After a period of a few hours Kailiniam awoke, finding herself in a unadorned room with her arms, legs and fingers restrained were bound. A light filtered down from a glass orb. She found a few marks from the electroprods and being manhandled, various concealed instruments and weapons had been extracted. But there was two things that were far far worse. In the room were two mirrors well out of reach. positioned in a way so that she could see her back, in particular the back of her neck. On which had been needled in that Hexagonal symbol. And attached to the wall was an image of her, monochromatic but remarkably lifelike. On which was written three words..."One of Many"For hours she screamed threats of revenge and thrashed, after that for hours she sobbed for what had happened. Their was quiet despair. There was a hole in the floor where she lay and about twice over periods of what part of her mind desperate for anything to keep itself occupied reckoned to be a day guards came with either a baked potato or slab of bread and a small paper cup filled with water. She thrashed at them the first four times this happened, but they ignored it. For a while she refused these, hunger and boredom got the better of her. The mirrors were removed eventually, but the picture remained on the wall. After seven days she was hosed down with hot soapy water. It was not a pleasant experience, but when it had passed she soon longing for it to return. Simply because it broke the routine of boredom.This was not what she expected. Drow that were taken alive were to face either an interrogation, furious retribution or sexual assault, either one involving a fair bit of pain. Not to be locked away inside a room like this. The walls must have had wards of disruption in them. She could only sense the minds of the guards involved and while they did think of her, they were more likely to think of potatoes, their children or their wages than of her. They were in and out quickly and she could not get a good look through their minds and they never talked.Then, on the thirteenth day, her target without announcement came in. "I am sure you have some comment of how my death is inevitable on the tip of your tongue." Supernova said in a calm and slightly bemused tone, which she kept up for the entirety of the meeting. "I have heard forty six thousand seven hundred and twenty two over the years.""You mean from the two legged rats the squabbled over this frozen wasteland that no one else wanted?" She said as she began to peer into the strange mind."The one's that you were commissioned to avenge?""They had their uses." She said bitterly. "Namely in gathering up the starved cowards you have embraced as subjects and making them available to the masters of this planet. Your actions have earned you the scorn of many great houses." This was background activity as she looked into that thing's bizarre mind. To try to find something she could use to her advantage. All Elves are psychic to some degree. For most it was merely the ability to detect the emotions of those nearby. Some could look deeper or relay their thoughts to others. It was possible to train one's mind to make one's thoughts more difficult for a telepathy to scan. This one was not so much difficult to probe as it was strange. She concentrated her mind's efforts to get into the head of this strange being.Then she broke through.What she detected shocked her. She looked through the metal and plastic into the black cube at it's core. The mind of anything she looked through before was linked with it's body rather intimately. This one was merely wearing it like a suit. But that was only the beginning. An Elf, Dwarf, Orc, Even a dog, cow or dragon thought in roughly the same manner. Even the simplistic mind of a golem was based off a rough template of that of it's creator. Supernova's mind was like none of them. This mind was vast, cold and utterly alien. The closest thing to it that she ever knew was when she once stared into the mind of someone who was deeply invested in mathematical problems. But that was a mere organic mind twisting itself to do what the smallest section of it's thought processes, which raced by at incredible speeds. Thousands of interconnected ideas and concepts moved together and played off each other, setting off, magnifying and calming others at break neck speed. Of these there were at leas seven main sequences of events running. She tried to figure it out she knew there were patterns in there, but she could not make heads or tails of it. Worse still something, be it dread fascination, awe or some subtle quirk of psychology made it hard for her stare deeper.For three minutes she stared at her silent. Then Supernova walked around her, she continued to face her until she tripped. That broke her concentration and sent he back into the land of the living. "Had a good look? What do you think?"She recovered "You and your kind are aberrations, perversions of nature. While whatever decided to spite creation by giving rise to you gave you some faculties of note, you will in the end be brought before the Lords of the Dark Elves and be bound to their will.""So you claim. However, even if that does happen you shall never see it. That image had been put into the newspaper. You were not the first Drow Assassin sent our way. Merely the first to be successfully captured. For you such a victory means death in agony. We however are not petty, pain is at best a crude and inefficient tool to get motivation.""You won't say that when you are strapped down in one of our dungeons""You had a good look through my mind did you, do you believe we register damage in the same way? But in any case your future is dependent on your utility.""So you want me slave away digging up coal deep down some hole in some icy mountain for coal until your pets say that I am fit to enter society?""That's one option among several. One of the is to stay locked up eating potatoes and bread for the next few centuries like a beast in a menagerie. Something for our subjects to look upon to amuse themselves, to educate them and to expose your claims of supremacy and dominance for the nonsense that they are. Pacing back and forth and yelling threats of bloody vengeance and curses. And like a bellowing wild spawn people will cheer at the show. It would also be useful for when we capture other Drow. 'Here is a great assassin, quick and swift and deadly with a knife. More skilled than you, one of their greatest and yet STILL claimed by Infrastructure.'" She then reached into her pocket. "Or since your anatomy is very similar to that of a human you could be handed over to Detail for his latest battery of tests." She tossed down a set of photographs in front of her. "You would be heavily drugged of course to minimize pain and undoubtedly you would help the cause of our understanding. There are other options that become available with a little cooperation that shall be more comfortable and pleasant for you. The Committee shall give you some time to mull it over. Lastly, those weapons you came with will undoubtedly fetch for us a decent price at auction and that coin shall help keep our foundries fired."Supernova left the Room and Kailiniam sitting in it. She did not say anything, but she was not left unaffected.Previous- [link] Next- [link]