Everything was blurry. I felt like I was being dragged through a damp and dark hallway. I could see faint lights in the corner of my eyes. Where am I? What’s happening? I heard metallic noises, some chatter, and rattlings of chains. I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, like being stabbed by a burning blade. But the pain was strange, it wasn’t like any type of burning, it felt…unnatural. I heard metal being slammed against a wall, and the sound of a key turning. There were ringing in my ears, I could feel that someone was with me, and I think they were trying to talk to me. All I could hear were muffled sounds.

It was a while before the ringing stopped, and the blurriness in my eyes slowly faded away. The image of a prison cell came into my eyes. In front of me was a man with blonde hair, who looked young, around my age. He was slim, but was well built. He was wearing rags with a piece of cloth covering his head , with dirt on his skin. He looked like… Vesper!

“Vesper?” I asked hazily, with my eyes half-closed

“Who?” He said, with his eyes relaxed, his head tilted to one side.

When I could fully see, I could see that it was not Vesper. The first thing I noticed on his face was his blue eyes, while Vesper had green eyes. I tried to stand up, but a sharp pain in my abdomen brought me to the floor. I looked down at my body, the wound in my abdomen was badly patched up, the bleeding was stopped, however. The burning sensation in the wound was still there, however, it was not as bad.

“How did they get you?” The man in front of me asked.

Was he also captured? Should I tell him the truth?

“That bastard Stratford plunged his rapier into me, and now I’m here” I gave him a half-truth.

He did not look very surprised. He turned around. Through the rag, I could see a wound, also badly patched up, but it had almost healed.

“He gave me the same treatment.” He turned around as he said.

“Who are you?” I asked

“The name is Alberto, Alberto Decimus, born and raised in Breta.” He said with an emotionless smile on his face.

“Ivo Cadman, I was adopted, and no one told me where I was borned, was raised with mercenaries, grew up mostly in Barrsons island.” I said.

He stared at me for a long time, kept on looking up and down. It was then I noticed that my battle-ax was gone. I panicked for a little while. Where did it go? But then I realized that people usually don’t let captives have weapons in their prison cells. Why did he not kill me? I was still puzzled, until Alberto finally spoke up:

“Dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin. I think you came from the western continent of Obia. Can’t exactly tell for sure where in that huge continent, however. The people look the same for me.” He said, grinning a little.

“I need to get out of here,” I said.

“And how are you planning to do that?”

“If only I had a weapon.” I said, while slowly standing up.

“You are not the only slave that had the thought of escaping, my friend.” He said while sighing. “Multiple have tried, and every single one of them ended up under the ocean.”

I sat down in a corner of the room, face buried in my hands. What to do now? I can’t be here, I have something I must do. These thoughts kept on swirling in my head as I felt deep frustration. I needed to get out of here.

“Don’t you want to escape as well?” I asked

“Well, it’s certainly not ideal to stay as a slave, so yes.”

“Then why don’t you try something!” I said, speeding up my voice.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at me as he smiled. Does he have a plan on escaping? I looked outside of the cell, we weren’t the only ones. There were other cells similar to this one, some of them contained demi-human. I reached my chest. Thank Gods, the necklace is still here.

“Nice necklace, I really like the ancient scriptings on it.” Alberto said.

I looked at my necklace. These are scriptings? I have always thought of them like patterns just to make the necklace look prettier.

“Where did you get it?” He asked, his eyes staring at the necklace.

“It was my mother’s, this is the only thing I have of her.” I said.

“Can I see it?” He said, with a glimmer of hope in his voice.

I showed it to him. He crawled closer to me. I flinched back a little, but I did not sense any malice. He held the necklace in his hand, and looked back into my eyes with his own.

“This is magical!” He said, in excitement, but carefully not to say anything too loud. “This can act like a wand, with yew wood as the core.”

“You are a wizard?” I asked

“More like an assassin, but I know a spell or two, especially one that can get me out of here.” I snatched the necklace back before he could take it.

“Us, get US out of here.” I said.

He smiled, and nodded. I put my hand out, and he shook it.

“What’s the spell, and how is it going to get us out of here?” I asked him, getting excited myself.

“The infamous Invisibility spell. I can make both of us invisible. When the guards come in here to feed us, I can make us invisible, and sneak right out of here.” He said, standing straight up with a smile on his face. But then his smile became frustrated, as he put his hand on his.” head. “Downside is, I can only make it last for around 5 minutes.”

That is certainly a problem. We certainly could not get far away from the ship in 5 minutes. If they spotted us, we would be chased after instantly. I then recalled something from Barrsons Harbor. They were loading cargo in and out of ships. They can’t directly lead us out of the ship in the middle of the street, so they would have to conceal us somehow.

“Do they load slaves into cargo?." I asked

He smiled again as if he could read my mind, and he nodded.

“When they take us out of the cargo, wherever that is, we could turn invisible and stroll right out of there!” I said, almost jumping.

My excitement quickly died out as I remembered my ax. I can’t leave it here. It is the one thing that Issak left for me.

“Don’t you think we should test this spell out?” I asked

“How?”

“I have something… very dear to me. Perhaps we could use the spell to reclaim it tonight? It will potentially help us. We will take it when someone comes to open our door to feed us. However, we need to make it back before he tells the captain.” I said attentively.

He thought for a while, then our eyes met. He grinned at me and put his hand out. I reached a hand out to shake it.

“These are certainly interesting plans, it must have been fate they put you in the same cell as I, we should be arriving in one day. For now, rest, for we take the ax tonight, and leave tomorrow.”