Ryku seemed adamant on making his pipe dream a reality. He had disappeared for a moment which led Dalric to assume he’d gotten the message, but he had simply left to go find a change of clothes. He ditched the prisoner rags he wore before and now donned a plain black robe. Dalric had been prepared to give him a second, sterner warning, but instead of pleading his case verbally Ryku made himself useful. He went to the opposite row of cells and broke them free.

Dalric had mostly done that side anyway, so he finished it fairly quickly. Once he was done with that he disappeared again before reemerging with food. There would have been no way to tell it was food if it was clearly labeled as such. It looked like mud, liquified mud. Without the label he would have first assumed it was water, being that it came out of what appeared to be a leather canteen, but as Ryku squeezed the contents out and into the mouth of a draken woman all Dalric could see was brown mud.

Once he was done with his side and every individual was free, he cast a quick spell.

~”The earth listens for I command it.”~

It was meant to be a quick spell at least. He’d let the fact that the earth here was compacted and reinforced with ahjer slip from his mind. If he put some more power behind the spell it could have still been quick, but there was no point using the incantation if he was going to do that. Thus, he waited patiently as the earth below each cell slowly pushed up and around their inhabitants. First it holstered them on a flat, soft surface, then it grew small silky blades of grass. Dalric realized, as the beds fully came into fruition, that he was doing a bit much. These weren’t the only slaves in the camp but he was moving like his job was done.

On the other hand though, he’d probably need these people. His ahjer wasn’t refilling at the rate it was supposed to, likely one of the effects of the overexposure to Thunderfield. If the actual leader of this operation hadn’t shown up yet and was waiting for their late, dramatic entrance, it could be a problem. Without ahjer and in his current body, Dalric wasn’t even a fraction of the man he should be.

If he could get these people up and active though, he wouldn’t need to be that man. All of them had very decent ahjer levels. Not as high as their captors, especially that fire one, but with thirty-six of them that wouldn’t matter.

Thirty-three minus the kids.

Ryku was on to one of the kids now. He showed a great deal of extra care and diligence in pouring the completely unappetizing ‘food’ into their mouth. Dalric could appreciate his efforts, but none of this would make him accept the man as his student. That would just never happen.

He did have a question he just had to ask though, “What in the world is in that?”

Ryku looked up, “In this? I don’t.. know, but it's similar to—ah. When you keep slaves, or prisoners, unconscious long term you feed them ‘tube’. Tube can be made with anything, but it's usually just a form of nutritious, watery gruel. I don’t know what this one is made with, but they’ve been feeding it to us for a while and I didn’t feel any negative effects.”

“Nutritious?”

Ryku nodded, “Yeah. It costs more to make it that way, but you use less of it per meal and it provides both food and drink at once so it balances out. Also means you don’t have to clean the bodies as much.”

“Well. I meant what does the word ‘nutritious’ mean, but from that I’m guessing it means something along the lines of ‘highly nourishing’?”

“Ah.” Ryku stuttered for a second, “Uh, hu. Yes. That’s—that’s what it means.”

Hmm. In the case of prisoners this is actually quite efficient. Though I doubt they’d bother to clean the bodies if they weren’t being sold.

Dalric took one of the canteens and inspected it, “How do you know all of that, being a Paragon?”

“Oh no, I was born in a city called Taki. It’s one of the major ports in Taiyo. You see a lot of slave traffic growing up.”

“I see.”

Seems the man's info was good. Hmm, I just committed to staying focused, but there’s no harm in confirming a few things.

“What language do they speak in Taiyo?”

Ryku settled the kid back down into the bed and began moving to the next cell, “Surunese. I’m fluent in both Surunese and Sailian by the way.”

So Surunese is still Surunese, but Hellgurian is now Sailian? Or is that just the local variety?

Dalric followed, “Have you ever been off this island, Ryku?”

“Twice. As a silver badge, I have rights to see the annual Herculean Events. Why do you ask?”

“You don’t need to know any other languages when you travel?”

Ryku grew more perplexed with each passing question, but he skillfully didn’t let the confusion on his face stop his hands from doing their job, “No? Most people who go to the event, even foreigners, speak Sailian.”

Oh?

“I was led to believe the Kingdom of Whitesails didn’t extend beyond this island?”

Realization dawned on Ryku, “Ohhh.” Then pure bewilderment, “Oh. Uh. Whitesails is just one kingdom in the Sailian Empire. There are several and they all speak Sailian. The Herculean Events take place in the Kingdom of Redsails for example.”

Ah. Well then.

“Are they all called ‘a color’-sails?”

Ryku forced a chuckle as he moved to the next cell, “No, only three. The Kingdoms of Redsails, Greensails, and Whitesails. I didn’t study much history so I don’t know why that is. Apologies.”

“No need. Speaking of history, which calendar do you use?”

“I… don’t know. I know the year is 804 PD to us, but I don’t know the calendar.”

804? What? Which calendar has only been running for eight hundred years? Kritilian maybe? That’s not used by humans though.

“Do you know what the PD stands for at least?”

“Not exactly, no. I do know it's a reference to some calamity that struck back then though. I can’t tell you if it was a global thing, but I know at least the Sailian Empire doesn’t have many documents that stretch beyond that.”

Global?

“You just said global. You know the world is a globe?”

Ryku blinked then stared at Dalric like he was asking to sleep with his wife, “..Yes.”

Dalric couldn't care less what face Ryku was making, this was shocking news to him, “Is that something you learned as a Paragon?”

That was the first question that got Ryku’s hands to stop, “What? No, anyone who’s received a proper education knows Frysta isn’t flat. ”

…

“I apologize for my tone, I doubt you know about the prejudice, but we do get properly educated in Taiyo.”

…

“Hello?”

…

Dalric was dumbstruck.

Why didn’t I just ask that from the beginning??

Okay. So it was definitely more than a couple of decades.

Once they were done feeding everyone, Dalric drilled Ryku about every single thing he knew about the world. Races, countries, animals, foods, tools, cultures, faiths, he asked everything. The long story short, some things were exactly the same as he remembered, but most things weren’t. The angels everyone was talking about, for example wasn’t the race he was thinking of. They were the children of humans and raeli. Raeli being an apparently feathered, vallinoid-ish variant of dragons.

Did that make much sense? No. You were either a descendant of the valinns or you weren’t. There wasn’t an ish about it. He put that to the side though, appearances could be faked after all.

He instead focused on the fact that centuries, if not millennia, had gone by while he was reborn. With that as the context, everything made sense. Well, not everything. How the Gods lost their grip on an entire empire and allowed some human to set the foundations to become one was still beyond him and time passing wasn’t a sufficient explanation for the excessive amount of ambient ahjer, but everything else made sense. Including why an average man could know the world was a globe.

Just how far has technology come?

That was a thought for another time.

While he was drilling Ryku, some people were waking up. He told them to continue resting, mostly because he was focused on getting his questions answered, but also partially to wait for everyone to wake up. He was still on guard for any potential surprises and the fact that in all that time no one even attempted to come down meant they were likely preparing up above ground. Neither Ryku nor him could guess what those preparations would look like so they waited to get everyone up to speed before pushing up together. It also gave Dalric time to continue building up his ahjer. It was still too slow to amass anything meaningful for combat, but he had enough to conjure very basic metal armor for everyone. Even if everyone down here was a capable fighter, their rags would get them killed in a heartbeat.

While they waited, Dalric was happily surprised by one of the people who woke up.

“You’re alive. It seems the Elders were kind to you.”

They tried to stand up, but they just fell on their side.

He walked over to them, flanked by Ryku, “I wouldn’t advise trying to move too much, you suffered some serious head damage.”

“You… yur..yra. Dead.”

“I can vaguely make out those words. They’re not the things I would say while desperately clinging for life, but I’ve heard you’re a prideful one.”

“Ki—kl...kil me.”

“In time. First.” Dalric placed his hand on their mask and ripped it off, “You’ll tel—whoa.”

Ryku gasped, “You’re Sunset White?!”