For five months Absconditus had his arms chained behind his back, forced to kneel in a cage far too small for him and not allowed to make a move for himself. He was only to eat some sort of odd sludge whenever a spoon was forced to his mouth. It seemed nasty, like a mix of dirt and various vegetables, and if anything was worse than dirt it was vegetables. Unfortunately, Absconditus wasn't even allowed to puke, for if he did he'd find his face right next to what he just upchucked.
It wasn't like his entire life was behind a cage though. It was only the second day that he was caged and Absconditus was already allowed outside. Unfortunately, it was accompanied with a leash around his neck and an elf that walked him the entire way.
The second Absconditus was let outside he tried to run. He dashed straight for the closest landmark he saw, a tree in the middle of the prairie, only to find his neck strangled by a leash of pure steel. This was followed by the elf electrocuting him with some sort of spell, shocking him to the point that he fell to his knees.
The elf simply stayed silent, continuing to shock the boy over and over again. Absconditus screamed, feeling every bone in his body cramp up and burn as if tortured in an inferno. The elf didn't seem to care, simply reading a book as if he wasn't actively torturing a young kid.
Durability increased +1 due to special action!
Absconditus would see this message pop up a few times while he was electrocuted, not realizing this was the objective of his torture. The elves wanted to train him, improve his stats as much as they could, in order to make him a powerful warrior. The next day the elf dragged Absconditus out for a run, resting on the back of a horse while dragging the boy along and hoping he kept up. The day after that he was made to carry heavy boulders and logs, being electrocuted if he ever decided to refuse. The day after that was back to constant electrocution.
Absconditus would be outside and training for a few hours each day before being caged once again. He'd be fed once a day, but after that he was completely left alone. It wasn't like he could do much though. The cages were left inside a Mana Depletion Zone, MDZ for sort, which was an area in which there was not a single drop of mana in the air. MDZs were known for having no color, with everything that stepped inside being a dull black and white, which made the place feel dark and depressive to Absconditus despite being in broad daylight. And no mana meant no spellcasting to help him escape, not like he knew any but it wasn't going to help.
So this is what his life was like for five months. Over the course of one month, he had given up on any hope that he could escape, and after five he was effectively a slave. No thoughts for himself or anything he enjoyed, only the will to do whatever was tasked of him.
While his situation was sad, to the elves he was completely splendid.
General Info Stats Name: Absconditus Sicarius STR 69 Age: 10years 56days SPE 69 HP: 80/80 DUR 69 Level: 2 INT 2 Exp: 1/4
His stats had grown to be greater than some experienced adventurers, being incredibly powerful at only level 2. Of course they actively neglected his intelligence stat, not wanting to risk him becoming smart enough to use his abilities to escape captivity, but for the most part his stats were amazing.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The elves discussed with each other, seeming to sound very excited. Absconditus didn't quite get it, but he hoped it meant they'd be just a bit more lenient with their training. That usually wasn't the case though, but a creeper could dream.
It was around this time though that a new elf would start to show herself in the facility. She was only ever seen wearing a dark black suit and some shades, like she was some dumb secret agent in a spy movie as something. She was tall for an elf but being tall for an elf was really just being an inch above average elf height, so she was still short compared to Absconditus. Her most striking feature was shoulder length white hair accentuated with a four-leafed clover accessory. All of the elves Absconditus had seen up to this point were blonde, so seeing an elf with white hair certainly left an impression.
She seemed to give the other elves some money, and the next thing he knew his cage was being dragged outside. Despite a nice face, at least in Absconditus's opinion, she was quite rough when it came to handling him, simply dragging his cage across the bumpy road without a single care of how much it bumped and jumped.
This was Absconditus's first time seeing civilization in months, and it was vastly different than he remembered. He had no idea of the elves different culture and hadn't been outside in five months, so he was simply in shock when it looked more like he was in a forest than a village. Elves were in touch with nature, so each house was either a tree house or bored into the trunk of a tree itself. Bridges and ziplines connected these houses, allowing elves to go anywhere they wanted without even touching the ground.
The house of the elf that bought him seemed to be bored into a tree, making walking inside a surreal experience for the creeper. It was like he actually travelled to the inside of a tree, even if it looked like a relatively normal house inside. There was a hatch on the floor of this house, which the elf opened and revealed to lead to a set of stairs. If being dragged along roads made Absconditus want to die, being dragged down these stairs made him want to no longer exist.
It took a few minutes, but at long last the torture was over. The room at the bottom of the stairs was mostly dark and empty, with a single desk and chair right in the middle. The desk held the only source of light in this room: a single candle that looked like it could take its last breath at any moment. Papers and pens littered the cover of the desk, written in a language Absconditus couldn't read. It was probably the same language the elves spoke, although he couldn't confirm.
His cage was placed right in front of the desk, and the elf sat in the chair right behind it.
"So," she said. "Can you understand Linguanium?"
Absconditus was shocked. He could actually understand her. "Yes," he said weakly, nodding his head.
"Good." The elf smiled. "Welcome to your first day as my slave."
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The 38th floor had a pitch-black floor. It was a lot like the previous floor, with the key dangling on a string in the middle of the room, and just like before Green Daemonium was naive enough to step on the floor.
The floor was incredibly superheated, hotter than the sun itself. If Green Daemonium wasn't half-mimic its body would've evaporated instantly. Its skin still bubbled up as if it were burning though, and Green Daemonium started to look a bit more like it should be known as Red Daemonium instead.
This floor just appeared to be a fiery repeat of the previous floor, and the solution appeared to be a repeat as well. The assassin was ready to leap right over the floor, only for Daemonium to stop him.
"Wait Bob," he said, a determined look in his eye. "For so long you have been the one carrying us throughout the tower, and I would like to return the favor at least once. So step back, relax a bit, and let me do the work here."
Daemonium stepped forward confidently, stepping on the black floor with his bare foot, and immediately wishing he did not exist.
It took an hour of the assassin's healing magic to remove the pain.
"That was just a trial run," Daemonium said confidently after screaming his lungs out for an hour or so. "Now I will actually get the key."
Sanguisa snickered. "How much will you bet he fails again?"
"Shut up! I got it this time!" Daemonium cracked his knuckles before putting his arm out. "Green Daemonium, on my hand now!"
The half-slime quickly obliged, diving headfirst into Daemonium's hand and practically splashing on contact. For a split second it looked like a pure liquid dripping out of the half demon's hand, before reforming itself into a sphere of green whatever slime is made of stuff.
Daemonium handled Green Daemonium like it was a whip, pulling back before cracking it and whipping it forward. Green Daemonium seemed to behave just like a whip as well, stretching out and sticking onto the key like one of those sticky hand things you might have played with as a kid. With a quick tug the string was snapped, and the key was brought right over to the now proud Daemonium.
"See that?" He put his hands on his hips and laughed. "Who said I wasn't going to be able to get it?"
"That's great." Sanguisa smiled, seemingly not disturbed in the slightest. "Now how are we getting to the door?"
Daemonium's expression immediately became that of disappointment.
"You know what?" He handed the key to the assassin, putting on a fake smile. "You can help with half of it."
And so the assassin carried them over to the door yet again, making sure none of them even grazed the ground. The group were now on their way to the 39th floor, ready to complete the next puzzle.
"Hey Bob." Daemonium tapped the assassin on his shoulder eagerly. "Continue the story."
"Continue what?"
"You know. You were at the part where you start beating up bad guys in... um... What was the city called again? Got ham? Whatever, just pick up from there."
"Bob" smiled from under his mask. It was true that he served as a protector for a time. Travelling by night, beating up criminals, he could have been considered a superhero. He did leave out the parts where he was serving as a slave, but she died in the end anyways. It probably wasn't important.