Octavius peered toward the pinpricks of light that stretched from the three minuscule holes in the wall before him. They were the only reprieve from the pure and utter darkness of his stone-walled cell. The sound of his steady breathing was loud in the enclosed space. He shifted his weight, and the reverberations of his boot scraping against the stone floor entered his ears.

Pausing his breathing, he listened carefully to the approaching thralls. The brightness of the light grew as he strained to hear what was being said.

“... get it, then?!” a strangely resonate voice demanded.

“I don’t know where it got it,” a softer voice replied, “But that is why we are here. Is it not?”

Octavius was barely able to pick up the sound of the owner of the first voice huffing. The light had grown from a group of barely noticeable specks to three rays of pale, even light that extended into his cell. It was still too dark for him to inspect his surroundings, so he focused on listening to his captors.

They had said something about finding an object on him, and they wanted to know where it came from. The ring, then, Octavius decided, That’s good. If they don’t know where it came from, that means that they haven’t found the thrall’s body.

“One of the house thralls must have turned traitor,” the first voice snarled, “How else would the human know the location of our base and have a house thrall’s ring?”

Octavius could practically hear the owner of the second voice nodding. “That would make sense,” it said, its voice now fully audible to the human prisoner, “But there are ways we can make the human speak. We will know who among us has abandoned the clan soon enough.”

The resonant voice spoke again with an angry voice. This guy really needs to have a drink, Octavius thought, amused. Though, that was more of a way to distract himself from his growing unease. People who were emotional tended to act irrationally. An irrational interrogator would increase any risk to him exponentially.

“I do not care who did it!” it practically shouted, “I need to know who else knows! If they know where our base is, they know where The Anchor is!”

The offended tone of the voice of the second thrall was loud and clear. “The Suppressor will prevent any of that!”

There was a moment of silence, then the sound of a loud crack reached Octavius’s ears. It sounded almost like two stones knocking against one another. Perhaps the exoskeletons of the thralls? He theorized.

“You fool! You may call yourself a Lord Artificer, but you are nothing but the personal thrall of one!” the first voice was quiet now, and the cold fury behind it was palpable, “You haven’t even been able to discover how to do anything to the Suppressor besides turning it on since we stole it!”

Octavius scrunched up his face in an entirely bewildered expression. I know the thralls aren’t exactly the most careful bunch, but this is ridiculous. Do they not realize I can hear them through the holes in the wall? He wondered, They probably think that my death is a foregone conclusion, but just handing me information like this? I have to assume they mean for me to hear it. Maybe it’s some sort of trap. Offensive counterintelligence doesn’t exactly fit with the skillset they’ve demonstrated, but these thralls are obviously more important than the mages.

“Clear the way,” the first voice ordered coldly.

The voice sounded to be only a dozen feet away at most. Considering that the sound was traveling through small holes in a stone wall, Octavius guessed that they were just on the other side of the wall. He readied himself and reviewed his legend one last time as a strange cracking sound echoed through the cell.

His anxiety began to grow as the cracking sound grew louder over a full minute. The wait for the cell to finally be opened was agonizing. Eventually, a single gap in the final layer of stone was created. The steady glow of one of the thralls’ lights illuminated the cell, and he flinched.

Blinking quickly, the spots faded from his eyes. He peered through the gap as another piece of stone fell away. Three thralls stood there. One wore a robe that was nearly identical to the wood shaper from the outpost that was near the Sanctuary. The other two were unique, and he quickly used identify on all three.

Psiz - Thrall (F) (Lvl 31) (Mage*)

Xcez - Thrall (F) (Lvl 26) (Stone Shaper)

Kzedr - Thrall (F) (Lvl 39) (Rogue*)

Psiz and Kzedr were both on the leaderboard at the end of the Emergence, he remembered, and the thrall that I captured said that Psiz was the fourth in command of the thralls.

He studied the group. Xcez, the stone shaper, was the one that wore the robe. Psiz, on the other hand, wore the strangest clothes that Octavius had ever seen. The thrall was short and thin, even compared to the others of its kind. It was wearing a robe woven from some sort of metallic thread. Glowing orbs of light covered the robe, and its metallic luster sent reflections of the lights in every direction. Octavius didn’t see a single weapon on the thrall.

Behind Psiz was Kzedr, who was a full eight levels ahead of Psiz. If it is so much stronger than Psiz, it must be rather close to the top of their hierarchy.

Kzedr was, without a doubt, the largest thrall that Octavius had ever seen. It stood at a full six feet tall and was as broad as Octavius. It wore a cuirass of a substance that he’d never seen before. The hilts of two blades were visible on its belt, and Octavius’s own Soulsilver spear was held in its hand.

The rogue stepped past the two other thralls as the final bit of the wall crumbled to the ground. Octavius frowned and stepped out of his offensive stance. He could probably have gotten past the mages if he was lucky. However, getting past a fully armed and armored thrall that was nearly double his level? That was far from likely.

Instead, he looked impassively at the thrall as it ran its large black eyes over him.

“Why did you come here?” it demanded.

Octavius was definitely not expecting that to be its first question but rolled with the surprise. “Why should I tell you?” he asked, “You’ll just kill me as soon as you get all the information you want from me.”

A deep rumbling sound grew in volume until it was echoing off the stone wall of the cell. It took him a long moment to realize that the thrall was laughing.

“No, no, no,” Kzedr said with a sickly grin, “We won’t kill you. That would be such a waste.”

Octavius blinked; he wasn’t expecting that. “Why not?” he demanded, “How do I know that you’re not lying?”

“Because,” it drew out the word for a few long seconds, “You are strong. You will make such a good thrall.”

His mind raced at that. ‘Make such a good thrall’ What does that mean?! Can they turn humans into thralls? His heartbeat sped up at the thought, Or does it not mean thrall as the species. Maybe it just means that I’d make a good slave.

“Now!” it suddenly snapped, “Answer the question, or you won’t like what comes next.”

Octavius felt himself settle into the legend he had created. He was a selfish bastard who would sell out his own mother for a few bucks.

“I thought that you guys might have something valuable for me to steal,” he gritted out, “I mean, you have those fancy rings.”

The thrall nodded, clearly understanding the concept of greed. “But then how did you know where to come?” it asked.

Octavius clenched his jaw as if he didn’t want to speak, but did. “I got it from The Brotherhood,” he said, “They were planning to raid your base, and I spied on them to learn where it was. Figured that if I snuck in first, I could get all the good loot.”

Now the thrall looked slightly confused. “This Brotherhood is going to assault this compound?” it asked, “Why haven’t we heard of them? Any group with the strength to attack us is spied on every second of every day.”

He had to fight back a grin. The thrall was falling straight into his trap. “They are,” he nodded hurriedly, “You probably haven’t heard of them because they killed or captured all of the thralls that they came across. One of them has a perception stat at seventy; he can see straight through the illusion rings.”

Kzedr actually growled at that, “When will they attack?”

Octavius paused and glazed around the cell wildly for a moment. Not long enough to be obvious, but long enough that the high-level thrall caught it. “It’s…” he hesitated, “in three weeks! They’re attacking in three weeks.”

Kzedr turned to the stone shaper and made some hand signal that Octavius didn’t understand. Or at least he didn’t until a spike of stone stabbed up from the ground and into his right calf. His eyes widened as he inhaled sharply before clamping down on the scream of agony that threatened to escape him.

Looking down, he saw a spike made of stone entering the inner side of his calf and extending an inch out the other side. It ran right through the muscle and likely clipped the tendon there as well.

He already knew that he wasn’t going to get out of the interrogation unharmed. If he gave up information too easily, they wouldn’t trust it. No, he had to make some of the information a lie and give them a false baseline to judge the rest of what he said. Still, he’d been hoping that they wouldn’t give him such a debilitating injury right off the bat.

“You dare lie to your future lord?” Kzedr snarled, “What? You thought that they could help free you? Foolish human, you couldn’t possibly defeat us. NOW! WHEN IS THE ATTACK?!”

Octavius ground his teeth together and forced himself to answer. His health was still largely intact, and he was at barely any risk of dying from the injury. “Two weeks,” he forced his voice to come out in a strangled sob, “The attack’s in two weeks.”

The thrall nodded in satisfaction. “Ok, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” it asked with an inhuman smile, “Now on to what I most want to know. And I implore you, lie again, it’s been so boring here in the Landing for the past two months. Where did you get the Soulsilver?”

The wounded soldier blinked. That was not what he had been expecting at all. “I stole it from The Brotherhood,” he said.

“Yes, but where did they get it?” Kzedr demanded.

“I don’t—” he paused when the thrall started the same gesture that had recently put a spike of stone through one of his legs, “They said they found it in a dungeon! I swear that’s all I know.”

The thrall frowned, “Where is this dungeon?”

Octavius thought for a moment but decided that now that the dungeon disappeared, the truth would be the best choice. The fact that he’d killed a few thralls in the area would make it more believable, and it might shift their resources away from the Sanctuary.

“I don’t know. Really!” he almost pleaded, “All I know is that it is in the mountains to the east!”

Kzedr grunted. “Very well. We’ll be back later with more questions,” it sneered, “And I’d give up on your little Brotherhood freeing you. They couldn’t get within three miles of the Landing while visible. And if they get too close to the Landing with a house thrall’s ring active, we’ll know. Just like we did with you.”

With that, the thrall rogue spun and marched from the room. Psiz turned to follow, leaving only the stone mage behind to close the entrance once. Octavius forced himself to step forward; this was his best chance at escape. Only, as soon as he put weight on his injured leg, he stumbled. In the three seconds that it took him to cross the cell, a thin layer of stone already blocked out his vision of the thrall.

He slammed a fist against the still thin layer of stone. The blow reverberated down his arm, and his shoulders slumped. He’d break every bone in his hand before he got through even an inch of solid stone.

Turning, he slid to the ground so that it supported his back. He needed to treat his wound before anything else. Checking his status, he was still above three-quarters health, even as his blood formed a puddle on the stone floor. The injured status effect told him nothing new, so he began to prod the leg in the darkness.

Flinching with each touch, he was able to discover the general damage done to him. It was painful and carried with it the risk of infection. Wait, he thought, can I still get an infection with my constitution and vitality being so high? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone above level six or seven get sick, but maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention to it.

The wound was the type that would leave a normal person a cripple for the rest of their lives. With his advanced stats, he guessed that it would heal within a week. Still, it wouldn’t even be an issue if he had a health potion.

Grubbling, he tore a sleeve off the black shirt he wore. And I just got this, too, he internally complained as he tied it tightly around the wound.

He considered packing the wound but decided against it. The sleeve of his shirt was far from sterile, and the bleeding was already beginning to slow. A grunt escaped him as he tied his makeshift bandage in place.

Leaning his head back against the wall, he considered what he had learned. It was clear that he had learned far more from the thralls than they had learned from him. At first, he thought that the thralls were feeding him false information, much like he was with them. After the interrogation, however, it seemed as though the thralls just didn’t care what he knew. They were extremely overconfident about his chances of escape.

The thralls had stolen something called the Suppressor; Octavius guessed that it was what radiated the compulsion across the tutorial. Even if I don’t know where it is or what it looks like, at least I know that it exists.

The thrall had also mentioned something about an anchor. It also called their base ‘The Landing,’ he noted, what does that mean, though? Anchor and landing are both nautical terms, but this is definitely underground. Maybe they are referring to how they entered the tutorial?

He didn’t know, but hopefully, the thralls would let more information slip during their next interrogation. Perhaps the most important thing that they mentioned was that they could turn humans into thralls. Maybe that is their plan for the stronger humans?

Octavius frowned. There was still far too much that he didn’t know in regards to their motives. Why were they in the tutorial? What did they want? What even were they?

Just more information to try to trick Kzedr to reveal during his next visit, Octavius decided. In the meantime, he needed to start planning his escape.

The best time would be when they were leaving his cell. With the two more powerful thralls’ backs turned, his chances of escape increased dramatically. Now, however, he was injured; his running speed would be slowed significantly for days.

If he couldn’t run, he needed an alternative option. Stealth was the obvious choice, but the thrall had revealed that he couldn’t use an illusion ring near their base. That left traditional stealth, but he didn’t even know what the rest of the base looked like, much less the way to the exit.

First thing’s first, he thought, how do I get through the door.

His mind traveled back to the spellbook that he’d read the previous day. It implied that one could use their intent to get the same effects of a spell. ‘Weaving their mana,’ it had said. While others might not be able to do so, he likely could. After all, he had a mana manipulation skill.

Closing his eyes, he grabbed a strand of his mana and brought it down his arm. He placed his hand on the stone floor and concentrated. The thread of mana wrapped around a tiny section of rock.

Better to start small, he guessed.

He wrapped the mana around the cubic centimeter of stone over and over until it disappeared beneath the energy in his mind’s eye. Once it was as covered in mana as he could make it, he willed it to crack.

Nothing happened.

He poured all of his focus into making it do anything. For half an hour, he tried every single thing that he could think of to affect the stone. From willing his mana to grab to stone to weaving it in patterns like a sting, nothing even showed a hint of working.

Eventually, he laid his head back. He was completely and totally exhausted. The mental strain of the past half hour, on top of his wounded leg, forced him to take a break.

I guess that the spellbook wasn’t kidding about needing to understand how magic interacts with the world. I definitely don’t understand rocks enough for this, he guessed, If I don’t understand rocks enough to use magic on them, what else can I use? Air? Definitely not. There’s nothing else here. Maybe fire?

He peered into the darkness around him, and his mind flashed back to the apparitions he had fought in the dungeon. What about shadows?