Three of the seven suns: the red, green, and violet suns, ensured that Chell could not avoid their mighty gaze nor their brutal heat. She had just come from far north of here, where only two suns ever grazed the sky in tandem, and her captors had taken the magecloth that she had donned. Now Chell wore holey pants and a shirt a bit too small for her, only provided to her for a little bit of decency, but Chell would've traded all the decency in the world for relief from the scorching winds.
The cart hit a bump, throwing Chell haphazardly into the metal bars, searing her skin. She cried out as burns brushed her side up her ribs, already in the process of scarring.
"Be careful there, if you don't sit square these carts can throw you like a bull."
Chell looked towards the source of the advice, to see a man with shaggy brown hair and skin long touched by sun. He wore the same outfit, an thus she concluded that he must also be a prisoner of war. She collected herself and copied his pose, sitting in a criss-cross leg formation with hands off to the side to support her.
"Is this the first time you've been captured like this?" the man asked.
Chell looked at him, the concluding that he was not a battlemage like him, stared at the passing lands. The scenery was quite beautiful despite it all, and she was sort of relieved to have been captured when her squad got ambushed rather than killed, though she'd never admit it. She thought the man must've been a courier or a cook, or some other lowly role in the war, though she had not known any to be captured. They were oft killed outright, seen as vermin of the battlefield rather than a worthy prisoner for taking. She had no reason to regard someone of such stature.
She glanced back over to the man, who was lost in the scenery they passed, humming a simple tune to himself. He did not seem bothered by being ignored, and she did not see a reason for him to be. She was a prisoner, either to be traded for enemy prisoners, or worse yet, to be made a slave of the enemy state. It was an embarrassing thing for her to be as the last of her unit, but she would be alive, and that was important.
Hours passed, the man humming while Chell tried to think of anything other than where she found herself. She had still fallen a few times when the cart hit a rock or the likes, and she became more and more irritated each time the man bobbed with ease, maintaining his balance. Before she could get too angry, the cart rolled to a stop.
Two guards walked around to face the carts and regard their prisoners.
"Only two captive today huh? But a mage is a mighty catch, and the boy looks like he can work his share," the taller one said.
"Well, two is better than we should've done. If I'd've had it my way, I'd've killed that whole unit! There's nothing that I hate more than a breathing Bitravian!" the shorter one quipped back.
"Aye, no disagreement there, but order's are what they are, and we need a negotiation chip for our prisoners. Those filth have taken many a good man from our ranks," the taller man spat. "Regardless, let us put them in the holding cell for the time being, we will wait for our Captain to arrive and distribute these thralls where necessary. Polly!" he yelled out.
Chell watched as a heavy stone and iron golem, one and a half times the height of even the taller guard and triply wide as such, stepped out from the from of the cart and walked towards the man's crate. With not a word nor any hesitation in his movement, Polly picked up the cage as a whole, walked to a small hole in the ground, unlatched the crate, and overturned it so that the man fell out into the hole. Chell flinched with the hard thump that his landing procured, and cowered as Polly turned to regard her. Panic began rising as her crate was easily hoisted by the iron-stone construct and quickly carried to the same hole.
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"Ah, Polly, that one weaves the arcane in her fingers. She may be without staff or grimoire, but I would be an idiot to leave it to chance. Put her in the purity cell so that Captain will not chew me out later."
Polly simply turned towards an adjacent, much smaller hole in the ground, and repeated his actions. Chell felt the world fall beneath her, tumbling gracelessly into the dark pit and landing with deep thud, knocking the wind from her lungs and leaving her daze. She watched then as a heavy metal grate was placed on top of the hole, containing only one small slit for light, synonymous with the smallest sliver of hope she still allowed herself to hold. Her people would come for her, she was a mage, they could not afford to leave her in the hands of the enemy. She knew it would happen, it had to, there was no other option in her mind.
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After a dozen minutes of laying on the hard stone floor, Chell hoisted herself into a sitting position. She looked around, trying to find anything of value in her cell, and finding herself utterly disappointed. There was not enough room to stand, the ceiling only four feet or so off the ground, and Chell was quite tall, especially for a woman, as her family was before her. The stone walls were sturdy and smooth and barren. She felt for her magic but knew the outcome before she had tested it - she was trapped in a purity cell, a cell formed with a stone that would absorb the magics of its surroundings to make it tougher, and she happened to be close enough that the stone was constantly sapping her mana. Great Mother would not be able to quench her supply, even during a Mana Pulse, not that there would be one for many more days and numbers.
Nothing else was available for her to take advantage of, so Chell fell back so that she could gaze through the slit in the grate, hoping salvation would show. There she passed the hours in silence.
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When three or more decades of hours had passed, Chell began to panic. Bitrava was not so slow to let her rot more than a day, and at least 30 of the 33 hours of a day had passed already. Doubt plagued her mind. She tried to calm down, looking around for anything to pay attention to, hopefully alleviating her distress, but found nothing. Chell began to cry.
Laughter erupted from one wall, faded and muffled, but obvious. It was the man she had seen on the ride before.
"Shut it! The Great Mother knows my situation, surely her servants will be sent to free me from my shackles. Your joviality is not welcome nor desired!."
At that the man laughed even harder. "You say it so surely, yet it is only yourself you have to convince. Regardless," he stopped laughing, "I am not laughing at you. Rather, I am impressed at how long it has taken you to lose your spirit. I have seen many prisons and even hardened mages panic after a few hours. How could you not, so far from home and with no witness to your current abode. I have a lot of respect for you, miss."
Chell felt her anger and frustration subside, but it was replaced by confusion. "Who are you then, to be so calm?"
"It's quite rude to ask for my name without giving yours first," he giggled. "But who has time for a peasant's pleasantries? I am Joshua, and this is not my first time being taken captive. What great and honorable battlemage do I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with?" Joshua said sarcastically.
"I am the newly graduated Chell of Bitrava, tutored by the great Na-"
"Ah that was a bit of sarcasm, mage. I don't know anything of the arcane world, so if you'd help a lowly farmer out, would you perhaps just give me a short name to call you?" Joshua interrupted.
Chell's cheeks burned in embarrassment, but she humored him regardless. "Chell," she replied swiftly, trying to hide the irritation from her voice. It would do no good to make more enemies in a place like this.
"Well, Chell, let's try to keep these next few days pleasant before they trade you back to your state, and put me to grueling work in some field or forest somewhere," Joshua laughed again. "After all, the mind is a brutal place to be, and a little company could do some good, even from someone as inferior as me. Isn't that right Chell?"
Joshua laughed again like a maniac while Chell sunk down into the corner of her cell, sentenced to become his audience. She couldn't help but feel the despair start to creep back, filling her pitiful cell and drowning her slowly, laughter in the background.