Time passed.

Alan tried to ration the food and water as much as he could but eventually it ran out. Trying to keep track of time based on his hunger was not a terribly accurate measure, but he estimated another day or two had passed. He paced his cell, wasting precious energy but feeling the need to move and stretch. He would talk out loud and listen to his thoughts. He would have imaginary conversations with his mother or father or Eric. He would hum to himself songs his mother sang to him in his childhood.

His toilet had overflowed and Alan had removed the rest of his clothes in order to contain the damage, but it was not enough.

Time passed.

Food came again, falling from the sky. Precious light, Precious food, Precious water. He was weak and spent most of his time lying down. Breathing. Sensing. He savored the light. The glimpse of guards. The sight of other people. He had named the various parts of his cell. One was his sleeping area, there was the toilet area, he had a dining corner, and the pool where the water collected. In this cell, three paces wide, three paces long, was his world and he tried to imagine himself happy.

Time passed.

A window popped up.

You Have Been Granted Skills "Night Vision" Level 1. Do you wish to accept?

He stared in shock for a moment at the sudden alert. A laugh built up in him. Slowly but surely his body began to shake until he couldn't hold it in and laughed out loud into the darkness. He couldn't stop. He didn't even know why he found it so funny. He laughed until his sides hurt. Until he couldn't stand any longer. Tears came from his eyes as he fell over laughing uncontrollably.

And then it was no longer funny. He declined the Skill and curled into a ball on the ground. What was the point? If all he could see was the filth of his tiny domain. He would rather live in darkness.

Time passed.

He estimated at least a week had gone by.

He kept a place inside of himself. Deep down. A place where he threw his anger and frustration. A place where he dreamed of vengeance. Someone had to pay. Whoever had set this chain of events in motion, whatever group had instigated the attack on his town and caused the deaths of his family. They would pay. If Alan ever got out of this pit he would dedicate his life to it.

It was his reason to keep living, and Alan grasped at it with his entire being.

Time passed.

He lay, breathing and sensing. Breath in, breath out. Why him? Was he even still alive? Had he died? He had started hallucinating recently. Seeing his mother. Seeing Orcs. Talking to the Orcs in some cases. He discovered the pleasure of squeezing his fingers, bending them until they almost broke, of hurting himself.

Meals came every now and then. Once he even woke up to find his cell cleaned. He had no recollection of it happening, and came to the conclusion they must have drugged him to clean the cell, but couldn't care less about that. His cell was for the moment free of the filth and shit that had been accumulating. That he had been living in. It was clean again, and that was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time.

He had taken to pulling up his Stat window more often.

Human Male, Age 14 MP (mana) 81/81 (*regen 0.463/second) Stats (Un-Allocated: 90) Strength: 1 Vitality: 1 Dexterity: 2 Intelligence: 3 Wisdom: 0 Luck: 51 Skills

Hide (passive) Level 4: *58/100 till next level

You become harder to locate. Hidden Items: *none*

*none* *none* *none* *none* *none*

He opened the window at least once a day to check his age. Every year on the day you were born, a person's unallocated Stats increase by ten Points until you were thirty-four years old. On his birthday he would have ten more Points to allocate. He would also know that roughly four months had passed since he had been thrown in here.

He tried to keep his health intact but it was getting harder and harder. Each meal helped less. He felt such weakness. A complete lack of energy. Sleep had stopped helping at all. It was time. He might as well start allocating his Points to Vitality. He had already wasted so much on Luck that he had wanted to save the Points he had left for something that might contribute to his future. But that was a dream from a time before.

He didn't hesitate.

He allocated 5 points to Vitality and felt a warmth and strength wash over him. Compared to the power of his Luck allocation it was nothing. In terms of the feeling itself, it was less cerebral in nature than Luck, less mystic, but more real. It felt like safety and strength rooted in the physical world. It brought images in his mind of the wide earth and stability. He cried as his aches disappeared briefly. He let himself enjoy it, he tried to take note of everything he was feeling, he didn't want it to end. The warmth faded and he barely noticed the drawback. It was nothing. He would savor his Vitality allocations.

Time passed.

Sometimes food came, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes different men came to ask questions about the night of the raid. Some gave him food, and in one case some sweets. Some gave him pain. For some reason, he never went into complete detail about the experience with his Luck allocation. The way he had been able to tug at reality. It was a small omission but it was a source of pride for him now. One thing he had to himself. One act of defiance that kept him from breaking completely.

He increased his Vitality whenever he felt despair threaten to overcome his mind. He always allocated 5 points, the brief warmth gave him something to live for, he worried about what he might do when his Points ran out.

The cell was cleaned rarely and he had gotten used to living in his own filth now. Scabs from cuts had gotten infected, but scratching them was also a source of pleasure. A source of being. Had he been in here weeks now? Months?

Time passed.

Breath in, breath out.

He spent much of his time focusing on breathing. It gave him a sense of existing. In the utter darkness. In filth and pain. He existed. He breathed. Breath in, breath out.

He imagined a kingdom, his cell was his domain. He had a mental picture of it. Of each crack, each bump in the smooth stone walls. He knew the way the north wall (he did not know if it was actually north, but he imagined it as such) rippled as you passed your hand over it. He knew the sharper corners of the east wall. He knew the way his dining corner had a groove for him to sit comfortably, and the way his bedroom had gentle almost imperceptible divots on the stone floor.

He imagined a clean water pouring in from above and filling up everything. Washing out the impurities. Washing out himself. Drowning and cleansing his small kingdom. The geometry of it. He sometimes hallucinated impossible shapes. Fantastic colors. A world overlaying his own, yet fitting in with each and every corner of his world. Sometimes he escaped his body a floated freely.

A window popped up.

You Have Been Granted Skills "Sense" Level 1 and "Endure" Level 1. Do you wish to accept?

He almost choked in his shock. Coughing weakly he just stared at the window. He played around with his Stat screen often for lack of anything else to do, but had almost given up on earning more Skills. Not to mention two at once. Something that was almost like hope started to appear in him. That was risky. It had appeared too quickly, just waiting for its chance. He quashed it and calmed himself. He ignored the screen and focused on breathing.

When he was ready he brought up the window again. There wasn't really anything for it, unlike Night Vision these sounded like they might be helpful in some way. And he knew that even if Night Vision had impossibly appeared before him again just now he would take it, if only for something new. He mentally accepted the Skills filling up 2 more of his precious Skill slots.

Human Male, Age 14 MP (mana) 81/81 (*regen 0.463/second) SP (stamina) 0/310 Stats (Un-Allocated: 60) Strength: 1 Vitality: 31 Dexterity: 2 Intelligence: 3 Wisdom: 0 Luck: 51 Skills

Hide (passive) Level 4: *58/100 till next level

You become harder to locate. Hidden Items: *none*

Endure (passive): Level 1. Multiplier: Vitality. *2/100 till next level.

You can endure more. You have gained SP (stamina points).

Sense (passive/active): Level 1. *0/100 till next level

You can sense the world around you.

*none* *none* *none*

Vague descriptions, but he couldn't expect anything else from a level 1 Skill.

He thought about it. Often related Skills appeared at the same time, the reason for it being a simple one. The way his books explained it was through a made up example. Say you have two Skills: Skill "A" and Skill "B". Skill "A" normally requires you to walk 20 miles to activate it, whereas Skill "B" requires you to run at full speed for exactly one hour to activate. By running at half speed for 15miles it is possible to activate both at once while not technically fulfilling the requirements of either. The thought was that somehow the similarities boosted compatible Skills and helped with activation requirements.

Often people would aim for dual Skill activations as a way to get around strict activation requirements. The potential downside was that you must accept both of the Skills or none, which would fill up two Skill slots in one go. Given the importance of Skill choices, most people liked to choose and attempt for Skills one at a time. Alan couldn't be picky given his situation, though he did wonder how Endure and Sense were related and what the exact requirements were for each. He had really hoped to get some more active Skills next that might help him escape, but oh well.

He had something new. He let himself indulge in a small smile.

Time passed.

He Sensed the world around him. The cave was his world. He Sensed the smooth surface of the walls. He Sensed the small and subtle shifts in the stale air. He sensed the latch closed tight against the outside world. He expanded beyond himself and focused on sensing, and existing, and breathing.

His birthday had passed a while back. He was fifteen now. He had been in this hole for at least four months. Only four months? Already four months? Time was a fluid thing in his domain. He was fifteen years old now.

He spent his waking hours practicing his new Skill Sense. Though it was a passive Skill by default, it took an active effort to expand it and raise its level. He knew his cell fairly well at this point which made his Sensing exercises easier. Endure was going up on its own just by living in his own filth and wasting away in the darkness. Thank the gods for small miracles.

Sense had opened up a new world for him. He didn't know how he had lived without it. Improving it gave him a purpose.

Endure steadily rose on its own, his harsh living conditions testing the Skill automatically. As its level rose he began feeling less hungry, less scared and overall just better. His festering wounds were even beginning to heal up. He was still a wreck and his body ravaged, but somehow he was a more bearable wreck.

He was devoted to raising his Skills and seeing where it took him. He had nothing else.

A long time passed.

He could Sense when food or questioners were coming now. He was very close to raising the Skill to level 5 and his awareness had recently begun to expand into areas he had never been before. It had taken time. Starting out had been a lot easier because he was so familiar with his immediate surroundings. Moving beyond his cell had taken a lot of time and effort but it had begun paying off.

He practiced it constantly, testing its boundaries. When he extended it outwards it depleted his MP and he was getting quite good at knowing exactly how much MP it would consume the further he tried to Sense. He was practicing it just now when he had suddenly noticed a change.

He sensed someone approaching.

He sensed the vibrations with each footstep taken towards his home. Sensed the heartbeat and breath of the man. And he didn't recognize who it was. He had memorized the food guards' presences, the questioners' gaits, Blake's solidity... Whoever was approaching was not one of his usual visitors. Not Blake. Not someone accompanied by guards. Something new was happening.

He waited as the presence stopped next to the latch. There was no light leaking through. The man had come in the dark?

The latch began to open.

Alan went to the corner crouching low.