I looked up towards the darkness of the night sky. The stench of piss and stools which I had gotten accustomed to could not spoil the view of freedom I had.

But, metal bars and walls engraved with anti magic runes, they poisoned me without end.

The lack of mana in the air, and the inability to gather it was torture for a warrior like myself. I would give anything to feel that powerful once again.

I had been captured a few years back when a group of soldiers came to my little village. I was an emerald adventurer at the time and had just returned from a mission smiling with my gold sack full.

Well, until I walked in, only to find my sister raped and sodomized in her own inn.

She built that inn from the ground up with her sweat.

I was never around but I sent her money when I could, and I regretted not being there to protect her when it happened.

But her face lost its life the day I found her like that.

According to those who had seen what happened, a group of soldiers bearing the Dragnier Kingdom’s crest entered the bar celebrating some big victory, luckily she had enough life to confirm as much.

I didn’t care how many of them there were supposed to be in that camp. I drew my sword and when I entered their camp outside the village I hacked and killed every last one of them that my sword could reach.

The more I slashed and beheaded the soldiers the clearer the made up flashback of what they did to my sister became.

I was mad with rage as I killed the soldiers one by one, still not feeling the pain lessen.

I was bathing in blood but they came without end. The more I hacked the more spears came stabbing and arrows that pierced my body.

Eventually I was captured and the bastards dressed my wounds and brought me back from the brink of death.

All that just so I could be thrown in this cell never to see the light of day again.

Now I spend my days always dying of hunger and constantly being tortured.

I guess this is a faith far worse than death.

But after all these years, my only regret is that I didn’t kill more of those bastards.

But that was four years ago. I'm sure a lot has changed in the outside world since then.

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While being here I even made a few friends. That young lady over there is Freya. She was a servant to a noble who was an adventurer, but when he died she was blamed and thrown in jail.

She was only about sixteen then.

But her case was far worse than mine.

Since she has been in here, every night the guards would take her out and they would have their fill of her then send her back before morning. By now, after over a year of it she was already crazy in the head.

She was one of the only companions I had so we became friends nonetheless, she said she always wanted to be a baker.

And over there is Klause. He is also a part of our little group, he was a soldier.

At first I almost killed him when he came here, until I heard his story. He was a young fellow who joined the army when he was sixteen.

Said he wanted to fight for justice and peace, tsk these silly brats these days.

He saw a few high ranking officers taking bribes and reported it through the ‘proper channels’.

Before the night was done he was arrested and thrown in jail, treason and thievery was his charge. Said they found piles of contraband in his personal tent.

Poor lad hasn’t seen the light of day since. Hunger and torture are now his closest companions.

I would guess our hatred for the army kind of brought us together and the fact that all of our sentences just so happened to be ‘indefinite’.

Tonight it was just like any other night.

Freya had just been thrown back into the cell, and love fluid could be seen dripping from her leg. Her red hair ragged as always, she crawled to her corner.

We had an unspoken agreement not to talk about what the guards did to her or our thinned malnourished states.

“Wow look! it's a moonless night, aren’t these the most beautiful?”

I tried to break the tension while pointing at the small window we had.

“It sure is Merrik.”

Klause tried to reply with a half hearted smile.

Our awkward conversation was cut short when four beasts erupted from the ground and started sniffing around. The blackness of their fur felt like an abyss that if one stared at too long would fall into and their eyes glowed creepily as they moved. The green eyed one was particularly scary, he kept clawing at the cells.

We all jumped back trying to evade the beast but alas, we were trapped prisoners.

I looked at the others and jumped in front ready to take on the wolf in my malnourished state.

But then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, not one, not two, but three more black wolves came borrowing from underground.

Almost at her limit Freya was the one who trembled and shouted first

“Tho…Those… Those aren’t wolves! Those are kluddes!”

Freya was a shadow mage and was more intune with the fluctuations in shadow and darkness magic so if she said those were kluddes we had to believe her.

The problem now was much worse, wolves we would stand a chance again but kluddes?

That was definitely suicide.

Kluddes were physically superior to wolves by at least two folds not to mention their affinity with shadow and darkness magic plus their innate element.

But what made me pale was the realization that these kluddes were just pups.

If a fully grown kludde was here with them maybe a father and possibly a mother It meant this kingdom was as good as gone.

It had to be noted that to take down a fully grown emperor kludde would take at least fifty specially trained mages and paladins. If there were two of them plus these pups then they would need the whole army to prevent the destruction of the capitol.

I turned around and looked at the others in despair and they grew paler.