Octavius groaned and blinked blearily into the utter darkness around him. His body and thoughts felt sluggish as he jerked his head from side to side, attempting to catch the slightest hint at his location. The thralls, he remembered, I was captured.

He tried to move his arms and was surprised to find that they were unbound. His surprise only grew when he lifted his hand to his face. Fingers felt along the line of his brow and his eyes, looking for whatever was blocking his vision. There was nothing. Blinking, he realized that his sight was not blocked at all.

His mind flashed back to all the times he had been forced to work in pure darkness. He reached for his belt and felt along its length. A grunt escaped him when he realized that everything had been taken while he was unconscious.

Holding a hand above his head to prevent slamming his head into a low ceiling, he stood. He found that he was only able to touch the ceiling when he extended his arms upward above his head when he stood to his full height. His current situation was rather obvious, if not the specifics of it.

The first step when finding oneself in an unknown location is to identify any threats in the surrounding area. Without his flashlight, identifying any threats would be much more difficult.

In that moment, the peculiarity of the human mind manifested itself in him. His thoughts turned away from his SERE training. Instead, they flashed back to an old English class many years before where he had read a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. He didn’t remember much of it, not even its name. What he did remember of it was that the main character was locked in a pitch-black cell that was much like his own at that very moment. When the main character tried to explore the cell, he nearly fell to his death in a pit that was in the middle of the room.

Octavius shook away the strangely unsettling memory but decided that a bit of extra caution wouldn’t be a bad idea. He ran his hands over his body, searching for anything that the thralls missed. The dwarvish leather armor was gone, along with his knife, spear, potions, and everything else. Even his compass was taken. All he had were the clothes on his back and the boots on his feet.

He supposed that he was lucky in that way. During his time within the Sanctuary, he’d seen their cobblers and didn’t trust a boot from them in the slightest. Having to get a new pair of boots would be more than a slight annoyance.

Without any tools or weapons to use, he held out his hands horizontally. His right hand pressed into a wall of cold stone. It was rough, but not in the way of a cave. Instead, it felt similar to what Octavius imaged that the walls of a mine shaft would feel like.

He inched his boots over the stone floor. His right hand was brushing against the wall, and his left was held out in front of him. With each step, he created a mental map of what he assumed was his cell. His boots scraped against the ground, and he listened for the sound that would identify a loose rock skipping across it. Even a rock would make a better weapon than his fists.

After what he estimated to be about seven feet, his left hand made contact with another wall of stone. Turning around the ninety-degree bend, he followed it for another seven feet. The wall turned around two more ninety-degree bends, and Octavius clenched his jaw in annoyance.

It had become clear to him that he was in a cube of stone. He hadn’t found a door as he walked along the walls, but there had to be a way in and, more importantly for him, out. Ruling out the walls, he was left with the ceiling or floor.

He repeated what he did with the walls, only with the ceiling instead. As he carefully paced the length of the stone cell over and over, he was disappointed. The floor and ceiling were perfectly even. It genuinely seemed as if someone had transported him into a seven by seven by seven hollow cube of stone.

Such a thing was possible with modern technology, but nothing the thralls had displayed hinted at them being technologically advanced. No, he thought, If I had to guess, I’d say it was a thrall with a class like wood shaper, only for stone. Stone Shaper? Rock Shaper?

He grunted; the possible names of the classes didn’t matter. What did matter was that he most definitely did not have the ability to move tones of stone out of the way with magic.

He returned to the only place within the cell that he had thought that he felt some slight difference. Standing still near one of the walls, he closed his eyes and expanded his senses. He felt his boots snug against his feet, his clothes rough against his skin, and, ever so slightly, a breeze.

His eyes snapped open. A draft has to come from somewhere, he reasoned and began to run his hands over the wall.

If he had been able to see or hear anything in the dark silence of the cell, he doubted he would’ve noticed the slight flow of air. Only the deprivation of his other senses allowed it.

His calloused fingers ran over every inch of the wall in front of him. They moved back and forth, searching for the slightest crack or gap. Just about at knee height, he found the source of the draft.

Three small, round holes were bored into the rock’s surface. He stuck his finger into one but was unable to reach its end. Damn, he cursed, That means the wall’s at least a good few inches thick.

If the wall was thin, there was a chance that he could break through it with his superhuman strength. Trying to burst through a multiple-inch-thick wall of solid stone, however, was definitely not within the range of his abilities.

He held his ear against one of the holes but heard nothing except the barely audible sound of the air. Any guard on the other side of the wall was dead silent, if there was one at all. The fact that no light shone from the holes made him doubt the presence of a guard.

Moving across the cell, he sat facing the three holes and closed his eyes. If he couldn’t escape at the moment, he would need to wait for an opportunity to present itself. At that moment, however, the best thing he could do at the moment was to create a legend, a false identity to trick the thralls.

Before doing anything else, he looked at the time remaining in the tutorial. Damn, he cursed within the safety of his mind, I've been unconscious for eighteen hours already.

With his advanced stats, he knew he could survive for much longer without food or water. But that didn’t mean that dehydration and hunger wouldn’t weaken him; they most definitely would.

If he couldn’t escape on his own, his best chance would be the Sanctuary. Now that Caster had more than forty will, his trust in their ability to deal with the thralls increased from practically impossible to mostly improbable. In his mind, that was a substantial improvement.

He needed his legend to be something that gave the Sanctuary as much time as possible to deal with the thralls while also keeping himself alive. That was hampered by the fact that he didn’t know why the thralls were keeping him alive. His best guess was that they wanted to know where he got the ring.

An identity slowly formed in his mind. He had only been associated with the Sanctuary for a few days, and he doubted that the thrall scouts were able to inform their superiors of his existence between when he stopped hiding from the Sanctuary and when his team wiped them out. Soon, he had created the basis for his legend.

He was Octavius, a human soldier who has been alone throughout the duration of the tutorial. He got his gear from another adventurer that he killed and looted. It was probably from a dungeon of some sort that the adventurer had raided. The ring had come from that adventurer as well.

When he had killed the adventurer, the man had threatened Octavius with his group’s strength. Octavius was able to learn that the man came from a small, highly skilled group of fighters that traveled together. Octavius had met the group twice after that, but never for long. Last he had heard of, the group was far to the east.

He nodded to himself. Such an identity would be good. It would hopefully turn the thralls’ attention away from the Sanctuary and toward this non-existent group of skilled warriors. It would also make him valuable due to the intel that he could provide on this group, be it their numbers or their methods.

Focusing again, he began to flush out the false identity. He created everything from the locations he’d visited to the make-up of the imaginary group of powerful fighters. If he needed to change something about the identity based on the thralls’ reactions to it, he would, but he knew that good preparation was the key to a false identity.

Bill led the dejected group back into the Sanctuary. They hadn’t found the escaped thrall. Caster desperately hoped that either the guards had recaptured the thrall or that Octavius had. The young mage wasn’t the best at understanding strategy, but it was obvious that the thrall’s escape could prove to be disastrous.

As the party reentered the Sanctuary, Caster watched all the activity with a sinking feeling. Teams of guards patrolled the border in full combat gear. Behind them, those who weren’t capable warriors were digging into the lush soil. Now that they didn’t fear constant assaults by beasts, they worked to connect the separate trenches that defended the most vulnerable parts of the Sanctuary.

“Shit,” Marcus cursed from Caster’s left, “It looks like they’re preparing for another Emergence.”

Caster nodded, a worried expression marring his thin features. “Come on,” he waved them ahead, “Let’s see if Octavius has anything for us to do. It doesn’t look like he ended up catching the thrall.”

The reminder snapped the compulsion’s tenuous effects on the members of the party. Their pace picked up significantly as they rushed past the busy people and toward the place where they knew they had the largest chance of finding their team’s leader.

The others moved at a quick walk, forcing Caster to jog to keep up. Although he wouldn’t give up magic for anything, he considered giving up on his min-maxing and putting some points into the physical stats.

The idle thoughts were driven from his mind when the northern guard captain’s clearing came into sight. The golden rays of the morning sun pierced the light cloud cover and illuminated the large clearing. Messengers and guards rushed in and out in a hurry. The scene reminded Caster of the preparations for the final battle with the Lord of Beasts the previous morning. Are the thralls attacking? He worried his lower lip.

The shorter, more powerful build of Marcus stepped in front of the group and led them through the various people loitering around the entrance. The various guards and messengers made way for the marine as he marched into the clearing.

As soon as he was inside, Caster scanned the faces of the group that surrounded the map of the Sanctuary. His brows furrowed in confusion; Octavius wasn’t there.

The Captain of the Guard looked up as the group approached. Caster watched a hopeful expression spread across the man’s face before disappearing as he studied the dejected party.

“You didn’t find it, did you?” he asked. His deep voice wasn’t blaming, but it held a bone-deep weariness that set Caster’s heart to beating.

“No, we didn’t,” Marcus answered in the hushed silence that followed the question, “Where’s the captain?”

Robert sighed deeply. “We don’t know,” he admitted, “He should be back by now, but no one has seen him since he left last night.”

Caster blinked, then blinked again. What? He wondered, The captain is missing?

The idea seemed to be ridiculous. Octavius was the highest level human by a long shot. The man was an honest to God spec. ops. guy; he was like a character from the video games Caster played before the tutorial. The mage had only known the older man for a few days, but the concept of anything happening to him seemed absurd.

As he looked at the rest of the party, he realized that he wasn’t the only one having similar thoughts. To them, Octavius was the leader of their party. Together, they had defeated the Lord of Beasts and a team of thralls that all had higher levels than them. He couldn’t have been defeated by anything.

“What?” Finn asked, and Caster glanced at his friend. The man’s already pale face seemed ashen. A flash of motion drew the mage’s eyes to Finn’s shaking hands.

They had all fought together. That kind of bond was the type of thing that Caster would have once dismissed as fanciful storytelling, but he most definitely believed in it now. Just the idea that the man who had risked his life to help Caster retrieve the stolen spellbook was missing sent an ice-cold dagger into his heart.

But no matter what he felt, he knew that Finn felt a thousand times more connected to their leader. Octavius had saved Finn from certain death. He had carried Finn’s burning body past the Lord of Beasts and to the safety behind their battle lines.

Caster was brought back to the conversation when Robert responded.

“I mean what I said,” Robert confirmed their fears, “He’s missing.”

The chorus of sharp inhales from the party was interrupted by Finn spinning around. Caster turned and caught the man’s arm as he tried to rush out of the tent.

“What are you doing?” the mage asked.

Finn ripped his hand from Caster’s grip. “I’m going after him,” he half-snarled, “He could’ve died saving my life, and if he needs help, I’m going. If none of you want to come, I’ll go myself!”

Caster blinked but then shook his head to clear his thoughts. His mind cast back to the stalwart figure of the ranger captain. He remembered the terror he had felt when the spellbook went missing and the gratitude that had flooded through him when Octavius returned it.

He didn’t even realize that the Caster from before the tutorial wouldn’t even have considered the notion. The idea of going on a dangerous mission to save someone else was absurd. He was a college student, not a hero.

But he was no longer that Caster, and looking into Finn’s blazing eyes, he nodded, “I’m in.”

Turning, he eyed the rest of the party. The first to respond were the marines. Marcus simply nodded sharply while Leo grinned, “Oorah.”

Jean nodded next, followed by Toby. The giant of a man looked nervous, but a cold rage burned in his eyes that almost made Caster want to take a step back. The ever silent Raj inclined his head with a hard look in his eyes.

They all turned to Bill, who rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ll come,” he said, “Someone’s got to keep you kids out of trouble.”

Finn’s infectious smile returned to his face, this time with a distinctly bloody edge.

“I hate to rain on your parade,” Robert said, “But we need you all here to defend the Sanctuary. We are expecting the thralls to attack any time now. Assuming Octavius is either dead or captured and the thrall made it to them, I don’t see why they wouldn’t”

Caster considered that, and the fight with the Lord of Beasts came back to him. His wind blades had barely scratched it, but the captain had taken it down almost single-handedly. He had a few good friends in the Sanctuary, and he knew that Octavius could protect them a thousand times better than he could.

Finn, on the other hand, didn’t even pause to think. “No.” he growled, “I bet I can survive in the woods just fine. If you won’t let me go, I’ll just leave the Sanctuary.”

Robert scowled as he realized how serious the young man was. Gritting his teeth, he capitulated. “Alright, you can go,” he ground out, “But you have to stay until tomorrow morning. If he still hasn’t returned by then, you can go with all the supplies and weapons you could possibly need.”

Finn sucked on his lower lip before nodding sharply and exiting the clearing without a word. The rest of the party followed him out in silence.

Octavius’s eyes widened when a dull glow began to radiate from the three ventilation holes. The light would have been largely unnoticeable if not for Octavius’s eyes being entirely accustomed to the darkness. The languid flow of air through the vents carried with it the sound of approaching voices.

He stood and fell into an offensive hand-to-hand stance. The second any approaching thralls opened the door, he would have to make a decision based on their numbers and levels. If he deemed escape possible, he would attack ferociously. In that scenario, there was a significant chance that his preparedness would allow him a slight advantage in the possible fight to come.