Navigating through the crowd wasn’t a large problem, this seemed to be a wealthier area than just across the street so weirdly enough there weren’t too many people here compared to other places. Ibela had entered the second building from the street, a large, rather nice-looking three-story tall construction. Though it looked like a warehouse it was nicer than the ones across the street, it seemed to have some offices or non-warehouse rooms on the side of the main building, with a separate entrance. This side door was the one that Ibela had entered, and Gilliam didn’t intend for him to get away, without stopping he simply opened the door and entered like he had an appointment.
The inside was a small lobby of sorts, it wasn’t too extraordinary but was rather simple, clean and sleek. There was a young man with his hair oiled back sitting in a mini reception of sorts, and in the back was a door and some stairs up to a second level.
“Good day, how can I help you today?” The man asked as Gilliam entered.
Gilliam had a moment of uncertainty, he hoped to have reached Ibela before he disappeared. But clearly, he was a bit late.
“Ibela entered here only a moment ago, I lost him outside, where did he go?” Gilliam asked both honestly but tried to make it seem like they were together.
“I’m afraid I can’t share any of our client's information. You’re welcome to wait or I can take a message for the next time they pass through here.” The young man was polite and in his defence, this did sound like something a good company would do.
Gilliam felt a hand on his shoulder, turning towards it Rhyan shook his head.
“It’s not allowed for us to just barge in without permission.”
This was the best lead they had at the moment, and the more time they used the harder it would be to find him again. If he hadn’t informed anyone yet, it was only a matter of time before it would complicate everything.
As Gilliam was pondering what to do, he felt a familiar tug on his coat sleeve, bending down to Cera who looked like she wanted to say something, she leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I... I think he went through the door.”
Gilliam got back up and gave her a small pat on the head with a grateful smile. She tried to hide her smile somewhat embarrassingly, something that only made her look more adorable. But it also showed Gilliam something positive; she was at least taking some autonomy in what she did, no matter how small, without orders.
Gilliam didn’t reply or comment to anyone, ignoring Rhyan’s previous mention of wanting to know a plan before it was executed, he headed for the door and opened it.
“No, wait. You can’t just go in there.” The receptionist stated as he got up from his chair. Though fumbling a bit he started walking around his desk to walk over to them.
Gilliam didn’t pay him any mind and just entered the hallway behind the door as if he belonged there, starting to walk through it looking for Ibela.
Rhyan had a moment of uncertainty, he seemed to wonder if this was really the way to go or if he should stop or even stop Gilliam. But seemed to follow him into the hallway as well.
Cera wasn’t bothered and was behind Gilliam even before Rhyan was.
The hallway was entirely wooden and had six doors, two on each side and one at the end, as well as the one they entered from which was on the remaining short side. As they walked further into it the young man tried to persuade them to stop before he called guards on them. Gilliam briefly considered complying but that was instantly shut down as Cera pointed out one of the two right-hand doors.
Bursting through it like he wanted to hit someone with it on the other side, he saw something exciting. Ibela was in the office he entered, but it seemed he was walking into a cupboard with another man. The other man wore a suit and looked quite presentable, much like the receptionist.
“Well, fancy meeting you here.” Gilliam smiled at Ibela.
Ibela’s face whitened with panic, the other man couldn’t see Ibela’s face from his angle. “Friend of yours?”
Ibela didn’t respond and darted into the cupboard, the other man seemed confused but did the same. This reaction was a bit faster than Gilliam anticipated so he didn’t get the chance to reach out and stop them. But a few solid steps into the room, he found himself looking into it.
The cupboard had a false bottom and back, once moved it opened up into a set of simple stairs going down. Not unlike the fake boxes in the warehouse but better hidden. Ibela and the other man rounded a stair corner as soon as Gilliam came into view.
He wasn’t able to get hold of them yet again, blinded by a kind of power-hungry greed, Gilliam ran after them, not properly processing Rhyan’s words and warnings behind him.
Speed-stepping down the stairs he rounded the corner only to see them at the bottom of the stairs, disappearing into a room. Hearing the familiar steps and metal against metal behind him of Rhyan’s armour and shield, he felt confident in his magical defence and backup and pushed on into the room at the bottom.
As soon as he came into view of the whole room the atmosphere changed. There were several cultist-looking men there, dressed in black robes, holding various weapons and items, behind them all stood a panting Ibela. Though he was hyperventilating, clearly not used to running downstairs in a panic, his face didn’t have the same panic as before but rather a sadistic smile in a ‘got you’ expression.
In this brief moment, Gilliam realised that the air tasted weird, there were a few shattered vials on the floor and he realised what was going on. Immediately he cast a different defensive barrier than the one he already had. The one he had multi-layered on was mainly for defence, but as it had to let through the air for breathing, but also smaller particles so he could smell the world around him, it wasn’t perfect. The one he was casting now was entirely tight, it would not let anything in or out. The danger of this was suffocation but he could amend this with an air-spell right after. But now he had to protect himself.
The spell circle manifested with the runes as planned, and in a matter of a split second, he was properly protected. Having already breathed in some of the gas he felt a bit dizzy but nothing he couldn’t handle. Turning towards the stairs he shouted warnings back at his companions but by the time he was done with the spell he saw they were already standing there. Though Rhyan was in impeccable shape, Cera was breathing heavily and had inhaled a substantial part of the gas already. Rhyan wasn’t doing too well balance-wise, so he probably inhaled a bunch as well.
Gilliam decided that the smartest thing to do was to take out the others, in case he fell unconscious, having an air-tight barrier around himself or the others would be bad. Turning back to the group he manifested a spell circle, he didn’t intend to kill everyone but he wanted to knock them out. So a modifier expanding barrier would slam them into the walls in the room and take care of that.
“Oh, we can’t have any of that.” One man mentioned and opened an ornate box he was carrying. The opening of the box was faster than Gilliam’s spell, and in a brief split second Gilliam got to see a very nice quartz crystal cluster.
As soon as Gilliam saw the crystal he felt something akin to a cold waft of air wash over him. It was uncomfortable, sharp and almost like an ice-wind without moving any air. As it passed through him he felt weird, like something was critically out of place. He felt his several barriers pop almost as if he had dismissed them, including his anti-gas barrier. The spell he was manifesting destabilized and disappeared as the barely visible glow from the cylinder gem on his ring dulled and he felt cut off from something.
Thinking in the moment that the spell failed from the weird feeling he tried to manifest the spell again but there was no connection to his mana. Normally this would have been a massive pool of energy readily available, but it felt like he tried to reach through a brick wall, not having access to anything. Connecting to his coat to panic-cast the barrier spells failed, everything magic-related just failed.
Turning around to evacuate the area, he saw Cera on the floor, having fallen, Rhyan was struggling but was doing surprisingly better than Gilliam. But as he opened his mouth to speak he only saw the world fade as he felt like falling.
Then darkness.
Opening his eyes, Gilliam looked around. He felt cold and had the same headache as a solid night of mixing alcohol without any water. Trying to get up he had no strength to summon, moving his eyes and tilting his head slightly he saw that he was in what looked like a prison. A solid stone wall on one side, sturdy metal bars extending from the wall to a front-side iron bar wall with a door in it, the door had a closed-in lock. The room he was in was rectangular, with a door on one short side, the other short side had a tiny window that seemed to just be wide enough for air to get through and nothing else, though there was barely some light coming through it, it didn’t seem that you could even see outside through it. Along the long walls were multiple cells with enough room between the two rows to comfortably walk without being touched by any side.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Using a long moment, his arms and most of his remaining strength he forces himself into a sitting position. Once he was weakly sitting upright he got a slightly better view around the room. He was alone in his cell, it was large enough to lie down flat on the floor in each direction, quite square shaped and was missing everything besides a pile of hay to sleep on.
He first now realised that he was naked, not surprised it was the easiest way to make sure nothing was hidden. Looking around he saw that Rhyan and Cera had their cells, being in the same situation. Cera was still unconscious but Rhyan was walking around his cell, pulling on bars, shaking them, trying to bend them. Without his armour, Gilliam could see that Rhyan was just as extremely well built as he expected for someone carrying around a human’s weight in steel all day long.
“Oh, about time you woke up.” Rhyan commented sourly. “If we make it out of this, we’re going to have a long discussion about how you’re doing things if you want to keep me in your party.” He looked straight up angry. And Gilliam couldn’t blame him.
“Hey, no talking!” A man sitting under the air window shouted. The man was the perfect image of a highwayman, wearing simple leather armour and looking just as shady as one would expect.
“Fuck off.” Rhyan replied as he faced the guard. Gilliam could barely see Rhyan fake-scratching the black of his head but his fingers, rather than scratching, were grabbing something not there and tapping at the back of his head.
This had Gilliam instinctively reach for the back of his head and find that his ponytail was still there, and so was Savia. Though she seemed unconscious still, this was huge. But it would be best to wait until later to try doing something with this.
The man sitting at the table got up from his chair and placed the book he was reading in candlelight on the table and had a sadistic smile as he walked towards Rhyan’s cell.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll make sure to piss in your water every day. Sure you can avoid it for a while but eventually.”
Rhyan inhaled to reply but stopped himself. Gilliam knew how desperation for water could have you do horrible things, he had seen it in the Fractured Lands and it was not pretty. Never having had this problem himself, just thinking back on things he knew that he would most likely, in dehydrated desperation, easily drink the pisswater if it came to that... It was a surprisingly effective threat which would have Gilliam shut up as well.
Rhyan let out a dissatisfied sigh as he complied, to the guard’s amusement. “Yeah, fucking thought so.” He smiled victoriously as he walked back to his table and book.
They simply sat there in silence for quite some time, wondering what the next thing to happen would be. The next event to happen was Cera waking up in a drug-like haze. Her body was small and she easily got the same dose of whatever that was as the others did, her metabolism was probably nowhere near as good as the two others, which also explained why Rhyan was seemingly back to his proper self and Gilliam was still a bit sluggish.
“Wh...” She failed to support herself in getting up, somewhat similar to Gilliam when he first woke up.
Taking more time she finally managed to support herself enough to get into a seated position and looked around.
“M... ma... Master?” She seemed uncertain as she saw Gilliam across the hall from her.
Gilliam had a moment of hope, the bars were spaced apart but it seemed that they were too close for Cera’s lithe frame to get through, as she woke up he considered that being a possibility but it seemed whoever made these cells had planned for something like that.
“Shut up!” The guard shouted, which noticeably startled Cera to the point of letting out a surprised noise as she raised her arms in defence. Her past of abuse seemed to have her react defensively.
They sat like that in silence for a while, not having any idea how long it took but it was incredibly boring. For now, Gilliam waited for Savia to wake up, and though it took considerably longer than the others she eventually started squirming.
“M... ma-” Her tiny voice behind Gilliam’s head started talking. Gilliam wanted to hide this and instantly faked a cough. Luckily for him, he was still at the end of the side effects of the gas, so the cough started fake but turned real right away.
“Yes, yes. Sorry, we’ll be quiet.” Gilliam commented to the guard who looked at him with hate in his eyes. His goal of doing this was not to appease the guard, but hopefully have Savia realise that she needed to be quiet.
And luckily enough, it seemed that she realised it right away. Gilliam felt grateful for that.
Though Gilliam wanted to try and talk with Savia, having her teleport them out, since he couldn’t connect to anything magical he expected her to have the same problem. The crystal, or one like it, was probably still within range.
But he wanted to try having her teleport regardless, but in the case that failed it would have to be done in secret so they could consider a backup plan, which for now meant complying.
Time went by slowly, Gilliam passed time trying to do the same as Rhyan did, walking around trying to find a way out of the cell, failing that he ended up braiding a few strands of hay together, there was nothing to do, they weren’t allowed to talk and all in all, this was incredibly boring. As prisons tended to be.
Suddenly the door opened, startling them all, and in came the one person Gilliam didn’t want to see at the moment. Ibela.
He was tailed by another man in a robe, his face too covered to make out anything besides him being male, as well as the man in a suit from before.
“Well, look at you.” He smiled as he saw Gilliam.
He walked over and stopped in front of his cell, a gloating smile on his lips. “This is what you get for killing my clients and chasing me like the idiot you are.”
“I assume you let them know about this before you left your warehouse, then?” Gilliam asked to confirm. Given how prepared they were it went without saying but this was the first bit of intrigue for what he thought was several super boring hours, so he might as well milk it.
“Of course I did, what kind of fool do you take me for? I let them know as soon as I knew, I even had time to get some of my stuff out of that place before you came after me.” Seeming more and more satisfied with the situation, the gloating tone matched his expression.
“How did you know it was me?” Gilliam asked. He could have had someone report things happening, but there shouldn’t be any cameras in this world, so there was no proper way he should have known, right?
“First you were captured just because you entered uninvited. But you failed to kill them all, and the one of them that survived detailed you as the one who attacked them, so we got a double bonus.” Ibela happily explained.
“Ah, well...” Gilliam commented dissatisfied. Though this dissatisfaction could be interpreted as him not being happy to have missed killing one, in his mind it was more dissatisfaction that Et’amir shared too much. Though he hoped this was part of the ploy to still look loyal, he could have bullshitted at least a little...
“Now, if this comes out it will greatly disrupt my business, so we need to know how many you have told about all of this. Now, I don’t expect you to tell us willingly, meaning that we’re going to give you some... incentive.” Ibela smiled in a sadistic way as he stepped aside.
Inspecting the man in robes, Gilliam could barely see it stained with blood, he had a sheathed dagger which had a similarly stained handle.
He cursed internally for a brief moment, he didn’t enjoy pain, and having only briefly been somewhat tortured before, this was going to be horrible.
“When can you be ready?” Ibela asked his stained ally.
“I need a bit of time to get it proper, but I can come back and get him with some gas later. I’ll write what I learn.” His voice was a bit unstable, the same as someone trying to hide being extremely excited for something. This fucker was a fucked up sadist.
“Good, you go prepare-” Ibela replied to the torturer before turning back to Gilliam. “-you, on the other hand, can just wait here until he’s ready.” Ending his dumb joke with a chuckle he started leaving, the others following wordlessly.
Rhyan looked at them and met eyes with Gilliam for a second before he looked at the ceiling with a sigh.
“Well... Fuck.”