Once I’d eased myself down against the far wall, the dwarf girl shuffled to just within arm’s reach and started fidgeting. It was obviously up to me to lead things off, but I didn’t want to start too strong. I knew what I needed to ask, but I wasn’t certain how best to frame the first question. It didn’t take long to think it through, but it was just long enough for a subtle splash to announce that Ghoumi had taken off what little clothing she had.

“Why did you take that off?” I demanded, taken aback. The girl flinched. Badly.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered, desperately scrabbling at her feet trying to collect the now thoroughly sodden mass.

“If you’re more comfortable like that,” I shrugged. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been an attempt at seduction, but who knew what kind of paraphilias long term imprisonment could induce in a person. I didn’t particularly care to imagine. It was hard to tell in dim silhouette, but it seemed like the girl put her clothes back on after that, which let me take another moment to try and reframe some of my questions. If things were really so messed up that the first thing she did was strip, then I wanted to avoid learning anything about it. Those were the sorts of memories and thoughts that would stick in my head and pop up at the worst and most unwelcome of times, and I had too many of those already.

“Sometimes there are ladies that come and,” she said out of the silence between us, “they like to hurt me. Because I look like this. I thought you...” She trailed off, the accusation left hanging in the air. She didn’t stutter this time, but her voice was pretty unsteady and she stayed standing just at the edge of my reach. Not so much shy as scared, then. Understandable, but volunteering that was unnecessary and kinda ridiculous — especially the assumption she’d made.

I just had to laugh.

“Would I be in here if I was a lady? No.” It was a bit rude to laugh at her, so I settled myself down. “That aside, here’s my first question. How long have you been here?” Setting a time frame was pretty foundational, because the longer a criminal enterprise went on, the more entrenched and difficult to uproot it would become.

“I don’t know,” she said immediately. It seemed reactionary and defensive, that denial. I was already pretty annoyed at not being able to use her facial expressions to gauge the conversation’s flow and we’d hardly even begun. The dim and distant light rendered everything on this side of the chamber in shadow, but in spite of that I thought I detected something in her tone that might indicate she had more to say, so I just waited.

“Months. Years maybe. I can’t tell.” It was nice to have my patience rewarded.

But, that minor success was enough to give me a little perspective. I was letting my irritation get the better of me and it was showing in the results. It was self-defeating to treat this like an interrogation, so it would be better to shift the tone towards gruff but capable and caring. Besides, Mia would be mad if I wrung this dwarf girl out like a rag for what I needed to know. Couldn’t have that.

“It’s the fourth of bluemoon, 6692, if that helps any.” Marking time in eight-day segments named for the different moons had taken a little adjustment, but it wasn’t too bad. At least it was obvious, so long as the night sky was visible.

“Oh. Um, I think it was the pale of,” she paused for a long time. “The pale of 89, maybe? I’m sorry, it’s all a little fuzzy. We’d just come here from our village together to register at the guild.” That made it not quite three years, since we were in the full of the year still. Two and a half, really. Not as long as I’d thought, but it probably felt a lot longer stuck here in the dark, only taken out to suffer abuse.

“We helped with the harvest before we made the trip,” she said in a voice that seemed very far away. We, huh? If she’d come with someone else then that might prove relevant since she’d claimed to have been down in the pit the longest.

“You said ‘we,’ was there someone else? Were there any others who were here before you and, if so, do you know what happened to them?”

“Saella,” she said, quietly and in a choked voice. Sounded like an elven name. Probably didn’t mean for me to hear, but whatever. “I don’t know,” she said again in a stronger voice, “but my friend Saella and I were the only ones when they threw us down here. She,” the girl took a long breath. Oh no. I could feel a sob story coming. “Saella’s parents wouldn’t stop looking for her, so they took her out to the woods and made it look like goblins killed her.” Oh, well. She kept that nice and short. Sob stories were just awful to deal with, so I was pleased at what a good job she’d done sparing me.

The answer itself deserved a little thought, though. Did Ghoumi actually know that as unequivocally true somehow, or had the guards just fed her a story. I was kinda hoping this was all some bit of relatively recent degenerate nonsense perpetrated by the local nobility, and not a greater flesh trading black market that spanned the country or, even worse, went fully international. I really didn’t want to deal with that at all. Well, I could suss out better answers from the local aristocrats later if I needed to, but I thought that perhaps Ghoumi herself would actually know.

Now, the real question was: would this girl respond better to a crying shoulder or being kept on task? Hm.

“Was she the only one you lost?” I asked in a soft voice. I’d decided to mix the approaches. Worse came to worst I could probably bribe her with an offer to resurrect her friend. Our idiot patron was good for stuff like that, at least.

“No. Kyninu never came back, either. They didn’t say why.” Sounded like one of those beast person therianthrope names. What were they called here? Mirol? Whatever. I hadn’t seen any of their kind among the captives, so perhaps none of these slavers had a taste for fluffy girls? Absolute degenerates. In any event, two missing in three years didn’t sound like part of any trade, as such.

“Are all the gi—” I remembered there was actually a boy among them and caught myself. “Is everyone here an adventurer? If so, did they come from elsewhere to sign up?”

“Edda Cline was just an orphan, Smurgha was a runaway, and we don’t know about Vuelln because he had his voice cut and he’s too young to sign up with the guild. But most of us were exactly as you say, yes.” I reevaluated Ghoumi as she stood there picking at the hem of the tattered bag she was using as clothing. She was surprisingly cogent, all things considered. Now that I’d heard her speaking it was clear that she took the whole representative role seriously, and that I must have given her a real scare at the start.

I fell back into silence as I considered what her answers meant. It sounded like this whole thing was just to satisfy the interests of a few wealthy and powerful persons and they went after targets of opportunity. There were lots of other questions I could ask, but there was simply no chance that I was going to remember a list of the guilty’s names, even if Ghoumi were able to produce such a thing. In fact I’d already forgotten the lord guy’s name. K-something? Whatever. Wouldn’t be hard to figure out later. I chewed on a knuckle as I thought about what I’d need to tell Mia.

“M-Mea?” She said with a sniff and shuffled a little closer to me. It took a moment for that to filter through, since I wasn’t completely used to that name yet and I’d been pretty far lost in my own head. “Can... can you really get us out of here?” I could make out the faint glimmer of her big eyes staring up at me in the dark.

Cute! Ahh, so cute! She was precious. I had to immediately hide my face in my hands because, no matter how dark it was, there was no way I could risk anyone seeing the stupid look I could feel myself wearing. I couldn’t help it, I just loved cute things like Ghoumi! Well, that absolutely settled it. She was my little Ghoumi from now on, and someone was going pay for hurting her. Probably a whole lot of someones, and the more the better. I loved having a righteous cause when going on a rampage. Made it taste all the sweeter!

“Absolutely, Ghoumi!” I said, keeping one hand over my stupid grin. “Without a doubt, you’ll soon be free. I’ll get you out, just leave it to me.” Oh that was bad, I’d started rhyming. I took a breath to reel it back in.

“I’m still working on exactly which of my options is best on that front,” I explained, “but don’t you worry about that at all. Only reason I let us be captured in the first place was because Mia thought it was wrong to just leave things alone.” I carefully reached over and slowly patted her on the head, just as gently as I could, and noticed she was trembling terribly. Was she still scared? Ahh, how cute!

“Thank you, Ghoumi. You know, I’m really impressed at how strong you are after being down here so long.” I let that sink in a moment before continuing. “Listen, these people who did this you? They’ll get what they’ve earned, I promise.” It was an easy thing to promise, both because it was something I’d enjoy delivering, and because everyone got what they deserved, one way or another. That was something my long life had taught me, that no one ever escaped or really got away with anything. Not over the long term. That’s why Mia was so important, because I’d become tired of the consequences of my own actions coming back to me.

I laid it on a little thick, though, and I knew it. I just figured she could use a little positive reinforcement. Well, really I just preferred happy-cute to sad-cute, so it was in my best interest to make her as happy as possible. I heard a few sniffs in the dark, which made me want to just squeal a little, but I didn’t. That would be undignified for both of us. Instead I stood slowly to avoid frightening her, since she seemed to be in a delicate state, but still she shied away from me. All that did was make me want to scoop her up and pet her mercilessly. My love of cuteness warred with considerations of decorum until I decided on the middle road.

“We should head back.”

“Yeah,” she said, voice thick.

“If you’re tired, I could lend you my help,” I said, offering my hands to her. I urged her silently to take them, but the precious girl seemed even more scared.

“Huh? Oh no, I couldn’t do that! I’m fine,” she said with a clearly panicked edge to her voice as she backed away.

“I insist,” I said, giving up on carrying her in my arms and kneeling down to offer my back instead. I wanted to pick her up, but I wouldn’t be able to bear it if she started hating me. “You should save your strength for the important things ahead.” I didn’t think she’d actually need to, but it sounded good and might end up convincing her. Apparently it did, because I felt small hands grip my shoulders a moment later. I reached my good arm back to support her, and it took me a moment to remember I no longer had a bad arm.

“So high,” she breathed, clutching tightly as I carefully stood up again. My clothes and skin were absurdly hydrophobic, which made getting wet a complete non-issue, but my little Ghoumi didn’t have such luxuries. In a different circumstance her slight damp weight would have been unpleasant, yet at that moment I found I didn’t mind at all. I took my time walking back so I could master the stupid look on my face, because between the bit of preciousness clinging to me and my renewed realization at having a body free of a lifetime’s accumulation of aches, pains, and injuries, I was returning to Mia in a fantastic mood.

“You’re back, you’re back” the golden girl in question said, bounding towards me. “Where’s Ghoumi?”

“Oh, I brought her with me,” I said, tilting slightly to show my prize. “Bit hot to be sloshing through the water too much. You and I are fine since we just got here, but everyone else should take it easy and not overheat.” That was absolutely true, and a good lesson in environmental awareness for Mia, but mostly it was an excuse for why I’d decided to indulge myself.

“You can put me down now,” Ghoumi whispered, sounding a bit strained. So she really was shy? Ah, did this girl have no limits to being cute?

“Oh, can I now?” I teased.

“Mia thinks sister’s face looks funny.” I swiftly took a knee and let my new friend escape. After all, it wasn’t good to hold people against their will. Time and a place, that was for sure. We hardly knew each other, what was more, so no sense going too fast with these things.

“Hey,” Ghoumi said as she came around in front of me. In the light I could see her sun-kissed skin, green eyes, red hair, and the relatively short but still pointed ears of a dwarf. She really was cute! I could also see the white lines of scars across that skin, the deep and haunted look in those eyes, the way her hair was unevenly chopped and even burnt in places, and how those precious little ears had been torn. The floaty mood I’d been riding vanished and set me down hard. So hard I felt my face dropping back to my usual placid expression.

“So, thanks,” she said. “For that. It’s embarrassing to admit but I’d always really wanted to do that ever since I was a kid. Ride on one of you tall folks, I mean. You two are the tallest I’ve ever seen, so. Kind of a life wish fulfilled, I guess. Even if it’s stupid.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye as she said all that, but that was alright. It really just highlighted her adorableness and I couldn’t resist ruffling her hair. She wasn’t just cute, but a pretty good person, too.

“Any time.” With that I stood back up and gave my report to Mia. She didn’t need all the details, just the big picture, which didn’t take very long to sketch out.

“So that means we just have to escape! Right Mea?” She said once I’d finished.

“If that’s what you want to do. Unless there are other cells like this?” I directed the last to Ghoumi, who had stayed nearby listening.

“I heard one of them say it was too expensive to make another one yet, so I don’t think so.”

“I’ll keep an eye out just in case, then, but yes I think it’s time to go, Mia.” I wasn’t sure why we bothered with getting captured, because ultimately it was pretty pointless. We could’ve rescued them without going through the hassle of joining them, after all. Maybe it was more heroic to do things this way? Well, I ended up finding my Ghoumi, and I definitely counted that as a plus. Also gave me plenty of justification for when I killed all the guards and nobles. I would have done it anyway of course, but now it was going to be completely worry free. Well, if Mia let me anyway.

“Um,” my golden girl edged closer, cupped her hands around my ear and whispered. “How?”

I giggled.

“Easy peasy! But first I need to ask something,” I turned to the still gathered crowd who were eyeing us with just the slightest bit of hope now. “Does anyone know any earth shaping magic? I can get us out without that, but it would make things easier.” There was a low mutter as everyone looked at everyone else until Ghoumi stepped up again.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think so. Anyone like that would need special watching and—” Just then the boy, V-something maybe, stepped forward and raised his hand. The picture got a bit clearer. There might be other reasons that were more debauched than practical, but it seemed like his voice had been stolen because of his magic.

“Good! Good. That will make this whole thing a lot more comfortable. Now I’ll just need you to teach me.” The doll-like face developed a frown and he pointed with great solemnity at his wounded throat. “Ah, don’t worry about that. You can’t use the Skill because you can’t vocalize it, right? I don’t need that. If you’re willing to gather the mana and make the shape, that’ll be enough.” I changed my eyes to orichalcum red and was able to immediately confirm that, yes, they did glow.

“Stop screaming! I’m not that scary.” I said, my head ringing. It was so bad I kept my hands protectively over my ears in case they wanted another go. “This just lets me see better, alright?”

“Mia thinks you’re a little scary sometimes.” I turned to her, astonished, only to find Ghoumi nodding too.

“Fine,” I said, absolutely not upset at all. “Good. Glad we got that cleared up.” I aimed a small amount of pique at my precious little traitors. What’d I do to deserve such treatment? Well, whatever.

“So now that we’ve got that established, let’s not scream anymore, okay?” Two dozen or so shrieking girls in a cave was definitely a top candidate for least favorite adventure, and it was still our first day. I had the feeling there would be contenders for that spot eventually, I just hoped it wasn’t any time soon. Panning across the group for any likely opera enthusiasts, I eventually returned my attention to the mute boy.

“You. Go ahead and cast it,” I was annoyed and wanted to get out, and that was making me impatient and brusque. I knew as much but could hardly help it. Even with my most optimistic projections it’d take a few hours and in the worst case it might take a full day. I definitely didn’t want to sleep here if I could help it, and it all started with trying to learn another new Spell.

With a wispy voiceless sigh of effort the boy pulled Down and Out mana from the air and folded it into shape. The speed showed either a surprising amount of practice, a significant talent in the art, or I didn’t actually understand the process as well as I thought I did. Given his apparent age I weighted the latter two more heavily, but it meant the lad was likely a mage class, same as I. I’d have to ask if there were other spells he’d be willing to demonstrate, since according to my mentor many Mages made a lot of money teaching and here was someone in a great position to give me freebies. Well, maybe. He was just a kid after all, but someone was his teacher and I was hoping it was a parent or someone else close enough to him that they’d be willing to give me what I wanted out of gratitude.

The cosmos’ twisted sense of humor was in evidence however, since that earth Spell used two types of mana, just like the light Spell had. That complexity, and my inexperience, would doubtless mean it’d take me longer to figure out how to cast the Spell than I would like. But if that was a hurdle then it was at least one I thought I could manage. The real trouble was the shape. It was so complex that I could see why cutting his voice had completely stopped him from casting. Even though the system was voice activated, a person could still cast silently if they got the shape perfectly precisely correct. A trial, at least according to my mentor, that was imposed on any novice for their first time, so they could earn the system version.

This kid, though. I had never seen the earth magic shape before, but I could tell that he was sloppy. Watching him slap the Spell together was honestly irritating; a child playing with dough instead of the structural exactness I knew was required. Even if it was bad manners to vent my frustrations on a kid, I still seriously wanted to. It wouldn’t get me anything even if I did, and would doubtless damage relationships I wanted to keep, so—

Whatever.

That firmly aside, I could only tell that much because I’d begun to catch a hint of the logic behind the architecture of magic. The shapes seemed to form something like a language, in that each piece held a meaning. Or maybe it was more accurate to think of them like proteins in the way they folded and that the shapes weren’t arbitrary — each angle, plane, or arc seemed to have a purpose. A key to the lock that was magic in a very real sense.

Which certainly sounded all well and good, but I was about half making that up. Of course, what possible difference could that make when I’d always been about half making everything up as I went along? In either life. Maybe that was a feature of being alive instead of a bug? I decided that was a philosophical nut better left stashed for some dreary day, and promptly forgot about it.

Rather than sitting down and actually learning from Lleuli, she had simply declared that I was smart enough to figure things out on my own after demonstrating a few of the basics, and then sent me packing. Lucky me. Absolutely it was flattering, sure, but somehow not all that helpful while I was stuck in a prison. Still, I did ultimately enjoy a good puzzle, so I once again sat in the insufficiently deep water to quietly fiddle until it either worked or my patience ran out.

Some long while later, a small shard of rock from my earlier heavy landing, which I’d been using as a practice target, melted into sand. That achievement was joined by a nice little popup notification, proudly proclaiming another new entry to my Spells list. Success! Just like before, it had been a race to the bottom that I narrowly won. If I gave myself a very loose definition of winning that included giving up twice to let my internal mana recharge. Which I did, since giving up obviously didn’t count if I still got it in the end.

Since I occasionally learned from my mistakes, I’d kept my cool and was neither overly forceful with the mana nor did I raise my voice. Because yelling out Spells was unbearably uncool, and that just wasn’t me. I was in fact so cool and amazing that the whole magic thing really wasn’t all that tough! Of course, I was dealing with the most basic of basic Spells, but even so I figured I could take pride in what I’d been able to do.

Down and Out turned rock to sand, which led me to wonder if switching the mana types changed the function. Down and In turned rock to either dust or just nothing, I couldn’t tell which in the watery dark. The mana types did more or less what I’d been expecting in the way they changed the effects. Swapping in Up reversed the previous effects, giving me sand to earth, and earth from nothing. It all seemed maybe a little loose in some ways, but looking only at the effects I thought it made sense, since everything else was just my impressions of things I didn’t really understand.

I also discovered that, like the light, pushing harder changed the degree of the effect. It took a lot more effort and mana to do that, which also explained at least in part why it had been such a struggle to earn the Spell in the first place since I’d been targeting a rock, but that cost allowed me to get stone instead of just earth. The scale was smaller when I was pushing for stone, resulting in a fairly small little pebble when I created one from nothing, but I still thought that was plenty useful.

I fell to daydreams and old memories while recovering my mana between tests, but among all the mental detritus there were a few useful things as well. Among them was the surprising lack of any feeling of mental strain and fatigue, the sort that I associated with long periods of intense work. It was somewhat strange to question why I was clear headed and sharp, but I was used to being more muddle-witted after exerting myself for so long. Perhaps my new body’s nature was to thank, or perhaps it was the Ability I’d been given. Either were somewhat fraught ideas to consider.

When I’d chosen my augments, back before, the most popular ones were the hard augments. They could have completely negated mundane problems like fatigue or forgetfulness, but I’d preferred the ones that just helped me develop the proper habits and frames of mind. Getting a little help to grow a more efficient pathway was more me than having some bit of foreign material inside me that I would never really be able to trust. The advantage was that I seemed to still retain most of the effects that the augments had once provided, but I was coming to wonder if I hadn’t been tampered with by our lovely patron.

I shook that thought off, since there simply wasn’t a single thing I could do about it, and chose to wonder instead about how many elements there were in total, and if anything interesting happened if someone was to master them all. I hadn’t bothered to ask. In fact, it was occurring to me that there was a very great deal I had neglected to ask about, from a number of people who should have told me things they simply hadn’t — but that was back to the fruitless thinking. Instead I amused myself thinking how Lleuli would just tell me to find out for myself, with a grin that dared me to.

Some while later, once I’d exhausted all the permutations of the earth Spell I thought might be useful and earned all the system versions, I looked up to find everyone else eating.

“Mia,” I croaked when I noticed her munching on something with the others, then had to clear my throat and try again. “Mia!” I climbed to my feet and splashed my way over, glad that my golem body didn’t have stupid problems like limbs falling asleep. “I did it! I can start on the escape now, if you’d like.” Mia smiled through the crumbs and nodded vigorously from where she sat. While the rest didn’t exactly ignore me, it was clear where their priorities lay.

“Whatcha got there, anyway?” I asked, leaning over Mia’s shoulder. It looked like black bread with something inside it.

“Bread,” she said, shedding more crumbs. Brilliant. Guess I earned that, though. Whatever it was, it didn’t even register over the omnipresent smell of hot water so I decided I wasn’t interested in it as food.

“Right you are, but where did it come from?” She pointed vaguely up. I loved the squirt but she was terrible at this, so I turned to someone who’d already proven to be good at answering my questions. Mia had been easy to find, looming over everyone else even sitting, not to mention the shining gold of her hair. Ghoumi was a bit trickier, but the seemingly empty space in the midst of the crowd gave her away. I didn’t want to bull my way through them however, so I just called out to her.

“Hey Ghoumi!” A moment later a bit of red hair appeared.

“Yes?” There was a tense, cautious tone to her voice that I didn’t like, but I decided to let it slide. Well, so long as I got to see her cute face I would. She’d been through a lot after all, and I could be understanding and compassionate when it served me to be.

“Just a quick question, please?” The group sloshed a bit to make room for her to pass through before she appeared in front of me. I knelt down in order to keep our voices low. I figured we knew each other just well enough that it wouldn’t come across as patronizing. I hoped anyway.

“Hey, sorry to take you away from your meal there but I wanted to get started.” She nodded vaguely, perhaps she’d thought about things and had hardened her heart since our earlier talk. She just didn’t seem very hopeful. “If they’re sending food down regularly then they come to check on this place regularly. I’d like to do this when they’re not likely to be around.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. They send food twice a day, and this was the second time.” She wiped at her mouth, even though it didn’t have any crumbs. She wasn’t holding anything so I had to wonder if she’d left her food behind or eaten it already.

“Great, that’s perfect. Incidentally, how often do they come to, uh, collect someone? Is there a pattern to it?” It would seriously suck to be halfway out when a pack of those thugs came trooping down.

“As often as they feel like,” my sweet little Ghoumi said with the slightest hint of sneering anger. Well that just figured, didn’t it? Still, even if they did come while I was working I’d just have to do something about it.

“Oh, everyone’s here right now, right?” She slowly shook her head.

“The twins aren’t,” she said, seemingly without concern. I tilted my head slightly and she continued. “The captain likes them, so they’re not here very often.” That complicated things. “I’ve heard them talk, though. I’m pretty sure the captain usually keeps them in the chambers near the bottom of the stairs as entertainment for the guards.” Or maybe not! Pretty convenient, that, unless they were used as hostages. I’d have to consider countermeasures for that kind of thing. I was hoping this escape business would be stealthy enough to avoid that kind of problem, but my luck was simply never that good.

“Alright, we’ll get them on our way out. Thanks!” As I went to stand she snagged my sleeve and cupped a hand to my ear.

“How are you getting us out?” Her breath tickled slightly.

“Earth magic. I’ll just make handholds and climb out, then drop a rope down.” I whispered back. Somehow this sharing secrets thing was pretty fun! Made me remember slumbers parties as a kid, long long ago. So long ago, in fact, that I’d been living on the only planet we’d had at the time. Which just brought to mind all the reasons that anyone who mattered had left it behind.

“So what were you going to do if Vuelln didn’t know that magic?” Ghoumi’s question brought me back to the present.

“Block the outflow channel, flood the chamber, and have everyone float to the top.” It would’ve been way more complicated than that for a variety of reasons but I didn’t see the need to elaborate. She gave me a funny look for a moment before shaking her head.

“Anything else?” I asked. She glanced around for a moment before lighting up.

“You didn’t get any, did you? The food, that is.”

“No, but you can have it, or really anyone who needs it.” I didn’t need to eat in the first place, what with being a golem, I just could. It was probably going to taste awful anyway, and I saw no reason to subject myself to that when I didn’t need to. I was supposed eat, or else it was cheating, but whatever. It was my right to skip a meal now and again, even if that overbearing Patron of mine said I shouldn’t anymore. It was my body, so whatever. “I doubt you all have been well fed and I’m looking forward to a nice dinner at an inn somewhere once we’re all out.”

“Oh. You...” When she didn’t continue I tried standing again only to find she was still holding my sleeve. She’d been avoiding my eye for most of the conversation but finally looked up at me with great determination written across her scarred but delicate features.

“Good luck, Mea.” Oh my goodness she was so cute. I patted her head with a smile and she released me. It was time to work, and I was just brimming with enthusiasm.