Irregular

The second day passed, then the third and she had yet to feed them or give them any kind of sustenance. When they woke on the fourth day to their aching stomachs and sore throats, a strange message appeared in their visage. Strangely enough, he could understand the words although he was sure that he did not have the ability to write.

{Skill : Pain-Tolerance acquired}

{Skill : Pain-Tolerance Level one}

He looked at the others and they also seemed to be thinking about the message in confusion, he did his best to ask the others if the same had happened to them, and they signed back that each of them had gotten a similar message. He tried thinking about its significance before his thoughts were interrupted by his rumbling stomach, the hunger was growing worse. It had turned to pain, the lack of food gnawing at his stomach, begging for food. The thirst was more prominent, a burning sensation in his stomach. The dry throat begging for liquid, his lips crusted in blood and split from dehydration.

The hag appeared through the door and the torture continued, the pattern repeating from hour to hour. More torture, sometimes they would gain a level in pain-tolerance which eased the pain they felt by a sliver. Yet each time the pain tolerance leveled up the hag seemed to know and changed her spell so it hurt them even more than it did before. Their hunger and thirst reached the limits of what a human could endure after the fifth day, Three and the others went to bed not expecting to get up in the morning.

Unfortunately, they weren't that lucky.

Skill : Lesser-Regeneration acquired}

{Skill : Lesser-Regeneration Level one}

{Perk : Mana-Sustenance acquired}

Three was confused by the announcement, but he no longer felt hungry or thirsty so he counted that as a blessing. Even if it did prolong the time that he had to live under the torturous treatment. That was until the hag arrived that day and noticed that they had acquired the new skill and perk. She smiled that sad smile that made Three want to rip her throat out and entered his cage. This time the torture was not a simple finger pointing however, he was slammed face first into the invisible wall opposite of the hag. Then she slashed at his back and he felt something slice through his skin. He attempted to roar and struggle in pain, fear and pure undulturated rage. The enchantments kept him from wiggling even a finger, his voice was muted just as it had been from the first day. This new torture method went on for longer than the other one, soon enough the blood spilling from his back would have created a pool below his dangling feet if the enchantments hadn't s.u.c.k.e.d it all up, Three collapsed to the ground too tired to even remain standing.

He glanced at the witch to see her nodding to herself, for some strange reason it seemed to him she was encouraging herself, he thought he saw her shiver but he had to be imagining it, before moving on to Klostum. The rest of them all went through the same treatment. Even though the actual pain was less than the finger pointing spell, the presence of physical and lasting damage was exhausting. Once more a pattern appeared, the hag entered the room, if their wounds from the physical day had not healed enough yet she used the finger pointing pain spell if they had healed enough she used the slashing spell.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, Three had long since lost count. His pain-tolerance had leveled up to eleven, and lesser-regeneration to nine. The group had one small silver lining however, they had finally finished their own sign language. They could communicate with each other and that small bond of connection kept them sane. Three wondered what it would have been like if the hag had separated them, leaving them alone in the dark with nothing but pain and torture to look forward to. So the group bonded, like only a group of children under the most terrible of circ.u.mstances could.

Then the hag once more upped her experiments, she walked up to Three with a black globe of something in her hand, the ball drooped like a thick black liquid, and although its black drops of whatever it was hit the floor every now and then, the sphere did not reduce in size. The Hag pushed Three against the wall, then he felt the liquid core of darkness push through the skin of his back and he screamed, screamed like he never had before. Even though he made no sound, it was obvious to the others that whatever the hag was doing now hurt more than anything she had done previously. Three collapsed onto the ground unmoving.

He woke up. Struggling with himself, he tried to get up, but he could not move. He just lay there, staring at the wall his head was facing, not having the energy to move. It took a while for him to gain control over his body, until he finally managed to he sit up, only to stare at his hands. His fingernails were black, not a regular black, not the simple darkness of a night, it was somehow deeper, darker than even the blackest of nights.

Then he noticed the veins running below his skin. The normally prevalent blue was no longer there, instead, black lines sn.a.k.e.d over his arms in place of his veins. Then he noticed his skin, it was much paler than it had been before, an ivory he had not seen elsewhere. He was studiously staring at his own body when he noticed motion from Klostum's cage. He glanced over only to almost instinctively shrink back. By sheer effort of will on his part he managed to suppress it to a flinch. The somewhat large and previously chubby neighbor of his had changed dramatically.

Klostum's skin was now a dark gray, thick and rough. Thicker plates covered his elbows, knees and perhaps other parts of his body. Most importantly the boy had grown, and not just a few centimeters either, he was at least a good foot taller than he had been before, and almost twice as broad. The hair on top of his head was no longer the dirty hay blonde, but a shimmering silver. He looked around at the others as they started to get up, each and every one of them had changed.

The boy next to Klostum, who called himself Strem, had grown thin, skeletally thin even, and he had become near transparent. His skin was azure, a strange ethereal color that made him slightly hard to look at. The boy at the far end had turned into goo. For a moment Three thought Jer had been disintegrated into a puddle until the goo started coming together and forming a person very similar to Jer, except that his eyes, pupil, eye white and anything else, had become cerulean and he was drenched as if he had just jumped into a lake.

He looked at the girls. The girl directly across from him, named Valana, had gained bulk and had gray fur with stripes of red and a darker orange here and there. As she woke up she reverted to something resembling her previous self, the thick dark braid she had and the amber eyes staring at her hairier than normal arms in confusion. The girl next to Valana, named Sumi, was made from string, actual string and cloth, that was knitting and sewing itself together to form a person, one that when finished, stared at her own arms and body in horror.

Yinta, her neighbour was running her hands over her body in panic, bark having replaced her skin and her hair had turned to grass. The last girl, Fliít, was switching from normal to a being made of fire and back to normal, looking at herself more in interest than horror. She had been the one most aggressive and resistant towards the hag. Three could not help but be slightly awed by her calm reaction.

They had all changed, some more than the others. Before they could panic and discuss more about their changes, a whole group of people entered the room, not just the hag but seven other individuals with similar clothing, age and bearing as the hag. Each stepped in front of a cage and continued their torturous patterns from before. This time however, there was no break. Each day, when the hag slept, every few hours the group of individuals would switch and their torture would commence until they had passed out. Weeks turned to months turned to years. Three did not know, for he had lost all sense of time. There was only closing your eyes after suffering through agony only to open them to more torture.

He was no longer lucid enough to remember if he had gotten any notifications. He spent every waking moment he had thinking about ways to get out of the walls binding him, knowing in his heart of hearts the others were doing the same. He pinned most of his hopes on Jer, he was easily the smartest person in the room and that included the evil hag troop that was governing their lives. Three noticed more and more how connected he felt to the others, so every time they pointed a finger at him or cut open his skin he repeated the names of his friends, his comrades, even if that word was not strong enough to depict the bond he felt shaping. It was more like... family, yet even stronger still.

The names Klostum, Strem, Jer, Fliít, Sumi, Yinta, Valana. He held them close to his heart, taking courage and strength from their presence, their very existence. At the same time, a dark and festering seed burrowed into his heart, a hate aimed solely at the evil hag troop and whatever purpose they had. He allowed the festering seed to grow and flourish under the torture. Deep roots grasped his heart, growing ever more from his resentment and fury.