Eve, Kristina and Olivia agreed that Bradley or his minions were almost certainly hiding from them in the vast and labyrinthine Red Light District.
The District started out as home to the usual taverns and brothels offering the usual vices and distractions. Eventually shadowy organizations and brotherhoods sprang up offering security and protection, black market acquisition and transportation of goods and services available only for the most discriminating of tastes that had the means to pay. Collection services and retribution for damages to property -- both the breathing and non-breathing variety.
.
As the Empire's embrace of religious polytheism grew over the millennium, religions, cults and businesses catering to the more carnal and licentious Imperial citizenry moved in and thus the place expanded exponentially.
Because most of the businesses located there operated after dusk the entire area came to be known as The City of Night.
Eventually all the shadowy and criminal underground organizations were swallowed up by one group The Black Lotus.
The Black Lotus now effectively controlled the entire district. If you made illegal gold within the City of Night, chances were high a few silver made their way to the pockets of The Black Lotus Masters and someone else was very interested in why you hadn't paid them more and would ask that question violently.
Thus finding Bradley or his minions wasn't nearly as difficult as finding reliable sources for the intel. But here again The Sisters of Battle's terrifying reputation worked for them.
Anyone who was greedy enough to want gold was likely also smart enough not to want to get on the wrong side of three Sisters Repentant.
Thus by Kristina reminding the snitch that beneath the Conclave of The Sisterhood were laboratories specifically dedicated to both life extension AND the study of pain magics, they had a name and location by the evening followed by assurance that Corbin, Bradley's lieutenant, would not be informed they were coming for him. This produced a very obvious moan of joy from Loviatar which only Max could hear and be slightly disturbed by.
8
9
8
Peter cringed away from the fat ugly man. He knew that not every client a prostitute served was a pleasure. There was a reason some people absolutely HAD to pay for sex after all. The fat man that everyone called Corbin was a special kind of gross. He'd been at the brothel for several days now maintaining a steady diet of booze, food and when he was capable of performing, whores. He was a bully and seemed upset for some reason, scared and like many bullies do whenever they're scared, he was taking his fear out on those who he considered beneath him, which unfortunately included sex workers like Peter.
Peter was attractive. Thin willowy features marked him as an Elf descendent. He lacked the skills or powers of the Old Blood. He could see in the dark a little bit and his health and stamina were better than most. However, his connection to the ancient ancestral blood was thin. At best Peter was a half-elf, thus for some he looked enough LIKE an elf that people like Corbin could satisfy their dark urges on the innocent young man.
Corbin claimed an Elven noble had assaulted him as a youth. Peter suspected that the truth was probably closer to a young Corbin being enticed by an Elf and eventually bedded, likely by someone who found the arrogant young man he had been as incompetent and incapable as a lover as he was now. Any Elf bored enough to want a human in his bed had doubtlessly discarded him once the novelty passed.
Peter himself had occasionally traded on his Elven features and he'd even had the occasional bored elf himself though for them the novelty was bedding a halfling, someone that was just enough like themselves that the sex was like masturbation with extra steps or less personal effort.
Corbin approached him with the riding crop. Peter learned a long time ago that you vastly preferred someone who got hard BEFORE the punishment started. They weren't going to play long and would likely switch to more conventional recreation quickly enough. When they were at half-mast or worse, completely flaccid as Corbin was now, the punishment WAS the point and would likely drag on for a long time.
Corbin raised the riding crop, Peter braced himself hoping it would be quick. He consoled himself with the thought that even this was better than the alternative embodied in that fiendish creature kept below.
Clients now paid generously to watch workers being fed to the creature in the vaults. The prices had steadily increased as it became abundantly clear that no one who entered the vault where the thing was imprisoned ever returned.
Indeed a friend of Peter's, too independent--read too mouthy, for his own good, had been the last to brave the thing. Peter himself hadn't had the courage to go down and watch so he had only heard the cries coming from the cage. Sometimes they were cries of pain but disturbingly there had often been other more
familiar sounds that a brothel worker knows only too well.
Suddenly there was a knock on the sealed door. Corbin cursed and lowered the riding crop stomping towards the door.
"What is it!?"
"We're under attack," a high voice yelled, "it seems like whoever it is is looking for you!"
"Then fight them off," Corbin snarled, "what the hell are Bradley and The Lotus Masters paying for if not keeping me safe?"
He threw open the door and Peter was shocked when a razor-sharp shaft of bone tore through Bradley's throat sending him stumbling backwards as blood spurted from a deep and savage cut.
"Hello Corbin, my name is Elder Max and I would like to talk to you about a most amazing deity, the Goddess of Pain, Loviatar," a man dressed, incongruously in female cleric's armor said casually as he strolled into the room, "if you have a few moments I'd like to discuss her Gospel of Pain with you."
Corbin gurgled and gasped semi-intelligible curses at the man even as he stumbled backwards, trying to stop the blood gushing from the mortal wound in his throat.
"If this is a bad time, maybe we can skip right to you telling me why you're trying to kill an Imperial Princess?" Max asked coldly.
Corbin collapsed on the floor and the cleric looked at him with emotionless eyes aglow with purple fire. The mage reached out, hand ablaze with the same purple light in his eyes and touched Corbin setting him alight with the same fiery glow.
"Death Ward!" Max hissed.
Corbin's body rose off the floor, the pools of blood seemingly leaping off the floor where they'd fallen to fly back into the wound that magically stitched itself closed.
Peter shuddered at the grotesque display, if healing could feel like torture it would look exactly like this.
Corbin suddenly found himself standing alive and unharmed clutching at his now unharmed throat.
"Don't you worry about dying too quickly, Corbin," Max said with a cold sinister smile on his face, "you have questions to answer about your organization, its leadership and infrastructure."
"I won't tell you anything." Corbin snarled.
"You'll tell me your deepest most depraved secrets and when you've betrayed every single thing you think you care about, when you're so broken you're begging for death to end your pain then the real fun will happen." Max's smile bisected his entire face but there wasn't a trace of warmth in that smile.
"You're them aren't you?" Corbin whispered, "You're the ones who saved that interfering bitch, Princess Dawn?"
"Check out the big brain on you, you're one smart guy," Max sneered, "are you smart enough to know how unbelievably FUCKED you'll be if I have to ask twice for the information I'm looking for?"
"What...what do you want?" Corbin replied.
"Your boss -- Marquis Antonely Bradley," Max growled, "where he is or where he was."
"You don't scare me," Corbin sneered, "Bradley and the Masters will kill me or worse, my family."
Max chuckled, "If you think death is the worst thing that can happen to you at my hands, you have a shamefully poor imagination." He snickered.
Max advanced on Corbin, "I can do much more than kill you, I can hurt you ... I can make it so you'll look back on the few seconds you were bleeding out on the floor as a WET DREAM. I can make every nerve ending feel like vermin are gnawing on your flesh."
Max stretched out his palm and a sinister flame sprang to life. "Or I can make it so the burning of your skin feels like you're jerking off for the first time and you'll willingly plunge your own body into open flames and enjoy the sizzle of your own flesh."
"He has papers in his satchel," Peter volunteered, "he hasn't let them out of his sight since he got here -- beat one of the workers pretty badly just for touching them."
"Now that's very interesting," Max drawled.
"Shut your trap you worthless whore!" Corbin shouted, raising his fist intending to hit the young man but couldn't.
A ghostly hand made of solid purple fire, grabbed his throat and hauled his wriggling struggling body into the air.
"I don't especially like torture myself but Loviatar absolutely loves it with a passion," Max hissed, "now I hate bullies and my Goddess loves watching me torture my enemies, slowly -- painfully -- I'm sure she'll enjoy what I can do to you."
"It's in their vault, it's sealed magically nobody's getting inside," Peter said nervously, "you have to be careful they keep something down there."
"What kind of something?" Max asked gently.
"Nobody's sure but I think it's a demon."
"Really?"
"They say it was captured by the Imperial Guardsmen the day Cyndia was killed. One of her minions."
"Interesting, they must keep it sealed to enhance the aura of lust and depravity," Max mused, "that's probably why you and your friends have had rougher than usual trade lately."
"It's not just the customers, not all of us sleep here but the ones that do have strange dreams, ... violent dreams of hurting people,..I mean really hurting them."
Max paused as if listening to a voice Peter couldn't hear. He sniffed the air as if scenting food or drink.
A woman dressed head-to-toe in black shapely leather armor walked in behind Max
"How'd you fare?" she asked
"Corbin needs a little bit of motivation to cooperate and the kid says there's a demon in the basement."
Olivia sauntered over to Corbin and gently took his face in her leather clad hands
"You've such a sweet face I'd love to see it twisted in pain?"
"You don't scare me!" Corbin snarled.
