by Charles Dean
“A rurki for Brandon?” the guy leaning against the wall asked, not even lifting his head.
“And . . .” Lars paused for a moment, staring at the guards.
They’re only Stage 2 Qi-Gathering Cultivators like you. If you fought them, you could win.
Right, but it also means that the prisoners they are guarding likely aren’t that much stronger . . .
Unless they use Qi-limiting equipment in this prison, you’re right. It’s doubtful that the guards would be managing a prison filled with people they can’t control.
“And I was kind of hoping for a guided tour. My master had some questions about this prison,” he said, gulping as he used the word “master” again. He didn’t know if he was digging his hole deeper, if a Stage 2 or 3 Qi-Condensing Cultivator was going to bury him alive for using her name left and right, but he needed access.
“Your master?” Both guards stopped what they were doing, opened their eyes, and looked at him.
It was at this point, out of nervousness more than anything, that Lars decided to go ahead and spend his attribute points. He had 109 unspent points and 75 Power. If I can do enough damage fast enough . . . the Fortitude, the Resistance . . . He thought for a moment as he stared at the stats and then dumped 85 of the points into Power, boosting the most important number for his damage formula up from 75 to 160. He could now strike as forcefully as someone who had just reached Stage 4 of Qi gathering. With the remaining 24 points, he boosted Speed, raising it from 40 to 64. All the Power in the world wouldn’t mean anything if he were too slow to hit someone.
That should do it in case a fight breaks out . . . I hope. Lars finally replied, “My master, Hsein Ku, has asked me to inspect this prison for . . . potential resources.”
He didn't have to say anything else. The guards exchanged a glance and then nodded as if they understood exactly what he was saying.
“That won’t be a problem,” the guard who had been leaning against the wall said.
The other guard rose from behind the desk and walked to the door behind Lars. Lars sucked in a breath, preparing himself for a fight with the two men, but the guard reached behind him and turned a mechanism on the door, which made a click.
“Didn’t expect her to send someone again so soon,” the guard said.
Send someone again? he wondered, not letting go of that breath he was holding.
“Nuj will show you the way. You can give me that rurki too,” he added. “It’s not like that Ruri will know if he received it or not.”
“You usually take them?” Lars asked as he did what he was told, giving the rurki to the stiff-looking man.
“Nah, wall boy over there usually does. He likes scaring the suckers Ruri talks into helping Brandon more than I do,” he answered with a laugh. “But if you’re one of Hsein Ku’s, he ain’t scaring you. That woman is terrifying enough as is. Anyway, go ahead and follow Nuj.” With that, Nuj opened the door to the prison and began walking.
Great. So I’m using the name of a terrifying woman at a place she is sure to frequent or, at the very least, send someone. Lars felt his lips press together as he mentally began adding up the risks, debating whether or not he should be fleeing the town any time soon. Perhaps within the next hour.
Don’t come to me looking for confidence. I am with you. Maybe we should book this joint and bring that cold yet cute and collected mom with us. I’m sure that, for a formula or two, we might be able to get the family to part with one servant right? Matthew was just treating her like a servant anyway.
We might die, and your mind is still in the gutter? Lars griped. Ugh. Just . . . Just focus for a minute. I’ll find some way to make you happy later, but for now . . . He looked around as he walked through the door behind Nuj. Contrary to what he expected, it wasn’t a row of cells that awaited him but a winding staircase into the ground. Step after step, he found himself wondering how deep it went.
“They’re all connected,” Nuj explained as they continued on. His snake-like tail took over for his hand as it reached into his backpack and pulled out a torch and passed it around his body so he could grab it.
“They?” Lars asked.
“The jails. They’re all connected,” Nuj continued. “The tunnels here used to be part of a smuggler’s network that was built to ferry people in and out of the city without guards noticing during the slave rebellion a hundred and fifty years ago. Once we won, the king thought it would be funny to confiscate all the tunnels and use the little rats’ hard work against them. He found it funny, the idea that the last thing the escaped slaves did before they died would be to work for free at building another structure for him. The king is like that though.”
The same king after all those years? How the hell does he live that long? Lars wondered. The oldest warrior in his town had died at one hundred and seven years old, an age that was greater than most would ever dream of, for sure, but nowhere near one hundred and fifty. It also seemed like the king had ruled before that too. For all Lars could guess, his age might easily be over two hundred years old.
It’s a rotten thing. Man isn’t supposed to live forever. None of them are. None of them are ever supposed to come close to immortality. Cultivation’s an abomination that must be purged.
Woah, easy there, Lars thought, hoping to cool his master’s unexpected anger at what was just a simple bit of information.
Death should be a guarantee, not an obstacle mankind can bypass.
I’m not arguing with you.
“This is where Brandon’s cell is,” the guard said, pointing to his left as they reached what Lars could only assume was the third floor into the basement. “He’s pretty easy to spot, being the only cultivator with such a good bloodline dumb enough to get mixed up with the rock people and tossed in an icebox.”
“An icebox?” Lars asked, mentally noting the location of the cell.
“Every cell down here is an icebox. They sap the Qi out of anyone not wearing one of these,” the guard said, tapping a bracelet that was on his left arm. It wasn’t a particularly fancy bracelet, a single black band with a blue stone lining in the middle, but Lars had noticed that, the deeper they went into the prison, the brighter that blue lining glowed.
“So my powers . . . they won’t work down here . . .” Lars intuited.
“Powers? Oh, you mean your Qi. Yeah, your Qi is useless down here—a feature conveniently added by the slaves who built this area so that their collars would break once they came through here, preventing their masters from being able to summon them or force them to commit suicide or something else. Who knows?”
“Interesting . . .” Lars remarked. Even though he had been told that he should be weaker and that his Qi shouldn’t be flowing, he didn’t feel any different at all.
Again, since you don’t seem to fully grasp it, you’re not a cultivator. Your power doesn’t come through your missing bloodline: it comes through your contract with me. This suppression array is specifically designed to quell the Qi generated from purified bloodlines. Anyone under the Qi Condensation Stage that is standing here without one of those bracelets may as well just be a normal human.
I didn’t ask, Lars thought, defending himself, but he knew—and he knew she knew—that he was lying. He had been curious.
“And here . . .” The man then opened a door after they reached the bottom of the staircase, which Lars estimated to be about five stories below ground, to reveal a torch-lit room and a brutish-looking, flat-faced guard with ears and a tail that were clearly those of a horse. He was standing in front of a single giant cell. “Here is where the worst criminals in the entire dungeon are housed.”
“The worst?” Lars asked, needing to know before he did anything further.
“Yeah, the worst,” his guide said. “You see, every single man in here is a convicted serial killer, murderer, or rapist. We keep them away from the regular prisoners. No matter how badly the others have messed up, they don’t deserve to be locked up with these types .
. .”
Lars looked past the horse man into the giant cell behind him. It was filled with at least twenty-five people, all of them looking like they hadn’t cleaned up or showered in months. Their nails were visibly long and gross, their eyes were empty, their long hair obscured their faces or fell in loose patches across it, and their bodies were covered in bruises and scars.
“How did they get hurt?” Lars asked the horse man. The guard didn’t respond. He just stared at Lars as if he knew Lars was standing there but hadn’t heard a word that had been said.
“It’s okay, Ed,” Nuj said. “He’s a customer.”
“They fight to see who gets to eat a full meal.” The horse man laughed, and a wicked full-toothed grin spread across his face. “Those who don’t win, don’t eat. Those who don’t win fight better the next day, fiercer. It’s good entertainment.”
“And these are all the lowest of the low?” Lars pressed.
“They wouldn’t be in this cell with me watching them if they weren’t,” Ed said with a full-body chuckle.
“Well, normally, I’d say 100 gold coins a body, but given you’re Hsein Ku’s lackey, I’ll only charge you 250 gold coins,” Nuj said.
“What? Doesn’t Hsein Ku take care of these details?” Lars asked, hoping that he could escape having to pay a fee that was over a thousand times more than he had.
“What was it?” Nuj looked over at Ed. “What was it Hsein Ku said? That we’re cruel, heartless monsters . . . and that she wouldn’t ever endorse the way we treat our prisoners? That when she came back, she’d have us arrested?”
Ed’s teeth showed whiter in the dim light. “That was the gist of it. That we’re animals and that she should have rights to the bodies because . . . What was it she said?”
“That alchemy is more important than money, and we shouldn’t interfere with progress,” Nuj said with a laugh. “Ah, such a good day. Who would have thought she’d have put that tail between her legs and come back to us so quickly?”
May the gods damn that Hsein Ku, Lars thought, grimacing. If he had known using her name would only make things harder for him, he wouldn’t have used her name in the first place.
Nuj shrugged. “Well, it’s fine for me. You’ll either pay the price we say for the merchandise, or you’ll be the first person we toss in the rats’ nest that doesn’t belong, not that anyone will notice if there is an extra body there or not.”
It’s self-defense. They’re scum, and they are hideously ugly and horse-faced men instead of beautiful women you can lech on and call your bed slaves. That’s all three checkboxes for why you should kill them, right? So we can kill them, right? Not to mention, that horse face guy . . . He’s Stage 4. Imagine how many points he’ll give us when he dies!
Lars thought for a minute. “I need to inspect the merchandise first,” he said.
“You’re not going to try and get out of handing us over the gold we’re due, are you?” Nuj asked as he eyed Lars skeptically.
“I need to know if I’m paying you for just one body or if I’m buying all of them or just some of them,” Lars said. “And if you want repeat business, you’ll show me the merchandise with less attitude. I am not the one who offended you. I’m just here to do business.”
Nuj and Ed exchanged glances and then agreed. “Fine,” Ed said. “Don’t try anything though.” He tapped the bracelet on his left arm. “Remember that, right now, you’re just like them: weak and helpless.”
“I thought that fact would comfort you.” Lars walked forward until he was only a few feet from the cell bars. He looked at the people inside. “Why do you seem more nervous after saying it? Afraid?” he asked, baiting the man to be more careless with his words.
“Psh. Whatever.” Nuj acted like the taunt didn’t bother him, but Lars could tell it had gotten under his skin.
“That one.” Lars pointed randomly at one of the prisoners farther away from him. “Can you get him to come closer? I think he’s exactly what my master needs.”
“Hey! You!” Nuj walked past Lars, banging on the bars. “Get over here! Don’t make this difficult on—”
Nuj’s final words were cut off as they turned into a spurt of blood. The moment he gave Lars a clear shot, Lars took it, slashing out with his Knife Hand and instantly killing the unaware guard with a quick and precise strike to the back of the man’s skull.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Nuj. You have gained 27 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Ice Qi has increased by 16.
“NOO!!!” Ed yelled as he saw what happened, only spending a split second to yell before charging right at Lars as if he were part bull instead of horse.
One down, Lars thought as he turned around, dumping all of the newly gained points into Speed as he did to quickly raise the stat from 64 to 91. It still wasn’t enough to let him move as fast as the horse-faced Ed, but it was all he could do. He finished putting the stat points in, backed up, and tried to put distance between himself and the muscular giant coming at him.
As if he had done it a million times, he instinctively pushed Wind Qi out of his hands, creating a gust of wind aimed at Ed that gave himself a little extra momentum as he backed up.
“An elemental practitioner,” Ed growled after his right-handed swipe came up short and failed to grab Lars. “I guess I can’t go easy on you then.” He reached to his side and pulled out a large whip.
That’s good. Whips don’t have high damage modifiers. They just hurt like hell, move quickly, and have good reach. You can deal with pain.
How is a weapon that moves quick, has good reach, and hurts like hell something good to go against? Not to mention, he’s still Stage 4. One hit might kill me even if the damage modifier is garbage. Lars looked around for anything that he could use as a weapon and quickly noticed that Nuj’s corpse had a small sword strapped to it.
Ignore it. You won’t be able to draw it without getting yourself killed.
I know that, Lars snapped back. He knew the “ignore it” wasn’t just for the weapon; it was for his fear of the enemy’s weapon too. She was telling him to be brave and stop letting the fear get to him. If it had just been about the weapon he was looking at, she wouldn’t have had to say a thing. No one would be dumb enough to crouch down and expose their back to the enemy in the middle of a one-on-one fight.
Well, if he thinks I’m an elemental practitioner . . . Lars started spraying the floor with water.
“You think that’s going to work on me, you little tailless bastard?!” Ed shouted as he stomped the ground, a huge gust of wind pushing the water all around him and back toward Lars the moment he did. “You think you’re the only one who can use elements?! I’m a dual-element wind user too, you little bastard!”
Damnit, Lars cursed as his plan to cover the ground in water and then freeze it was crushed in a moment, the water splashing against his feet and then the wall behind him.
“Time to die, boy!” the man shouted, lashing out with his whip.
Using wind to help compensate for his lack of Speed, Lars rolled across the water and to the side, barely dodging the attack. If Ed hadn’t forecast where he was going to attack with such obvious, slow, and jerky motions, Lars would have been struck hard.
Instead, all that happened was the air cracked, and a thunderously loud sound reverberated through it, practically deafening Lars. It was as if the weapon had been modified to do extra damage to his eardrums instead of the rest of his body.
“What’s . . . cracking, boy?” Ed asked, his head rolling back in laughter, and then he snapped out the whip once more.
Lars fled backward, nearly slipping in the water he had created as he tried to make some space between him and the man’s weapon in the tiny box-like area they were stuck in. If they were outside, he could create distance—he could move, he could run, he could think. Here, he felt like a rat stuck in a cage as he scurried away, doing everything he could to be small against the weapon.
Luckily enough for Lars, he had
managed to just avoid the next snap. His back hit the cold concrete wall behind him, and the sound of the whip breaking the air popped into his ears once more, disorienting him.
It’s a sonic attack . . . He’s—
Yeah, he’s infusing the wind element into the whip to create a sonic attack meant to break your concentration and daze you. It’s perfect for someone who wants their opponent to feel fear before he kills them.
So, he . . . He’s been missing on purpose.
The man was angry, so it was only natural that he wanted to torture Lars. His weapon suggested he preferred to incapacitate or disorient opponents. He wasn’t about killing. He was about drawing out suffering.
This freaking bastard. Lars took in a deep breath and tried to stay calm as Ed snapped his whip at him. Lars started moving toward the right but then hesitated at the last second, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth as the loud crack to his left from the whip still missing him sounded out, booming into Lars’s practically bleeding ears once again.
Fine, if you want to play with your food, Lars angrily thought at him as he remembered the skill he had just learned: Flame of the Pill God.
Do fire from one hand, wind from the other. The fire will eat the wind. Trust me.
Lars did exactly as his master instructed and aimed the fire at the giant pools of water while channeling his Qi as quickly and intensely as he could. Just as his master had noted, the wind was consumed by the fire, and the fire went from being a small flame to a giant blast, hitting the pools of water and evaporating much of them on contact and filling the room with steam.
“You’re . . . You’re a three-element cultivator?!” Ed was the one that was shocked this time. “Dammit! No wonder Hsein Ku picked you.”
Ed started flinging his weapon more aggressively, and Lars knew the guard was no longer playing around, simply looking to torture him. Lars moved as fast as he could to the side again, aiming the flame cannon he was making out of his hands to give him a little extra burst. When the whip cracked and the sound boomed, it didn’t just hurt Lars’s ears; it also put out the flame that he had been making. By this time, though, half of Lars’s plan was done. The tightly enclosed space had been filling up nicely with thick steam. Lars channeled more water and sprayed it around the room before once more channeling the flame.