After receiving his meal, he waited for Marcus, and together they walked towards a table filled with humans. Lucas took a look around on the way, noticing the tribalism of prison with his own eyes, with the races all sticking together, except for the goblins and orcs who were seated close to each other.

Upon reaching their table, Marcus introduced Lucas to the others. Lucas heard their names, but soon forgot; he didn’t plan on sticking around much longer to get to know them.

“Have you heard about that elf who OD last night?” one of them said to the other.

“No, was he on shrooms?”

“Yeah, I heard they are growing on one of the goblin’s cell—you know, those that grow on the walls. He’s so stupid he didn’t even realize what that is,” he said, and they all laughed, except for Lucas.

“Shrooms?” Lucas asked, and they all looked at him.

“Oh, yeah, you don’t know. Here in the clink, we don’t have the fancy drugs you find on the outside, so a few of us found this workaround. It’s a mushroom that grows on cement. I’ve never done it, but people say it’s the bomb. It’s a bit risky though, a lot of people have died from using it, I wouldn’t recommend it,” the guy answered him, and Marcus turned towards him.

“This shit is serious. I don’t know what you use on the outside, but this mushroom has already killed a bunch of humans here, elves too,” he said to Lucas, reaffirming his theory that Lucas used to do drugs on the outside, and he didn’t correct him.

“Fuck ‘em. The less elves, the better,” the other replied, and they continued to curse the elves for a while.

Lucas stared at his food, debating whether he should eat it. He wasn’t exactly hungry since he had eaten before coming to the Tower, and that stuff looked gross, but he didn’t know when he would be able to eat again. Deciding it was better to be safe, he began to eat and found out it wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it tasted like pasta. Probably just a gross-looking alien food, he thought.

After finishing his meal, Lucas looked around again, but there wasn’t much to see there. It was just a prison cafeteria; there was no escape route to be found. His only useful information was that there were no cameras around, and he hadn’t seen any in the corridors either. “Hey, Marcus, do we have some recreation time in here?”

“Yeah, but it will be two hours from now,” he answered, and Lucas sighed. Time in prison really moved slower. After a few more minutes, Lucas, along with the other prisoners, were made to go back to their cells. And on his bed, Lucas waited for what seemed like forever for the cells to open up again.

There’s no way I’m spending another day in this shithole, he thought as he walked out of his cell. The problem wasn’t just the wait; it was everything about it—the conspiracy between races, the guards looking down on him, the gray walls and the smell that his cellmate left after going for number two. Why did NPCs need to take a shit again? He just couldn’t stand it; he needed to leave as soon as possible and get on to the next level, hopefully to find a better place.

He was very attentive as he walked out of his cell this time around, and in the corridor, he looked at the cell an orc had just left. It was pretty different from the one he was in, with way larger beds, and it was one cell per orc too. But what caught his attention was the toilet—it was massive. Can I escape from there? The thought, however, gave him chills, and he decided to think about that after he went to the yard.

In the yard, the same scene from the cafeteria repeated itself—members of the same race stuck with their own, except for the goblins and orcs who stuck together. On the literal bright side, there was light there, and Lucas could see the sky. Fences prevented them from leaving, and there were guards with guns spread around outside the fences. It was the first time Lucas saw a firearm after the system, but that definitely looked like any gun he had ever seen.

Lucas didn’t dally and soon left his group of humans to go look around. From the yard, he could see a part of the layout of the prison. Beyond the fences, there was a massive wall that seemed to make a square around the prison. From where he was standing, he also saw that there were two massive lookout posts along with gates to the outside. It would be hard for anyone who managed to pass through the fences to reach there before getting shot from one of the lookouts.

He walked a little more around the yard, being careful not to get too close to the other races, but even so, one of the elves tried to start trouble with him.

“What are you thinking showing your ugly face around here? Do you want to die, little human?” one very ugly-looking elf said to him.

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Lucas found himself on one of those rare occasions where his actions might drastically change the direction of the story. If he chose to reply the way he truly wanted—knocking his teeth out—that could end up in a generalized confusion with both humans and elves, surely causing some causalities but giving him the possibility of escaping through the chaos.

Would he really have to choose between escaping in a river of blood or one of shit? With this philosophical question in mind, something caught his attention in the sky.

Is that smoke? There, far up in the sky above the prison, he saw a great wave of smoke coming from somewhere in the middle of the complex. From where he was standing, however, he couldn’t see the origin.

Is it a fire? No, it can’t be, or else the alarms would be sounding. Than what? With that question in mind, Lucas ignored the elf who kept cursing at him as he made his way back towards where the humans were standing.

“What were you doing there? Wanna get yourself killed, kid?” Marcus asked him, alarmed. Ignoring him, Lucas asked what he wanted to know.

“What’s that smoke up there?” He pointed towards the sky, and Marcus’ eyes followed his finger, stopping on the smoke. He smiled.

“Well, haven’t you heard the boys talking about that elf who OD’d?”

“Yes…”

“That’s him,” he said, pointing upwards. Lucas frowned.

“Did they incinerate him here?”

“Of course, a lot of people die here every year. What, did you think they would pay for our funerary expenses? This is cheaper,” was his answer. “And be careful around those elves, or the next one to turn into smoke might be you.”

It really might, Lucas thought, with a smile, after thinking about a very crazy idea. “Hey, Marcus, where can I find that mushroom you guys were talking about in the cafeteria?”

His eyes opened wide. “You’re not thinking of…”

“No, no. Chill, I just want to see,” Lucas replied. Marcus didn’t seem to believe him him, but he said it anyway.

Soon after, Lucas left the yard and went back to his cell, ignoring the goblin cell Marcus had pointed at and stopping in front of the orc one. Nope, not doing that, he thought and continued on his way.

After arriving at his cell, he lay on his bed. There was one thing that he needed to make sure to see if his plan could succeed. After only a few seconds, he received his answer and smiled. All he needed to do now was wait.

When Marcus entered his cell, he could already tell that something was wrong. He had a similar feeling every time he walked into a graveyard; he couldn’t explain it, but it made him feel sure that that place was for the dead and not the living. He immediately went to check on his weird cellmate and found what he was expecting: puke was covering the side of his bed, and he was pale with his eyes closed, death emanating from him. Immediately he called the guards, but he knew it was already too late; he was definitely dead.

In hindsight, he regretted telling him where to find the mushroom, but one thing he learned early on in prison was that when an addict wants to get high, nothing will stop him.

Two guards, arrived after a short while, and by then, the aura of death had spread. They didn’t even check his body before placing him on the bag and carrying him outside; they’d gotten used to it. It was the shrooms, of course it was, and of course they knew of their existence. The order to look the other way whenever a case of OD happened came straight from the director. He said that it was good for the prisoners to have an outlet. This way, they could destroy themselves instead of taking out on the guards.

When they arrived at the incineration chamber, they left the body on top of a table and started the fire in the crematorium.

“Are you sure you want to burn him now?” one guard asked.

“Yes. It’s better to do it quickly before he starts to smell.”

“But the director said…”

“Screw the director. He wants us to keep waiting for the coroner when we all know what the cause of death was. Even he knows. Just write suicide in there, and we can finish our shift ea—“

The words were choked in his throat when a powerful fist hit him square in the face. He couldn’t even react, and shortly after fell to the ground.

“Stop right th…” the other guard uttered with surprise when the man in front of him attacked him as well. He managed to block the punch with his arm, but soon after another flew towards his head, and he joined his colleague on the floor.

“Phew!” Lucas wiped the sweat from his forehead; it was already beginning to get hot on that bag. He looked at the two guards on the ground and smiled. His plan had worked perfectly well so far. The aura of death that he could emanate wasn’t enough to connect with the orb when it was on the ground, but to fool a few people it was very effective. He was very glad that his aura hadn’t gone away together with his skills, but that was probably due to it being related to his unique constitution and a part of himself, so it wouldn’t be fair to strip him of this.

“Now to the next part.” Lucas looked around and found a switch. He pressed it, and the fire disappeared. After that was done, he went toward the door and peered outside. There was no one in the corridor, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last. I have to be quick, he thought, and he began to undress one of the guards that had a height similar to his.

At first, he wasn’t sure if this plan would lead anywhere because he didn’t know if he could still use his death aura. Another concern of his was if an orc was in charge of carrying his body to the crematorium. If that were the case, he would have a pretty hard time fighting with it, but considering the orcs only guarded the other orcs, he assumed it would be the same case in this situation, and he was right.

He had chosen this plan basically to avoid the other two options, which seemed way worse and could probably take a while to make it happen. With his plan, he could get out quicker and cleaner, the only problem being that it would require a lot of improvisation, because he was far from having all the plan laid out.

After putting on the guard uniform, Lucas tied both guards with the uniform of the other. He considered if it would be wise to just kill them, but they did nothing wrong, and he would feel bad doing it. Instead, he gave both of them another good punch, just to make sure they wouldn’t wake up any time soon. Now for the hard part…

Lucas looked at the crematorium, uncertain.