He can see the hopelessness in the man's face. Good. There won't be any delusions there. But the job is by no means complete.

"I can tell you understand your situation. The quicker I get what I came for, the quicker this situation can be concluded." There's little doubt what he means by that. "Now, why don't you tell me what led up to your... being here."

"But," he says, tiredly but with a hint of some kind of morbid amusement in it, "Hell can do worse than you, so really I do not wish our business to be swiftly concluded."

He allows himself a slight grin just for a moment. "I suppose that is true, though it's also true that I can influence how bad it will be, at least at the beginning. Besides..." He lets his grin widen a bit further. "I've just had an idea."

"The miserable little shit upstairs just murdered his slave. I imagine he's going to need a new one. I can't imagine it's the life you dreamed of, but the chance to spend a few less years in Hell might be worth something to you, I imagine. Otherwise, we'll have to get on with the torture." The Inquisitor sounds almost wearied at the prospect. He also doesn't mention that forcing the shifty-eyed excuse for a priest of Asmodeus to keep a slave he fears is spying on him—without killing him, no less—gives him an evil satisfaction.

"I don't believe you," he says, again very tiredly, but with a little bit of some other emotion behind it. 

(He shouldn't believe him, but there's just something about talking to another human being, when you haven't in weeks, when they're being personable, when it's the last interaction you'll ever have. It's actually slightly hard to remember all the reasons not to believe him.)

"What do you care, anyway? Is Cheliax so weak it can't endure some books?"

The Inquisitor shrugs. "You probably shouldn't. But what choice do you have?" If he was an Abadaran, this is where he would launch into a long speech about game theory or mutual gains from trade or some other dreary economics lecture. Despite their commitment to Lawfulness, they never can seem to shut the Hell up and just do what's necessary.

He gives the prisoner a look bordering on surprise at his questions. "I don't particularly care. And it isn't about weakness. This is what duty requires. We must have order and we must enforce the Law. There is no bending it, no breaking it. This is the pillar upon which all of the multiverse rests."

"So," he says, offering him another drink. "Why don't you tell me what led you here so I can delay your pain a little longer?"

He accepts the second drink. "It's not what duty requires. Other places have romance novels and they're not overrun by hordes of orcs."

He puts the canteen away. "If you think Chaos is held in check by romance novels, then perhaps you should have taken them elsewhere. Now, are we going to help each other, or do I have to get on with the torture?"

"I told the priest everything already."

He snorts. "Him? I doubt it. And even if you had, I don't care. I want to hear your confession myself."

"I got deliveries of some books. I copied them. I figured they were probably illegal because the government is weak and scared of outside thought, but I copied them anyway because I didn't think it had a way to find out."

"Now we're getting somewhere. That's a start at least. But you're going to need to be more specific than that. Who delivered these books? What were they? Did you read them?"

He wipes away the sweat from the wizard's brow with his hand.

"I don't know who delivered them. They didn't give a name and covered their face. I did read them. They were - stories. About things the government is terrified of, like people falling in love with each other."

He smiles softly at the prisoner. "Good. Where and when did you take deliveries? Does whoever delivers these books to you know of your... situation?"

"They'd bring them to my house. I'm sure they know." He's lying.

He sighs as he slides his finger as deep and hard as he can into the man's ear. "Don't lie to me," he says, his voice calm and unfeeling. "If you lie to me, I have to hurt you, and neither of us want that."

He cries out. Clenches his teeth. "They'd bring them to my house and slide them under the door."

He stops as suddenly as he started. There's no pleasure in the pain. It's just a tool. "When was the last time they brought them? When is the next time you expect to receive any? Is there some form of schedule?"

"Last time was a month ago. There's no schedule." He's still lying.

This time he reaches up and breaks the wizard's finger, leaving it bent back at a gruesome angle. "When was the last time? When is the next?"

He holds out for several hours, or possibly for less time than that since once it's been an hour or so it's very hard to tell which of the things he's saying are true and which he's inventing wildly, which is presumably what he was hoping for. They visit every month. They visit irregularly, but at least once every few months, and it's been a few months. They visited the week before he was caught. They send a bird to scout. They come invisibly. He's never seen them. It's his own mother. They leave the books on his doorstep, in his attic, in his barn, on his pillow. 

He wants them to be safe. He wants them to kill the inquisitor and rescue him and take him away to wherever they're from. He wants to turn them in in exchange for freedom. He thinks they're from Andoran. He thinks they're from Varisia. He actually thinks they are literally fae. The inquisitor is good at telling when people are lying but it's harder when they've mostly lost track of which things they're saying they mean.

It's a gruesome affair, and he takes no pleasure in it, despite his obvious skill. It's not always possible to tell what is truth and what are lies, and what are just ramblings to make the pain stop. But good, honest people like the wizard always have a look of deep shame and guilt cross their face when the realize what they're saying is a betrayal.

He stands up and takes a deep breath. "I think that's enough." He heads up the stairs without another look. When he spies the priest sulking about, Rezaron informs him that the prisoner is to be left in his care and must be kept alive and sane enough to answer questions, if more are warranted. With that, he leaves to examine the wizard's house.

It's a nice house, obviously the nicest one in the village; two stories, good wood, a roof made of baked ceramic tiles. The lock on the front door is broken, and it's been cleared out of valuables in the week before he arrived, presumably once the news of his arrest got out. It has a library on the second floor, with some books remaining on the shelves, and spell components strewn everywhere. There's a bedroom next to the library. The downstairs has a parlor and a kitchen and a door that opens on a small yard with a henhouse and an outhouse.