Hallvar had plenty of time to contemplate the meaning of authority in Aestrux, or at least to process how they felt about authority figures.
They were certain they passed out at some point, so the contemplation waxed and waned, but still… it was worth consideration.
The pillory was exactly as promised. This particular one could be raised or lowered with pins to adjust to the height of the tormented, which Hallvar sardonically called progressive.
The 5th hero knew this because, though the soldier put them in the correct height – arms and neck locked into wooden holes, forced to bend at the waist for hours – when the King-Consort deigned to visit the subject of his torment, he had the pillory adjusted.
Hallvar seethed as the lowered height forced them to bend unnaturally and bow to the King-Consort, who showed no sign of outward approval.
After more hours, Hallvar’s neck hurt. It was beyond the rub of raw, skin-burnished wood, though undoubtedly there was a red-ring of irritation. The low height forced Hallvar to nearly squat, a position which their muscles could not endure for hours, regardless of their stats.
When their legs shook, they had to lock their knees into a straight position, one which put enormous pressure on the back of their neck. From there, the blood pooled in the wrong places, causing Hallvar to pass out; after a few seconds of unconsciousness, they would wake and have to start again, clambering upright from a choking collapse.
Their opinions on authority slipped from nuanced and accepting to cold and angry.
From everything Hallvar heard about the Queen, she was fair and as kind as a royal could be. The capital was prosperous, the kingdom successful. People were mostly happy.
But the King-Consort? It took all of Hallvar’s willpower not to outright threaten him. With what strength? With what reinforcements? Hallvar had no ability to fight the King-Consort, in the same manner that Anton lacked power.
Perhaps the Court Mage had spells and magic in spades, but what could he do against companies of knights, units of soldiers?
The seconds of unconsciousness didn’t count as sleep but Hallvar couldn’t say they were pleasantly awake either. They were stuck in a terrible state of existing, where every ounce of their mental and physical power was devoted to seeking comfort.
Don’t die. Buy time. Endure.
Hallvar could tell from a thin sliver of fading light in their periphery that nightfall was near. Everything hurt. It was no longer a question of mentally enduring – that was not a choice – but rather if their body could functionally withstand much more.
With endurance 18, they inherently understood that they could tolerate the physical strain, that the pain and discomfort were something they could push through, even still.
But the willpower from endurance 18 did not prevent the constitution 10 from giving out. Overworked muscles were fallible, as were strained joints and tendons.
Cyciphos graced their presence once again. He’d lost the right to the full title of King-Consort hours prior in Hallvar’s mind.
Was he having a vindictive nightcap of his cruelty by visiting the prisoner?
“Submit now and the suffering will end,” came Cyciphos’ level, commanding voice from outside of Hallvar’s sightline.
A response rehearsed for hours: “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
Hallvar’s voice was rough; they hadn’t had water for ages either. Yet they were not broken. Frustrated, sore, exhausted again, but not broken.
“You will submit,” Cyciphos continued, his voice moving across the dungeon, away from Hallvar. “Remember that your suffering will stop immediately when you choose to serve.”
The hero didn’t answer, trying to hear what orders were given to the guard. Cyciphos spoke loud and clear, like he wanted to intimidate the hero further.
“Thirty lashes on the charge of disobedience, then to a cell until tomorrow night. Arrange for a meal in the morning.”
Lashes. Lashes? Didn’t that mean whipping? Oh, fuck. Hallvar didn’t entirely know how to process the imminent suffering, as they’d never experienced it. They did remember pictures from history class of cruel torturers slicing flesh to the bone, leaving deep, long scars.
They felt uncomfortable, uncertain, but the fear did not spike as it should have. What was wrong with them?
The guard freed Hallvar from the pillory. Their neck ached beyond just soreness; something was wrong. Yet they had no time to fix it.
They caught sight of the guards and whoever had to administer the punishment as they were being put into position twenty minutes later. Everyone looked grim. There were no apologies, only the curt advice to remain tensed throughout.
Still, very little fear. Were they broken, somehow?
Don’t die. Buy time. Endure.
Hallvar passed out as soon as they were put into a cell, flopping onto the nasty stone floor facedown to let their strained body rest for a while. Their last conscious thought was gratitude that this floor spot didn’t smell like piss.
When they woke, there was food. A piece of bread and cheese, and a cup of water. They couldn’t avoid feeling grateful for the shitty room service, since it was necessary to survive.
Their health bar looked awful, more than half depleted. The sleep was not restful, though it replenished some health and stamina alike. Didn’t mean things were good.
They were still injured: their back complained and burned every time they so much as shifted their weight, and their neck ached every time they tried to stretch it out.
Yet, yesterday’s gamble paid off.
Two days prior, Anton said the Queen was due to return in two weeks. Hallvar was ignorant in many ways, but they were smart in others. They didn’t believe for a second that the Court Mage was telling the truth, not when someone could plan an attack on the Queen.
They could handle a week of this. Two weeks seemed unlikely. But a week of torment? Maybe. Probably.
Cyciphos wouldn’t give up. That was clear.
Was there a torturer’s handbook? First came discomfort, the pressure from the pillory. Second, pain that would last without entirely maiming. Third, isolation so they would reconsider.
Hallvar knew they bled from the whipping but only because their shirt stuck to their skin, scabbed into the flesh. That was how people died in the olden days; they needed a healing potion before it got infected.
The fear thing was weird. It lingered in the back of their mind, waiting to be addressed.
They remembered being afraid of the tarrusmaw, the big monster salamanders. Were they afraid of them because of a difference in superiority? Was this a function of the defiant trait? Could a social challenge come from a beast?
Or was the lack of fear due to endurance? Hardship and suffering weren’t simply pain. It could be emotional, mental. If they raised their endurance past its current 18, would Hallvar stop feeling afraid at all?
They did not recognize that the conflict with the tarrusmaw occurred before they had any stats to speak of, and as Pipkin’s information said, things without stats always failed challenges from things with stats.
They wrote it off as unknowable. The lack of personal fear might become a problem later, but if they could amass enough power, then perhaps it wouldn’t matter.
The cell was much more typical of a video game dungeon or maybe more like the one in the Pirates movie. Metal bars, a bench, smelled of grime and mold. An oddly large window at the top edge, with only two bars across it vertically.
Grunting from the pull of their shirt against their injuries, Hallvar climbed onto the bench to peer outside. This cell looked out over the city, the window easily several hundred feet above ground level.
Right. Big window meant escape wasn’t possible. That tracked.
They tried to find the Adventurer’s Guild against the skyline, taking a bit too long to realize this cell faced the wrong direction. This was… west, maybe? And the guild was north.
From here, Hallvar thought they spotted the Solarium. The rocky tidal zone wasn’t in sight, but they knew it was hidden behind buildings in the distance.
They missed Stella. She shouldn’t be here, by any means, but Hallvar would very much prefer to be at home with her.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And Pipkin. Hallvar hoped that if the akergryph wasn’t with Stella, she was being taken care of by the flowers at the Solarium. They would keep her. Hallvar had faith in that.
They knew she was okay because her status bars remained in sight, if Hallvar tried to look for them. Presumably, they would change if something was wrong.
With nothing left to do, Hallvar sat and closed their eyes. Any position that engaged their back muscles hurt, and their legs were still recovering from being forced to stand for most of a day.
Upright, cross-legged? Pain. Leaning against wall? Pain. Laying on stomach? Fine, but uncomfortable after a while.
They took exactly one yoga class for their sister’s bridesmaid fiesta-thing so trying to remember the positions was hard. There was one that sounded… okay. Facedown, kneeling, hands stretched against the ground overhead. Like the fetal pose but facedown.
That… actually felt pretty good. It did stretch out their back muscles but in a gentle, nice way.
Their legs would fall asleep if they tried to nap this way, but it was so tempting. Yoga was for breathing, but like special breathing. In and out, focus on the diaphragm. Think about inner peace or gathering energies or something esoteric.
Hallvar zoned out for a while. The breathing and inner focus did help mask the pain, which was very much preferable to sitting and suffering. When they started paying attention to their surroundings again, there was a system notice.
new general skill: meditate
Regain health and stamina based on Endurance and Constitution attributes.
Generate magic based on Awareness and Luck attributes.
Recover from Exhaustion affliction 2x as quickly.
Generate magic?
Hallvar glanced at their own health bar, looking under the green stamina to see… a blue line. Magic. Why was it always blue? Was it blue because Hallvar thought it should be blue? Chicken and egg scenario, this one.
So, the key to getting magic was to meditate? Did that count for all magic all the time, or just the starter magic?
faq topic: how does magic work?
Unless dictated differently by the chosen class or subclass, magical ability is seeded through generative actions. [ relevant user skill: meditate ]
A person may possess predetermined magical prowess, such as elves, but their usable magic attribute is determined by repetitive generative actions and continued use of magic.
[ relevant user comparison ] An elf may be born with a bathtub-sized magical pool, but there is no water without generative actions. The average person will need to overflow their current magical pool with generated magic before it will increase.
Oh, so it was like exercising. You had to slightly damage the muscles to get stronger when they healed.
Did this mean Hallvar could do magic right now?
The system shook in Disapproval. A screen opened to a list of general spells; it was blank.
Okay, so they had to learn things first. That made sense.
Hallvar moved out of child pose to a more stable seated position. It stung, but if they managed to meditate, they would regain health on top of filling their magic pool. That had to be good, right?
It was so much easier to meditate with a system involved, as there was no guesswork if it was working. It was; if Hallvar wanted to watch the numbers slowly count upward, they could.
They were much more interested in the magical properties of meditation. There was a… feeling, indescribable but present. Like feeling a spiderweb string on your face and knowing the rest of it was nearby, out of sight. That’s what magic felt like at this level.
This dungeon had very little magic present, yet Hallvar concentrated on the tiny, imperceptible spiderweb silk of magic, eagerly trying to sense the unseen.
Don’t die. Buy time. Endure.
The guard startled Hallvar out of one of their meditation efforts by opening the lock on the cell door. The hero was uncomfortable to learn they’d been snuck up on, but even more irritated to see Cyciphos waiting for them.
Meditation was to only happen in safety and privacy, noted.
Their health was closer to 60% or 70% now, with their high endurance speeding recovery along. They were still in pain, especially from their neck, but their wounds were no longer bleeding at every shifting motion.
Their magic was full at a meaningless number, given Hallvar didn’t know how much a simple spell cost.
All in all, it was active improvement.
It was nighttime once more. Cyciphos gave them a full day to languish in solitude and mull over the decision, only to find Hallvar doing well.
“I see you discovered magic.”
How did he know that? What could he see? He couldn’t possibly be a system mage, right?
The hero answered drily, not bothering to stand. “I’ll have to thank you for the private accommodations, really helped my training.”
Cyciphos narrowed his eyes. “You still choose to resist. If you submit, you will be moved to your own quarters with whatever luxuries you require.”
Hallvar was not falling for that obvious bait.
“Like I said before: kill me. Then you won’t need to scheme up new tortures, Cyciphos. Surely that will let you sleep better at night.”
The shitty royal clicked his tongue in distaste, addressing the guard directly.
“Bed them with the blixhund tonight. Use the collar.”
Hallvar had the great misfortune of learning what that phrase meant.
They weren’t given dinner, something they appreciated later but hated in the moment, but instead were escorted to a far-reaching corner of the castle grounds.
They could vaguely hear bird sounds from up above. What was that called? A rookery? Maybe they used messenger birds. Pipkin came with falconry equipment, so there had to be falconers here, by another name.
They were driven downwards, into yet another dungeon-like corridor. It looked less like a jail, more like a livestock pen with hay and bedding scattered along the floor and the reek of animal musk.
With a sigh, the guard paused and redirected Hallvar back and down a different path. They were pushed into a tiny room with a round opening on a wall-mounted wooden bench.
“Do your business and come back out. Don’t fuck with me; I just don’t want to muck the stalls later and you don’t want to sit in it.”
Hallvar was bewildered until the door shut, then they realized this was a toilet.
Fates, that didn’t spell good things for their future.
A while later, they were brought back to the animal pens. The collar mentioned by Cyciphos was literally that – a wide-banded leather dog collar with a tiny yellow-white gemstone embedded under some wire.
The mix of materials made Hallvar uneasy; there was no reason to embed a gem on a dog collar unless it had some magical purpose.
“Right,” the soldier began. For the record, he seemed as grim as the rest. No one wanted to be doing these things, but they were orders.
“That collar keeps you alive. You do not damage it. If you fight back or become aggressive, it will stop working. It’s made for battlefield healers, not this, so don’t test the magic’s boundaries.”
Mhm, very scary information. Hallvar was still processing it while their hands were unshackled, and they were pushed into the animal pen.
They thanked the system for their [ skill: shared land ], as the five fox-like beasts in front of them were small, but together they could easily take the weakened Hallvar down. The thought reminded the hero of that scene from the dinosaur movie, with the tiny, tiny raptors and the fleeing man.
Hallvar did not want to be the fleeing man.
The beasts eyed Hallvar warily, however the lowered threat placed the hero on the same level as their keepers – someone to tolerate, perhaps even be curious about, but trust had to be earned.
The adventurer stood there awkwardly, trying to figure out what the grey-white beasts would do. A few yipped and bolted when Hallvar took a step inside the room. The largest one moved closer, head low and sniffing intently.
The beast suddenly darted toward the hero, jumping to chest height; Hallvar held out their hands to block the attack that never came. Instead, they felt soft fur brush their forearm.
A feint? A trick? Hallvar whipped around in confusion, trying to find the creature.
A notice from the system alerted them to low magic.
Their eyebrows knitted together. How? They didn’t cast a spell or do anything.
Hallvar didn’t remember the name of the beasts – something hound – as the last forty-eight hours were mentally draining. They tried requesting that the system look up magic in any beast books, but that came back with too many results to be helpful.
Warily, the hero found a patch of stone wall to sit against, careful to avoid any nest-like clusters of bedding in case the beasts had a preferred spot.
Another fox-thing streaked by, using Hallvar’s shin and leg as a jumping point.
The low mana warning pressed into their thoughts once more.
That’s why Cyciphos wanted the 5th hero to be imprisoned here. If Hallvar discovered magic, then spells came next. These beasts sapped away magic so it couldn’t be actively used.
Hallvar had to admit it was clever, even though they didn’t understand the purpose of the collar.
They watched the fox-things run around, nipping at each other and reestablishing a hierarchy.
There was a pole in the center of the room, not unlike a stripper pole, which didn’t make sense in context. The foxes seemed to ignore it, bouncing off the walls and over their little doghouses was they traveled.
A few of the braver fox-hounds leapt over the seated man, their magic-absorbing fur intentionally brushing Hallvar’s head.
It wasn’t a problem, until it was.
Hallvar was curiously watching the biggest beast, more dog-sized than fox-sized. It maintained dominance in the group, firmly ending all nips and pushes into its personal space with growls and snaps.
One of the corrections startled a beast into the metal pole. An arc of electricity shot up its length and into the more-grounded stone floor.
Fuck.
Don’t die. Buy time. Endure.
This night was the worst yet. The dark, tiny closet of a cell was infinitely preferable to being housed with these beasts.
Hallvar was able to find the beasts’ information in the system once they knew to look for electricity as a telltale magical ability.
Blixhund. Magic-sapping group hunters who channeled electricity. If kept as pets, only people without magic were permitted to interact with the blixhund, or else they built up magic like static and released it on the first available point of contact.
Hallvar didn’t have much magic, but it was enough. It took an hour or more for the blixhund to gather enough courage – and magic – to become deadly, but the hero regretted every single second after.
They ended up tucked into a corner, legs and arms pulled close as possible to minimize contact. Their clothing was littered with little scorch marks from the shocks, each feeling like a taser; it sent their nerves into overdrive and made their muscles clench, like a full-body cramp.
Earlier, Hallvar joked about a torturer’s handbook, but they were beginning to think Cyciphos had an actual plan. First, discomfort. Second, superficial pain. Third, isolation. Fourth, half physical, half psychological torment.
They couldn’t escape the blixhund, and the beasts didn’t seem to intend any harm. The discharging of electricity was a natural part of their existence.
The shocks were enough to send Hallvar’s body into overload, physically then mentally. They happened every fifteen to twenty minutes, if the hero’s counting was correct.
When zapped with magical electricity, the nerves… stayed alert and tense, for lack of a better concept. The next electrocution was more painful, like pouring salt into a wound. It compounded, layered the intensity on top of each other – or maybe it made Hallvar more susceptible to electricity every time.
The first few times were startling, scary in their sudden, unavoidable nature. Then, with nerves fried, they induced a low-grade panic.
And blixhund were nocturnal.
Overnight with three to four shocks per hour, Hallvar went from stable and confident to a constant state of anxiety, riding the line between panic attack and mental breakdown.
Their health was low, a single point on the system screen.
Any sudden movement, startled jerk of their limbs could be interpreted as aggression by the blixhund.
They were growing familiar with the beastmaster, standing closer and giving Hallvar’s clothing intrigued sniffs and nips. They were cute, sweet beasts and would have been totally innocuous before Hallvar learned to meditate.
The don’t die part of their chanted orders was getting increasingly difficult to manage.
Don’t die. Buy time. Endure.