Warning - this story is graphic in terms of implied and actual violence. Skip past the red quote block if you’re squeamish!
She was big enough, alright. Thick cords of muscle wound around her limbs like knotted rope, just beneath the skin. If Suzy had seen her with that look in her eyes standing up with an axe, or a club, then she might have been worried. As it was, the look was still slightly troubling, but it was marred severely by the fact that, for all her strength, she was tied to a chair. A steel chair, with thick rope. She wasn’t going anywhere. She nodded to Drefus, her assistant, and he janked on the cord; blade-thin steel rattled, and bright sunlight suddenly flared through the open blinds, right into the face of the barbarian.
Suzy felt her pupils contract, but she knew it would be worse for the Goliath - they weren’t built for the dark, and until this moment, Suzy knew that she hadn’t been able to see anything. This would be very uncomfortable for her, and Suzy knew now was the time to start with the soft approach.
“You are travelling with a group of outlaws and murderers. Where are they?”. Her clipped tone put emphasis on every hard syllabul, drilling it into the startled mind of her prisoner.
The eyes - those pale, cold eyes - settled onto Suzy, and she forced down the worry. She was disguised well; even if this monster cooperated and they dumped her in the alley across town, she would never find her way back to them. She had expected the Goliath’s voice to be like gravel, but when she spoke, it was surprisingly smooth, almost musical, but for the threat beneath it.
“Let. Me. Go.”
Suzy heard a chuckle from Drefus, as he carried the Box over to her. It was almost as large as he was, but that was more of a measure of the gnome than the box. He put it on the table beside her, and stepped aside, smiling his awful smile.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Suzy continued. “These people you’ve fallen in with are murderers of the worst kind.” Suzy suppressed a shudder, remembering the state of the warehouse when they had arrived. The victims of these psychopaths. What was left of them. “One thing is certain” she said, laying a hand on the latch of the Box; “you will tell us where they are. The only question is how many pieces I have to remove before you do.”
Suzy opened the box - not with a flourish, but slowly, allowing each of her instruments of pain to have their moment in the light before the next was revealed, the layers of the box fanning outwards to present the entire range.
“Most people cave after one, maybe two. You look tough, so I’ll guess at five. That’s if you don’t feel like talking now?” Cold, cold eyes, staring into her. Cold stares and Silence.
“Drefus, prepare her hand.
Drefus moved the small wooden table up to the goliath’s hand. The edge bumped into her thick knuckles, impressively more scarred even than the tabletop. Drefus reached out to lift the hand, to push the cutting table under it.
There was a crunch, and a shrieking scream, sung in harmony - one half from Drefus, his tiny hand wrenched tight in the goliath’s grip, and the other provided by the steel frame of the chair, rent apart by the force of her attack. The rope frayed and splintered; a thousand motes of hair-like hemp floating in the stream of light still pouring through the window as the barbarian hoisted Drefus and launched him across the room, where he splintered the old wooden panelling and slumped to a heap.
Suzy was rooted to the spot. The barbarian, impossibly, tore her way through the last of the ropes and stood, one armrest still bound tight to her arm, like an absurdly small shield. She lept, and Suzy became suddenly aware of the floorboards pressing on her face, and then the weight of a knee on her back. She tried to push herself up, and she saw her hand was red. All of it. My illusion spell! she thought sluggishly, and then she heard that voice again - the music was gone, now, replaced only with anger.
“Well well, what do we have here?”
Suzy’s head jerked back as the goliath grabbed one of her horns, now visible, and then the other. Her body still rang from the first punch, and she hung helplessly as the goliath picked her up by the horns, lifting her until their eyes were level; until Suzy’s feet, now clearly cloven-hoofed, were over a foot from the ground. the cold eyes bore into hers, and she could see herself reflected in them - her true face; crimson, with eyes of pure blue, pure terror.
“I told you to let me GO!”
The fury in the goliath’s eyes spread to her voice as she spoke, rising to a scream as she wrenched her with the last word. There was a sickening crunching sound in her right ear, and she felt herself being thrown sideways across the room. Her head was a bubbling volcano of pain, before she even hit the remains of the chair, and then she was tumbling, rolling in the debris, to come to a stop against the ancient filing cabinets. Dust billowed around her. She couldn’t open her right eye, but with her left, she saw the blurry form of the Goliath look at something in her hand, then toss it casually to land in front of Suzy.
Suzy stared. Her mind couldn’t comprehend what she saw, what she knew must be true. Impossible. Irrefutable. Incomprehensible. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, her consciousness chose to focus on Drefus, scrabbling to his feet and running for the door. It felt the pounding footsteps on the rough floor as the barbarian leapt after him. Listened intently as one of the chains on the door was removed, then as Drefus screamed; as his screaming stopped, too abruptly. It should have sickened her, but anything, anything was better than looking at that twisted piece of bone that lay in front of her. One of her beautiful horns, lying two feet from her head.
A floorboard creaked. Suzy opened her eyes. Above her, the goliath loomed, her cold eyes blazing with fury. Suzy hadn’t whimpered since she was a child. She whimpered now.
Suzy, dazed and reeling, didn’t realise she was being hoisted to her feet until they touched down on the ground. She’s going to kill me, at least. Suzy thought, It’ll be quicker if I don’t struggle. That was the training they had received. She was amazed that it was what she thought of now, at the end.
The goliath was suddenly close as a lover. Their hands were entwined. she looked up, to see the Goliath regarding the Box.
“That’s one.” she said, nodding to the hole where Suzy’s horn had so recently been.
The grip tightened. Suzy’s arm was suddenly pulled taught, paunfully. The goliath leaned in; her breath was surprisingly fresh, minty even.
“You said five.”
Suzy began to struggle.
It didn’t help.
Ok, you can start reading again now!
This week’s somewhat brutal Third-Party Thursday is the Path of the Ripper Barbarian subclass, a subclass I came up with for D&D 5e to make it possible to be a brutal wrestler as a barbarian!
How does it work?
The Path of the Ripper is a subclass dedicated to grappling and then damaging your opponents through the sheer brute-force and might of your body alone1. The Path of the Ripper is a brutal subclass for the Barbarian, which starts with you dealing damage to any creature you have grappled, and which capstones at the ability to rip enemies apart with sheer brute strength!
The Path of the Ripper barbarian is perfect for anyone who is looking to get hands-on, up-close and personal with their enemies. Their other features, in no particular order, include the ability to reverse a grapple; to force a spellcaster you’re grappling to save for concentration; to clamp down on a creature’s mouth to keep them from using it, and to prevent forced movement and teleportation from allowing a creature to escape your grapples!
So, if you want to become a weapon in and of yourself, to feel the bones of your enemy break beneath your iron grasp, then the Path of the Ripper is for you!
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You mean I’ll put down my sword and you’ll put down your rock, and we’ll try to kill each other like civilised people?