- For the device this character is named after, see List of Torture Devices#Gibbet.
Gibbet was the eldest of the sisters living in Torcia Tower. Believing herself to be the daughter of Hank Fieron, Gibbet tortured and killed numerous people with the goal of resurrecting her perceived father. She was specifically charged with luring and capturing victims, being the only one of the sisters able to leave the tower.
History[]
Early Life[]
Gibbet was born about twenty years ago in the port town of Pharma as Christabel Blanken, the eldest daughter of the adequately well-off Blanken family. Due to being from a previous marriage between her mother and Hereditary Evil Raiser Lord Hank Fieron, she was born one as well. After her mother remarried, she did not hide Christabel's half-relation to her new son Magion from her daughter and shared her true father's name with her.
Christabel grew up alongside her younger half-brother Magion, once being gifted a bracelet by him while playing in a meadow. During this, an owl carrying the wraith Stolasphia's consciousness attacked Christabel and disappeared in a flash of light; this failed possession of Christabel's body instead merged the two's consciousnesses into one, retaining most of the memories of both. This event instilled a fear of birds in both half-siblings.
On the surface, Christabel's life under her step-father seemed fortunate, but delved into abuse. For the next fifteen years, she was sold to men by her greedy step-father, only being able to handle the abuse for so long due to being half Stolasphia. Christabel came to be filled with hate for everything: the lecherous men of Pharma including her step-father, the town itself, to all men in general, even resenting Magion for not having been born a girl. Eventually this would culminate in a hatred of humanity as a whole.
A week after their mother's funeral, both siblings were called to their father's office and had Christabel's true lineage divulged to Magion. Six months later, Christabel escaped from her home in Pharma to visit Torcia Tower to learn more about her father Hank Fieron, Stolasphia going along with it in order to restore her power. Meeting with Stolasphia's brother Rabiah by Lake Last before the tower, he asked her to undo Stolasphia's seal on Torcia, promising her the power of its resident wraith, Beritoad. Upon undoing the seal, Christabel was double-crossed by Rabiah, whereupon she was captured by Rack and Maiden and mentally tortured with drugs, electricity, and sound waves for a month. Once she was rendered an empty shell, Beritoad implanted her with the consciousness and memories of being a gibbet created by Circa Lassen and made for the use of Hank Fieron.[1]
Sometime later, “Gibbet” woke up in the storage room of Torcia Tower alongside Rack and Maiden, unable to recall anything from her past. She was then told by Beritoad that they were the torture instruments of Hank Fieron, and that they had to torture and kill people to increase Beritoad's power and bring back Hank, their "father".[2] Assuming the role of the eldest sister, her “younger” sisters complied.[3]
As incentive for people to come to the tower, Beritoad and the sisters concocted a story about the tower containing a healing elixir, centering the rumor around Beritoad's useless bath pot.[4] Even with her memories erased and fabricated, she still exhibited a phobia of birds and a hatred of all humanity, believing she was a wraith. Despite this, she still felt different due to her need to sleep and eat, unlike her wraith sisters.
The Torturer Sisters Three[]
The three sisters then began abducting people to torture and kill, with Gibbet, being the only able to leave the tower, being tasked with luring their victims there.[5] Frequenting the nearby Lion City, Gibbet spread the rumor of the elixir during visits and singing its praises. During her outings, she became acquainted with Stella Townsend, the owner of the local bar, being frightened by her pet parrot Alvin. After Stella made the arrangement to hide Alvin whenever Gibbet visited, the torturer would use the bar as a spot to discreetly locate potential victims and lure them to Torcia Tower.
She later encountered Lloyd Lowell at Stella's Bar, flirting with him. When Lloyd eventually came to the tower to steal the Pot of Basuzu, Gibbet captured him, torturing him for a month with the help of her sisters.[6]
Around a month later, she lured Cynthia Chamberlain and her cousin Ian to the tower, although the plan went awry due to her passing out after being reminded of a recurring dream about the incident with Magion she had.[2] When Joshua Herbert, Vivian and Raymond Atwood came to the tower, Gibbet performed her duties before Raymond revealed himself to have wraith powers and fled. She then reported the incident to Beritoad.[7]
When Raymond returned to the tower along with Lloyd, Benji Kemp and Stella, Gibbet made to capture Benji and Stella, eventually succeeding despite initially being scared off by Alvin. A fight later broke out between Raymond and Rack, who was transformed into a giant wolf, ending with the tower being damaged, Lloyd being killed by Maiden, and Raymond, Benji, and Stella escaping while Gibbet was knocked out cold from the resulting destruction.[8] With their secret out, Gibbet was forced to find new victims in another town, Mercerie City.[4]
Trials with Crossrosier[]
While in Mercerie City, Gibbet invited its mayor to Torcia Tower, where she tortured him into becoming Beritoad's servant. Under their influence, he supplied the needed human sacrifices by sending people to the tower. However, he was killed by an assassin, who also made an attempt on Gibbet's life when she returned to investigate but she managed to escape to the tower.
Upon returning at dawn, Gibbet realized she couldn't sense Beritoad or her sisters' presences inside Torcia, discovering a broken third story window and Rack's inanimate body outside. Venturing inside revealed a losing fight on Maiden's behalf from the third floor to the fourth, with Maiden's inanimate body near the fifth floor. Concluding Beritoad had been kidnapped but not killed, Gibbet pondered on how to move her sisters around before being confronted by Rabiah for the first time since entering the tower. Terrified by his raven form, she attempted to shoo him away before he assumed into a humanoid form and reintroduced himself.[9]
Two days later, the two took a carriage pulled by Robinson and Johanson tracking Beritoad's scent, carrying various devices including Rack and Maiden towards the Royal Capital. When the trail stopped just as the city appeared on the horizon, Gibbet rebuffed Rabiah's offers to take her to an inn and slept in the carriage instead.
Over the next four days waiting for Rabiah to return from scouting, Gibbet passed the time by subsisting herself off of what he left for her in the carriage and making flower bouquets. When he returned, she voiced her relief at another wraith feeling hunger like she does, unlike her sisters. Learning Beritoad was in Hargain Crossrosier's possession, the two rode closer to his mansion, bringing Gibbet's sisters within Beritoad's radius and restoring their humanoid bodies to certain extents. During the ride and subsequent planning, Gibbet was surprised to learn Rack knew who Rabiah was and that the two were conscious the entire time.[10]
As Rabiah distracted the human occupants, the sisters broke into the mansion, into a still-occupied room. Gibbet threw a ball gag over the man's mouth to keep him quiet and prevented Rack from stopping to torture him further. Following Maiden to Beritoad, the sisters were then confronted outside the laboratory door by wraith hunter Tsukumo who conjured a wind storm. Spawning a witch's spider, Gibbet managed to hold on as the wind ripped up the area. After the wind storm ceased and Tsukumo attacked the younger sisters with a stone hand, Gibbet clasped a Gossiper's Violin around the wraith hunter's arms. Tsukumo soon after broke the violin off with florakinesis, outmatching the trio in power. Even as Tsukumo disappeared before Maiden could retaliate, the girls were surrounded by Crossrosier magicians, though the sisters knew they could handle humans trained in fake magic.
Once done with torturing the Crossrosier members, the sisters broke into Hargain's laboratory and recover a vivisected Beritoad. The only sister to notice Liam Highland and Hargain's body in the room, Beritoad informed her of who they were; though the sisters prepared for a fight, Liam declined due to his father's death. Beritoad also explained how Tsukumo is a conductor for Hargain's magic, meaning she is vulnerable now that he's dead. Moving outside to assist Rabiah against Raymond and a powerless Tsukumo, everyone present save for Gibbet was struck by Tsukumo's enhanced lightning, lent to her by Raymond using Hargain's bracelet.[11]
Due to being unscathed, she managed to rescue Rack, Maiden, Beritoad, and Rabiah, taking them back to Torcia Tower with help of the less-seriously injured Robinson and Johanson. As the injured wraiths recovered and made repairs to the tower, Gibbet came into information about events in Mercerie City regarding the mayor's assassination. On a rainy night some time later, Gibbet walked in as Beritoad and Rabiah finished speaking about her memories possibly returning from her outings to report on her new information, pleased to hear the two were on speaking terms again, much to Beritoad's confusion. Soon after, she helped herself to tea and fed the horses on the first floor of the tower.[12]
Fall of Torcia[]
Months later, Gibbet and Rabiah enacted a plan to regain control of Lion City with Rabiah stealing the election of its new mayor "Blood Asterisk", and Gibbet posing as his seldom-seen wife. However, during this process the two had trouble securing new prey for Beritoad due to outside influences.[13]
About two weeks after her latest outing, she and Rabiah returned to Torcia Tower to pose as mayor and wife inside "the mayor's wife's" home, receiving Danny Chamberlain, Raymond, and Benji as their guests. Gibbet remained calm as "Blood" talked down to Raymond about the latter's troublemaking and his potential legal trouble, the eldest sister enjoying watching the half-wraith squirm in human red-tape. In the midst of their squabbles, Rack entered the room and told Gibbet something, causing her to reluctantly let the visiting party leave as they wished. Danny, however, began to question the disappearances of his sister Cynthia and cousin Ian after visiting this very tower, which Gibbet attempted to dodge. Danny then demanded he be allowed to search the premises for the bracelet he gave Cynthia, causing Gibbet to become irate. The heir eventually backed down, deescalating the situation and the party left.
The next day, Beritoad summoned Gibbet to the fifth floor and commanded she kill their visiting torture engineer, Garness Elsebert, though she was thwarted in her efforts when he threw a tin bird at her. Beritoad then told her to check up on Maiden, whom Garness had finished making adjustments to.
Later on, Gibbet pondered on her role, likening capturing humans to catching ants, that eventually the queen ant tells the workers to avoid the danger. As such, she has positioned herself as the human's queen, using Rabiah's connections in human society as mayor. With Benji, Raymond, and their allies continuing to get in her way, she wished to crush them, to the point of expressing it physically. Soon after, she told Rabiah her intentions of going out as the mayor's wife and luring more humans to Torcia, partially to get some space from him.
Gibbet later arrived to a cafe in Lion City to meet the head of the Southern Merchants Alliance, Magion Blanken. After an uncomfortable stare upon meeting her, he expressed a wish to do business in Lion City to ease its failing economy, though Gibbet became distracted by his Shiokase grass pin. Told it's native to only Pharma, Gibbet realized she recognized the plant and the name of the town. Though Magion attempted to continue negotiations, the panicked woman cut the meeting short and ran away, experiencing a headache.
A few days later, Gibbet came to learn that Magion would be arriving at the tower in three day's time with at least ten people as reinforcements. She also noticed that Rack had been slacking in her work and confronted her in the dining room that night to scold her little sister, also letting her know to be prepared within three days. She later left to sleep for the night.[14]
Around the eve of her next meeting with Magion, Gibbet had her reoccurring dream about events and someone she can't remember yet again, filling her with doubt. Though she reaffirms herself as a gibbet made by Circa Lassen, her dream continued instead of ending when the boy gave her a bracelet, instead showing her an owl attacking the girl, vanishing, leaving the boy crying. As she remembers the girl was Christabel and the owl was Stolasphia and that she was both of them, she awoke in the tower's foyer instead of in bed, immediately forgetting the contents of her dream.
Startled, she realized this was the night of the meeting and heard knocking, but did not answer until the doors were broken down. A group of thirty charged in and her previous attempted assassin, Isaac, leapt at her. Gibbet stops his assault with thorny iron shackles and runs upstairs, preparing an iron gibbet trap. When the trap was foiled by Raymond's lightning, she ran to the second floor to come up with a new trap. There, Gibbet saw that the men were forces sent by the wraith Romalius and began to lecture on her sacred duty to sacrifice them for the sake of her father. Once the army was about to strike, Gibbet countered by dropping the ceiling on them, leaving their torture up to Rack.
On the third floor, Gibbet used multiple witch's spiders to capture the pursuing familiars of Romalius' for Rabiah to pick off. As the raven familiar attempted to attack the unbound Magion, Gibbet prevented him from doing so on the grounds that he cannot properly torture a sacrifice for Beritoad. There, Magion told Gibbet he came to the tower to speak with her.[15] He then divulges her true past as his sister Christabel and his pursuit of her after her disappearance, gifting her the bracelet from her dream once again. Beginning to recall her previous life and name, Gibbet experienced a breakdown over her nature, what she's done, and her hatred of humanity. As she panicked, she inadvertently killed Magion with a witch's spider, the first human she had killed by her own hand. She later fled from the tower.
Watching Lake Last be drained of its water, she languished and became irritated with her memories. As Rabiah caught up with her, he realized her memories are coming back. He asked her what she wanted, and Gibbet responded that she wanted him to tell her everything about herself. Rabiah revealed an amethyst he took from his sister Stolasphia and returned it, the gem dissipating and finally restoring the woman's memories, from Stolasphia's beginnings, all the way to Christabel's induction as Beritoad's pawn. Now with both identities restored, she and Rabiah pondered on which she would choose.
Soon on that night, a soulless Rack-Amostia hybrid burst out of Torcia Tower, razing it to the ground. As everyone present banded together to defeat the rampaging wraith, Amostia's impervious armor necessitated attacks to the inside of their mouth when they breathed fire. As multiple shots were fired and missed, Gibbet summoned the Cord of Gleipnir to hold the wolven wraith's jaw open, allowing an electrified Maiden to enter their throat.[1]
After the defeat of Amostia, Rabiah escaped with the weakened Beritoad to the north, Gibbet preventing Raymond from pursuing them. Later, the former inhabitants of Torcia Tower moved to an eleven-story tower by an ocean. During new adjustments there, Gibbet had forgotten to feed Robinson and Johanson, being pestered by Rabiah in the process. Between choosing to be "Christabel" or "Stolasphia", she concluded that she is "Gibbet" and has decided to stay with Beritoad and her sisters in order to resurrect Lord Hank, even though she knows they are not her little sisters. As a Hereditary Evil Raiser, she will follow her instincts because suffering is inevitable. However, the sacrifices she intends to collect from now on will be evil, like her.[3]
Appearances[]
- Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture-
- Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Emerald Girl-
- Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil-
- Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -Clown Chapter-
- Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep: Nightmare Dream
- "Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep" (first appearance)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Gibbet is able to summon forth her motif weapon, a hanging gibbet.
- She is hard to wound and has superhuman strength, much like Chartette Langley from The Evillious Chronicles.
- Because the Tower of Torture has a rose motif, Gibbet's clothes are shown to have multiple roses on them.
- Her clothing is designed to use restrictive harnesses, referencing the cage style of hanging gibbets.
- Gibbet is chronologically the youngest of the three sisters, being at least 20, despite assuming the role of eldest sister.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil- – Chapter 5
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Chapter 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil- – Epilogue
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Epilogue
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Prologue
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Chapter 1
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Chapter 3
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Three Daughters of Sir Torture- – Chapter 4
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Emerald Girl- – Chapter 2
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Emerald Girl- – Chapter 3
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Emerald Girl- – Chapter 4
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Emerald Girl- – Epilogue
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil- – Chapter 1
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil- – Chapter 3
- ↑ Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep -The Ring of Evil- – Chapter 4