Dustan and Fae were most aggrieved by the report was given by Bai and thought they should take the chance to negotiate a sweeter deal with the guild for more profits, unfortunately for them this was not part of the ritual and under a strict gaze from leader they sent the employee to the twilight pearl and left a message for Martin to pick him up and do something about the leaking information, 8 bandits gaining access to Yunan was bad by her judgement. Only Balin was unperturbed because if they really needed money they could just sell more jewellery and get rich within moments.
After the employee was sent away fae was sent inside to do her taming thing, and if not for the screams and pleas drifting through the usually soundproof room, no one would know what happened inside, like a shy maiden, Fae asked for monitoring to be stopped in the room because she did not want anyone to see that side of hers, after a few hours inside, Fae strode out of the room her face glowing and her body radiating a feminine aura about her, "how therapeutic" she said as she ushered everyone inside, even the pets were invited because Leader thought they too should know these kinds of things.
Inside there were eight people of different races and genders standing side by side, something between terror and insanity was imprinted on their faces, it seems it has been so long that Fae last did something fun like this that she went overboard, luckily she stopped just a hair from turning the captives insane thus negatively affecting the torture lessons and by extension get punished by leader by bringing even more subjects and training them, something that would be very much hateful for her precious skin care time.
Leader took the lead and looked at the frenzied captives that had their eyes fixed on Fae, fear was no longer a valid word to describe what they felt towards her. She said with her jolly playfulness " we need to read your memories and then torture you as a lesson for my precious students if you agree, this lovely elf.." Leader pointed at Fae who was smiling so radiantly "... will not be able to touch you at all, however, if you plan to refuse, then we will let her take care of you and we will do the same anyway, the point is, if you choose the first you can be delivered to the guild alive, if you choose the second option, well, we can only guarantee that hell will not be such a bad destination after we are done with you"
There was a visible shiver that took the captives from head to toe and they immediately kneeled in subservience, hell was already too good a place for them now, they would die in a heartbeat if they were allowed to, but if there was something worse than last night, they were sure that they did not want to experience it, know about it or even imagine it. The choice was the first lesson of torture, a captive who has the illusion of choice is far easier to subdue then the one who is cornered and helpless, a man without future has nothing to lose thus there is something that can never be broken no matter how hard he is tortured, however, a man with a tiny bit of hope even unrealistic will be broken with the slightest bit of pressure.
Unlike the previous sessions of torture, the point was not to retrieve information but to break the will of the subject, psychological torment was already something Yunan could do successfully, now it was time to break their minds through breaking their bodies. And so Leader produced a chair for each of them and gave them another choice "each one of you will be subject to torture, you can witness others turns or you can look away, the chairs you were handed are the chairs we will torture you on, sit on them or wait until your turn".
Yunan watched as the fragile insanity in their faces disappeared and a sense of acceptance washed over their faces, the fear was still there but it was no longer the prevalent emotion, There was a small discussion among the captives before the first split in their ranks happened, some sat on their chairs some stood up, and all silently waited for Leader to start her torture lesson. Leader initiated a telepathic group conversation and said out loud "as our student, you should be able to figure out the answer by watching carefully".
In his mind Yunan could hear the gentle sound of Mary as she started her lecture "first break the mind, if they accept their fate then you have won half the battle, give them the illusion of choice and they would be more docile also it would crack their unity, as you can see, the results are the same with or without the choices but look how peaceful it is at the moment,we did not even have to tie them up or take their weapons, Fae display from last night gave them both choice, try to run or stay still there is no escape, there was no choice in that so even if they are armed they would not try something without choice".
Leader then proceeded to point at Balin who took a step forward and said in a very sweet voice "who is the most despicable one and who is the most virtuous among you? I want each of you to point at two people on with each hand, use your right to point out the virtuous one and the left to point out the despicable one". Leader explain seriously and patiently "this is to show them that we do not care about their lives or their gender or race, even the most virtuous one would get tortured just like the most despicable one, this lesson is a job that we take no pleasure in no matter how it looks and this idea will help them endure longer and easily forgive us, because someone working was far more likely to be fair to them than someone who enjoys it, case and point is Fae, they saw her take pleasure in training them, and now they have the chance to let someone else who did not enjoy the job work on them, this will let them feel sympathetic no matter how much pain we inflict on them"
The team has chosen two members, the most despicable was the leader of the group, and the most virtuous was a healer, she looked so out of place but just like Leader said there was sympathy in her gaze towards Yunan and the rest, however the leader was very aware of what was going on and if not for the fact that Fae was standing in the same room he might have said or done something but his gaze contained defiance that did not escape Leader so she informed Yunan "the despicable one understands but he can not say or do anything, he can only offer defiance but that will change soon enough, he will actively try to push torture away from himself and onto his underlings, and that is what we want his to do"