Felix was surprised. "Wha-." he said, and he looked around in a panic, and activated Night Eye. He didn't see anything, least of all the jewelry. Suddenly, one of the ropes that was binding some of the cargo in front of him went taut, and there was a crash. For a couple of seconds, he saw a strange warping of light, and heard cursing from the same spot.
Felix's expression darkened. Without any hesitation, for the first time he activated Soul Siphon at the strange warped light. It easily landed, since it was only a couple of feet in front of him, and Felix could feel a link formed between himself and another person. Energy slowly started flowing out of the other person and in to Felix.
"Shit!" the cloaked person said. They scrambled to their feet, their cloak slowly fading as they lost concentration. They were a somewhat tan youth, a bit shorter than Felix, with dark hair and eyes, and rather ragged and course clothing, with a brown satchel across their torso, in which Felix saw the missing jewelry, hastily stuffed inside. They leaped out of the wagon, and started running. Felix swiftly got to his feet and hopped out as well.
When Felix got out of the wagon, the man was starting to flee into the open plains. Felix used Pitfall directly in front of the man, since he wasn't very far away yet, perhaps 15 feet away. The man tripped and fell due to the shallow pitfall.
"Fuck, my foot!" he cried out. He then turned to look back at Felix, with fear, anger, and desperation in his eyes. He opened his mouth and began to spe-
Felix immediately used Sand Attack, tossing some nearby loose dirt into the man's mouth and eyes. The man spluttered angrily, and fire appeared in his hands. He shot out a fireball roughly in Felix's direction, but due to how disorientated he had become, it whizzed harmlessly off into the distance. By this point the slaves and Tom had come over, curious, but they ran and hid behind the wagon when the fireball came out. Felix used Pitfall under the man again, causing him to actually sink a bit into the ground, while he continued harassing the man with Sand Attack, and occasionally chucking rocks at the man with Fling Rock whenever he felt there was sufficient sand and dirt in his eyes. All the while, energy flowed into Felix via Soul Siphon.
The man was panicking, so he clambered out of the depression in the earth created by Pitfall, and tried to awkwardly run away on his hands and feet, trying to keep weight off of his sprained foot. Felix used Pitfall again in front of the man, causing him to fall face first into the depression, his face smacking into the earth. Not that this made a huge difference considering how much dirt Felix had thrown at the man's face by this point. The man angrily turned around and started throwing fireballs wildly and randomly, just hoping to hit Felix by chance at this point.
By sheer luck, one of them headed right for Felix.
"Shit" Felix said. He didn't have time to dodge, so he used Harden. His skin immediately became much tougher and thicker. The fireball hit Felix square in the chest, setting his clothes on fire, and singeing him. It still didn't feel good, but he wouldn't get any serious burns with one small random fireball.
Another fireball went towards the wagon. Felix thought quickly and used Earth Wall, blocking the shot. Felix dropped and put out the fire on his clothes in the dirt, and looked back at the man. He was struggling to get up and wipe dirt off of his face. He was moving noticeably slower by this point, and Felix was moving faster. Normally, Harden would slow him down, but he was being buffed by the energy he gained from Soul Siphon. Suddenly, Felix had an idea. He raised his hand towards the man, and used Earth Wall three times, entrapping the man in a triangle of Earth Walls which were about 12 feet high. Felix stood there, curious how this would turn out. It was quiet for a few moments, where the man presumably was wiping the dirt off of his face and out of his eyes. Then...
"Let me out of here great earth mage! Please! I never wanted to hurt you, I'm just desperate for money!" the man cried out desperately from inside the triangle. Felix ignored him and continued slowly draining his energy with Soul Siphon.
"Earth mage, please! I tried to run, not to kill you! There is no great enmity between us!" the man cried out weakly from inside the triangle. Felix continued to ignore him.
The man yelled angrily and spit some fireballs out of the top of the triangle, hoping for a lucky shot, but he had no idea of Felix's position at this point. The fireballs all went uselessly off into the dirt. They became weaker and smaller in size, until they eventually stopped. The man stopped speaking.
Felix kept draining a bit longer, then he approached the triangle. He used Mold Earth to open a small hole in one of the Earth Walls and peeked inside. The man was lying on his back in the pitfall, breathing slowly, but he was otherwise still.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Jack!" Felix yelled. "It's safe now, come over here!" he ordered.
Jack peeked his head out nervously, and then jogged over to Felix. "Yes, sir, what do you need?" he asked, glancing at the triangle constantly.
"Get me one of the spare slave collars." Felix ordered. Jack nodded and jogged back to the wagon. After a few moments of him rummaging around, he came back with a black slave collar. Felix took it from him, and used Mold Earth to open a way through one of the walls. The man looked at Felix, his eyes bloodshot from the dirt, but he couldn't move besides breathing at this point. Felix placed the slave collar on his neck, and infused his mana into it, enslaving the man. He then took the satchel off his body, recovering the jewelry.
"You are, for now at least, my slave. Do not try to run away, or you will die after a few hundred meters. Do not harm anyone, including yourself. That is a direct order." Felix said. The man teared up, but he could not reply.
Felix turned away from him. "Jack." he said, addressing Jack.
"Yes, sir, Lord, sir." Jack said, stammering.
"I'm not a Lord, so don't call me one. Go get Matthias and you two haul this guy over to the tents. Help get him cleaned up and keep an eye on him through the night, it's high past time I got some sleep." Felix said.
"Yes, sir." Jack said, as he jogged off to get Matthias. Felix walked back to the wagon. Tom popped his head in. "Is uh, everything all right now?" Tom asked.
"Everything's fine Tom, we just unexpectedly picked up a new slave." Felix said.
Tom nodded solemnly, and went back to the tents. Felix returned the jewelry to the cargo, changed into some spare clothes he had brought which weren't burnt to a crisp, and laid down for sleep.
He woke up several hours later, well past sunrise, feeling rather groggy. Their camp had already been cleaned up by the slaves, and they were on the move. It seemed everyone let him sleep, and the slaves were awkwardly on the sides so not to disturb Felix, with the new slave sat on top of the cargo. Felix slapped his cheeks a bit to wake himself up, and got off the floor of the wagon, cleaning up his bedspace. The slaves sighed in relief and sat down normally now.
"Afternoon, boss. Tom said we shouldn't wake you because you would be dead tired after using so much mana last night." Matthias said, respectfully.
Felix drank some water and nibbled on a cold baked potato Jack handed him. They all sat in silence while Felix ate. He finished after a while, and eventually turned to address Matthias.
"He was right, I feel like shit." Felix said. He then looked at their new slave, who looked even more dead tired than Felix. He didn't make eye contact with Felix.
"So?" Felix asked the new slave. "What's your name?"
"Castor." he said.
"Appropriate name for a mage." Felix remarked. Castor nodded glumly.
"So? Why are you out here in the middle of these godforsaken barren plains looking to steal?" Felix asked.
"Well. I was part of that dark mage blockade a bit over a month ago. But, I didn't get the memo that it was a farce, I thought we were really finally trying to fight for our freedom. So I didn't think anything of stealing from some of the houses just outside the blockade. When it ended because the show was over, I got found out, but I used my Cloak spell to get away. I've been on the run ever since, slowly making my way south. I was going to go to Gurnkey and steal from the Lord there and try to make a run for the mountains, maybe live with the dwarves or something." Castor said.
Felix looked at Jack and Matthias and laughed. They looked away ashamed.
"What's so funny?" Castor asked, a bit angrily.
"Why don't you ask these two what they were enslaved for." Felix said with a chuckle.
Castor looked at Jack and Matthias quizzically. Jack sighed.
"We became enslaved for trying to steal from the Lord of Gurnkey. He's a talented water mage, we were caught easily, and the boss says water mages are really good with information, so he definitely would have caught you too." Jack said with another sigh.
Castor's face darkened. "You mean this would have been the result even if I made it to Gurnkey?" he asked. Everyone else nodded, and Castor hung his head in defeat.
"Well, what's your plan now, then?" Castor asked. "You don't look like a Lord, and I haven't had a trial, so you can't just keep me enslaved, that's highly illegal." he said.
"Relax, not too far up ahead is a small town called Fias, they have a Baron, and we'll see to him." Felix said. Castor nodded.
"In fact. Jack, swing around and tell Tom to make a stop in Fias in case he wasn't already planning to." Felix said. Jack nodded and swung around the edge of the wagon to reach the front. After a few moments, he popped back in to the wagon. "Tom says sure, we'll be there at the end of today in a few hours anyway." he relayed, sitting back down.
"So there you go." Felix said to Castor.
"You... you're really vicious, you know? I never wanted to hurt you." Castor said.
Felix sighed. "How much do you think all the jewelry you stole is worth?" he asked, looking at Castor.
"Well uh, I don't know, a few silver hopefully is all I was thinking at the time." Castor said.
"According to our shipping manifest, it's worth about 10 gold." Felix said. Matthias whistled.
"All right, that's a lot, but what of it? That's still just material wealth, it can't compare to your life." Castor said indignantly.
"That value for the jewelry would have come out of MY pockets, since I'm the one who is supposed to guard it. And what do you think would have happened if I couldn't pay that amount? I would probably end up enslaved myself!" Felix said angrily. Castor looked down in resignation.
The conversation dried up, and a few hours later, they pulled in to Fias as sunset was near.