Deepest, darkest secrets.

Greg and Aylix centric this one - just because they're lagging behind, despite their entries being the longest.

Enjoy!

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Bill had led the three of them back out of the room as Robin broke down and started crying. As they left, Gregory looked back at the Seraklanite tied to the chair noting a thin, almost perverse smile on his face.
"He can't... he just can't be..." Robin sobbed, having had to be half dragged from the room, "Please! Let me talk to him! I know him! I'd know! What makes you think he is a Seraklanite!" her voice pitched up slightly, frantic and staring wild eyed at Bill, who wore a clouded and almost guilty look on his face.
"Because of this, lass." he pulled a leather bound book out of a pocket and tossed it to her. "We found that on him. It's a prayer book."
"How do you know it's his?" Aylix asked, looking at it curiously.
"It's his handwriting." Bill shrugged.
Gregory and Aylix shared uneasy glances as Robin flicking through the first couple of pages from the book, let out another sob and flung the book away from her with a small scream.
Aylix looked up at Bill. "Take her back to the other room and see if you can do something to calm her down."
"Wh-what are you going to do?" Robin looked up at the militiaman desperately, her breathing ragged.
"Just... ask him some questions." Aylix replied, not meeting her eyes.
"No!" she shrieked, scrabbling to her feet. Bill grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back dragging her to the door, forcing her through it.
Glancing back at Aylix and Gregory he opened his mouth as if to say something before thinking better of it and following Robin.
Aylix sighed and looked back towards the prisoners room, reaching for his hip flask from a pouch on his belt and taking a slug. "Well... this complicates things."
Gregory narrowed his eyes. "What, you mean it's now just that little bit harder for you to torture a man?"
The militiaman sighed, his head dropping backwards as he stared briefly at the ceiling. "Yes. Okay, I admit it... now he has a connection it's going to be harder to get the answers we want because we know that everything we do with probably make him cry out just loud enough for the girl to hear. We need to know what he knows though." he started towards the door. "I don't like it either, High Father, but we need to know what he knows. Why they're here and what they're doing."
The door clicked open a crack as Aylix pulled on it.
"I can't." Gregory said with a sigh, taking a step away from the wall. "I can't stop you doing it, but I can't in all good decency take part in the inflicting of pain on another man like that. Whether I know him or not."
Aylix shook his head, a look of sadness on his face, before he pulled the door open properly and disappeared inside without another word, closing the door behind him. Gregory stayed staring at it for nearly a minute before the sound of a punch landing and a grunt was clearly heard from inside the room.
The priest turned away, and returned to Bill and Robin, wincing as another moan of pain resonated around the room.

----

It was hard to tell how much time had passed by when Aylix finally returned to the main room, his face flushed, and drenched in sweat, blood on his hands, his hair hanging loosely around his face. Gregory and Bill stood as he returned, Robin had curled up on a cot in a corner, sleeping peacefully, though her face was still tear streaked.
"Is he still alive?"
"What did you find out?" the Crowan and the Traldan's voices mingled as they both asked their question at the same time.
Aylix shook his head. "Drink. Now. Strong." he choked out.
Bill handed him a bottle of whiskey and Aylix wasted no time in uncorking it with his teeth, spitting away the cork and drinking from the bottle like it was water. Fully a quarter of the bottle was gone before he came up for air, setting it down on a table as he lowered himself shakily into a chair.
Gregory sat opposite him, stunned by how shaken the militiaman looked. "Are you alright?"
"Of course I'm not bloody alright, you thick bastard! Do you think I enjoyed doing that? Enjoyed causing another man pain?" Aylix snarled, glaring at the Crowan. Another quarter of the bottle disappeared, and he let out a heavy sigh. "The Seraklanites have been working on this for years. Planning a time for the city to be taken so the Kryganites could move in from the Cathedral to the north east. He doesn't know why, or for what... but I got the impression that they're planning on using this as a distraction for something. Something big. He told me that there is something big planned at a ritual site near here that the Kryganites had been planning on using for something else."
Gregory relieved Aylix of the bottle of whiskey before he could drink any more of it. "Anything else?"
"I got a name... I think they're in charge of this entire thing... Apaten."
The sound of glass shattered as Gregory dropped the bottle of whiskey was like a thundercrack and several people woke up with startled cries.
"What the bloody Sharda are you doing?" Aylix moaned, staring in disbelief at the spreading lake of whiskey.
"That... that's the surname of the woman I love." Gregory gasped.