Chapter 1: My dreamland?

Rari woke up in dark place chained to a wall. It was a cell without windows and single door right across the cell. Cell was filled with people of all ages and genres, dirty, very thin with grey, worn out clothes or rather rags barely covering anything.

They were so dirty it was hard to guess what skin colour they had.

They were either chained to the wall or had chains on their hands. There were at least 50 people in the small cell, it was so filled with people that there was no room to even turn. All people had empty expressions; they had clearly given up fighting against whatever predicament they were in.

'What the hell? Where am I? What is this place? What are these people? Why am I so unlucky?'

Rari was confused. He couldn't think straight. He was afraid. His heart was beating too fast. This wasn't new beginning in a new world he was hoping for. He didn't run away from that world which was filled with all the bad memories, injustice, hopelessness and slavery to end up in a more literal slavery.

Rari tried to calm down as he was feeling panic attack approaching him.

After few moments, his heartbeat stabilized and his mind cleared.

'This situation is so bad and ridiculous.'

Rari started loudly laughing like a madman who just lost his last drop of sanity. Laugh without emotions, just pure  emptiness. Everyone turned around and looked mystified at him. Some with pity, thinking he lost his wits.

After laughing, Rari turned his head towards closest middle-aged man in rugs, covered in scars.

"Can you explain what this place is?"

The man looked like he had question marks above his head.

'I was afraid that they spoke different language. Well, I will try few more people, but the chance is slim.'

Rari then asked few more people but got the same reaction.

'Now that I think about it, they don't speak at all. From the moment I woke up here, I haven't heard a sound from them. Not even a whisper. And doesn't look like they would communicate in any other way like hand language. But they can obviously hear sounds. They turn around their heads when I was laughing or trying to talk to them. Could it be that they are mute? All of them? Now what should I do? I was hoping that at least I would get some information and then think a way out of here. This situation sucks.'

After few hours of nothing happening, only doors of the cell opened with a bang.

In the doorway stood two men, dressed in black clothes, with black leather gloves and boots with one red star on their shoulders. They looked intimidating, with scars on their faces. Both of them had blond hair in two braids. They both had similar facial features, most likely brothers in their mid 20s.

Both of them had battle axes in their hands.

Then one of them started shouting.

"Mulapos celoti kajit!"

Apparently, all the people in the cell understood what they said and started standing up, except those chained to the wall.

Two man stepped to the side to allow people, or more correctly slaves, move outside, while shouting 'atronos' at them and hitting some of them who were walking too slowly with their axes.

When finally all of them were outside the cell, two men, or more like prison guards, came inside the cell while taking out keys.

They unchained slaves on the wall including Rari.

'I guess it would be very stupid to make a run for it, without knowing what I'm up against, who knows how many of these scary monsters there are.'

Rari obediently followed guards and other slaves, while trying not to get hit by an axe by walking too slowly.

Outside the cell was large and dark tunnel with very dim light. Only source of light was small, round rocks on the wall. It gave out blue glow and was 5 meters apart each other.

'I wonder what kind of rock can glow like that. What is wrong with me? Why am I thinking about rocks in this kind of situation? Where we're going? I hope it's not execution.'

After 30 minutes of walking dark corridors, with some doors here and there, and many steps down, they finally arrived in a big space almost as large as a football field with 10 tunnels.

The place was filled with at least 40 guards and 200 slaves. Slaves were holding buckets. Slaves with full buckets of earth were walking towards biggest tunnel on the left from Rari. Slaves with empty buckets were walking from biggest tunnel to smaller ones. Most of the slaves Rari saw were woman, small children, old people and men without a leg or arm. Whenever one of them slowed down or fell, one of the guards would walk towards them and hit them either with an axe or whip, while shouting 'mulados cele!'

Rari's groups were lead to the first tunnel on the right. Before the entrance to the tunnel, on both sides were laying down pickaxes and buckets. The group was divided into two groups. In one group was men and stronger looking women, including Rari. In the other one, children, women, old people and cripples.

Rari's group was given pickaxes, while others got buckets.

Then everyone got inside the tunnel, 4 guards leading them and 6 in the back. It took them 15 minutes to get to the end of the tunnel and endless digging began.

After 2 hours Rari was exhausted. Every time he stopped or slowed down, he would get hit by one of the guards overlooking them.

After another 2 hours he couldn't move a muscle and the pain only got worse by each hit.

After an hour, salvation appeared. Everyone was guided back and was given food. Food looked and tasted like mud, but Rari didn't care. He was so hungry and exhausted that he could eat real mud.

Afterwards they needed to resume work, but luckily Rari was put on bucket duty.

He was hoping to see were the biggest tunnel was leading, but his hope that it lead outside was shattered in tiny pieces. It leads to a dead-end. Apparently, they wanted to bury the tunnel completely.

After another 5 hours and a meal, they were led back to their cell. This time Rari wasn't chained to the wall, but instead his arms were chained.  

Rari immediately fell to sleep. In his sleep, he was weeping.

Like this two weeks passed. Rari was losing hope. He fell into deep depression.

'Why I must suffer like this? What I have done so wrong in my life to go through all this? In this and that world?'

After two more weeks his emotions turned to anger. Anger towards people and himself. But the most anger was towards life itself.

In his cell, Rari started shouting.

"Oh almighty goddess of Fate, remember me, remember my face and my name, I, Rari Astedius Astpart, swear to you to take revenge on everyone, who has done me wrong or will try to in the future. And everyone I consider worthy of my vengeance! I swear!"

~~~*****~~~

After Rari's revenge declaration, he was once again in the tunnel digging.

While digging, he found red rock with strange markings on it. They looked like hieroglyphs. The rock was in the size of his palm. He made sure guards weren't looking, as well as slaves.

'I have no idea if they are trustworthy. The rock seems important. And this is the first time I've found anything while digging besides earth.'

As he put the rock in his pocket, he heard loud noises.

Suddenly one guard was running this way shouting.  Soon afterwards, all the guards near Rari started running out of the tunnel.

'Could this be sound of hope?'

Rari stopped working, but he didn't run after guards.

'Better wait and see what happens. Maybe just a small commotion. No need to get into unnecessary trouble.'

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As more time passed, louder the noise became. Finally, after 20 minutes of listening, Rari's curiosity won and he started walking towards the exit with extreme caution.

Noises became louder and he finally understood about what was happening.

He heard people screaming and yelling, metal against metal and even explosions.

When he reached the exit and saw what was actually happening, his blood froze.

About 200 guards were fighting against 100 unknown knights. And the guards were clearly losing. It was just a matter of time. There were already at least 50 guards dead and almost as much heavily injured. But Rari didn't even see even one dead or injured knight.

All knights wore brown armor decorated with silver flowers drawn on it. About 10 knights had one red drawn flower on their chest and there was one knight with gold flower. Rari assumed that those 10 were higher rank than others and the one with gold flower was most likely their commander. Rari assumed he was the commander not only because of that gold flower, but also because he was just standing on the side with arrogant expression.

'He surely looks like the type I hate the most. Arrogant, in high position and thinking everyone beneath him is trash. I can smell his type a mile away. And I haven't been wrong even once. But what is that? Magic? No way!'

Half of the knights were fighting guards with swords, while others used magic. They would mumble under their breath and suddenly medium-sized ball would appear in front of them in white colour. Then they would take the ball in their hands and throw it towards guards. Most guards didn't die on the spot and just got thrown away around 5 meters, but still suffered damages, as most of them would start coughing up blood.

Magic ball wasn't very powerful, but sounded like grenade exploded.

In just 5 minutes of chaotic and overpowered battle, just 10 guards remained. They were yelling what most likely were words of revenge from afterlife. Closest knights just laughed and killed them all in just few seconds.

'This is my first time seeing such a bloodbath and I would have lived happier without seeing it, but I'm so happy to be finally being free from them,..from here.

But who would have thought that not even one of the guards would flee the battle. They were surprisingly brave, even when they knew that they would die.'

Only few of the slaves died. They all were hiding in the tunnels, but not too far. They were keenly watching the battle.

'Guards are dead, but why they aren't jumping around in joy? Do they know something or are they just paranoid? But I guess it's better to be wary.'

While Rari was deep in thought, commander moved forward and started speaking in commanding voice.

Commander was speaking in the same language as guards. Needless to say that Rari didn't understand a word he said.

When the speech was over, knights started taking guards weapons and other valuables.

Soon after, knights went towards slaves in the tunnels.

Group of 7 knights came to where Rari was.

They all looked like soldiers who have been to thousands battles and were proud of that.

They all had short hair either in black or brown colour.

What surprised Rari was that they looked at him and others like they were trash, clearly showing their disgust. Rari was terrified now, afraid what could happen next.

'Why this looks like I'm getting farther away from freedom just by looking at them? It can't be that they have other intentions instead of letting us free. '

Rari was shaking now.

"Mulapos! Ari! Tulito!"

After one of the knights said that in menacing voice, all slaves started coming out of the tunnel.

As Rari didn't know what to do, he just followed other slaves.

'I hope it'll not turn out in me to want the guards back. '

But Rari's hopes weren't answered as knights started killing weak looking slaves, when all the slaves were out of the tunnels.

'Whaaat?'

Rari was shocked.

'Even guards didn't kill anyone, beat and torture yes, but never kill. They even healed those near death. This is so bad. How come I get in these situations?'

Rari now was at his wit's end. Not knowing what will happen next, left him terrified.

After the killings and lots of silent crying from slaves, they were led out from underground maze. There were countless corpses of guards in every floor.

Rari was surprised that the place where he was digging was 36 floors underground.

Finally, outside for the first time in months, Rari almost went blind. Although the weather was cloudy, it still was too bright after spending a long time underground.

After few minutes, Rari's eyes finally adjusted and the scene he saw was breathtaking.

In front of him was a small clearing with two wooden houses, but behind them was golden forest.

The trees were massive, over 40 meters tall. Leaves were in different colours of yellow.

The grass was green with yellow and white flowers just above the grass and looked like small sunflowers.

When everybody was out, our long journey through magical forest began.

Commander with 5 of his men lead the way. Since number of slaves was a bit over 400, they divided them in groups of 50 people. In each group 20 slaves were ordered to pull carts with stolen goods from underground, like weapons and food. 3 to 5 knights were assigned to each group.

Rari's group was the last one, with 7 knights assigned to watch over them.

Of course, Rari was on cart pulling duty.

'Dammit! From one slavery to another. Luck clearly wasn't given to me upon birth.'

After many hours of moving forward through the forest, it started to get darker and everyone was ordered to stop and make camp.

After dinner, slaves were chained to each other.

While commander was sleeping in big tent on bed, slaves sleeping place was the ground.

Rari felt asleep as soon as he hit the ground.

In the midnight, Rari woke up. Someone was yelling in commander's tent.

In the moment he wanted to turn his head in the direction all commotion was, he saw some movement behind the trees right in front of him.

He started looking intensely to see what was there.

Then he saw a figure of a person in red mantle covering his body from head to toes.

That person suddenly stopped when noticed Rari staring in his direction. After few seconds of intense staring, person in red mantle moved her fingers (too delicate looking fingers to belong to man) towards were her mouth was supposed to be as if telling to Rari to keep quiet about seeing her.

Confused Rari still nodded his head in approval. And the person disappeared into the darkness.

~~~***End of Chapter 1***~~~

Next: Chapter 2

Previous: Prologue

Diakazia

Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I actually intended for this chapter to be longer, but right now I don't have time to edit next part, but I'll do it later today.