Madam Balu's First Brothal Account, Arena District - Morrowind

An Accounting of Madam Balu, Arena Brothal Incident

For most their taste is simple. The desire for companionship runs deep in all races. It’s what binds men and women, beast and creature alike. That good and pure desire. And we catered to all.

But for some, their taste is for power. A longing that can only be sated by drinking their fill from the suffering of their victims. To make others tremble and bend spirit to their own will. And for one, even that was not enough.

She had a cool countenance to her. Her stare was ice. Her clothes in black. Her words mercurial. So that when she’d walk there’d be a wake of foreboding, which echoed behind. And a sense that she’d just trespassed upon the sanctity of your grave.

It was unusual for a redguard to be this far from home but not unheard of. And yet even so, her skin was an unnatural dark, nearly ebony in both color and texture. A gloom skin. Tall and frail, but with deep sunken eyes and a quiet solemnitude that would engender some pity if it weren’t for her reserved and haughty speech.

I brought the most beautiful out for her to choose. She seemed more distracted than intrigued.

“Do you like them?” I asked gingerly.

She said nothing. There were a growing number starting to assemble just outside the room. Growing more boldly with my inquiry I asked, “Do they please you?” She had said nothing, and then dropped a golden amulet from her neck into my hands while pointing.

Four weeks she’d come in. At times it was earrings, or anklets. Occasionally sampling some of our beauties. More often than not she’d be content with tracing the contours of their form for hours. As if looking for some hidden meaning in the soft lines of some lost innocence. And always leaving with a single strand of each conquests hair.

Again, trophies are not entirely unheard of; but they sensed it. And the guards sensed it. Sometimes the other patrons would feel it. Something was wrong. But times were rough. Since the passing of my husband our finances were slowly tumbling into oblivion, and I wasn’t about to turn away a rich idiot.

It was only I—in my zeal for gold—who paid these intuitions no mind. And as the weeks pressed on I gladly kept a private room just for our patron. Secluded and furnished with rich adornments. The finest netchleather and the most luscious fruit. Always she’d been generous with her wealth. Too generous. ‘What a fool’ I thought. For the price one could have bought two slaves or more. It should have…

It was when she asked for firesalts one evening that I was taken aback. Not once in her entire tenure had she made a request of me. Other than the girls of course. Although there are potent aphrodisiacs for the more unscrupulous, often alchemists would use their own concoctions to increase virility or stamina. It was only natural to assume she’d do the same. And after 3 months of continual nights… well it’d be only natural.

As I looked over the ledger my eyes widened. An uncharacteristic turn, she’d taken three tonight. The others had left early, celebrating some harvest festival. More than likely running into the beds of the regular clients they took on the outside. The ones they think I don’t know about. It was of little consequence, occasionally adding slack in the leash made for more compliant workforce. A quieter house at the very least. “No wonder the salts.” I thought aloud, and closed early.

As I lay in my chamber, no sleep could find me. Something more and more unusual given my age. Quiet though it was, the peaceful rest that usually accompanied a full day did not follow. Illuminated only by the dance of the torch bugs, glimmering through the narrow panes, adjacent to my still unconscious self. They cast spectral forms on the now translucent shards of ill-tempered glass. Dancing in and out of reality as they moved past my field of view. Like burning oil soaking into the recesses of a page. Until at a moment they darted off in a billion directions. Leaving me only in shadow.

And so I wandered. Keenly aware of our one patron, still in the likely throws of ecstasy. Still after 7 hours. It had me curious. We have a strict policy on the privacy of all. Something I’d not broken in 40 years, yet… something wasn’t… Not sure even how to form the words but standing in the hallway I could tell this now. Feel it without knowing it. Something was pulling me towards that door.

The gasps and mewlings were audible now. For a moment I thought they were weeping. And then as I peered through the keyhole I saw…

It was unholy, obscene. The dark and naked redguard was blocking most of the view but I saw its shadow. And the marks of blood and charred wood upon the floor. All in intricate unearthly filigree which darted from floorboard to ceiling top. As if some sick mandala had wrapped its tentacles and tore itself into the fabric of my reality.

“Why hello there,” she said in a nonchalant derissitude. Never looking back or even acknowledging, save for the spine toothed grin that I knew she now wore. “They’ve told me such delightful things about you.”

My knees were hollow. My heart, missing. And the twist of the doorknob, pull of the frame, the steps themselves were mine; and not mine. And it was there that I could see in full magnificent unyielding awe the horror that had visited my halls for the past weeks. Unclothed and commanding, but it was not what held my view. For what lay behind was something truly monstrous.

It spoke, or at least it tried to. The tongues moved, the lips curled. Its arms all gesticulated in pulsing rhythm. The three girls were now suspended, heads towards the floor, and prone in the air. Hovering inches off the ground by some unseen force. One looked to be crying—the second, praying—and the third, the third I could not see. All of them were in an arc, backs against one another, and eyes agape with unknowable terror. No… not against one another, through one another. They had been fused.

And as I glanced up and down this wretched form I felt guilt in my fascination. There held little distinction where one ribcage would naturally begin and another terminate. Holes had been punctured through each, from the bones of another, and the skin had taken on the bloody sheen of that which had none. But there was skin which covered most... of it… them. There was life here. And as I took a closer look down its long spiraling neck, a neck that was far too long for anything which used to call itself man or mer, that form had a strange air about it.

For each of the heads were not separate, but mixed and conjoined with one another. Where the supple beauty and symmetry once lay, an unequaled odd alien beauty now rested. Split not in half, but in thirds. They shared eyes, lips. Where once was hair, now only had a pronounced but unending mobius of face. It’s original sad and confused complexion held no expression now. But eyes darted around the room, as if trying to shield itself from the horror it knew it had become.

As for the “top”. It was disgusting. In the way that few can fathom. Where once were feet were now jagged bone. Its limbs, all six of them, were prone and open as if petals on a flower, like some ghastly joke of nature. And the arms, what little they could move, were much the same. Only the rhythm of a pulse I could neither see nor feel provided any real sense of movement. If it begged for death I surely would have obliged. It said nothing.

After what I was sure an eternity of speechlessness, frozen in my fear and curiosity, the woman spoke to me. “Do you like them? Does it please you?”

“This is… Wh-what have you done?!” I shouted with unknown bravery. My senses slowly returning to my numb form. She stopped her smile and turned.

“It was not I who corrupted their form. It was you. It was your kin.” I didn’t understand. “So beautiful now, and such a waste it was before. Beauty is in truth, don’t you see? This is the truth of their soul. This is what you’ve done. To reap their flesh for the comfort of your greed.”

“You’ve…”

She continued without me. “But if it gives you peace know this. It was not you alone who brought them to this end. This one,” she said pointing to what used to be an altmer girl of no more than 24, “had been planning on killing you. Have you ever wondered why every morning seemed more difficult to rise each day? It wasn’t the encroachment of age dearest, it was poison. Slowly, over years to make it look like illness.”

I paused, taking this new information in for a moment. It had been harder. Twice this year I slept throughout the full day. And twice now only roused by falling out of bed. Could this be true?

“It took quite some time to find three that were so… compatible in their desires. This one,” she said while stroking the inner thigh of an dunmer leg “was going to run, and take half your clients with her. Including your late husband before his… accidental death.”

“And the third?” I asked, not wanting to actually know.

“Ah… her.” She paused while the orcside now writhed in pain. “…I like her.”

It was there that I felt the sting of stomach acid exiting my nostrils. Hunched over and tearing up from the enormity of it all I clutched the floor with stunted reflex. Only just keeping from rolling on my side.

“But if you prefer, you can certainly take her place. You see Madam.” She grew closer, inches now away. “You please me too.”

Happily she kissed my forehead while I screamed and cried on the floor in my own filth. This was all too much, too cruel, and too real. Like a mother consoling a small child now she gleaned in my direction. I recoiled instinctively as she touched the small of my back and fell backward across the room into the excess remnants of what I presume to be was some vestigial organ for the new beast.

“No? Perhaps not. This was to be your gift. So unappreciative, I think I’ll find another.” She said, as if wanting to cajole me into asking for a promised toy back.

“Who are you?!” I screamed, “What daedric bastard do you serve?”

“Serve?” For the first time her eyes beamed with true amusement as if taken aback by such an absurd question, “They are not being punished you know, they are being freed from your servitude and corruption. I serve none. I am-how shall we say-a proprietor of that which is sought, and bringer to those who seek it. I am you madam. This, is the shape of your soul, and so I bring it to you: the gift of witness.”

I screamed with newfound terror as it began to cry tears of blood. A torrent from the eye sockets first pooled, then congealed, and finally swirled around the carcass-mass. Not understanding the meaning of any of it.

“You disappoint me. There are many who would appreciate my craft, and not all known to Mundus or Daedra. Perhaps Sanguine or Sheogorath would be more appreciative. Oblivion holds many gods of truth.” Both figures were slowly sinking into the pool of blood to an impossible depth as easily as a shadow across a wall.

“But I do not take hospitality lightly, and so I give my thanks,” her head now sinking below the now ever diminishing pool. The final drops merging together in small trails of rivulets. Like tiny crimson slugs, until they joined and evaporated. Until only a golden amulet remained.

(Taken from the upcoming mod - Dramatic Vicec v4)