Fin awoke in the early morning. The cart was still plodding along, bouncing, and squeaking as it rolled forward. He was surprised to notice someone else in the carriage with him. The large man lay sleeping on the bench across from him.

He was hungry, but the pain of hunger seemed dampened. He figured it was the pain resistance he had acquired. A thought occurred to him, and he looked around for the sack of supplies his mother had left him. He knew the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Wisdom, brought on by experience, is the ability to read people, situations, and the world around him. Intelligence is the capability for problem-solving and the ability to acquire and use knowledge. The two seemed closely linked together but, in some ways, opposites. Wisdom is akin to instincts, while intelligence is for calculations and measured responses. He realized that this knowledge came from upgrading his intelligence, and he smiled at the irony of it.

He began looking for his food when he couldn’t find it, he noticed his boots were also missing. He felt mildly irritated at whatever prank everyone was playing on him. After sitting up, he cleared his throat and said, “Where are my things?”

The soldier steering the cart startled and then nudged his sleeping companion. “Barnes, he’s awake. I won the bet.”

When Barnes woke up, the first soldier repeated himself.

“He’s awake, is he?” Barnes asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Fin said, beginning to feel annoyed. “I can’t find my boots or the provisions my mother left me.”

“If by provisions you mean a couple of meager scraps in a bag you were holding, then I haven’t seen them.” Barnes looked over to his companion. “Did you see any provisions, Jack?”

“I certainly didn’t see a week’s worth of food if that’s what you’re asking. I might have seen a little less than half a meal.” Jack said, and they both started laughing.

Knowing that whatever food was stolen would either be returned or it wouldn’t, Fin asked about his boots.

“Boots?” Barnes asked. “Like what kind of boots?”

“I think he means these boots,” Jack said, holding up his foot.

“Oh, those boots,” Barnes said. “I haven’t seen those either.”

Now Fin was upset. “I’m not kidding. Give me my boots back.”

“Sure,” Jack put his leg down and held up his arms. “If you come out and get ‘em, I’ll even put them on your feet myself.”

The two laughed so hard that the bigger man Fin had noticed earlier turned over and woke up.

Fin stood up and stepped towards the latched door. It was locked. He turned to his new neighbor, “I think they locked us in here. Help me get this open.”

The bigger man sat up in his chair. “I’ve tried, and I’m sure countless other slaves have tried too. It’s no use.”

“Slaves? You mean recruits going to the castle or armory or whatever, right?” Fin looked at the two soldiers driving the cart. Through the dim light, he could see they weren’t wearing uniforms anymore.

“Slavery isn’t legal,” Barnes turned and smiled. “So, I won’t tell the king if you don’t.”

“I don’t know what they told you to get you in here, but they had to beat me over the head to drag my limp body in here.” The man said. “I thought they did the same to you. You’ve been out for days.”

Fin’s vision spun. “You’re telling me this was all a trick?”

“I think I preferred it when he was sleeping,” Jack reached behind him and took out a stick. “I’ll give you ten seconds to sit down, accept your fate, and shut up before I pummel you with the smelly end of this stick.”

“Sit down, lad,” the man across from Fin lowered his voice. “We’re not going to get out of here by losing our cool, you hear me?”

Fin sat and put his hands on his head. “This can’t be happening. I’m a potato farmer, not a slave.” He lowered his voice further and said with a quiver to his voice, “We have to get out of here.”

“My name is Brando. What’s yours?”

“Fin.”

“Okay, Fin, here’s what we’re going to do,” Brando’s eyes flicked toward their two abductors. “We’re going to piss them off until they come in here, and then we’re going to kill them.”

“That’s not going to work,” Fin steepled his fingers. “He can just hit us with the stick.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Brando’s eyes were wide and frantic in the early sunlight.

“I think I’ve heard enough muttering from you two,” Jack said from the front of the wagon before Fin could respond. He stabbed the stick through the bars multiple times until he managed to stab Fin in the rib cage and strike Brando in the head. “One more word from any of you, and I’ll break your jaw.”

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Just then, a light started blinking in Fin’s peripherals. He held up a hand in a way that said, “Wait, and we’ll plan things out.”

Brando gave a nod, and they both laid down on their respective sides of the cart. Fin checked his quest log and was surprised to find multiple entries. He read:

* Sovereign Quest Complete: Get captured. +1 gold stat point, +1 quest revealed.

* Sovereign Quest: Escape with your life and find a safe haven. +1 Wisdom, +1 gold stat point.

* Path Quest Complete: gain an enemy. +1 ability point, +2 quests revealed.

* Blood Quest: Death from Above: Kill an enemy with one swift strike from the air: +1 basic ability point, +1 wing ability point, forfeit all pain quests

* Pain Quest: Paralyzing Fall: Drop an enemy from the air, paralyzing them to die a slow and painful death. +1 wing ability point, +1 body ability, Forfeit all blood quests

Upon looking at his quests, Fin surmised several things. First, his original quest, Flee the Nest, was no longer showing. This meant that after viewing a completed quest, it just went away. He would have to write down his completed quests to keep track of what he had accomplished. If all the quests were the same, he could compare notes with his father one day. He wasn’t going to lose hope. He had something no one else had and could probably use it to escape.

Next, he noticed that some quests split off in two directions. He would have to decide which one he wanted to complete, if any. The blood quest seemed to refer to killing your enemies, while the pain quest meant making your enemies suffer. He searched his heart and found no qualms with killing the two slavers responsible for abducting him if that’s what they were. The thought of killing the two slavers seemed comforting. He still hoped that this was just some sick prank. He didn’t like the idea of making his enemies suffer. Though, he wasn’t sure how he would dive in from the air to enact a single killing blow on anyone. Maybe that’s what his father was referring to when he said that some quests were impossible. He was confident that if he found a ledge tall enough, and one of his captures was standing at the bottom, he could certainly try the lethal stunt of jumping on them with a knife. Or if they were all standing at the top of a ledge, he would try his hardest to push them off. But he knew better than to think he would be afforded any of those opportunities.

He searched for ideas and considered the possibility of him and Brando staging a fight. If the two soldiers were, in fact, slavers, then it would not be in their best interests for him and Brando to try killing each other. He played the scene in his head a few different ways. He would say something like, “Hey, you big fat oaf, stop touching my leg.” Brando would say something like, “What are you going to do about it?” then they would have a fake but frantic brawl to the supposed death. Unfortunately, each time he played the scenario out in his head, they would just get pummeled with that stick until they stopped fighting.

Fin ran his hand over the wooden seating area he was lying on. The board was thick and riddled with nails. He quietly got up and tried to pry up the massive plank. It was no use; his fingers couldn’t find any purchase. He searched the floorboards. They were equally unwavering. If he had a pry bar, he might have had a slight chance of unhinging the wooden beams. The cage bars were more significant than they needed to be to keep them in, and after attempting to twist and move each one, he moved on.

He searched his skills for anything that might help if he gained another ability point. He could have used a crushing grip to dislodge the boards if he hadn’t allocated his only ability point into Pain Resist. He wasn’t sure how strengthened talons would affect his human hands, but he would be willing to give that a try too.

He opened his quest log again to see if he had missed anything. Sure enough, his completed quests had disappeared after he looked at them. Now all he had was a quest to escape and two equally challenging quests for killing his enemies. All three quests were worthless to him. He would need to figure something else out, and he was still very hungry.