17 – RUSCKAN VILLAGE – ABUSE YOUR ABILITIES

The cold and damp floor was uncomfortable. When David woke up, he was covered in bruises where his body had made contact with the stone of the cellar while he was asleep. His hands were tied and there was a cloth inside his mouth, and from the far side of the cellar he was in, he could see a short figure behind the thick iron bars.

“You might even be immortal but, what can you do if you’re tied and locked inside a room?” The voice asked, it was Griglir the guild master.

David tried to struggle and say some words, to ask why he was doing this and what were his goals. Why he, of all people, was evil.

“I know you might be confused. I understand. It pains me greatly to put you though all this, such a naïve young man, so full of hope and trust for other people. But, I cannot allow you to mess up my plans any more, not when the final act is about to begin. You just stay here, and everything will be over before you know it.”

David wanted to ask again why, what were the motives behind the actions of the dwarf? Why had he betrayed the village he was sworn to protect?

But he could not ask, he could not speak. He only watched, and was watched back.

He had to free himself of his bindings, he had to get out of here and stop the master before it was too late. The crystal was evidently not back in its place, and the village was still in grave danger. The final act, whatever it was, was definitely not something good.

He struggled, against the restraints and against the cloth that invaded his mouth. His throat felt dry and parched, and he could not swallow because no liquid even reached that far down. He felt the air burn his throat with every breath. He felt uncomfortable.

His back hurt, his wrists hurt. The floor was hard, cold, damp, the bindings too tight, the light too low to see. It was uncomfortable, but the more he struggled the worse his situation seemed to become.

“It’s useless.” The master said. “These bindings will keep you here for as long as I deem necessary.”

There was one thing that David had not yet tried. He could use magic to burn the ropes, or to cut them with a blade made of sharpened rocks. Obsidian, that was sharp. If he could only command the mana to make it, it would cut the ropes in no time.

He only had to wait until the dwarf went away, then he could set to work. With this in mind, he stopped struggling and closed his eyes. The sooner the dwarf went away, the better.

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He heard a step.

“I know what you’re thinking, lad. Good luck with your plan.” A laugh, then the dwarf was gone.

The sound of footsteps, close to each other and quite soft, grew lower. A door opened and closed, and then David was alone.

His whole body jerked. It was a reflex, as soon as he thought about what he had to do, his whole body went on the ready.

Immediately he called forth the fire magic he had. It was by far the most proficient type of magic he had, and the most likely to free him from the ropes that bound his wrists. His whole fist exploded in flames, white and hot, and he felt the heat radiate from the walls as they absorbed and emitted it back.

He was shielding himself from the direct heat that came from the fist, but still the air was growing hotter by the second. And yet, the ropes were not burning.

They were even cool to the touch, seemingly undamaged by the raging magical fire. That was what the dwarf meant, when he said that he knew what David was thinking. He was aware of his magic and thus bound him with a rope that was resistant to it.

He had to try something else. Calling forth the earth, he felt the wave of tiredness wash over him as all of his magical potential was expended in an attempt to command a blade of obsidian. It grew from the floor and inserted itself between the knots of the rope, trying to force them open and cut them.

It was no use. It scraped against the fibers of the rope like they were made of steel, even cutting his skin a bit where he lost control for a moment.

He was spent. He had no more magic in him now, but not all was lost. He still had a card to play, one that did not consume magical power and that he could use at any moment. In fact, it was such an obvious one that he should have done it from the start, instead of wasting his precious magic.

He summoned a knife. He made it the sharpest and most durable he could, and then took control of it with the telekinesis. It was hard to control it, because he hadn’t trained the ability enough, and so it wobbled and threatened to cut him at the slightest distraction. Still, he managed to get the blade to saw the ropes, but once again nothing happened. They just didn’t get cut.

The knife dropped on the floor, and a small clang reverberated through the empty corridor outside of the cell. David gasped, because he didn’t think about the noise and didn’t want to alert anyone that he was trying to escape.

He had to hide the knife, in case someone came to check on him. He looked at it, and it disappeared as always.

And then his eyes lit up. Of course, how stupid of him. There was another way to free himself, by abusing one of his abilities. The simplest way of them all, and yet it occurred to him only now that he could use it.

His inventory ability. Something that nobody had seen him use, and thus that was not planned against when he was captured. The one ability he had since the start, and yet one of his most underused ones. Yes, it was full of food and water he collected over time, now that the mission was not a reset one and that he was not losing the contents of his inventory with every death. But, he could abuse it much much more than that.

He was still naïve, in the end, like Griglir said. He was still a naïve boy coming from the modern-day earth, accustomed to the plushy lifestyle and lacking any sense of strategical thinking.

From now on, that had to change. He had to abuse the powers that were given to him.

He knew he could use the inventory right now, and so he did.