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Bloodstained Asylum of Terror

Tales of White Rock Asylum for The Criminally Insane

The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane

Volume 190

By

EelKat Wendy Christine Allen

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Quaraun woke up in an old rundown hospital in Maine, with no memory of how he got there. He had a hospital bracelet on his wrist and a pack of bandages on the table beside his bed. He looked around the room and saw that he was the only patient. Quaraun got out of bed, stood up, and struggled to scream in agony, but no voice uttered from his mouth as he stumbled and sat back down on the bed. Searing pain shot through his ankles and up his knees. There was no way he could stand with a pain like that, so he did not try again.

From the bed where he sat, Quaraun tried to get a better look around the room. The place is in shambles. Quaraun spotted a legal folder sitting on a table beside the bed and picked it up. Inside, he discovered his patient records, but he was unaware of this as they were written in a language he had never seen before.

Quaraun listened to determine if he could hear anyone outside in the hall.

Watching.

Staring. Silent.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t speak.

Strange metal lined the walls. Silver-white, gleaming. He’d never seen metal like it before. He felt as though the metal was making him sick. Like Faerie Iron, but different. Bands of the same metal lined his wrists and ankles and throat.

Quaraun was The World's Most Powerful Mage. Undefeated by any hero, adventurer, or rival. Capable of doing things no other mage had ever dreamed possible. But he was allergic to Faerie Iron. It sapped his energy, drained his powers. Like a car with a dead battery, Quaraun could cast no magic when he stood too close to Faerie Iron. There was definitely Faerie Iron in these metal walls and in the bands on his throat, ankles, and wrists. He could tell by how sick it was making him feel and how it drained his ability to tap into any power source. Unable to cat magic, Quaraun knew he could not escape this place, if escaping it should prove necessary.

Worse, Quaraun could not even use his hands to fight or grasp a weapon. His hands had been crippled his whole life. Crushed by a horse when he was still a child, his hands were lifeless and dead. An evil Necromancer had taken pity on the child and made him a special pair of gold plated armor gloves that fitted to Quaraun hands. The enchanted gold armor had made it so Quaraun could use his hands just like anyone else.

But Quaraun’s hands were bare. His gold finger armour was gone. His crushed hands were lifeless and dead without his magic gold plated gloves. Quaraun had worn his magic glove for the past seven hundred and fifty years. He didn’t know what to do. He could not use his hands without them.

Everything was gone.

His pink silk dresses, his pink brocade shoes, his earrings, his nose chains, his genital piercings. All of his jewellery was gone. His bag of holding and everything inside, gone. His Rainbow Wand. His crystal skulls. His genie bottle that contained his pet draco-lich. Gibedon’s head and The Elf Eater’s pair of ruby hilted obsidian blade daggers. Gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Quaraun ran his hand through his hair.

His hair!

‘Good god! My hair!’

Quaraun’s beautiful twelve foot long JellyFish tentacle hair was chopped clean off. Hanging shoulder length now, the severed ends of his tentacles were stained red with blood, and raw with pain.

‘They have cut my tentacles off!’

This upset Quaraun most of all. His beautiful, hair-like silken white tentacles, mistaken by most people for being hair. Quaraun’s twelve foot long hair had been his pride and joy these last seven hundred and fifty years. And now it was gone. Why was it gone? Who had cut his beautiful hair?

Stripped of everything and naked save a thin white cotton hospital gown, Quaraun sat on the hospital bed, scared and confused, and sick.

The metal bands were making him sick. He struggled to pull them off, but yelped in pain upon twisting the metal bands on his wrist.

‘Oh god! What did they do to me?’

He hadn’t noticed before. He was in such shock over everything else. From one side of his wrist to the other, a metal rod went through the band, through his wrist, through the bone. They bore a gaping hole through his wrist. And had been there long enough to have mostly healed.

‘How long have I been here? And where is here?’

He reached down to touch his ankles. The metal bands there also pieced his flesh through the bone. He doubted he’d be capable of walking, with his ankles drilled through like that.

At least the band around his neck didn’t drill a hole through his esophagus. But his throat was dry. His tongue singed. Yes. Singed. Burned. He remembered that. Some men had held him down and poured boiling oil into his mouth. His tongue and larynx were badly burned, as was most of his face. Third-degree burns inside of his mouth, down his esophagus, and into his abdomen. His insides had been boiled and cooked, and the oil had bubbled and burned its way out of his belly.

Quaraun looked down at his belly. Vast stitches were sewed across in many places, closing up the holes the boiling oil had made when it burst out through his stomach. Someone had bandaged and stitched his injuries. And apparently some weeks ago, given the extent of the healing and scars that were already forming.

It had burned the entire left side of his face off, clean down to the bone. His left eye burned as well, now solid white, like a cooked boiled egg, and completely blind.

His right eye wasn’t fairing much better. Partly blinded, he could still see some from his right eye.

Quaraun was mutilated and crippled. Blind in one eye and almost blind in the other. His hands and feet both dead and useless.

The Justice Mages. He vaguely remembered them being the last thing he had seen before he had passed out.

They found him.

A pair of eyes found him.

They entered through the walls.

They were as big as soup bowls.

They came through the walls like ghosts.

Their eyes were yellow. Full of gold flecks. Like the eyes of a frog.

Their mouths were lip-less.

And they weren’t as scary as he thought.

At the sight of them, he screamed.

At the sound of his scream, the eyes ran around the room.

They smiled as they walked into Quaraun’s hospital room.

They wore white scrubs.

One was a woman.

One was a man.

They both had sharp ivory teeth. Fangs. Like vampires.

They looked like Elves, but not Elves. Vampire Elves. That’s what they looked like. Whatever they were, they were not Human, of this Quaraun was certain.

They both looked at him and said,

“Nooo!” Quaraun screamed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the duo looked quite different.

The man had a pointy red beard.

The woman had long silvery, platinum blonde hair.

Both looked at him and said, “We are your friends. You can trust us.”

Quaraun tried to speak, but no sound came out. His vision was blurry. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what. He felt... off... wrong... drugged.

“What is your name, Elf boy?” the woman asked.

He tried to speak, but he couldn’t.

She had long white hair, just like Quaraun’s, which fell halfway down her back, not nearly as long as Quaraun’s silken Rapunzel locks that swept the floor. Her smile was wide and bright. She wore a long white dress, and she was wearing a crown on her head.

“You’re a Woban,” Quaraun whispered.

“W-What?” the man said, looking confused.

“A Woban.”

“Oh, really?” the woman said.

The man had short red hair, but he too wore robes. He grinned at Quaraun, then sat down on the chair by the bed. “So, you’re awake!”

He squinted, trying to make out the blurry image of Quaraun in the bedding.

“Are you an albino?” he asked, sounding extremely worried.

Quaraun nodded. He clutched his hand to his throat. He could not speak, but he did not know why.

“Albinos are very rare. Albino Elves are among the most difficult to find.”

Quaraun wanted to say that he was the last Elf, so finding and Elves besides him was impossible, but he couldn’t make and sound come out of his throat. He swallowed hard, and a tear slipped down his cheek.

“You’re crying,” the man said. “Are you alright?”

He reached out to Quaraun.

Quaraun cringed and backed away.

“It’s all right. We aren’t gonna hurt you. You’ve had a rough time of it. I know.”

The man stood and stepped closer.

“You can trust us. We’re doctors. We can help you.”

“No! Argh! All the way from Rivi... No!”

The man backed off, seeing Quaraun’s intense fear.

“We won’t harm you. I promise.”

“I... trust you,” Quaraun said with great effort, while pointing to the female. “But I... can’t trust you,” he said, pointing to the man.

The doctor frowned. “Why not?”

“I...” Quaraun’s voiced went hollow. His throat burned. “You... you’ll turn into one... like me.”

“A Thullid?” The man’s face darkened. “I don’t want to be like you. I want to remain Human.”

“You... can’t.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Zebulon...”

“Yes. Zebulon. He’s dead. You killed him. And all of his men. Do you remember doing that?”

The man’s face was dark again as he asked: “Did you kill Zebulon?”

“I did,” Quaraun managed to say, his voice cracking and barely able to be heard.

“You killed... so many Elves... because of Zebulon?”

“No.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t,” Quaraun said, his voice quivering and quavering nervously.

“You killed so many Elves.”

“I didn’t,” Quaraun persisted.

“Why would any Elf do that?”

“I didn’t,” Quaraun whimpered. “That’s not what happened.”

“Tell me what transpired, then?”

Their voices were strange.

Foreign.

Quaraun could barely make out what they said.

They spoke in Elvish, his native language, but it was wrong. Clearly not their first language, nor a language they knew well. But the Elvish was wrong. There were many Elven tongues. Many Elvish languages. Many Elven dialects. Each tribe spoke a unique language. Quaraun knew 84 different Elven languages, but this one none of them. It sounded instead like a language Humans made up by mixing together pieces on many Elven languages.

“Who... Who are you?” Quaraun managed to stammer out.

His throat felt dry.

Scratchy.

Parched.

Like he hadn’t had a drink in days.

They both laughed. “I’m Vex! You can call me Vex.”

“Vex,” Quaraun whispered.

“Yes. And this is Theudas’ finest wizard, and my partner, Dorian.”

Quaraun’s vision slowly came into focus. He saw a skinny man with a long, bony face and a long black cape flowing behind him.

“Dorian.”

“It was so wonderful watching you sleep. It almost made us miss when your magic kicked back in.”

“My magic?”

“I guess we’re lucky to be here.”

“Where is here?”

“This is White Rock.”

“White Rock?” Fear filled Quaraun’s chest as his heart quickened.

“You’ve heard of us?”

“The prison.”

“We like to think of ourselves as a hospital.”

“A prison for mages,” Quaraun lamented woefully.

“Well, not exactly. White Rock Asylum for The Criminally Insane is exactly what its name implies it is. We are an Institute of Mental Health, and we specialize exclusively in mages turned serial killers like yourself.”

“I’m not...”

“You are. Oh you are. You’ve killed so many.”

“I’m not insane.

“Oh, but you are. We have seen it all when it comes to the mind.”

“How did I get here?”

The two ignored Quaraun’s question.

“We’ve been waiting for hours for our little miracle to come back.”

“Come back?”

“Oh man, did you see those eyes of yours!? They were like something out of a dream!” Vex babbled.

“Vex,” said Dorian. “Let the poor Elf eat his breakfast before talking about his eyes all over again. He’ll need his strength.”

“Fine.”

“You can talk about his eyes after he’s had something to eat. Right now we’ve got important work to do. You’re going to be my guest for breakfast.”

Watching.

Staring. Silent.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t speak.

“I see you have some powerful magic. What is it you wish of me?”

“I am a Wizard of the Di’Jinn Order,” Quaraun said, expressing his displeasure as he spoke. “You must not use that word around me.”

“What word?”

“Wish. Never saw ‘I wish’ where I can hear it. I am obligated to grant every wish I hear uttered, and I can not control it. Wishes are never what you think they will be. Wishes appear out the base root meaning of the words used. The original meanings are often vastly different from today’s meanings. Never saw ‘I wish’. They are dangerous words, especially in the presence of a Di’Jinn.”

“Breakfast. I’m starving.”

“Oh, you can have breakfast. I’m going to be busy, anyway. You can eat in my chambers.”

“Why not here?”

“Well, a bit of a dingy room, isn’t it?”

“I assumed it was my prison.”

“Come now! You mustn’t think of White Rock as your prison. After all, you are going to be here for a very long time.”

“How long?”

“The rest of your life.”

“But I am immortal,” Quaraun pointed out.

“Yes. We gathered that was the case.”

“Why am I here?”

“You do not remember what you have done?”

“No.”

“You killed twenty-one billion people.”

“... how could I have done that?”

“You have a nasty temper and you granted your own wish.”

“What wish was that?”

“To see all the people on three planets die.”

“The triple planets?”

“The Battle of Ongadada.”

“Has that happened?” Quaraun blurted out, shocked by the suggestion. His head snapped up in confusion and indignation.

“It has.”

“Where are my friends?” Quaraun asked.

“The Lich, in contained. He’ll harm no one. And we have mages that can kill a Lich. Permanently. So if you don’t want to see him gone forever, I think you’ll do what we say.”

“And GhoulSpawn?”

“We’ve not yet decided what to do with him. We’ve no evidence that he was actually involved. He was just a bystander. A witness. He only watched while you unleashed your Lich on the galaxy. He’s being complacent for now. I think he’s too frightened to try to do anything.”

“Let him alone, then. It’s not like he’s going to get anywhere near us. He’s never hurt anyone.”

“Oh, we are not worried about him. We are worried about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“How is it the story goes? Quaraun the Insane... For two hundred years, Quaraun walked from one side of the planet to another. He wandered until he came to an ocean. Then he boarded a ship and, a few months later, found himself walking across a strange new country. He proceeded to roam until he again reached another ocean. There he got on another ship, continued to another province, and walked some more. The further he travelled, the more outlandish his outfits became. The more famous the bereft Elf Necromancer became, and the more he slew.”

“Let GhoulSpawn go.”

“Why?”

“He’s innocent. Do not punish GhoulSpawn for what I have done.”

“We will not release him.”

“Please. You must. He is not a threat to anyone. Please! Let him go.”

“No. You are right on one account. He’s not a threat to anyone any more. We’ve made certain of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is docile, yes, but loyal. Very loyal. And he loves you. We can’t trust him to not go to great lengths to break you out. And he has... well, let’s just say he is far more powerful a mage than you are. He just hides it well. His mind is very powerful. We couldn’t let that become a problem. He’s quite peaceful now. I don’t think he even remembers being GhoulSpawn.”

“You tampered with his brain. Gremlin said that.”

“Gremlin? Yes. A lobotomy does wonders for curing the non-complacent. GhoulSpawn no longer exists. You’ll find the Gremlin has replaced him now.”

“You... replaced him?” The dark realization of what they had done clouded Quaraun’s mind.

GhoulSpawn was dead.

“Thullids are replaceable creatures, are they not?”

“Oh no. No,” Quaraun blubbered incoherently between the tears. “No. Not that.”

“Oh yes. Exactly that.”

“I don’t want him gone. I want him back.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late. And there is nothing you can do about it. GhoulSpawn is dead. His body still lives, but another Thullid controls it now. The Gremlin is not GhoulSpawn. I believe he’s told you this, and even GhoulSpawn recognized that the mind living in his future body was not his. Your GhoulSpawn is dead.”

Quaraun remained silent.

Tears streamed down his face.

Watching.

Staring. Silent.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t cry out.

His life passed before his eyes.

People feared Quaraun more than they feared Thullids.

For millennia, nothing was more dreaded than Thullids.

Because of the chaos they caused.

Because of the carnage they wrought.

Because of the suffering they inflicted.

They were feared and hated creatures.

The world was a place of nightmares.

The Thullids were monstrous creatures who’d fallen out of the sky centuries ago. Trapped after their ship crashed into the planet. Thullids, in their true form, had tiny white, worm-like bodies covered with slender arms. They burrowed into a host body, ate its brain. Then attached their thousands of microscopic hairlike arms into the spinal nerves, taking complete control of the body they had occupied. They left their hosts in a vegetative state, unable to move or even speak, but alive.

True Demon possession. When they mature, they become JellyFish. Their bodies filled the host’s skull while the tentacles merged with the nerves. They grew to a vast size, filling the entire skull with hundreds or even thousands of slimy, worm-like arms. At this point, they could make the host do anything.

Thullids lack a defensible body and need to take over the host to exist. But they have unprecedented brainpower. All they had to do was think about it and it happened, no matter what it was.

Shaking, trembling, laughing, crying. It didn’t matter. The host merely had to think that it wanted to perform such a task and it was accomplished.

If a Thullid wanted you dead, all it had to do was look at you, wish you dead and POOF, you will die immediately. There wasn’t even time for POOF! You died so instantly that POOF didn’t have time to happen. That’s just how astoundingly fast it was.

Your soul was devoured.

It was a horrific, horrific death.

And it happened every ten seconds, on average. The Thullid invasion was underway.

So many people died.

All because of what Quaraun wished for.

That he should destroy half the universe for his wish.

For the simple fact that he wished he would.

Because of what he’d desired.

A world destroyed without reason.

Twenty-on billion people had been killed in that one day.

The deaths continued to be mourned by many.

Some felt sorry for them, others, anger, and hate filled everyone’s hearts.

“Why did this happen?”

“How did this happen?”

“How did I survive?”

“Is that possible?”

“Can it be?”

“Is it really true?”

“How? How could I live? Is it possible? Where is that thing? Can I kill it now?”

“Kill it! Kill it!”

And so on. So many questions asked by so many people.

One man, hated by millions for hundreds of years, couldn’t take the suffering from their hate anymore and killed them all.

In the blink of an eye, three worlds were gone.

For years, Quaraun was the target of anger, hate, and scorn. Though he was not the one who started it all, he was the one everyone turned on.

Quaraun.

For seven hundred years, suffered the pain and torment of endless bullying, endless teasing, endless belittling, endless hate. And finally, he found a family of his own. The thing he wanted most of all. A family. His wife Pippiyata and her twin boys, Vielder, and Melaca, and BoomFuzzy and GhoulSpawn. They all lived together in the pink lighthouse.

Happy.

Content.

Settled at long last.

A home at long last.

A family after so many centuries alone.

But all those centuries of torment had built up inside of him like a volcano waiting to explode. And after just 15 short years of bliss... his world came crashing down around him.

Everything happened so fast.

In mere seconds, they were gone. His family slaughtered in a horrible bloodbath, while GhoulSpawn and BoomFuzzy watch on in horror as Quaraun unleashed a wish unlike anything he’s ever wished for before.

“Kill them all. Slaughter them all.”

It was a simple wish, one that could never be undone.

The Chrystonite ships arrived, but too late. Even the fastest star-ships could not move as fast as a wish.

“It took four days to get here, but I guess the other planes of existence don’t take that long to travel through.”

Time travellers from a distant future, here in the past, desperate to save the lives of three worlds lost, and they didn’t arrive in time.

“Everyone is dead.”

“We knew the time. We knew the date. We still couldn’t stop it. Why couldn’t we stop it?”

“You can’t stop Ongadada,” The Gremlin said. ”I told you. It’s a fixed point in time. You made it a fixed point in time, when you created time travel to stop it. You made it a fixed point in time when you created portal to reach it. You made it a fixed point in time when you killed GhoulSpawn to create me! You can’t stop it! Without it, time travel doesn’t exist! Without it, portals never get built! If Ongadada doesn’t happen, you never invent time travel. By invented time travel specifically because of Ongadada, you made Ongadada a sealed fate that can never be changed, never be stopped. I keep telling you that. We’ve been here a thousand times before. You can’t stop it! Why won’t you listen to me?"

But no one listened to the White Rock patent, kept chain for centuries in the inner sanctum of the asylum. Gremlin was nothing but a tool to them. A source of infinite power from a distant dimension they could not reach. A source of power they needed to power their time machines and go back in time again and again and again.

Ever trying to stop Ongadada, ever trying to save the lives of three planets, ever failing to reach their destination in time. Always a few seconds too late.

“How much is that in real time?”

“A few hours. An hour or so.”

“Impossible.”

“No!” Gremlin screamed. “It won’t work. It never does. This is reality. You can’t change it.”

Every day, trying again.

Every day failing again.

Every day draining the life from the poor Chaos Demon they kept chained to their time machine. The shackles drilled through his wrists, losing him the use of his arms, his hands, dead and lifeless, the bones in his wrists shattered by the metal rods, the muscles cut off the bone, the nerves severed through, from the spikes bored through his wrists.

“I’m tired,” Gremlin cried.

“You’ll sleep soon enough.”

Unable to stand on his own, from the shackles drilled through his ankles, piercing the bone, slicing the muscles, severing the nerves, his beautiful cloven hooves useless now.

“Please let me go,” the tortured Demon pleaded day after day.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“It won’t work tomorrow,” Gremlin wailed through his agony.

“Do I have to go home? Can’t we just sleep here tonight. We’ll have more time to fiddle with the controls.”

“I think it’s the Demon that needs more fiddling with.”

Tears streamed down Gremlin’s cheeks. His life chained to the time machine in White Rock was a worse hell than his life had been in actual Hell.

“Not just yet. I have something else that needs doing first.”

“What would that be?”

“I have something special for you.”

“Really?” Gremlin said, as he looked away. “What is it?”

“You’ll see. In due course. It isn’t ready yet. But I will show you. Now come along.”

“Wait,” Gremlin pleaded. His eyes wide with fear. “I’m thirsty.”

“Don’t worry. Just be patient.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Yes.”

And on the other side of White Rock, Quaraun was only just learning the nightmare that for him was only just beginning.

“I want to see my wife,” Quaraun said to the doctor, his voice still weak and barely audible. “She’s waiting for me. You can’t keep me here. Not forever.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Why you killed everyone on three planets.”

“No,” muttered the Elf, while looking down at his shoes to avoid making eye contact. “I don’t remember doing it, how would I remember why I did it?”

“They killed your wife.”

“No.”

“Your pregnant wife and her unborn baby. And you two boys, your fifteen-year-old sons, they tried to kill her attackers, but they too were killed. In your pain and rage you wished everyone on the home planets of their killers would die, and they did. All twenty-one billion people on three planets. You killed them in blind rage over the death of your wife, twin boys, and unborn infant.”

“I don’t believe it,” Quaraun sobbed loudly and painfully. “I can’t remember any of it!”

“This is your punishment,” the doctor said softly.

“No.”

“You must pay with your life.”

“Where are BoomFuzzy and GhoulSpawn?” Quaraun asked.

“You’ll never see either of them again.”

“Please don’t do this,” Quaraun pleaded.

“You deserve it. Everyone of you deserves it, including yourself. I hope you’re grateful and happy. Your punishment is now complete. You are now officially cursed and forever doomed. Every single person on those homes, suffered for your wives and children, they are also doomed, forever condemned by the gods themselves to a miserable eternity of eternal misery.”

“Please.”

“We’ve studied you for centuries. We know what you fear the most. What you can no bear to face. You’ll spend eternity alone.”

“No.”

“Just accept it. It’s done. You can’t change it now.”

“Please, please, please,” Quaraun begged. “Don’t do this. Stop. My life has been eternal suffering already! Don’t make me suffer more,” Quaraun begged.

The doctor ignored his plea.

“If there’s anything you wish to say, say it now. Do it now and I promise you’ll never have these the chains off of you later,” the doctor whispered.

“No. No. No,” Quaraun begged, weeping uncontrollably. “Please, stop. Stop this.”

“Stop it?” the doctor laughed. “Who do you think you are? A god? Your powers are no infinite. Without your gold gloves you can’t even use your hands. You can barely talk from your injuries already. It won’t take much more the strip your voice from you forever. Then we won’t have to hear you plead for the mercy that’ll never come.”