They had arrived at the tavern of Lyxnad the Torturer, who got his name a while back, when he was just a child, a little boy that sewed a litter of cats onto a drunkard’s back and set them ablaze. They carefully dismounted their horses and looked around, keeping their hands on their blades, which poked slightly out under their capes. Arlandi carefully approached the door, opening it with his left hand, while keeping his right on the sheathed Sword of Light, which was given to him by his Grandmother, the protector of the Light Realm, when she appeared to him in a dream as a ghost, five years after being slain by the Dark Empress, who united with the Orc Warriors and the lesser races to overthrow the Light Realm, securing the crown and keys to the kingdom, and this sword was meant to kill her. It was the only thing that could end the reing of terror that drove Arlandi and Bistula to the Torturer’s tavern, located to the East of the Great Swamp, where the drunkard, awoken to the burning meows of kittens securely attached by metal wire to his back, extinguished himself, diving in head first, as the fire had by this point spread to his head and his unwashed locks were now burning, and the oil didn’t help!, promptly gulping a mouthful of Great Swamp mud and then drowning in it to Lyxnad now-Torturer’s pleasure. As the rumors of what had happened spread, Lyxnad felt ever more powerful and feared by the local folk, who would bring him gift baskets of various food items, such as apples and apple pies, or they would bring him money, dropping to their knees and begging they be spear the skinning their neighbor’s been subjected to because they forgot to pay their dues that Lyxnad had set up, capitalizing on his reputation. Bistula, who grew up two towns over, told Arlandi all about this, all about what Lyxnad did. She told him tales of the tortures and the horrors. Of how Lyxnad drove families off cliffs onto jagged rocks, then made the others lick the blood clean off the rocks as he drove his swords through their skulls. Of how he ritually butchered pregnant women by boiling them alive in giant pots. Frankly, Arlandi said, he had heard enough. He knew that this creature was vile. But he was scared. He knew that one wrong move and it would be him in that pot as part of a human stew served to captive elf-slaves. The slaves would be forced to eat their masters, this is what Arlandi had heard. It seemed like Lyxnad the Torturer operated through a symbolic system of inversion. It was only a yet another confirmation of the dark forces permeating through the fallen Empire. The door opened with a creak. Arlandi peek inside the taver. It was dark. Nothing could be seen. All the windows were boarded up. He carefully walked into the darkness. Bistula held her breath. Suddenly a swarm of skitters appearred. They grabbed at his boots and started to crawl up his legs, down his pantaloons. Soon, all but his head was cocooned in a black skitter mass, weighing him down towards the floor. Arlandi’s arms shook as he excreted all his force, attempting to unsheathe the Sword of Light. His hand was on the handle but he just couldn’t gather enough power in him to pull it out. Bistula, witnessing Arlandi's struggle, drew her own blade, a silver dagger with ancient runes etched along its hilt. With swift precision, she lunged forward, slashing through the skitters that ensnared Arlandi. The creatures recoiled, hissing and scattering into the shadows. Arlandi stumbled forward, gasping for breath. But he had forewarned Bistula from engaging in combat. She was prohibited from interfering. Arlandi knew Bistula’s fate had been sealed. Lyxnad emerged from the depths of the darkness, grabbing Bistula by the hair and pulling her towards him. Her silver dagger clattered to the floor as she struggled against his grip. Lyxnad's eyes glowed with a malevolent intensity, and a twisted smile played on his lips. Lyxnad dragged the woman into the basement where he chained her to a pillar with cursed chains. The Torturer's eyes glowed, and illumined by this villainous light, Arlandi could make out the floor that was covered with blood and she saw women ranged against the walls, dead corpses rotting, dead from the beatings inflicted upon them for the Lyxnad’s pleasure. These were all the woman that Lyxnad had married and murdered, one after another. She screamed for Arlandi but Arlandi had already left. He ran out the dark tavern, escaping the horror, as soon as he had the opportunity, which Arlandi had provided, being taken captive by Lyxnad. He felt sad, as this was his first and only love, the love of his life and someone he felt that he was destined to spend the rest of his life with but he also knew that he was destined for greatness and something more, and that Arlandi was not ultimately worth dying for, as only he possessed the key to this whole puzzle. Only he, Arlandi, the inheritor of the Sword of Light could save this empire from crumbling, and it was fate who killed Bistula. Maybe, he thought to himself, riding his horse, Bistula was just a distraction.