be any civilians anywhere to be found. Likely anybody who had caught sight of the altercation taking place in Lorraine's home had cleared out, though the area usually wasn't all too busy anyway.

"Shall we go catch a bird?" Lorraine would call back into the house at Balthazar. She cringed a bit at just how strange her voice sounded when it stooped to Balthazar's lower tone. The change was especially evident whenever she raised her voice to call out to him.

[Balthazar Black]

49 Ymiden 719

Balthazar listened as Lorraine planned aloud and any time he seemed to come up with a response, she arrived to the conclusion on her own and he continued listening. It was remarkable watching her mind work but he wouldn't comment on it. When she asked about if he could help her catch a bird or not Balthazar initially thought to use defiance as Lorraine seemed to imply. He began thinking about how he could coax the wind to bring the bird to them and then a simple rock would do the rest. They just needed the wings right? Then again maybe a snapped neck would be cleaner.

It was when Balthazar thought about snapping the bird's neck that he remembered his other spark and a small grin spread over his face. Lorraine moved out of her house but Balthazar remained, stuck in thought until he heard her calling back to him."We don't even need to knock it out of the sky. I can make one fly right into a wall for us." Balthazar called back to Lorraine. He found her fluctuating voice a little odd but there were worse mutations. He was worried where he was going given that his body seemed to heat up more and more as he became more proficient with defiance... and rupturing had stolen his ability to read at home... it was a hard life.