Anabella hadn’t spoken again for ten minutes, just staring off into the distance. After dropping such important information on him, Orrin had assumed she’d want to share more. Instead, she’d dismissed him back to his room.

The next three days passed slowly for Orrin. He spent time playing Kala, eating with Anabella, and learning the staff’s routines. He ran into one of the two guards stationed here. Jinx told him to stay out of her way and not offend the lady of the house.

“She’s too smart. It’s best to avoid conversations with her altogether,” Jinx said, tapping her fingers on the mage’s wand she kept on her hip. “Wait it out and Lord Sanerris will send for you. I don’t want to have to get rid of another body.”

Lady Sanerris hadn’t asked more questions or spoken to Orrin at all. During their games, she’d point out flaws in his strategy or compliment him on a well-thought-out move but she didn’t broach the topic of demons or heroes again. She didn’t let him win a single game. The one time that he had come close with a last-minute red marble, she had played a Rain card and thrown the offending marble into the ocean.

Well… Orrin knew it would hit the ocean eventually. Her casual throw had rocketed the tiny stone so quickly away that Orrin couldn’t see how far it had gone.

Orrin’s only solace was [Way of the Water]. He trained every night, moving a drop of water faster and faster between his hands. On the second night, he checked [Map] to confirm everyone was in their room except one of the guards stationed in a small guard blind built into the roof. Orrin decided to chance it. He was going to need everything he could to get out of here.

[Way of the Water] 30% 6/20 completed.

Continue?

Orrin snapped his fingers and went to it.

“Hey Styx, you won’t believe what’s happened to me,” Orrin said with a wave at his sensei. The watery figure bowed his head in welcome but didn’t speak.

Orrin ignored the actual trial he was supposed to be doing and told Styx everything that had been going on. Styx didn’t respond when Orrin told him how Silas, the Lord of Dey and Madi’s father, had been considering murdering their friend Brandt. He described the mad rush to Mistlight with his friends and the fights they’d gotten into. He confided his fears that Daniel might think he was dead and his dread at the possibility he wouldn’t be able to escape. He talked for a solid twenty minutes before he ran out of steam and plopped on the floor.

“That’s been my life recently, how about you?”

Styx didn’t respond. Instead, he gestured for Orrin to stand. Orrin groaned as he crawled back to his feet. Even though his body wasn’t really in this… simulation… he could still feel his body. He’d taken a look at himself with his skills that morning before his daily game of Kala with Annabella and found that his fractures were mostly healed. His body was still covered in bruises of violent shades of green and yellow but he was on his way to his old self.

“Take it easy on me today?” Orrin asked as he wobbled to his feet. “I’m still on the mend.

Styx fell into Formless, the base stance of his fighting style, and held his hands a little less than a foot apart. A drop of water condensed and floated in the middle.

“That’s what we did last time,” Orrin complained as he also took the starting form of [Way of the Water]. He felt confident in keeping his own drop of water levitating between his hands. He’d been practicing it. There was a calm to doing it, even if he didn’t know what he was actually doing yet.

“PROTECT,” Styx spoke his one-word command.

“Protect wha—” Orrin couldn’t finish his sentence as Styx threw a kick at him. Dropping his left hand, he blocked the foot and spun into Styx’s guard, ready to attack. He threw a punch and… Styx was gone.

Orrin checked behind him to see a puddle of water moving along the floor. It rippled once before Styx reformed up into his humanoid form.

“What was that? Am I going to learn to turn into a puddle of water?” Orrin was excited. If he could completely avoid hits like that, maybe he could flush himself into the ocean. On second thought, that sounded terrible. He’d rather stay a prisoner.

Orrin swore Styx shook his head but when he looked closer, the man wasn’t moving. Instead, he took up Formless again and held the bead of water in his hands.

“PROTECT.”

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He didn’t attack again. Orrin moved toward him and swung but Styx’s defense was leagues against him still. This time, Styx didn’t attack but retreated. Orrin felt like a kid running after an adult trying to play tag. After five minutes of keep-away, he shook his head and quit.

“Styx, I’m never going to hit you. What am I supposed to do here?”

“PROTECT.” Styx held his hands up, gesturing with his head at the bead of water he held with the force of his will.

“You’re doing great at protecting your water… Protect my own?”

Styx’s body rippled in excitement. He nodded.

Orrin sighed as he took Formless stance again and summoned a drop of water between his hands. “You need to learn to speak better. These half-assed instructions are terrible. We’ll find a way.”

“LEVEL.”

Orrin dropped his water. “Did you just sass me with a straight answer?”

Styx didn’t respond. Orrin got ready and nodded at the man. “Protect.”

An hour later, he collapsed on the floor of his room. He’d spent so long in the time dilation trying to keep away from Styx’s attacks he could feel the crick in his neck. Next time lay down on the bed, not sitting up, he told himself. He checked his status. [Way of the Water] was at 35%. All it took was to keep the drop of water from falling for a single minute… while his teacher attacked him with everything he had.

Orrin pulled a piece of spiced bread with nuts out of his [Dimension Hole] and ate it. They fed him pretty well but he was starving after the exercise.

“All so I can move a bead of water around while dodging. I should have researched [Way of the Water] more in Dey. Somebody has to know what this fighting style is.”

Orrin grumbled some more before turning in for the night. “Daniel, you better come rescue me soon. I’m talking to myself already. I’ll be completely crazy in another two days.”

On his third day of captivity with Lord Sanerris’ mother, Anabella surprised him.

“My son told me that you can heal and have spells that can increase stats. I would like to see them in action. Come here so I can reprogram your collar to allow use of those spells.”

Orrin considered his options. He hadn’t known the slave collar could be programmed to allow spells to be cast but it made sense. What was the point of having a slave with great and powerful powers if you restricted them from using them all of the time? If he let her open up his abilities, he’d have an easier time escaping but there was no way he could make an attempt right now. He couldn’t use [Identify] on her but from the casual movement and the one display of strength she had displayed, he would guess she had to be at least thirty or forty levels past him, if not more. If he declined, he could keep his powers a secret but she’d probably start the actual torture.

“This is not your moment,” Anabella said quietly as she placed her cup on the table. She had a clear fruit juice of some sort that sparkled in the sunlight. “Move here, now.”

Orrin frowned as he approached her. “What do you mean, it’s not my moment.”

Anabella turned him bodily and fiddled with the collar. “You know what I mean. I will not let you escape while I am in front of you. Don’t make me hurt you… or worse. I am enjoying our games. Do you know that most of my old peers would give up after only a loss or two? Or worse, they would let me win to try and curry favor? You play with passion and intelligence. You learn from your mistakes and rarely repeat the same ones. I was playing Kala when I was eight. I’ve played for decades. You’ve only been playing for what… a handful of years?”

“Less than one. We didn’t have Kala where I grew up.” Orrin focused on the feeling of magic that was coming from the collar. He felt the tiniest movement of… something. Before he could get a hand on what it was, Anabella twirled him back around.

“Truly? A year?”

“Silas, uhm, Lord Catanzano taught me. He said I was decent but I couldn’t win against him either,” Orrin said, choosing to not push the issue of escaping. “Is it done?”

She nodded and Orrin pulled up his status. He had to focus hard to keep from smiling. She’d opened up more than she’d wanted to.

“You should have access to internal modification spells. I have a list of your suspected spells, so I’ll warn you now. Jynx can see through most forms of concealment. If you try and slip away, they will kill you.”

Orrin’s joy turned to ash. [Camouflage] was the spell that was now free to use. Jynx wouldn’t be able to watch him all the time, though.

“I’ll also be reprogramming the collar before you leave the room.”

Damn it.

Anabella smiled. “I’m sure you have other spells you could try but if you do, my son learns of those spells. The only reason I’ve agreed to do this is the rarity of buff spells. Can you truly use them on others?”

Orrin resigned himself to giving up some information and nodded his head. “I could show you if you want.”

Anabella’s smile gentled. “No, you could not. If you try and cast a spell that affects anything or anyone other than yourself, the collar will cause you unbearable pain and revert to the original programming. You’d lose access to everything again. I’ll be observing as you heal yourself. I know you are still hurt, I see you wince when you sit. Perhaps if we have time today, you can show me the strength increase. That should be the easiest to demonstrate and measure.”

“Measure? What would you measure?” The investigator part of Orrin’s mind churned.

“First, we should find your base strength score. Not what the System says is your strength but how much you can actually lift or carry. I have some potions that will allow you to use the full strength of your System score and then we can play with the increased stat of your spells as well. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I once had a [Berserker] let me do this with him but we couldn’t get good data because… well he kept trying to kill everyone. But with you, I can pick apart another part of the puzzle of stats and the System.”

Orrin knew what Daniel felt like when he went off on his own System knowledge tangents. “So, I’m a test subject?”

Anabella’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous fire. “That sounds like I’m going to dissect you when we’re done. I like the phrase, experiment colleague.”

Orrin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Can I heal myself first, at least?”

Anabella picked up a pad of paper and a pencil. “Of course. But first, I have a few questions. What type of healing spell are you using? What is the baseline health that you recover? Do you give weight to the idea that healing spells increase a body’s own regenerative power or that you are using mana to rebuild something from nothing?”

She continued with her questions and Orrin realized he was already being tortured.