Rise of the Archmage Alister

A slim woman dressed in a fitted black dress slid into the room where the crystal terrorist was being held. Her hair was hidden from view, the top of her head and lower half of her face covered by a black silk cloth, pointed ears sticking up through the fabric with soft patches of pink scales on the tips. Her eyes were piercing orange, sharp slit pupils glaring at the attacker. Takrok stood beside her, close to 7’ compared to her 5’10” frame, dressed in a stark white vest, dark grey buttoned shirt, and simple but nicely made black pants. He wore no shoes, deep grey-black skin coated with patches of black scales even on his feet.

His opal eyes and her orange ones were both leveled at the same target. The severed head of the crystal would-be assassin.

It was mounted on a pedestal in the center of the room that had been commandeered for royal purposes. It had partially healed by now, most of his neck recreated with twitching bits of meat wriggling from his stump. A metal ring held him in place around his throat. Despite no lungs, he could make noise. And make noise he did… loudly.

The man shouted profanities, though the profanities in question were borderline nonsensical.

The duo eyed the disembodied head, the woman with entertainment and Takrok with annoyance. They couldn’t say too much about the babbling, however; it was at least in part the result of a pair of spells. In particular, they had cast a Zone of Truth and Command over the table they kept him on, with a spell circle and battery continually recasting the effects to counteract his ability to absorb magic. In theory it was also empowering him, but with Takrok there they weren’t very concerned. They had performed an [Invasive Status Check] on him, and his level was in the high seventies; even with all the mana in the world, he couldn’t begin to hope to catch the dragon off guard - not again.

“Well well well, if it ain’t the scaly fuck… and the dragon! Doesn’t this seem a bit excessive for a decapitated head? Are ya scared or something? Are you a coward? Is the wittle dwagon a bitch? Worried about what tricks I might have? Who knows! We all know I don’t!” he rambled, cackling.

Takrok closed his eyes and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to respond to the challenge by crushing the head. “Be silent unless spoken to,” he said with a hand on the table, activating the Command spell. The babbling immediately cut off, though he did manage to get a syllable out every few seconds as he absorbed the repeated Command spell.

Relia, the woman in the black dress, stepped forward. “Identify your name, age, level, class, and the intent behind your attack.”

“I identify as Reven of Hollow Lake, which you know because you already checked my Status screen, which is real fucking rude by the way. I am twenty seven. My level is one plus one plus one plus one…”

The cheeky number counting went on for a time, totalling at seventy nine. "My class is Berserker. The intent behind the attack was to do what I was told like the rest of you stupid lackeys.”

Takrok managed to sit through the sass, taking deep breaths to keep himself and his draconic pride in check, “To the best of your estimation, what was the intent of your leaders? What was the exact wording of your orders?” The spymaster gave Takrok a side glance for taking the initiative on this.

A moment of silence passed as he struggled to come up with some kind of accurate yet vague response, but in the end he could only say, “My best guess is that I was there to cause chaos. I was told to harm the king but let him live when the bombs went off, then retreat using the scroll.”

A room over, a trio of people sat in a room with a large crystal screen used for scrying; Alliana, Reese, and the king’s record keeper, Erebith.

Alliana was grumbling to herself, trying to contain her urge to micromanage the interrogation. “Ugh, this cheeky miscreant… I could do a much better job at getting him to talk,” she said with a scowl.

Reese simply sighed as his quill flowed across a floating page and said, “You’re just looking for an excuse to torture him, aren’t you?”

This just got a shrug from the woman, who sighed, “Not an excuse, but I do feel it might loosen his tongue a bit.”

Erebith shook his head, doing the same as Reese and taking down every detail of the interrogation. “You saw his skills. He has [Insanity] at level nine. The torture and mind reading method is too risky. Frankly, the fact that we’d be able to get anything out of him at all is a miracle. Even then, anything he says is incredibly suspect…”

“Yes, Erebith. I got the report. I’m just saying, I think it would help,” Alliana said with a shrug. “Though I do admit that perhaps I am a bit… biased to the option, given what he did to my son and I.”

Back in the interrogation room, Relia clicked her tongue. “Berseker… not surprising… also unlikely to be given any pertinent details. Do you know of any other operations being launched simultaneously? What is the name of the people you work for?”

That just got a scoff, “You dumb bint, do you really think that I know either of those things?”

“I would like your interpretation of what you do know.”

With the specification, Command kicked in.

“My handler is my sister. Her name is Riven, That Bitch, or Subject AM 1.”

“Ah, that’s more like it. What does AM 1 stand for?”

“Animal Masturbator 1.”

Takrok just rolled his eyes, “Mature. What does AM 1 stand for in the specific context of your sister?”

“I thought dragons were supposed to be smart,” he said in a moment of free will before Command inevitably kicked in, “It means Anti-Mage.”

“Interesting,” muttered the woman, tapping her lip, “And what is your operational designation?”

“AM-2, dipshit.”

“How many parts of this Project Anti-Mage are there? Where is AM-1 now?”

“No idea, I only know about myself and my sister. You don’t tell a weapon how many replacements it has. As for where… I don’t know, you took her.”

“Took her? In what sense?”

“She’s inside me,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

A moment of silence passed as everyone processed what he meant. “Are you implying… you are two minds in one body?” asked Relia.

“Was me talking to myself not obvious enough?”

Takrok stared for a time before shaking his head, “No wonder you’re so mad. You’re not the first time I’ve seen you mortals do this kind of experiment… but it’s never less grotesque.”

“I prefer the term avant-garde, as my sister says.”

Erebith touched a spell circle engraved into the wall. It was a simple Message spell, connecting to another room, “Increase security on the body. It would appear it has an independent mind.”

A message came back shortly after, “It has already been increased. It killed one of the researchers before being restrained by the guards.”

Relia considered for a moment before asking “Who did this to you and your sister?”

“Whoever my family sold me to,” he said with a cackle. “I only ever saw the guards they kept around the cages that they kept us in.”

“Did you get the names of any other captives?”

“Oh yeah, we chatted lots. Had nothing else to do… except listen to the screams anyway.” He began to rattle off a list of names, a few of which later corroborated with a list of missing persons… a few of which were very high profile cases.