In a room that wasn't a room, in a place that wasn't quite real, a figure now sat alone in an armchair.

El sat pensively, waiting, his fingers steepled, deep in thought.

Finally, he spoke.

"He's gone, you know. You can come out now"

Somewhere, in the apartment a door opened, and a second figure stepped out.

Leet, Elrik's other mirror-self walked into the room. Like El, he looked almost exactly like Elrik, except for his larger, more muscular arms. He wore a track bottoms and a tank top that just said 'git gud' on it.

"What? Nothing to say?", El called out

"Nope", Leet walked past him and made his way over to the couch and plopped himself down. He dug out a gaming controller from in between the cushions pressed a button on it.

The TV screen in front of him flickered to life and a video game started to play.

El watched him for a second, then returned to his computer.

Finally, after a few minutes of silence, Leet spoke, "You're starting to diverge"

"Hmm?", El looked up from the computer.

Leet continued, though his eyes were still fixed on the screen, "We're both starting to change.. evolve.. We're still nearly the the same person - but it's happening, slowly. We're changing"

"Yeah..", El's face had an inscrutable expression, "I don't know what that means yet"

"Not that any of this is going to matter", Leet spoke out the side of his mouth, "if we don't make it out of this hellhole in one piece".

He lapsed back into silence

On the TV screen, a video game was playing.

If you examined it a little closely, you might notice that it was a kind of platformer, that looked exactly like the interior of the dungeon they were in. The enemy characters on the screen, looked like the mercenaries that Elrik had seen in the dungeon, either standing post or marching in patrols.

On the screen, a character, that looked a lot like Elrik, was slowly making its way through the dungeon level.

The Elrik character steadily made its way through the game level. It snuck past, ambushed or ran past more and more of the enemies.

On one corner of the screen blinked a small piece of text that said ‘scenario 947’.

Suddenly, a figure dressed in the traditional greens of the school trained blades appeared from nowhere.

The figure walked into the hallway the Elrik character was in. Then as soon it saw him, it instantly blurred and moved across the screen, cutting the character of Elrik clean in half.

The TV screen turned dark and giant red text blinked ‘You Died’ on the screen.

Then the game flashed and reset, back to the first screen, putting the Elrik character back in the small dark cell it started in.

The text in the corner now simply said ‘scenario 948’.

At first it seemed like Leet was not particularly discouraged. He simply restarted the game and continued playing...

But a few minutes later he gave a shout of frustration and hit the cushion.

"Damnit!", Leet broke the silence finally, "I'm the version of us that's supposed to figure a way out - and I don't have shit!"

The elf-eared El tilted his head, "Not making any headway on that?"

Leet, still struggling with the simulation on the TV, gritted his teeth, "No. We're down a hand. We barely know the layout of these dungeons. I’m also sure there's more than one school trained blade working for Ambrose.

If we pull out all the stops, we could maybe get lucky with one but not with two.

Too little data and too few options.

We need more than just pluck and a little swordsmanship"

Just then, from out of nowhere, a chime sounded.

Both El and Leet turned to look at the computer screen on the desk.

A single notification bobbed up and down.

It just said 'Process 2291f '

El leaned over and clicked into the notification that had appeared there, and lines of text began scrolling through the computer screen.

[Process 2291f ]

[codename: Professor]

[primary_goal: Collate all information on magical/non-standard physical phenomena]

[secondary_goal: Posit possible theories of magic with required experimental verification]

[process_priority: low: background processing]

[process_priority: advanced to high: background processing]

[notification: Completed stage-1 of multistage collation]

[notification: Request for new experimental data sample: Sherlot’s belt buckle]

Leet leaned over El's shoulder to stare at the strange line of text

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

[notification: Request for new experimental data sample: Sherlot’s belt buckle]

The two looked at each other in puzzlement

...

Elrik woke to find himself in his cell.

It was the cell they put him in when they weren't... questioning him. It was dark and windowless, like the other cells in this place, save for a thin slit of an opening high above, from where a little fresh fair piped its way in.

For a few minutes Elrik let himself lie there, taking inventory.

The hard flagstones felt cool against his face. Elrik knew he was starting to run a slight fever - his body's response to the abuse it had taken. Still, the cool stone felt good.

It had been a four days that he'd been here, in this place. Four days since that fateful night, that he and Sherlot had met the informant - Lacaani.

Surprisingly, when he noticed, the pain from his older injuries - the bruised ribs and the sprained ankle were starting to lessen.

He healing faster here, his body knitting itself back together just a little bit more efficiently.

It wasn't instantaneous or anything - an injury he'd take two weeks to heal on earth, took one to heal from here. His left hand was still a bit of a mess, and he was still locked into a cell in a dungeon.. but it was something.

He hadn't noticed it earlier but it was unmistakeable now. Chalk another one up to however his mysterious version of magic worked.

Elrik closed his eyes and felt himself out.

It was still there - that little fire inside himself. Elrik knew he'd turned a page.

After a long, long time, something he'd long thought lost was coming back to him slowly.

A fire. A little bit of that feeling he'd had, long ago, back on earth - when he was young enough to take on anyone and anything.

He was done with letting this world have its way with him.

Now, he was going on the offensive.

Of course, first he had to get the hell out of this place.

Now would be a great time for his superbrain to pop out a brilliant escape plan!

Elrik put that thought out and waited for half a second.

But his mind was silent. No brilliant ideas yet, it seemed.

It was only when he opened his eyes and looked around the cell that he noticed - wasn't alone

...

At first Elrik didn't recognize the figure that lay on the other end of the narrow cell.

It was skinny figure clad in dirty rags and spattered in mud.

It was only as Elrik staggered to his feet and got closer - that he realized it was Sherlot.

Lord Sherlot Akela, third son of the great Duke Akela - looked terrible. He lay in one corner of the cell. He was a bedraggled mess, caked in mud. His hair was filthy and clumped, like someone who had slept in a sewer.

He looked like a vagrant - one of the unlucky creatures that made their living, hand to mouth, in the gutters of Kalaghutta.

He looked, and Elrik didn't think it possible, skinnier than before - almost skeletal. His skin looked thin and stretched over his skull and his eyes seemed sunken in their sockets.

Then Elrik noticed his arm, which was a filthy as well, was a mess of clotted blood. Like it had been cut and bled again, recently.

When Sherlot's eyes fluttered open, Elrik saw the glassy look of them. How his pupils seemed unnaturally dilated even in the darkness of the cell.

"Greetings corporal. It has been some time"

Perhaps the young lord meant to sound confident, but when he spoke, his voice was shaky and half-mumbled.

Sherlot lay as he had, but craned his neck to look at Elrik.

Elrik grimaced, "It has, my lord”, he measured his words carefully, “ How are you feeling?”

Sherlot didn’t answer, but instead gave a giggle. In the bleak silence of the cell, it sounded uncanny and strange.

The giggle didn’t stop, but instead continued into an almost forced kind of laughter.

Still prone, Sherlot raised himself up on his elbows and held up a hand to stall Elrik, until he could control his hysterics.

Elrik watched him, warily, not approaching any closer, “Are you alright, my lord?”

“It’s just a little funny”, he finally spoke, still propped up on his elbows, “well, perhaps funny isn’t the right word.. but anyway..” He trailed off vaguely..

“Wait what was I saying?”, for a second, he seemed lost before he came back to himself, “Ah - yes - I am a Lord no longer. I’ve been stripped of that title. All my titles really”. My father, you see, has disowned me”, he gave another little laugh to himself.

At first, Eric didn’t understand, but then he put two and two together.

“Ah. Your arm. The Selessi"

"Yes! Very good corporal!", Sherlot gave a crooked grin, "Yes, it's quite brilliant really, simply brilliant - and oh so neat..", he gave a conspiratorial grin, waving Elrik close, and spoke in a stage whisper, "They must have been in quite the dilemma, once they had me. They couldn't just let me go, not knowing what I knew.. and they couldn't just murder me and dump me in the river"

Must be nice to be missed.. Elrik couldn't help but remark to himself

Other than perhaps his landlord Auntie Ruiz or Amaya, Elrik couldn't think of anyone who would notice or care that he was missing a week. Captain Moira was the only one who would even know what case he was working, and she would only start to wonder about him perhaps another few days later.

"So", Sherlot continued, "they cut me with selessi, more than even I could handle, accustomed as I am to it - then they let me loose in the lower quarter. They must have known my father has eyes and ears there - and even a deaf man under a rock would have heard my screamed declarations.. Then they just picked me up, cut me with more selessi and sent me out again the next day.. It took three days for my father to hear word of it"

Elrik felt something twist in his belly as he understood. He bent and crouched next to Sherlot. Elrik put an arm on the boy's shoulder, in way he hoped was comforting. There was something unspeakably cruel in what they'd done to him, using his own addiction against him.

It was cruel in a way that made his ripped off fingernails feel almost a mercy in comparison

"Your father will want to hear your side of it", Elrik tried

Sherlot gave another bark of laughter, "Oh, corporal.. If anyone thought you knew anything about the great houses, they know better now. It took my father three days to hear that I'd been seen on the streets drugged on selessi, but it took him two hours to send out public word of my disownment"

Elrik frowned, "How do you know that, you've been held by them this whole time"

Sherlot shrugged, "Oh, our fine captors told me all of this. Honestly everything since that night in the tavern is a blur to me. But I believe it. It sounds too much like my father to be any kind of lie.. So now they have me in their clutches.. and to all the world Lord Sherlot Akela is no more than a disowned selessi addict wandering the sewers.."

Suddenly, Sherlot, who was propped up on his elbows, turned and retched. He seemed to have little enough in him, and nothing came out. He turned back and gave a little shiver as he spoke, "My body's craving for the selessi will start soon.. It will be bad."

"Corporal, could you..", in that moment Sherlot seemed very young, and very vulnerable, "Could you hold me a moment? When the craving comes I.. I might lose my senses"

"Oh", Elrik blinked, suddenly he remembered how old Sherlot was. Hewas barely older than twenty or so. Which seemed so, so very young, "of course"

Elrik leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sherlot in a hug. As he felt Sherlot's body start to violently shiver Elrik instinctively tightened the hug, pulling the lordling closer.

"They're watching us. They want to see what we say to each other"

Came the whisper in Elrik's ear. Sherlot spoke, less than inch from his ear

"They will question us. More. Much more. I don't know why, but they're very curios about us"

Elrik didn't give any sign that he heard Sherlot. He just held the boy close. Besides not wanting to let their captives know they were speaking, he felt like the boy just really needed a hug right now.

Sherlot continued to whisper into elrik's ear.

"Hug me closer. Don't let them see. I'm slipping my belt buckle into your jerkin. Use it when they come to take me"