Themes of Eternity: Compassion

Shouja
The man's screams were grating on my nerves. For Unolas' sake, it was only flame! Nothing to get too excited about. Fire magic was commonplace. Now, if I had been really exotic, I could have tried Meyerham's Festering Pimples of Acidic Pus. That would have been worth screaming about. Finally, the screams extinguished and the burning figure collapsed onto the floor. I checked the timepiece. One minute and twelve seconds. That's how long it took for him to die. I gestured, and the pair of apprentices moved into the room to sweep the floor clean. They avoided the spot where the charred remains of the criminal were slowly vanishing. "Well?" I asked, over the mental link to Pythias. "I say, N'tala, what did you do to him? The poor wretch is still screaming down here in horror," Pythias complained. "So he didn't permanently vanish after all? Drat. That's another option gone." I was feeling frustrated. We had been working for ten days now, experimenting on criminals and convicts, to try and find a magic spell that would be able to bypass the curse's resurrective power. "Nope. In fact, he seems to be more alive than ever, from the volume of noise he's making here in the underworld," Pythias said. "Well, hurry up and teleport him back to his cell up here," I said, letting some of my irritation show. "I don't want to waste any more time than necessary." "Umm... maybe we should wait a while and let this fellow calm down," Pythias said doubtfully. "We don't have many mentally-stable test subjects left, and I want to preserve them for as long as possible." The apprentices were bringing in the next subject, who was whimpering and trying to wrench himself out of their grasp. I gestured in irritation and cast a mild stunner spell to render him unconscious for ten seconds. They quickly dumped him on the testing grounds and evacuated into the safety chambers. "Whatever," I said absently to Pythias. "Just make sure he's ready to go by the time I finish off my supply of bodies. I'm about to start on another one now." "Oh no, wait! I haven't had time to prepare yet!" Pythias was sounding flustered. I ignored him and looked down at the huge tome in front of me. 3,782 spells left to go. I scanned the list, and found one that caught my eye. Oh heck, why not? "Meyerham's Festering Pimples of Acidic Pus!"