MageCrafter - 18. Interlude: FearCrafter

Tucked under the arm of a drunk and angry looking knight of the Silbel Army was a frightened and pleading little Hareling boy. He looked mostly human save for two large pink bunny ears that matched the color of his hair, and a tuft of a tail that poked out from behind him. He was bound, blindfolded and gagged in the same restraints that he had been in when he had stood on the auction block. The knight had recently gotten a bonus, and after drinking copious amounts of alcohol he decided to poke his head into a slave auction to see if there was any scared boys to play with. He always liked to break in the terrified ones. This Pink eared Hareling was by far the most shivering and terrified of the bunch, and he had paid quite a bit more coin than he had wanted to make sure he won that auction.

So much coin in fact that he was feeling pangs of buyers remorse. Sure this frightened lad was going to be fun to torment, but he had spent so much of his bonus on this scrawny little demi human. He’d just need to make sure this brat paid him back and then some with his screams of mercy. The knight considered himself an upstanding citizen of Silbel, and was quite nice to free human children and citizens of the country. However once they made it on the slave block, they were just objects to toy with to him. It was his legal right to consider them that way as well. What did he care if they lost their parents or they were stealing. The circumstances that put them on that slave block didn’t matter. Once they were up for sale, he didn’t need to think of them as people, and that made tormenting them so much fun to him.

The knight roughly tossed the boy onto his bed in his private quarters so hard he bounced off the wall. He had already greeted his friends earlier and joked about how there was going to be quite a lot of noise out of his bedroom tonight, and to not worry about it. They didn’t care, and even laughed, cause it was just some demi human slave after all. Who cares what happens to them right? The Silbel government all but made such a mindset law, though they did pay lip service to the idea of treating slaves nicely when pressed by other nations.

If he was going to enjoy this boy, he wanted to see his frightened face. That was always the best part. Enjoying their despairing face when they realized nobody was going to help them. Roughly he ripped off the blindfold and gag from the whimpering boy, expecting to enjoy pleading cries for mercy.

The kid instead stopped struggling and stared up at him with such a bone chilling smile and dead eyes that he had a tremor of fear in his heart for the briefest of seconds. He tried to turn it into rage and quash the feeling, but the Bunny boy’s ears seemed to have twitched the second that heart palpitation happened.

“Hi Mister Knight man. How much money did you end up losing on me?” The dead eyed grinning lad effortlessly got out of his restraints, never breaking eye contact, never blinking. “I tried to make sure who ever ended up with me paid through the nose. I do like to make sure I hit you peoples wallets as much as possible.”

What was he saying? He raised his hand to slug the boy in the face for his insolence, but all of a sudden a horrifying feeling of exhaustion flooded his body. The kind of feeling when he had broken a magic item by mistake a few months back.

“Mister Knight Man,” The bunny boy cooed as he stood up and stretched on the bed, “You probably shouldn’t try to do that. It’s not good for your attunement slots.”

“What…Did...you....Do?” He asked, barely able to think. He felt so utterly sluggish due to the curse of Exhaustion in his body.

“Well you see Mister Knight Man,” He whispered, grinning that dead eyed grin at him, only making him feel more fear inside of his heart. He couldn’t think straight anymore. “I used that tiny little bit of fear you felt earlier and I crafted it into a magic item called a Geas. Do you know what a Geas is Mister Knight Man?”

He didn’t wait for the trembling knight to respond as he leaned in and smiled so much wider. The bunny boys eyes dilating to pin pricks as he enjoyed the frozen man’s fear. “A Geas is a magic item that is given instructions by me that you are to perform. If you do not follow those orders, the Item will attack and destroy one of your attunement slots. You’ve already lost one of them Mister Knight Man. Do you know what happens if you lose all three?”

The Hareling leaned in and took his tongue, dragging it up the quaking man’s face as his ears feasted on the fear he was feeling. “It will give the item access directly to your soul mister knight man. Which means if you don’t follow it’s instructions, it won’t just kill you Mister Knight Man, it won’t even let you have an afterlife. No god will be able to bring you back if my Geas devours your soul.”

The boy let out a staccato of giggles after he told the confused man that, enjoying all the fear the man was giving him to play with as he crafted more and more items inside of the night with his concentrated emotion.

“Do you want to know what the orders are, Mister Knight Man? “ He whispered into the knights ear through his giggles, standing on tiptoes on the bed and leaning on the knight to do so. “Would you like to guess?”

“How....how are you...doing this?”

“I’m fifty nine years old Mister Knight Man, did you know that?” He nibbled on the man’s earlobe as he stood stock still in fright, not sure what to do at all anymore. “I spent so much of that time feeling so afraid, so scared of my master. He was such a cruel man, such an evil man. But then one night… he came.” A lustful noise came into the Bunny boy’s voice

“He was bought by the man, a lovely blue eyed angel of a Lynxian. I had foolishly pitied him so much, thinking he was going to live out his days in fear like I had been. He was such a small little thing too, couldn’t have been more than a toddler at the time.” The bunny boy giggled again.

“But I watched him! I did! I did watch him Mister Knight Man!” He sounded so excited, so yearning as he told his confusing tale into the frightened knights ear. “I watched that delightful cherub crawl on top of that awful, disgusting fat slob and strangle the life out of him with his tiny little fingers! He didn’t let fear stop him! He took control of it and he used his anger to end that pig of a human right then and there.”

The bunny lad pulled back and stared so deeply into the terrified knights eyes. “It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole life, Mister Knight Man. So beautiful, as that cherubic angel of a lynxian stared into the frightened eyes of the man who sought to make him a victim, and turned that fear right back on him instead! Mister Knight Man, I confess I was given such clarity that night that it made me realize I had been letting fear control me this whole time.”

The bunny boy licked the man’s face again, this time directly over one of his eyeballs as he shuddered in fright. He didn’t want to do anything that would trigger another attack on his attunement slots. There was so much fear inside of him now that he couldn’t think of doing anything but just pray the Bunny boy would let him go.

“He didn’t stop there either. No. My little cherubic lynxian kept on going! I know he did! I know it!I know it for sure Mister Knight Man!” He was yelling with such glee into the man’s face. He thought perhaps his friends might hear what was going on and come save him, but he realized with some horror that he had told them that it was going to be loud in his room and not to worry about it. As far as his friends in the barracks knew he was just having fun with his slave.

“I love him so much Mister Knight Man. He inspired me to be the Hareling I am today! He inspired me to bask in my fear until I reached out and felt the presence of such a wonderful caring being. A being that gave me the power to not only use my ears to feel the fear within others, but the ability to craft and manipulate their fear into magic items! It was such a splendid gift, and I got it all thanks to the inspiration that cherubic beauty gave me. My Love. My Silbel Strangler!”

He gripped the man by the collar as he giggled wildly, his grin stretching so far that it hurt him and made tears fall out of his eyes that he hadn’t let blink yet.

“I’ve been trying to find him! Trying to find my love! He’s just so sneaky though! Such a sneaky little lynxian! When I find him though mister knight man, we can finally be together! I’m not going to let anyone else have him!” His face took on such a frightfully angry expression so quickly that it made the man piss himself, “Especially not a human. I would never give up my love to a human. Never ever ever Mister Knight Man. He’s mine. All Mine!”

He petted the terrified knight’s face as he giggled, letting his face take on his grin again. “I’m going to tell you what the orders are on your Geas now Mister Knight Man. Are you ready? Are you ready to hear your orders! Remember, if you try to deviate from the orders my Geas will devour your very soul. You won’t even get a chance to plead your case to the angels and gods! You’ll be completely gone forever and ever and ever Mister Knight Man. So it’s very important that you follow your orders quite carefully if you value having an afterlife. Do you understand?”

The knight gave a barely perceptible nod even as his mind was overwhelmed with fright.

“GOOD! I’m so happy you’ve been listening, Mister Knight Man! Here are your orders! Don’t worry, I’ve given you all the tools you need to carry out your orders.”

The childlike voice dropped entirely as a jaded and cold order took it’s place, devoid of all the parody of childhood he had before. “I want you to pick up your weapon and kill as many people in these Barracks as possible. Starting with your friends Mister Knight Man. I don’t want you to be loud about it either. I want you to be a sneaky Mister Knight Man. I want you to slit as many throats as you possibly can. Once you are caught, my items inside of you will give you the strength and endurance to fight and keep fighting until you can’t fight anymore. Do not let them capture you mister knight man. That’s very important. If you can’t kill anyone else and they’ve captured you, you need to immediately kill yourself. If you don’t, my Geas will eat your soul right up Mister Knight Man. Do you understand your orders?”

The man nodded, moving as quickly as he could to grab his sword and exit the room with such a panicked look in his eyes. The Hareling let out a staccato of giggles and slipped his small body right through the window and made his escape out of the building. He would find a place to hide some distance away and listen to the fear within the barracks as they try to fend off their now super strong and homicidal companion.

The little Hareling hoped his love, the Silbel Strangler, would be proud of him if he could see him now.