Just like the section of the dungeon that held me during my tenure as a slave, this second section was similarly dilapidated and smelled of shit and blood. White balls of energy illuminated the old and rotting furniture placed haphazardly around the admittedly much larger room. When the steel door first creaked open under the Chella clone's touch, I was surprised by the sheer amount of slaves in this section of the slave dungeon. The space itself was also larger. Much wider and at least double the length of ours. In comparison, our living space had been ridiculously small. The white lights weren't stationary here like they were in our quarters, floating around the section as I looked on, and I saw why it was so much larger—there were many, many more slaves here. At least a few hundred were simply milling about.
“Hey, Chella, what are you doing?” The question came from a man with Chella’s height and build, even sharing some of her appearance characteristics.
I didn’t give him a second to process. I didn’t even let him scream.
I encased my sword with heart energy and threw the steel weapon point first. It blasted over the distance separating me from the guard like a bolt of lightning, embedding itself in his throat before ripping out the other end. The guard’s head, mouth still open in shock, tumbled off his neck and hit the floor with a splat.
“Explain the situation to them.” I waved Dralos and the others forward toward the shocked slaves still bound to a master. While Dralos followed my order, I approached the guard’s collapsed body. I knelt beside him and ran a hand over his eyes to close them. It was a show of mercy I had seen many do in war, though I had never done so before. Now, however, it seemed almost appropriate though I couldn’t place why I felt that way. Still, I shoved my right hand into his chest. I didn't pull the heart from the body; there was no need for such dramatics anymore. I simply trapped the escaping heart energy and opened my Core to all the homeless energy.
I would likely need even more going forward if I continued shattering Slave Marks. My mouth filled with the repulsive taste as I absorbed the slaver’s energy until his heart was left shriveled and desiccated.
I wondered briefly if I truly needed to be in direct contact with the heart. When Damien had offered his energy to me, I hadn't been in contact with any part of him, but then again, I had resurrected him.
Some fifty slaves led by my Paragons came forward, the rest standing in an enormous group some ways back.
"They would like to accept your Deal, my Queen," Dralos said, beckoning forward the first of the new section's enslaved fighters. I let out a breath and stood, stretching as the new enslaved watched me with doubtful curiosity.
"Let's get to work then," I said, reaching over to grab my sword.
An hour or so later, I'd finished with the dungeon's second section of slaves and Dralos had led us to a third section that had fewer slaves than the previous area, but more than where we'd been kept. I was in the middle of breaking the slave markings in the third dungeon section after adding another fifteen or so Paragons to my retinue when a shrill, ear-splitting alarm pierced the air like a wailing banshee. Hundreds of hands clamped over their ears in a desperate attempt to block even a fraction of the sound drilling into their heads.
The sound blared in every direction, seeming to originate from the white balls of energy still hovering over us. When the alarm had been set off, the energy balls began to emit a slight pulse, matching the constantly cascading pitch of the alarm. I wasn’t sure how we’d been found, but considering the method of the alarm, I figured it likely had to do with the energy balls. Considering how long it had taken the alarm to go off, the security method was less than proficient.
I gathered heart energy into both my palms and launched rays of lunar light at the energy balls. The energy disrupted the flow and canceled out their center source, causing both hovering energy balls to wink out of existence with small pops. This sent all one-hundred-something newly freed slaves into utter darkness.
“Nasq,” I said, “Give us some light.” An instant later red flames lit the room, bathing the slaves and barren stone walls in a flickering red and orange radiance. I turned to look at the remaining slaves who had not been freed yet. They carried a multitude of expressions, some promising use and others promising burden. “Those of you who have not had your mark removed will have to wait. We’re out of time.”
I half expected an outburst of protest, but none made to move or speak against me, as if united in resignation to their circumstances. It was pitiful to see but certainly made it easier for me.
“My Queen,” Nasq said, moving to stand by my side. When I turned to face him, he presented me with a nauseous-looking Chella. Not the clone, but the true giantess. “She wishes to speak with you.”
“We don’t have time,” I said, wiping some loose blood from my palm onto my worn brown trousers and sheathing my sword.
“The slaves can free themselves with a Remover,” Chella blurted, moving as if to take a step toward me but paused as Nasq raised a palm and thick orange flames erupted from it in threat. I reached up to place my free hand on his bicep and firmly directed him to lower it.
“Explain.”
“Every three sections have a control room. This is Section F-3.” She pointed to a large bulge coming from the far side of the section’s cavern area. It was difficult to see in the thinning light of Nasq’s flames, but the bulge itself was quite obvious. “In there, you’ll find a green prism. The prism holds a Blessing from the Church of Light. It can dispel slave marks.” After a pause, she added, “Or create them.”
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“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, finally turning to give the giantess my full attention but still wary that we were burning precious time.
“I am trying to prove that I am not your enemy,” she insisted and again moved to take a step toward me, but stopped herself before Nasq raised the arm I wasn’t keeping down. While I appreciated the man’s loyalty to my safety, the cuffs strangling Chella’s wrists sealed her energy and magic. His caution was overdone considering her current powerlessness.
“In honesty, Giantess,” I started, giving her a single raised eyebrow, “I am not entirely sure what or who you are. Unfortunately, I do not have time to debate this with you right now.”
“Aren’t you curious why I didn’t force you to the brothels?” Chella pressed, her words flying out in rapid succession now as if she had a time limit. Which, I supposed, she did.
“Not really. I appreciate the information.” More alarms from outside the section had begun to emit the same shrieking noise and I was beginning to feel like this was the start of a conversation that would waste my time. “Nasq, relay the details of the Remover to those freed.” I motioned the future Archmage toward a group of freed slaves who, when they saw my gaze, took on perturbed and uncertain looks. “I want them to focus on freeing the others with the Remover.” Part of me wanted to punish Chella for not explaining the existence of Removers to me earlier. If she truly intended to help then she should have been forthright from the start.
“I work for Duke Alistar,” she shouted as Ethan stepped up to grab her by the shoulders. “There have been reports of many young nobles going missing and it was my job to report any sightings of them in this colosseum. The Duke has suspected the Cael Kingdom of kidnapping Lysorian nobles and children en masse during this year’s spring flooding of monsters.”
Duke Alistar. Where had I heard that name before? I took a precious moment to go over what I’d learned about Lysorian and Cael aristocracy nearly three weeks ago in an attempt to remember the name. Alistar. Duke. The memory didn’t surface immediately until I realized that he had to be a noble on the boundary between nations and then it clicked.
Duke Alistar was one of the lesser Dukes in terms of authority in Lysoria. While he did have great wealth and a personal militia to boot, the Duke had, according to *The History of Lysoria*, focused all his attention on agriculture and the cold war against Cael that was waged on Lysoria’s eastern border, forgoing the political fights within Lysoria as a neutral party. if Chella truly did work for Duke Alistar, then my plans would have to change.
I looked at Chella with a new perspective. If she was telling the truth, this could be extremely beneficial. “You’re a ghost, then,” I stated.
Her face took on a puzzled expression. “I apologize, I am not familiar with that term.”
“A spy.”
Nasq wrinkled his nose at my words but Chella nodded. “I am.”
“Aren’t you kind of… large to be a spy?” Nida asked, who seemed chipper as always despite the blaring of the alarm around us. Her ears occasionally twitched, though that was the only indication that she found the sound annoyingly loud.
Chella gave a nervous chuckle. “That’s the point. Who would suspect a half-giant like me to be working for the Duke of a Lysorian major house?”
“Fair point,” Nida admitted. Then she froze, as if a gust of wind had turned her entire body to ice. She looked at me, her smile dropping. “They’re here.”
“Shit,” I swore, cursing myself for allowing the conversation to continue. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted. Was I getting complacent in this world? “How far?”
Nida closed her eyes, her face twisting into a look of concentration. “A couple of minutes, maybe. Coming from above.”
“How many?”
The tigress shrugged. “Hard to tell, Queen. At least the same as us.”
I cursed again, turning to Chella and motioning for Dralos to join us. “Where is Coldrun?”
“The Slave Master?” Chella asked.
At the same time, Dralos answered, “It is likely he is in the banquet hall.”
That caught my attention. “Banquet hall?”
“Yes,” Chella said, nodding frantically. She talked so fast that I assumed she was trying to get the information to me before Dralos had a chance to. It was a misguided attempt at showing her value since it didn’t change the fact that Dralos knew it. That being said, part of his memory was missing so her presence wasn’t completely pointless. “Every night during the Sun Setting Festival is a celebration. As the Slave Master in charge of the Colosseum, Coldrun is expected to host a nightly banquet for the festival's duration.” She looked at Dralos with a slight frown. “Though, he isn’t expected to always attend himself. There’s no guarantee he is there.”
“He is,” Dralos said, turning to me with a firm expression.
My patience finally ran out, I didn’t bother questioning how he knew that. “Listen up,” I shouted over the drone of the alarms, and all the mutterings in the room were sucked up into a silence lit up only by the on-and-off tempo of the alarm. “Those of you Nasq has spoken to about the Remover are tasked with freeing the others from different sections tonight. She and a Paragon will go with you to make sure it’s done right.” I pointed to Chella and a random Paragon with a slim build, but ferocious white eyes and long red hair that seemed to wrap around his neck like a mane. The Paragon moved to protest but backed down when I glared at him into compliance. “When you have freed the others, you may join us in battle or you may escape. The choice is yours. In the meantime, the rest of us will engage the guards.”
There was no point in forcing unwilling men and women to fight in this battle. If our number grew too large, it might force us into a clash with the city guards rather than colosseum guards and mercenaries. That was a situation I’d prefer to avoid until I had a more stable and trained force at my back.
No, what I needed was to turn Coldrun into a resurrected being like Dralos. That would give me control over the Colosseum and, by default, the ability to sweep everything under the rug. I needed out of the Colosseum’s grip, but that didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to tear down the entire thing. Although slavery, especially gladiator and sex slaves, was a dirty business that tarnished any hand dealing in it with the blood of the innocent and guilty alike, it was also extremely profitable, and my current finances were nonexistent. If I could turn Coldrun and take over the Colosseum, I could completely flip my financial situation. I would have to see how the “discussion” with Coldrun went at the Banquet.
I turned back to Chella. "Are you able to contact Duke Alistar?"
"Now?" she asked, unsure.
"Yes. Now."
After a while, she nodded.
"Good. I have a message for him." I relayed the message to Chella and sent her and the others toward the control center to fetch the prism. As my group of Paragons and ex-slaves exited the third section, I sent Dralos to collect some stragglers from the second section. He nodded and ran ahead, turning sharply to the left in the distance to cross in front of the stairway leading to the Colosseum’s arena and wrap around to the other side where the second section would be located.