Nathan woke up fully rested and without feeling any pain. Fount of Nature in action, no doubt, he concluded.

He kept his breathing steady and did not show any outward sign of being awake, just listening for a while.

I can hear no breathing and no steps, actually no noise at all. Nobody is nearby and it seems I'm in an isolated room.

Focussing on the energy that surrounded him, he made a discovery that worsened his mood. Mana was running in complicated patterns throughout the walls of his room and from what he suspected to be deeper in the building a steady pulse of energy emerged.

I'm in a mage tower, and not a cheap one. There's a tower spirit regulating everything and while the formations are relatively weak, so am I for now.

Mages tended to build towers once they got to a certain age and power level. At their heart, most mages were researchers, for to advance far as a mage years of study were required. Towers presented a great place to conduct that research – they were a symbol of magic that kept annoying intruders away and Nathan had heard that the cylindric shape made it easier to layer enchantments onto a building.

Tower spirits, in turn, were what kept a mage tower supplied with mana and automated most of the mundane functions. They were often captured elementals, trained over years if not decades until they were ready to manage a whole tower.

The grand towers on the higher floors often had dozens of tower spirits, each one perfectly moulded to a certain role, but on the third floor, even a single one signalled the presence of a powerful mage.

Finally opening his eyes, Nathan inspected the room he found himself in. It was sparsely furnished, but considering it could be nothing but a prison cell, the accommodations were surprisingly good.

Nathan himself was lying on a bed and a toilet was placed in another corner. He did not see a door, but by following the flow of energy, Nathan noticed a part of the wall that was movable.

The entire room was constructed from the same material, smooth stone that was light grey.

In addition to the hidden doorway, Nathan found another movable part of the wall, this one in the form of a window.

Jackpot.

His gear had been entirely confiscated, but that presented less of a problem to Nathan than his pursuers might think. Closing his eyes and straining his soul, Nathan soon felt his robe wrapped around his body. I'm so glad that I'll get my second soul-bound item on this floor. If I had the spear already, I'd be gone by now.

Checking the small pouch he had hidden in the robe's sleeve, Nathan gripped his scalpel. Following that, he opened another compartment, letting out a relieved breath when he found his mother's wedding ring.

I don't have my spear and my dimensional ring, but escaping from here should be doable with this much.

He crouched down in front of the hidden window, sinking his consciousness entirely into the complicated network of mana that flowed through the wall.

For the next hour, Nathan barely moved, using his scalpel to make shallow cuts into the wall every couple of minutes. While he had not been a mage in the last timeline, climbing as high as he did, resulted in him having at least a rudimentary grasp on enchantments. Had the enchantments been a little more advanced, or had his task been more complicated than simply opening a single window, Nathan would have had no chance of succeeding. This, however, was barely possible for him.

Finally, he was satisfied, the wall now marred by an incomprehensible network of scratches. Closing his eyes, Nathan let out a tired sigh and massaged his forehead.

Now I know which mana lines I have to interrupt to open the window. Let's get to it then.

Once more he brandished his scalpel, cutting off a small piece of his robe. Following that, he grimaced and made a small cut on his elbow. I haven't tested Fount of Nature yet, so I can only hope that it can heal wounds inflicted by the scalpel.

He dipped his finger into the blood, concentrating as much as he could as he started sketching a complicated pattern on the piece of fabric.

Again and again, he oriented himself on the cuts he had made on the wall, as more and more complicated lines took form. The work was crude, but Nathan did his best to be precise, not allowing himself to make a single mistake.

Finally, he was finished, now holding an incredibly basic talisman. A laugh escaped him, as he compared it once more to the pattern on the wall.

The mana should flow through my blood rather than the wall, cutting off the energy at all the right points.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Taking a deep breath, he finally placed the blood-soaked piece of fabric on the wall, waiting with bated breath. For a while nothing happened, and Nathan was almost sure he had miscalculated when a square piece of the wall suddenly moved - revealing a view of the outside world.

Elated with his success, Nathan took a peak outside, noticing that he was dozens of metres from the ground.

Now I just have to make a rope out of my clothes and then I can run. Ha, too easy.

For now, though, Nathan needed to sleep. He had spent hours on opening the window, and exhaustion clouded his mind. Checking the small wound on his elbow, he saw that it had started to heal, confirming that his new perk was strong enough to overcome the scalpel's magic.

He carefully stowed his makeshift talisman in the robe, before hiding the item under his bed. As soon as Nathan removed the fabric from the wall, the window closed itself again.

Someone will come and get me eventually, it would be pretty stupid to spend so many resources on catching me only to let me starve in the end. Can't have them find out the robe is soul-bound.

Sleep came easy that night, exhaustion and pride filling Nathan's thoughts.

----------------------------------------

Nathan shot awake as he heard the sound of stone grating on stone. He took a moment to orient himself. The room remained unchanged, but he noticed a man standing in the previously hidden doorway.

It was a human, wearing full leather armour enchanted with all manner of runes. Either these people wear armour all day, or they are wary of me.

Looking at Nathan, the man grunted. “Stand up and hold your arms before you. Don't move apart from that, or I'll have to get rough.” To emphasize his point, the man laid a hand on the dagger he was wearing on his belt.

Nathan saw no reason to refuse, complying without question. The man blindfolded him and Nathan felt handcuffs being placed around his wrists.

The handcuffs are enchanted but I can't use Inspect while blindfolded. Not like I plan to get them off anyway. I only need a couple of hours alone in the room to make a rope.

Nathan was led through the tower for almost a quarter of hours, memorizing the route more out of habit than anything else. Finally, he felt himself pressed down onto a chair, a door falling shut behind him.

The blindfold was taken off and Nathan found himself face to face with who he assumed to be the mage. He immediately tried to Inspect the handcuffs but found them blocking the skill's activation.

Suppression handcuffs then. The result did not particularly surprise Nathan, though he had hoped for a different enchantment.

The room he was now in looked far more like a dungeon than the one he had woken up in. An obligatory splatter of dried blood was left on the floor, while a plethora of torture instruments were placed on a table in the middle. All manner of body parts floated around in jars around the walls, stemming both from humans and animals.

Nathan didn't react to the decoration, just raising his eyebrows at the other man in the room. The mage was elderly, his head bald while a dirty beard sprouted from his face. The man was thin and hunched over, but Nathan could feel a surprisingly large amount of mana radiating from him.

“Mage H, I assume?”, Nathan finally asked.

“Hibble is my name, but I assume you already know that don't you?”, the man answered.

Nathan let out a snort at that answer. “To be honest, I had no idea. Would you believe me if I told you that you got the wrong guy?”

The mage looked at him disdainfully, picking up a small dagger and playing around with it. “You mean to say, that you have nothing to do with the Order of the True Path?”

Nathan's eyes widened in astonishment. The Order of the True Path was a faction of Avelencias government, one that held considerable power. Oh, I'm in deep shit.

Hibble took note of that reaction. “Bah, I hate how you people always insist on playing the fool. You clearly recognize that name, and you still mean to tell me you have nothing to do with them. How many non-mages would have heard of the Order, you think?”

Spitting onto the floor, the mage continued, derision filling his voice. “I don't know how much they told you, but you aren't the first of the Order's agents I have caught. You always operate the same, you know.

No one in the district has ever seen you, but you suddenly appear. But not on the teleporter platform, no, in the middle of a street. That kind of teleportation is expensive you know. How curious that you seem to carry not a single credit with you then. But what luck”, the mage exclaimed. “You chanced on very exclusive wares that you manage to sell for an unexpectedly high price. Explain to me then, if you are not part of the Order, how did you get here?”

No matter what I say, Hibble won't be able to understand that I am a climber. The tower will prevent him from hearing me, Nathan realised.

Taking Nathan's silence as an admission of guilt, a sadistic grin formed on Hibble's face. “You will talk eventually, they always do. When I am done with you, you won't be dead, not until you beg for it. I like to start with the hands, you know, and trust me I know what I do. By the time you leave this room, you will be crippled for the rest of your life.”

Nathan knew that as a climber any injury to him would heal eventually. He only had to endure one day of Hibble's torture and could flee during the night. The correct course of action would be to endure for now and then leave the mage behind.

He remembered though, a time when no such healing existed. Waking up in the hospital, unable to take a single step. Months of work until he could walk even with the help of a crutch. His own body refusing to obey his orders. The derision and the pity that had driven him to drink himself half to death.

He should endure whatever the mage would do to him, but he would not.

There was a box in the back of Nathan's mind, one that had formed on the day his sanity broke. They had found him riddled with a dozen bullets, surrounded by corpses of friends and enemies alike. His fingers had been dug into a man's skull through the eyes, they had said. A miracle that he had survived, a miracle that he had awoken from the coma, a miracle that he had ever left the hospital, they had said.

Nathan did not know what had happened on that day, his last day in the army, for he had stuffed it into the box. And Nathan had made a vow; he would never open that box. Over the years he had put many things into it, but never did he resort to unleashing what was sealed in there. Not when friends died all around him, not when humans were slaughtered by the millions, not when he was mortally wounded.

But now, Nathan found himself far more tempted than he had in years. His will had been unbroken for so long, but that which did not bend was brittle.

Nathan looked deep into his mind. And then he opened the box.