‘Ping’ [Twin of the Void - Level 32³ / Soldier of Alixia - Level 31³ / Voidblade 3³] Has been slain. 10 ability points have been granted for slaying an opponent one tier above you.
‘Ping’ [Battlemage - Lightning] Has leveled 7 > 8
‘Ping’ [Bladedancer - Lightning] Has leveled 5 > 7
‘Ping’ [Nature’s Adept] Has leveled 4 > 5
‘Ping’ [Rest] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Electric Sense] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Sword Apprentice] Has leveled 22 > 25
‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 13 > 14
‘Ping’ [Accelerated Thoughts] 1 > 3
‘Ping’ [Fatigue Resistance] Has leveled 9 >10
‘Ping’ [Parallel Minds] Has leveled 3 > 4
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 535
Tier 2 Class - [Battlemage - Lightning] - Level 8
Ability - [Lightning Storm]
Ability - [Paralyzing Blast]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Aura]
Ability - [Chain Lightning]
Ability -
Tier 2 Class - [Bladedancer - Lightning] - Level 7
Ability - [Forged by the Storm - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Strikes]
Ability - [Enchanted Redirection]
Ability - [Enchanted Accuracy]
Ability - [Second Strike]
Ability - [Ride the Lightning]
Tier 2 Class - [Nature’s Adept] - Level 5
Ability - [Natures Protection]
Ability - [Healing Blossom]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Natural Selection]
Ability - [Nature’s Touch]
Ability - [Barrier]
Ability - [One With Nature]
Enhancements -
Tier 1 [Point Blank] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Weapon Proficiency] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Quickness] (Level 25)
Tier 2 - [Close Quarters Casting] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Dodge] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Feint Proficiency] (Level 50)
General Skills -
Tier 1 [Identify] - Level 11
Tier 1 [Rest] - Level 2
Tier 2 [Mana Sense] - Level 2
Tier 2 [Electric Sense] - Level 2
Tier 1 [Sword Apprentice] - Level 25
Tier 1 [Wood Manipulation] - Level 14
Tier 2 [Accelerated Thoughts] - Level 3
[Fist Technique] - Level 3
[Mining] - Level 3
[Fruit Production] - Level 9
Tier 1 [Fatigue Resistance] - Level 10
Tier 1 [Erotic Arts] - Level 2
Tier 1 [Parallel Minds] - Level 4
[Plant Production] - Level 3
[Vegetable Production] - Level 4
Status -
Vig - [1830] (2598.6)
End - [1611] (2287.62)
Str - [1653]
Dex - [1756] (2553.22) [3829.83] {3829.83}
Agi - [1608] (3080.58) |3544.08| {4620.87/5084.37}
Int - [1854]
Wis - [1963]
Health - 25986/25986
Stamina - 22876/22876
Mana - 19630/19630
(number represents passives provided by classes) |number represents CQC enhancement bonus| {Number represents 1 second spike when dodging/with CQC active} [number for weapon dexterity]
A former soldier? Strange. Were they a slave or did they just want to join in the fights thinking they could beat any slave? I mean, she nearly beat me. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think this would be the kind of thing that the soldiers would join in. Although…
Adam’s gear had been extremely high quality. Maybe he was just a soldier? It hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but to a degree it made sense. Something I’d need to ask someone about maybe.
I walked to the door of the arena and it was opened to let me out. As usual, Lurks was there to take the blade from me. She smirked as I got closer, taking the blade as I handed it to her.
“Follow,” She said to me before turning around and walking off.
I frowned but followed her nonetheless. Not like I could really refuse to follow her anyway.
My heart started to sink as I vaguely recognized the path she was leading me down, my legs started to grow weak and I stumbled to a stop and was having difficulties even keeping my balance.
I tried not to start crying. It was hard.
Lurks turned back around looking at me with minor annoyance, “Follow, or it’ll end up worse for you.”
My mind and body were fighting a conflict with each other. My body did not want to go somewhere it knew would be hurtful, and my mind understood that I didn’t have a choice. Well, there was a choice between trying to run and not trying to run. But I knew that my chances of succeeding were abysmally low.
Eventually, I managed to take slow stumbling steps after her, while she just smirked and watched as I struggled.
It didn’t take much longer for us to reach her room.
I hated it here.
***
The amount of time she held onto me this time was much shorter than last time. Last time it had been two weeks, this time it had only been three days. I had unfortunately been much more lucid through it this time than I had been previously.
Which was probably why she kept it shorter. She probably could’ve made me forget, but there wasn’t really a reason for her to do so.
The soldiers threw me through the door and closed it behind me. I just laid on the floor where I landed after they threw me, I didn’t feel like moving. My arms and legs felt weak and I didn’t care to try and push myself.
I just lay there trying not to cry, taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly.
Over.
And over.
And over.
“Ah, I thought I heard the door to the cellblock slamming shut.”
A voice startled me, causing me to flinch. I tried to stop it from happening but I wasn’t able to. Fucking traitorous body.
I barely managed to look up to see who it was.
Max’s face looked back down at me with pity. I hated that face. I hated that fucking face so damn much.
I looked away, unable to hold his gaze, my face burning with shame. I just settled back onto the floor as comfortably as I could. Eventually, I’d be strong enough to walk, I’d leave then.
Max reached out and grabbed me causing me to flinch violently at his sudden touch. He didn’t let go though, keeping a firm grip on me, and slowly helped me to my feet as I weakly fought against him.
“Shhh, shhhh. Come on, you’re fine. I got you. Let’s get you back to your room, you’ll be able to rest better there I think. Come on, they don’t know what happened, they’ll think it was just a bad fight,” He said soothingly.
“How d-do you kno-know then?” I barely managed to get it out as a whisper.
“I was around when David confronted you the first time, but after that people didn’t really spread it around like David hoped we would. Mainly because Jolene said that anyone she caught talking about it would regret it, but most people weren’t interested in pissing you off either. Most of them saw your fight against Fist. They know you’re not a pushover.”
I couldn’t bring myself to respond, I just let him guide me as we slowly walked back to my room. I wasn’t sure how many people were mingling about in the commons area, I didn’t bother paying attention to how many people came up and talked to Max. I just tried to keep my feet under me.
In an instant, it seemed like we were in my room and I was lying down in my bed. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t fall asleep either. It took several hours before I managed to sleep, and even then it wasn’t good sleep.
***
When I woke up I still felt extremely weak and groggy. I panned my mental attention through the cell block, but I couldn’t find anyone. Wait. No, there was Jolene sitting at one of the tables in the commons area. I guess it made sense that the cooks wouldn’t have to go to mine, they needed to cook for everyone.
Why had I been allowed to sleep through the work call though? That seemed like the kind of thing that Lurks wouldn’t care about.
I managed to push myself to my feet, I was only slightly more stable than I had been previously. I walked out of my room slowly, using multiple minds to focus on my walking. Making sure that I put one foot in front of the other carefully and precisely.
I eventually made it down the tunnel into the main commons area and walked over to where Jolene was sitting. She looked up and watched my approach with an impassive expression. I made my way over to her table and pulled out a chair and sat down.
I crossed my arms while resting them on the table and then rested my head on top of them while facing towards Jolene.
“Was shorter this time,” She observed.
I took a moment to think about my words, everything was still coming to me slowly. I wasn’t sure if that was because of Lurks or just from having just woken up.
“She said… she said that she wanted to take her time breaking me…” I said hoarsely.
Realizing that my throat hurt worse than I could feel at the moment I pulsed a heal through my body, all of a sudden a lot of aches and pains disappeared from my entire body. Pains I hadn’t even realized were there. I pulsed a few more, my body feeling better and better after each one.
I let out a soft sigh of relief. The release from consistent pain that my brain had been shutting out was like the weight of the sky being taken from my shoulders. My mind cleared up a lot, no longer felt so slow or weak.
Jolene just nodded, “Yeah, that sounds like her.”
I sat up a little, “You’ve been here a while then?”
She nodded, “Yeah, been here longer than pretty much anyone. Even David.”
“I guess I’m not the first one she’s decided to own then?”
Jolene just snorted, “No, not even close to the first. I doubt you’ll be the last either. She’ll keep alternating between making you fight and her bedroom sessions while also allowing you to come back here. She’ll wait until you build up friendships and relationships with people around you. And then once you feel like you have a grasp on everything she’ll break your entire worldview. Then she’ll let you recover and do it again. And again. And again, until she gets bored or you die.”
“I see. You too then?” I asked her.
She just nodded.
I nodded back. It made too much sense. Jolene was one of the few people who hadn’t looked at me with complete pity when she saw me. She was the only one who joked about it and defused the situation, trying to make me laugh with crude jokes.
I wasn’t the only person Lurks had taken an interest in. We were two peas in a pod. Which made sense since Jolene was a chef. I let out a stifled chuckle. Jolene glanced at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I said while waving my hand dismissively, “just a joke that came to mind. It’s not even that funny. More a pun than anything.”
She smirked but didn’t say anything.
“How long until everyone else comes back?”
Jolene hummed thoughtfully, “You came back around six hours before their shift and they’ve currently been working for about six hours in total. That should answer a couple of your questions.”
I nodded, and it did. My next question was probably going to be how long had I been asleep.
“Why did Lurks let me stay?”
She leaned back in her chair crossing her arms under her chest.
“You said it yourself, she wants to go slow. Take her time, make it worth her while. That means also giving you time to recover from her little sessions. If she pushed you too hard too fast you would break too soon. She figured that out early on, earlier than me.”
I nodded, I guess that made sense. I guess I would take the silver linings where I could.
“How long does she usually do these things?”
Jolene shrugged, “It depends on the person she’s interested in mainly. For me? She took a year and a half. Never pushed me far enough to break or die and eventually got bored and left me. The person after me? They cracked in two weeks.”
So there was a chance she would just get bored and leave me alone. Just not one I wanted to count on. I didn’t want to try and wait this out. I wanted to escape. I wanted to go home. I just didn’t know how.
I would just have to keep waiting until I managed to figure something out, once I did I’d have to act fast. Couldn’t give Lurks a chance to learn about it anyway.
Jolene stood up, “Wait here, I’ll get you some of the soup I made.”
I nodded absentmindedly.
My main problem with trying to escape was that I couldn’t devise a plan. Simply because Lurks was constantly scanning my memories. Since I couldn’t hide anything from her, my plans had to be all spur of the moment.
Which kind of made it hard to be able to escape from a prison facility, even a medieval one. However, this one had more modern-style defenses as well, in the form of magic alarms and defenses.
I wondered which would be more secure, a prison facility from Earth or one from Kelthas?
I shook my head, that wasn’t important. Focus. I let one of my other minds handle thinking idle, unimportant thoughts.
I leaned back in my chair with a groan, this was just an extremely shitty situation all around. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I plan something anyway? I wasn’t sure. What would be best would be for someone else to think of an escape plan and then bring me in at the last moment.
That’s if they were trying to help me escape though. A better plan would be to come up with a plan and then tell me a false one so that Lurks got bad information and then use me as bait. That would be a better plan to make use of.
I frowned. I’d need to be careful of someone trying to pull that on me. I didn’t really expect it to happen, but you couldn’t ever be too sure.
Jolene eventually came back with another bowl of the potato-lentil soup.
I smiled, “Thanks.”
She just nodded and sat back down at the table. I dug into the soup, I wasn’t sure if this was the same batch as the last one, but it tasted great regardless so I ate it happily.
A seeping warmth filled up my chest as I ate it, washing away a lot of the dark feelings I was having. I quickly ate the entire soup and leaned back with a content sigh.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t planning on giving up easily either. Eventually, I’d get my chance, I was sure. I just needed to keep an open mind and think creatively. If I could just do that I had no doubts that it would work out for me. Or at least it would one way or another.
I guess I would find out, one way or another.
‘Ping’ [Twin of the Void - Level 32³ / Soldier of Alixia - Level 31³ / Voidblade 3³] Has been slain. 10 ability points have been granted for slaying an opponent one tier above you.
‘Ping’ [Battlemage - Lightning] Has leveled 7 > 8
‘Ping’ [Bladedancer - Lightning] Has leveled 5 > 7
‘Ping’ [Nature’s Adept] Has leveled 4 > 5
‘Ping’ [Rest] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Electric Sense] Has leveled 1 > 2
‘Ping’ [Sword Apprentice] Has leveled 22 > 25
‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 13 > 14
‘Ping’ [Accelerated Thoughts] 1 > 3
‘Ping’ [Fatigue Resistance] Has leveled 9 >10
‘Ping’ [Parallel Minds] Has leveled 3 > 4
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 535
Tier 2 Class - [Battlemage - Lightning] - Level 8
Ability - [Lightning Storm]
Ability - [Paralyzing Blast]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Aura]
Ability - [Chain Lightning]
Ability -
Tier 2 Class - [Bladedancer - Lightning] - Level 7
Ability - [Forged by the Storm - Passive]
Ability - [Lightning Strikes]
Ability - [Enchanted Redirection]
Ability - [Enchanted Accuracy]
Ability - [Second Strike]
Ability - [Ride the Lightning]
Tier 2 Class - [Nature’s Adept] - Level 5
Ability - [Natures Protection]
Ability - [Healing Blossom]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Natural Selection]
Ability - [Nature’s Touch]
Ability - [Barrier]
Ability - [One With Nature]
Enhancements -
Tier 1 [Point Blank] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Weapon Proficiency] (Level 25)
Tier 1 [Quickness] (Level 25)
Tier 2 - [Close Quarters Casting] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Dodge] (Level 50)
Tier 2 - [Feint Proficiency] (Level 50)
General Skills -
Tier 1 [Identify] - Level 11
Tier 1 [Rest] - Level 2
Tier 2 [Mana Sense] - Level 2
Tier 2 [Electric Sense] - Level 2
Tier 1 [Sword Apprentice] - Level 25
Tier 1 [Wood Manipulation] - Level 14
Tier 2 [Accelerated Thoughts] - Level 3
[Fist Technique] - Level 3
[Mining] - Level 3
[Fruit Production] - Level 9
Tier 1 [Fatigue Resistance] - Level 10
Tier 1 [Erotic Arts] - Level 2
Tier 1 [Parallel Minds] - Level 4
[Plant Production] - Level 3
[Vegetable Production] - Level 4
Status -
Vig - [1830] (2598.6)
End - [1611] (2287.62)
Str - [1653]
Dex - [1756] (2553.22) [3829.83] {3829.83}
Agi - [1608] (3080.58) |3544.08| {4620.87/5084.37}
Int - [1854]
Wis - [1963]
Health - 25986/25986
Stamina - 22876/22876
Mana - 19630/19630
(number represents passives provided by classes) |number represents CQC enhancement bonus| {Number represents 1 second spike when dodging/with CQC active} [number for weapon dexterity]
A former soldier? Strange. Were they a slave or did they just want to join in the fights thinking they could beat any slave? I mean, she nearly beat me. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think this would be the kind of thing that the soldiers would join in. Although…
Adam’s gear had been extremely high quality. Maybe he was just a soldier? It hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but to a degree it made sense. Something I’d need to ask someone about maybe.
I walked to the door of the arena and it was opened to let me out. As usual, Lurks was there to take the blade from me. She smirked as I got closer, taking the blade as I handed it to her.
“Follow,” She said to me before turning around and walking off.
I frowned but followed her nonetheless. Not like I could really refuse to follow her anyway.
My heart started to sink as I vaguely recognized the path she was leading me down, my legs started to grow weak and I stumbled to a stop and was having difficulties even keeping my balance.
I tried not to start crying. It was hard.
Lurks turned back around looking at me with minor annoyance, “Follow, or it’ll end up worse for you.”
My mind and body were fighting a conflict with each other. My body did not want to go somewhere it knew would be hurtful, and my mind understood that I didn’t have a choice. Well, there was a choice between trying to run and not trying to run. But I knew that my chances of succeeding were abysmally low.
Eventually, I managed to take slow stumbling steps after her, while she just smirked and watched as I struggled.
It didn’t take much longer for us to reach her room.
I hated it here.
***
The amount of time she held onto me this time was much shorter than last time. Last time it had been two weeks, this time it had only been three days. I had unfortunately been much more lucid through it this time than I had been previously.
Which was probably why she kept it shorter. She probably could’ve made me forget, but there wasn’t really a reason for her to do so.
The soldiers threw me through the door and closed it behind me. I just laid on the floor where I landed after they threw me, I didn’t feel like moving. My arms and legs felt weak and I didn’t care to try and push myself.
I just lay there trying not to cry, taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly.
Over.
And over.
And over.
“Ah, I thought I heard the door to the cellblock slamming shut.”
A voice startled me, causing me to flinch. I tried to stop it from happening but I wasn’t able to. Fucking traitorous body.
I barely managed to look up to see who it was.
Max’s face looked back down at me with pity. I hated that face. I hated that fucking face so damn much.
I looked away, unable to hold his gaze, my face burning with shame. I just settled back onto the floor as comfortably as I could. Eventually, I’d be strong enough to walk, I’d leave then.
Max reached out and grabbed me causing me to flinch violently at his sudden touch. He didn’t let go though, keeping a firm grip on me, and slowly helped me to my feet as I weakly fought against him.
“Shhh, shhhh. Come on, you’re fine. I got you. Let’s get you back to your room, you’ll be able to rest better there I think. Come on, they don’t know what happened, they’ll think it was just a bad fight,” He said soothingly.
“How d-do you kno-know then?” I barely managed to get it out as a whisper.
“I was around when David confronted you the first time, but after that people didn’t really spread it around like David hoped we would. Mainly because Jolene said that anyone she caught talking about it would regret it, but most people weren’t interested in pissing you off either. Most of them saw your fight against Fist. They know you’re not a pushover.”
I couldn’t bring myself to respond, I just let him guide me as we slowly walked back to my room. I wasn’t sure how many people were mingling about in the commons area, I didn’t bother paying attention to how many people came up and talked to Max. I just tried to keep my feet under me.
In an instant, it seemed like we were in my room and I was lying down in my bed. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t fall asleep either. It took several hours before I managed to sleep, and even then it wasn’t good sleep.
***
When I woke up I still felt extremely weak and groggy. I panned my mental attention through the cell block, but I couldn’t find anyone. Wait. No, there was Jolene sitting at one of the tables in the commons area. I guess it made sense that the cooks wouldn’t have to go to mine, they needed to cook for everyone.
Why had I been allowed to sleep through the work call though? That seemed like the kind of thing that Lurks wouldn’t care about.
I managed to push myself to my feet, I was only slightly more stable than I had been previously. I walked out of my room slowly, using multiple minds to focus on my walking. Making sure that I put one foot in front of the other carefully and precisely.
I eventually made it down the tunnel into the main commons area and walked over to where Jolene was sitting. She looked up and watched my approach with an impassive expression. I made my way over to her table and pulled out a chair and sat down.
I crossed my arms while resting them on the table and then rested my head on top of them while facing towards Jolene.
“Was shorter this time,” She observed.
I took a moment to think about my words, everything was still coming to me slowly. I wasn’t sure if that was because of Lurks or just from having just woken up.
“She said… she said that she wanted to take her time breaking me…” I said hoarsely.
Realizing that my throat hurt worse than I could feel at the moment I pulsed a heal through my body, all of a sudden a lot of aches and pains disappeared from my entire body. Pains I hadn’t even realized were there. I pulsed a few more, my body feeling better and better after each one.
I let out a soft sigh of relief. The release from consistent pain that my brain had been shutting out was like the weight of the sky being taken from my shoulders. My mind cleared up a lot, no longer felt so slow or weak.
Jolene just nodded, “Yeah, that sounds like her.”
I sat up a little, “You’ve been here a while then?”
She nodded, “Yeah, been here longer than pretty much anyone. Even David.”
“I guess I’m not the first one she’s decided to own then?”
Jolene just snorted, “No, not even close to the first. I doubt you’ll be the last either. She’ll keep alternating between making you fight and her bedroom sessions while also allowing you to come back here. She’ll wait until you build up friendships and relationships with people around you. And then once you feel like you have a grasp on everything she’ll break your entire worldview. Then she’ll let you recover and do it again. And again. And again, until she gets bored or you die.”
“I see. You too then?” I asked her.
She just nodded.
I nodded back. It made too much sense. Jolene was one of the few people who hadn’t looked at me with complete pity when she saw me. She was the only one who joked about it and defused the situation, trying to make me laugh with crude jokes.
I wasn’t the only person Lurks had taken an interest in. We were two peas in a pod. Which made sense since Jolene was a chef. I let out a stifled chuckle. Jolene glanced at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I said while waving my hand dismissively, “just a joke that came to mind. It’s not even that funny. More a pun than anything.”
She smirked but didn’t say anything.
“How long until everyone else comes back?”
Jolene hummed thoughtfully, “You came back around six hours before their shift and they’ve currently been working for about six hours in total. That should answer a couple of your questions.”
I nodded, and it did. My next question was probably going to be how long had I been asleep.
“Why did Lurks let me stay?”
She leaned back in her chair crossing her arms under her chest.
“You said it yourself, she wants to go slow. Take her time, make it worth her while. That means also giving you time to recover from her little sessions. If she pushed you too hard too fast you would break too soon. She figured that out early on, earlier than me.”
I nodded, I guess that made sense. I guess I would take the silver linings where I could.
“How long does she usually do these things?”
Jolene shrugged, “It depends on the person she’s interested in mainly. For me? She took a year and a half. Never pushed me far enough to break or die and eventually got bored and left me. The person after me? They cracked in two weeks.”
So there was a chance she would just get bored and leave me alone. Just not one I wanted to count on. I didn’t want to try and wait this out. I wanted to escape. I wanted to go home. I just didn’t know how.
I would just have to keep waiting until I managed to figure something out, once I did I’d have to act fast. Couldn’t give Lurks a chance to learn about it anyway.
Jolene stood up, “Wait here, I’ll get you some of the soup I made.”
I nodded absentmindedly.
My main problem with trying to escape was that I couldn’t devise a plan. Simply because Lurks was constantly scanning my memories. Since I couldn’t hide anything from her, my plans had to be all spur of the moment.
Which kind of made it hard to be able to escape from a prison facility, even a medieval one. However, this one had more modern-style defenses as well, in the form of magic alarms and defenses.
I wondered which would be more secure, a prison facility from Earth or one from Kelthas?
I shook my head, that wasn’t important. Focus. I let one of my other minds handle thinking idle, unimportant thoughts.
I leaned back in my chair with a groan, this was just an extremely shitty situation all around. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I plan something anyway? I wasn’t sure. What would be best would be for someone else to think of an escape plan and then bring me in at the last moment.
That’s if they were trying to help me escape though. A better plan would be to come up with a plan and then tell me a false one so that Lurks got bad information and then use me as bait. That would be a better plan to make use of.
I frowned. I’d need to be careful of someone trying to pull that on me. I didn’t really expect it to happen, but you couldn’t ever be too sure.
Jolene eventually came back with another bowl of the potato-lentil soup.
I smiled, “Thanks.”
She just nodded and sat back down at the table. I dug into the soup, I wasn’t sure if this was the same batch as the last one, but it tasted great regardless so I ate it happily.
A seeping warmth filled up my chest as I ate it, washing away a lot of the dark feelings I was having. I quickly ate the entire soup and leaned back with a content sigh.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t planning on giving up easily either. Eventually, I’d get my chance, I was sure. I just needed to keep an open mind and think creatively. If I could just do that I had no doubts that it would work out for me. Or at least it would one way or another.
I guess I would find out, one way or another.
