Pushing himself up to his feet, Kaius grimaced as he stepped into a small puddle of frigid water that had dripped from the ceiling.
Shaking off the drips, he searched the room—quickly finding what he was looking for. Around the rim of the ceiling, just out of reach, there was a long line of glyphs—recessed deep into the rock so that he wouldn’t be able to disrupt them with his fingers.
He didn’t recognise the exact script, but he didn’t need to. He’d seen this exact formation before—an example of a standard resource lockout inscription that Father had shown him. Following the lines to the door, he found a second set of runes—these ones in the more familiar Ykkardian script.
Physical reinforcement—a complex and strong formation too. No doubt a protection against a physical attempt at escape. Thankfully, he saw no wards protecting against spatial movement. At least, none he could recognise. Whoever had built this never expected to hold powerful mages.
The final inscription he found was a basic alarm ward—one set to trip if the door was ever opened without a key.
Kaius grinned. It was a victory—without protections to stop him using a Slip Step to get out of his cell, he could get out whenever he wanted. He’d still need a key to free his friends, but that was nothing a few casts of Hateful Nail couldn’t solve.
Pressing himself up to the bars, he peered into the hall.
Wide and straight, the passage ended in another reinforced door a good forty strides to his left. All along the corridor, more barred gates were set—each a cell as austere in his own.
Leaning on their bond to pull him in the right direction, he spotted Porkchop across the hall, two doors down to his right. His brother had been stripped of his armour, and was sprawled out prone on the ground.
One door further away, Ianmus lay in much the same condition—dressed in a smock that was an identical copy of Kaius’s own.
Seeing his companions held so close eased his tension, his shoulders slumping. It had been his largest worry, that they’d be split up and he would have to hunt them down through whatever prison they were being held in.
Right as he sighed and started to back away from the bars, Kaius caught a flash of movement to his left.
Heart hammering at the sudden shock, he snapped his head to its source—and nearly jumped when he found someone staring at him.
A woman, in a cell of her own—though of a species he had never seen before.
Her eyes were a piercing blue, absent of all traces of black or white, and her features were angular and lean. Almost like she was an elf, though instead of their refined grace she was cutting and sharp. Her ears were the wrong shape too, and she was far too short—even halflings like Ianmus towered over Kaius, and while she would have been notably tall for a human woman, she was still a head shorter than him.
That, and he was fairly sure her pale skin was verging on purple, though that could have easily been due to the light.
Once the shock of her unfamiliar features faded, Kaius noticed that not all of her lean features were necessarily due to her blood. She was gaunt. Almost skeletal, and her red-brown hair hung in clumped, thin strips.
Whoever she was, she’d been here a while.
“What’s the matter, manling? Never seen an aen before?” she asked hoarsely, her words biting.
Ignoring the barb, Kaius tilted his head at her. “No,” he replied, before he pushed her out of his mind and returned his gaze to the hall—searching for more evidence of security inscriptions.
The woman went quiet, evidently not expecting such a sudden dismissal.
While he wouldn’t leave an innocent down here if he had the choice, right now his priority was on learning as much as he could. Searching the ceiling, he found no trace of further formations. Explorer’s Toolkit was silent too, but he wasn’t sure if an alarm was close enough to a trap for his skill to work.
They’d only get one shot at this. It should be a pretty good one—with their sudden growth in strength, he was confident against the guards of this place. Especially since he still had his hazy memories of the team that had captured them offering to work as guards. Without jailors of a similar strength, they’d have little chance of surviving a head to head confrontation—especially since so little of Porkchop’s strength relied on his items.
“My name’s Kenva, if you wanted to know.” the woman whispered softly, her voice trembling as she said her name.
Startled out of his thoughts, Kaius looked back to her. Seeing her fragile peace offering, he knew he couldn’t just ignore her. The weight of her time in the dungeon was too obvious—it would be cruel.
“Kaius,” he replied, voice softening to just above a whisper. “Where are we?”
Kenva shrugged. “Not sure, really. Some compound near Deadacre, I assume. They caught me when I was travelling there from Grandbrook. Drugged me before I could run. Next thing I know, I’m in this cell.”
“How long?”
“A month, maybe two.” she replied, staring hard at the wall next to her.
Kaius winced—no wonder she looked like shit. Then he processed what she had said.
“Wait, you travelled across the frontier alone? After everything?” Kaius asked, surprised.
He knew the woman was likely strong, just on the simple basis she was also being held by a group that had clearly pursued them for the same reason, but a feat like that was impressive.
“Of course—I am a Zhdan. If a little walk was out of my power, I would shame my clan-name and the legacy they have gifted me.” Kenva replied, scoffing as if she struggled to believe the thought.
Kaius cocked his brow at her. That was…boastful. With the threats that had arisen on the plains since the phase change, she would have needed some real strength to have managed.
Seeing his expression, Kenva looked to the side.
“What do they want?” he asked. He was almost certain that he knew the answer, but it was best to have it confirmed.
Kenva seemed to shrink into herself. “Same thing they probably want with you. My knowledge. Don’t seem to care that I have a blood oath.”
Kaius watched her closely—the way she flinched at the memories. Her fragile nerves.
He was right—Torture.
Nodding to her, he set his eyes on his team.
He was confident in Porkchop—he was tough as nails, and they had each other to lean on during the pain. Ianmus though…he would be a weak link. It would be a delicate balance between preparation and waiting too long.
Thank the gods they could use Porkchop to communicate quietly—it’d help.
“You woke up pretty quickly—you must be strong, right?” Kenva finally said, her desperation for a conversation partner outweighing her wariness.
Kaius shot her a quick look. “I think that until I’m sure that you’re not with our captors, that we should keep our conversation topics to something less personal,” he replied.
It was a lie, of course—the girl had every physical and emotional sign of long term imprisonment. He just wanted to wait for Porkchop to wake until they could talk.
“Oh. Sorry.” Kenva replied, shrinking in on herself as she scooted back into the corner of her cell.
Kaius sighed. “I wouldn’t mind talking—it's just best for both of our safeties that we act smart about it.”
That seemed to brighten the woman up.
“What did you want to know?” she asked.
“Well, for starters, how often do the guards check on us?”