Volcklon looks around confused. "Is this a dream....We were just on the ship." He looks to the man wreathed in shadow. "What procedure?" He wonders curiously.
The woman wreathed in shadow looks toward Jacob.
”I am merely a scientist.” She places down a metal tray followed by a pair of scalpels in front of Volcklon and Jacob. ”Now, for this procedure you will need to make a vertical medial incision from the interior anterior abdomen to the inguinal region, in other words, a median incision.”
Boron closes his eyes, and smiles: "Just a dream... ha ha! Weird nightmare, but just a nightmare."
Then his pop open again: "But what if it is NOT?!"
He jiggles around and yanks his restraints.
Despite Boron's struggling he is unable to force himself out of his restraints. The shadowy figure gazes down on the helpless dwarf as she moves her hand to a nearby lever. She pulls it.
Volts of electricity suddenly surge through Boron's body as he jerks wildly on the metal table on which he is restrained.
The woman returns the lever to its original position while still staring at Boron, not saying a word.
Seeing that, Boron starts thrashing like mad--
--while starting the woman in the eyes.
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Xagyg looks on with interest.
"Surely randomised electrocution is counter-productive; if you are going to do that to us, surely it would be to do focused blasts, preferably to the central nervous system. When it comes to be my turn, I would be happy to give you some technical information about Shirren anatomy, if it would assist in making the process more efficient..."
As Boron futilely thrashes about the woman switches the lever once again...
...and switches it back off. She proceeds to write something on a paper on a clipboard that she is holding, seemingly oblivious to Xagyg's words.
Volcklon holds his hand out. "Alright stop." He looks down at the scalpel unsure of what he is doing. I must learn to follow commands without question if I am to join the Order. Volcklon grabs the scalpel, shakily places the end of it on Boron's skin and begins to slowly cut.
The blade of Volcklon’s scalpel slices into Boron’s flesh easily, creating a deep cut that bleeds dark-red.
The woman looks up at the machine overhead as she writes on her clipboard. She turns to Jacob and gestures towards the lone scalpel.
”Mr. Andrews?”
Volcklon's hand shakes, not out of fear but one of excitement and he smiles behind his mask. His hand draws back as he cuts slower, relishing in the moment wanting it to last.
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Jacob steps back as he grips his head, trying to shake things out from it. Xagyg can't see past the dark goggles into his eyes, but his face is contorted.
This is... this is insane... This is all insane... do no harm... do no harm... DO NO HARM!
He suddenly turns and leaps at the scientist, his hands glowing a odd blackness.
RAAAGH!
He tries to reach out and touch her, to take the energy of life from her, to give it to boron... he had to help... he had to help. He keeps repeating his doctor's mantra in his head, though this clearly wasn't what his teachers intended.
Boron's eyes bug out as Volcklon's scalpel moves close to his skin, and Boron thrashes around.
"Nooooooo...."
But there is nothing he can do, and the skin starts to split.
"No.... yesssss!"
And now Boron's eyes go wide, and he keeps on moving, but he now seems to be squirming.
"Yes yes yes!"
He seems to be... LOVING THIS?!
"YESSS!"
As Jacob tries to touch the woman she reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a handheld device with a single red button. She presses it, sending a shockwave through the human’s body, abruptly stopping his attempt to touch her as he involuntarily jerks away from her.
She presses the button again, ceasing the electricity.
”’Do no harm’ is subjective, Mr. Andrews. Is a surgeon doing harm by opening the abdominal cavity for a heart transplant? Is a doctor doing harm when re-locating a dislocated shoulder? Is harm being done,” she gestures toward Boron. ”When the subject does not feel said harm?”
As Volcklon continues the incision into Boron’s flesh...
...the dwarf’s wound secretes crimson fluid.
Boron wiggles and arcs his back, obviously in rapture.
"Ooooooh yessssss! This is... incredible!"
The woman shakes her head as she pushes the button once more, spinning the button itself as if it were a dial, increasing the voltage coursing through Jacob’s body, bringing the human to his knees.
"SELFISH JACOB!!!! SHARE SHARE SHARE!!!"
The woman gazes down at Xagyg.
“You are delightfully receptive. I have so much to teach you.”
"I never was a good student... and don't want you, I want my Vroni.
But this is... nice!"
The woman sighs. She continues to turn the button-dial to increase the voltage, causing tree-like branching scars to appear all over Jacob's skin.
Volcklon shifts his scalpel to Xagyg and begins cutting into the shirren's thicker exoskeleton. "This feels great!"
"Give in, Jacob, let the pleasure invade you!
Then we'll all four be on the same page, and can have fun hunting down that delusional loser Dark Lady b#$$$ and gutting her!"
The shadowy woman glares at Boron as she adjusts a dial on a nearby machine.
”Excuse me?”
She pulls a lever, sending bolts of electricity through the dwarf.
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"Please, Good Doctor - I know that you sought righteous glory, and found an even more glorious truth - pain is our friend, and makes the world alive. Teach me that truth!"
Xagyg tries to writhe his body backwards and forwards around the blade that Volcklon is sticking into him.
"Would not this blade make a most exquisite focus for the introduction of some electrical potential...?"
As Boron's body starts to bleed and smell as his skin is burnt, he arcs his back in a blend of pain and pleasure.
"I... I'm saying that.. that we shouldn't indulge in too much pleasure now. We should only celebrate when we wipe out those shadow stains of that useless lunatic Dark Lady impostor..."
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Jacob screams out in pain as his flesh sizzles. As the treebranch pattern courses across his skin, he grits his teeth and focuses on letting magic flow into his body... healing his insides far more than his outsides, but doing the trick... somewhat.
You... *COUGH* might as well kill me... I won't... *COUGH* let you control me...the blasted *Cough* Virus didn't get me, you won't either!
The woman closes her eyes momentarily as she sighs. She pushes the button to momentarily stop the voltage going through Jacob. She kneels on one leg and looks Jacob in the eye. She turns the handheld device to face the human as she clearly and slowly turns the dial all the way to its highest setting.
”I suppose the stubborn never accept progress. This will be the way of life soon—very soon—and I have given you a chance to taste the future, but if you insist on staying holed up in your little hut of the past then who am I to stop you? I will give you the chance to open your eyes to the future, however: the age of anesthetics, of trauma, of pain is soon to end, and everyone will live in harmony without worry or stress or pain. And I have been gifted with the honor of being the Messiah of this new age.”
The woman presses the button.
The woman stands and gazes over the scene before her.
”May all awaken from their slumber of ignorance and pain.”
*
*
*
Slam!
Jacob falls face-first out of his bed aboard the Out There Truth, the loud noise therein waking the rest of the crew from their sleep as the starship continues its auto-piloted journey through the Drift.
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GAH!
Jacob scrambles up in manic flailing as he tries to get his bearing.
INSPECTOR! VOLKRON! BORON! WHERE ARE YOU!
He looks down at his hands and sees the lighting patterned scars running down his arms and legs.
BLAST IT WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?!
Without even bothering to dress he bursts out of his room into the hold to find his comrades and make sure they are alright.
GAH!
Jacob scrambles up in manic flailing as he tries to get his bearing.
INSPECTOR! VOLKRON! BORON! WHERE ARE YOU!
He looks down at his hands and sees the lighting patterned scars running down his arms and legs.
BLAST IT WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?!
Without even bothering to dress he bursts out of his room into the hold to find his comrades and make sure they are alright.
Boron passes out.
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Boron passes out.
»Did you... did... did you all have a nightmare? I saw you in mine! »
Boron tries to see if the others had bad dreams, and, if so, what it was about.
Then, to maybe see if they all had the same dream... nightmare?!
»This is... not good. »
Boron looks around, wondering--
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"Darkness may be claimed /
by some as friend /
and yet it hides /
a deeper truth:
That which is revealed /
cannot be hidden again.
The puppet-mistress exposed /
the strings can be followed /
the performance concluded."
So saying, Xagyg pats his holstered pistol meaningfully.
"There is a place /
on the half-dark planet /
where more can be learned /
and the path followed /
to the source.
We should go there,now..."
"Let's go YANK some strings! Since they like pain, maybe we can deal some out..."
Boron toys with the seals he cannot wait to install in his "new" sword.