For many, the only source of sustenance was the persistent moss clinging to the damp stone walls, but even that was never enough. Starved, hollow eyes of those who refused to vocalize their torment peeked out from behind enchanted bars. In a realm where no one died from old age, this was truly a punishment worse than death.
While aging to death might not be a concern within the realm, that didn’t mean there weren’t old and frail individuals. These were the elderly who had managed to survive their world’s convergences into this realm. Regrettably for them, though spared from the ravages of time, they were not granted the gift of eternal youth, forever remaining as they were when they first came to orbit V?luspá.
“Unhand me! I’m telling you, this is a mistake! Unhand me!” A gruff, elderly voice shattered the monotony of despair, desperation, and panic tinting his words.
“Silence,” a guard grumbled.
Struggling to pull his arms free from the thick hand that clenched his arm, the old man was hindered by enchanted shackles that bound both his hands and his magic.
Undeterred, he continued, “Do you know who I am?!”
“I told you. Shut. Up,” the guard growled.
With a clink of metal, the guard yanked a cell door open, and with a hard shove, the old man stumbled into his new home, falling ft on his face, arms still bound behind him. The cell door smmed shut behind him, followed by the stomping of boots on stone as the guard departed, deliberately leaving the prisoner’s shackles locked—a known punishment for not heeding the warning to be silent.
“Oi, it’s grand to see yer ugly mug down in these parts,” a dwarf woman chuckled bitterly. “Where did they snag ye, Cycroft?”
“Gimona? Is that really you?” Cycroft tucked his knees under himself as he struggled to rise with his arms bound behind him.
“Aye, it’s me,” Gimona confirmed with a tired nod, though he couldn’t see it.
Cycroft sighed, a sound so deep and weary that only someone of his age could muster. He grunted as he tugged inadvertently on his long white beard while adjusting his knee.
“What happened at Elsternwick?” he asked, still struggling to stand. “No one has bothered to tell me anything. All I know is that when I set up a waystone to return to my tower for some rest, I was unable to teleport back the next morning.” The old wizard finally managed to right himself and shuffled over to his cell door to gnce at Gimona’s cell across from his. Even shrouded in shadows, he could recognize the look of defeat anywhere. “It took me a few days to return to the camp, but when I did, there was nothing left—not even the town. I was even more baffled to find a massive crater where the dungeon used to be. When I returned to the capital, I was instantly accused of desertion, shackled, and thrown down here.”
“We’re being set up to take the bme for what happened at Elsternwick,” another woman’s voice called out from a nearby cell. Although Cycroft peered in that direction, he couldn’t see her.
She continued, “The kingdom is terrified of what the Ascended Empire will do after two of their champions were injured, a dungeon core was destroyed—one we’re being accused of hiding from them, I might add—and the destruction of one of their airship armadas. So, we’re being sacrificed as the scapegoats for all that went wrong, all in a desperate attempt for the kingdom to save themselves from the wrath of the ascended gods.”
“Anlyth?” the wizard murmured, unsure. He had never heard such defeat in the padin’s voice before, casting doubt on his recognition.
“It’s me.”
Cycroft squinted, trying harder to discern her form in the shadows, but to no avail. “Where’s Ezad? Is he here, too?”
Silence followed, heavy and telling. Cycroft understood—Ezad had not survived whatever had transpired.
“Damn,” he murmured to himself.
He still cked all the answers, but his questioning was abruptly cut off by the sound of returning footsteps. The steps moved past Cycroft’s cell, but to his confusion, as they passed, there was no one there—only deep shadows stretched across the floor.
A solitary tear traced a chilly path down Anlyth’s cheek before she swiftly caught it with her thumb. She huddled closer against the unyielding, frosty stone, her body trembling not just from the cold but from mourning the loss of her love, Ezad. He had been a great general in the service of the Kingdom of Sethia, but now his name was shunned by those he served, all to shift the bme onto him for allegedly concealing the existence of a live dungeon core.
Anlyth gritted her teeth at the nobles’ deceit. After all, Ezad had merely followed their orders, yet no word of that truth would ever be mentioned.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed—a stark contrast to the oppressive silence of her cell. They stopped abruptly at her door. Anlyth’s eyes darted up, a flicker of hope warring with confusion—there was no one there.
With a hesitant hand, she swept her hair back, the strands whispering softly against her pointed elven ears. Leaning forward as much as her enchanted constraints would allow—her jailers were taking no chances with a padin of her caliber—she strained her eyes in the darkness, searching for any sign of the visitor who had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared.
Shaking her head to dismiss the sound of footsteps as mere figments of her imagination, Anlyth leaned back against the biting cold of the stone wall. Her thoughts drifted back to Ezad, stirring a tumult of emotions. Her heart, filled with sorrow, also fred with hatred for the vampire she held responsible for his death—and, more infuriatingly, for turning her beloved into one of the undead. Anlyth exhaled deeply, grateful she had managed to smite the undead form that had once been Ezad, but the anger and pain lingered, haunting her with persistent memories.
A male voice spoke as though the speaker were standing right beside her. “How far will you go for your revenge, I wonder?”
Anlyth sat up, gncing around, but still, no one was there.
“H-Hello?” she whispered faintly.
Something shifted to her left, and Anlyth’s head snapped in that direction, her brows furrowing in confusion as only shadows greeted her.
“Tell me, young padin, what would you do for your revenge?” the voice spoke again, this time as though whispered directly into her ear.
She jerked back, her head whipping around in all directions, but no one was visible. It didn’t make any sense; her cell was enchanted to prevent any kind of magic, and for added measure, so were the chains bolted to the wall. Even the cell door was enchanted to thwart any magical escape attempts. Yet, someone had managed to sneak into her cell unseen, unhampered by the enchantments. It was impossible, and yet whoever was speaking to her had done it seemingly without effort.
“Young? I’m over three thousand years old,” she scoffed, attempting to coax the speaker from the shadows.
“Barely an infant in my eyes,” the response came, but still, she couldn’t spot the speaker. “I ask again, what would you do for revenge?”
“Anything,” Anlyth answered, her eyes scanning as she peered into every shadow.
A haunting snicker echoed around her, the very shadows seeming to shake with ughter. “I see, I see. But let me ask you this,” the voice grew ominously quiet. “Do you truly want revenge... or power?”
“Who are you?” Anlyth demanded. “What do you want?”
The snickering continued, sending chills throughout the elf’s already cold body. “Who I am doesn’t matter. What I want... well, I either want you as a destroyer or a protector. I haven’t decided yet. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you as one of the many pieces I’m pying on the board.”
Anlyth’s eyes widened in realization. “You’re an Ascended,” she blurted out before she could think.
“Hmm, sure, we’ll go with that,” he snickered. “So, what do you say? Do you want power? Say yes, and I’ll have you freed. I’ll even include your two friends.”
“W-Why me?” she gulped nervously before a power she assumed to be a god.
“Why not you? You’re perhaps the most powerful padin across all the moons of V?luspá, and you’re not even a champion... yet,” he snickered again.
Anlyth considered his words briefly. She was a captive, about to be sacrificed for her kingdom’s sake—a mere pawn to remain in the good graces of the Ascended Empire. And here was an offer from someone she suspected to be an ascended god. It didn’t feel like she had a choice at all.
“I accept.”
“Good, good,” he continued to snicker. “I’m feeling benevolent today; I’ll even bring back your love if that’s what you desire.”
Just as Anlyth was about to unleash a torrent of questions, a dispy suddenly materialized before her eyes, stunning her into shock.
Titan
V:\Ascension>SAFE_MODE
Loading USER System Access...
Notifying Secondary Admin.
Error.
Back_Door:\ J?rmun>Login_Granted_
_
Race Designation: High Elf [RHE]
System Access Granted [SAG]
Racial Skills Activated [RSA]
Css Designation: Padin [CDP]
Loading Modules...
Configuration Complete.
Initializing Character Data...
Welcome, [Anlyth].
V:\>