The room was small and lightless. This is just temporary, my dear, he’d told her in an awful imitation of reassurance. With greater cooperation, you will of course receive improved accommodations. But we simply cannot trust you yet! You understand.
She didn’t see anyone for a day. She based her estimate of time around the meals that invisible servants brought her- a hearty breakfast, a light lunch, a three-course dinner. It was a surreal meal- eating a perfectly-prepared green salad in near-darkness with fork and knife that turned incorporeal if used against anything other than the food and dissolved as soon as she was done. He had really covered his bases. She had considered refusing the food altogether, but thought better of it. It was the only food she was likely to get, and he didn’t seem like he would go to all this effort just to drug her. She’d need her strength.
After her second sleep in that place, the other one came to visit. She’d seen her before, in the Pit. All that talk about potential came back with a vengeance. Of course you’ll be given lessons, dear! she had chirped, waving a hand to keep her prisoner from rushing the open door. We wouldn’t want to see you wasted. Naturally, your schooling will be a little more… let’s say, accelerated. You’re on the advanced track! She had tried to make polite conversation, but strangely, her prisoner was not very receptive to niceties. So she had smiled, winked, and disappeared without a sound to mark her passing.
After her third sleep, it was his turn again. No show of opening the door, no greeting to playact at being polite. He was just there when she turned around, and as she opened her mouth to scream at him, he reached out with one thin finger and tapped her on the forehead. And then she was unable to scream for a very long time.
Now it was later. No way of knowing how much later. She was laying on the floor. Her head felt like it had been hollowed out from the inside and left as a raw weeping wound in her skull. Her mouth was dry, her throat sore from swallowed screams. Her eyes were frozen, staring at the ceiling. She could breathe. But only barely.
The door swung open, and she managed to roll her head to the side to see a tall figure silhouetted in the doorway. Not even the now-familiar pressure of magical bonds to keep her down. All they needed was her exhaustion. The figure moved forward, and she flinched, expecting another hand reaching towards her face. But it was only a cool cloth draped over her burning forehead and the jostle of a body kneeling beside her. She blinked, and it hurt to do so. How long had her eyes been forced open by terror? How long had she been here? How long had he been inside? A hand to the back of her head lifted her up almost to sitting. Water was dabbed at her cracked lips, and when she did not choke, a clay pitcher was lifted to her mouth. She drank like a dying woman, and when the strength to grasp the pitcher herself returned to her, she snatched it out of the figure’s hands. When she put it down, the figure was gone.
Days passed, none worse than the last but none better either. His visits were torture of the physical kind, leaving her unable to stand for hours or days afterwards. Her visits were psychological, dangling unbearable rewards in front of her if she would only give in and be theirs. It would have been so easy to give in. It would be so easy to stop fighting it. Maybe she would.
The third came again after what could have been a week. It had been long enough that she was expecting the first to visit, and when she saw the long figure in the doorway she flinched backwards. But that thing had never bothered with doors. This one still did. He moved into the room and sat down in the same chair that the woman used. But while she sat forward, eager, her hands moving and her arms open, he sat slouched, tilted to one side, uncomfortable. He was looking away from her. She could not look away from him.
“Ulysses,” she croaked, her throat raw. He flinched at that but turned his eyes to her. They were less sunken than the last time she’d seen him. His face had filled out. His clothes were clearly expensive, and his long hair was well-groomed and tied away from his face. He looked better than he had before. Her hands itched to strangle him.
“Madison,” he mumbled. Coward.
“What do you want,” she growled at him, turning to face him as she sat on her narrow cot. She refused to be afraid of him, at least.
He sighed, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. If she hadn’t been busy being tortured for the past week or so, she could have fucking killed him for that self-pitying sigh. “You have been receiving instruction on-”
“Instruction? That’s what you’re calling it, you spineless fucking prick? Having your demons go into my brain and-” She cut herself off with a coughing fit that doubled her over and forced her to gasp for air. He waited for her to finish before continuing.
“You have been receiving instruction on the fundamentals of magic, and its use on an instinctual level. I have been sent to teach you of its structure.” He was looking away from her again. She could feel her anger rising, the same all-over heat that had filled her when she’d tried to end Nikolai’s life with her father’s wand. It gave her the strength to stand, fists balled, before him.
“Well, aren’t you generous.” Her mouth twisted in a snarl as she shook with the effort of staying upright. “Deigning to come tutor me after your servants softened me up first? Aren’t you a fucking gentleman.” Her legs threatened to buckle, so she stepped back, sitting with a thump under her own power rather than collapsing on the floor.
“They’re not my servants.” This was almost whispered to himself, a murmured aside. She snorted, disbelieving, and he managed to drum up the courage to look her in the eye again. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter, at this point, but none of this was my idea.”
She spat at him, and he flinched further into the chair. “You want me to believe that you summoned two demons into yourself and then laid back to let them call all the shots? You expect me to think you were against this? This is the worst fucking good guard bad guard I’ve ever seen.”
“Believe what you will,” he said, straightening up out of the chair. “I can see that now is not a good time. I will leave now.” She was too exhausted to even respond, bent over once more by the pain of breathing. She didn’t even see him leave.
The demon’s next visit was worse.
Ulysses came by again. He had some hope of her listening to him this time. He hated what was happening to her, but the most he could do was try to make his visits as painless as possible. So he had brought one of the most basic books of magical theory he could find- if the Stranger was going to insist on forcing her to harness her power, the least he could do was help her understand what was happening to her. When he came in, she was slumped on her cot, able only to roll over and glare at him. He put the book away.
“I was wrong about you, I think,” she began, her tone strangely light. He furrowed his brow in confusion. “When I said it was unbelievable that you’d let the others call the shots. That actually sounds about right for you!” Ah. It was insults, then. “You did the same thing with Nikolai, right? All that work, and all you did was trade one collar in for another.” He grimaced, unable to meet her eyes. “And now you can’t even muster up the courage to run away.”
He was silent. Long enough for her to sit up, leaning hard against the wall, and fold her arms. When he spoke, he knew he sounded ashamed. “They have my body. I gave away my claim to it. Now the only way I can exist outside of them is in this mansion. I couldn’t run away even if I did think it was a good idea.”
“And why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” she snapped back.
He spread his hands, a clear admission of defeat. “Look at what they’ve done in only a short time. All of this is the result of centuries of planning, with the backing and direction of the Nightsinger herself. What could I do to stop it? What could anyone do?.” He shook his head. “Better to do what they say. At least that way you won’t suffer before the end comes.”
“So you’re giving up!” She threw her hands in the air. “You know everything, right? Absolutely no room for hope, you’ve learned everything there is to learn and it all comes out to a big fat zero. Aren’t I lucky to be in the presence of the smartest man in the world, who’s never been wrong and who definitely isn’t just afraid to have some initiative for once in his life.”
Ulysses drummed his fingers in an irritated beat on the armrest of the chair. “I don’t have to know everything to know that it’s hopeless to go against them.”
She sneered. “You’re afraid. You may have given them your body recently, but you gave up your spine a long time ago.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, his mouth pursed in a thin slash. “And you’re not afraid of them? After what they’ve done to you?”
Madison grinned, clearly unfamiliar with the motion after weeks of torture. Ulysses blinked at her, not expecting that. “Oh, I’m scared as hell. But unlike you, I’m going to do something about it.”
The next time Elysius came, Madison seemed almost friendly. It was an act, obviously- no amount of perfect politeness on Elysius’ part would make that girl amenable to small talk after what the Stranger had been doing to her. But she was sitting up, and had clearly made some effort to make herself presentable. Elysius approved- it had been a while since she’d had a physical form herself, but there was no excuse to let your presentation slip. She smiled at the girl, who managed a half-smile back. Progress!
“Well, I see that we’ve decided to be cooperative. Is this the bravado of a heroine who’s come up with a daring escape plan, or the compliance of a smart girl who’s realized that the best way out is through?” Elysius tossed herself down into the chair, one leg kicked up over the armrest. “Because while watching you try to escape would be interesting, I’d hate to see what would happen to you afterwards.”
Madison inclined her head as if to acknowledge the point. “Actually, I was hoping you could answer some questions.”
Elysius clapped her hands, delighted. “Oh good! I love this. The brave captive seeks to outwit her captors through clever questions that give her just enough information to escape. No, darling, there are no sewer grates that you could fit through that lead to a convenient river outside the grounds, and no, the magical wards don’t deactivate at the stroke of noon for just long enough to let you evade us. Sorry to disappoint!” Privately, Elysius had suggested to the Stranger that they put a few such obvious vulnerabilities into the mansion’s design, just to see if anyone would notice. He had laughed, but it had been vetoed. Spoilsport. It wasn’t as if she’d have actually let anyone succeed.
Madison’s smile had grown visibly brittle. Not everyone appreciates good humour. “No, I didn’t figure there were. I just wanted to know what you meant about my potential.”
Elysius’ smile was genuine. This was something she loved talking about. “Well, dear, as I’ve said, you are one of the rare souls with the ability to learn both wizardly and sorcerous magic. Once, in my day, the two were one and the same- all magic was equally attainable. Now, of course, your new Mystra sees fit to separate these two in order to keep the lowly mortals from attaining the power of the gods. One born to magic cannot access it through learning, only experience, and those called to intellectual pursuits can never attain the instinctual powers that come so easily to others. Why Mystra makes exceptions, I’m sure I don’t know. And why you in particular should have been so lucky-” Elysius chuckled at the irony, for clearly Madison was not feeling terribly lucky at the moment- “well, that’s the province of the gods as well. But! Regardless! You are a remnant of a golden age of arcanists, a heritage that you should appreciate rather more than I think you do. And appreciating that is what we are here to teach you. Since it would take years to teach you properly, and if all goes well the world does not have years in which we could teach you, we’ve decided to speed up the process a bit.”
“Why teach me at all?” The smile had fallen off of the girl’s face entirely at the mention of how little time the world had left, which was only to be expected. Most people got so attached to the world that they couldn’t bear the thought of seeing what happened next. Elysius tried not to hold it against them.
“It would be a waste not to!” She winked jauntily at the girl. “After all, you’re most likely going to be the last such remnant to ever exist. We’ve simply got to make the most of you!” Somehow, this was also not received well. Mortals! So fragile.
“So. What he’s doing to me- that’s helping me?”
“Now you get it!” Finally, a breakthrough of trust. Sometimes all you need is an existential crisis to get you to understand where someone else is coming from! “Basically, he’s walking into your mind and finding where all that wonderful potential is locked away by inexperience. Then, all he has to do is let it out! Of course, it’s much more complicated than that, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.” Elysius spread her arms wide. “There’s so much you’ll be able to do once you cooperate! And that’s my part of it. I’m here to show you all the wonderful things you can do.”
Madison looked thoughtful. “And Ulysses?”
“Oh, he has the idea that if you know the theory of magic it won’t hurt so much for you to learn it. No idea if he’s right, of course- what we’re doing isn’t exactly standard practice. He’s a sweet boy, if entirely misguided at times.” And so obedient. Now if only she could set him up with someone to stop him mooning over his lost love, he would be a perfectly wonderful companion.
“And it’s not standard practice because it’s literally torture or because it’s an enormous violation of the person you’re doing it to?” Oh, witty repartee! How fun. It was almost like they were equals.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you’d stop fighting it! If you helped him open those doors instead of pulling from the other side you’d find it to be a much smoother process.”
The girl looked thoughtful at that. Perhaps she was considering her options, now that she had realized her situation. Elysius longed to detect her thoughts, but her mind was so fragile at this point that any unscheduled intrusion could set them back weeks. “How could I help make it easier?”
Oh, Elysius could have embraced her. “All you have to do is trust us! Open yourself up to the possibilities. Clear your mind, let go, and let the Stranger in.”
Madison managed another smile, more pensive than before. It was so good to see progress. “Thank you, Elysius. Could I- if I made it easier, could I change out of this?” She gestured down to indicate the filthy rags she was currently dressed in. Well, not much more filthy or raglike than they had been when she’d been picked up. This age was just so drab.
Finally, they were getting to the important things. “My dear! I don’t want to force you to spend another minute in those awful garments.” Elysius tilted her head and laced her fingertips together in front of her mouth, considering the palette she had to work with. Then she nodded her head and snapped twice. Without time to react, Madison was swathed in a gentle glow that dissipated to reveal a beautiful white dress. It hugged her figure just right where it needed to, highlighted her generous cleavage, and, if Elysius was being honest, was some of her best work in centuries. “There! Now, see what comes of being cooperative.”
“It’s- it’s incredible,” Madison croaked, clearly at a loss for words at Elysius’ generosity. Elysius beamed.
“Of course it is! Now, what else can I do to make things easier for you?”
Madison drew a shuddering breath. Still stunned, poor girl. “I think I’d like to rest again. Will the Stranger be coming tomorrow?”
Elysius smiled warmly. “Tomorrow is Ulysses, then the day after is the Stranger. And perhaps this time you’ll listen to the boy, hmm?”
“Yes. It’s the only way, right?”
“Right!” Elysius bounded across the room to kiss her cheek. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun now that you’re on board. And you’ll have fun, too!”
Madison’s smile was thin and tired and did not convince Elysius one bit. “Yeah, for sure.”
Madison woke up in a completely different room. For a second, disoriented by dreams, she almost thought that she was safe, that the days of torture had been a particularly realistic nightmare. But when she tried to sit up and get out of bed in one excited movement, she nearly threw up from the strain. Doubled over and breathing deeply to get herself under control, she saw the awful white dress that Elysius had “gifted” to her and nearly threw up again. Not a dream. Not an escape.
Her new room was lavishly furnished, with beautiful wall-hangings and an enormously comfortable four-poster bed. Still no windows. Still nothing she could use as a weapon. She wasn’t sure why they bothered, since she didn’t think a broken-off table leg would do much to a demon. Maybe it was to keep her from hurting herself. Well, weren’t they considerate.
Ulysses came to her room after breakfast. He had brought that fucking book again. Instead of being huddled on her cot, Madison was sitting in a beautifully-carved ebony chair next to a matching tea table. Both were magically bolted to the ground. She glared at him to dare him to comment about her new dress, which he wisely did not. Instead, he sat across from her and opened his book.
Before he could say anything, though, Madison held up a hand. “Can they hear us right now?”
Ulysses frowned. “No, I don’t believe so. They don’t monitor everything that goes on in the mansion.”
“Could they read your thoughts?” Her other hand was balled up in the fabric of her skirt, hopefully wrinkling the silky fabric beyond repair.
“No. My thoughts are my own. Madison, what is this about?”
She gave him a measuring look. In nearly any other situation, Ulysses would be the last person she would pick for this. But. Well. “How badly do you want to get out of here?”
That evening, Ulysses sought out the Stranger. He found him lounging in one of the drawing-rooms, laughing through his sharp teeth at a story being told by a pit fiend. Laughing through Ulysses’ teeth. When he noticed Ulysses he turned the full force of that grin onto him, swiveling out of the couch he had been lying on and striding to intercept him. “Why, Ulysses, how rare to see you outside of the library! Have you come to be social at last?”
Ulysses forced an unconvincing smile. That smile was by far the worst part of seeing the Stranger puppet his body around. His face had never contorted like that. “I came to ask you something, actually. Do you have a moment?”
“For you, my dear comrade in nihilism? I have all the time remaining in the world.” The Stranger swept an elegant bow, his top hat held in one long-fingered hand. “Shall we walk?” he asked, and offered his arm to Ulysses. Ulysses took it. He didn’t feel he had much choice.
Their walk took them down the long winding corridors of the mansion. Ulysses had long ago gotten the sense that there was no way to map the place’s architecture with a static image. Corridors twisted onto themselves, the same doors led to different places, and sometimes out of the corner of his eye he could see the walls moving as if they were breathing. Walking through it felt like moving in a dream. Ulysses couldn’t remember the last time he’d dreamed.
“So, what did you need to ask me about, my gloomy friend? Surely you can’t have decided you fancy my company all of a sudden.” Despite the fact that the Stranger was walking around in his body, there was something about the way he carried himself that made him seem taller, more imposing. Like he was looking down at Ulysses. “Is this about our reluctant apprentice up in the tower?”
There wasn’t any use in avoiding the Stranger’s gaze. “Yes. I wanted to ask about what you’re doing to her.”
“Oh, is it finally time for morals!” The Stranger laughed, a loud bark that had nothing to do with humor. “Feeling bad about my methods when you were so quick to consign those Cloaks to their fate! Aren’t we philosophical.”
Ulysses bit back his immediate reply. There was no use arguing personal ethics with an immortal demon born from the goddess of entropy. He’d always win. “The opposite. I am curious about how you’re… unlocking her potential.” He couldn’t lie to the Stranger, either. The thing was too practiced in the art. But he really was curious about what was happening to Madison. To gain as much as she had in such a short time- impossible. She might be physically weak from the process itself, but he could see how her power grew every day, even if she herself was not aware of it. If she would only let him teach her how to harness it-
“Oh, well it’s very easy, actually!” The Stranger picked up his pace and Ulysses stumbled to keep up. “All I do is take a stroll into her little brain and find where the power lives. Then all I have to do is let it out!” He was grinning ear to ear at the thought of it. Ulysses had to repress a shudder.
“If it’s that simple, then why not let it all out at once?”
A cloud passed over the Stranger’s crescent-moon smile. “Ah. Well, Ulysses, were you ever the sort of child to make a clay thing full of bubbles and put it in the oven to see what happens?” Ulysses shook his head no, and the Stranger nodded. “Didn’t think so. But I am sure you grasp the principle.” He tilted his head and sighed, an imitation of melancholy that was less convincing than his laugh. “Now, if only she would cooperate, I could be working much faster, and at much less risk to her! But she does insist on being stubborn. Ah, but you’ve seen how Elysius has rewarded her for her good behavior, haven’t you?” The smile was back now. It never reached his eyes. “I do have hope that we can move a bit faster. Perhaps we’ll even have her ready before the wheel is finished turning, hm?”
“How do you get- how do you go into her mind?” Ulysses asked, choosing to ignore the Stranger’s question.
“The same way I got into yours, my dear boy.” The Stranger smiled knowingly at him. “Although of course you opened the door for me quite willingly, with all your sigils and studying. A truly warm welcome for a charming guest! The difference is that her mind is closed so tight I have to drive an elephant through the front door every time, which rather damages the surrounding masonry.”
“Could I do it as well?”
This seemed to genuinely surprise the Stranger. He stopped midstride, their linked arms almost making Ulysses fall backwards before he could check himself. “Why, Ulysses Beijild! Are you taking a genuine interest in the business of manipulation?” The Stranger stepped in front of him and took both of his hands in his fervent grasp. “I never thought this day would come! Oh, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!”
Ulysses frowned as the Stranger mimed wiping away a tear. “You’re making fun of me.”
“Well, yes,” the Stranger said, releasing his hands. “But I do it to everybody, so don’t take it personally. Anyway! Yes, my scholar-prince, you could do it as well. Helps that you don’t have a body of your own anymore- I doubt you could have done it before, but, well. It’s much like how you ride along in my head when we go out and about, really. If you’d like, I could show you how to do it tomorrow!”
Ulysses nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”
Madison wished she could pace, but her new dress was too confining and she doubted she’d be able to keep up the energy for it. “Ulysses, you owe me this.”
The coward shrugged. “I owe you much more. But this could kill you-”
“And if it does, then I’ll at least go out knowing I dragged you to hell with me. He’s coming tomorrow. We don’t have time to wait. Don’t pick now to grow a spine. Do it.”
Ulysses closed his mouth, nodded, and reached out a long-fingered hand to touch her forehead.
He knew there was screaming, somewhere. He knew there was inky blackness around him, a vast ocean filled with hundreds of beautiful lights that flashed and spun past him. He moved his hand, and realized that he had no hand to move. He was only a thought, drifting in the endless void. No way to propel himself. No way out. No way forward. Distantly, he wondered if the screaming was his own.
Then a thread of shining gold, extending before him into the darkness. He grasped it without hands and drew himself forward. The lights flashed around him, moving past like stars in a spinning sky. He pulled harder and the blackness fell away around him.
In one moment, a mansion stood on the edge of a village. Its shadow loomed large over the once-sleepy town. Its architecture was beyond anything the villagers had ever seen, and it was thought by many to be an act of the gods.
In the next moment, half a mansion stood. The rest was rubble upon the ground.
Author's Notes:
Written 9/19/2020. The first part of what is, to date, the longest continuous thing I've ever written. This is an AU of the canonical events of the campaign. In the campaign, we had planned for Enna and the gang to rescue Madison and Ulysses from the evil mansion. I thought it would be fun to get into what would have happened if Madison had taken matters into her own hands.