He peered through the keyhole once more, checking that nothing had changed, and then eased open the door.

  The hallway was indeed empty. Lined with heavy dark iron reinforced doors like that of the one to his own room. Each of them had a viewport slat that could be moved out of the way to look within. Seven of them.

  On the far end of the hallway was another door made of solid dark iron.

  The other end, nearer Connor, was the door he’d been brought through when they’d first taken him to his cell. He remembered the way vividly.

  Connor pulled the freshly cut piece of the bolt lock free from where it rested in the door frame, just to make sure it didn’t fall out and alert the guards to something being wrong with the lock.

  He slipped it into his pocket.

  He crouched down and looked through the keyhole of the door that blocked his path back up to the surface.

  Beyond it, he saw a more open area of the ship, though much of his view was obscured by a thick section of a mast going up through the ceiling. There was a trio of visible staircases leading upward. And at least two that went down… the furthest was hard to make out in the dim light… but he couldn’t see a stairway leading down beneath it.

  Guards, or what Connor thought of as guards, milled around in the dim light. A few seemed involved in quiet conversation while one wandered around alone and seemed to be on some kind of patrol.

  It was difficult to see much in the low light and with the keyhole and mast in the way… but they were definitely armed. Across the way, he saw polished wood walls. But with the mast in the way, it was impossible to tell whether that was another prison section or some other partition.

  None of what he saw was outside of Connor’s expectations. And the low light levels would surely help him move around. It seemed wise not to skulk around too much as in the gloom, he could pass for a guard from a distance. Especially if he worked on making his silhouette resemble theirs.

  Hells, he doubted most of the crew or the guards even knew what he looked like. The Syndicate seemed to have put far less effort into preparing for a potential escape than they had into the design of their cells. Which, he had to admit, had been well thought out. They’d only missed a single crucial detail after all. A detail that he himself had overlooked for far too long.

  Still… if it did come to a fight… he had no potions and no weapons. He could be easily overwhelmed…

  He looked back over his shoulder, down the corridor at the cells lining either side and the thick dark iron door at the opposite end of the hallway as his thoughts turned to the creature he’d heard when they’d brought him to his cell.

  It’d caused quite a fuss then…

  He saw no sign of the damage it’d caused now, either because the light was too low to pick it out or it’d been too well repaired, but he couldn’t help thinking that it might be useful to have such a creature on his side.

  Provided I can actually get it on my side, Connor thought.

  It wouldn’t do much good to get himself torn apart by some monstrous beast… still… it seemed worth investigating. Besides, he wanted to know who else was in the cells anyway. Partly because it might provide useful information he could use against the Syndicate but more importantly… he hoped to find some of those he’d so disastrously led into a trap.

  If there were any of his people here, then they could help skew the odds in his favor. More than that… he could begin to undo the damage of his mistake. Begin to set things right.

  The thoughts took no time at all to process as he’d already considered it when he’d planned out his escape. During that time, he’d contemplated the branching paths he could potentially take when presented with different choices. Different obstacles.

  As such, he stood after only a heartbeat and began his work.

  He walked up to the cell nearest the way out. He slid back a retractable dark iron panel in the door, exposing a narrow viewport covered with a dark iron grate.

  A rank stink smacked into his face like a physical force as green-skinned heads turned to regard him with slitted eyes that held not a shred of goodness within. They hissed at him, exposing sharp, pointy teeth.

  Goblins. A whole group of twenty or more all chained together so tightly it was difficult to get an accurate count. A far cry from the spacious cell he had all to himself. Especially as their entire cell was half the size of his own. Perhaps less.

  He slid the panel back into place and walked to the next cell. Such vile creatures would turn upon him before he had a chance to use them against the Syndicate. There was little point in even considering attempting to ally with them.

  Besides, the thought of doing so made his skin crawl.

  He checked the cell beside them and found yet more goblins.

  Of the seven cells lining the hallway, including his own, three were packed full of goblins.

  What would The Syndicate want with goblins of all things? Connor wondered.

  The only thing that came readily to mind was to use them as some form of slave labor or perhaps as soldiers.

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  The creatures were smaller than men. Only three to four feet tall on average. But they had a tendency to breed prolifically which had a habit of giving them a numbers advantage and their ability to scale fortifications made them extraordinarily difficult to defend against.

  Especially in large numbers.

  Whatever the Syndicate planned for the creatures, it couldn’t be good.

  But, as unappealing as goblins were… they turned his stomach far less than what he found in the fourth cell he peered into.

  Grych.

  Eight feet tall monsters that walked upright like men yet were covered in shaggy fur. They had a misshapen, twisted canine appearance to them with enormous jaws that could crush bone and metal with ease.

  Goblins were terrible creatures. Conniving, selfish, and evil. But grych made them seem downright pleasant by comparison.

  Vicious, merciless creatures that relied on the worst acts of savagery upon other races simply to continue their wretched species. As far as Connor knew, there was no such thing as a female grych.

  Grych were far too violent and wild to ever make decent slaves. Of course, there was always the chance the Syndicate planned simply to collar them. Perhaps that would suppress their dark urges enough to make them useful.

  But, he doubted it.

  The Syndicate wouldn’t be the first to weaponize them.

  The thought turned his stomach. More so that Erik had the gall to claim he was on the side of righteousness while standing so close to cells filled with the vile beasts.

  The grych in the cell laughed in the unsettling way all grych did as they rattled against their chains. Their laughter seemed to be an innate part of them. Like a form of language. There was no humor to it. It was a dark, eerie noise that dripped with raw malice.

  They were packed less tightly together than the goblins. No doubt to keep them from ripping one another apart.

  Connor slid the viewport closed with a mixture of relief that he no longer had to look at them and revulsion for the Syndicate.

  He inspected the remaining cells. They too were filled with grych.

  It took little time at all to view the contents of the cells lining the hallway, which left him face to face with the dark iron door opposite the way out.

  Judging by its sturdier design, he couldn’t help but feel like whatever he found beyond it would be worse than goblins and grych. Or at least harder to contain.

  He peered through the keyhole and saw another hallway lined with dark iron doors. Although his view was partially blocked by another thick mast coming up through the floor and extending beyond the ceiling.

  The idea of weakening the security meant to hold gods only knew what creatures at bay didn’t sit well with him, but without a potion of magic sight and some decent picks, he didn’t have much in the way of options if he wanted to see what lay beyond the door. Besides, the Syndicate had no doubt made their cells far more difficult to escape than his own.

  Not that that thought was particularly comforting given that he’d found his way out.

  Still, even if he found nothing he could ally with, he’d already learned more about the Syndicate. The chance to gain additional information seemed worth a little added risk. It was time that worried him.

  The sooner he was off this ship, the more distance he could put between it and him when they learned he’d escaped.

  Connor got to work on the bolt of the lock with his alchemy.

  It also lacked a regeneration enchantment and he sheered through it just as he had the door to the room with his cell. He blew away the evidence of what he’d done and extracted the piece of the lock still buried in the frame of the door then shut the door behind him as he stepped into the higher security section.

  He checked a cell on his left first, sliding back the viewport to expose a trio of ice trolls. They were curled up almost into a ball on the floor of their tight cages with solid dark iron ceilings, preventing them from touching the wood above them.

  The enormous creatures seemed almost comical, confined as they were in their too-small cells. The three appeared to be asleep, their icy breaths steaming the air, though one stirred at Connor’s intrusion.

  Its eyes opened, seeming small and beady compared to its gigantic skull. It pulled its lips back in what might’ve been a dark smile though it looked more akin to a snarl.

  Connor slid the viewport shut.

  Opposite the trolls, he found a collection of giant frost spiders. Each of which was larger than a man. Their pale blue carapace glistened wetly and they seemed so perfectly still that if the room had matched their coloration, they’d have been almost impossible to spot.

  As he slid the viewport closed, one of them moved a leg ever so slightly.

  Connor stepped around the ship’s mast running through the center of the hallway and saw what lay on the opposite end of the room from the entrance at last.

  The fifth and final cell with a door barred by ten separate locks. Each of which was a thick rod of enchanted dark iron.

  Adorning the door was a metal skull with large, curved horns of the same dark iron as the door. Its sharp teeth were bared and the dark sockets of its eyes promised only doom beyond as the runic script engraved on the door pulsed softly with magic.

  Connor swallowed hard and checked the third cell.

  Within, he saw only a single creature. A peculiar thing bound in enchanted chains and with a cage made not of dark iron but some kind of translucent crystal. It seemed at first to be an ordinary chicken. A rooster.

  But the eye it fixed him with had a horizontally slitted pupil like a frog’s and its body warped and undulated as its form shifted. The enchanted chains binding it constricted around the creature, winding tighter about it as it screeched between a rasping, wet choking noise.

  It settled back down again then into the form of a rooster. But its single visible eye remained horizontally slit.

  Connor slid the viewport closed.

  The fourth cell held malformed canines with hellfire burning where their eyes should be and smoke curling from their mouths. The sight of them made Connor’s hackles rise. Hellhounds.

  He’d faced such beasts before. The memories of the carnage they’d created still haunted his nightmares. Demons, even relatively small and powerless demons such as these, were a powerful force to be reckoned with. And, much like the grych or goblins, demons were vile beings of complete and utter evil.

  Good and righteous, eh, Erik? Connor thought.

  The hellhounds growled at him as unnatural orange-red flames dripped from their furnace-like maws.

  Connor slid the viewport shut, his skin still crawling from the sight of the vile, supernatural flames which even at this distance his instincts had screamed warnings about.

  Connor felt more than a little disappointed by the lack of allies aboard this ship. He supposed he’d have to make his way out alone.

  There was the final door of course. But, even if it contained a creature he could trust enough to work together with, it wouldn’t matter. The ten separate thick, enchanted dark iron bars would simply be too much for him to cut through with his alchemy power. Both in terms of stamina and the sheer amount of time it would take.

  Still, he couldn’t restrain his curiosity. Of all the horrors imprisoned here… whatever was beyond that door merited more precautions than all the rest of it combined.

  He walked up to the door and reached out for the viewport panel but hesitated. Whatever was beyond that door might be dangerous even just to look upon. There was a very good chance The Syndicate had additional measures to protect themselves when they looked in on it.

  Something like a basilisk perhaps? Connor wondered.

  The idea of being instantly killed with little more than a glance didn’t fill Connor with optimism. And he supposed he should’ve considered that earlier too…

  But, in the end, he had to know.

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