I nearly fell into a panic at the unexpected setback, before I remembered what else I’d brought with me. Shit, it was a long shot, but it was at least an idea.

“Bleddyn, quick,” I whispered to him urgently. “How strong are you?”

“The hell do you mean, how strong am I?” He said back to me, uncaring about his volume. “Ain’t very strong right now.”

I gave up on being quiet. “I mean, how strong are you under your brand? How high a level are you?”

Bleddyn gave me a strange look. “I can hold my own, I suppose. I’m past my first threshold, if that’s what yer askin'.”

I felt a manic smile begin to crawl its way across my face. “Could you break these chains if you had your Status again?”

He tilted his head up to look at the chains holding him to the wall. “Eh, probably?” He said uncertainly before firming. “Nah, I could. At the very least, I could pull ‘em out of the wall. But…” He stopped before whipping his head around to look at me with an astonished look on his face. Astonishment, and hope. “Ye can’t of…”

At this point, I was baring my teeth my smile was so wide. “I did, and I’m going to,” I said. “I made something new tonight. Everything is happening tonight. We’re all getting out of here. I’m going to rescue you, then I’m going to break the Ward Stone to initiate a Ward Break,” At that, Bleddyn’s sole remaining eye nearly popped out of its socket, but I continued anyway. “And then I’m going to kill Magnus. Are you with me?”

Bleddyn continued to stare at me in amazement before a chuckle slipped out of him. That chuckle swiftly turned into a full on, body-shaking belly laugh that I heard echo out of the room and down the hallway. “Am I with ye, ye ask.” He said in between chuckles, before giving me a vicious smile. “Of course I’m bloody with ye, ye daft fool. What do ye need from me?”

I met his smile with one of my own. “I just need to see your brand,” I told him, taking the Bond breaker out of my pack. Bleddyn’s eyes locked onto it when it came into view and drank in the sight of it hungrily. I moved over to his left side, and with his help, pushed his back off the wall enough so I could touch his brand with the Breaker. I didn’t think I’d need The Scintillating Blade to pierce his skin, unlike Grey.

I spoke up from behind him. “Are you ready?”

Bleddyn chuckled. “More than.”

I pressed the Breaker into the skin of his brand, causing Bleddyn to let out a slight hiss. At the same time, I pressed down on the activation switch.

Just like it had with Grey, the brand on Bleddyn’s back began to heat up. Just like with him, it looked like it was melting. I wasn’t expecting a scene as dramatic as Grey’s had been, as there was no way Bleddyn was as high-level as he was.

But something else began to happen that was out of the ordinary.

As the brand melted away, leaving only a large blank scar, the rest of Bleddyn’s wounds began to close rapidly. The healing potion I’d given him had only done so much, leaving a number of wounds still on his body. But no longer. Under my astonished gaze, I watched as Bleddyn returned to the picture of perfect health, healing everything.

Including his lost eye.

When Bleddyn stood up and turned to look at me with a wolfish smile, I saw that not only was his eye back, but he didn’t even have any scars to show it had ever been gone. “Stand back, Nate,” He told me, joy thick in his voice.

I did as he said, waiting to see what he would do. Suddenly, Bleddyn lunged forward with incredible force, causing the chains that were binding him to the wall to stretch taught with a sharp snap. He didn’t stop though, he merely leaned forward and strained harder with his entire body. The chains began to creak and groan from the force being inflicted on them. Even the stone that they were anchored to began to crumble behind Bleddyn. With a shout of effort, Bleddyn succeeded in wrenching free first the anchors for the chains attached to his arms, and then his legs.

For a moment, Bleddyn hunched over breathing heavily from his exertions, before suddenly turning to me. Shortly, I found myself wrapped in a big, sweaty, bloody hug. I returned it gladly, happy that at least one thing was going right. I’d managed to, at least part way, rescue my friend.

In more than one way.

“I can’t tell ye,” Bleddyn choked out, voice thick. “How good it feels ta have my strength back. Thank ye, Nate. Thank ye. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay ye fer this.”

“You don’t have to,” I said over his shoulder. “Man, you don’t have to…”

………………………………………

It took us a few minutes to regain our composure, but when we did it was time to get down to business.

“What’s next?” Bleddyn asked me with an eager expression on his face. “Is it time ta take out Magnus?”

I shook my head regretfully. “No, not yet. First, we have to deal with our collars. I know where the Control Slate is stored, though. It’s kept in the Seneschals office. But, uh, we’ll need to stealth our way up there, and…” I gestured to the loosely hanging chains on Bleddyn’s extremities. Long dangling chains weren’t exactly conducive to stealth.

Bleddyn looked down at the chains I was gesturing to with a confused expression initially, before realization stole across his face. “Oh, those?” He said with a smirk after looking back up at me. “Let me take care of those.” Concentrating briefly, Bleddyn very obviously started calling on a skill. I was a little surprised at what happened, though.

Over his open palm, a long bolt of bright yellow lightning sprang into being. The caught lightning crackled and squirmed in his grip, emitting an almost chirping noise that echoed in the cell. The both of us were cast in a bright, nearly fluorescent light, far outshadowing the dim torch I’d brought with me.

Bleddyn gripped it much like how someone would grip a sword. With his ‘sword’ in one hand, he surprisingly went right after the manacles on his wrists and ankles, instead of the chains themselves. The leashed lightning of his skill cut through the steel of the manacles easily, leaving them lying on the floor when he was done with molten red cut marks on them.

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When he was finished, he looked up and saw my raised eyebrow at his actions. Bleddyn shrugged. “My own skill ain’t gonna hurt me. Now that that’s dealt with, let's go find that office.”

I shrugged myself before nodding. “All right. I know where it is, though, so follow me.”

With that, we left the cell and the dungeon block altogether. Remembering the stone staircase and its poor acoustics, I told Bleddyn to follow my lead. Slowly, we crept back up it and found ourselves back at the door to the main hall. Cracking it open, I saw that it was still open, though something else was odd about it.

There was a small amount of smoke drifting in from the still-open main doors.

Furrowing my brow, I cautiously exited the doorway and into the atrium. Once I was far enough inside to see what was going on outside, I looked out the door. When I did so, I was surprised but pleased. Yeah, that was going to keep the town busy all right.

The fire that Azarus started had spread to the town proper.

In the distance, I could see teams of dwarves futilely trying to put the roaring flames out with a bucket team. But it wasn’t working. The fire just kept flaring back to life no matter how many buckets of water, or even the occasional water skill that I saw, that was thrown on it. The dwarven servants and functionaries that I had seen earlier were gone from the front doors, maybe to help fight the fire.

While it was good sign for my chances inside, the sight of the fire added urgency to my mission. It didn’t look like the town was going to be able to stem the advance of the fire, and it was only a matter of time before the manor was a target for it.

I needed to hurry.

Exchanging a look with Bleddyn, we sped up. We needed to trade some stealth with speed.

It didn’t take us long to reach the second-floor hallway where Orinbar’s office was. Luckily, we didn’t run into anyone during our reckless trek there. Shortly, we found ourselves before the large and gaudy door that I knew the Seneschal hated.

“I don’t know how strong Orinbar is if he’s inside,” I whispered to Bleddyn, leaning in closer. “You keep him busy, and I’ll try to get him with my skill.” I’d long ago resigned myself to having to possibly kill Orinbar if he tried to keep me from destroying the control slate. I tried to ignore the voice inside that was telling me that he was Van’s uncle.

Bleddyn nodded at me seriously to show he understood.

“On three then,” I said lowly. I drew one of my daggers and then held up three fingers with my free hand. I started to count them down. When I hit one, Bleddyn and I burst into the room at once, prepared for a fight. Despite myself, I hoped Orinbar wasn’t inside.

He was, though. Just not in the way I’d thought he would be.

Orinbar was dead.

His ruined corpse had been thrown carelessly along the left wall of his office. The light was dim in the room, so I couldn’t tell how he’d died exactly. But what I could see didn’t paint a pretty picture. He looked like he’d been tortured, not unlike Bleddyn. Orinbar looked worse though, to the point that I didn’t want to look at him for very long. God, it was like he’d been mauled by an animal.

But he wasn’t alone inside the office. A familiar dwarven figure had been hunched over the desk with his back to us when Bleddyn and I had burst in. He’d whipped around to stare at us in shock at our explosive entrance, letting me see his face.

It was Mr. ‘Piggy’, as I mentally referred to him. Or rather, Giancarlo Pignolo. The head dwarven servant of the manor.

Initially, he started to sputter uselessly, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. But when saw who had entered the office so violently, he instead grew furious. “Slaves!” He hissed at us, nearly apoplectic. “How dare you! How dare you! Your lives are forfeit for this indignity!”

I took in the scene, shocked, before directing a baffled stare at Mr. Piggy. “Did… did you do this?” I asked in disbelief, gesturing to Orinbar’s corpse.

If anything, my question only made him angrier. “Not that it’s any of your business, dead one, but no,” He said, slowly reaching behind his back for something. “I’m merely cleaning up after my lord. But none of that matters to you, considering you’re about to DIE!” He roared, whipping something in front of him to point at us.

It was the control slate.

I felt time slow at the rush of adrenaline I felt at the sight of it. With that, he could instantly kill the two of us with a press of a button. I mentally fumbled for a skill, any skill that would help me stop him in time, slowly breaking out into a dash.

I needn’t have bothered though.

In a leap so fast I only saw a blur, Bleddyn exploded past me, lunging at Pignolo. Mr. Piggy didn’t even have the chance to react before Bleddyn tackled over the top of Orinbar’s desk. Both of them landed behind the desk, obscuring my view. Seconds afterward, I heard a scream from the dwarven servant choke off into a wet gurgle. At the same time, I saw a spray of blood leap from behind the desk to paint the far wall crimson.

I’d frozen at the sudden and intense action, but the scream and the blood knocked me out of it. “Bleddyn?” I called out over the desk tentatively without moving from my position. “Are you…okay?”

Bleddyn rose up from behind the desk, not facing me. I saw him breathe deeply before letting that same breath out slowly before he turned around. When he did so, I swear I thought I saw something off about his eyes for a moment. But when I looked again, they were just the same old normal blue.

“Yeah,” He said to me, unconcerned by the fresh coating of blood that now painted the front of his body. “I’m good.”

I approached the desk and stepped around it. On the floor behind the desk, Mr. Piggy lay dead, with a horrified surprise on his features, as if in his final moments he couldn’t believe what had happened to him.

His throat had been torn out. To my eyes, it looked like something with long claws had reached in and ripped out everything below the chin, leaving his head hanging onto his corpse by a thin sinew. I cast a side eye at Bleddyn, noticing that he had a large amount of viscera coating his right hand. He ‘surreptitiously’ moved the hand behind his back.

I shook my head. Whatever, I don’t care how he’d killed the servant. Either way, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Fare thee well, Mr. Piggy. At least you couldn’t abuse slaves anymore.

I put him out of my mind and started looking around for what we came here for. I found it underneath the dwarven corpse at my feet. Leveraging it up, I grabbed the control slate out from beneath him.

I tried to ignore the copious amount of blood coating the slate now, and set it on the desk behind me. Both Bleddyn and I just stood there looking at the slate for a moment in silence. This was the real instrument of our slavery. Sure, the bond may steal the strength from slaves, but it was this thing that kept them in line. It was this device that cowed slaves into obedience and kept most from even considering the idea of rebellion, much less escape.

Bleddyn spit on it without a word. I didn’t blame him.

Silently, I reached behind my back and withdrew the Ward Breaker from my pack. It may have looked similar to the Bond Breaker, but I could recognize the different enchantment by sensation alone. It just felt more powerful.

I raised the Ward Breaker above the slate below. I felt Bleddyn lay a hand on my shoulder in support, but I didn’t turn to face him. I only had eyes for the slate.

With both hands and all my strength, I drove the Breaker down on the slate lying on the table. The sharpened tongs of the breaker easily punctured the solid stone. At the same time, I pressed the activation switch.

The reaction was immediate.

The entire sheet of blackened stone began to heat up and glow red from the raw Aether that had been injected into it. Swiftly, both Bleddyn and I backed up from the slate as it began to sear the wood that lay beneath it, sending a curl of smoke into the air. Luckily, I remembered to remove the Breaker from the slate, as I didn’t want it to get damaged. We watched in silence as the heat built up in the device before it reached a tipping point.

The control slate exploded into a cloud of dust and pebbles that ricocheted around the office. At the same time, something else happened that nearly caused me to start weeping.

The collar around my neck that I had lived with for months. The collar that I had spent hours during late nights trying to ignore the presence of…

Opened with a click of stone on stone.