CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM

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I didn’t know how I’d somehow become the leader of this group, but it seemed like half of the people were looking to me for what to do.

That surprised me, as not ten minutes ago I’d been bawling like a baby. No one seemed to think less of me for it though.

“I don’t think we should stay here long, but I would really love to at least have some idea about where we are. For now, we should gather up everything that looks like it might be useful. Especially if it's for a… Rogue, Necromancer, Cleric, or Monk.” I felt so silly saying that.

“Olivia, can you summarize while we walk? I don’t think any of us has time to read that right now, but I would kill to have at least some idea of what’s going on,” I asked.

“Uhm… yes. I’ll try,” Olivia replied. She had a real ‘mom’ vibe about her. She was wearing a torn paisley blouse and a long skirt that made me think she’d been kidnapped in her Sunday best.

There were a lot of random items that showed a sort of hovering screen in front of them when I looked but I focused on Olivia for the moment.

“Aleredas seems like he was a local nepobaby. The lord’s son maybe? The entries must all be from before he was captured. I don’t think he had ink after he got in here. He… spent a lot of time waxing poetic about some girl named Meredia too,” Olivia said.

The woman didn’t really have much of a talent for storytelling, and she seemed to realize this.

“How is this relevant to now?” I asked, trying not to be impatient.

“Right. Sorry. The… uhh. The other thing he talked about a lot was the demons. He talks like they were a common thing in his life, wherever he was from, and so was the Valam’s curse. He talks about gaining a class like its a rite of passage. Something he’s looking forward to. Until you all came in here with your glowing staves, I thought it was all nonsense,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Can you read out that exact line?” I asked as I began walking, still further down the left hall.

“Sure. Give me a second,” she said flipping through the pages.

“Find anything, Todd?” I asked as I saw him exit the cellblock.

He shook his head, and I turned to the people who were gathering loot. “Alright. What all did they drop? I could use some coins to top off my batteries.”

“A lot of little magnifying glasses. You already saw the gloves, but there is also plenty of gold and about five little red vials that say “Health, Small” on the sides. We… think they’re healing potions but that’s only based on the word of some of the kids. There are also three blue ones that say “Mana Small” in the same way.”

“Those are easy enough to figure out. Give two of them to Chester, and one to… It was Tessa, right?” I asked, turning to the monk. It paid to be polite and learn people's names. I’ve always had a talent for people management.

The girl nodded. She still looked enraged somehow, even sitting still.

“I should be able to refill my… mana… with gold when the imps die, but they might have a harder time. Chester needs to be topped off at all times so he can heal any of us when we get hurt,” I said. “And it sounds like you might need to have a way to recharge whatever your abilities are too, right? What can you do?”

The girl shrugged. “My punches are electric now. I’m a bit faster, too.”

That sounded dangerous, needing to be so close. “Like a tazer?”

“Kinda. It said it had a chance to stun opponents. I picked the first thing that looked useful,” she said.

“Here it is,” Olivia interrupted. “Keep in mind, it reads like Shakespeare.”

Many of us, myself included, leaned in toward the older woman, eager for answers.

“Father hast did promise me if I defeat Guard Captain Thenry in a spar, only then might I gain mine own class.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“But tis impossible! Thenry is a Paladin fair, his feet wind, his sword lightning! Father plays me for a fool!”

“The Valam’s beshrew fades. The demon threat is conquered by the day. Whispers have reached mine ear. Valam Luca nears the heart of corruption and Bequistha’s Sanctum.”

“I rejoice! A world without demons. Oh Meridia, what a world! Yet, what becomes of a classless son, should the demons fall before I gain the Valam’s Blessing?”

“Meridia… wilt thou love a classless lord’s son? I fear I must great risks take, lest I be left powerless in a world of titans.”

We all took a moment to digest that. It… did sort of explain things. Some hoity-toity noble wanted a class but his dad wouldn’t let him have one for some reason. So… considering where Olivia found his skeleton, it looks like he did indeed take a great risk.

“What’s a beshrew?” Emily asked, her blonde hair shining in the firelight.

“It’s a curse,” Chester said.

“So he calls it Valam’s Curse and Valam’s Blessing? These ‘Valam’ were busy people…” Jody said.

“I don’t know,” Olivia replied. “He doesn’t mention it very often. He spends half the book writing sonnets to Meridia. Bad ones.”

We all descended into a shuffling silence as we began to walk down the hall. I was starting to feel a bit safer thanks to the sheer number of us. Eighteen people felt like a small platoon, and all of us unconsciously huddled a little closer together as we walked.

“Hey, Rio,” Chester piped up suddenly. “I forgot to mention it before, but it seemed kind of important. When those imps were attacking and Tessa killed one, it dropped something. A weird little rock. The second all of them saw it, they ignored us in favor of grabbing and destroying that rock. One of them smashed it against a wall before we could get it, but they would’ve been a lot harder to kill if they hadn’t been so focused on it.”

I frowned but Jody answered before I could. “And you didn’t think to mention that? Were you able to see its description?”

Chester refused to acknowledge Jody and instead spoke directly to me. “I didn’t see what it was. Did you, Tessa?”

Tessa shook her head. “I didn’t even see that happen, though I did notice when one of them ran off.”

“Hmm,” I thought. “So they were more willing to die than let us have some rock? Strange… Maybe it's some sort of key?”

“Fuck if we’re going to find out now,” Jody hissed.

“It’s no use getting mad about it,” I snapped. “We’ll keep an eye out for another one, but until then we just have to keep exploring and searching for a way out.”

“Might’ve been a way out of here for all we know. Fucking incompetent–!”

“Dammit, Jody, Weren’t you a Marine? I thought you were supposed to be all about supporting each other and shit?” I snapped.

He gave a shit-eating grin and said, “Dishonorably discharged. Ma’am.”

Of course, he was.

I threw out an ice trap that sizzled to life. He blinked in surprise.

“In that case, stop talking to Chester entirely. Frankly, I’m not sure we even need your skeleton or your attitude. If you don’t start contributing instead of putting people down, I’ll take care of you myself,” I said, my words as cold as the trap.

It was all bluster. He had to know it was all bluster. Shit, I didn’t even know if I could make the trap attack something that wasn’t a demon. The frozen air crackling around my ice trap must have lent my words some weight, though. He glared at me for a moment before nodding sharply.

“Sorry, kid,” he said. Not exactly contritely, and certainly not meekly. But it would do.

We continued walking in silence for a while. To an extent, I agreed with Jody. Whatever that rock was, it clearly could’ve helped us, but morale was more valuable than scolding our healer, never mind that I personally owed him my life. We would find another one.

We came across another cell block, but it was empty. It was becoming clear that we were in a huge circular building, and thus far the only things to break the monotony were the cell block doors and the hallways heading in towards the center.

Each of those hallways were gloomy, but something at the end of them glowed an ominous red color, and I was getting more and more sure that it was our only possible way out.

I couldn’t tell exactly how far around the outside edge we’d come but we encountered two more empty cell blocks before we reached a very familiar one.

“This… this is the demon you killed,” Todd said, looking down into our original prison and the still-frozen body of the demon I’d first killed to escape. “We’re back where we started.”

“We only encountered two demon jailers and six imps,” I said to the group. “Something feels wrong. Shouldn’t there be more? Even without these abilities, there’s a chance we still could’ve killed them. It’s like they wanted us to get out.”

Todd shivered. I noticed it and gave him a pointed look, but he didn’t say anything.

“Do you… have an idea, Todd?” I prodded.

“No. Just a sort of gut feeling. I don’t think I should say though…”

“Why not?” Tessa asked. “We’re dead in the water here. I’m not looking forward to going down one of those hallways either.”

“Dammit. Okay. They’re kidnapping people, right? That means they need us for something. What if… what if they need people like you even more?” He said to Tessa, before looking at me and then Jody.

I gulped, suddenly wishing he hadn’t put forth that idea after all.

“Any chance we could break out through the walls?” I asked. “Maybe the floor?”

“Not likely. Solid stone. We might get lucky and find a loose one, but there’s no telling what’s outside, or if there even is an outside. For all we know it might be nothing but rock,” Cole said.

Jody turned, warily eyeing the dim glow at the end of the hallway. “Shit. Guess, they didn’t want us to get too strong, either. You got a second skill when you killed that first demon but I still haven’t.”

“Yeah. And now I wish I’d gotten something else,” I said, irritated. What use was more mana when we were already walking into a trap?

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