Welcome to Gaia! ::

Malag nodded, and yanked the slave to his feet. He slipped a dart out of his blowgun, and buried it in the slave's thigh, causing him to shout in pain and surprise. Malag explained the process as he proceeded, moving the limping slave to a more appropriate location.

"First, we give them a pain enhancer, to squeeze every last drop of agony from the victim. Next, we move them to a nice, visible location."

His eye gleamed deviously, and he pulled a small satchel from one of his assassin vest's many pockets.

"This is my special ingrediant. This sets my architecture apart from all the rest: powdered fairy blood. Slightly magical, smells horrible, and makes you sneeze like the world is ending in a cloud of pollen. Also cuts down on resistance, which makes it hard to achieve the proper pose."

He blew a pinch of the stuff into the slave's nostrils, and stepped a bit back as the stuff took effect; the slave's eyes immediately began to tear up, and he began sneezing violently. This went on for a while, and the sneezing never let up; blood ran from the man's nose, and real tears of pain began filling his eyes. His muscles were twitching with the exertion of staying standing, and his face was turning bright red. Malag replaced the bag in his vest, and this time withdrew a climbing claw that fit neatly over his hand like a set of brass knuckles, but with the sharp, curved claws facing inward. He glanced over to Veldrin, to ensure that he was still amused.

"Most Drow whip their slaves, but I prefer a more... hands-on approach. It grants better control of the cuts, and you can feel what you need to do to push the pain over that barrier between suffering and excruciation..."

He slammed the claw into the man's back, and twisted sharply, causing the man to arch his back and cry out loud. Malag pulled the claw up through layers of muscle and flesh, rending his back up the spine, but never touching it, one claw resting precisely on either side of the cord. With a precision that only a trained rogue could muster, he tore up and out, snapping the cartilage binding each rib to the spine. The internal tension caused the ribs to burst outward through his back, giving him the appearance of a hellish, blood weeping, bone winged angel. The man threw his arms into the air, as though crying out to his god, and Malag slammed his ring into the man's spine, crying out. "Punititas!" The blow bent him back, as though he were falling, hands still in the air, but he turned to stone in less than a second, veins turning into streaks of black, the rest of his flesh transforming into beautiful, pure white marble. The effect was stunning; a perfect imitation of a fallen angel, done in human form. Blood still appeared to run from the angel's eyes, but it was merely crimson stones, transmuted from his bloody tears by magic. Malag leaned against the man's head, and gestured to the statue, smiling broadly at Veldrin.

"Jabbuk, I present you with my sculpture: I call it Forgotten Icarus."

Veldrin's attention, well, most of it, anyway, was fixed upon the brutal and grisly spectacle before him. The assassin was known to be a torture connoisseur, and his own interrogation sessions were considered to be masterpieces of suffering; long, drawn out affairs known to have victims wailing for days on end before finally being allowed to give up the ghost.

That wasn't to say that he wasn't impressed with the result of Malag's creation. The agony that the slave had been in must have been exquisite as his ribs burst forth from his body.

Veldrin began clapping when the slave was petrified, his flesh being transmuted into pure marble. "Most impressive," said the assassin as he circled around the statue, admiring the fine details of the formerly living sculpture. "Such exquisite detail. It will look magnificent in the throne room. How often are you able to create your artworks?"

((Thank you! His house is sort of like his museum; he keeps all the people that have scarred him there. One of them is a foot rest, the other is a dinner table! The rest are simply decorative though...))

Malag sighed slightly, and stroked the statue's face lovingly, like a child. He wished he could create statues of it's caliber more often, but to destroy was his lot in life, and he relished it in its own way. Taking a life was a far higher art form than simply bending one out of joint. To bend something is always easy, but to sever it from life completely requires passion, intellect, and a great degree of skill. Any fool could knife a victim in the back; Malag was determined to make each death by his hand a masterpiece in its own way, capturing the essence of perfection to the best of his ability. He glanced back up to Veldrin, a bit sadly.

"Regrettably, only once a week. However, I am rarely inspired more often than that, so I suppose it works out in a way. Come closer though; there is more to show yet."

A mischevious look appeared in his eye, and he knelt next to the statue, beckoning for Veldrin to come closer. He cupped his hand to his ear, and listened near the statue's chest. Against all odds, a heartbeat could be heard, though distinctly sluggish and irregular. The soft inhalation of breath could also be heard through him. A slow smile crept across Malag's face as he whispered reverantly to Veldrin, hands moving descriptively.

"Can you hear it? M'lord, that is the sound of truest, purest suffering. To scourge the flesh brings agony, and eventually death, but to torture the mind is a pain that will never be relieved. He screams, but his mouth does not move. His nose burns and itches, but he cannot scratch it. His lungs pump, his heart beats, his brain still thinks, but he is stone now, true and living stone. Death cannot free him from this torment, for how can stone die? His heart and lungs may stop, but always they will start again. He subsists on the very earth around him, drawing the materials he needs to survive from nothing more than dirt. He is immortal now, and shall be tormented for eternity by his own mind. Jabbuk, what I give you here is no mere gift, an objet d'art to be discarded when it goes out of style; no, this is an heirloom, a gift from my family to yours as a sign of respect and a prayer for the future. Though I am the only surviving member of my line, I hope that the alliance between our families may last as long as his suffering, our Forgotten Icarus."

Tagerion stood stock still, his eyes staring ashamedly through his visor at the statue. The slave had done nothing to deserve such a fate, in fact, he most likely didnt even deserve to live down amoung this horrid Drow. The man could never comprehend the will of the gods, or why they bestowed such horrific fates on the innocent, and let the wicked such as Veldrin , Malag and even Tagerion himself continue to walk the realms unabashed.

The Statue continued to steal his gaze, almost as if some unseen power was forcing the man to stare at the tortured being. He knew it was wrong, but at the same time the slave couldnt defend himself, so maybe it was truly the fate he deserved.

Contemplating this only furthered the man , this frustration at the destiny of the slave and the realization that there would be no more spirits he could ingest to forget such thoughts brought him near to his breaking point.
His anger intensified steadily as he stood there and the blade on his back began to humm violently, attune with its owner's emotions.