A pit full of gold, poured in a mould,

Will quite overtake, all here that is fake.

-prophecy of the duskbringer

Sixth day of the Third Week of Autumn. A cell somewhere under Nolusburg…

Guppy awoke in flickering torchlight, back in her cell. The orc was still there, a silent sentinel to her presence in this quiet place.

She tried to fill the silence several times with questions but the orc spoke no more after those couple short sentences when she first met him, instead he just watched, and it creeped Guppy out.

Well, at least it did when she let her imagination get the better of her, there were only the two of them after all, and he kept on watching her.

Thankfully Guppy’s master came with food, a bowl of slop for the orc, a loaf and a bowl of soup for her.

When the two she called left thug and right thug departed she tore her loaf in half and offered a piece to the orc, a peace offering of sorts.

Strangely he refused, merely gesturing to his emaciated state when Guppy questioned his refusal.

Wasn’t his sorry state the whole reason he needed to eat more? She couldn’t understand the creature but decided not to push him, she was quite hungry herself after all.

Curling up after her meal Guppy tried to sleep, while also trying not to think about the orc getting hungry in the night and thinking she would be a tasty snack.

It took her a bit of effort but her mind finally calmed enough to drift off.

………………………….

Jade softly sighed as he watched the young human girl called Gupalagia fall asleep, she had tried to pull him into conversation several times after she woke, but he had kept mute, his nostrils only flaring slightly when she asked why he was here.

At least he got to eat again, and the girl had even offered him some of her meal, Jade had refused of course, his body still needed time to recover.

Jade started to stretch, slowly and painfully working atrophied muscles, warming them, and gradually increasing their faded dexterity.

He had to stop after far too short a session, but it was still progress.

Jade laid his head down and went to sleep, ignoring the girls twitching and mutterings of how she was too stringy and hardly a mouthful, humans were weird.

…………………………………………………………………………..

Sixth day of the Fourth Week of Autumn. A cell somewhere under Nolusburg…

The days passed for Guppy as she grew used to her new routine.

Each morning, at least she called it her morning, her master would come with his lackeys thug left and right, who she swore must be inbreds that had lost the power of speech, to retrieve her from her holding cell and escort her up to her workroom.

There a bowl of cooling porridge was inevitably waiting for her, it wasn’t much of a meal, but she would need the calories for her days work.

After her employer left and she ate Guppy would work until lunch, slowly converting lead bars into gold. She found the she only needed to press the index finger on her right hand to the ingot, then let her mana flow to transmute the lead into its golden cousin.

After a while of doing so her master would arrive with lunch, and she would eat while Lefty and Righty packed the gold into small and well reinforced boxes, before taking it out the door to who knows where. She never really cared, she was getting her side of the bargain fulfilled, and that was enough; for now.

Once they were gone Guppy would continue converting lead to gold, although with a capacity than her true limit, for she used her magic reservoir in other ways, or at least tried to, unsuccessfully. Her attempts at transmuting the dirt and stone out of the way to produce a tunnel had produced less results than her fists might have.

At least the locks of fresh hair they delivered on the fourth day reassured her that her siblings were alright, because her attempts to transmute the stone wall behind the desk only melted it a little before hardening, which was just great. Now she had even less of a chance to escape.

Other ideas for a magical escape? She thought about flashy magic she had seen others do or heard of.

Flying magic, useless in an underground prison even if she somehow managed it.

Fire magic? That never went well underground, it burnt up the air as well.

Water magic? Maybe with enough time, but the level of control needed for water blades put that option far beyond her.

And this all might be useless pondering, she had felt no other resonance with other elements other than briefly lighting her hand on fire that one time, only theorizing she even had earth affinity due to her transmutation abilities, which now that she came to think of it was a strangely advanced technique considering she could only make normal earth ripple currently.

Guppy paused her train of thought and massaged her temples in a bid to keep her growing headache at bay. Gotta keep it simple. What was plausible for her...

Tunneling magic then, well, her hardened walls were not helping her to get out exactly, but the possibility was still promising. Practice would not her, and she was sure the ripples were growing larger.

She even wished that infuriating dragon was around, but Guppy had not seen neither hide nor whisker of the blasted beast.

At least the orc had started to accept her peace offerings after the third day, which alleviated her anxiety and twitchiness to no small degree. As a result of his new found acceptance she ate slightly less of the delivered to be sure, but she had over exaggerated her need for food the first couple days, and sweetened with an increased production once she got her way Guppy’s master had seen to it that she received plenty of sustenance.

The delivered grub was still pretty bland though, Guppy had to force herself not to think of the delicacies she had enjoyed mere hours before her capture.

And as an added benefit convinced of a silent truce with her roommate, no longer did Guppy dream of orc chefs explaining their choice way to cook human body parts to delectable perfection as they filleted her.

Something she was most glad her subconscious had finally dropped.

Speaking of the orc his recovery was nothing short of incredible, for while he still looked like he needed a few stout meals Guppy visibly tracked his recovery each day as flesh grew to cover his ribs and swell his limbs once more.

He had a weird but practical exercise routine that Guppy joined in on after watching the orc a couple times. Summarized briefly it was push-ups, lots of push-ups, but also a whole bunch of strange slow movements that proved far more difficult than they looked, even with Guppy’s improved body she would quickly wind up out of breath.

Though she was improving.

Once she had even heard a low chuckle after trying a particularly limb twisting maneuver and face planting into the stone as she over balanced. She had looked up to find the orc as stoic faced as ever, no sign of mirth to be seen.

Guppy had huffed in displeasure and tried again, and again, until she could do it without embarrassing herself.

The bland breakfast the next day had never tasted so good as she tore into it.

The exercises did help though, she could feel herself growing stronger and more flexible as the days turned into weeks.

And then one day it happened, she received her weekly parcel with two grease paper wrapped locks of hair.

Something was different, and it didn’t take her long to spot what. Stalia’s hair was normal, but Kyle’s, Kyle’s was stale.

She did not hear her master leave, for the walls were closing in. Guppy suddenly felt very, very claustrophobic and struggled to draw breath as the small room leaned towards her.

She wanted out, out of this dreadful place, out of this situation out of this collar and slavery, out of this blasted room where she had killed a man, however indirectly. Out Out OUT.

Guppy stumbled backwards and threw out her left hand to the wall to steady herself. Slapping her palm against the rough stone as her vision swam.

She felt a pulse, and mana gushed from within. Her support disappeared and she fell, landing awkwardly on her elbow which went floppy as pain sprung through out it before fading.

But Guppy barely noticed it as she propped herself up and fingered the smooth circle that had been dug out of the wall.

“FudgeKnuckles,” she whispered.

…………………………………………………………

Sixth day of the Fourth Week of Autumn. A secret training facility under Nolusburg….

Jacques was tired, tired but eager.

The last week and a half had Hadoom and him going through what he could only describe as a personalized hell with barely an hours sleep each night.

Miss Fae had personally seen to their training, a fact Hadoom celebrated and Jacques dismayed over as the elf seemed to find glee in their suffering, especially when Hadoom made one of his many subtle-less attempts at flirting with their instructor.

Jacques was about to beat his partner at times from all the extra laps through mud riddled with physical and magical traps and attacks pouring down upon them.

The fact that the white clothed mute of a healer stood on standby did nothing to improve the matter, the bastard never fully healed them or removed the pain, only healing enough to keep them going through another painful round or exercise.

But Jacques could not argue with the results, Hadoom looked and walked a decade or two younger, although that could also be the fool’s romantic delusions.

As for Jacques, he had never been faster or stronger than he was currently. Jacques had no doubt that the potions they were made to drink with every meal helped no small amount with their reconstruction, allowing them to benefit greatly from the training that had stripped away fat and hesitation both.

And now they had a mission.

Agents undisclosed had provided a target to rescue from the Grakoan mafia, not Guppy, their co-workers had yet to uncover her location, but her brother had been found and given a high enough importance that the mission was quickly approved.

It was a step in the right direction as far as Jacques was concerned, and it would get them out of this underground training facility he was increasingly tired of.

As Hadoom tried to finagle a date out of their instructor, Jacques hadn’t the heart to tell him she was likely thrice his age and far from what he had heard was normal for an elf.

His partner dug his own grave and would have to lie in it, Jacques’s warnings so far had fallen on deaf ears.

Jacques poured over the map and notes written in a cipher he had learned three days hence, the boy was being kept in one of the Grakoan Mafia’s many safe-houses, this one being under a gambling den in the pleasure district.

This mission was as much of a test as anything else Jacques had been informed, there was a backup team in case they stuffed up, but he and Hadoom were assigned as first entry, and he meant to succeed.

Jacques tucked his blade dusters into a pouch where they could be easily retrieved and fetched his astray companion, the weapons had been upgraded not with enchantments but with channels and a preset array that allowed him to cast his lightning spear spell far quicker than usual, his partner two had received upgraded pistols that fired near silently, some kind of muffling enchantment muting the sound and glow normally inherent in others of their kind.

They had also both received tier three barrier pendants for protection, pricey artifacts that Jacques hadn’t believed real until demonstrated, he had never seen an artifact worth so much handed out so casually.

The duo left clad in tight black wool garments emblazoned with a small raven over their hearts as the bell struck ten…

………………………………………………………..

Sixth day of the Fourth Week of Autumn. A secret holding cell under The Rabid Suk Entertainment Center in Nolusburg….

Kyle sat still and listened.

What must have been at least a week had passed since Kyle had arrived home and waited for his sisters to get back, he knew Stalia would be late, he was sure she had said something to that effect, but Gupalagia was missing too, along with the feast she had promised him.

He tried not to be too disappointed, ‘She must be out gathering it.’ he had thought, turning to greet her as the front door opened behind him.

It was not his elder sister it had turned out, but a man with a sweet smelling cloth that swiftly robbed him of his consciousness.

He had awoken in a lightless room, and tried to escape.

That attempt, like the three following had resulted in beatings, none that spared his young frame, and the last of which resulted in his jailer breaking both his legs to stop him from escaping.

It had not.

Kyle very carefully kept his hands pressed to the wall behind him, carefully compacting the soil step by step and digging an escape tunnel through the thin cover of rock he left to conceal it.

The progress was slow, but steady work that filled the time. He paused only when his mana ran out and he had to beg his friends for more, they gave it willingly, but hovered around him.

Kyle could not see them exactly, only slight blurs at the corner of his vision, but he could hear their childish voices, excitable and curious.

He knew others couldn’t hear or see them, indeed he was often bullied when he was younger and tried to tell others his age of them. After a while he stopped trying to explain them, they were his friends, and he listened to them.

They whispered to him secrets of things he wished to know, of fire, wind, earth and water, dancing in a balance lost to others but obvious to him alone.

And so he listened and learned.

One he had named Jack, Jack had been with him the longest, most of the others coming and going as he moved around, distractible and divers, but Jack always stayed with him, a bastion of solidity and comfort.

Jack seemed older than the others, and was the sole one who radiated concern towards Kyle’s damaged legs. Kyle whispered reassurances to Jack, he would crawl down the tunnel anyway, no point in wasting effort making it big enough to run in.

Kyle stopped his earthen casting, footsteps approached, quieter than the usual stomping but they heralded his meager meal and potential discovery.

Kyle smelt rust, tangy and fishy as it was. It came from the blades the man held at his side.

The man stared at Kyle a moment, before a crackle of electricity lit up the darkness.

“That's him.” Kyle heard the man say, “Get the door open partner.”

Kyle watched as another short man clad in black rounded the bend and raised a pistol to the lock.

A low thunk later and Kyle blinked as the cell’s door creaked open, he very much wanted to examine that magitech pistol right now but instead answered the tall one’s question about whether he could walk or not.

“No, broken legs.” He eloquently replied.

The tall one approached and Kyle found himself thrown over a shoulder as the two swiftly left his prison.

They passed several guards that Kyle recognized, including the one who broke his legs, they all lay silently on the floor. Jack paused to briefly spike the leg breaker between his legs as they passed but otherwise ignored the others.

On they ascended up the steps, and the noise grew with their ascent until they emerged from the back of a building and darted into the shadows.

Kyle wondered if he was truly rescued or had just traded one set of captors for another.

The thought passed, these two seemed alright, and Jack seemed to like the short one, Kyle relaxed and let his weariness overtake him as he bounced on the tall one’s shoulder.