"My neck is getting a cramp holding this expression!" The insane fury drained from Evelyn's eyes, replaced by mild irritation. "Honestly, can we be done? Being disembodied is so boring!"
Hanry stared, his mind struggling to process the abrupt shift. 'Wait what? Was it all fake?'
Before he could form a coherent thought, the wooden door swung open again. Evelyn's body stepped into the room. It was perfectly intact, clad in sexy clothes, moving with an eerie, fluid grace despite the absence of the head.
The headless figure strode purposefully into the cell. It bent down, scooped up the severed head, and held it up near the neck stump.
Hanry gasped, speechless. "That can't… that can't be real…"
But the impossible was happening. From the ragged edges of both the neck and the head, thin, red, tendril-like cords emerged. They writhed and twisted in the air, seeking each other out.
With a sickening, wet SCHLICK, they connected. More tendrils snaked forth, rapidly braiding together, reweaving muscle, sinew, and skin. It happened in seconds, a grotesque miracle of biology.
When the tendrils retracted, Evelyn stood whole again, flexing her reattached neck. She turned her head experimentally from side to side then grinned.
"Perfect!" she declared, striking a triumphant pose, one hand on her hip. She turned to Hanry, her smile bright and cheerful. "Sorry about the scare, squire-boy! Just business! No hard feelings, right?"
Hanry could only stare, utterly speechless. Jaw hung slack in stunned incomprehension.
'The head… talking… the body… healing… what the fuck…' His brain short-circuited, unable to reconcile what he was seeing against any semblance of reality.
Lyssandra chuckled. "Ah, yes, you probably haven't met Evelyn in her… full capacity. She's one of my favorite little projects." She reached down and patted Evelyn affectionately on the head, like one might a pet.
Evelyn immediately melted, pressing her face against Lyssandra's leg with a moan of pure adoration.
"Oh, Goddess! Your touch… your scent… it's heaven!" She began sniffing and rubbing her cheek against the glossy bodysuit, eyes glazed over, devotion shining in them. "I love you so much! You know I'd do anything for you!"
Lyssandra rolled her eyes, but a smug smile tugged at her lips. "Yes, yes, I know, dear." She gently nudged Evelyn away.
Lyssandra stepped back towards the door, her smile enigmatic and unsettling. "To seal our little agreement, Hanry, I need you to do one more thing first." She gestured languidly at Evelyn. "She will instruct you. Be a good boy and listen. I'm sure you'll enjoy it."
Lyssandra turned and walked out, the heavy wooden door closed, leaving Hanry alone with the now-whole, eerily cheerful woman. The silence followed was thick and oppressive.
Hanry stared, a thousand questions swirling in his mind. 'Enjoy? What does that mean? What does she want me to do?'
Fear mixed confusion, creating a knot in his stomach.
Evelyn bounced on her toes, grinning at him, her earlier adoration for Lyssandra replaced by a gleam of mischief. "Ooh, just you and me! Exciting!"
She took a step closer, tilting her head. "So… how are you feeling? After all that excitement?" Her eyes trailed over his bruised torso, lingering on his chest. "Hungry? Yeah, you look hungry."
Hanry blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt question. His stomach, he realized, was indeed rumbling. He hadn't eaten since before the ambush.
"I… uh, yes?" he admitted cautiously.
"Great!" Evelyn clapped her hands together. "Because I have just the thing to fill you right up!" A sharp, crackling laugh escaped her, a sound that sent a shiver down Hanry's spine. "Now, open wide!"
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Lyssandra strode down the dimly lit corridor. Her mind replayed the encounter, sifting through the details. 'Adventurers, contracted through the Guild, but sanctioned by the Royal Family…' She pursed her lips.
'That's unusual. Why would the Crown involve itself in a simple dungeon clearing contract?' A spark of irritation flickered within her.
'This dungeon is mine. I built it, I control it. I don't need some petty lords sniffing around.'
She remembered Hanry's words, the mention of the Adventurer Guild in Indyrge. Her pace quickened slightly when a thought struck her.
'The only royal connection I've ever had here is…' An image of Rosalinda, the arrogant princess, flashed in her mind.
'Could it be her? Did she betray my secret after I spared her? But no… I made sure she wouldn't. She was properly motivated to keep silent.' Lyssandra's lips curved in a cruel smile at the memory of the princess's desperate promises.
'And besides, if she had spoken, wouldn't she have told the entire truth? Wouldn't the King have sent an army to crush this place? Not a handful of inexperienced fools.'
She shook her head, dismissing the possibility.
'No, this must be someone else. Someone else who knows.' She thought back to Rosalinda's position, the layers of intrigue surrounding the Royal Court.
'Someone close to her? A spy? A confidant? Someone tasked with her protection, perhaps? Someone who saw or suspected…' Her eyes narrowed.
'That would narrow the pool significantly to… dozens, maybe hundreds of possibilities.' A low growl of frustration rumbled in her throat.
'This complicates things. I cannot have the Crown's eyes on my domain. Not now. Not ever.' She clenched her fists, feeling the familiar surge of power within.
But she couldn't do anything about that except those captured adventurers so Lyssandra forced the thoughts aside, focusing on the more immediate, and admittedly, more amusing problem. Evelyn.
A sigh escaped her lips, but her mouth twitched upwards.
'That girl…' Lyssandra mused. 'She gets wilder by the day. More unpredictable. More delightfully chaotic.'
The memory of Evelyn's disembodied head cheerfully insulting Hanry brought a genuine smile to her face.
'She was one of those women the Red Death Bandits kept chained up in their camp,' Lyssandra recalled.
'Bruised, broken, used until they were little more than husks. The others begged for death, for release from their suffering. But her…'
Lyssandra's smile widened with admiration. 'Oh, she did not. Beneath the despair, there was something else. A spark of pure, undiluted hatred. An obsession with vengeance that burned hotter than any fever.'
She remembered Evelyn's eyes, feverish and bright with malice even as her body wasted away.
'So many diseases ravaging her, yet she clung to life. To hatred. To the promise of payback against the enemies who destroyed her.'
'Such fire, such determination, in a broken vessel. I couldn't resist. She needed a little help.'
Lyssandra had taken Evelyn in, along with the other survivors – those twenty virgins the bandits had planned to sell.
A flicker of memory sparked in her mind, bringing a dark thrill. She had whispered temptations, offered impossible power. 'Just with a little suggestion, she agreed to be experimented on. The promise of strength, of the power to crush her tormentors. It was irresistible.'
Lyssandra paused in the corridor, closing her eyes briefly, savoring the recollection. The lab had been crude back then, the air thick with ozone and desperation. The patient lay strapped to the table, eyes wide, terror mingling with manic hope.
'Using the [Soul Vault] skill on a living being.' Lyssandra shivered slightly in exhilaration. 'That feeling.'
The memory was vivid: her own essence reaching out, tendrils of power sliding into Evelyn's struggling mind. The resistance, the mental shrieking, the desperate clinging to consciousness, it had been intoxicating. Then the snap, the sensation of something vital being ripped free, like tearing a tapestry.
Lyssandra's lips parted in a silent gasp at the sensation. Evelyn's physical screams had echoed the psychic wails when her soul was wrenched from its anchors, trapped within the system.
Lyssandra momentary reverie faded, replaced by a wry grimace. 'But alas, first attempts rarely go perfectly.'
She resumed walking. 'The process was messy. Her mind fragmented under the strain. Her sanity… let's just say it took an unconventional path.'
Lyssandra snorted softly. 'Is she loyal? Oh yes. Fiercely devoted. But her mind is colorful. Erratic. She hears voices sometimes – the remnants of her soul, perhaps? Or the other souls I've stored? Hard to say. And her fixation on her own body, on disassembly and reassembly…'
She shook her head, though a hint of amusement remained in her eyes. 'A unique creation, my Evelyn. A useful tool, if unpredictable. And endlessly entertaining. Let's see how the little squire fares with her.'
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