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Anstarra put down the report from Sarnai, drumming a fingernail on her writing table. She had things to think about, and she couldn't decide whether she was more pleased or disappointed.
The letter confirmed much of what she'd already suspected, in addition to providing various interesting tidbits, such as more information on the void-touched people's story. If Nicolae was truly a simple merchant, he was very much a victim in this whole affair, and was thus deserving of aid, and sympathy, and even outright pity.
"But there lies a trap," she murmured, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes a little. She remembered full well her own childhood, the fear, the violence. Twelve years, her youngest memories, an existence hellish in retrospect, one she'd been willing to do anything to escape. She'd been as much a monster as any she'd slain since.
How much more so these poor escapees? What might a man or woman tortured for, what, forty years, be willing to do for freedom? Decades of calculated torment, of being forged by a nightmare lord, an unfathomable creature of the Void.
She pitied them, one and all. And was all but certain that the best choice, the ONLY choice, would be to end their lives as gently as possible. Or at least, as quickly as possible. It was a terrible thing, but probably the only real mercy they could be given.. and the only way to make sure the world would be safe.
For she did not believe for a moment that Neruhm had accidentally let them slip. No. They had been loosed like poisoned quarrels into the world, and even now the venom was finding veins, seeping toward the heart of the Shroud. Each and every one of them was a weapon, whether they knew it, willed it, or no. Their own minds were suspect, to the last; each one a ticking bomb waiting to erupt in the worst possible way.
"How can we risk it? Letting them live.." she sighed, crossing her arms. Thinking of her fiancee, in the other room. Of Nihka's daughter, Sehki. Of all their friends, loved ones...
Anstarra's own adopted parents still lived in the Shroud. Bors and Joan... and Kian, their son. Her first love.
The thought of losing them, any of them, made it easy.
"I'm sorry, Carter," she murmured, as she slipped the report into the growing file of notes and tales and leveplates associated with this whole affair. "If there's any part of you that's still good, deep inside... I'm sure it would thank us, in the end."
She pushed her chair back, closing the file.
The letter confirmed much of what she'd already suspected, in addition to providing various interesting tidbits, such as more information on the void-touched people's story. If Nicolae was truly a simple merchant, he was very much a victim in this whole affair, and was thus deserving of aid, and sympathy, and even outright pity.
"But there lies a trap," she murmured, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes a little. She remembered full well her own childhood, the fear, the violence. Twelve years, her youngest memories, an existence hellish in retrospect, one she'd been willing to do anything to escape. She'd been as much a monster as any she'd slain since.
How much more so these poor escapees? What might a man or woman tortured for, what, forty years, be willing to do for freedom? Decades of calculated torment, of being forged by a nightmare lord, an unfathomable creature of the Void.
She pitied them, one and all. And was all but certain that the best choice, the ONLY choice, would be to end their lives as gently as possible. Or at least, as quickly as possible. It was a terrible thing, but probably the only real mercy they could be given.. and the only way to make sure the world would be safe.
For she did not believe for a moment that Neruhm had accidentally let them slip. No. They had been loosed like poisoned quarrels into the world, and even now the venom was finding veins, seeping toward the heart of the Shroud. Each and every one of them was a weapon, whether they knew it, willed it, or no. Their own minds were suspect, to the last; each one a ticking bomb waiting to erupt in the worst possible way.
"How can we risk it? Letting them live.." she sighed, crossing her arms. Thinking of her fiancee, in the other room. Of Nihka's daughter, Sehki. Of all their friends, loved ones...
Anstarra's own adopted parents still lived in the Shroud. Bors and Joan... and Kian, their son. Her first love.
The thought of losing them, any of them, made it easy.
"I'm sorry, Carter," she murmured, as she slipped the report into the growing file of notes and tales and leveplates associated with this whole affair. "If there's any part of you that's still good, deep inside... I'm sure it would thank us, in the end."
She pushed her chair back, closing the file.
![[Image: MBLxxyE.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/MBLxxyE.gif)