Glenn’s heart missed a beat at Diamanes’ suggestion. He rubbed the corner of his eyes, thinking it might be something wrong with his ears.
“...What do you mean, blowing the place up? Do you see any explosives anywhere? Maybe some C4 I missed?” Glenn asked with a mocking tone. Before the entity could even reply, Glenn shook his head with his lips pressed together.
“No, even if I could, I wouldn’t do it. That’s too much. What if we’re under King’s Rise? I don’t want to kill thousands of innocents for some meaningless revenge…” But even as he said that Glenn continued to consider the option, finding it strangely alluring.
Diamanes sighed heavily, his frustration weighing down on him.
“Listen,” Diamanes’ voice resigned, “You can’t even imagine the number of spells protecting King’s Rise. It’s like a fucking Christmas Tree up there. So even if this place collapses, which isn’t even what I had in mind, the spells and wards should take care of it. Now, if you’re okay with all that, let’s get to the Accumulator room you saw earlier and bring some chaos in this silent prison.”
Glenn didn’t need much to be convinced, and Diamanes’ arguments were more than enough. He retraced his steps and went back to the library. The second door, labeled “Accumulator”, yielded to his touch. There was another Alarm spell, which Glenn took away with no hesitation, much grateful for Diamanes’ help. A strange, magical sight unveiled itself before him. The Accumulator room was a large place with a vortex of verdant smoke twirling in its center. Runes were inscribed into the floor, encircling the vortex while shimmering with an eerie, arcane green hue pulsing softly.
Glenn grimaced and took a hesitant step toward the vortex, “So that’s your plan? Throwing me into some kind of suspiciously green vortex? Are you sure you don’t want to kill me?”
“...Don’t be a fool,” Diamanes snorted with condescension, “This green stuff is the monster's life force, sucked away by the formation you’re seeing on the floor. Yeah, these runes.”
Glenn crouched and pressed his hand against the rune, before unsheathing the sword he picked up earlier and pointing it at one of the runes.
“Wait, what are you doing?” DIamanes asked in confusion. Glenn looked at his left hand, then at his sword.
“...I thought you wanted me to break this formation-thingy so it would let loose the monsters? Well, I guessed that’s what your aim was, but correct me if I’m wrong.”
Diamanes clicked his tongue, “Yeah, well, there are better ways to break this thing besides stabbing the floor while hoping the formation doesn’t explode to your face. There should be a main component storing the life force. Find it, and take it away. That’ll be enough to cut the formation and unleash hell on the bastards who imprisoned you.”
The corner of Glenn’s lips curved upward as he tried to find that “main component”. He suddenly paused and frowned.
“Wait, do you think they’ll be able to cull the monsters once they’re all out of their cells?”
Diamanes scoffed, “I sure hope not! It would be quite disappointing if that’d be the end of it considering the number of monstrosities down there.”
Glenn moistened his lips, before shaking his head and intensifying his search. The harder he looked, the more pointless it appeared. There was nothing besides the vortex inside the damned Accumulator room. What was he even searching for? What did the main component look like? Could it be a stone brick from the floor?
He doubted that…But was it possible?
“The clock is ticking, Glenn. Would it be too much for you to put some effort into it?” Diamanes groaned in annoyance and slight nervosity. Glenn winced while hissing through his teeth, “I’m doing just that, bastard. Why can’t you just magically indicate to me where the hell this thing is? Don’t have some magical—”
Glenn paused, turning slowly toward the green vortex. He squinted, trying to peer through the green energy to find what he barely noticed a second earlier. A small glint on the whirlwind’s base caught his gaze, barely visible through the darkness and energy. It seemed like a pearl, some kind of black one, but he couldn’t tell.
“That’s it! That’s the main component!” Diamanes exclaimed excitedly, “Come on, take it away, and let’s see all hell break loose!”
Glenn glanced at the almost childish excitement of his left hand with mixed feelings, before pressing his lips together. Did he want to do that? Wasn’t it a better idea to sneak out without making a noise? On another hand, freeing the monsters would create the best distraction, but…
Glenn pulled at his hair, hesitating. There was one thing he didn’t understand in this whole mess—the Accumulator.
“It’s in the name, it accumulates the life force,” he muttered in realization, “...But why the hell would they need the life force of thousands of creatures?”
Weren’t they creating an army? Or were they, and gathering the life force was a side benefit? Something important was lying under this, but he couldn’t even begin to guess what.
“Does it matter?!?” Diamanes’ impatient burst forth, “Put an end to this place, and let’s escape. This body’s survival is paramount, for fuck’s sake!” He exploded. Glenn tensed up and clenched his teeth, before diving through the fumes without thinking and grabbing the pearl. He held his breath as he did so, refusing to let the green fumes enter his respiratory system. The circle of runes surrounding the whirling didn’t seem to affect him, thankfully, and he managed to get out of there without any problems.
“Phew…” He sighed in relief while glancing at the main component, a black pearl. He could see something swirling inside but couldn’t tell what it was. He probably could find out what it was if he looked a little more, but he wasn’t really in the situation to do so right now. A distant noise caught his attention, interrupting his contemplation and shifting his focus away from the pearl. He slipped the item into his dimensional pouch while clenching his sword.
“Where the hell did that come from…?” Glenn muttered, cracking the door open to try and listen. Far away, the sound of flesh hitting iron began to echo with irregularity, until an absolute cacophony of chaotic roars, screams, and screeches took over everything. Glenn paled slightly and hurriedly came out of the Accumulator room, suddenly at a loss at where to go.
“The monsters have woken up, haha! I think it’s your cue to leave, Glenn,” Diamanes suggested while laughing with satisfaction. Glenn clenched his teeth and hurriedly went back to the Storage room, taking barely a second to find another door he had failed to notice earlier. That probably was the way out.
Glenn dashed through the racks, drawers, and shelves and stood in front of the door, a second away from opening it. An instant before he grabbed the knob, he watched in horror as it turned by itself. The door opened violently, a dozen robed figures running out from it while cursing.
“Damn us! Who was on this watch?” One of them asked in terror. Another replied, “It—It was Val, I believe! For the Accumulator to stop working…damn it!”
Glenn was currently hidden behind the door that had just opened, holding his breath while struggling to stop his chains from rattling. The robed guys were all armed with swords, axes, and torches. Their ragged breathing betrayed some panic, as did their restless movements.
“Alright, at least everyone is here besides Val. Gane, you go to the Accumulator—I’ll take the others to stop them. Abbot Hank is going to kill us if we even let a single one of the offerings out!” The voice paused for a moment, before spitting, “Sacrifice for your life for it if needed! Come on!”
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Their panicked reaction was like music to Glenn’s ears, and he was enjoying each moment of it; He grinned widely, still not uttering a single word. Diamanes snickered, pleased, ‘Looks like we’ve stirred the hornet’s nest.’
Glenn could only nod in agreement as all the robed guys left the Storage room. The second they left, he dashed out of his hiding place and ran through the door they came from. This whole mess was the ring of the bell called sweet liberty! Now that they were busy taking care of whatever chaos he caused, he would be able to hopefully escape and, at the same time, fuck those guys over. Two birds with one pearl!
Glenn entered a hallway with dozens of doors on each side, barely illuminated by weak magical lights hanging on the ceiling. He peeked inside one of the opened rooms, understanding that it had to be the cultists’ dorms. He ignored all the doors and ran straight through the corridor, arriving at yet another door, different. The circular symbol wrapped in thorny vines and with a cross in its center was carved on it. Glenn gritted his teeth when saw the symbol and pushed the door open. A robed figure pacing back and forth suddenly paused and turned with hope toward the door.
“Was it a false alarm? I knew it had to be one—” Glenn swung his sword without hesitation, messily hacking through the man’s throat. Due to his lack of technique, he didn’t cut all the way through, but it was more than enough to kill the man. Glenn’s heart froze entirely and he paused, but the urgency of the situation made him rip his sword out of the poor guy’s throat and look further ahead.
Behind the corpse was a sturdy steel gate, flanked by empty chairs. Glenn felt relief at finding the damned exit, but that relief was tainted by the horror of what he had just done.
‘DON’T STOP NOW, GLENN!’ Diamanes screamed in Glenn’s mind, not allowing the adrenaline to go down. Glenn ran to the gate and tried to open it up, but it was stuck. He forced on the steel knobs, but it was completely locked. Glenn took a few steps back and desperately charged into the gate, bending it outward slightly. The lock appeared to him, slightly bent due to the shock.
Glenn gasped for air and raised his sword above his head. With one clean, precise strike of his sword, he broke the lock and his weapon at the same time. The sword’s blade flew out with a sharp sound past him and stabbed into the ceiling, leaving behind a small cut on his left cheek. But Glenn couldn’t care less about that.
“YES!” He shouted while kicking the gate open and throwing the broken sword aside. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the sun that assaulted his senses, nor the overbearing feeling of freedom he was expecting, but the smell. It smelled of rot, piss, dirt, and shit, and yet…yet Glenn couldn’t help but find it a hundred times better than what he was used to in his cell. Glenn dashed out of the prison, looking left and right in a panic.
‘Where should I go ?!? Shit, shit, shit!’ He picked a random direction and ran off without looking back. The chains wrapped around his legs loosened, forcing him to drag them behind him in a rattling sound of metal. After what seemed an eternity, Glenn finally stopped, heaving with difficulty. He sighed and looked up at his surroundings, pausing when he realized it wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. It seemed that instead of freedom, it was another hell that had been waiting behind this steel gate.
Everywhere he looked, he could find living skeletons, their skins so stuck to their bones that it was almost translucid. Empty, hopeless eyes, and rotten corpses lying here and there, used by the flies to lay more eggs. Some of those corpses were completely bloated, maggots carving their way through the dry skin and eating whatever was left of the carcasses. Glenn averted his eyes, only to find a river of filth where skinny people scavenged through, picking off anything that seemed remotely interesting or comestible. Or looked comestible. Glenn grimaced when it became evident that those people didn’t care whether those… things were edible. Glenn followed the flow of the river, finding a massive steel gate pouring with greenish goo.
“That must be King’s Rise’s sewer system…shit, are you telling me they didn’t solve the sewer system with magic?” Glenn muttered in disbelief and disgust, looking at the shacks making up for most of this place. Calling them shacks might even be a little too kind, for they were piles of broken planks assembled in ways that barely qualified as roofs. A large shadow was cast on the Sewers, the sunlight barely reaching down this filthy place. Glenn looked up once again, realizing that King’s Rise's massive ramparts were the culprits for this lack of light.
It was difficult to imagine someone to be living in these piles of junk. And yet, that was indeed the case. There were many, many people, in deplorable states.
Glenn walked carefully, trying to find his way out of this labyrinth. Thankfully, his destitute appearance seemed to suffice to stop anyone from stabbing him. It was more than evident that he had nothing, after all, his small dimensional pouch hidden under his rag. And perhaps they thought he was sick or something, due to his purple hand. Who knows? Glenn certainly couldn’t read in the Sewers’ inhabitants' minds.
At some point, perhaps it was a change of district or something, the people seemed to grow slightly more well fed, better-taken care of. They all had dark skin, though, with white marks on their forehead. Every time he passed in front of these individuals, they would look at him like a piece of shit on the walkway, avoiding him with a large step.
Which Glenn could understand. He would avoid himself right now.
Glenn suddenly recalled the old driver who brought him to the Frozen Gate, saying he had some “business” in the Sewers. Was this place officially recognized as a district or something?
“If it is, it doesn’t announce anything good about King’s Rise,” Glenn muttered worriedly. What kind of business even had this old but powerful guy in such a horrible place? Almost to entertain himself, he tried to remember the old man’s face. Suddenly, he fell to his knees and puked a greenish acidic liquid. Glenn’s heart thumped loudly in his chest, the blood pulsing through his temples.
He killed a man. He killed him. He cleaved through that guy’s throat earlier like it was nothing, stopping at nothing to run away from this damned prison. He could have knocked him out, anything, but now, he cut through his throat and killed him.
Glenn looked at his hands in horror, finding them to be covered in blood, dry and fresh. His blood and the cultist’s.
He was a murderer.
“...the hell is this?” An old voice mumbled from behind him. Glenn glanced back with empty eyes, pausing.
“...The old man?” He muttered, his voice laced with confusion as the guilt faded away.
“What the…?” The old voice exclaimed in surprise.
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A guy draped in a black hooded robe humbled himself on the ground submissively. His black robe was ripped and there were still open wounds oozing with blood covering him. Beside him, five other black-robed individuals were kneeling, in a similar condition.
A wide, tall man was towering over them, adoring the white vestments of a cleric. He was pressing his massive foot on the first guy’s head, pushing it against the stone floor. His face was contorted with anger, almost purple from the hatred. Unidentifiable scars adorned every single part of his skin that was visible. He was gripping an ancient tome tightly in his right hand, an old book weathered and weighty. His bald head was hidden under a black, round hat, with flat brims.
“W…We did—urgh—all we could, Abbot Hank!” The crushed man couldn’t stop apologizing, trembling uncontrollably under the pressure of the Abbot’s foot. He continued to plead for mercy as the anger suddenly faded away from Abbot Hank’s face. A strangely sweet smile appeared on his scarred face.
“Do not worry, my child; you will meet our Lord shortly before all of us,!” He whispered with an eerily gentle and soft voice, ”How blessed you are!” He chuckled with a warm smile. A second later, he crushed the hooded guy’s head under his foot like a watermelon, his face unchanging. Bits of bones, flesh, and brains exploded outward on the other cultists.
The Abbot slowly took his foot away from the crushed mass, before silently turning toward the rank of the other kneeling individuals. He questioned the first cultist he could see, his voice cold and dry, nothing like how it was a second ago.
“What was his name?”
“G…Gane, Abbot Hank!” A terrified voice exclaimed. Abbot Hank hummed in acceptance before opening his book, revealing the old, yellow pages within. He crouched next to Gane’s corpse and dipped his finger in the mixture of blood, brain, and bones.
“Gane…I see…”
With a passionate smile, he slowly wrote the name in the book, substituting the blood for ink. On the other pages of the book were dozens and dozens of other names, similarly written in a dark, faded red color. He quickly made the pages flutter, sighing in satisfaction at the sight of the hundreds of pages similarly filled.
“May he enjoy eternal pain in the arms of our Lord,” said Abbot Hank solemnly.
“May he be blessed,” The other cultists said aloud, following his lead. The Abbot turned back toward the cultists and inquired, “What subject’s file disappeared already?”
“3333, Abbo Hankt.”
The Abbot paused for a second and his sweet smile grew wider.
“So it is him. Find him at all costs. He is the One.”
He turned back and left the prison, each of his steps making the floor tremble. Once he was gone, all the cultists went and looked through the door to the prison. Behind it, on the slope leading to the library, were hundreds and hundreds of monster corpses, smashed to bloody pulps, massacred. They never stood any chance against him.
Their escaping had always been against their Lord’s will.
As was 3333’s escape.