infiltrate, get info and destroy--a plan so easy that it would literally take me a second to doodle out a rough sketch of how it would go.
In my mind, it was all agent 47 or James bond-like. Go in sneaky or loud, gather the info you need and blast it all to hell...blast me to hell and back for having such innocent thoughts again.
Would it be a thorn on the architect's side to have something go my way for even a damn minute? Though, this time I'd say that blaming them was sort of unfair--I did carry a majority of the blame, if not all of it.
I went off with the little information I'd gotten and assumed it would all draw itself out according to the mental blueprint I had printed out. This was a rebellion's plan, not a random movie plot--overthrowing the government was going to take a lot more than a simple plan built using toothpicks and gum.
When they said 'infiltration', they meant 'intentionally having part of our team captured to gather intel from the inside as prisoners whilst the rest passed it to Adelaide from outside'. A solid plan until you're the one behind bars.
The pain I'd endured for nearly a damn month and a half was enough to have even the healed wounds burning. I'd adopted the habit of counting those I could see; scribbling the number on the wall...they grew in number enough to have me dropping that habit.
Tortured me like mad-men for not taking off my mask, which I couldn't even do had I wanted to.
Adelaide called it a safety feature--casted a spell on it to have it glue itself on my face until she choses to let it loose. Had they figured out my identity the day they moved us to this camp, I'd probably be dead before I even knew it. Though, perhaps death was a better alternative for most in our situation.
The facility wasn't anything to scratch your head about.
A simple prison-like camp used for gathering information on what was going on within the kingdom's walls during the day and a bandit infested enslaving facility by night. Anyone unlucky enough to find themselves venturing through its surroundings would quickly find themselves in an unfortunate situation.
Those who seemed valuable enough got traded off to slave traders and those who didn't, got emptied out both financially and literally. They left nothing but ashes from people's bones left once they were done.
Only reason I wasn't flying in the wind as dust particles was because they couldn't identify me. The boy with the fox mask had disappeared from the kingdom and before them was a possible suspect--you can see why I was getting 'special treatment' for not taking the damn thing off.
"You." A deepened voice let out through a well polished steel helmet, the usual guard banging on my cell with a metal pole to get my attention, "eat."
His words came out as his companion slid a plate full of delicacies under the cage's door before both of them saw it fit to leave.
Delicacies was a heavy word; unless, of course, hard bread and leftover boar stew that was cold enough to have you barfing it all out was your go to meal.
Much appreciated officer...much appreciated.
Torture a guy nearly to death only to feed him your finest meals at the end of each day--the idea of blowing all this to smithereens was getting a lot more satisfying than it initially did.
"Master, you're sanity worries me." Mes let out, her sudden communication leaving my head pounding slightly as her bright subtitles nearly blinded me, "...keeping to your thoughts in these kinds of situations only makes it worse"
"I's said it before, talking to a voice in my head won't help." I let out, sliding the plate closer to examine it.
A sigh then escaped me as I slid the plate behind me. The meal wasn't the finest I'd had but it sure as hell was one that someone else needed. The skinny fox-girl that had been shivering silently at the cell's back right corner sure as hell would benefit from it a lot more.
"You can have it." I let out, not turning to face her.
The more I looked at her, the more fortunate I felt. That's a lot coming from the guy who was getting beaten up day and night.
Harai was her name--at least I thought it was since that's what the guards referred to her as. Looked no more than 20 years old yet one look and you'd think she lived till 100 before getting reborn again. Hard to imagine the shit one could go through at such a young age, enough to have an old, ever complaining, good-for-nothing like me pitying her.
She wasn't the first, and for sure not the last. Many had come and gone through this cell, most meeting their makers before getting the chance to be sold off as a slave.
She'd been the one sliding the meals in for me before she got shoved in here, her mistake was serving an extra left-over brick-like loaf of bread to one of her mates in another cell. Effectively earning the slave branding burnt onto her skin and ending the life of the one she simply wanted to feed...even more reasons to have this place down. I'd noted them all down--scars I could forget, stuff like this were an absolute line crosser.
"What of you?" She forced a reply after several minutes of silence, "Your punishment will only grow were they to find out."
"Unless you're going to rat me out for feeding you, I don't believe anything can get as worse as it is already."
It was righteous that she'd considered worrying about someone in a far better situation than herself. Unlike her, they wanted me alive--or at the very least living enough to identify me.
"She's a member of the fox clan, master. Righteousness is part of their traits." Mes butted in.
"Yeah, well righteousness can only get them so far." I inwardly responded, taking in a deep breath.
I was familiar with them, Aeron's father had the princes travel to it for a sort off educational journey.
Not the best place to be yet not the worst. Their own situation being something they'd wish they could prevent--a tale I'd much rather sleep on than dive deep on whilst being imprisoned. Only reason why it even popped into my mind was because it was too damn noisy to sleep.
Our wing of the prison was oddly rowdy tonight, the guards around our cells noticed it as well.
Hastily, they drew their weapons before sprinting away from my view. I couldn't see their faces, but they sure as hell must have been pissed.
At first I heard their footsteps echo as they sprinted down the hall, then an extra pair followed...then came more...and more. It was as if the whole prison's security had migrated all the way here.
Curious, I attempted to poke my head through the cage to see what was going on but failed to get a clear image. Seemed like an argument or some sort of containment protocol; one prisoner was being held down.
I couldn't tell who it was, but their size justified the number of guards needed.
"Blink"
I'd recognized that voice from anywhere, echoed and almost disembodied. The pace at which he appeared before me confirmed it even more; Lance bloody Evergreen.
"Aeron, some guards mentioned seeing a dragon heading for the kingdom's walls with an elf on its back" He begun, sneakily watching the guards to make sure their attention weren't on him.
An elf riding a dragon towards Blackheart kingdom...that was practically our greenlight--they sure did take their damn time.
"So that means all this is a distraction?"
"Grat's gathering them all in one place," He responded, quickly picking my cage's lock, "...he's done his part, now its time for the fireworks."
A smile quickly drew itself on my masked face, this was what I'd been waiting for ever since we dove head-first into this hell hole. A month and a half of passively channeling magic into my soul well...
"High-tier again? You'll shatter, blockhead--you know that now." Mes quickly interrupted an unusual sass evident in her tone.
Absolutely, malady.
My priority was blasting everything to bits, I didn't get the living shit beaten out of me just to simply use a sword engulfed in flames to burn a guy or two.
"Lance..." I begun, stretching my arms in front of me, "...get Harai along with as many prisoners around us to safety."
Quietly, he nodded before releasing an azure glow from his eyes which left a trail as his body zoomed out of my view.
Within seconds, Lance's azure streak ripped through--cell doors banged open, prisoners vanished. Harai's plate clattered as the guards spun, they were too late. Far too late. In fact, the only thing they could go off of was Lance's voice which echoed half a second after Harai's plate went silent. Blink was one hell of a spell, and he made sure everyone knew it.
Leave it to a Holy knight when it comes to reliability.
As for destruction--leave it to brick heads who think they live with a respawn mechanism pre-built into their existence.
I knew three spells...and only one of them was usable in this situation; and I was in luck, it was ineffective against orcs.
With a deep breath, my surroundings quickly rose in temperature--a burning sensation coursing through my body.
My throat felt dry, my heart felt like it had suddenly been lit into a flame and my head immediately protested by sending a pounding headache which I hastily ignored.
"Hey you! get back to your cell!" One guard shouted, noticing that I was the only prisoner within the vicinity.
Following which, a group of three of them then begun approaching me once they felt that they'd managed to handle Grat; the man himself simply showed a relaxed grin as he turned to face my direction, still being pinned down by multiple brutes.
Had to give it to them--it was either their stupidity that fueled their courage or they simply had balls of steel...one look at me and anyone could tell I was about to blow. Or perhaps they simply assumed that whatever was coming from the person they'd beaten the crap out of, wasn't going to be worth worrying about.
Whatever it was, all I could do was thank them for the easy targets and suck in a deep breath because the magic I'd been allocating for this spell was more or less ready.
Swiftly, the air around me spiraled with an explosive bang--flames flying all over before gathering together between my palms to form a raging ball of flame that was bright enough to have the guards momentarily shielding their masked vision against the bright light. Then, once they'd noticed what I'd just conjured up, two of them quickly sprinted back whilst one of them charged at me, blade aimed at me.
Had he been five yards closer, perhaps he would have had the chance to stab me--saving himself from what followed. But unfortunately, what he managed to do instead was land a front row seat to probably one of the most devastating spells he'd ever come close to witnessing in person.
As the ball of flames grew, a low and almost growling voice escaped me--my words echoing on the walls for a solid minute as a soft rumble emerged from the ground below us.
"Tell the devil I sent you to him with an express invitation, pieces of shit." I commented before sucking in a short dry breath.
"Múspellsheimr"