Alex shambles slowly down the corridor, escorted by two guards. The guard that trailed behind him is equipped with a carbine that is held in a ready position. The guard in front is armed with a baton that he is swinging ominously. Alex rests his hand on the wall to steady himself as he painfully continues to move forward. In the near silence, the occasional drip is heard as the blood continues to trickle from his back and onto the floor. Pain runs through Alex and he grits his teeth to stop the screams from escaping.

The guard in front begins to slap the baton against his leg and barks. “Come on, move your worthless carcass. I need to get other things done rather than wait around for you.”

The guard with the carbine raises the muzzle pointing it at both Alex and the guard in front. The slapping of the baton stops and the tension rises. Alex ignores the situation and continues with his slow progress. He manages to struggle on and eventually he approaches the guard with the baton who points to an open cell.

“Get in there.”

Alex staggers through the doorway and heads towards the broad shelf along the wall. He lowers himself gently down and grunts in pain as he shifts to lie on his front. As he settles into position he discerns the guards exchange a few hissed comments with the guard holding the carbine saying something to the other guard who then leaves. After a short while, he hears the footsteps of multiple people approaching his cell. He tries to turn to his side, but a large hand softly presses his shoulder back down and forced him to continue to lie on his front. Alex turns his head and grimaces as he sees the broad figure of Hordric.

"You aren’t the nurse I was hoping to see," Alex mutters in a hoarse voice.

There is a bang as the door of the cell is slammed shut, and he then hears a snort as Hordric answers. "The guard didn’t give me any option to find another to take care of you. He stops for a second and continues "His exact words were 'if he dies so do you.’"

"That doesn't sound like something a guard would say. They're such jolly and caring fellows." Alex mutters hoarsely and then suddenly goes into a coughing fit. The movement causes him to be racked with pain and this makes him tense up. Hordric gives a grunt of agreement and brings an orange bottle with a straw to Alex's lips when he finishes coughing. After taking a few sips Alex thanks him and asks "Is this basic?"

"Yeah. It is just watered down, so you can drink it without gagging.” Hordric puts the bottle down and then opens a large packet he’s holding in his other hand and sprinkles the powder inside onto Alex’s back. Alex winces as the powder stings when it lands on the open wounds. “It’ll soon dull the pain and stop the wound from getting infected,” Hordric says as he sits down on the floor next to the shelf with a sigh. “I didn’t expect to see you again after what happened with Kracc.”

“I didn’t expect to see you again either. What happened? I don’t remember anything after I fought with Kracc and killed him. I was so focused on remaining alive; I didn’t notice anything else happening.”

“I’m not surprised. The runic knife went wild and lit up like the sun. Then Kracc’s core got shattered and his prana was released all in one go causing lightning to hit anyone within a meter of him. You got it pretty bad and were thrown a good couple of meters. Then the overseer came charging in completely livid and turned everyone's collar on until we all collapsed. One of the guards checked you and then I was told to pick you up and carry you over to the pit. Everyone was shocked at just how much prana Kracc had. I mean he must have overcharged the blade and then when his core went pop there was still a lot of prana left in him. He would have been worth a fortune with such a massive prana pool.”

“What do you mean runic knife?”

“You know, the knife he had was a runic blade.”

“I don’t know what a runic blade is, care to explain.”

Hordric looks at Alex dubiously. “Come on, everyone knows what a runic blade is.”

“I don’t. All I remember is some weird design on the blade glowing bright red.”

“That wasn’t a design, they were runes, and it glowed bright red because Kracc had pushed his prana into it. I didn’t get to see what the runes were, but expect they were for penetration and durability.”

“So all the red designs I keep seeing around that glow are runes?”

“That’s right. Why don’t you know about runes?”

“We don’t have them where I come from.”

“Oh, is Terra one of the recently rediscovered worlds?

“You know about Terra?”

“The guards and the overseer comment about how most of you pure-blood humans come from Terra.”

“What do you mean by human pure-blood?”

Hordric sighs. “Terra must have been cut off for a long time. The Council recognizes that there are five pure-blood races. Each of these races is a member of the council and they enforce the laws and the rights of all citizens. The pure-blood races are dwarves, humans, elves, orcs and of course the progenitors.”

“Progenitors?”

“They’re the ones that created the gates and most of the technology. The orcs refer to them dragonkin.”

“What? As in they hoard gold, can fly and breathe fire?” Alex asks.

“What? Are you daft? They look like the rest of the races. They are about as large as an orc, but with similar facial characteristics as the elves with a very vibrant skin color. This is one of the reasons the elves consider themselves to be better than the other races. But that doesn’t matter anyway, as you’ll never meet a progenitor.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yep, one day they were there and the next they were gone. They disappeared in the night and at the same time all of the gates were shut down.”

“What are these gates you keep mentioning?”

“It’s the gate they brought you from Terra through. You may know them as portals or rifts.”

A nearly a minute passes in silence before Alex starts shifting his body on the shelf. Hordric stands up and extends a hand towards Alex as he says, "Stop doing that. You'll only make the pain worse. Flogging wounds take a long time to heal.”

Alex ignores the remark as he slowly shifts his body around to lie on his right side so he can face the door. When he finishes, he gives a sigh of relief and says "It's not that bad. I pushed some prana to my back to keep the pain down."

Hordric freezes for a couple of seconds, and then exclaims. "You what?"

Alex gives Hordric a reproachful look as he mutters. "Keep it down or you'll attract the guards."

Hordric glances at the door nervously and leans down to look at Alex's body closely. After a few seconds, he murmurs, "You're right; some prana is running through your back." He looks up at Alex's face and murmurs in wonder "How did you do manage that?"

Alex furrows his brows. "What do you mean how? Prana just flows and then fixes the wounds."

Hordric almost smacks Alex's head as he says. "Who told you that? Now how did you get the prana into your wounds?"

Alex's brows furrow even more as he tries to think about the training sessions with Mistress Lyrei. After a few seconds, he said "You're right, I didn't get told about using prana to heal. I just worked it out when I was in the pit."

Hordric slowly shakes his head as he whispers. "That's impossible. You have to use your prana with healing runes. I've never heard of anyone just using their own prana to heal."

“Wait. What do you mean?" Alex asks as he stares at Hordric in confusion.

Hordric stares at Alex in shock. “You don’t know about prana?”

“No. Only what Mistress Lyrei has told me.”

“So, you don’t know about prana, runes or pure-bloods. Has Terra regressed back to the dark ages?”

“No, of course not, we use ‘technology’ to build everything we need,” Alex replies using the English word for technology.

“T-eh-k-no-laj-ee?” Hordric says, speaking slowly. “What’s that?”

“It’s the use of ‘science’ and ‘machines’ to improve living conditions.”

“I don’t understand what you are saying. You are using terms I’ve never heard before. But that’s not important now, we’ll discuss it some other time. First, you need to tell me how you are doing that with your prana.”

“This whole prana thing is bizarre,” Alex says with a chuckle as he marvels at the uses of this strange energy. ”I'm not entirely sure what I did to get the prana into my wounds. I simply forced it from my core out to my skin and then into the wounds. No runes or weird chanting required.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything,” Hordric says exasperated. “How’s the wound on your chest? It was a nasty burn from where the prana lightning hit you.”

“Almost healed.”

Hordric blinks away the fatigue in his eyes as he scrutinizes Alex then he reaches up to his face to rub his eyes. After a firm rubbing, he still sees the same scene, only this time Alex has a slight smirk on his shadowed face.

"How?" Hordric breathed out in wonder.

Alex chuckles at Hordric's expression and says, “I’m not sure if I have to get my ass kicked every time for it to work. But, watch this." With that, he closes his eyes and focuses on the prana in his core as he tries to force the prana to his wounds and replicate the sensation he experienced in the pit. A minute later Hordric hisses and steps away from Alex until his broad shoulders hit the cell wall.

“You... How... Why..." Hordric splutters while pointing a finger at Alex’s back, which is visibly glowing blue with prana.

Alex opens his eyes and frowns at Hordric in confusion "What's wrong?" He then gingerly pushes himself into a sitting position on the shelf, showing his palms to Hordric, and said in a calming voice. "Relax, I'll try to explain what I think is going on." With a sigh, he pats the spot next to him as he says "Come, sit."

Hordric hesitates for a couple of seconds, and then looks critically at Alex. "You're not possessed by a spirit, are you?"

Alex chuckles and then says. "No, I'm not. Would someone possessed by a spirit, let himself get whipped close to death by some uppity jerk? Anyway, spirits don't exist."

Hordric gives a chortle as he mutters, "I guess not." He looks at Alex as if seeing him for the first time, then takes a deep steadying breath, and slowly approaches. He stops and leans forward to look at Alex’s chest. “Amazing, that wound looks like it's been healing for four tendays rather than a half.” He moves to the side and tentatively sits on the shelf.

They sit next to each other in silence for a brief period before Alex starts to talk slowly "So, I think that when I was hit by the prana lightning it did something to my core. At the same time, my subconscious screamed for the prana to relieve the pain. As I forced the prana to take the edge off of pain it seems to have changed its behavior to doing this most of the time."

Alex starts to talk faster as he explains. "The way I see it, no one ever told me that it couldn't be done, so I never had any mental block that prevented me from doing it when I needed to the most. Especially when all of my mental barriers broke down from the pain. It enabled my subconscious mind to push the prana from my core into my skin and hence the wounds. After I woke up and consciously pushed my prana out of my core and to my skin, and it seemed to remember what to do, but I couldn't figure out how. I knew that I could use the prana to strengthen my body as I did in the fights with Drosz and Kracc.” Alex abruptly pauses and takes a deep steadying breath.

“I’ve also begun to notice that the air has prana in it, and I felt that it was alien and a potential threat. I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Regrettably, while I was meditating I breathed some in and it hurt like hell until I surrounded it with my own prana and could absorb it." He stops talking and turns to look at Hordric with a smile. "Maybe that’s how it all begins. ‘Molecules’ are made of ‘atoms’ that are made of ‘particles’, everything's made out of them including prana. How do people breathe? We inhale air and then our lungs filter out what they need and expel the rest. I presume that's how the first prana gets absorbed and the channels come into being. That's maybe the reason why people from Terra don’t have cores. Maybe there’s not enough prana in the air to allow them to form. Possibly if we could breathe in prana for long enough our cores would form."

Alex looks at Hordric with a grin "If our lungs can filter out oxygen from the air, why couldn't I get them to filter prana from it too? From that, I could learn the trick of instructing my prana on how to convert the alien prana so I can absorb it."

Hordric looks at Alex with wide eyes. "Alex, what are you talking about? You’re using more words I don’t understand. What do you mean you can sense prana in the air? Prana only resides in sentient people."

Alex looks at the burly dwarf with an exhausted wry smirk as he says. "Sorry about that. I got a bit too excited when I thought about what I could do."

"What you just said didn't make any sense. Are you sure that you're not possessed? And you still haven’t explained what you mean when you say you can sense prana?"

Alex chuckles as he responds "I’m pretty sure I’m not possessed." He calms himself down and continues "Look, it's complicated. When I was in the pit trying to control my prana and heal my wound I found that I could sense prana in the air around the guards. Each guard seems to have distinctive prana almost like a flavor or smell and as I said if I breathe it in it hurts.”

Hordric pauses before responding. “It’s true that each person's prana has a unique composition and there’s even a runic tool that uses a drop of your blood to identify your prana signature. To enter a council controlled zone you have to be registered, which includes your prana signature. The council has another runic tool that can be used to detect the prana signature of any runic spell that has recently cast. However, I have never heard of anyone being able to sense prana in the air without a runic tool.”

“Well, that’s two things then.”

“Two things?”

“Yes. Using my own prana to heal and sensing prana in the air.”

“I wouldn’t let anyone know about this if I were you; otherwise you may end out on someone's dissection table.”

“Yeah, I totally see where you're coming from.” Alex pauses before continuing. “There’s one thing that’s got me confused?”

“Only one. There are lots of things that confuse me about you.”

“Well, only one I’d like answered right now. When you listed the pure-blood races you did not include goblins, but they are sentient and use prana.”

Hordric scowls. “The gobs are mongrels. They can breed with any of the pure races and their crossbreed offspring are all still fertile. Their blood is tainted as its blue, whereas all pure-blood races have red blood. Humans can also breed with the other pure-blood races, but their crossbreed offspring are sterile. However, certain groups believe that humans are only a step above gobs and are not pure-bloods. The council does accept that human crossbreeds have certain rights if they are sponsored by a pure-blood citizen, except for the gob crosses. They support the view that all gobs and gob crossbreeds are only fit to be merchandise.”

“You mean slaves.”

“Same thing. Slaves, thralls, merchandise or even product. It just indicates that you are someone else’s property.”

“So, what about all the blue-skinned humans held here?”

“They are not pure-blood humans as they bleed brown, so have some gob in them and are tainted.”

“What about you? How did you become merchandise? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, as you are aware, if you are convicted of a serious crime, you get sold off as merchandise. I was convicted of smuggling relics. What about you?”

“Me. Nothing. I was abducted and brought here.”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed. As a pure-blood you have to be convicted and then registered with the council as a criminal before you can become merchandise.”

“Well, that didn’t happen. All of the people from Terra were kidnapped and are here against their will.”

Hordric looks stunned. “Are you saying the House Quinala is trading in illegal merchandise?”

“I guess I am.”

“Well, if you ever get to a council territory claim sanctuary and they’ll get you home.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Hordric gazes over his shoulder at the door for a second, then turns back to Alex lying on the shelf, a pensive look on his face. "If anyone asks you didn’t tell me about the illegal merchandise. That sort of information will get you killed.” He hesitates and hums before continuing. “Do you think you could teach me to do what you just did?"

Alex gives him a tight smile as he answers. "I don’t know what I’m doing that causes the prana to heal my wounds. It's going to take me a while to that work out. Right now I'm too tired to try and do anything, I’ll start looking into it tomorrow."