Glenn glanced left and right, shivering in the coldness of the prison. A freezing breeze made his dirty flutter and pierced through the rag he was wearing. The prison was dark, for a lack of better word. Everywhere he looked was darkness, be it in front of him, on the sides, or even above him. The meager candle he was using was simply not enough to light the way. Hesitantly, he tried going forward, squinting in an attempt to peer through the shadows, but he still couldn’t see a thing.
Suddenly, his foot missed the floor and he fell face-first. His heart missed a beat and he grabbed the first thing he could, his fingers finding a hold at the last second. He was hanging above a bottomless pit, grabbing the ledge with all his might.
‘Wow, we almost died! Maybe try and be careful to not jump into the first hole you can find!’ Diamanes exclaimed surprisedly. Glenn gritted his teeth and pulled himself up, doing so almost effortlessly despite the chains weighing him down. His new body really was a great boon.
“...Phew…So there’s a big hole in the center of the prison… right, that’s good to know,” Glenn whispered, shaking the fear off. He suddenly froze and looked over the ledge, watching helplessly as his candle fell in the bottomless abyss. The flame went off at some point, but he never heard the sound of it hitting the ground.
Glenn slowly backed up against the wall, his heart beating restlessly. He could feel the cold touch of the reinforced iron door of his cell, and the number “3333” imprinted into it. Clenching his teeth tightly, Glenn kept his hand against the wall, following it. It took him barely a few seconds to reach another cell. Once again, he tried to squint to see anything, but it appeared that his enhanced eyesight didn’t double as night vision, sadly.
He passed his hand against the iron door, finding the number again. This time, it was “3332”. Glenn paused, suddenly realizing something terrible.
There were at least 3333 people imprisoned here, at the minimum. And seeing how deep the hole was, and if the cells were all bordering the hole in some long spiral…perhaps—no, there certainly were more than 3333 people imprisoned here.
‘Peoples?’ Diamanes scoffed, ‘Put your ear on the door to 3332.’
Glenn clenched his left hand and slowly complied, placing his ear against his neighbor's cell door.
At first, he couldn’t hear anything, despite his seemingly enhanced hearing. But…at some point, he did notice…something. Something that sounded strange, like a slab of meat that was dragged on a wooden board. It wasn’t very loud, but…this simple, small noise froze Glenn’s blood inside his veins. A mass of…meat, moved slowly behind the reinforced iron door. Glenn carefully took a step back away from the door, gulping heavily.
Whatever was inside that cell could have been him, had he not resisted the Beast Blood’s corruption.
With measured steps and his left hand on the wall, Glenn began to walk in silence, his naked feet sticking to the damp, stone floor. The occasional rattling of chains or scurrying of rats often startled him and made him stop dead in his tracks, but he ultimately always kept going, motivated by the desire to see the sun again.
‘We are lucky that you’re not afraid of the dark,’ Diamanes suddenly realized, speaking in Glenn’s mind to not make a noise. Glenn nodded slowly, agreeing. Well, he wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t comfortable either. He was starting to miss that candle he lost earlier… The silence felt heavy, and each step he was taking felt like walking through water, like a dream. He was endlessly walking in the darkness, the sole thing guiding him being the sensation of the cold stone wall and iron doors against his fingers. One constant thing was the scent of blood.
Glenn didn’t know if it was how he smelled, if the whole place smelled like that, or if each cell was filled with blood, but the truth was that it was the only thing he could smell. The thick, metallic scent of blood, followed him like a curse.
“One step after the other. One step after the other…” He repeated to himself, a feeling of dread washing over him. The numbers on the doors decreased every time he passed one of them. Soon, he passed the three-thousand mark, making him almost happy, until he remembered there was still a long, long way to go.
2940…2450…1984…1423…1120…
“BAH!” Glenn jumped in surprise, his heart racing as he stuck his back against the wall and held his breath the best he could. He searched around his surroundings with panicked eyes, until he understood that it was simply Diamanes making fun of him.
‘Haha, come on, it was starting to get boring, understand me!’ The entity defended itself, ‘How long have we been walking? An hour?’
Glenn bit down on his lip while clenching his left hand tightly, trying his best to shut Diamanes up. He was already anxious enough, he didn’t need this idiot to add his grain of fucking salt!
After what seemed an eternity, Glenn finally reached the three-digit cells. His determination to escape this place flared up in his heart and he began to accelerate, eager to get out of there. His stomach was rumbling dully, begging for food, while Diamanes continued his annoying pranks from time to time to try and scare him. Only, it stopped working after the third time.
What was interesting in this damned prison was that there were no jailers on patrol, no watchers, or guard posts. Simply the cells, the hole, and the darkness.
946...751...542...342...123…
99.
Finally! Glenn’s heart began to race once again as he approached what he hoped was the exit. Suddenly, a doubt made him stop in his tracks. What if he went the wrong way? He assumed that the lowest number would be where the exit was, but…but what if he was wrong? What if he needed to go back? Glenn thought back to the endless walk in the darkness and shook his head.
“No, no, this is the right way. It serves no purpose to worry about it now, anyway. And…” Glenn grimaced and resumed his way, “...if it isn’t, I’ll just run back. Whatever.”
With trembling steps and a hopeful expression, Glenn accelerated ever so slightly, still using his hand to guide him. He did his best to restrain his excitement at the prospect of finally finding something different from those blasted doors. After a few more minutes, he squinted as he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, no, more like a light floating a dozen meters above his position, across the bottomless pit. Glenn rubbed his eyes distrustfully, but the warm light was still there, drawing him in like a bug. Glenn continued to proceed slowly, trying his utmost to figure out whether the light came out of a torch or a candle, if it was still or in movement, but the shifting shadows of his surroundings made it seem like he was hallucinating.
It felt like a terrible idea to simply trust his sight after spending so much time in the darkness.
Glenn quickly covered the rest of the way, finally arriving in front of a different door, illuminated by the torch’s warm hue. Glenn sighed and paused for an instant, looking at the door with a wide smile. That smile faded away when he found the circular symbol wrapped in thorny vines and with a cross in its center carved on the door as if to mock him. Glenn’s smile twisted and he almost punched the damned thing, but he forced himself to calm down. First, he had to get out of there. Then…then he might as well do his best to destroy whoever made this place and the owners of this cursed symbol. That’d do for a nice side quest while he tried to figure out a way back to his home.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Glenn reached for the knob with his left hand, suddenly waking Diamanes up who jolted in surprise.
‘Oh, hello, that’s an Alarm spell right here!’ said the entity, stopping Glenn’s movements. The latter froze, unsure of what to do now. He held his breath in expectation, listening for any blaring alarm noise or something similar, but Diamanes’ mocking chuckle reassured him.
“Don’t worry, you didn’t push the door open so it didn’t activate yet. Just give me a few seconds, and I’ll take the Alarm away.”
Glenn nodded slowly, waiting as he felt the spell being sucked into his left hand. This Alarm spell would certainly come in handy. The more tools in his possession, the better. He was still wondering what it would take for him to be able to use these spells more than once, as the fact that they could only be used once was rather restrictive.
‘If you end up being a little talented in magic, you’ll probably be able to replicate these spells and some more. But for now, it’s only a one-time trick for you,’ Diamanes explained helplessly, similarly annoyed at the restriction.
‘Oh, but mind you it would be a completely different story if you were to reach the True Initiate level,’ muttered the entity. Glenn was too busy stressing out about whatever was behind that door to care about his nonsense, though. The first thing that welcomed him once he pushed the door open was the smell of old books. He entered what appeared to be a poorly-lit library, with rows and rows of old wooden shelves. An upward glance made him discover that the sources of light were dim crystals with barely enough power to keep on shining.
Glenn continued to explore with steady steps, carefully peeking between each row to try and see if there was anyone. Thankfully, it appeared that he was alone in this library. The floor, of old wooden planks, was creaking sinisterly with each step he took as if to try and alarm someone of his presence. Glenn tightened the chains around his leg to make sure they wouldn’t rattle on the ground, suddenly squinting when he found one lone desk sitting in the perfect center of the library. Some old books were thrown on it, some on the floor or hanging lazily, waiting to be picked up. Glenn approached the desk, frowning when he found the books to all lack a title or a distinguishable cover. There were rows of empty ink bottles and broken writing feathers. What did jump to his eyes when Glenn tried to investigate the desk, was one smaller book with something written in the bottom-right corner of the cover. It was written in dark red ink, a number.
3333.
Glenn held his breath and slowly picked the book up.
“That’s…that’s my cell, isn’t it?” Glenn muttered, a little scared of what he was going to find in this thing. With a bit of apprehension, he opened it. There was only one thing written on the first page, a sequence of numbers. A date. 17/05/3032.
That was the same date that was on the form he filled back in the Magic Identification Bureau. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots.
“The day of my capture, then…” His eyes shook slightly, but he turned the page nonetheless.
Name: Glenn
Surname: Unknown
Age(estimated): 21
Profession: Unknown(estimated to be a soldier due to the wounds on his body, or a mercenary. A low ranking one, probably)
Glenn grimaced when reading that line, while Diamanes laughed with no restraints.
Health status: Alive. Strange condition with his left hand. Skin is purple, and that limb heals much faster than the rest of the body.
He shivered and flipped to the next page, finding the records of each day he was imprisoned.
1st Day: Fed first blood, No. 7, Black Rose, fell unconscious, and didn't turn. Shows promising results.
2nd Day: Fed No. 34 Corpse Eater, fell unconscious, and didn't turn.
3rd Day: Fed No. 12, Flesh Hive, fell unconscious, didn't turn.
Glenn gulped, his eyes following the ink lines in the paper, his uneasiness growing with each passing second.
31st Day: Fed No. 28, Ghoul, fell unconscious, didn't turn. This is a new record. This might be the One.
…
54th Day: Fed No. 42, Crescent Kar-Gal, and No. 1 Abyss Stalker, showed signs of turning. Finally.
Notes: The most resilient specimen yet. Is probably the best one of them all. His sanity is on the brink of breaking. I believe he is indeed the One we were looking for. Thanks to our God for his benevolence, the subject is incredibly resilient. He will show exceptional results once trained.
N.B.: We still need to figure out what is wrong with his left hand, in case it impedes our goals. It seems unlikely, but the time Abbot Hank gave us should be more than enough for a few more tests. That will wait for him to be completely corrupted, though.
Glenn heaved with difficulty and stumbled a few steps back.
“So—so that’s what you meant when you said I should be dead, huh?” He questioned in horror his left hand. Diamanes grinning lips were more than enough answers. He clenched his fists and closed the notebook, before shoving it into his rag for safekeeping. Perhaps it would be useful later on, who knows? He stopped for a second and glanced again at Diamanes.
“What do you think…will happen to me, then?”
"Well, I honestly don't know what to expect. You're probably the only being in this world that survived after drinking that much beast blood without turning. An absolute anomaly" mocked Diamanes with a mixture of disbelief and fascination. Glenn’s survival was nothing short of a miracle—or a curse, depending on whose point of view. Well, as long as there is life, there is hope, right? Glenn might as well take all the benefits and ignore the horror he had to go through to get them.
Glenn’s nose creased as he tried to find the exit, eventually finding two doors next to each other. There was one different tag on each: Storage, and Accumulator. He randomly pushed the first door open after checking with Diamanes for any spells.
Entering the Storage, he was welcomed with the sight of...well, a storage room. There was a great number of shelves with an equally great number of things stored on them. There were weapons, clothes, jewelry, documents, books, bags, etc...
He looked around a little, finding with undisguised happiness the clothes he wore before he got abducted. He was about to put them on, but looking back at himself covered in...whatever, that was, he decided to do so later after he took a nice, hot shower. If his guess was right, he would be able to find his dimensional pouch somewhere in this room. Not even a minute later, he managed to find the pouch in question. It wasn't really difficult, it was the only one made out of good quality leather. It stood out among the raggedy bags barely pieced together that were stored there. A small tag was attached to it. He ripped it off and threw it away, before tying the pouch to a belt he picked up a second later.
Looking at the weapon shelves, he didn't manage to find his decorated sword, though. Perhaps it was so valuable that they kept it for themselves. Not that he cared. He picked up a random sword that didn't look too terrible from the racks and sheathed it in a random scabbard. Even if he had no idea of how to use it, having a weapon tied to his waist did make him feel safer.
He thought about the Fire Staff in his pouch, but since he didn't have the time to figure out how it would work, he decided not to take it out. He geared up while throwing a curious look at the jewelry category. There was no gold, silver, or jewels. The "jewelry" category was filled with wooden bracelets, cheap rings with glass set on them, rosaries, and little decorative stuff that could be afforded by anyone.
"They probably targeted the poor people, since a few of them disappearing would probably not make much noise," Glenn understood with a darkening expression. Diamanes grunted with displeasure, before scoffing, “They’re probably such pieces of trash that they can’t attack anyone but the lowest of the low. Disgusting.”
Glenn drew a deep breath and forced his eyes away from the “jewelry”. He couldn’t leave this place like that. He had to do something, something to get back at the assholes who forced him to endure this unending torture for fifty-four days. He had no illusion about saving the other prisoners; he was already having a hard time saving himself, after all, and they were all probably transformed into some kind of disgusting, nightmarish horror.
Perhaps he could use his newfound strength to destroy a few things here and there.
“I hardly see myself making this whole place crumble by punching walls, though…” Glenn muttered as he glanced around for a solution. Diamanes interrupted his thoughts, as is his wont.
“Can’t you just blow the place up?” He proposed with a matter-of-fact tone as if that was the simplest thing on earth.
Glenn blinked and threw a confused gaze at his left hand.
“What?”
His eyes widened as Diamanes’ grin grew from the pinkie to the thumb.
Blowing the place up? What was that supposed to mean?