There had been four of them.

Meson, Lyssa, and Nise I had already seen. Then there was another dark woman with white hair and red eyes. Those four were each holding one of the chains attached to my limbs. Rishard had the one around my neck, while Sipher was standing next to me and drawing something on my chest while reading the instructions on the figurine.

“Are the words too big?” I couldn’t help myself. If I was going to be bound to them, then I was going to irritate them as much as I could. “You know you can sound them out. Here, I’ll start with a tough one. Kuh. Kuh. Kuh-Ah-Tuh.”

“Can we do the woman first?” Sipher looked over at Rishard.

“You said you wanted her to stay with the bunker.” I could hear the disgust in Rishard’s voice. “We can’t use her if you bind her to this place with a curse.”

“I can find…” He shook his head and patted my chest. “No, she’s about as perfect of a wife as I could want.”

“Touch her and…”

“And in a minute you’ll do whatever I say so it won’t matter.” Sipher looked at each of the ones holding chains. “It says it’s going to take a lot of mana. Almost five thousand.”

“I’ve got that by myself.” Meson sounded upset. “Would you please stop wasting time? I don’t want to be out here all night.”

“We could always find someone else to take your place.” Rishard’s tone dared the other man to speak.

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Sipher finished what he was drawing. “Okay! When I put this in the circle, it’s going to start pulling mana. Don’t feed it too fast, but don’t hold back either.” He looked hesitant. “I have to hold it in place…”

“You really don’t have to hold it for me.” I smirked. “I can do it all by…”

Sipher slammed the figurine on my chest hard enough to make me gasp.

I could feel the seal on my chest burn as it fought against the magic that was trying to flow into me. For a moment, I thought it might be strong enough to repel it, but then I watched as the statue began sinking into my chest.

The golden bandit tried to pull it back up, but it didn’t want to budge.

“Sipher, what’s going on?” Rishard sounded concerned.

“It’s part of the process!” Sipher stopped pulling on the statue and it continued sinking into my chest.

My entire body felt warm, like I had a very bad sunburn. It was also getting hard for me to breathe. I felt my vision begin to cloud over, but I hovered right on the edge of unconsciousness until the statue was halfway down, then the heat turned to pain and I wished that it would let me pass out.

The next minute felt like a lifetime, but once the entire statue was inside me the heat and pain stopped. I felt tingly all over and a little light-headed, but other than that and the pressure in my chest, I didn’t feel any different.

I heard six tones, alerting my captors that they had received something.

“Anchor of the immortal…” Sipher began mumbling as he read. “Can give commands… Does not age!” His smile looked like it was about to split his face in half. “We’re going to live forever!”

“There’s a difference between true immortality and a very long life.” Rishard walked over and touched the place on my chest where Sipher had drawn. “Where’s the item?”

The blonde bandit swallowed. “I think it was a one-time-use thing.”

“We had only one use and we used it on a Tier FOUR!” Rishard closed his eyes. “It’s fine. Kire will powerlevel him.” He looked down at me. “Let’s see how useful you can be. Tell me a secret that no one else knows about you.”