After I decided to move into Ari’s parent’s house, Ari and I left work together. We first visited my lodging to pack my meager belongings. I owned nothing apart from two sets of clothes. Their coloring was already bleached out, but they didn’t have many rips and tears. I also planned to say goodbye to Ellis, but it seemed she was at work. Nothing I can do then.

When we left my quarters, it was already late evening. The crowds on the street had thinned, and we were able to move comfortably. Mage lights illuminated the main streets of the Haven District. We stuck to those. The district was safe, but none of us wanted to tempt fate, especially since I couldn’t defend myself against any magical attack.

Ari lived on the northern end of Waterside, so we had a long way to walk. As we strolled along, the streets got narrower and the condition of the buildings lining it worsened. The number of mage lights lighting dropped dramatically. I couldn’t help but to look behind me every few steps. Ari didn’t miss my strange behavior.

“This is a bad part of Waterside; my house isn’t in it. But we need to cross it, or walk through the Eastgate District. That would add another hour and the guards may bother us, believing us to be thieves.”

“Is it safe here? It doesn’t look like it.”

“Mother told me not to walk through here, but it should be fine.”

I wasn’t so sure of it. Having no magic to defend myself, I always had to be attentive on where I went to not get stuck in a bad situation. If someone tried to kidnap us, I had to rely on Ari to keep us safe, and she told me she had no magic training.

Perhaps my negative thoughts summoned the trouble. The cause of our predicament I couldn’t discern, but when Ari suddenly screamed: “Myra dodge the spell,” I knew we had a problem.

My attempts to dodge the spell were comparable to a blind person trying to avoid the strikes of a blade, not successful at all. All my joints froze up. It reminded me of the time at the orphanage where I often ended up like this. But now, it wasn’t some juvenile prank. Ari and I were in danger.

And I was dead weight, no, even worse. I was a hindrance, Ari had to protect me, still frozen in place, and herself from the onslaught of spells thrown by our assailants. The whole fight seemed like a light show to me. Ari’s shields flared up when they blocked some indiscernible and to my vision invisible spell.

Ari was unable to do anything but defend against the three attackers. First, she started breathing hard, then sweat poured off her forehead and finally her shields gave in. She dropped to the floor like her strings were cut.

Oh my god, is Ari dead? I wanted to scream or run to her side, but not one of my muscles moved. Why did this happen now, just as my live seemed to take a good turn?

One assailant said in a rough voice: “Man, this woman was strong. She will fetch a good price when she gets sold her at the slave markets of Anardin.”

Slave markets? And I thought my live already was at its worst. And Ari too. But before I was able to lose myself into more and more depressing thoughts one of them said: “As to you, you will need to go to sleep.” And after a wave of his hand I knew of nothing.

I woke up when someone shook my shoulders.

“Myra. Hey Myra, are you okay?”

My brain was still foggy from the enforced sleep, but I recognized Ari’s voice. I inspected her. Her head sported a large green bruise, but otherwise she seemed to be fine.

“I’m awake, you can stop shaking me. Yes, I’m fine, how about you?”

“My everything hurts. I used up all of my mana in the fight against the kidnappers.”

“Didn’t you say your magic is weak? It didn’t seem that way to me. You defended both of us for quite some time against three attackers.”

“I never told you that. I said I had no magical training. My inborn magical talent is pretty good. Also, the only way I was able to defend us for so long, was because of their lack of power.”

Talent can make up for quite a lot as it seems. “So, any idea where we are?”

“We are still in Gloomchester. I hadn’t been asleep for more than an hour. They trapped us in this room.”

I observed the surrounding room. All the walls were made from dark wood. Planks sealed the window. The only exit seemed to be the door. Apart from the two of us the room appeared to be empty of anything, only clumps of dust decorated it.

“Can’t you use some fancy spell to get us out? The walls don’t seem to be durable.”

“I can’t use magic in here. My spell work gets dismantled almost immediately. Do you see the runic system carved into the wall next to the door?”

I stood up and walked closer. Yes, the wall spotted dozens of small symbols. So, these were runes? I had seen none before.

I contemplated the current situation for a moment and suggested: “Can’t we just destroy the runes? And then you can break us out?” While suggesting it, I tried to open the door the physical way. It was locked.

“No, we can’t. I learned some basics about runes. This runic system draws power from the mana grid. It prevents us from using either magic or violence to escape this room. I tried both while you slept, and let me tell you, the shocks aren’t pleasant.

“If we scratch out any rune but the one observing the intactness of the runic system, something bad will happen. I can’t tell what, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.”

So, they trapped us in here with no way to escape. Damn, why us? My breath became too fast. I didn’t want to be a slave. All my life had been heavily influenced and decided by others. In the orphanage the other kids did whatever they wanted to with me and I had no choice but to let them do it. When looking for work, there was nothing I could become but a maid. That again meant I had to do whatever someone else wanted.

Then Ari offered me a choice. A choice to improve my situation. That had been the goal my whole life. To be able to choose and to live a life worth living. And now, everything I thought I had gained was in peril. As a slave I would continue to exist, unable to live.

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“Myra, calm down, we will escape at some point. They didn’t kill us yet, they want us alive.”

“Yes, to sell us into slavery,” I replied with desperation showing in my voice. Then I continued, almost too silent for Ari to hear. “That’s what they said earlier. I don’t want to be a slave.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let us become slaves. They will be distracted at some point, and we use that to escape.” Ari continued talking about how we would escape. After a few minutes she calmed me down, then we waited. Well, I waited, and Ari talked.

I got bored fast and inspected the runic system closer. Maybe there were some hints on which rune to remove. Worst case we have about a one in fifty chance to remove the right rune.

I found no indication. But something different happened. The runes almost seemed familiar to me. I looked closely at every single rune. The geometric patterns each rune consisted of burned into my mind. And then it was like I could perceive the rune’s intent.

To my newly awakened sense some felt hot. Looking at others was like getting a small electrical shock, if this analogy made any sense. Others radiated power. Still, I could not determine their precise function.

I concentrated more, trying to associate every rune to a feeling. Suddenly a hand landed on my shoulders. I jumped, spun around and lost my balance. Only Ari holding me steady kept me from falling down. The understanding of the runes fled me.

“Why are you staring at the runes? Can you read them?”

“No, well I don’t know. I have never seen a rune before.”

“This is common. For almost everyone there is no need to learn about runes. And the runes used in the every-day devices are hidden, since anyone who saw them might duplicate their effect. If you are unable to read runes, why were you staring at them?”

“It was as if I could discern the runes intent. I got a feeling or a physical sensation from watching them. Am I going mad?”

I moved a step to the side, and Ari stared at the runes. After a few moments she declared: “I feel nothing. But there is an easy way to resolve this. Find the rune which stops us from destroying the runic system. I don’t know maybe you’ll get a protective sensation?”

I again watched the runes, trying to get back into the right headspace. Ari was silent for once, trying not to break my concentration. Nothing happened, frustration rose in me. I focused harder. There it was, I could perceive the runes’ intent again. I centered my whole attention on the first rune. The rest of the room blurred into the background.

This one exuded heat. The next one felt empty. I continued scanning the runes like this. When I observed the 30th or so rune, it was like being watched. The sensation was so intense it broke my concentration. And with it my perception of the runes vanished.

This might be it. Ari said the rune we search for would react to specific changes. So, it needs to watch what’s going on.

To be sure, I checked the rest of the runes. The rune I suspected gave of an aura closest to what I associated with the needed effect. There was only one problem.

“Ari, I think I located the rune we need to destroy first.”

Ari leaned with her back on the wall, dozing. That made me wonder how long I stared at the runes. It must have been some time, my legs ache and my eyes hurt. My words made her jump up. “Cool, which one is it?”

“Well, there are two of them. These two.” I showed them to her. The runes looked completely alike.

“So, the two runes protect each other. If we only disable one, the other one will activate. But there is an easy solution to that. Just destroy both at the same time.”

She grinned, and I grinned in response. Perhaps we had found a way out of this misery. “So, what? Do I scratch at them until they stop working?”

“You’d have to scratch them out at the same time and the wood doesn’t seem to be rotten. If you had any tools, I’d say go for it. But I don’t believe you have?”

My good mood evaporated. “We still can’t get out? So, there was no use to all of this.”

Ari laughed out loudly. “I have tools to do it. Well, I have two knifes, that should do the trick. Show me the runes please.”

Sometimes I didn’t understand Ari. How could she make jokes in a situation like this? She took everything too leisurely. Still, I wanted to leave this damned place, so I pointed at the relevant runes.

But one thing still bugged me about the runes. “Did they have to place the runes on the inside? Doing it like this, seems to invite someone to tinker with them.”

“As far as I know, the runes have to be placed in relative proximity. Mages can see close active runes through walls, if they are not shielded against mage vision. Also, there are only few people able to read runes. It might have been an oversight on their part to place them here, or they believe nobody they captured could read runes, in which case there would have been no problem with their placement. The answer may be something else, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s just hope the trick you did revealed the right runes.”

She rammed one knife in each rune. Nothing happened. Since nothing is supposed to happen, this is a good sign. After waiting for a few seconds, Ari continued to disable all the runes. Still, nothing happened. A small flame appeared on top of her hand. And again, nothing happened.

“It worked,” Ari said with enthusiasm, “I don’t know how you did it, but it worked. I can cast magic again.”

“Well, I’m happy for you, but how do we get out? If our kidnappers see us leaving, they will catch us again.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll try to escape without them noticing. But if they do, I’ll win. They only won last time because they had ambushed us. Now I am the one ambushing. They’ll stand no chance.” She finished her statement with a menacing chuckle.

Ari opened the door of our room. She told me to stay close behind her, and that I did. We crept through the corridor, the hallway floor made no noise as we stepped on them. The decoration out here was the same as in our cell. This meant no mage lights on the wall, no paintings, nothing adorned the space, only dust and more dust.

This is their hideout, not their home. We sneaked down the corridor until we made out muffled voices coming from the room to our right. Light peaked through under the door into the otherwise dark hallway. As we reached it, we could understand the criminals’ words.

“Our contact will arrive in another hour, then the women are her responsibility. We’ll get our share of the money. I kind of feel sorry for them. But their life in slavery surely won’t differ much from their current one.”

Another male voice replied: “Once we have the money I’ll be able to take my wife out to dinner on our wedding anniversary and gift my daughter the dress she wanted as a birthday present. I wish there was a way to get enough money through a legal way, but it isn’t possible.”

A short silence followed his words. I looked over to Ari. I believed they were monsters, doing it for fun, but they just want a fulfilling life, like I do. Still, we had to escape, or I had no chance of this ever happening. So, I took a step back readying to leave.

“Hey what are you doing here?,” a voice came from behind me. We only heard two people talking, the third one wasn’t in the room. And we had been too focused on their conversation to realize someone came close to us. He shouted: “Alarm, they escaped the ...” I stood there not having moved an inch, but Ari reacted. As soon as she heard the man’s voice she turned around and threw a spell at him, which made him freeze up. He didn’t even have time to raise his magic shields.

I perceived chairs crashing into the ground as the two remaining men came rushing out of the room. I took off as fast as possible to give Ari room and not have her worry about me being hit.

The magical fight started. And it was epic. That’s what I’d like to say, but it looks like a staring contest. From time to time they waved their hands, or their shields flashed from a spell hitting it. Otherwise the scene seemed peaceful.

That was until one of the men formed a spear of ice and physically threw it at Ari. She screamed and threw herself to the side, narrowly dodging the projectile. Are they trying to kill her? What if she wouldn’t be able to keep her earlier promise and get us out of here? What if she gets injured or killed?

Ari caught herself fast. As retaliation she used a spell which not fizzled out of existence when touching the shields, like all the other, but exploded on contact. As the man was off balance, Ari followed with another gesture. He fell down, unconscious.

With only one enemy remaining, Ari took care of him with ease. Still she sweated heavily and her walk appeared unsteady. I rushed over and supported her. “Damn, I again used up most of my stored mana. I will be weak for a moment or two. Let’s look around, find your stuff and then leave, before any of them wake up again.”

That was what we did. No other captives occupied the house, and we quickly found my belongings. I took them and together we left the house, me still supporting Ari’s walk. As we went through the door, the sun rose above the horizon, warming the cold air around us with its rays.