(669 A.C.)

The elevator into the mine finally came to a stop after a couple of minutes. The only light in the shaft had come from the entrance far above them, but eventually even that became barely more than a pinprick. Freun’s black hair certainly suggested he didn’t know any magic, and since he hadn’t grabbed a torch before all this, that left them making their descent in darkness.

Ott tried to break the silence exactly once. He’d barely gotten a word out before Freun snapped at him to shut the fuck up, and Ott wasn’t really in the mood to contradict him.

A few seconds before the elevator finally shuddered to a stop at the bottom of the shaft, flickering light began to bleed through the boards of the elevator’s floor. Ott glanced at Freun out of the corner of his eye but remained silent as the elevator jolted into place, revealing a rugged corridor sloping down deeper into the earth. Log supports were placed intermittently along the path with torches hanging from them to illuminate the space.

Freun started down the corridor, footsteps echoing against the stone walls from the heavy stomp of his boots on the rock ground. “How’d you lot find this place anyway?” Ott asked, following him a bit more cautiously. He eyed the ceiling of the mine with every step, but there wasn’t even the slightest splattering of dust.

“I told you to shut up,” Freun hissed, not even bothering to glance over his shoulder.

Ott shrugged even if Freun wasn’t looking to see it. “I’m just curious.”

Freun didn’t respond, not even with a grunt--which was just rude. Ott sighed and scanned their surroundings as they passed. Nothing really jumped out at him until they came to a split in the path, one continuing straight and another jogging to the right. Ott could hear voices and the clacking of metal against rock coming from the one ahead, but there were strange whistling and rustling noises rebounding from down the corridor to the right.

Freun kept marching down the way they were already going, but Ott slowed, craning his neck for any glimpse of what was causing those noises. It looked like the corridor continued on for a bit before veering to the right again, leaving whatever was at the end out of Ott’s sight.

“What’s down there?” Ott asked.

“You’re pushing your luck, songbird,” Freun snapped without breaking stride. Ott rolled his eyes. He said it like Ott didn’t already know that.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Ott said, hurrying to stay a few paces behind him. He wasn’t exactly eager to find out what Freun would do if he didn’t keep up with him.

“And I ain’t gonna,” Freun grumbled. “It’s none of your damn business what’s down there, so just be quiet about it.”

Ott sighed. Oh well. Maybe he could weasel the information out of another of the bandits, or maybe one of the other prisoners would have some idea. Though, getting that information out of them might be a bit harder.

Nothing could ever be easy, Ott thought.

The path split again, this time veering to the left and another breaking off to the right. Freun pointed down the left one. “You’ll be down there.”

Ott peered down the left tunnel, which quickly opened up to a much larger cavern. He noted the numerous bandits and more numerous prisoners milling about the place and mining, respectively. A familiar length of pastel green hair was off in the corner, with what looked like the majority of the other mages also working in the cavern. Ott then twisted his neck to look down the other corridor, but its torches weren’t lit, leaving only the first half dozen feet visible--and that didn’t reveal much.

“What about that one?” Ott asked.

Freun glared at him. Ott blinked back. After a long while, Freun hawked and spit off to the side, the sound reverberating in the tight tunnel. “Started hitting gas pockets,” Freun finally muttered. “Couldn’t go much further down that way unless we wanted our people to start dropping dead.”

Ott grunted. “I’m surprised you even know what a gas pocket is.”

Freun scowled. “Shuddup,” he said, which made Ott think he didn’t actually know what a gas pocket was. He probably just overheard the term from Esseli, who Ott would believe did know more about the natural world. “Get going,” Freun snapped when Ott didn’t immediately start moving.

With a shrug, Ott turned and headed to the left. Several of the bandits watching over the prisoners trained their gazes on him as he made a show of stopping inside and looking around. There were some unclaimed pickaxes leaning against the wall by the entrance to the cavern, so Ott grabbed one and hefted it up. He began to whistle a merry tune, the sharp sound cutting through the general cacophony of metal striking rock in the space, and nodded to the bandits as he passed them and headed over to Wanily.

He half-expected one of the bandits to stop him and shove him toward wherever they wanted him to work, but they merely went back to walking around the cavern and chatting amongst themselves. That was half of the reason Ott tried to exude as much confidence as he did, after all--don’t act out of place, and people won’t question you. It was something he learned very quickly as a bard trying to avoid hecklers.

With their attention largely sliding off him, Ott took the opportunity to examine his guards. All of them were armed, but to varying degrees. Ott only spotted one with a crossbow, which made sense in such a tight space. The rest carried swords or maces on their hips, and some even had daggers strapped to their thighs. One bandit had a whip coiled under her arm, but thankfully she seemed most more interested in talking with another bandit than using it against any of the prisoners. In all, he counted eight bandits watching over twenty prisoners in the cavern.

There were more paths breaking off from spots around the perimeter of the space, larger tunnels than the one that Ott had used to enter the mine with Freun. He spotted a few more prisoners and bandits working and roaming in those, as well as more noises that sounded like they were coming from farther down the passages, out of sight. There was more to these mines, and if Ott had to guess, the mages were kept from going deeper in the tunnels and possibly dying from a cave-in or exposure to deadly gasses. After all, if Esseli and her gang were going to go through all the trouble of keeping mages, they might as well make sure they don’t die needlessly. Lucky for Ott that he fell under that category.

He stopped next to Wanily and threw her a smile when she paused in her work to look at him. She gasped. “You’re back!” She looked around furtively before leaning a bit closer. “Are you okay?”

Her concern was touching, he thought, if misplaced. “I’m fine,” he dismissed. “But what were you thinking, antagonizing Freun like that?”

Wanily frowned. “The bandit? He was being awful to you.”

“So you thought the solution to that was to make yourself the target?” Ott glanced back toward the nearest bandit, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. Yet.

“They don’t treat me as bad as everyone else.”

“You have a black eye,” Ott pointed out, feeling a headache creeping up through his temples.

“Yeah, but they didn’t kill me for trying to escape.”

Ott frowned. “How do you know about that?”

“About what?”

“The prisoner that was just killed like ten minutes ago?” Ott asked, feeling like they were having two different conversations.

It was Wanily’s turn to frown. “Someone was killed? They tried to escape, didn’t they? That’s about the only thing they kill you for around here. Other than just refusing to work for long enough.”

She sounded oddly chipper for such a bleak statement. Ott grimaced. “That’s not the first time it’s happened, then?”

“I’ve seen it a couple other times,” she said, her gaze falling. She shot a glance over her shoulder and hefted up her pickaxe.

Ott followed her gaze to where the bandit with the whip was watching them. He followed Wanily’s lead, heaving his pickaxe up and making it at least seem like he was working. He had no idea what they were even supposed to be mining, but before he could ask, Wanily continued, “I knew the risks when I tried to escape, but the main bandit lady didn’t kill me when I failed. She said killing a mage was a waste and killing a child was in poor taste, so I have one more chance.”

Ott found that more than a little funny considering everything Esseli did in Fris--killing mages, children, and probably child mages to boot. His grip tightened on his pickaxe, but for now, that was neither here nor there. “How long have you been here?” he asked, hushed to avoid the attention of their guards.

Wanily shrugged, lifting her pickaxe for a swing. “A month, maybe?”

A month. These bandits had kidnapped a child and kept her captive for a month. Had forced her to do hard labor during all that time. Ott was honestly a little surprised she was still alive. And still so raring to go compared to so many of the other prisoners he’d seen. Even now, sneaking a quick look around, he and Wanily seemed to be the only two talking. All the other prisoners just kept their heads down and swung their pickaxe again and again.

“You must have learned a lot about how the bandits operate in a month,” Ott said. “Especially if you felt confident enough to try to escape.”

Wanily brought her pickaxe down and paused just long enough to give Ott a sharp grin. “Oh, I’ve been watching everything.”

Ott would have to interrogate Wanily later on what she knew about the bandits’ schedules and resources. Hopefully during the evening when their guards weren’t so close.

“So what are we supposed to be mining anyway?” Ott asked, squinting at the rock in front of them. It just looked like any other plot of solid earth to him. He gave it an experimental whack with his pickaxe and felt the impact all the way up his arms, through his shoulders, and down his back. Yeah, his muscles would be protesting this tomorrow.

Wanily frowned. “I’m not sure what it is,” she admitted. Lowering her pickaxe, she stepped closer to the wall and pointed at a seemingly random point. “See this, though?”

Ott leaned closer to the wall, peering at a little speck of what looked like some type of crystal or mineral or something embedded in the rock. Reddish-brown in color and distinct in shape compared to the rugged rock around it, it was probably only as big as Ott’s thumbnail. He frowned, racking his brain for what it could be, but he wasn’t very well-versed on stones and their kin.

Wanily stepped back and began chipping at the rock around the substance, heaving her pickaxe over and over. “I overheard they ship it to Tiranda,” Wanily whispered between swings. “I don’t know what it is or what they do with it, but it must be valuable. On a good day, I’ve only seen maybe a bucketful go out of the mine. And most of that will be regular rock with it.”

Ott frowned, thinking. Maybe it was an ingredient for some type of potion? He hadn’t heard about any new miracle elixir lately, but he hadn’t been to Tiranda or any of the Empire’s territories for a while. Until he was brought here, at least. It could be a component for crystal contraptions, too, he mused. Crystals were slowly becoming more common as mages figured out how to increase their lifespan. Maybe this had to do with that?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“So you’re a bard,” Wanily said, breaking Ott from his thoughts. Huffing and puffing, she stopped to wipe some sweat from her brow and smiled at him. “Know any good working songs?”

Ott chuckled, shelving the thoughts for now. He could try to figure out what these bandits were doing when most of them were dead and he, Wanily, and the rest of the prisoners were free. In the meantime, he had to figure out how to achieve that. And now was a good time to start on the first step in that plan: bringing hope and determination back to these people.

“Of course I do,” Ott scoffed. “I’m almost offended. I know all of the classics and even have my own share of original songs.”

Wanily nodded, still smiling. “Let’s hear an original, then. If it’s good, I bet the guards won’t say anything about it.”

Ott smiled, but something in his gut tightened. A good song. A good, original song. Yeah, he had those.

He cleared his throat, thinking for a moment. He scanned the wall in front of him for any of the little crystals Wanily had pointed out, but when he failed to find any, he settled for just swinging at the stone’s face.

Finally settling on a song, he started to softly sing.

Her face is crafted of porcelain

And her hair is made of midnight

Her legs are sculpted of marble

And her hands hold everything

Because they hug her tight

“Wait,” Wanily said, interrupting him. “That barely even rhymed. And... I’m not trying to be mean, but that didn’t sound quite right.”

Ott furrowed his brow. The tension in his stomach flared. “What?”

“I’m just saying,” Wanily said slowly, “I don’t know the first thing about writing a song but, you know, the notes just didn’t sound right. Were you just off-key?”

“Ouch,” Ott said, smiling. His stomach dropped like he was in a freefall, but, well, it was hardly the first time he’d been told his songs were lacking something. “Can I finish before you so confidently give me your opinion?”

Wanily shrugged, and Ott continued.

She dances with herself

Because she needs no one else

But she wants a husband more than anything

So she dances in the street for all to see

And all the men beg her to marry them

She has her pick of the crowd

But they’re all so handsome she can’t choose just one!

So she divvies up her time between them all

And says she’s just spreading Amera’s love

Ott fell silent, offering Wanily a dazzling smile. Wanily just gave him a quizzical look. Before she could say anything, though, one of the bandit guards shouted at him.

“What the fuck was that?” he called, laughing. “I thought bards were supposed to entertain.”

“I don’t know,” the bandit next to him said with a chuckle. “I mean, it was so bad it was laughable, but I did laugh.”

Wanily scowled, but before she could say anything to earn another black eye, Ott just offered a good-natured chuckle. “Hey, all the ladies back home loved my songs.”

“Poor bitches were deaf then,” the first bandit said, to the howling laughter of his companion. “I thought you were supposed to be a songbird? You sounded like a dying cat.” He shook his head, still smirking, but rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Back to work, songbird.”

Wanily opened her mouth, but Ott shot out a hand to grip her shoulder and spin her back to the stone wall. She shot him a glare, huffing, before she grasped her pickaxe in both hands and returned her attention to the mining.

Ott let out a shaky breath. It was definitely not the first time he’d been heckled, but, well, it still stung. Just a little. And he knew his songs weren’t up to snuff, he knew that, but how was he going to be the greatest bard in the world if he couldn’t write an amazing song?

He would just have to scrap it and try again.

“I was going to defend you,” Wanily muttered, “but it wasn’t very good. But the bandits don’t get to say that.”

Ott chuckled. “I appreciate your concern,” he said. “But I can handle a little cajoling. I think I just haven’t found the right inspiration for a song yet. That’s part of the reason I travel around so much.”

“What’s the other part?”

“The other part is that I want to be like the bards of old, spreading the message of joy, love, and freedom.” Ott smiled. “It’s a bit silly, I know, but I grew up in a country where those things were hard to come by. So I go around where I can and... reinforce those ideas.”

“That’s not silly,” Wanily said. “I want to be the Archmage to help people, so I can’t call you silly for wanting to do the same.” She pursed her lips and gave him a side-eye. “Okay, so no singing. What about a poem? Or a story?”

“Ah,” Ott said, his smile becoming more genuine. “I can do stories.”

“Are they originals, too?” Wanily asked, more than a little dubious.

He suppressed a wince. “I’ll spare you the Ott-hand-crafted specialties,” he said. “But I’d like to tell you one of my favorite stories, Wanily, and I want you to remember it, alright?”

Wanily frowned but nodded. “Alright.”

“Back in the time of mages and towers--”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense, we still have mages. I’m a mage.”

Ott arched an eyebrow at her. “Have you never heard the opening to a fairy tale before? That’s just how they start. And will you stop interrupting me?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Wanily said, striking the wall with her pickaxe. The chunk of the wall with the crystal finally broke off, and Wanily stooped down to pick it up. “Hold that thought.”

She turned and shuffled over to the nearest bandit, handing them the rock. They took it and tucked it into a bag on their hip opposite from their weapon, and Wanily returned with as little fanfare as she left. Ott couldn’t help but notice, though, that the bandit watched them both until they started picking away at the wall again.

“Okay,” Ott said. “So. Back in the time of mages and towers, two cwn annwn were captured by a wicked wizard. He trapped them in his fortress high in the sky, at the top of his towering keep. He stole away their prized wands and took anything they could use to replace them. Then he casted a most cruel spell around them--a ring of fire that got smaller with every passing hour. At three hours, the circle would close in on them. The cwn annwn had to figure out how to escape and quickly, or else they’d be burned to nothing but cinders.”

Ott paused, eyeing Wanily. She continued to work, swinging her pickaxe as rhythmically as a metronome. She stopped when Ott did, though, looking up at him earnestly. She nodded for him to continue, and Ott was more than happy to oblige.

“They both ran around the circle, hoping that some way out would reveal itself. Eventually, the first hour passed, and the circle crept toward them, cutting down their small bubble of safety. The first cwn annwn threw herself into the middle of the circle, bemoaning their fate. ‘It’s hopeless!’ she cried. ‘There’s nothing we can do! We’re doomed to perish in this ring of fire.’

“The second cwn annwn wasn’t ready to give up, though. He got the idea to use a stone to break up the base of the ring and create an opening. He scratched at the floor beneath them until his paws bled, but barely more than dust came loose. The second hour passed, and the circle grew even smaller, leaving the two cwn annwn with barely enough room to stand next to each other. With his plan failed, the second cwn annwn tried to talk to his companion. ‘Help me come up with a solution,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to just give up and die.’

“But the first cwn annwn just shook her head. ‘Why bother?’ she groaned. ‘The flames are too hot and too high. The floor is too sturdy. We have no wands and no magic. The wizard just wants to kill something, and we’re the ones he’s set his sights on.’

“‘It’s not hopeless,’ the second cwn annwn insisted. He turned to face the fire. ‘Sometimes’, he said, ‘sometimes the only way out of the fire is through it.’

“The first cwn annwn asked him what he meant, but the second cwn annwn did not say anything back. Instead, he steeled himself and leapt through the ring.”

“No!” Wanily said, aghast, freezing mid-swing. “But I thought he would die?”

Ott smiled. He didn’t answer her outright, just continued the story. “The first cwn annwn cried out as her companion disappeared through the flames. She heard his howls of pain as he landed on the other side, and the second cwn annwn, free from the ring, now faced horrible agony as his fur caught fire and burned bloody patches across his body.

“The second cwn annwn rolled himself over and over to douse the flames, and eventually, they went out. He was left panting on his side, burning anguish flaying his body, but he was alive. He tried to call out to his companion, but he was unable to make more than the tiniest of whines. The first cwn annwn could not hear him over the roaring of the ring of fire, and, too afraid that the second cwn annwn had sealed his own fate, did nothing. The third hour passed, and the first cwn annwn was burned up as the ring closed on her, reducing her to nothing but ashes.

“The second--now only--cwn annwn forced himself to stand. He limped down the stairs of the keep to the ground of the floating island the wizard had built his fortress on. He tore a branch from a bush in the wizard’s garden and used it to grant himself flight. Burned and bleeding, but alive, the cwn annwn descended from the island, leaving the tragedy behind him.”

Ott fell silent at the conclusion of the story. He waited, grinning, for Wanily’s reaction, and he was not disappointed.

“So the girl cwn annwn just dies!?” she exclaimed. She slapped a hand over her mouth as the sound echoed in the room, drawing the attention of more than one bandit and prisoner. She quickly ducked her head and continued working.

Ott pretended he had been working properly all along. Eventually, when the attention had left them, he caught Wanily’s gaze and nodded. “She does.”

“Why didn’t she try to escape with the boy?” Wanily said, hushed but harsh as well.

“She didn’t hear that she would live if she dove through the flames,” Ott said. “She was scared.”

Wanily stared at him incredulously. “So she just did nothing?”

“She was afraid and felt there was no hope, but she didn’t want to die. But her hopelessness led to inaction, and that led to her death.” Ott smiled. “Quite the contradiction, isn’t it?”

Wanily silently worked for a stretch, obviously thinking on the story. Ott let her and tried to look around the cavern as discreetly as possible. Most of the mages that had surrounded them last night were present with them now, and though their heads of green and white suggested they didn’t know a great amount of magic, it was certainly going to be better than nothing. Ott would have to start trying to chat them up.

“Sometimes the only way out of the fire is through it,” Wanily muttered. Ott returned his attention to her, watching as a series of emotions flashed over her face, too quick to catch. “And doing something, even if it ends up hurting you, is better than doing nothing. There’s always a reason to hope.” She looked up at him. “That’s what the story is really about, isn’t it?”

Ott nodded. “But you already knew about that stuff, right?” Ott asked, tapping the spot below his left eye.

Wanily brushed her fingertips against the same spot on her own face, her fingers pale against the darkness of the bruising. She visibly swallowed before nodding. “But they don’t,” she murmured, gaze flitting around the room before once again meeting Ott’s.

He grinned, resting his pickaxe against his shoulder. “Now you’re catching on.”

“What are we going to do?” Wanily asked, straightening her shoulders.

“We,” Ott started, returning to mining before the guards could say anything to him, “are going to spread a little hope. And that starts with a story about two cwn annwn.”

Wanily nodded, eyes glittering.

“We need to be discreet about it,” Ott said before she could get any ideas. “And bide our time. We need most, if not all, the other prisoners ready and willing to escape with us. But they have to be ready to possibly fail. They have to be willing to die.”

“I understand,” Wanily said softly. “When should we start?”

Ott grunted. “We’ll wait until tomorrow,” he decided. “Everyone will have heard if not seen that someone tried to escape. That’s sure to lower morale, but it’s when someone is at their lowest that they’re looking for a reason to keep going.”

“A reason to keep going,” Wanily echoed, brow furrowed. “Okay. But what’s the plan to actually get out?”

Ott chuckled uneasily. “Not too sure on that front yet,” he admitted. Wanily’s expression twisted to one of appropriate alarm, but Ott continued before she could say anything, “But I’ll come up with a good plan.”

“As good as your song?” Wanily asked, sounding somewhere halfway between teasing and concerned.

“Much better than my song.” Ott stopped to clap a hand onto Wanily’s thin shoulder. “I promise I’ll get you out, Wanily. Your friend, too. How else are you going to be the Archmage?”

That made Wanily smile. “Well, you better get yourself out, too,” she said. “So you can go out and write better songs and become the best bard in the world.”

Ott laughed. “Right.”

“Get back to work,” one of the bandits barked at them as he passed, and Ott obediently ducked his head and swung his pickaxe again. Wanily, he noted, stuck her tongue out at the bandit’s back before she returned to mining as well.

Ott had gotten one ally here in as many days. That was better progress than he usually made in operations like this. Not long now, he thought, swinging his pickaxe. Not long now.