The darkness was almost perfect. None of the three moons shone their silver light down on the grass lands that CornWall ran on. The grass shot out of the earth in a thick explosion of green, dwarfing most humans and hiding the paths among them. He ran with practiced ease, turning and twisting with no hesitation. In his hands, he tightly grasped two counters till both hands were quivering with pain. The problem was that these two counters glowed with a faint neon yellow light. They were easily bright enough for someone near him to spot his location in this blinding darkness.

“Found him,” shouted a voice in the darkness.

Startled, CornWall slipped and fell head first into the ground. One of the counters lodged itself deeply into the earth. He stood up and tried to pull the counter out but it refused to budge.

“Shit,” he swore silently.

He placed the other counter in his mouth biting on it firmly and tried digging around the entrenched counter with his hands. As his bony hands pushed out the mud, something sharp shot out of the darkness and scratched his left thigh. This time he couldn’t help letting out a muffled scream, spitting the counter out of his mouth. He fell to the ground clutching his thigh. Removing his hands from his thigh he picked the two counters up and lay on them blocking out their light. He crawled out of the path and onto the grass, taking care to not leak out any of the light from the counters.

“Did you find him?” demanded one of the pursuers to the other.

“He’s somewhere here that’s for sure. I saw some kind of light and shot out a few Endurance bound darts towards him. At least one of them has hit him but…,” trailed the other man.

"How the hell did the slave even escape? Especially now. Are you sure you used the location spell properly?”

“Why do always ask me that? I’d like to see any of you perform a location spell to a higher precision than this. He’s definitely near the,” he paused. “Near the screen cemetery.”

Both the men’s faces’ lit up in realization. They shot out towards the cemetery. One of them formed orbs of light and send them along them the perimeter of the cemetery. The other ran in the opposite direction the orbs went.

CornWall threw one of the counters across the fence. He placed the other between his teeth and began scaling the rusted iron fence. The spikes scratched his torso as he clambered across. Once both counters were safe in his hands he limped on. Scattered glass cut his bare feet. He glanced at the stacks of glass and metal. Each of them contained piles of broken screens in various degrees of destruction. Some were shred into fine powder, others merely broken in two and others cracked and contorted into funny shapes. But few were pristine black rectangles about the size of a human torso that looked as though they might still work. He ignored the stacks as ran further into the cemetery. When he found what he was looking for he almost wept in shock.

Five feet in front of him was a screen the size of a large truck. It was pure black like all the others and a slanted crack ran through the centre. He ran to it and swept his hand across the screen again and again.

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“Come on, come on. Start!” he swore kneeling in a hunched position next to the centre of the screen.

The entire screen lit up in a shade of light blue.

Welcome to Metsys. Initializing…….

“Initialize faster,” he whispered. He turned around to see if any of his pursuers and had seen the light from the screen. With this light, they would find him soon enough.

Initialized. Scan ID.

Placing his counters on the ground, he gripped the metal collar across his neck and placed the collar on the screen.

Scan ID.

He turned his neck slightly and tried to ensure the surface of his collar kept touching the screen. After a few seconds the screen stopped loading and turned a darker shade of blue.

Id recognized.

User ID: CornWall

Actions?

“Inputting freedom counters,” he whispered to the screen. But the screen did not change. “Inputting freedom counters,” he said louder. The screen still remained passive. This time he almost screamed the instructions but to no avail.

“There he is,” shouted one of the pursuers.

In his panic, he picked up the counters and tried to push it into the screen. The moment the counter touched the screen, the display changed.

Freedom counter recognised. Input counter.

The screen distorted where the counters touched the screen and a rectangular cavity appeared below the counters.

“Catch him! Maim him now!” screamed the other pursuer. And immediately a dozen darts shout out and hit CornWall on his back. Howling in pain, he stuffed the counters into the cavity and the screen accepted them.

Position changing…

While the screen loaded the pursuers had made it to CornWall. The younger of them tried to attack the screen while the older pummeled CornWall. He broke CornWall’s nose and broke his skull. Symbols on CornWall’s collar glowed, trying to preserve his consciousness. It barely worked, but the message on the screen changed.

Position changed from: rank 0 base slave -> rank 1 purpose slave -> rank 2 indentured servant

The man attacking CornWall felt a force field from the collar push him away.

Punishment unauthorized. Processing user.

Both men stared blankly at each other.

“How is this possible? How can he just change his position like that?”

“We are dead. We are finished. When they find out that we let a slave escape they will destroy us,” the other man said, sinking to his knees and grasping his head.

“Let’s just drag him back,” he said and tried to lift CornWall by his collar, but he was rejected as well.

Processing user.

However, this time CornWall really did lose consciousness.