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Inquisition · **06-05-2025, 08:14 PM**

Knock

KNOCK!!!

Your screen fizzles to life, to the sight of a gloved hand rapping it's knuckles against glass. The hand shifts to reveal the tilted head of a curious looking man. White skin stretched across a thick skull, eyes, lid-less, inquisitive. Mouth stretched into a cut smile - oh! A mask, thank goodness.

The beautifully grotesque face steps back from the camera, sticking two hands out in L-shapes to ascertain it's tilt. Satisfied that the frame is reasonably straight, though quite obviously askew to you, our friend places his hands on his leathered hips and... grins?

He's standing in what can only be described as a homeless man's paradise. Well, I'm sure you could describe it in many other ways, but that is how I have chosen to describe this one. The place seems abandoned, but protected from outside forces. Walls are rusted, broken glass-windows present a dangerous entryway for any who are daring. Faint streams of moonlight slip through the shifted corrugated metal sheets that make up the room. Scattered across the space is old construction machinery. There is an odd hum, electricity - that seems to be coursing through thick wires on the floor - but even this looks mismatched and forced together.

At the center of it all stands our friend, grinning at his workmanship.

Ah, greetings, my dear surface-dwellers! Welcome to the..... Uh... Domicile... No, wait, it'll come to me... the Domi...NATION... Of truth! Yes! The place where truth isn't just revealed... It's dived... Dove...DIVENED into! You see, I've been up here, on the surface... For a few months now and it has been plain for all to see, I simply do not get it! I've been told the man that has bested me twice now... Is named after some story book? Named after a man who was a fraud?

He raises up a tattered copy of the Wizard of Oz, that looks eerily like it was snatched from the hands of some child.

Frauds! That's what I've realised you all are... People playing dress-up. Putting on... Masks. You people wear lies like a second... like a second sweater? No, skin! Second skin! Posturing, parading, pretending - and for what? Validation? The cheers from a faceless crowd? Comfort? Satisfaction?

I really have no clue! And so, in this... Temple. This temple of discarded dreams, we will begin to strip it all away. Because I'd really like to know what makes all of you tick, it is why I was born, why I was created!

He pulls on an invisible chord, which gets the camera to start panning to the left. He runs back into frame, now standing beside a chair - cobbled together from mismatched parts. A rusty dentist's chair reinforced with duct tape and metal plates. The restrains creak as they open and close, their movement powered by an unseen energy source. Our main man gesutres to the chair excitedly, head cocking as if to examine it anew... Tone turning mockingly inviting.

This... This throne! Throne of enlightenment. It will be the cure to all your mismatched bodies. Sat here, you... AND I, will fully understand the weight of your inadequacies. We will truly uncover the innerworkings of your... Minds! But don't you worry, I'm not some surface.... Uh... sad-man? Sad...IST! Yes, sadist revelling in your discomfort. No, no, no, NO!

This is a service, my dear surface-dwellers. An education. Courtesy of The Depth that commissions me, courtesy of... Me.

He pauses, pacing slowly around the throne of enlightenment. His head darting occasionally towards noises only he seems to hear, his toen shifting to one of frustration tinged with determination.

Twice now, I have fallen.. And defeat really does... Sting. Hurt. Humiliate. But there would be no need for me if all was known and understood. No no, even loss is a learning process, even defeat leads to knowledge. Humiliation - teaches. And if The Depths have taught me anything - it is that I must take the learning by the reigns, I cannot be passive... No, I am Inquistion and I-

The sound of something scrapping against concrete interrupts the monologue. Inquisition jumps, pulling at the chord accidentally and causing the camera to tumble to it's side onto the floor. The sound of scrapping intensifies, a gurgled exclamation. A plea for help.

Now, now - your time will come... Soon we will pillage the Depths of Truth.

Suddenly, his cheek meets the floor, crouched he stares into the camera.

Perhaps soon... We will dig into you, too?

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