saltburnt inbox 2.0

[rehandle]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME: itsakindofmagic

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[ingeniar]

You mean it's not all looking good in a short skirt?

[nightsung]

I’m serious. Do you want to know, or should I sleep in Stephen’s bed for the rest of the month?

[ingeniar]

I want to know.

Also getting kind of tired of you using that as a threat.

[nightsung]

Until recently, I was a cleric of the dark goddess Shar. The Lady of Loss.

I trained as a healer at her Cloister. Support for clandestine missions. But they also taught me to torture people, to—erase memories, even as I had my own taken from me.

Sometimes the torture was magical in nature and sometimes it was as simple as scalpels, a pair of pliers. Chains and brute force. [ Stephen knows that skillset, from his time as exactor. She doesn’t want to name it. ]

I can compel people. Induce fear and then soothe it. I fight with radiant and necrotic magic, but I also know how to wield spears and morningstars. I’m stronger than most.

I didn’t think any of the deaths cleanly pointed to me, but—if we’re looking at those who are capable of both physical strength and magical prowess, I don’t think we can rule me out.

[rehandle]

[ Ah. So this is what it feels like - the protective, fearful instinct to say no.

Stephen disliked that. ]

Then we'll look for you in the next ones

[ A certain callousness in the throwaway inevitability of more death, but for the time being he's less interested in tact than he is in the underlying potential of what she's saying. Text makes it difficult to know, but it's not a statement of suspicion - it's a clanging down of the portcullis. The next ones. Not these. ]

[nightsung]

[ Shadowheart took that personally.

READ 5:07 PM ✔️ ]