It has been months since Montgomery vanished. Nobody knew where they took him or what happened to him. At first, many speculated that he might have been taken to the Slaughterhouse, but after Timmy confirmed that the Slaughterhouse is empty and a few days of waiting, they dismissed that idea. No one had been away for that long, not even when Cadmun attacked Reacher with a sword he had hidden under the floorboard of a shanty house years ago. From what he overheard of the dinnertime conversations of others, he learned that Reacher bled a lot that day. It made him wonder if Cadmun was equal to or even stronger than Reacher. I have to find out their LVLs. But I can’t just attack him.
After a few weeks, most of the miners believed that Montgomery had been killed by the Adventurers to save food rations, blaming him for his death. They had abandoned their hope that Montgomery was alive. At that point, even Cadmun stopped greeting or talking to him. Maybe, just maybe he might’ve escaped.
Day in, day out he would follow the same routine: Get up, eat breakfast, greet the Lords, go mining, return for dinner. Pull your weight at work.
Weeks would go by where he never talked to another person. The only other man that might hear him out was PP. Every day they were alone in the depths of the mines, and the big man was the only one not hostile towards him. They also shared the same fate that both the Adventurers and the slaves didn’t like them. However, every time he saw his reflection in the water he cleaned himself with, the scar on his cheek reminded him that PP works for the Adventurers and that he can’t be trusted. In turn, he adapted PP’s lifestyle of eating alone and only communicating the bare minimum. Don’t get in the way of the others.
The weeks turned into months, and the only interactions he had with other people were the commands the Mace and the Sword barked at them. Sometimes they had to walk faster, other times they had to work harder. Their quota had been raised to six gems. And always do what the Adventurers say.
He didn’t eat. On some days because he didn’t fulfill the new quota, on other days because he had lost his appetite. Very soon his forearms had become as thin as the handle of his pickaxe. It had become difficult to go on. One time he made the mistake of offering his meal to Varyan. On a random evening, he remembered their talk about Cassandra and the hope it gave him. Since he wasn’t going to eat anyway, he decided to thank Varyan with an extra serving and maybe make amends with the other miners at the same time. When Shadis saw him, however, he slapped the bowl out of his hands spilling the contents all over him.
image [https://i.imgur.com/HcWS9p0.jpeg]
“Don’t you dare approach the lords again, Adventurer!” Shadis told him.
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Is that how it is now? I’m an Adventurer? An enslaved Adventurer? A Player Slave? A lot of people don’t like that. Is this what you saw, Bonatelli? A torture without touch? The slaughter of the soul?
Every night he’d look up to the tower of the mansion and wonder if the Baron was looking at them, cursing him for his loneliness. He had a clear view to one of the windows, as the trees covering the Baron’s view had all been felled by a saddened Varyan. They had to get their wood from outside the palisades now, so a couple of volunteers replaced Varyan as woodchucks, gathering more and more wood by the day to prepare for winter. But he didn’t want to wait for winter to come. He didn’t want to wait for winter to pass. He didn’t want to wait for a day that might never come. He couldn’t take it anymore. How much more of this do we have to endure? I can’t wait for Cassandra. What if she never comes back?
One day he had enough of waiting around. If he had time to dream about getting out of there, then he wasn’t putting in enough time to achieve it. He knew he couldn’t ask for help. The other slaves would just tell him that if he wanted to get out, then he’d just have to accept being an Adventurer and join Carnifex. He didn’t want that either, but he knew that embracing his Player side could provide him with a few advantages. Montgomery said so.
He reaffirmed his decision when one day, as they made their way towards the mountains, they got accompanied by a caravan full of supplies guarded by five armoured knights. They wore the same bulky silver armour with golden glowing lines like the Battleaxe, the Baron’s personal guard. It was a mighty display of strength. Impressive.
“They must be high-LVL,” he murmured to himself.
“When you go to the front lines, you’re the highest LVL.” Reacher had heard him. “Can’t you see their Status?”
He didn’t want to talk to the Mace because he didn’t want to become more unpopular with the slaves, but this might have been the only chance to learn from a Player.
“No, I don’t know how to do that.” His voice was rough after months of not speaking, and he had to clear his throat.
“Well, most people have the UI always on, but if you want to do that without the UI constantly on,” Reacher paused for a moment, “then you’d have to really look at them.”
He stared at Reacher. That didn’t help. At all.
“What I mean is, when you don’t use the Menu, then…,” the Mace scratched his chin, “then you have to do the commands from the Menu with intent.”
Once again, the explanation was lackluster.
“What is a Menu command?” he asked.
Reacher frowned, becoming more irritated. One could see the cogs in his brain turn as he tried to come up with an explanation.
“Try looking at them and say ‘inspect’,” Reacher explained, “but you have to really want to look at them. But not look at them like watching them. I mean look at them because you really want to see their Player Data.”
He’s definitely not a teacher.
He didn’t comment on the helpless explanation and instead tried to focus on what he thought he took away from it. He pictured PP’s Combat Status he saw months ago, his only reference to “Player Data” and fixed his gaze on the silver knight closest to them. The most present thought in his mind was that he definitely wanted to know the LVL of the knight.
“Inspect!”