Belladonna groaned when she woke up, wriggling her toes and her fingers to test how much she still had left. Part of her was surprised that she had more than she did when she had left, but another part of her was not.

It just meant that she had died and respawned. Considering how things were looking before she was forced out of Dawd, that really shouldn’t have been surprising. However, she didn’t remember the respawn area being so soft, warm and fluffy.

She nuzzled into the bed a little bit more, when it suddenly shifted out from underneath her, dumping her onto the ground, before a wet sheet of sandpaper slapped her in the cheek and started to drag across her face.

"Ugh god. Enough, enough. I yield." She sputtered, pushing the sandpaper away, covering her hand in thick saliva and black blood. The smell of the second caused her nose to twitch at the curious scent, as she quickly sat up and opened her eyes.

She scanned the hand, before darting her eyes to the source as her heart dropped in her chest.

"Oh... Oh my sweet baby. Are you okay? It’s okay... It’s okay. I’m here." Belladonna cooed, as she gently caressed Beans’ battered and bloodied face, her hands trembling slightly as an anger quickly built up inside her.

As she caressed him, her hands became stained with more black blood, and Beans occasionally flinched from the pain of his swollen face. But after a few seconds, the swelling started to shrink, along with the rest of his body.

Now that Belladonna had returned, Beans shifted out of his giant awakened form, letting it dissolve into smoky wisps of pure shadow. Soon Beans the cat, as he usually looked, was nestled in Belladonna’s arms as she gave him some much needed attention, and some healing forehead kisses and ear scratches.

"Oh... You’re finally back." Midas said from behind her, with a sigh of relief.

"Yeah... What happened here?" Belladonna asked, glancing over her shoulder at him before scanning the bloody battlefield around her. Seeing the hooded Stranger tied up in silver chains, with a blindfold around his eyes and a metal gag clamped over his mouth, gave her a moment of pause.

Of course she did not know that his gag had previously been her own, and that Midas had changed its owner. Instead she was a little taken aback by his appearance because she was sure she recognised him, and more importantly she felt a connection with him.

Lesser than the connection that she had with Bai Yin, but still exploitable, so she thought.

Midas slowly filled Belladonna in on all of the details as she looked over the destruction, as well as the merchant caravans trying to reorganise themselves and get their affairs in order after some or all of their crews were slaughtered, or participated in the slaughtering.

Most of the details he had to get from others, turning it into a little game of whispers that forced him to figure out what was fact and fiction, but comparing his information with her own experiences helped Belladonna understand what had transpired.

"There is only one thing that we don’t understand." Midas said with a sigh.

"Why he was so obsessed with me." Belladonna finished the thought, as Midas nodded in confirmation.

"I assume you have tried asking him that?"

"Yup. Me and a few others, but he just ignores us and laughs. That is whenever he’s not trying to hypnotise you. When one of the interrogators was barely an inch away from stabbing himself in the eye, that’s when he stopped trying and blindfolded him. He needs eye contact to initiate it."

"Yeah... I know." Belladonna answered with a sigh. She glanced at the merchants again, most of whom were still busy with their own affairs, although there were some that were sending suspicious glares her way.

There was one in particular, one of the wealthiest merchants and the one who brought along his personal butcher, that was glaring at her. But he was doing so not with malice or anger, but with a curious gleam in his eye. Like his businessman instincts were alerting him to a potential investment.

When Belladonna caught his eye, he smirked back at her and gave her a courteous, knowing nod. What he knew, she had no idea, but she returned the nod and turned back to the stranger before storming over to him.

He was no longer bound to the Wolf-mans cage, and was instead tied to a post at the edge of the camp, where everyone could see him. The chain wrapped around him still sizzled against his skin, and had been tightened a few times to keep him properly bound.

That was mostly because his body had turned feeble and sunken. Under the power of the chain, he was withering away. He looked barely better than a corpse, with sunken cheeks and pale, clammy skin that clung tight to his bones.

Actually, since Belladonna had recently seen a corpse, she knew that the corpse absolutely looked better. If anything, he looked more like her true self. Withering away as his body ate itself alive.

The stranger weakly raised his head as he heard her approach, and his eyes immediately glowed bright red as Belladonna ripped off his blindfold. However that glow in his eyes cut out a second after, as Belladonna slapped him across the face.

"Enough of that. Look at me properly, and don’t even think about trying that again." Belladonna said firmly, commanding him like his master, to which he obeyed without question.

His eyes raised up to look at her, not leaving her visage as he never tried to hypnotise her even when they were making direct eye contact.

"Mhm... That’s what I thought. I am going to ask questions, and you are going to answer honestly. I know you are going to be honest, because you can’t disobey me, can you? I can feel it... that bond. I can’t say where it came from, but i can feel the power it gives me. The Authority.

Nod your head if you understand."

The Stranger nodded his head, causing Belladonna to smile condescendingly as she reached forwards and started to undo his gag, all whilst Midas stood to the side, grimacing nervously. As if he was waiting for it all to go wrong.