On a graveyard in the middle of nowhere stood a building, inconspicuous to the everyday visitor because nobody ever visited this place normally. Rows and rows of unmoving humanoids stood around the building as if trying to ward the living from the dangers inside.

In this kind of place, one humanoid leisurely walked towards the building.

“Your will?” a rough voice from inside answered as the figure’s steps went silent.

“Elrond, I have a reservation!” replied the person in a hushed male voice.

“One moment please, I need to confirm this claim of yours!” responded first voice.

As the door opened a figure almost half as tall and less than half as wide as the first came into view.

“Your reservation was confirmed. Quite the short stay, I must say!” the small creature welcomed their guest.

“Well, … this time I just have to lay low for a few decades!” after a short pause, Elrond explained his situation with a bit awkwardness perceivable in his voice.

“Your suite is ready!” came the uninterested reply, as if what was said was none of its business.

“Well thank you!” Elrond answered the statement with confusion.

The small creature led the man through a maze of winding tunnels to a small alcove with a strong beautifully designed door.

“We are here, this is your room!” proclaimed the creature while opening the door.

“This is a suite?” came a confused and almost angry question from Elrond.

“Space is precious, and the only thing ever done down here is sleeping. Should this establishment not be to the guest’s liking any customer may annul the transaction and get all payments fully refunded!” the small figure proposed without any hint of emotion in its voice.

Deciding not to comment on the lack of other doors in this maze of corridors, Elrond instead walked towards the door.

“I think I will be fine, but you should really think about renaming this suit to something more fitting!” was the only thing said to the creature, the anger replaced by a tinge of annoyance and a shaking head.

“Should the guest wake up prematurely, they only need to move towards the door, and it will open automatically. The door will register this circumstance and one of the establishment’s workers will come to pick the customer up. Of course, the customer will only be asked to pay for the time they actually stayed in their rooms!” explained the small figure to Elrond as he stepped through the door.

”Attacking the door will only lead to the door sapping energy from the customer! So, this course of action is strongly discouraged!” the small figure that never saw any reason to inform the large man of its name added to its explanation of the rules.

Then the door closed, and Elrond was all alone.

After lying down onto the luxurious bed, Elrond started to feel for the energies in the surrounding, meditated for a good 5 hours and preparing to go into a state of hibernation for the next 50 years.

 

---

 

Woken from sudden clattering, Elrond tried to move into a sitting position. Yet due to the long rest, his mind was not ready for such sophisticated processes as motion.

The next few hours were spent on trying to move while constantly falling asleep and waking up again.

He then found it in himself to sit up onto the soft surface.

Ignoring all the loud noise outside his door, he wondered where he was. Seeing as how nothing in his immediate vicinity looked even remotely familiar to him. The room was too small, the furniture low-key, and even the lighting was way too gloom for any sophisticated person to enjoy being where he found himself.

Upon stepping through the only object of high quality and meticulous design, aside from the bed. He found a beautifully designed corridor littered with bodies and pieces of stone in forms resembling debris of body-parts.

With his mental capacities not yet up to normal functionality, he just mentally reprimanded the owner of this forsaken place and their cleaning crew.

There were other living people in this corridor, but Elrond failed to perceive them until it was almost too late. As the naked person came flying through, he evaded the body, clad his hand in sharp Qui, and at the same moment decapitated the flying person.

Or that was the apparent plan, but his body had other plans. The result was that he cut right through the door.

To his surprise the door did not stay cut. Almost instantly the damage done was repaired. At the same time, a small amount of energy was drawn from within Elrond.

The attacking force did not seem to be surprised. This fact, however, evaded Elrond's perception.

He withdrew his hand from inside the door and retracted the energy from around his hand back into his body.

Shortly thereafter a second attack came through. To this, he reacted by pushing a tiny piece of armour out of his chest and rotating his upper body.

The armour pushed out of his body visibly ripping apart his clothes.

Seeing what happened to Elrond’s clothes the assailant immediately abandoned her plan of an early kill in favour of chopping off her target’s legs.

Realizing that he was wearing clothes, he instantly switched his battle-strategy from energy conversion-mode to survival-mode.

This sudden switch in strategy combined with his general unpreparedness for battle threw Elrond off balance.

While falling the assailant's attack connected and dug into Elrond's leg. But because the assailed man started to conjure a full-body-armour even before the attack connected no grave injury was conceived.

As the armour pushed out of his body, all of his clothes were forced into motion. Pieces of cloth flew in every direction.

Instead of mourning the loss of his suit or trying to understand the full spectrum of implications his action brought with it, he focused on trying to understand the overall situation he found himself in.

He spotted 5 living people and perceived the debris of stone starting to assemble into humanoid creatures.

While this was happening, the opposing force was busy defending against the shreds of cloth flying around. They did so by evading and conjuring small pieces of armour.

Having gained a few valuable moments Elrond prepared his next move.

When the next attack came, Elrond was ready and shot out 15 rays of energy, invisible to the naked eye.

The small balls of energy wiggled around and followed seemingly unpredictable paths.

The 2 people closest to him were almost immediately eviscerated by the shots aimed at them.

While the 6 shots that already finished their job just flew straight into the wall, effectively resulting in little more than small dents. The remaining 9 shots retained their unpredictable paths.

The three people of the offensive party still able to breathe conjured their full-body-armour. Thus, the energy-rays started circling around their targets, seemingly ready to pounce on every opening they would show.

Having effectively created a stalemate, Elrond retracted his armour and began to talk to his assailants. Peripherally he continued observing the stone-creatures.

The stone-creatures ignored Elrond and his assailants making their way for the end of the corridor leading upstairs.

“So, who are you people?” cutting right to the case, Elrond omitted all attempts at courtesy.

Instead of getting an answer the 3 made for the stairs leading upwards.

Elrond intercepted them by blocking the corridor with his body.

The guy closest to Elrond tried to get a tackle in but was sent flying in the opposite direction with a kick.

The kick did not directly do any damage due to being absorbed by the armour, but due to the sudden momentum-change and shaking of the brain inside the person’s skull, he lost consciousness.

A split-second after the person was sent flying, he exploded.

“Oh? Seems he was poorly trained!?“ as the other 2 stopped running, and began stepping a few steps back Elrond continued to speak with a shrug, “You should really answer my questions. The Orbs of Evisceration are rather long‑living. On the other hand, maintaining full-body armour for extended periods of time is very costly! Not to forget what just happened to your friend.”

The only remaining male tried to speak up but was immediately silenced by the remaining female.

“Shut it, Hep!” the female practically shouted.

“I wasn’t going to. Janne!” came the submissive reply from Hep, only stating her name in an almost challenging way.

Janne, on the other hand, gave only a short sneer as her reaction and managed to look towards Elrond just barely in time to evade the incoming fist.

“Always take out the leadership before the fun part!” as if to try and prove that his brain was not yet fully functional Elrond began to mutter his own personal wisdom.

While still muttering Elrond got 2 fists to his head, without much of an effect.

The fists were intercepted by newly conjured armour-pieces. Additionally to that fact, the almost equal power and opposite direction of the attacks led to the attacks mostly offsetting each other.

Hep started to run after the exit of the corridor after realizing that his attack failed and that Elrond was facing away from him.

Hep did not make it far. After only a few steps he was slammed into the wall by one of the invisible orbs.

It did not take long for him to pick himself out of the small indent that formed in the wall due to the impact with a fully matured and trained Martial Artist.

“If only one of the Knights was here” shaking his head at his own remark, Hep stood up seeing that Elrond was blocking the way again.

“Or anyone really. If Ufor had ...” before she could continue Elrond interjected with a thought of his own.

“Do not take me so lightly, these orbs are made with a special mixture of energies, a simple Martial Knight would never be able to see them, …” after a short pause, he added: “Well maybe a select few could, but even they would not be able to dispel them easily. At least not without losing concentration on their armour, making the effort very costly.”

“You do not even know who we are, what makes you think that your little toys are anything when confronted with Knights from among our ranks?” Hep threw an infuriated retort.

“Experience!” came the short answer, before adding: “The thing you are lacking the most. Whoever sent you, I have to reprimand them for sending such kids after ME!”

The demeanour he had been keeping throughout the fight was shortly lost as the last word had been oozing with arrogance.

Hep even winced due to the fervour and volume the last word was delivered with.

“Hep!” Janne spoke up in a warning voice,” I hope you are not becoming a liability!?”

“I would never dare!” came a very convincingly presented reassurance.

“That is good” stated Janne with a menacing voice, sending shivers down the spines of both men.

“I am wondering how long the two of you can keep this up ... I need one of you alive!” remarked Elrond absentmindedly.

After thus remarking he lay down while conjuring a trigger between him and the assassin-duo. This trigger, if working properly would let him know as soon as one of the two died, lost their armour or crossed the line.

“Any plans?” asked Hep a good while after their adversary lay down.

“No, nothing I come up with has the slightest chance of working against him” Janne replied dejectedly.

“Then I am as good as dead!” Hep spouted the sad truth.

“How so?” Janne asked having half-forgotten their current situation.

“I'm unable to hold the armour up for much longer!” came the explanation from her subordinate.

“Ah, … don’t be like that. Ufor, Omgar and Wensa are already gone. So you should be happy that soon you will see them again. Reserve a place for me, will you? It won’t take long until I follow you, whatever follows this life, we will experience it together,” the inexperienced leader tried to make their situation more bearable, which halfway worked until she followed up with: ”There is simply no way for us to win. And giving up is not an option!”

“But death is also not an option. I still need you, to find out who currently is at the top of organizations trying to kill me!” Elrond interjected into their conversation uninvited, then immediately reprimanded himself for how little thought he put into it, “Somehow I feel like I should have worded that a little bit better!”

A few long and silent minutes later the armour of Hep broke down and he went to a knee expecting to be dead. Bud death did not come. Unbeknownst to Hep and Janne, the Orbs had already faded into non-existence a good amount of time ago.

After the initial shock, as Janne finished collecting her bearings she tried to attack Hep to give him a fast death and prevent him from spilling any secrets.

But was quickly intercepted by Elrond, who sprung into action almost as soon as Hep’s armour went down.

Elrond knocked Hep out with a well placed hit on the head, threw him closer to the stairs and conjured a small armour-piece to intercept the sharp chi on the woman’s hands, and almost at the same moment decapitated her with a hand clad in sharp energy of his own.

“Now that I think about it, learning things like Concentration-Split is more important than experience” Elrond left an offhand remark to the corpse.

After dealing with Janne, Elrond turned to the not at all unconscious Hep, who was currently failing at standing up while simultaneously crawling to the stairs.

As Hep turned to the menacing sound of approaching footsteps he only saw Elrond cutting off his legs.

“Well then, as you chose torture over cooperation, I will happily comply!” the sound of Elrond’s voice sounded happy for the first time since he was so brutally awoken. Or maybe that was an acoustic illusion, due to the loud scream escaping Hep’s throat.

The first act of torture was stealing the hope of escape by sitting it out until he dies. To achieve such Elrond restored the legs of Hep back to full health.

Next, he stabbed right through Hep’s heart, inserting one of his special torture contraptions.

The little tool destroyed the heart of its host resulting in horrendous pain. Before immediately healing all the damage it did.

Then it started digging through the host's body until finding another spot where it can put Hep under appalling pain, constantly healing everything all the damage.

The healing did not give Hep any reprieve instead after some time he was hurting all over.

After a few hours of constant screaming and excruciating pain, the torture suddenly stopped.

“Are we in a talking mood yet?” Elrond inquired looking as if he just slept a few hours, while Hep went through the worst pain of his life.

In response, Hep just gave a death stare to Elrond.

“Of course, you can try to resist, but know that I can keep this up for centuries. Most give up after a few hours, some can persist for a couple of days. But everybody goes insane after a few years at the most!” Came the warning from the standing man, “And don’t you go thinking that going insane will help you any. I can easily pry into your mind once your sanity is gone!”

“Why should I give up before going insane, then?” inquired the still resistant younger man.

“As I see it, being dead is better than being insane. And of course, you would spare me some time, making me more inclined to spare your life. So, tell me who sent you. Why did the sending of your group occur? How did the process of you being sent here take place? That is all I want to know from you!” Elrond began to ramble like a lunatic.

What Elrond got in response was a defiant expression.

“You have 10 minutes tic, toc, tic, toc …” Elrond initiated the second phase of torture.

After about 5 minutes “tic” and “toc” of constantly echoing throughout the corridor Elrond gave a final piece of advice.

“You should really tell me, else you will experience drowning for the next couple of hours, tic, toc, …” he proclaimed.

Other than Hep’s squirming and pained screams nothing but “tic” and “toc” could be heard.

“10, tic, 9, toc, 8, tic, 7, toc, 6, tic, 5, toc, …” Elrond intonated.

“Kassandra!” came Hep’s voice to his own dismay and surprise.

“Huh? Why would the Idle Queen wish my death?” after a few moments of confusion Elrond asked for clarification.

“You killed Ifasa!” came a resigned reply from the man on the floor.

“The Bonecrusher!? That was decades ago! The Idle Queen I know would never spring into action for such ancient grievances” Elrond mused in confusion.

“No, I am talking about their son: Ifasa the Nightcrawler!” Hep gave clarification having given up all resistance.

“She is no newborn; she should know better than to grieve the loss of an assassin! Even if it was her son!?” utter confusion could be heard in these words.

“Not an assassin! … Yet strangely also not far from it?!” Hep drifted off into his own world of confusion.

“Nobody in their right mind would call someone who is not an assassin Nightcrawler. Each and every person called Nightcrawler had been an assassin … Except … No, you can’t be … Hey, tell me you are not talking about the Knightcrawler!” Elrond was practically pleading.

“Sure, I could do that, but it would be a lie!” Hep declared.

Hearing such brutal facts Elrond nearly fell into a state of panic, only his centuries of experience torturing others hindered him from running away asap.

His brain falling into overdrive thinking about where he may have killed the Parasite, Elrond shut Hep up by enacting a waterboarding-torture.

The Parasite or Knightcrawler was one of the most infamous people of this time period. This man often infiltrated organizations. After stealing all their secrets and killing off the leadership, he disappeared again. With this kind of operation procedures nobody was able to find out what he looked like or what organization he belonged to.

Remembering that the description of the Parasite fits what happened to the organization Elrond was part of until recently, all the pieces fell into place and it clicked in his head.

But never would he have thought that the Parasite belonged to the Idle Queen.

After calming down and ending the torture, Elrond posed another seemingly unrelated question.

“If none of these corpses, belong to you, who are they?” he asked, remembering that the woman from earlier only listed 3 names.

“They were all dead before we arrived!” Hep claimed.

The other man only stared silently into the eyes of the man on the floor. This told Hep that you should not lie to a master of torture.

“Ok, most of them were dead, the rest were crazed!” Hep conceded.

“Crazed as in mentally ill or crazed as in fighting against something trying to take over their mind?” Elrond almost screamed in concern, as you could hear his heartbeat quickening.

“… What is the difference?” the other man replied in utter confusion.

“You will know once you have seen both!” claimed Elrond unable to explain it properly.

Deciding that there is nothing more to be gained from this endeavour the old man left for the stairs in breakneck speed. Leaving behind a somewhat relieved and somewhat befuddled Hep.