Chapter 3870: Trophy Room (Part 1)

"You’re lucky we need you alive, or I’d kill you for waking me up in the middle of the night." The warden knelt down to heal the man as he convulsed on the floor. "For this, however, I’m picking you first instead of that bitch. You’re going second, love."

He jabbed his thumb at the woman who, earlier in the day had started a fight.

The warden lashed the man five more times for good measure, healed him, and walked out of the cell. Owl was in the middle of the corridor, staring at the identical metal doors that led to identical cells.

"Smart and brave." The warden nodded. "Very few have the guts to attempt to escape after seeing how I reward insubordination."

"This is no insubordination." Owl replied while studying the place as though he was considering buying it. "You never said anything about leaving our cell, hence I’m still following your orders."

The warden’s eyes went wide, and his jaw tensed in quick succession. Then, he conjured the whip and started to laugh.

"I like gutsy people like you, kid. I really do. I almost feel sorry for doing this!" He flicked his wrist, and the weapon cracked as it broke past the speed of sound.

"Don’t be." A mirror whip was in Owl’s hand. He moved faster than the warden, amputating the man’s hand and cauterizing the wound with a single lash. "I despise cruel people like you and enjoy giving you a taste of your own medicine."

The warden collapsed from the shock of the amputation and fell to the ground with a thud. When Aryk dared look outside the cell, he found Owl standing over the man, healing him just enough to keep him alive.

"Are you crazy?" Aryk said. "What do you think you are doing?"

"There is no rune sequence to open the cell from the inside without triggering the alarm arrays. It can be done only from the outside." Owl replied. "I waited for the warden to come alone so that I could get out and study the opening mechanism from both sides.

"Also, I’m creating a diversion." A flick of his hand and countless runes appeared on the stone of the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

The prison cells opened one after another, yet nobody came out.

"Why are you doing this?" Lilax poked her head out of the door frame. "This is madness."

"No, thinking that any of us is going to come out of here alive just because they play nice is madness." Owl spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "Remember what the warden said a minute ago. They are going to take us somewhere one by one, starting with the troublemakers.

"Think about it. Why go through the trouble of kidnapping people like us just to give us a warm shelter and such good food?"

Nobody answered, but if the prisoners were racking their brains half as much as Aryk, maybe there was hope for them.

"They are fattening us." Owl answered his own question. "They need us strong and healthy before they slaughter us. That’s not a cell. It’s a pigpen."

"Maybe they want to sell us as slaves and need us to look good." Lilax said, not believing her own words.

"Slaves to do what?" Owl shrugged. "We have no talent or skill. Most of the people here sure haven’t been chosen for their looks. Think about it. What do we have in common?"

"Gods, he is right." Aryk took a good look at his cellmates thanks to the light coming from the corridor, this time studying them beyond the threat they might pose to him. "Most of the men wouldn’t last a day in an arena, and nobody would buy most of the women, but they are the healthiest bunch of street rats I’ve ever seen."

"So what if you open our cell? There is no way out of here." Lilax pointed at the locked door at the end of the stone corridor.

"Not for long." Owl took his first step forward right when one of the wardens came looking for his missing colleague.

The man gaped at the open cells and the growing number of people emerging from them. He was so shocked that he conjured his lightning weapon without noticing the small boy until it was too late.

"Enough with those whips. They are crude and ineffective." Owl clenched his fist, and the warden’s neck crumpled under the pressure of an invisible hand.

The mystical weapon faded out, and the man collapsed to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The warden tried to scream, but with no control over his tongue and jaw, he almost drowned in his own drool.

"Shit!" Aryk ran after Owl as he disappeared into the next corridor.

"Stop!" Lilax yelled. "Where do you think you are going?"

She was too scared to run away, but she was getting more scared of staying there by the second. The prisoners were out, no guard would come for a few more minutes, and she was now alone.

"Why is this happening to me?" She bolted to the open door a few seconds after Aryk. "We could have charged to our deaths after enjoying more than two meals!"

Luckily for her, Aryk and Owl hadn’t gone far.

Lilax caught up to them with a few long strides while they were climbing the stairs out of the dungeon. The young boy advanced slowly, studying his surroundings as if he were looking for something.

Unluckily for Lilax, the guards came in a rush. The door at the top of the stairs flung open, and a bunch of men dressed like the other wardens walked down the stairs in a battle formation.

They held shields of earth in their left hands and bolts of lightning in their right, looking like gods of war of legends.

"No air and earth sealing arrays? Amateurish!" Owl waved his hand, and the wardens flew back into the door, tumbling on the carpeted floor.

Lilax hid around the corner, silently praying to the gods for mercy. Yet no battle noise or cry came from the open door. Everything was as silent as before. When she found the courage to climb the stairs and peek through the door, she found Aryk in a daze.

The youth’s mind refused to accept the reality in front of his eyes. Over a dozen burly men, all mages, lay on the floor without moving. Their necks were bent at unnatural angles, and their eyes were filled with fear and helplessness.

They couldn’t move or speak, and every breath they took was gurgling agony.

"What’s going on?" Lilax tugged at Aryk’s arm, and he jumped over a meter away, raising his fists in a clumsy guard stance. "It’s me, Lilax. Where’s Owl?"

"There." Aryk pointed at an open door, in front of which the young boy had been until a moment before.

"How did he open the lock?"

"I don’t know." Aryk gestured to follow him as he ran. "Someone gave me a heart attack, and I got distracted."

The next room was something the two youths had never seen, not even in their most opulent dreams. A thick, soft, hand-woven carpet from the Blood Desert covered the entire floor, over ten meters wide (33’) and fifteen (50’) across.

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