[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

My attempts to subvert the iron door don’t take me very far. My captors have clearly woven in some sort of enchantment to make the door more resistant to magical intrusion, and combined with the pitiful trickle of mana refilling my pool currently, the challenge is too much to overcome. The door isn’t impervious, but it’s close enough.

I stretch my hands above my head with a groan, then knuckle the small of my back and press forward until I hear a satisfying series of pops from my spine. Hunching over the door for the last few hours isn’t exactly comfortable, but I hope my efforts will pay off eventually.

The sudden sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway outside my cell fills me with a rush of trepidation. I scurry back into the corner near the chamber pot, huddling into a defensive curl scant moments before the door bangs open.

My eyes squeeze shut, warding against the harsh light that’s sure to accompany my new annoyance. I cover my face with my hands, and little by little, I flutter open my eyelids, letting my vision adjust to the illumination levels before I respond to the boot nudging my ribs.

“Get up, kid. You wanna eat, or not?”

I shift myself upright, hissing in a sharp breath as my hip cramps up while I try to stand. I’m way too young to feel this stiff and sore. I open my eyes all the way, now that I’ve started to adjust to the light again, and take in the heavily-muscled, scarred [Soldier] offering me a little wooden tray with a bowl of thin broth on it.

“Thanks,” I mumble, suddenly embarrassed. He’s not a devious enemy, just a military man who’s been tasked with keeping watch over a brat. This is probably punishment for some slight infraction. Making him annoyed isn’t in my best interest.

I gulp down a mouthful of soup, then raise an eyebrow when he doesn’t leave. “Sorry. Thought you were here to interrogate me. I’m good now.”

“Gotta watch you. Make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” the [Soldier] grunts. “You’re not gonna try, right? Neither of us have the energy to put up with this, am I right?”

I guzzle down the rest of the bowl of soup, belch, and pat my tummy. It’s not very tasty, but I’ll take whatever they offer me at this point. I have to keep my strength up. “Right. This is all just a big misunderstanding. I’m sure the [Adjutant] will let me go soon. Until then, I’m a model citizen, I swear.”

The [Soldier] takes the bowl back. He hawks up a wad of phlegm and spits it into the chamber pot behind me in disdain. “Sure, kid. A misunderstanding. Heard that one before.”

“I’m serious!” I protest, suddenly indignant. “I didn’t do anything—”

He headbutts me before I can get any further, dropping me to the ground like a sack of grain. I whimper, rolling bonelessly on the floor while he chuckles. “Nothing personal. But I’m not interested in getting caught up in the [Adjutant]’s schemes. Bad for my health.”

He bangs the door behind him without another word, leaving me alone in the dark once again. I’m starting to get tired of terse conversations and slammed doors. Is everyone from the capital surly and unstable? No wonder Tem wanted to get out.

I wonder how he’s doing these days. According to Mbukhe, Tem is still alive, but I can’t help but think it odd that no one else has said anything about it. Surely the same group that put out the announcement about his treason would gladly trumpet the fact that they apprehended their target. Why the silence?

I roll over, wrapping myself in the threadbare blanket in the corner, and decide to get some sleep. I have no idea what time it is, but I’ll need to keep my strength up for whatever comes next. A full belly and a clear mind can only help.

Rest eludes me, however. All I can do is think about things out of my control. The last line of Mbukhe’s note about Tem plays through my mind again. The sun rises in darkness. What does it mean? Is the sun a person? Code for Tem, perhaps? Or is it an idea, a concept? Maybe it’s a representative of hope.

A spike of irritation hits me as I’m contemplating the note I got from Mbukhe. Where did that pair of [Inquisitors] disappear to, anyway? I thought they were going to help me, but for all I know, they’re the ones who sold me out when I tried to escape. Or maybe Casella was the only one on my side, and Mbukhe turned him in when he realized his partner had gone rogue. Is that why I haven’t seen the big man since he dropped me off?

“Paranoia isn’t a good look on you, Nuri,” I mutter to myself.

Reflexively, I tap into my [Manasight] to see if anyone’s spying on me. To my surprise, the Skill flickers to life; I actually have enough mana regenerated now to leverage my abilities if I need to use a Skill. A moment later, [Manasight] sputters out, and I chide myself for the waste. If I’m going to get out of here, then I need to gather my resources and stick to the plan. My best bet is using [Architect of Unseen Worlds], but that’s my most mana-hungry Skill. I need to bide my time and not waste mana indiscriminately before the Skill is ready.

I sit back down, yawning. My jaw pops, and I wince at the crack of pain. Rubbing my cheek muscles, I regulate my breathing and try to draw in more mana. The resistance makes me feel like I am trying to drink thick pottage through a thin straw, but I do sense a slight uptick in the rate at which I can harvest ambient mana.

I’m not sure if the restrictions are fading and need to be reapplied, or if they didn’t have time to set up a perfect seal to keep mana out. Maybe they think I’m too weak to do anything useful with the tiny trickle of regeneration available to me right now. I snort softly. I wish I could deny that it’s true, but that would be self deceiving.

Satisfied that I have a workable plan, as tenuous as it may be, I finally drift off into an uncomfortable, troubled sleep. By the time I wake, my reserves are somewhere around thirty to forty percent. Estimating is the best I can do; not for the first time, I wish that I had a way to quantify mana and other information.

The mana control test hurt like a swarm of fire ants, but quantitative verification of my vital statistics is so important that I know I’ll do it again at every opportunity to check my growth. Numerical values for my mana pool and other attributes? Now there’s an idea that sounds fantastic—too good, in fact, for someone else not to have tried it first. Maybe Rakesh can help me with that in the future, assuming he’s not caught up in the fallout from our escape plans gone awry. I feel bad for the poor [Researcher].

I stretch out, slowly feeling for the walls with my toes and fingers. I’ve long since pulled off my boots; it may not be much, but it’s a small act of defiance. For some reason, it makes me feel good to exert some measure of control—I’m declaring that I’m not held against my will, but that I’m as comfortable here as I am in my own home. I’m in charge of my own actions, even if it’s only the stupid boots.

I touch the cold stone on either side of my small cell, savoring the sensation of shivering. Since I’m trying to conserve mana, I’ve resisted the urge to blast away discomfort with a touch of my [Heat Manipulation]. At my current rate of regeneration, I still have a couple hours to go before I can realistically activate [Architect of Unseen Worlds] for long enough to obtain any useful information about the door and its locking mechanism.

Without a window or clock, I have nothing against which to judge how long I was asleep, so I’m content to wait until after breakfast before I make an attempt. That way I’ll have a reliable touchpoint to base my rough guess about how much time has gone by, assuming they feed me on a regular schedule. I don’t want them to barge in when I’m halfway through the attempt, so it seems safer to wait for the hours between breakfast and dinner.

Their stinginess in not feeding me lunch is working against them, I think with a grin as I stretch out my body in the silence, meditating in the dark and preparing for my jailbreak attempt. I’ll have plenty of time to work through my Skills and map out the structure and composition of the door, assuming that its anti-mana-intrusion enchantments don’t completely block my best Skill: [Architect of Unseen Worlds].

By the time breakfast finally arrives, I’m cranky, stiff, and my stomach is growling like a Shadow Jaguar. My earlier buoyant attitude is curdling into something more sour, and I realize that I’ve overshot their sense of responsibility. My assumption that they at least keep a regular schedule around here is dashed, if my stomach’s intense rumbling is anything to go by.

I sit meekly in the corner when the big [Soldier] shoulders the door open, not risking his wrath. He’s less genial than I initially assumed, and I’m starting to get the inkling that relying on my assumptions and first impressions is a good way to get myself in trouble. This time, he sets the tray on the floor with a clatter that spills a quarter of the broth, snickering in a cruel-hearted way that I recognize is endemic to truly stupid, small-minded individuals. Taking out frustration on me makes him feel better, apparently.

“Thanks,” I mumble between sips of the soup. We’re not friends, but a little gratitude can go a long way. Maybe he’ll be slightly less inclined to kill me if he catches me during my escape attempt. It’s not a very likely hypothesis, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.

“Slow down,” he grunts. “Gonna make yourself sick.”

Huh. Maybe he’s my friend after all. “Thanks. I’m just hungry.”

He spits on the floor. “Don’t care. Just don’t wanna clean it up if you make a mess.”

I stifle the urge to chuckle darkly, not wanting to draw his ire again. Nope. Nevermind. Not friends. I won’t make that mistake again. The thought of us sitting down for tea or a picnic together amuses me, but when the [Soldier] collects the empty bowl and leaves me alone with his customary slammed door, I remember that it’s not a laughing matter. I’m on my own, locked in this cell, and the sooner I figure out a way to escape, the better.

=+=

“Shattered glass and blistered fingers!” I snap, swearing in the hot shop vernacular. I shake my hand, hissing in pain. The feedback from the failed mana Skill stings like a giant hornet on a mana-induced rampage. The mana spellform has collapsed before, but never this bad, and I’m losing my resolve to keep trying. I groan, flexing my fingers and working the feeling back into my arms, fighting off the suffocating pressure of discouragement.

I kick the door to vent some anger, although I don’t dare kick the iron very hard for fear of breaking my toes. It’s a symbolic gesture, but it still makes me feel a little bit less frustrated. This is my third attempt of the day to force my Skill into the intractable door to my prison cell, and it’s somehow going even worse than I’d anticipated. I’m not making progress or learning what to do next time. I’m just bashing my head against a wall.

“Against a door, not a wall, you idiot,” I growl aloud. Absently, I note that talking to myself is probably a sign of a compromised mental state, but I’m too worked up to care. I’m tired of the dark, tired of getting nowhere.

So far, my efforts have yielded nothing more than a pounding headache. All I have right now are vague impressions and from which materials it's crafted. Sensing the inner workings of the lock is beyond me. Nor have I gotten any grasp of the mechanism that I'll need to transmute in order to open the door and free myself from my cell.

I sit down to take a break, allowing the boiling emotions in my chest to quiet themselves. I sink inward, imagining that the core of who I am is a lake beset by storms. The wild winds whip up the white capped waves, a fine, frothing frenzy of fury and frustration. With each breath, I imagine the wind becoming gentler, warmer, a life-giving breeze rather than a bleak maelstrom of destruction. The water fades from its harsh, monochromatic hues of jagged black and white, locked in an eternal struggle for dominance. Instead, it takes on shades of blues and greens, intermixed with the occasional muddy brown.

In time, the tableau settles into a calm lake on a summer day, and at last the wide body of water grows quiescent. Back in my physical body once more, I let out a sigh that expels my cares and worries, telling myself that I am tranquil once more. It’s a lie, but it’s a nice one, so I choose to embrace it for the present.

Right now, the only thing that comforts me is that they let my teammates go with nothing more than warnings. As far as I can tell, the royal army doesn’t truly consider them persons of interest, which means that phase two of our plan should be well underway. Without me, I add in a rush of bitterness.

None of that, I chide myself sternly. It’s out of my control, so it’s not worth worrying about anymore. In the meantime, I’m of two minds about the way to proceed. I’ve somehow gained two unlikely mentors in my short life—three, if I count Ember, although she’s not as specialized as Ezio or Tem in their respective fields—but their probable advice in this sort of situation seems somewhat contradictory as I mull over my memories of their styles.

Tem always encouraged me to push through, to keep struggling until I found the way forward. I appreciate that about him. Never give up, fight to your last breath, see things through, and endure when life gets hard. His advice is helping me finally grow up and become a man. He will always have my respect and gratitude.

Ezio, on the other hand, while just as determined to find a solution when faced with a dilemma, often tells me to change my perspective. His approach is all about establishing a valid baseline, and then systematically changing variables. Sometimes, he even inverts the entirety of the scenario, starting fresh and looking at everything with entirely new eyes. It doesn’t always feel as satisfying as smashing a problem to pieces, but the results are usually more elegant.

I rub the base of my palms against my temples, relieving the mounting headache. In this situation, I’m inclined to listen to Ezio’s advice. His imagined words of wisdom rattle around in my skull as he pontificates about more creative ways to problem solve. Tem certainly has more real world experience with traps, locks, and general exfiltration techniques, but he’s also a far higher level than I’ll probably ever be. Unless I can magically jump an entire Threshold, then his methods won’t work for me here. I’m simply lacking the raw power to do things his way.

Decided now, I take a deep, bracing breath, studying my nerves and clearing my mind from distractions. First things first. I need to establish the facts, and then run through my series of viable options. Wishing I could bring to bear Tem’s level of power or expertise won’t get me anywhere. I have to work with what I have—which, admittedly, isn’t much.

Fact one: the big, iron door is unusually resistant to direct manipulation by mana-based Skills. Fact two: Although [Architect of Unseen Worlds] is my most powerful Skill by a long shot, it’s heavily mana reliant. Fact three: [Heat Manipulation] can’t get enough purchase on the door to properly cool it down to levels where I can shatter the lock like I did in the labyrinth. Fact four: at its current rank, [The Eternal Glass Forge] requires line of sight in order to activate extended reach, making the Skill highly conditional. Fact five: fighting a grizzled veteran of a [Soldier] is tantamount to suicide. I don’t have any weapons, and even if I create a little glass shiv, his martial experience far exceeds mine. Direct combat is out of the question.

As I turn over the possibilities in my mind, a new thought strikes me. Chances are low that the [Soldier] has any form of [Manasight]. He looks like he’s invested in body enhancement Skills, not more arcane pursuits. He likely lacks even basic sensitivity to mana Skills going off in his vicinity. Can I use that to my advantage?

I yawn, squeezing my eyes shut and stretching out. Perhaps I can leverage [The Eternal Glass Forge: Extended Reach] to create a batch of glass directly within the door’s keyhole when the [Soldier] on guard duty opens the door for meal time. I’ll wait until he leaves, and use my natural, preexisting affinity with the glass to shape it with my artisan skills, bypassing the door’s anti-intrusion enchantments.

Then the obvious problem with my plan smacks me in the face, and I let out a low growl. The key will already be in the lock, since he has to unlock the door to open it. I can’t create any glass there, since the key will obstruct the very area I’m hoping to fill. Ugh. Why didn’t I think of that first? Of course I won’t be able to create a batch of glass in an already occupied space. I can bend the world to my command with [Architect of Unseen Worlds], but I can't completely subvert the immutable laws of reality.

I slump back against the wall, drained of my brief burst of energy. As my momentum stalls and my enthusiasm drains, it’s all I can do to keep from giving up entirely. I scowl and kick the door ineffectually again with my heel, not wanting to hurt my toes. I can’t wait to get out of here. Prison really is the worst. Shatter it all!

=+=

Two more fruitless days drag by, at least according to feeding cycles. For all I know, they’re only feeding me once a day, and my perception of time is completely skewed, but I’d like to think I’m getting breakfast and dinner on the regular. I’m still no closer to cracking the code that will lead to my freedom, but my mood is improving anyway. It’s either wallow in my misery, or embrace the quiet solitude and practice ranking up my Skills without any other responsibilities. Strength is its own reward, but the side effect of breaking free from prison is pretty attractive, too.

The door yields its secrets to me by agonizing degrees. I still can’t pierce its depths or get a sense for the lock, but I’ve managed to map out a hand-sized patch of the outer layer. The ratio of conquered iron to implacable magical bastion is still daunting, but if the [Adjutant]’s right about the estimated timeline of their campaign against the wraiths, then I should be on track to unlock the door’s mysteries before I’m hauled off to the capital.

No pun intended, I snicker to myself.

After breakfast on the third day, as the [Soldier] gathers my tray and turns to leave, I’m hit by a moment of brilliant inspiration—I don’t have to analyze the enchanted door to figure out the lock. All I have to do is replicate the key.

“Err, do you mind swapping out my chamber pot?” I ask hesitantly, just as the big man slips the key out of the door, but before he bangs it shut in my face. “It’s, uh, rather full.”

“Tough,” he mutters, casting a queasy-looking glance at the offending pot. He waves his hand in front of his nose. “Can’t handle the consequences? Shouldn’t have screwed up.”

“I know it’s beneath you, sir,” I say, opting for the philosophy that flattery usually gets you further in life, “but perhaps a subordinate or follower could fetch it on your behalf? A [Camp Aide], or the like? No one should have to live like a pig, rolling around in their own muck.”

His scarred face softens slightly. He tosses the key in his hand a few times, then nods. “Fair enough. I’ll get one of the kids to do it. But you owe me, prisoner. And I won’t forget it.”

I clasp my hands together and dip my head gratefully, so relieved I don’t have to act.

“Now don’t bug me again,” the [Soldier] grumbles, pocketing the key and slamming the door behind him. His boots echo faintly from the other side of the door as he stomps down the corridor, presumably to find some poor fool to do his dirty work for him.

I collapse onto my threadbare blanket, breathing raggedly as I release my Skill. Forcing the [Architect of Unseen Worlds] to analyze the key from such a distance, while still talking with the [Soldier] and acting nonchalant, utterly drained me. I’m out of mana, and running on fumes, and the bloom of a headache in the base of my skull promises a full-blown migraine later.

Splitting my perspective like that so that I could interact with the guard and also see the fine details of the key is not an experience I’m keen to repeat. I know that I’ll have to wield every tool at my disposal to get out of here, and that the surest way of ranking up a Skill is to push it as far and hard as it can go under adverse circumstances, but I’m still not looking forward to the pain and discombobulation. I’ve had enough of that lately, thank you very much.

Clutching my head in my hands, I curl up in a ball and pass out. By the time I wake, the dregs of my mana have refilled, but my head still hurts. I shake it off, focusing on the important detail: I’ve gotten an imprint of the key. Once I’ve recovered enough mana to activate my Skills again—probably in another two or three days, since it will require my entire pool twice over to complete the work—I can recreate the key’s teeth and ridges.

I still don’t know how I’m going to fit the key into the lock without the [Soldier] noticing, or turn the key once it’s in place, but that’s a problem for another day. For now, I’m satisfied with my progress. I’m one step closer to freedom, and I’m proving that wielding glass is a viable path to power.

I slip in and out of naps all day, drifting off during meditation as I recover my mana. I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination at play, but I feel like I’m gathering my reserves more quickly than I was a few days ago. To my surprise, true to his word, the [Soldier] drags along a young boy when he brings me dinner. The kid plunks down a clean, empty chamber pot and grabs the old one with a sulky expression.

He kicks me as he exits the cell, but I just roll my eyes. He’s likely too young to even have a Class yet, and I probably wouldn’t have reacted much more graciously at his age if I’d been forced to clean up someone else’s mess.

My headache clears up after I eat dinner, and I’m almost topped off after an entire day’s worth of mana regeneration. I count to one thousand, as slowly as I can manage without giving in to the sheer, mind-numbing boredom, and press my ear to the door to listen for any activity in the corridor outside my cell.

Silence is golden, or so the saying goes. Right now, I’m inclined to agree.

Grinning in the darkness, I focus my attention on the keyhole, even though I still can’t quite feel it through the enchantments on the door. I hold the template of the key in mind while I activate [The Eternal Glass Forge: Extended Reach]. As before, the spellform fizzles out when I try to force it past my line of sight, but I still drop my forehead against the cold iron door with a grunt of frustration. I thought that visualizing the space might bridge the gap.

The actual lack of sight doesn’t matter; I’ve already tested that I can summon a small amount of glass inside the cell even though I can’t see. The problem remains the heavy, iron door and its anti-mana-intrusion enchantments. If I can just force my way past them, then my plan might still bear fruit.

I lick my lips, tap my finger on the door right behind the lock, and get to work. So far, I’ve been trying to peel back the enchantments, layer by layer, by understanding and transmuting the entire door. It’s a rough, brute-force way of counteracting enchantments I don’t understand, but given enough time, I’ll remake the entire door and remove the enchantments in the process. Ezio would probably die of an aneurysm if he saw my methods, but I don’t have a lot of fallback options right now.

This time, I try to burrow my way straight through the door. I’ve never forced my Skill to take on such a narrow shape, but it seems stronger for the compression, at the cost of heavily increasing the mental taxation. My focus wavers a few times, and I lament that I can’t spare the concentration or the spare mana to observe the process via my [Manasight]. Correcting errors in the formation of the Skill when I’m free-handing the metamagic like this is mostly error and little trial, but by the time my mana runs out, I faintly sense the lock.

I go back to my spot on the floor, panting from the exertion and trying to work moisture back into my mouth. My entire body feels bone-dry, not just my channels, as though draining my mana pool sucked the vitality from my entire system. Nonetheless, despite the pain, a mad grin snakes its way across my face again. This is a proper challenge.

I’m growing and learning. My body may be imprisoned, but my mind is free. And as I lie there in the dark, trapped inside the four walls of my tiny cell, I’ve never felt more alive.