Chapter

Oubliette

Philander swore as Helsket heaved Mikel through the open door without warning. He jumped up from the concealed hiding spot with some vague idea of stopping Helsket. He flicked his wrist and a long, slim, purplish black sword shimmered into existence. He felt power surge through him in the old familiar rush of Essentia. He’d been young when he’d been assessed and if his family hadn’t been brutally impoverished and living on the outskirts of The Capital he might have become a mage of some regard. As it stood, however, he’d been born into extreme poverty; raised in extreme poverty and had ultimately mired out early and ended up being what the small-time thief gangs of The Continent called on for assistance with low stakes, low reward marks.

He’d been alright with this - it wasn’t comfortable or glamorous, but it had been his existence. He could eat, he could sleep and due to his reputation, he could afford to pick jobs that wouldn’t infringe on the already poor.

Before the Bonding he had maintained some small pride in the fact he never stole anything from anyone unless they could afford the loss. It was a thief's honor, but it was his.

Or rather, it had been his.

The Bonding had changed all that.

Achos, or rather the Bonded which had vanished after Metrike came on board, had found him in his moment of deepest weakness and had taken full advantage.

When Philander had taken on the last normal job of his career he had known in the back of his mind that things were set up a little too well - the circumstances a bit too convenient. Rule one on the streets - if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was.

And a score where he robbed the Duke of Farraway blind in a single night - escaping with untold riches? It had seemed too good - but at the same time, it hadn’t.

The scenario had its fair share of quirks and bumps in the road which had come up, as they do, but Philander had handled them as only an old pro might. The surveillance, the setup, cultivating contacts, and ultimately infiltration.

In the end, it had all been for naught.

He’d barely set foot inside the Duke’s palatial home before he’d been apprehended and thrown into the deepest, darkest hole of the dungeon the guards had assured him was an “oubliette.” He had no concept of what the word meant until they tossed him twenty feet, straight down into a cylindrical shell of a hole, with the only opening being the trap door in the ceiling. There were no chains - no straps - no collars. Some part of Philander had thought that odd, but he quickly learned the reason for the lack of typical jail accessories - there was no need for anything of the like within the hole where he was sure he was meant to die.

He’d hit the ground hard but hadn’t broken anything. At the time he’d half hoped his neck would have broken just from the shame of being caught - now, after being forcibly Bonded, his only wish for that time was that he had broken his neck.

Philander knew now there were worse fates than death.

The guards had let him rot for three days with no food and the only water coming in the form of a thin stream that poured down from above once a day. The first day he’d missed it entirely and had gone thirsty until the next when he’d been woken from a fitful, painful slumber by the tinkling of water hitting the damp, cobblestone floor.

He’d caught a sip, right at the end, but the few drops which had passed his tongue and slid down his throat had revitalized him enough to explore the extent of his confines. After only five scant minutes of searching, he’d concluded his initial assessment had been correct - this was a hole you were thrown in to be forgotten.

The trickle of water was the next thing he remembered noticing and he thanked whatever gods were listening that he’d been awake to drink. He suspected the waterings came at infrequent times, but had no way to tell what day, hour, or especially minute it was. The oubliette was subject to the same dull, green effulgent light no matter the hour. By the sour smell that wafted down from above he suspected the Duke burned some kind of low-tier magical torch to light the dungeon - whatever coming off of them as waste was nothing good.

And yet, he was subject to this all.

What felt like an eternity passed - the green-tinged darkness only broken up by the irregular waterings and even more irregular feedings. By the time he’d felt at least two weeks had passed, his clothes, tight mesh night work styles, had mostly rotted off of him and his skin had begun to follow the same pattern. Large patches were soggy and although he couldn’t see the color they’d turned, he suspected these patches to either be pale white and dead or black with necrotic rot.

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Despite his best efforts to tend to his other bodily needs as little as possible and in the same general area when feasible, he'd long since been covered in his own piss and shit. As far as he could tell there was no drain in the oubliette, and the only way the excrement was vacated came in the form of tiny bugs, grubs, and rats which swarmed out from the walls to feast on his waste. Looking back he didn’t know which was worse - the act of being covered by this thin mix of effluent, or the decided lack of concern he felt about his state of affairs after. The shame of being caught had been supplanted by depressed indifference with startling speed.

The beetles and grubs were of minimal concern as they weren’t aggressive. The rats were a different matter entirely. His first few (days? Weeks? He couldn’t tell) were filled with terror-stricken moments when he thought, or actually heard, the rats coming. If he wasn’t careful they would take a bite out of him as easily as they feasted on the body gruel pooling on the floor.

Achos had sent his man when Philander’s skin had just begun to slough off his body - when the rats had begun to keen in the background and when his mind was close to breaking. He wouldn’t let the rats eat him alive - he’d let himself die first.

His, to that point, silent jailor rattled the cage above Philander and brought him out of a pain-induced hallucination. The hallucination had been bad - but the reality he came back to was much worse.

“Thief - you’ve got a visitor. Dispense from the Duke himself. I don’t know what you did to earn such a benefit - most down here never see the light of day again.”

Confusion flashed in Philander’s mind as he tried to process the man’s words - but he ultimately failed. As the jailor stepped back a strong, blue light lit the chamber up from above and for the first time in so long Philander was able to see the condition his body was in.

He didn’t recognize his form.

Where, such a short time before, his muscles had been full and powerful, they were now emaciated and clung to his bones like thin gauze. His skin was pale, drawn and as he’d feared, grub white as if he’d never seen the sun. Worse yet were the growing black patches that had begun to cover him from the various wounds he’d sustained while in the pit. He would have vomited had he eaten in the past day.

He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a thin rasp which made him more miserable than he’d ever been.

What had he become?”

“Hello there!” A cheery voice called down. Philander looked up towards the light, his eyes burning from living in darkness for so long. He defied the pain for a moment - not to try to catch a glimpse of the man who’d called down, but to avoid looking at his body again. His fragile mind might not be able to handle the sight again.

“Are you still alive?” The voice wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cruel either. To Philander, it sounded as if a middle-aged bureaucrat were calling down to him. His voice had a dry quality only a certain strain of government officials or church clergy ever attained.

Philander opened his mouth, rasped, and coughed in pain as his vocal cords shivered against the abuse of simple use and then he rasped again.

Through the simmering pain lodged within his throat, he was able to make out a simple “Yes” which echoed up.

“Very good. I’m here on behalf of my master - a man who wishes to make use of your particular skills. He thought it was a shame you were caught and tossed in this…” The man hesitated as if taking in the grim conditions, “Place. One such as you shouldn’t ever be treated like this - don’t you agree?”

Philander didn’t know. He knew his career as a thief had always had a time limit - he wasn’t arrogant enough to imagine he'd evade the authorities forever, but most caught thieves were either tossed in jail for a pittance or at worst beaten when caught. This treatment had been out of the question up until it had happened to him.

Did he deserve better?

He rasped up something that sounded like “Help” but might as easily have been “Go to hel,” or a simple “Well, no.”

The man up top laughed, all the same, the blue fire bobbing with his laughter.

“Well, I can’t agree more,” He said, clearly not caring for what Philander had truly said, “How about this: You come and work for my master, do a few jobs for him, and then, after you’ve met your quota, you’ll be free. Does that sound fair?”

The blue light and verbal stimulus had done more to wake Philander’s mind than anything to that point. He was finally able to form coherent thoughts and opinions for what felt like a lifetime.

The offer, at face value, seemed good. Too good actually - and if Philander had learned anything to this point it was that if things were Too good to be true, they were probably too good.

But what could he do?

He glanced around the oubliette and grimaced as something shot along the base of the cell and he reeled back as he caught sight of beady red eyes in the dark, staring at him, hungry.

What could he do?

If he stayed down here he would die horribly. There was no question. The rats would see to that, and the grubs and beetles would remove any remnants he’d ever existed. To the world, Philander would be forgotten - having left no mark to justify his passing by.

If he went with the man, could he do much better?

He assumed that if he went, the “quota” the man spoke of would never truly be reached, and Philander would be forced to serve an unknown master for the rest of his life.

At the moment, even serving a cruel master seemed a kinder fate than what faced him in the dark.

And after all, if things got too bad, he could always run away. Contrary to recent experiences he was actually very good at running, hiding, and avoiding unwanted attention. This ‘master’ sounded like a royal pomp or over-inflated nobleman. Who was he to be able to catch Philander?

He made his choice and rasped his response.

The man, unable to piece the sentence together, called down, “What was that? Did you want out? This guard here, he’s a strong-looking fellow, but I don’t think he wants to lower you back down if you come up only to turn me down. He might just drop you - it looks like quite a fall.”

Philander’s guts jumped at the thought and he cleared his throat.

The pain was unreal but he pushed through. Now there was a chance of freedom available to him and he meant to take full advantage of it.

After a long moment of gathering himself, he yelled up, through the pain coursing through his body, a single word.

“Out.”

The grate above slid back and a rope with a loop at the bottom came down, then barely able to hold the rope, and only because of the loop around his middle, Philander was hoisted up to the shimmering blue light above.