image [https://i.imgur.com/eeAwx3z.jpg]
It had been sixty years since Minos last saw the sky. He was counted the passage of days by the number of times his captors had been feeding him. One vertical line on a wall for every plate of scraps. Throughout the decades, he managed to fill the four walls of his cell with more that twenty-one thousand lines.
The other prisoner, who he knew only by the name Rik, had died during Minos’ first month in captivity. He was then forced to wear the dead prisoner’s skin to keep him warm. He also kept his severed head, which he successfully preserved via urine mummification. It was his only companion for six decades; he would talk to it, but not once did it reply.
His former companions, those who came with him to Soliton and threatened the horned-man with, did not come to rescue him at all. Not that he actually believed that they would. One of them promised to protect and keep him safe on his quest but was severely wounded in a fight. He probably died already. The other one was a renowned bounty hunter who had lived for three-hundred years, who was also his mentor since he was eleven. That one was probably happy that he was finally gone.
The rest were just random people he met in a remote village. They most definitely did not care about him at all. For days, he waited, and nobody came to save him. In the end, his gambit with the horned-man only delayed the inevitable; and finally, after sixty years, the inevitable was about to come.
The horned-man entered his cell for the last time. Minos noted how he didn’t seem to have aged at all throughout the years. Maybe he really was a fravashi. Nevertheless, he told him that it was his time to finally die. “But before that,” his captor continued, “it’s about time to meet my boss.”
The horned-man gave way to another person entering his dungeon cell. A huge shadow crept in first, followed by a large figure of a heavyset woman: The Guild leader.
“Whaaaat!?! No way!” Minos screamed, too fascinated that he had forgotten about his circumstances.
“You thought you outsmarted us, Zephyrean?” the Guild Leader bellowed.
“Well, actually. If you were their leader, why did he believe me when I lied about being a member of The Guild? That doesn’t make sense…” He looked back at the horned-man, “Right?”
“Oh, I knew you were lying,” he answered. “In fact, you’re so bad at lying that I felt pity for you.”
“He only kept you alive because I ordered him…” continued the heavyset woman, “so that I could punish you!”
“Punish me for what? Why? Why did I ever do to you?” asked Minos.
“You know what you did…” The heavyset woman pulled the skin off her face and slowly ripped it all away, to Minos’ terror. Underneath her life-like mask, she revealed her real face. It was his mother.
“No!! It’s you all along!?!?!?” Minos screamed. “Nooo!”
“Please…” he faced the corner where Rik's mummified head sat. Minos watched its mouth move, “I want my quiet, please…”
The young nobleman raised his head and turned towards the prisoner. He wasn’t just a mummified head. He was still alive, sitting on his corner, staring at Minos like the young nobleman was going insane. He was only imprisoned for a day, and he was already losing his mind.
He looked at himself, and he didn’t have a long beard. He wasn’t old, not yet at least; and her mother wasn’t taunting her, not at the moment at least.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and his back had gotten used to the cold, hard, concrete floor. His mouth, however, could never be tamed. Not for the lack of trying.
During the first few hours, as he was still trying to fathom his predicament, he was able to keep his thoughts to himself. He used the hunger in his stomach to measure the passage of time, and he used the feeling of fatigue to calculate the change in day.
When he woke up on his second day, he was instantly overcome with the feeling of anxiety. Minos threw himself towards the bars of his cell and started shouting for anybody to help him, to set him free. He grabbed the rusted iron bars and tried to pull them apart to no avail.
When it became clear that nobody was listening to him, he sat down on the floor feeling dejected.
There were reasons Minos would never shut his mouth, this was one of those reasons. When he allows his mind to be quiet and still, even just for a moment, it would swallow him with unwelcome thoughts, from past, present, and future. Unable to resist, and losing all will to defend his own sanity, he takes his hands off the reins of reality. A mighty stupor, ugly and filled with dread, starts dragging him away.
It took a chest-stomping plea from his prison-mate to wake him up. “Sorry…” Minos said. “I’ve never been imprisoned before.” He got up to sit on the cold floor and corrected himself. “Actually, no, that’s not true…”
The young nobleman took a moment to collect his thoughts, like he was flipping backwards on a thick tome. “When I was a kid, my mother used to lock me in my room,” he continued. His fellow prisoner glanced up at him with eyes of pity. “She hated me, you see? Didn’t want anything to do with me. She always told me that I am not her son. That’s how much she hated me. My only companions were my books and my toys. And when I get tired of talking to them, I create my own friends, in my head.
“You know what’s funny? When I saw you yesterday, for a moment I thought you weren’t real. That I just made you up. But then you cut the rope on my arm, and I knew you were real.”
Minos watched the prisoner, waiting for a response. When he didn’t get an immediate one, he turned away to watch the door to his cell again. He finally felt calm enough to stay quiet for a minute. It was then he heard Rik's voice again.
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"My mother never told me she loves me. But she always made sure I had my lunch packed before I went to Temple School. My father hugged me all the time, and he always showered me with love. But then he would get angry at something, and he would beat me up until I could no longer stand. Right before he tells me that he did all that because he loved me.
"A parent's love is a complicated thing. It shows in ways one wouldn't expect…"
The prisoner spoke with a soft voice, like a pained whisper from a dying man. But Minos watched his face betray a bright, subtle smile, and the memories he recounted were raindrops over the dry, caked soil.
The young nobleman felt his chest getting heavier the more he looked at Rikhart. Suddenly, his fears and anxiety felt nothing compared to the prisoner’s present condition. “How did you end up here?” he asked him.
The prisoner sat up, raising his head towards the ceiling. His eyes moved around the room, as if searching for the answer to Minos’ question. “Nissa…”
“Nissa?”
“My beloved. I was to meet her under the maple tree, near the Post’s, like we always did. But… the Baron… he was there… he took her away from me…”
The prisoner’s words grabbed Minos’ attention. He leaned in closer, engaged and awaiting his next words.
The poor man pursed his dry lips and raised his head, trying to bask in an inexistent ray of sunlight, “I tried to fight for her… to get her back, and they threw me here in return…”
“This... Baron… Is he the owner of this mansion?” asked Minos.
The prisoner looked down and stared at Minos, confusion filling his eyes, “mansion?” he muttered.
“Yes, this dungeon... It’s inside the Baron’s mansion, right?”
“I have to get to the mansion… I have to save… Nissa…” The prisoner struggled to get up and crawled towards the locked door of their prison cell. He pressed his face against the iron bars like Minos did and started shouting for her Nissa.
The young nobleman couldn’t help but feel a slight wetness on his eyes upon seeing the prisoner’s condition. Mostly though, he imagined himself being in his shoes.
“I don’t think she’s out there, man. How long have you been here, anyway?”
Something from what he said woke the man from his spiral. “Too long…” the man cried. He turned away from the door and crawled back to his corner, “too long…” he repeated over and over.
“We’re gonna get you out of here…” reassured Minos. He stood up and scanned the prison cell, walking across its four corners. “We’re gonna get out of here…” he repeated, almost whispering to himself. Robb too.
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Minos did his best with what he got. In this case, a semi-lucid prison mate in a dungeon cell inside a mysterious mansion. Rikhart’s mind was like a broken jar whose pieces lie scattered on the floor. At times, he was a small kid, being rocked to sleep by her mom, other times, he was a teenager getting beaten to a pulp by his dad. Then, he would be a young man, crying for his lost love Nissa. The young nobleman gave up trying to put the pieces back together, there were better uses for his energy at this point.
One such use for it is finding a way out.
Minos started by checking the integrity of the four walls around them. Two of the wall sides adjacent to each other were lined with a lime plaster finish. Meanwhile, the other two walls on the opposite only had the clay bricks. This led Minos to the assumption the room they were in was part of a bigger room, and that the cell was only more recently constructed.
The plaster-lined walls were solid, which means its other side would mostly be underground soil. After a thorough look, he found multiple watermarks running across the two sides. He also found a slight difference in texture along each side, with the part below the line rougher and moister than the part above it. The young nobleman deduced that their prison cell is a corner of a big chamber that was used to hold water for extended periods of time. Like a cistern.
Now Minos was no architecture expert, but he was well-read. If it was indeed a cistern, then the vertical beam near the door was part of a set of support columns. He looked out the door again, and he saw more similar-looking columns outside, along the hallway. So, whoever made this place didn’t just build a random room inside an old, unused cistern, they created hallways, which meant that there were more than one room. In any case, half of the cell’s walls, the bare ones made of brick, should be relatively weaker than the rest.
Of course, he didn’t have the superhuman strength to break those walls down, nevertheless it was an important detail to note.
And if it was a cistern, then that meant it should have a way to drain water out, especially during rainy seasons when there would be too much water flowing in. It would have an overflow pipe. There should be one somewhere just below the ceiling. If they’re lucky, then the entrance to the pipe should be wide enough for them to crawl into and escape. I just have to find that overflow pipe... He whispered to himself.
But first, he had to get out of his cell.
He reached his hand across the iron bars of the cell’s door, trying to find its keyhole. He measured the size of the hole and surmised that it was big enough, maybe for a sharp object pick. He returned to Rikhart and asked for his shiv.
The prisoner refused at first, but Minos managed to convince him after lying about borrowing it to save Nissa. He then proceeded to try and pick the lock open. If only Rei was here, he would have more proper tools for the situation. He wasn’t good with lockpicking, but he was familiar with the concept, as well as the method. However, he rarely succeeded in pulling it off in the past, even with the right tools.
He didn’t expect to pull it off now, but he was content with simply trying his best: and trying was all he could do.
He turned around, and his gaze returned to scanning the room. Suddenly, he felt like he was missing something, an important detail that he neglected to address earlier. “Say, Rikhart...” he called for the other prisoner. He waited until he got his attention before he continued.
“Why are you still alive? Why keep you here when they could just easily kill you...?”
Rikhart hesitated for a minute. He stood up and turned around by his heels, deciding whether he would answer Minos’ question or not.
“Magic,” he finally whispered. There was a look of shame and apprehension on his face, like he wasn’t sure how Minos would respond.
“You’re a sorcerer?” the young nobleman clarified.
“Wizard. Ranked wizard. I studied in the Tower.”
Everything started making sense inside Minos’ head. “They can’t do magic… so they’re using you… to do magic…?”
Rikhart nodded.
“Nissa’s father, the Baron… he hates magic, that’s why he didn’t approve of your relationship…”
The other prisoner continued affirming his conjectures.
“But he’s using you now, they’re using magic to whatever it is they’re trying to do here… which means it’s something that…” Minos stopped in his train of thoughts. Priorities.
He walked towards Rikhart, still holding the shiv by his right hand. “They’re not gonna kill you…” The prisoner may be older by some years, probably even taller than Minos, but he looked more imposing than him. Internment had made his body weak, and he barely had any muscle left under his skin. His jagged joints creak at any small motion, and his chest and back were stunted by his heavy shriveled head. “They’re not gonna let anything happen to you… they’ll make sure you’re alive until they don’t need you anymore.”
Rikhart was powerless to stop Minos from grabbing him by his shoulders. The young nobleman pushed him back against the wall and raised his left palm over his face. “Ask for help.”
“What?” asked the prisoner, confused.
“Say help me and say it aloud. Shout it.” Minos growled. He raised up his right hand, still holding the shiv. He then pressed its sharp edge against his left palm.
“What are you doing?” Rikhart asked again.
“Say it! Say help! Call out to them, ask for their help!” Minos drove the shiv across his palm, leaving behind a gash that instantly bled.
“Help!” Rikhart finally screamed. “Please!! Help!! Help mee!!!”