It had been two days since the trio ruled the prison. Their successful plan landed them a royal suite, the obedience and submission of inmates, guards, and the warden alike, and a refreshing taste of freedom. No room is restricted for them anymore, and no playground or joint is off-limits.
The only drawback was for Joel, who was in charge of teaching the new kitchen staff how to cook his recipes. Though for today, he was satisfied with just handing Mik a piece of paper detailing today’s recipe to give to the canteen staff. And Mik did exactly so, along with getting some ingredients and food from the canteen.
As he burst into the royal suite carrying a brown burlap sack, Mik greeted Joel and Dolisia, both busy at different parts of the counter.
“Yo! What’cha cooking?” Mik asked.
Dolisia was too busy tending to the stove. She was stirring a pot on the upper stove, apparently filled with tomato sauce. Meanwhile, Joel was busy twirling a piece of doe in the air. Regardless of being busy, Joel returned the greeting.
“If you didn’t guess by now, then I doubt your IQ level.”
“I’m just making sure.” Mik replied, “Going Italian with the pizza today?”
“Not like I can be too gastronomic with our options.” Joel said, “Don’t forget, this is the equivalent of the middle ages for us. You can only do so much.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining.” Mik agreed.
“What did you get?” Dolisia asked half-heartedly as she focused on the pot.
“Let’s see.” Mik said, placing the sack on the counter before shuffling through it. “Some cheese, bread, scotch, wine. Oh, white wine, and some beer.”
“Nice, good pick.” Dolisia leaned in, “Pass me the red.”
“Here you go.” Mik replied, giving her the wine. “Oh, and I got some orange juice for you, Joel.”
“Niiiiice, just perfect.” Joel said, opening the bottle of juice and taking a sip. “Bit sour, just how I like it. You can set the table, pizza will be done in about thirty.”
“Sure, but I gotta take a leak,” Mik said, reaching for the door. “Be back in a—”
As his hand grabbed the knob, the door slammed open into his face—sending him tumbling towards the wall. Holding his nose in pain, Mik didn’t hesitate to kick the door back in relation, but the door was punched through cleanly, only a fist protruding from the other side.
Mik was shocked, but he mustered enough courage to lean a little towards the right to see who it was—The trio was frozen. Their eyes were bulging as they stared at the figure of a woman behind the half-closed door, clad in white, standing firmly with a ponytail of messy brown hair and a star insignia on her shoulders—a five-dotted golden star.
As they fixated their eyes on her, they realized who she was. She was the luminary captain that captured them, Captain Sylvia. Standing behind her were her two subordinates, James and Ray. As the captain glared at the trio, she stepped forwards, scanning the room.
“Ray, James…tear this room apart. Lock up everyone back to their cells, and get these three in special cells, separate cells. Tie them up, cuff their hands, gag their mouths, I don’t want them to breathe until they’re told so.”
…
Three hours later, the prison was in turmoil. The sudden appearance of Sylvia to check on the prison caught everyone by surprise, including the warden. The carefree demeanor of the guards, the prisoners turning the canteen into a saloon of sorts, and the trio having their royal suite made the luminary captain furious beyond what words can describe. She immediately lashed out at the guards and rounded them up to scold them before they began locking up the inmates in their cells and demolishing all remnants of the carefree lifestyle that the trio built.
As for them, they were locked up in the deep underground level—the empty joint of prison that was once used to torture and kill once upon a dark age. The “Catacombs” they were called, a nasty part of the penitentiary that housed the darkest sides of humanity, now reduced to a shallow dark place, with an air so thick that one could feel its weight. The joint reeked of an awful stench of death, decorated with mold and spider webs at every nook and cranny. The walls were unnaturally moist, and the floor was littered with dead insects and small pieces of white fragments—most likely bones, from whom was unknown.
At the right-hand corridor, there were rows of three cells on each wall. On the right wall, the cells were occupied by Dolisia, Joel, and Mik—in that order. They were lying on the cold hard ground, their arms tightly tied behind their backs, their feet bound in ropes and their mouths gagged with a cloth, fixed with a rope that wrapped around their heads.
They sat there in silence, for they couldn’t figure out anything else. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, they were truly terrified. The luminaries were largely a mystery for the trio, the only thing known about them was that they were a certain type of law enforcement in this world that should be avoided, and how they dealt with prisoners was much less unknown to the trio.
But the catacombs, and their grizzly nature, only served to terrify them further. But they couldn’t imagine what would happen to them, they shouldn’t. They simply sat waiting there as Sylvia and her two subordinates ventured to the left corridor from the entrance, towards a lone room—the only one in that joint.
A few minutes ticked by before the captain and her two subordinates came along and stood facing the three cells. Sylvia was scrutinizing the trio, her eyes shifting from one to the other before she fixated her eyes on Joel.
“Him?” Ray asked.
“No, leave him last. Take the woman first.” Sylvia responded.
In response, Ray opened Dolisia’s cell and raised her to her feet. He swiftly cut the ropes that bound her feet but left the rest untouched as he escorted her out of her cell, Sylvia and James following behind him towards the lone room at the left corridor.
The minutes ticked by before a blood-curdling scream echoed from the room. Joel’s heart sank, the voice was none other than Dolisia’s. He tried to stand up, but to no avail, as he kicked around trying to break free from the ropes. He wanted to check on her, or simply call out for Mik, but he simply could do nothing as he heard the footsteps creep closer to his cell.
His eyes shot up—Sylvia, Ray, and James stood glaring at him. But what made Joel gasp in horror was the trace of blood stains on Sylvia’s uniform. She shifted her focus towards Mik, before Ray nodded in response and opened the cell.
He cut the ropes binding his feet before he escorted him out of his cell and towards the room once more before Sylvia uttered in a monotone voice:
“Maybe you’ll talk.”
The door of the room clicked close once again, and only four minutes went by before Mik’s blood-curdling scream resonated from the room. Joel couldn’t believe it, it was incomprehensible that Mik should ever be brought to a pain so horrific that he should grunt loudly let alone cry out in pain. Joel was breathing rapidly, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest after hearing the door click open.
The footsteps crept closer once more. Joel breathed a shallow sigh before he locked eyes with the luminaries—cold and indifferent as they glared at him. As Ray opened the cell, Sylvia strutted in and crouched near the boy.
“From what I’ve heard, you’re the smart one, aren’t you?” Sylvia asked, to no avail as Joel sat frozen. “I guess you know what those screams were. If you’re so smart, you should know what’s good for you.”
Upon hearing those words, Joel’s mind snapped. He was no longer afraid, but simply cautious as he glared back at the captain. Whatever plan they tried to persuade Joel with, the latter had already figured out. He was calm as Ray cut the ropes off, all the ropes including the gag in Joel’s mouth.
The door of the room closed shut as Joel’s eyes faced an absurdly dark room. The only props were a prickly wooden table in the middle, with a dim oil lamp lighting the room. And two chairs facing each other on different sides of the table, yet seeming so close due to how small the table was.
Sylvia sat down before Ray forced Joel onto the other seat, standing still behind him as if to keep watch on him…or maybe even torture him. The luminary captain unsheathed a small knife before fetching an apple from Ray’s satchel.
“Why are you doing this?” Joel asked, but no reply was sounded.
Sylvia ignored the boy’s question for what seemed like minutes as she sliced a quarter of the apple, slowly, so slowly that it seemed gruesome. Only then did she reply in a monotone voice:
“Three little rascals…that’s what I always heard ever since I came back. Every town I passed by, I always heard complaints about three little rascals. Dine and dashing, picking fights, being obscene. I was annoyed by them, I sought to capture them to teach them a lesson about attitude…but who knew that the rascals were monsters too.” Sylvia said, gazing at her knife. “I won’t forgive what you’ve done—but first, tell me where you were born?”
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“Monsters? But we’ve do-”
Sylvia grabbed Joel’s collar and pulled him close to her. Their nose was practically touching as the captain directed a deadly glare at the boy, her knife poking his throat—enough for a drop of blood to come trickling down the blade.
“I said: where were you born?”
“Le-…Leefside.”
“Funny, I was born in Leefside too.” Sylvia replied, the blade moving down towards the boy’s throat. “Twenty-eight years, I’ve lived there. I’ve never seen you, or your friends. I know everyone by name and face in my hometown, how come I never seen you?”
“…We-”
“Don’t lie.” She interrupted, “Your little friend who forged your documents, Elaine, was she? She was captured, a little rascal just like you who deserves no better than you. Now tell me, and be truthful.”
As she commanded the boy, Sylvia grabbed onto his wrist as Ray grabbed onto Joel’s head—his hands resting on the boy’s lower neck. Joel took a deep breath, calming himself down before replying:
“We don’t know. I can’t tell you where I’m from, because I no longer remember nor know exactly where on the map. All I know is that me, and Mik, probably even Dolisia, lived in a different place, a town, a city, an island probably, I no longer know. It was no better than this, I hated it in fact. But I suffered through it and lived some of my life there before I was snatched away from it by a group of horrible men. The next thing I remember is me, Mik, and Dolisia stranded in this new place. In Leefside, to be exact. I don’t know how or why, but we found ourselves in this country fighting and struggling to survive. Ask anyone who saw us, we had no equipment, no food, no clue, no nothing. And to give you an idea of how little we know about this place, about this world entire, I don’t even know what the luminaries are, or what this country is. Whatever place I came from, I cannot tell you where it is.”
“You expect me to believe that?!”
“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU BELIEVE!” Joel shouted, indifferent towards the knife digging deeper into his throat. “Why would I lie if I don’t care if you torture or kill me? I don’t care if I lie to you, I don’t want to make your job any harder, and I don’t want to keep this crock of shit ongoing. I don’t know where I’m from, all I know is that I’m from someplace far far away from here, so far you couldn’t possibly imagine. But it was awful, I was kicked around all my life, me and Mik barely had any happiness in a lifetime’s worth of suffering. All I remember is being snatched away from there by some people, who got me here into this world, where I started struggling and fighting to survive day in and day out. Dolisia is no different, she was also thrown here with us, and we three are all we have left for each other. We could only move on, keep fighting and struggling, and hope that one day this hellscape could smile back at us, but it doesn’t seem like it will anytime soon.
Don’t believe me? Look at us. Our clothes are different than yours, our looks too. Hell, everything about us does not scream out ‘orthodox’ or ‘natural’. Believe me or not, I frankly don’t care. But all I’m telling you is the truth of what I know, and what I know is that my home is far far away, I can’t point it on the map, and I can’t point where I landed. All I remember is a blur between a moment where I was once home, and a blur when I was stranded in the unknown before finding Leefside, and as much as I wish I can go back home…I think I probably never will.”
Silence loomed over the room. Sylvia, her knife placed on Joel’s throat, gazed at the boy for a moment. Her eyes didn’t harbor the coldness and indifference she had a moment ago, but confusion and perplexion. She gave a slight nod before she leaned back as Ray removed his arms from Joel's neck.
“Do you remember anything from your world?” Sylvia said, holding onto Joel’s wrist.
“…it wasn’t much different. Different clothes, more buildings, and more people. But the people were no better, just as stupid and ignorant as most in this place. The suffering also wasn’t much different. Let’s just say it’s Hilltop but with more buildings, more people, and different clothes.”
“Hmm…” sensing no change in his heartbeat, Sylvia breathed a shallow sigh before sheathing her knife and letting go of the boy’s wrist. “And what should I do, cry for you? I don’t care about your origins, more or less is useless information. You trespassed into Sorania, causing chaos in every town you went to, and finished off with an inexplicable crime.”
“Crime? What crime-”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” She interrupted, “Your sob stories still haven’t affected me. Whether you are or not from these lands, whether you can or can’t remember your origins, I don’t care. It all means nothing to me because all I know is that you’re a swindler, a con artist who made an incomprehensible amount of Coe in less than a month of their ‘appearance’. Moreover, taking control over the prison and all of its assets, money, and staff. How could I possibly trust you, when you say that you don’t know what you did?”
“But I don-”
“Listen here, brat.” Sylvia silenced, “The luminaries abide by laws to protect the rights of humanity. But we are allowed to use excessive force to make you either speak, like your white-haired friend or shut the fuck up, like your red-haired friend. Both are writing in agony in the back room. You’re lucky that you’re unharmed so far, but I can’t promise you anymore. Speak, or else.”
“…I don’t know what crime you’re talking about.” Joel replied in a calm voice.
“Oh really?” She said, “You red-haired friend, since when have you known him.”
“Ever since I was a child.”
“So you’re that close?” Sylvia wondered, her glare hardening. “Well, we’ve been rough on him…and boy did he talk. How would you feel if I told you that he sold you out? He told me what happened, you’re the brains behind it. You let your lackeys do a little shopping in town for a carriage, and that’s when you found yourself alone in Luke Eias’s room. I don’t know much because he refuses to talk, but he told me that you’re the one who kidnapped him, done some nasty stuff to him…are you going to lie anymo-”
“Hah!” Joel laughed, a tear rolling down his eye before he breathed a sigh of amusement. “Mik? Says that? I might crack under physical pressure, but Mik would never. I don’t care if you torture him, skin him alive and burn him in acid, he would never lie or betray me…as much as I would for him. I don’t know about Dolisia, but I’m sure that me and Mik would do the same for her. We don’t save our hides, we rather get skinned together.”
Suddenly, Joel’s mind snapped back and rewound the tape back to Sylvia’s senstence.
“Wait…what was that name again?”
“Luke Eias?”
“Luke?” Joel’s eyes lit up, “Luke the merchant? What happened to him? Where is he? Is he alright?”
Sylvia, confused at the boy’s sudden worry, leaned back on her chair and analyzed the boy for a moment before she breathed a sigh. She gazed back with a squint before she spoke:
“He’s gone.” Sylvia explained, “Last seen in Cherryfield, the day of his disappearance the same as the day of arrival listen in your escort paper. No one, in the entire world, is a bigger suspect than you.”
“What?! How is he gone, we left him at the inn when we got back to Hilltop! There is no way we could’ve done anything!”
“You are the last ones seen with him!” Sylvia retorted in a shout, “The innkeeper went to check on him in the morning, only to find an empty room with luggage and clothes scattered about. Last person to be seen with him were you three, so you better do a proper job of explaining.”
“What is there to explain? We left Hilltop, we had some trouble along the way, we arrived to Cherryfield and we left Luke there. We don’t anything more than that! We’ve done nothing to him, we’re as clueless as you!”
“You seem awfully bent on distancing yourself from him after you learnt of his outcome.”
“Because I want to clarify it!” Joel retorted, “That doesn’t mean that I care about him less than you do. In fact, I care about him more than any luminary ever did! He wouldn’t have disappeared if it weren’t for your shit system, and for the way the luminaries treated him when he was there with them. He was bullied out of the corps due to his weakness, he took up being a merchant and couldn’t even live peacefully because of being harassed by a blonde man. He asked help from the luminaries, he begged and cried in the town hall for help, but none a fraction of a fucking sympathy as much as we had for him, as much a strangers as we are.”
“Well, how can you prove that it isn’t you?”
“Because I-…” Joel paused, his mind flashing back to Cherryfield. “…I know who might be behind it.”
“Hm?”
“Luke pleaded for an escort due to his fear of the ‘blonde man’. We offered him help, and he accepted. We met a group of three people, Kurosawa, Tatsuo, and Raider.”
Sylvia and Ray’s eyes twitched at the mention of the names as they their body tensed.
“We didn’t who they were.” Joel continued, “But they seemed lost, and they asked for a joint trip to Cherryfield so we agreed. We had some trouble along the way—Templars to be exact. But we arrived safely, and we said our farewells before we went on our separate way. About a week ago, or a little more…I don’t know, but it’s when we first fought. At the market, we coincidentally bumped into Sumiko and Tatsuo before a blonde man came tumbling from a giant hairless bird in the sky. Kurosawa and Tatsuo knew the blonde man, they were his subordinates. And when he knocked you unconscious, he shifted focus towards us…he laughed, a sinister disgusting laugh, and said: ‘You’re Luke’s friends!’.
Heartbreak, I think his name was. Heartbreak, Kurosawa, Tatsuo, and Raider of the New Age Bind. They’re the ones that kidnapped him. I don’t think so…I know so. Believe me or not, torture me or not, I won’t tell you anything different. Luke might be alive, hopefully, and I have no idea what they might be seeking from him, but I know that he’s with them. All I ask is that you please…do something quickly.“
Sylvia sat in silence, her heart beating quickly as she pondered her predicament. She knew of Luke’s position as an ex-luminary black-powder engineer. But why could the New Age Bind want him? What use might he be to them? Or probably just a way to have their sick twisted fun? No…a luminary engineer, kidnapped by an infamous rising gang of renegades. She couldn’t waste any more time.
The captain stood up, increasing the brightness of the lamp until it lit the entire room. From the corner of his eyes, Joel spotted Mik and Dolisia tied in tight ropes into a chair, their mouths gagged shut. Meanwhile, James stood between them, each of his hands gently placed on the duo’s throats.
“James, it’s over for now. At east!” Sylvia commanded.
“Understood,” James replied, in a way that shocked Joel to the core. His voice was that of Mik, so incomprehensibly identical that he thought it was him who replied.
Apparently, the screams of pain and displeasure were coming from James. Probably a power of his, a Zes they called it? Whatever it was, it was undoubtedly what made the boy mimic the voices so perfectly.
“Wait!” Joel interrupted, “What about us? Aren’t we…going to be freed or anything?”
“You can dream.” She replied, “You have a lot to serve in your sentence. Maybe if you…behave properly, maybe then you might have it shortened for you. But for now, you’ll learn a good lesson.”
The conversation ended as Sylvia left the interrogation room, leaving Ray and James the responsibility of escorting the trio back to their original cells and leaving them there just like how they began—with nothing but a dirty toilet, a hard wooden bed, the cold hard ground, and a sense of desperation and frustration as they lay there defeated and back to zero once again.
Though, Joel’s mind pondered: “Maybe if you behave properly, maybe then you might have it shortened.” He could probably use that to his advantage, how long their sentence was he didn’t know. Regardless, despite the circumstance, there was finally hope of a legal way for the trio to escape prison. But how they would go on about it is so far unknown.