Everyone knows there is a map in the atlas right? Here it is again:

This is what I got so far:

 family_line |     kinship_line      |       hierarch_order       | species
-------------+-----------------------+----------------------------+---------
 Baliot      | Cobalt High Families  | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Lorease     | Cobalt High Families  | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Auno Troa   | Cobalt High Families  | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Uelthon     | Cobalt High Families  | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Celase      | Cobalt High Families  | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Rasaes      | Merr Holy Families    | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Ard         | Merr Holy Families    | Imperial Royal Lineages    | Human
 Tharnyl     | Patriotes Agnoa Morfa | Avjunct Principas Imperius | Human
 Thalaestai  | Patriotes Agnoa Morfa | Avjunct Principas Imperius | Human
 Blevunoe    | Patriotes Agnoa Morfa | Avjunct Principas Imperius | Human
 Eblersoph   | Noth Fexo Goeish      | Majikar Lineages           | Human
 Vina        | Noth Fexo Goeish      | Majikar Lineages           | Human

Hi. I’m busy making a Lineage database and I’m wondering what people would call the basic levels I’ve got going on here:

| family_line |     kinship_line     |       region_line       |  species_line
+-------------+----------------------+-------------------------+----------------
| Baliot      | Cobalt High Families | Imperial Royal Lineages | Human Lineages

So it’s basically going from the specific to the general -->

So I think family line and species line are fairly straight forward for what to call them. But I’m not sure about kinship or region line. For instance even here it’s not really about the region it’s about a sort of vague grouping, and what if I wanted to use the same structure for a priestly line or something? Where that field would be something along the lines of ‘Cohanim’ for instance. Region line is even about the lines of connection so much as about their power base and legitimacy to control a ‘thing’.

Also I guess species can just be ‘species.’

 family_line |     kinship_line     |     hierarch_order      | species
-------------+----------------------+-------------------------+---------
 Baliot      | Cobalt High Families | Imperial Royal Lineages | Human
 Kagan       | Cohanim              | Priesthood of the Jews  | Human
 Strauss     | Levy                 | Priesthood of the Jews  | Human

So it would be something like that (just using an example we are all familiar with Except may it should be Tribe Levy instead of ‘Priesthood of the Jews’ and have Cohen and Levy as Kinship)? I think kinship_line is ok for a name to call it. What should I actually be calling ‘hierarch_order’?

Or perhaps it should be more like this?:

 family_line |     kinship_line     |     hierarch_order      | species
-------------+----------------------+-------------------------+---------
 Baliot      | Cobalt High Families | Imperial Royal Lineages | Human
 Cohen       | Tribe of Levy        | Priesthood of the Jews  | Human
 Levy        | Tribe of Levy        | Priesthood of the Jews  | Human

Yeah sorry. I changed the name on the map and probably didn’t notify you guys enough. Most of my names are fluid and subject to change until I find something that fits better. In the future should any name changes occur I’ll enclose the old name in square brackets [].

@hexlor No. Not Fassogen. Not Sickle. Not really sure why I added him. Just felt like it I guess lol. He works at/for the facility.

wschwab 02/02/2026 22:22

Chapter 15 - Owen

I grit my teeth as I urinated into the bucket, grinding them together to keep a hoarse yell from breaking loose. Three days since the Sleeper, but it was still worming around inside of me. Leaning over to inspect the results winded me. The smell hit me first. The bucket reeked of ammonia and old fear. The cell’s poor light made it hard to see, but the urine seemed to be a brackish brown, an improvement over the streaks of blood that had been in it before. I finished, heart beating like a horse’s from the effort it took to use the bucket we called a chamber pot. Add the physical degradations to the list of Roddy’s crimes.

Lemmy looked over from the side of the cell, concern on his face. He looked away when he saw me staring back. I didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. I stopped a shudder in my hands from getting worse as I finished and got my pants in order in the dim light of the one lantern we were afforded in our cell.

I’d woken up here after another of that monster Sickle’s sessions. Apparently Lemmy had crawled back from being left for dead, only to get caught again when he’d decided I’d needed saving. I couldn’t figure out why he’d volunteer himself as my savior. We hadn’t even known each other for a week, and I’d introduced myself by taking half his money.

The cell had been a storeroom once. The outlines where shelves had been bolted to the walls were still visible, the holes in the stone filled with rust. A chemical smell clung to everything, turpentine maybe, or coal oil. The air was thick with it, made thicker by the stuffy heat. No windows. The door was new work, thick oak braced with iron, locks on the outside. Three of them. Lemmy said we were tucked away from the other prisoners. He suspected Roddy was hiding us from his boss.

🪣

A girl screamed. Not close, but the walls carried it. She’d been calling for her mama for two days now, hiccuping sobs that woke us in the small hours. Couldn’t be more than six. Same age as Amira would have been. I tried not to count how many days she’d been at it, tried not to imagine what would make her stop.

Lemmy’s eyes had that glassy look they got when the children cried. He’d lost weight. We both had. But it showed on him more, made his face all angles and shadows in the lantern light. I knew that look in his eyes though. Had worn it myself when I’d first understood what this place was. Children packed in cells like salt cod in barrels. A whole operation running, selling them to the highest bidder. I’d been conscious for one of Roddy’s visits. He’d made a point of describing the facility’s efficiency. How the “Boss” ran a tight operation. How nothing went to waste, not even the ones too damaged to sell. “Real shame about that,” he’d said, looking right at me. “Boss hates waste.”

He wanted me to ask what happened to the ones nobody bought. I didn’t.

Didn’t need to.

I leaned against the wall as I wheezed. The stone was slick with condensation, cold despite the stale air. There were worse fates than death. That truth had been settling into my bones for three days now. Better that Amira and Elane burned. Better that than this.

Lemmy’s head came up. His eyes flicked to me, then to the door. I pushed off the wall and shuffled closer, my legs still weak. Had to strain to hear over my own breathing and the ringing in my ears that hadn’t stopped since Sickle’s last visit.

Voices in the corridor. One of them was Roddy.

“…nothing of interest down here, I assure you. Just old storage.”

“Is that so?” The second voice made my skin prickle. Something wrong in the tone, like hearing words spoken backward.

“Absolutely. We can inspect the main holding cells if you’d like, but this area is-”

“I prefer to judge for myself, Rodenary.”

The fear in Roddy’s ensuing silence was the first good thing that had happened to me all day. Roddy was scared. I’d known him long enough to read the lack of a retort. The slime mold was getting a taste of his own medicine. Part of me wanted to bang on the door, let whoever was out there know exactly what Roddy was hiding. But if Roddy was scared, I knew that I didn’t want this new player’s attention either.

“It sounds like he’s losing,” Lemmy whispered.

Keys jangled. Multiple locks being worked, one after another. The door swung inward. Breeze stood in the opening, crossbow loaded, taking in the room with quick professional eyes. Making sure we weren’t trouble. I wasn’t. Couldn’t be if I wanted to. We both knew it.

“Behave,” Roddy said from the corridor. Warning me, or maybe begging.

The man who ducked through the doorway had to fold himself nearly in half to fit. When he straightened, he was a head taller than me even with my boots on. Gaunt didn’t cover it. He was skeletal, like something that had been buried and dug up, all wrong angles under an expensive overcoat. He wore gloves despite the heat. Something in the way he moved set my teeth on edge.

Then I saw his face.

No. First I saw the mask, fine porcelain, painted to look human. It sat slightly crooked, like it had been fitted to a different skull. Beneath it, where the mask didn’t quite cover, I caught glimpses of something else. Something that made my training kick in before conscious thought could catch up. That’s not human. Get clear. Find a weapon.

But I was locked in a cell with no weapon and legs that could barely hold me. So I stayed still and tried not to look like prey.

“Well,” the thing wearing human clothing said, “this does not have the distinct look of nothing, Rodenary.”

“I can explain-” Roddy started.

A gloved hand rose. Roddy’s mouth snapped shut mid-sentence like he’d been slapped.

“Oh no,” the creature continued, its voice all mock concern, “this looks like something indeed. What would the Finger say?” It shook its head, a movement with one too many joints in it. “What would he say?”

“I told you I might have-” Roddy tried again.

Another gesture. The thing never blinked. Its eyes, what I could see of them behind the mask, were flat and black like a lizard’s. Beneath the expensive tailoring it moved wrong, shoulders rolling in a way that turned my stomach.

“Of course,” it said, turning those dead eyes on us, “we might be able to ensure word doesn’t reach unfortunate ears.” It stepped closer. I could smell it now—something chemical and rotten beneath cologne. “I do have need of new… assistants.”

The pause before assistants made my skin crawl worse than Sickle ever had. At least with Sickle you knew the monster was a monster. This thing was pretending.

Roddy made a sound like he’d been gut-punched. “Listen. Fassogen. Please. I have plans for these two. Personal plans. There’s got to be something else-”

️‍

Fassogen. So that was the demon’s name. The one that could make Roddy beg. I filed it away, along with the fear I heard. Might be useful if I lived long enough.

“Oh!” Fassogen clapped his hands together, delighted. “Very well then. Something else it is.” He turned toward the door like he was leaving. The threat was clear even to me: Give me your toys or I tell.

We were pawns in a game between two spoiled terrors, and the real children were crying somewhere in the dark.

My fists clenched. Couldn’t stop them.

Roddy let out a breath like he was dying. “How much do you want for them?”

Fassogen turned back, unblinking eyes sweeping over us. He moved closer to me, head cocked at that wrong angle. Reached out with one gloved hand. I forced myself to stay still as he gripped my jaw, turned my head side to side like he was checking a horse’s teeth.

“Hmm. Strong jaw. Good bones beneath the damage.” The glove was leather but it felt cold. Dead. “Once quite hale, I’d wager. Not anymore, but…” He released me and stepped back. “Yes. I can work with this.”

He hadn’t even looked at Lemmy.

“Thirty marks for the pair,” Fassogen said, hands clasped in front of him like he was discussing the weather.

The words hit me in the gut. Thirty marks. That’s what I was worth. What we were both worth. Slightly more than a decent cow. Less than a horse. I felt my jaw clench tight enough to crack teeth.

“Thirty marks?” Even Roddy sounded shocked.

“Thirty marks!” Fassogen’s grin stretched too wide. “Come now, Rodenary. They’re damaged goods. One can barely walk, the other is… well.” He waved a dismissive hand at Lemmy. “I’m doing you a favor.” The insinuation that the monster was somehow doing a kindness by merely fleecing Roddy for us instead of snitching hung in the air, unspoken but sharp as broken glass.

“Thirty marks,” Roddy said again. Flat now. Defeated. (edited)
🪙

My only consolation was that Roddy was losing everything. Whatever arrangements he’d made, whatever profit he’d planned, all of it was being stripped away for pocket change. Good. My only anxiety was that someone else might cave his face in before I got the chance.

“Thirty marks! Splendid!” Fassogen’s grin never wavered. The monster was lying, I could see it in that inhuman smile. He’d take the money and tattle anyway. Get everything he wanted while Roddy got nothing.

The creature turned those dead eyes back on us. I could see myself reflected in them, haggard and beaten. “You’ll walk with me now. Running would be tedious for everyone.” The word tedious came out like a threat.

I looked at Lemmy. His face was blank, that investigator’s mask he wore when he was reading a crime scene. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping it locked down tight.

There was nothing to do but follow. Fassogen stepped out into the corridor, Breeze backing away to give him room. I shuffled after him, legs protesting every step. My mind was already working though, counting doors as we passed, memorizing turns. Cataloging the way Breeze held his crossbow, where Roddy stood, the layout of this place.

Fassogen might have bought me for thirty marks.

But I’d cost him more than that before this was done.
️

Zassin 06/02/2026 16:16
Chapter 16 - Lemmy

N.B. This chapter takes place prior to the events of Chapter 15.

The glum recrudescence of incarceration reverted my mind back to times long forgotten. The companionship of two bodies confined in misery. Not living but surviving, each day at the mercy of our captors. Mercy! Too kind a word for the situation we found ourselves in. They had machinations! Pawns to be kept alive, until put into place for grander schemes. Bodies to serve their wicked designs.

You can learn a lot about a person in three days: especially while their mind is still emerging from the delirium of a strong sedative. The tongue will tattle tales they thought they’d hidden deep away. Sickle had put Owen through a horrific ordeal. The kind of tortures that would break most men. It didn’t seem that there was any sense behind it, just that Sickle thought Owen had value to Roddy. Turns out he didn’t and now we’re captives.

Their relationship goes back to the wars. They were compatriots and Owen seemed to have been hoping that it still meant something. I don’t think that’s the way it works with people in power. Just trying to exert themselves over their charges. The stories Owen had babbled through while he lay sweating on the cell cot made my spine shudder. Jackals – a fitting term for creatures who scavenge the detritus of war.
I’d tended him over the last days. There wasn’t enough food for both of us. I gave him mine, and my water. He needed it more than I.

He reminded me of that courageous soldier. The man who took me out of that boat when all the other boys were dead or lay dying. I didn’t have much hope either, but I was prepared to do things the others weren’t to stay alive. He was large and silent. Threatening, but with fatherly compassion. Most would have put me down like a rabid dog, no hope for the dying, but he took me aboard their barge. Strapped me down and kept me alive. Eventually, he managed to get me the help I needed. Reversed the derangement and healed the mutilations I had endured.

He brought me home, but my parents couldn’t look at me in the same way. My mother’s eyes filled with guilt when she watched me shuffle athwart the upstairs corridors of our home, while my father reviled in disgust and would shut himself away from me.

My parents had shunned me, unable to deal with the changes I had been through since my kidnapping. The kind soldier’s visits were the only thing I looked forward to. My parents’ relief was clearly visible when he suggested taking me away and getting me boarding in an orphanage. He suggested it be just for a short time, but I knew no one would be in a hurry to get me back.

The orphanage was my second incarceration. Self-imposed but I had no way of breaking out of the shell I’d been trapped in. I kept to myself and observed the other children. Only coming out of my shell when my gallant redeemer would visit.
️

I’m used to the small space between four walls, now. They lock you up for petty crimes in Vereign. Sometimes I would do them just to get away from worse things on the streets, or to get out of the blistering rain, or the stench of sleeping in the sewers.

The parents and the orphanage were places I returned to time and time again, until I eventually swapped those cages for another. Military life didn’t suit me. It gave me a home, but I never got that sense of belonging. Following the illogical orders of men trying to exert themselves over their charges. It didn’t suit me, and I’d end up in their cages.

Now I was caught up again, but this time I had a compadre in misery. Someone who had also been broken by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
I’d keep him going. He needed me.

“There, there, my brave soldier. Don’t try to move. I’ll get you whatever you need.” (edited)

@Hexlor said:

Owen has new zombie arms! Was Rocky expecting that?

Also, he does not have zombie arms! He had surgical intervention to fix the damage Roddy had done to them by leaving them shackled behind his back so long. Rocky can decide what, if any, permanent effects there were. As far as I’m concerned at the end of my section there are no permanent effects, and he’s back to building up his natural strength in them.

It moves you sideways. You had last chapter. This one appends to that and moves you to the right point of capture if you want the Fassogen content, which is what I thought was your fellows goal. You are now in Fassogen’s lair, in the Watselands (renamed Wastrials), in the infamous facility, which now appears to be fully operational.

So my current thoughts are to have general catagories instead of the highly specific skills I’ve been using. So for instance medical would all be under one ‘white’ catagory. And for things that actually require specific knowledge and experience, like saying surgery would need a specialization.

Specializations would function thusly: you already have skills at the catagory but you buy a specialization and in that area it increases your roll by half and allows unrestricted attempts at whatever the skill is (like surgery). Attempting the task without the specialization results in a penalty of only being able to use half the overarching catagory.

Also thinking of having ‘double specialization’ where the specialization takes two specialization slots but doubles the roll (so instead of normal specialization which gives a multiplier of 1.5 this gives 2). And maybe the penalty being you get no basic catagory roll to add to it.

Examples. You want to do first ais, you roll your white catagory. You want to generally assess a patient, you roll your white skill. You want to prescribe some drought to cure an ailment you roll white. You want to do surgery you need the surgery specialization and if you have if you roll white * 1.5, if you dont have it you roll white * 0.5.

The exception would be combat skills which I kind of like being very detailed. The reason for using broad catagories is so that characters would feel more ‘useful’ and wouldn’t have to rely on players making sure they were covering their bases. Im not sure if this is actually preferred or not. Im not sure if this is actually what I want or not.

Also im thinking of having discrete costs for skills, instead of generic calculated costs. I think that this new method kind of covers my desire for generality, cost balancing, and specailization.

Lemmy and Owen get taken across the river part 17.pdf

Might as well put critiques to this chapter directly in this topic? Why not?

Part 17

Owen
The door opened. Good, I was getting tired of staring at the sheets of metal riveted into the door. Presumably put to stop people from digging at the wood. Like there was much chance of that, the oak was as hard as steel. I’d gotten a taste, once, when Roddy slammed my face into it after giving us a bit of exercise. He had to get us in shape for the sale. Fassogen the Puke Faced monster didn’t want stale food, I suppose. Had to be something puke shaped under there, right? Why hide it with a mask otherwise.
Excersie didn’t make much sense to me though. Maybe Roddy actually had a grain of heart left in him and he actually felt bad about what he was doing to an old comrade? Pfft. I must be delirious to be this stupid. Maybe Roddy just found it amusing somehow. Like we were a couple of old horse he was running around the corral.
Roddy thrust his way into the cell. “Well now. It’s packing time. Get up boys!”
Without waiting he grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. Lemmy was able to stand on his own. His hands weren’t shackled behind him.
“I know your still weak Owen boy. But I also know you.” Roddy had said something like that when he had them hammered on a few days ago. My arms were absolutely killing me. I started off bad in this place, and now I was seriously concerned whether I’d ever be able to use them again. Were they still alive? Or just old rotting branches, stuck on a living body.
The grab and yank nearly made me pass out. I said, after breathing hard and catching my breath, I said, “You’re a piece of work Roddy. Alright.” I stared hard into his face, my eyes making promises I didn’t think my body could actually keep.
“Hahaha, you got heart Owen, you always did! Shame about the fire ruining every meagre scrap you ever put together. You really thought that would be it? Haha. No my friend, It was always gonna be this way. You there, me here. Now, move!” He yanked me around by the arm again, my vision tunnelled, my head spun, and I stumbled into the corridor where his boys stood to take me on. Then he reached back grabbed Lemmy by the back of the neck and frog marched him out in front.
Roddy was grinning. Morning and Breeze actually looked a bit sheepish. This wasn’t going to be good.
They led us down thin, short, stone lined corridors, we were under grade and then, there, before us was a small dock in a small gentle canal of water. It was evening. Daylight still dying purple and dark blue in the sky. Dark water lapped at the stone pier. Wooden piles protected it from a small boat that lay alongside.
“Watch this Owen!” Roddy said as he tripped up Lemmy with a foot and a thrust of his hand and Lemmy tumbled onto a bed sized frame covered with strong iron reinforced bands of hide.
“Remember these!” He yelled as he slammed the lid down on Lemmy, now trapped like a rat in between the pages and covers of a book. One frame of bands on either side, and then tied shut at the end. We used to use them when we caught elves, or anything else of similar interest. Guess he decided to put them to use here in his new mission. Mission? Job. Scheme. Whatever.
My anger consumed me, but my head blinded me and I took a stumbling step towards Roddy then fell. First to me knees, then flat on my face. In and out of blackness all I could hear was his mad laughter. Something was wrong with him, I thought. Something always had been, but there was something new, it’s like he was breaking. I could barely grunt out the words, “you bastard…” as they threw me in the wrought iron capture frame next to Lemmy’s and threw the lid down on me. And then I could barely breathe and…

Lemmy
The men put us in the bow of the boat, strapped precariously to the gunwales, half of us each hanging out over the water barely a foot away, and then a cloaked figure crawled up the gunwale and into the rowing seat. It was huge. Four rag covered arms took hold of four oars and we were off. Roddy and breeze shoving the boat away from the pier with their legs. Roddy still chucking himself, he yelled out and waved, “See ya later Owen, always a pleasure to meet my old mates!” Again more mad laughter and then we were out into the river.
I could hear the creature, steadily breathing, propelling us fast with powerful thrusts. I recognized where were were, and deduced where we had been. We were in Slough Bottom, and our prison must’ve been one of the workhouses.
By bits and bobs I was slowly able to move my head around to try and see Owen, in the contraption next to mine near my feet. Eventually, despite losing hair, and gaining a few new scrapes on a face already full of them I brought Owen into view.
I took a risk, breathing was hard, but it was still doable, and tried to say, “Owen are you alive?”
I didn’t get past his first name when an oar whacked powerfully onto me. Thankfully the thick leather bands and their iron plating acted as enough armour that it was not particularly damaging but it knocked the breath right out of me and I panicked as I tried to gain it back in this damn banded frame trap they put us in, it was a close run thing. The near suffocation drove a terror right into my brain, and I decided to stay silent.
No one pays attention to boats on the river after dusk. It’s better not to, for most people. Mostly other dark shapes rowing past in the dark, or fishers with lights out to lure fish in. And the brassers, tariff men, patrolling, they still have to be avoided. Our boat however did not alter course except to avoid collision, no one glanced at us in our travels. Not once, let alone a second time. Like we were in an impenetrable mist, even though to me everything looked as it was supposed to be. I couldn’t account for that.
We swung out onto the Sonts, closer to the East shore and then out across the wide Obbic, out in-between the great barges, plying up and down the river, even now at this dark hour. With dread I realized our destination, and soon that fear was confirmed we headed straight across to the Wastrials and up a canal in the shore. We were going to the Loveless, the infamous Lowvess Imperial Penance Dungeon. I’ve never heard of anyone leaving there, not even the dead…

Owen
We’d been here a week… Kept in our own cell, again, but the guards have been trying to get us to recover. They all look like they were built by a Dun Rak mason, hard slabs of giant granite each one of them, and the faces to match.
You’d think a prison with this reputation would be noisy, screamy, frantic. But we’d seen no one, nor heard nothing, place was like a silent tomb other than the occasional grunt from a guard when you didn’t get their chin pointing message fast enough. After a while the guards did start talking to us, at least occasionally. They get bored too.
We got exercised in the yard. It a was huge expanse, the prison ran in a great ring of a building around it, in the centre there was a fat and short tower that looked like it was thousands of years old. Guards were in and out of it though, doing who knows what. I could only tell there were other prisoners because it was clear they were using the yard too. At least occasionally.
My arms felt like dead sacks of meat, but at least they weren’t killing me with pain any more. Felt like something weren’t quite right though. Still annoyingly tingly. I could start moving them again though, and the fingers too. And that’s something, ain’t it?
Turns out Lemmy was a stalwart companion when things came down to it. The capture racks disturbed him, I know that, he has nightmares, I probably would too if I’d been conscious. But one the guards told me how Lems badgered and harassed those unloading him till they finally got their on-base surgeon to have a look at me. I imagine I was pretty close to dead, since I was blacked out for three days. At least and some sort of work had been done on my arms. I got a whole nice new set of stitches on each shoulder.
Lemmy may be skinny, but heart is was actually matters. Something Roddy never understood, and never will.

Lemmy
A whole month and a half we’d been in the jail here. It wasn’t till after the first week till we saw anyone but guards. Eventually though, they started letting the other prisons take exercise at the same time as us. I met some unique people out in the yard, and some absolutely frightening ones. Most though were prisoners that were problems for the rulers, not society. Which meant that there were all sorts here, and many more nobles than one would expect to find in a prison. That’s one dark secret that seems to get kept. I suppose it’s too much of an embarrassment and danger to admit your uncle or cousin was arrested in the middle of the night by the Imperial Guard.
The other guests led me to believe that the stay here was more or less a one way ticket. However such exits were not in the way one would expect, like at the end of a short rope or some other gruesome final prospect. They told me people do leave the prison, but not back to Vereign, or any place ‘back in the world’ as they put it. They weren’t very clear on what happened or where, just ‘down into the tunnels, you see.’
I think I made a good bet on Owen, despite our initial meeting. He’s quite handy to have around the yard. Even in his weakened and damage state. It’s his presence more than anything else. I think people respect him just as a being. He may not be talkative but he still knows how to manage to get along. I wasn’t so worried about our safety in any case. Strangely this feels like one of the safest places one could be. The guards didn’t tolerate anything remotely untoward, and the prisoners knew they had no future they could alter.
Anyhow, I had a guess where we would end up, because I knew something the rest of the prisoners did not. Our final destination was somewhere at the feet of that Fassogen character, with whom we had somehow got caught up with.
So when our turn to head into the tunnels came I was not surprised nor fearful. And, thank God, there was none of that business with the ‘capture racks’ as Owen keeps calling them.

Owen and Lemmy
Owen and Lemmy were led into the Loveless tunnels. The tunnels were connected through some rather perilous physical backstops, including and inexplicable chasm underground to a facility just South of the Imperial prison. It was actually a relative hive of activity. That being 50 or so slaves doing various tasks And when they got there they were forced to join that activity. Leather rings riveted around their necks, with ropes that could be run up to rails or other fastening points. They joined the other slaves.
Neither Lemmy nor Owen could, at first, figure out the nature of where they found themselves, but it was immediately apparent, this was the last place anyone should end up. The air reeked of magic, and spilled fat. And Lemmy again saw the creature he said took them in the boat across the river. Here with no disguise to it’s long, disturbingly human shaped limbs. It wore a mask similar to the one we had seen on Fassogen. When it came two slaves went with it and weren’t seen again. A few day later two more replaced them.