When we exited the cell a pair of orc guards greeted us with stern expressions and eyes that watched me like a hawk. I tried to pay them no mind and just follow Kala, but their constant stares that were probably just barely hiding their hate made the hair on my neck stand up. My only solace was that they were probably under orders to just watch me and not to do anything if I didn’t do something first.

It was nerve wracking going out in front of a crowd again, wasn’t eager to receive another stoning. Kala was all business though, taking control of the situation and acting with confidence. I wasn't sure if the confidence was just her usual demeanor being amplified due to the circumstances, or an act she was putting on so things wouldn’t spiral out of control. Either way, she seemed prepared to kick some ass if need be.

“Where do you keep spare clothing?” She asked one of the escorts who just stared dumbly at her for a moment. Kala returned the stare, looking decidedly unamused, like a boss who had to sit through their employees' shit just to get the results they wanted. After being stared into submission, the orc pointed off towards a little alcove on the side of the mountain.

Thankfully, the path to the alcove didn’t take us directly through the camp again. We went around the edges, just passing by a small personal tent here or there. I still received a plethora of wrathful looks from any who noticed my presence amongst them.

Kala was seemingly having none of that shit though. Every time someone gave me a look and made like they were going to approach she stepped between me and them, glaring at them with an intensity that could burn holes straight through steel. Most of the time she received either a confused or disgusted look before the individual decided to spend their time elsewhere. Her overprotectiveness of me was both reassuring and a little embarrassing. I appreciated the hell out of it, but it felt like I was a school kid being walked to class by their mother who was staring down all the bullies that normally pick on me.

We made it to the alcove without incident. It appeared to be a simple storage area where the objects could avoid being in any inclement weather. A couple crates, boxes, and barrels laid haphazardly all over the uneven terrain. We walked through the area until Kala found an open box filled with spare clothes.

Digging through the pile, I found some that were sized for Thrainian’s, probably stolen, but no one here really cared. Removing a plain white shirt with a little grunge on it, the size was comperable to my own. Considering how prone I was to getting stomped into the dirt, white probably wasn’t the best color for me, but it was either that or shirts that were way too big or suffocatingly small.

The town rags that had been my previous shirt were removed. Kala averted her gaze slightly as I became topless. A smirk spread across my face at her innocent reaction. The new shirt slid smoothly over my form, the material being well made and probably expensive. I considered it a return on the debt that was my previous shirt being taken through the nine layers of hell.

Speaking of, I didn’t know what to do with the tattered remains of what was once my clothing. “What do I do with this then?” I held up the scraps of cloth.

Kala regarded it for a second and then just shrugged. “I don’t know, burn it maybe. It seems too far gone to repair without spending more resources than would be worth it.”

That got a solemn nod in response. I had inexplicably grown rather attached to it, but I knew it was done for. “Viking funeral it is then.”

Kala cocked her head at me. “What’s a Viking?”

“A culture of people in my world that typically honored their dead by burning the bodies. Usually this is done on a boat, but land-based ones weren’t uncommon. Bit of an inside joke I guess.”

Kala smirked and shook her head a little. “You’re strange, you know that right?”

I just smiled at her and balled up the old shirt. “Which way now?”

“Back to the tent I met the leaders in I guess.” Kala replied before striding off in another direction. We went around the outskirts of the tents. Kala seemed to want to avoid walking right through the middle of the army that hated me even though it increased our travel time.

Along the way we made a quick stop to toss the old shirt into an active fire pit. I threw out a quick salute to the dearly departed fabric for its service before following Kala again. We changed direction and went towards a larger tent that was at a higher elevation than the rest. Whoever ran this place was behind that tent flap. I took a bracing breath in preparation to meet with these people who would decide how much more pain would have to be endured.

Kala stopped in front of the tent. “Are you ready?”

I gave a quick sigh. “No, but let’s just be done with this.”

Kala steeled her expression with a nod, then pushed aside the flap for everyone to enter. The natural light inside the tent was sparce, so it was augmented with candles and a few braziers that were crackling with flame. A simple table sat in the middle of the tent, covered in maps and pieces of paper. Around the table were several chairs that were each occupied by a different race. Each of these representatives of their people had an intimidating presence. Battle scars and experience with war were visibly present on nearly all of them. Nearly, because the minotaur representative had too much fur for me to see if he had scars, though it was almost guaranteed that he did.

The orc representative leaned forward in his chair and looked me over with a penetrating gaze. “So Thrainian, I hear that...”

“Not a Thrainian.” I interrupted him. Frankly, it was getting quite tiring having to explain this to people. The guards on either side of me took a step in my direction and I tensed in preparation for a punch. The representative simply raised a hand and the guards advance stopped before they resumed their position.

“We shall see.” He replied with a skeptical look. “Now, I hear that you claim to be a friend to our cause.”

I couldn’t help but glare a little bit at him. “I’m not so sure about that friend part considering you all spent the better part of three days beating the shit out of me.”

The orc furrowed his brow. He looked to his left at the others, and they shook their heads. He did the same to the right and got a similar reaction. “We gave no orders for such a thing to take place.”

“Didn’t stop your soldiers from walking in and doing it for you.”

His brow dropped further into a scowl, though this one was not directed at me. He stared into the distance for a moment while rubbing his chin. “It seems I will need to have a talk with the warden. An army cannot function if the soldiers simply do whatever they want.” He looked me up and down once more. “I assume you were healed then? I will be checking with our healer to see if this is a lie.”

“You assume correctly. Kala managed to... ‘convince’ the good warden to fetch the healer.”

The orc scoffed as a smirk spread across his face. “Indeed, for one whose affinity lies in water, she can certainly spit a fair amount of fire. She came in here making all sorts of demands, not the least of which was for you to be released.”

“And the verdict on that?” I inquired with a little trepidation.

“Is what we are here to decide.” He made a beckoning gesture off to the side of the tent, and a lizardman who I had not noticed before stepped out of the shadows. They held a mostly smooth crystal ball in their hands. “We will be searching your mind to determine your intent. If we find any betrayal or intent to do harm, you will be dealt with accordingly.” The weight of those last words was that of an executioner with his hands on the lever that would drop you from the gallows.

“So, you’re going to read my mind?”

He shook his head. “Not something so advanced as that. It is more like trying to find a specific indicator of hostility and the direction it is focused in.”

“Right...” That was a little disconcerting as it could be said that I had hostility towards this entire world. The lizardman stepped in front of me and held the orb out. There were a series of etchings across the orb in bands of runes that circled it.

“Place your hand atop.” The way they asked was more of a command than a request. My hand reluctantly reached out for the orb. I wasn’t sure what they would see exactly, but it probably wouldn’t be good. Placing my hand on top, I noted that the orb itself was slightly warm. After making contact the lizardman closed his eyes and adopted a focused look.

Nothing happened for a moment as far as I could tell, but then a sensation that made my skin crawl traveled through my body, all the way from my hand to my scalp. Magic apparently tingles quite a bit, at least the two forms that I have been subjected to. The lizardman scowled with his eyes closed. “He’s angry, by the mother that’s a lot of anger.”

No surprise there. I idly thought to myself. It briefly crossed my mind if I could change my emotional state to the point that he could tell, but if I did, he might think I'm trying to hide something, so the experiments had to wait.

“Is he angry at us?” The lizardman representative asked.

The wizard lizard started focusing again. “There is some directed at us, but it is but a drop in a bucket compared to everything else.”

“Then where is the anger being directed.” The orc representative asked.

“There is some directed at slavers, a little more at the general population of Valthrain. A large portion is directed towards Alathos in particular, but the biggest source of his anger is... the Eternal Mother?” He sounded a little offended by that. I guess he’s a believer of hers, dumbass.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

There was murmuring going between those who sat at the table, a lot of it sounded like angry grumbling. Don’t tell me you’re all believers too. Apparently, I just insulted a room full of religious nutjobs. Still not going to change my mind though, fuck you bitch.

Just as the grumbling seemed to be approaching actual talking, if not yelling points, the wizard lizard apparently had more to say. “Wait, there’s, something else.” His expression became very confused for a moment. “It feels like another mind almost, it’s wrapped around his, inside of his, almost a part of him but not. What is this?”

Everyone’s undivided attention, including mine, was locked onto him as he continued to investigate this anomaly with my mind. It was kind of concerning that I had more unknown magical bullshit that was fucking with me. Wizard lizard recoiled slightly. “I can feel it, it’s... annoyed. Wait, now it’s angry. It’s angry at... me?”

The crystal orb suddenly cracked in a spiderweb of fractures. Wizard lizard shot his hand away from the orb like it was scorching hot and jumped back a few feet. The orb itself dropped to the ground with a thud on the soft earth. Every guard in the room drew a sword or lowered a spear at me.

My hands automatically shot up while the seated representatives were now all standing. I was almost certain I was half a second away from being stabbed to death, but the orc representative shouted at me. “What did you just do!”

“I didn’t do anything! I swear! I have no idea what’s happening right now!” I was just as confused as the rest of them, but I was pretty sure they didn’t actually believe me. The orc scowled at me, then turned his attention on the wizard who looked like he just had a run in with death.

Wizard lizard didn’t notice the stare directed at him, his gaze was locked on me, unflinchingly so. He was looking at me like I was some sort of rabid animal that would tear him apart if he so much as moved an inch. It took actually talking to him to snap him out of it. “What did you see?” The orc representative asked.

Wizard lizard blinked a few times before breaking eye contact with me. “I... I’m not sure. It was immensely powerful though. It overloaded the crystals capacity for magic.”

The orc looked halfway between impressed and terrified. I had no idea what overloading a crystal implied, but evidently it didn’t happen all that often. He looked at me for a minute before deciding what to do next. “Would you wait outside, while we talk.” That surprisingly sounded more like a request than anything. Whatever is happening, it’s apparently scary enough for them to not actively try and aggravate me.

“Sure.” I said slowly, still eyeing the guards who all had their weapons pointed at me.

The representative made a sweeping gesture at the guards. “Watch him, but don’t do anything unless he tries something funny.” The guards all acknowledged the orders in one way or another and followed me as I walked cautiously out of the tent, weapons still drawn. I found a large rock a couple yards away from the tent to sit on. Kala sat next to me as soon as I got comfortable, and the guards all took up position around us, weapons at the ready but not pointed at me anymore.

Kala leaned over a bit closer to me and talked in a low voice. “What did you do?”

I shrugged and put my hands out to the side a bit, speaking in a similarly low voice. “I have no idea, but apparently it’s scary somehow, which is just fucking fantastic.” Scared people tended to react violently towards whatever spooked them, in this case, me.

“You didn’t feel anything?”

“Nothing, the orb just cracked on its own, or at the very least I consciously had nothing to do with it.”

Kala looked around for a moment in thought. “You think this has something to do with the goddess again?”

“Wouldn’t put it past her, bitch is always making my life more difficult.”

Kala winced at the insult I threw at the goddess and made another hand gesture again. I just rolled my eyes a bit and sighed before looking up at the sky, framed by the mouth of the volcano. It was a pretty shade of blue with clouds spread about here and there. The temperature was nice, slightly warm and probably would be good beach weather. Well, at least it’s a nice day to die.

The odds of execution being the fate chosen for me were very high. After that I could imagine they would attempt everything in their power to get rid of me once they found out that simply killing me wouldn’t work. At this point it was a matter of waiting around for the method of death to be chosen, so might as well enjoy the weather while I had the chance.

It was around half an hour later that we received a summons back into the tent. I fortified my resolve with a quick breath then got up and walked back inside. The representatives were all around the table again, each of them looking at me with a deathly serious expression on their faces.

The orc representative, who apparently seemed to be the most influential member of the group based on how much they were doing the talking, addressed me. “We have come to a decision on what is to be done with you.” I swallowed a little bit in trepidation but maintained my stoic outward appearance. “You seem to despise Alathos and the way Valthrain is operated, we will overlook your opinion on the Eternal Mother for now, but it would be best not to mention it further.”

Wait, this doesn’t exactly sound like an execution notice. I gave them all a curious look as I pondered just where this was going.

“We will offer you a chance to earn a place here, starting with your cooperation in studying that anomaly inside of you.”

My body tensed at the implication of what studying could entail. “You going to cut me up to achieve that?” I asked with a dangerous tone to my voice. They would all die before I went back on another table.

“Nothing so invasive, I promise. Whatever is inside of you appears to be magical in nature, and so we will use magical means to study it, see if it can be of use. It will be as painless as we can make it, though we are working with the unknown.”

I frowned at them, not buying that that was it. “So, what’s the catch then?”

He stared, stone faced at me for a moment before yielding and nodding his head. “The stipulation to this deal is that you will be required to wear one of these.” He reached down by his feet and then placed something on the table with a clang. It looked like a slave collar, one with a latch on it albeit, but still a slave collar.

My frown turned into a look of indignant fury. Kala beat me to the punch though. “You can’t be serious! Why do you even have that cursed thing!” She yelled at them.

I added my own opinion on the matter as well. “I’m not wearing that fucking thing!”

The orc leaned forward and stared me down. I didn’t relent under his gaze and continued to glare angrily back at him. “This was the only way the council came to an agreement that kept you alive. If you refuse to accept these terms the majority vote would be for execution.”

We continued our intense staring contest, but he remained unflinching. Execution was an option, it would be no big deal for me, but what decision would they come to after that? The way they thought about me right now was that of a rare resource they couldn’t just throw away so easily. If they found out I could just come back repeatedly, no matter what method they used, I could see their thought process switching to a more extreme handling of my person. No matter how much I hated them for this, it was the only deal that ended with even a remotely positive outcome for me.

I growled out a sigh and took a step forward. It was just one step before Kala lashed out and seized hold of my arm. I looked back at her and saw her staring at me with an expression of immense concern. Her gaze flittered to the representatives, turning enraged for a second before coming back to me and softening again.

I placed my hand atop hers and gave her a nod with an empty expression, removing her hand from my arm. I continued up to the table and stared at them for a second before picking up the collar. “Hypocrites.” Their eyes flittered downward for a split second before coming up to me again as impassive as ever.

The orc representative made a head gesture at one of the guards who came over towards me. They took the collar out of my hands and then started putting it around my neck. I simply stared into the representative's eyes with contempt throughout the process. The latch was thrown and locked in place. I growled at them before turning and walking back with my new shitty accessory to stand by Kala, who looked like she was ready to kill someone.

The orc started talking again. “Well, now that we have an agreement, we will inform the rest of the camp that you are to come to no harm else punishment will be doled out.”

“Unless the punishment is to have whatever limb they touch me with removed, I doubt it will be enough.”

He looked like I slapped him but didn’t deny what I said. “Regardless, there will be measures taken that will reduce the hostility you meet. It would help if you didn’t pick fights either.” I just grunted in response. “You two will have a room prepared for you, away from the others. I don’t think mingling will be feasible for the most part and you seem to find each other agreeable at least.”

He pointed at my collar. “The activation word for your collar will only be known to a select few. Everyone on the council here knows it and few officers will as well. Behave yourself and there will be no need for its activation, understood?”

“Perfectly.” I grumbled out.

“Good, we’ll get your room ready, then we can talk about your end of the deal tomorrow. Dismissed.”

I turned and stomped out of the tent, with Kala hot on my heels. I really wanted to punch something, but that would have to wait until later. We sat around for a moment, both of us fuming as we waited for the room to be ready. Every time Kala looked at the collar around my neck her angry expression seemed to renew itself, though she bit her tongue when it came to whatever she was thinking.

It was about fifteen minutes before someone informed us that the room was ready. We followed them around the edge of the camp. The soldiers who saw me started snickering or outright laughing. One of them even had to gall to ask if I liked my new neck warmer. I had to physically restrain Kala from clawing that guy's eyes out and dragged her along behind me.

We moved away from the prying eyes of the camp and into another lava tube. This one hit a dead end about fifty yards in as we came to an unassuming door. The door opened to a midsized room with sparse furniture. There were two cots, a trunk at the foot of each, and a small table with two chairs around it, all of this dimly lit by a couple of candles. Better than prison at any rate.

Once we were inside, the escort left and closed the door behind them. The door wasn’t locked at the very least, so we could come and go as we pleased, though whether or not I wanted to spend more time than necessary outside here was another matter entirely. I decided to sit on one of the beds, claiming it as my own while my hand ran over my face in exasperation.

Kala sat down across from me on her own cot, staring intently at me with sadness on her face. It took her a minute to start saying what she obviously wanted to. “James, I... I’m sorry. I suggested this and it’s gotten you nothing but trouble, and now they did that to you. It’s not right, this shouldn’t have happened. After everything you did for me, I hoped that maybe I could give you a safe place to stay, but it seems I just dragged you into another nightmare. I’m sorry, I...” She appeared to be on the verge of tears. This certainly had not gone the way she probably envisioned it, but I did not fault her for that.

I leaned over across the gap and grabbed her hand. She stopped blabbering and sniffled a little bit, looking at me like she was prepared for yelling. “I know you didn’t intend for this to happen Kala. You aren’t to blame for any of this.”

“Why not? It was my stupid idea, and now you're suffering the consequences of it. You’ve been nothing but good to me and I do nothing but bring you pain. I’m useless.”

I squeezed her hand. “Kala, you are the only person in this entire world who treated me with even a shred of genuine kindness. Everyone has either wanted to kill me, use me, or experiment on me. To say I value you would be an understatement like no other. Please don’t think less of yourself because you couldn’t convince some people who have so much hate in their hearts that they are blind to all else. If you weren’t here, I doubt they would have even thought about keeping me alive.”

She sniffled a bit before talking again. “You really are a good person, James. I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for saving me. So, thank you, thank you for saving my life and freeing me from slavery.”

“You’re welcome, Kala. Thank you for being my friend.” She smiled at me and I at her, both of us sharing a rare, pleasant moment in the midst of all this bullshit. Eventually our hands separated so we could lay back on the cots and try to relax a little. My hands tugged at the collar a bit to try to get it more comfortable to little success. It would have to be something I had to get used to, because I had the feeling it would be there for a while.