CoSR: Bloody

Hello there.

It's me again, your all favourite four-eyed eyeless crow demon. My dear master gave me a permission to help him ih his mission to write down the chronicles of his vast family, the Schlegmori rats, and that's why I'm talking in here right now.

I personally think it's best to start by listing up persons rather than jumping to big events straight away, and I have just the right person to start from. Or, well, maybe not the best one to be first, but this person has really built himself a big reputation both among the Schlegmoris and other demons in average, and he sure is a memorable person. Not probably in the nice way.

I came around to get to know this person personally one day, when I received a mission from my master. It was a normal day for me, I had spent few days outside spending time and cathering information as I usually do, and I was soaring through the red skies towards the cave of my master to give my report to him.

Did you know that the sky around here is always red? Unless if it's night, of course, when it's black.

But anyway, I flew in to the cave and landed on a branch sticking out of the wall and waited few seconds for my eyes to catch me up. I immediately noticed that something wasn't right. My master, the big white rat he is, is pretty hard to miss, and I begun to worry when I didn't see him in his usual rooms. I sent an eye to check his whereabouts and found him in his bedroom. Of course I went there too, to check if everything was alright.

He was there, curled up in his bed, and had pulled his blanket over his head, so I could only see his ears and a massive amount of white hair. I heard him sneezing loudly.

"Master, it's me, Asken. You alright?" I asked him. He groaned and turned his head towards me to look at me with his pink-red albino eyes.

"I don't think I look alright. What is it, Asken?" I personally like his voice, but it was really down this time.

"I came to see you, master. Aren't you happy to see me?" He didn't bother himself to answer, but I know he likes me, so he diesn't need to. "Is there anything I could do for you, master. Can I be of any help?"

He lifted his head to look around the room. Usually his den is full of his little underlings, but this time there was only a small demon rabbit standing behind his bed and looking worried. You know those? The extra fluffy pink-furred bunnies which lurk under the beds of little children. They really are demonic things. Oh, and there was also two great tits (the birds, you know), but they aren't that useful. Sure they can be used for spying, but personally I think they're worth nothing. They are so small I could eat them without much trouble. Yellow little fluffballs. Well, they did have demonically red glowing eyes, but that was pretty much all there was.

My master seemed to notice their uselessness since he sighed and turned back to me.

"You could do me a favor. You know where the Boilhowlers clan resides, do you?"

"Of course I do, master. What should I do with them?" I asked and looked as he rose up to sitting position, lifting his blanket over his shoulders. He then grabbed a pencil and a piece of parchment, wrote something on it and gave it to me.

"Find a person called Bloody, give this to him and watch that he gives you what I ask for in this. It should be a small bag of powder, light enough for you to carry. Bring it to me."

I glared at the paper carefully as I took it with my claws. I have to admit that I can't read, so I couldn't really say anything about it, but if that was what master wanted me to bring him, then I sure would do it. I bowed to him and opened my wings.

"As you wish, my master." I fluttered away.

The territory of Boilhowlers is pretty easy to spot, as it has pretty noticeable landmark, standing right next to a sea. If you have ever seen a termite hill, this was pretty much exactly like those. Except that this war big. Really big. It was the size of a castle, and actually it was turned into a castle after the termites had died out inside it. The Howling Fortress, as it is called.

I flew to it's side and started flapping my wings like crazy to get high enough to reach one of the windows. This place wasn't really built to be a bird house. I spotted a cage hanging high above the sea (which is, by the way, called The Depth). I flew to the cage to rest a bit before finding an entrance, and looked inside. There was some kind of winged wolf creature inside. Or it had probably once been such. Not that it would be dead or anything, I could see this one was still alive, but there wasn't much left of his wings. The fingers of his wings were all broken off, some more than others, and what had once been the membranes of the leathery wings were now just scraps hanging from the wing-arms. His fur had probably been silvery white once, but he was clearly quite dirty nowdays, hiding most of his colors. He looked at me with eyes that were sunken deep into their sockets, and were all red and appeared sick.

Neither of us spoke anything, but the windy silence broke as a heavy window on the wall right next to us was opened. I could emmediately recognise the beastial rodent face of a Schlegmori. This rat guy was big, a lot bigger than my master, and his fur was pitch black, although covered with dirt, but not enough to hide the muscular frame and good fur underneath. The rat looked at me surprised.

"Who're ya? There ain't any birdies in 'ere usually", the rat asked, and I sure understood what he meant. I bet most birds knew how hard it was to get here and just didn't bother to try.

"I am Asken, a messenger from The White Secret, and I am here to see a person called Bloody." That sounded pretty nice, didn't it? Well, I knew Bloody, of course. I had never seen him personally, but I sure had heard stories about him. He is the master torturer of the Schlegmoris, and he's claimed to be the best on in the whole land around here in the art of pain. They say he is crazy, knows every possible poison in the world, and has tried most of them personally in himself too. This rat sure wasn't him, this one was way too healthy looking. Not too bright, but not sick or insane either.

"Ya wanna see Bloody? Well, c'mon then. I'm gonna take that corpse to 'im, and I can as well take ye too." I watched as he opened the cage, took the wolvish thing out of it pretty brutally and waved his hand as a sign for me to follow. I flew after him, and it wasn't untill now, when I could examine him completely, that I noticed he has four arms. And the lower pair looked like they had belonged to a lizard before, and had been sewn into this rat after being brutally torn off from their owner. Sure I knew Boilhowlers were a bit morbid...

I followed my guide down spiralling stairs as he dragged the poor canine after him. The skinny "corpse", as the rat had called him, didn't seem to be angry or anything. He only tried to keep his paws in order so that he didn't hit the stairs too hard along the way. To me he looked like he accepted his fate, which was pretty weird.

In the end we arrived into a large chamber, lit by torches, and which certainly looked like a torture chamber. I prefer not to describe it detailedly, the memory makes me shiver. It was incredibly dirty, smelly and full of everything you never want to see or smell. But as soon as we got there, I flew to sit on a place where had once been a torch, but which was now covered with something that smelled like guts. It was pretty much the only place where I could sit in there. I watched as my four-armed guide walked to the other side of the chamber and chained his poor victim into a rack that forced him to keep all his limbs separated and stretched out and turned his face upwards.

"Oi, hey, Bloody. Ye got a visitor" my guide said, pointing me with few thumbs. Now I noticed there was one other person in the place besides us. I couldn't belive my eyes at first. This person had almost a camouflage to blend him in the dirty chamber. I could see that he was pretty skinny rat, in a way, but the skinnyness was covered with fatty skin, spotted with boils, which was big enough to be able to hold at least three or four times the size of its owner inside. It was all wrinkly in weird places, and he even had a breast. Only one though, on the right side of his chest, and it hung around his waist. His fur was tangled, messy and partly bald, and so heavily covered with mess and dirt that -- unlike with the four-armed one -- I had no idea what it's color once had originally been. Only color I could see in him was his hair, which was mostly rusty, except for a part around his shoulders where it would have been black if it wasn't so dirty.

And he had loads of piercings. He had them on his neck, chest, arms, stomack and sides, and there were stuff hanging from them, ranging from small bags and bottles to sharp hooks and even two small daggers.

He shrugged his shoulders to my guide, giving me only a glimpse, saying apparently to me:
"Wait there, little friend. I'll check you when I have seen my dear customer tonight." He went to the chained wolf-thing and examined him thoroughly. When he walked I noticed he dragged his tail. It was relatively short, floppy and swollen, and looked like it had died a week or so ago without its owner noticing it. I shivered. This Bloody person wasn't even close to be worth to be compared to my beautiful master. If you put him and my master standing next to each other, they would be almost complete opposites to each other.

As he had looked at the canine, he turned to look at me.

"Sorry for the delay. What can I do for you, dear? Looking for something special?" It took me a while to be even able to speak as I had been caught with the staring of his wicked, mismatched eyes.

"Uh, right. My master, the White Secret, has sent you a request, which I'm about to deliver." I passed him the parchment, and looked as he examined it squinting. And then a horrifying grin appeared on his face.

"Oh, my! I didn't know the Secret was into this kind of thing. Excellent choice, though. This is marvellous stuff if used rightly. And it sure seems he knows how to use it."

"Umh, may I ask what is he requesting?" I asked cautiously.

"O hohoh! This is dried essence of a venom of a very rare and poisonous snake which lives in The Depth. Here, let me show you how it works. With the help of my dear corpse here." His gestures and the way he talked reminded me about noble people, which was clearly a huge contrast to his appearance. He went to take a small bottle from a shelf and put some water in it. Then he removed one of the bags attached to his own skin with piercings and mixed some weird powder from it into the water.

I looked at the wolf and saw him looking at Bloody with a slightly worried expression.

"May I ask who is he?" I asked.

"Oh, this? I don't know. The guards brought him here one day, and said that he should be hurt a bit. He's a philosophical person, nice to chat with. Why don't you introduce yourself, my dear corpse?" he talked walking around the wolf. The canine then looked at me, having clearly troubles in seeing anything. He tried to say his name once, failed, and tried again.

"I am sir Yasharencol shu Aridsan ol Daghareleo Bearer-of-the-Golden-Fire Arahayanol-" He was clearly going to go on, but Bloody interrupted by saying: "Whatever" without even looking at the sir whatever. Quite understandable, though. And I thought that Schlegmoris had weird names...

Bloody seemed to having got his mixing process ready and he turned back to face the sir Whatever, who sighed.

"It's done now. Are you ready, my dear corpse? Hey, Gripple, come here! I need you to keep his eyes open" he shouted to the four-armed one, who obeyed, and grinning slightly grabbed sir Whatever's head, holding his eyes open very carefully.

"Ah, very good, Gripple. You're learning. This sure is the right way to do it,  you didn't pop the eyeball this time. Good boy!"

I looked as Bloody put few drops of the stuff into the eyes of the poor sir Whatever, and I saw how the sir started to act completely different to the submissive attitude he had had just a moment ago. He screamed horribly and tried to get off from his chains. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the creature, as it sure was really painful.

We all just stood there, me being horrified, Gripple looking all professional i-have-seen-this-thoulsand-times-already-like, and Bloody looking delighted. It lasted pretty long time before sir whatever run out of strength and collapsed to hang trembling from his chains, still whining.

Then I turned to look Bloody (my eyes having moved further away from him, just in case).

"Oh, you probably want to bring this marvelous material to your master now, don't you? Here, let me give you this." He snitched another piercing-bag hanging from his throat and gave it to me.

"Bring him my greetings and sincere wishes, that my humble merchandise will be of some use for him", he said giving me the bag.

I croaked something for answer, took the bag and left as fast as I could leaving the smelling (Oh dear! How it smelled! I can still feel it in my sinuses when I think about it) castle and gliding back to my master's place as fast as I possibly could. I didn't even slow down to wait for my eyes untill I was back in the safety of my master's den.

"Master! I brought the stuff you asked!" I said, panting, once I got back. My master looked at me, took the bag and sent the bunny to fetch him some water.

"Master? You aren't going to use it on someone, are you?" he looked at me a bit surprised, and started to laugh. Or, well, he smiled and hmphed, but that's as good as laughing when we talk about him!

"You mean the most painful poison one can ever get into their eyes? No. But if it is thinned enough, boiled and drunk, it's the best possible medicine for flu." I stared at him, surprised, as the bunny came back with a cup of hot water and master took carefully just a little of the powder from the bag with his claw and put it in the cup, and drank it. After a while of silence he continued.

"Bloody is very proud of his job, I couldn't get this if I told him directly how I was going to use it. His feelings would be very hurt, and I need his alliance. I don't want to upset him."

He sat on his bed and I on my branch for a long while after that with only silence as our company (and the stupid tits above his bed). It lasted untill his albino eyes looked at me again.

"What are you still doing there?"

"I'm going out now, my master. I shall gather more information for you. Bye!"

And so I flew away, back to my own job.