Runeblade-Chapter 257B2 : Confinement, Finale

With his arms crossed in his lap, sat with his eyes closed and drove out all distractions. The sapping chill of the cold stone against the threadbear burlap of his smock. The itch between his shoulders. The just barely audible rustle of footsteps in some far off hallway.

All of it was driven out, in favour of focusing on the slowing rhythm of his heart, and the steady bellow of his lungs.

An old centring trick—one Father had taught him young, to get him through the trials of learning the more…brutal parts of their legacy. He’d used it much, confined in this prison.

It had been a month in the forsaken hells. After all he had experienced, he was ready to leave.

“Soon.” he promised himself, furrowing his brow.

The time hadn’t been kind to him. Almost every day was a litany of agonies, as varied as they were gut wrenching. His only solace was that they seemed to be interested in him, and him alone.

Ianmus, tough as he was, did not have the same advantages as he and Porkchop did. Sure, he had some surface level training, and a meditation skill that helped him get through the agony—but he didn’t have their familiarity with having his flesh torn and cut, and he didn’t have a constant soul-bond to lean on when it got too brutal.

He’d had to deal with it alone. Luckily, they’d manage to convince their captors that Ianmus was a patsy thanks to their discrepancy between their abilities. He’d slipped them only what they would have already learned by watching their fight against the eaters, and between that and knowing that his legacy was defended by the oaths of Mystral’s Spires, they lost interest—assuming that he wasn’t privy to their deepest secrets.

Oh, they still worked him over every few days out of cruelty and spite, but he was strong enough to handle that much.

They had been…less kind to Kaius and Porkchop.

At first, it was thrice a day. Barely giving him time to sleep and rest, he would wake to the scorching agony of his guard activating his cell's formation, before more gas would drift down from the ceiling. He’d wake, strapped to the table for yet more agonies.

And oh, they were many. Burning fire, freezing ice, dipping him in acid before scrubbing him with wire brushes. Common knives, and simple blackjacks, to more esoteric vices and clamps.

The only thing they hadn’t done was remove any of his body parts.

And yet…with every day it had grown easier and easier.

Rapid Adaptation, Tempered by Dissonance, Lesser Regeneration. They were his bulwarks—his shield against their attempts.

Every swipe of the blade, every affliction, and every blow affected him less, and healed quicker. Even the pain lost its hold on him—his mind growing familiar with its touch, and his skill making it less visceral—a purely informational reflection of the harm he had been dealt.

He’d felt the results of that process after the first week, but now…he was almost unphased by their attention. It simply…was.

Sure, it was still violating to have the sanctity of his flesh intruded on so intimately, but that was what the meditation was for. It kept him grounded.

Porkchop had been less lucky. Sure, his own skills had grown, making him tougher and heal quicker, but he had nothing for the pain. Nothing, except their bond, and his own brutal stubbornness.

His brother’s Corporus aspect had been a blessing, and a curse. The Indomitable Mantle had set his brother on a path of unbreakable silence, but he could feel the way the attentions of their captors had worn away at him.

Thankfully, their moment would come soon.

By the end of the second week, Rapid Adaptation had grown to the point where the sedative that they used, once all consuming, had weakened so that it left him feeling nothing but dizzy and drunk.

It was exactly the advantage that he had hoped it would be. Every time he was taken for questioning, he lay still and silent, pretending to succumb.

And in return his captors gave him a grand tour of their prison, all the while spilling their guts about all sorts of interesting tidbits. There was a rotation of crew who took him to the torture chambers after their guard passed over his limp body. Each one took a slightly different route—often switching things up, complacent in their confidence of his unconsciousness.

He’d seen three levels of the compound. The prison was the lowest—two floors below ground. He was pretty sure it was a small fort in a forest, judging by the low stone walls he had seen out of a window when a guard had once disobeyed his orders and detoured to the ground floor to sneak a sip of drink. It was a simple layout, one that he had memorised like the back of his hand—a warren of sturdy hallways and thick doors, only a few of them locked.

After so many trips, he had a rough grasp on the number of men staffing the prison. Enough that their escape would be a struggle, especially since he was fairly certain that a few of them were a decent bit stronger than their jailer—at least judging from the man's quivering deference to the men who transported him through the compound.

He also knew where his sword was being held. Located right next to the stairs that led up a level, that room was one of the few that he saw on every trip. Thick oak, banded by heavy steel, it would have been easy to look over, if it wasn’t for the positively devilish array that was scrawled on its surface.

Perhaps a quarter of the time, the men who carried him would run into a colleague at the base of the stairs and stop to chat—a banal workday distraction that gave him the time he needed to examine the room in depth.

The blasted thing was locked up tighter than a bank vault—to most, the inscriptions that held it sealed would have been as incomprehensibly complex as they were powerful. A sure fire protection for its contents.

Unfortunately for his captors, he was not most people.

The formation was written in Vhaxanish. A difficult language, to be sure, but one that he knew incredibly well. Of all the scripts he had learned to create his first glyph, it was Vhaxanish that had required the most comprehensive theoretical understanding in order to make use of. It was the nature of the script, it was too precise, lengthy, particular, and complex to trust to rote memorisation. The slightest deviation would have rendered his glyph non-functional, and the only way to prevent that had been true understanding.

Which meant he knew how the enchantment on the door worked, Vhaxanish formations were always easier to break than they were to create.

It was almost time for them to leave. He only needed a few more loops through the compound to double check the last few pieces. In a mixed blessing, his ‘trips’ had grown more infrequent. As his stoicism had continued, they’d grown less and less focused on interrogating him—now only surprising him with a visit every day to day-and-a-half. He assumed it was an attempt to keep him shattered and off balance, not that it was working.

Unfortunately, he knew why they had done so.

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He’d overheard the guards chatting on his last trip. The ‘boss’, who he assumed was the same Old Yon he’d heard his abductors discuss, had finally hired a mindmage. Apparently, he was rather furious that the mage would take a month or two to arrive, after the sizable fortune of platinum he had paid to secure him.

He wanted to be long gone before the mage’s arrival.

Still, despite everything he had endured, and despite the fact that all of their fates rested on an incredibly risky escape plan—and his ability to phase through his cell door—Kaius was proud of what he had achieved.

No matter how much they had tried, no matter what they had done to him, he hadn’t screamed. They still didn’t even know what he had eaten.

Rice, with lentils and carrots. The bastards.

Even better, their captor's attempts had only further aided their eventual escape. That, and the honours he had secured in his final battle before his capture.

Kaius pulled up his status.

Status:

Name: Kaius

Dynasty: Unterstern

Age: 19

Race: Human (Dynastic, Greater Beastblooded) - +1 End Str, Wil, and free stats per level

Layer Reached: 2

Class: Runeblade Initiate - +3 Int, +2 End, +2 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Vit, +1 Wil per level

Level: 113

Resources:

Health - 5970/5970 (36.1/min)

Stamina - 5830/5830 (42.9/min)

Mana - 7110/7110 (47.6/min)

Free Mana - 5150/5150

Reserved Mana - 1960

Stats:

Endurance - 369 + 70 + 36% (597)

Vitality - 196 + 70 + 36% (361)

Strength - 359 + 70 + 36% (583)

Dexterity - 246 + 70 + 36% (429)

Intelligence - 409 + 85 + 44% (711)

Willpower: - 246 + 85 + 44% (476)

Stat Points: 0

Aspects:

Pillar Corporus: N/A

Pillar Mentis: The Veteran’s Edge

Pillar Animus: N/A

Class Skills (6/10):

Latent Glyph of Drakthar (Heroic) - 78 > 120

Initiate’s Glyphic Bladerite (Unique) - 44 > 84

Latent Glyph of Aelina (Heroic) - 63 > 114

Mystic’s Rend (Heroic) - 0 >57

Latent Glyph of Vyrthane (Heroic) - 0 > 1

Sigil of Vesryn’s Pact (Unique) - 0 > 1

General Skills (10/10):

Rapid Adaptation (Heroic) - 86 > 200

Liturgical Bladeform: Primus Ordo (Heroic) - 65 > 105

Explorer’s Toolkit (Unusual) - 53 > 81

Tempered by Dissonance (Heroic) - 55 > 200

True Sight (Unique) - 54 > 89

Tonal Weaving (Unique) - 64 > 91

Resonance Amplification (Unique) - 63 > 88

Lesser Regeneration (Unusual) - 67 > 200

Uncanny Dodge (Unique) - 57 > 101

Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus (Heroic) - 75 > 200

Hymnbook:

Glyph of Drakthar -

Stormlash (Tier I - 120 mana)

Hateful Nail (Tier I - 100 mana)

Glyph of Aelina -

Yellia’s Slip Step (Tier I - 80 mana)

Trusant’s Expedient Shunt (Tier I - 100 mana)

Glyph of Vyrthane -

Selection Available!

Formationbook:

Sigil of Vesryn’s Pact -

Selection Available!

Honours:

Born for Slaughter (Bonus)

Sublime Prodigy - Glyph Binding (Bonus)

Birds of a Blood Soaked Feather (Bonus)

Persistent Survivor (Minor) (Bonus)

Kingslayer (Major) (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog II

Trailblazer II (Bonus)

Hordebreaker

Ruthless Underdog III

Bound Artefacts:

A Fathers Gift - Common Growth Longsword

Growth Conditions -

Gain a class (1/1)

Absorb suitable materials (2/3)

Forge a link (1/1)

…

Ruthless Underdog III:

Honour

Growth begets might, which begets growth in turn.

Awarded to those who slay an enemy 100 levels or more above them while under level 200. Provides a Minute increase to all experience earned when fighting above your level. +5 all stats, +3% all stats.

Bonus: For achieving this honour solo reward bonus is increased to Slight, and the stat bonus is increased to +8 all stats, +4% all stats.

Taking a look at his status, Kaius smiled.

With so many gains he should almost thank his captors. His taunting jailor in particular he had a gift in mind for—one limited and precious.

A wet cough rang through the jail. Jerking his head at the sound, Kaius winced as he smacked his head on the stone wall behind him. Looking over to the source, he saw Kenva shivering in her cell—even if stats made mundane illness all but impossible, dust, damp, and mold had a way of clogging up the lungs just fine.

She was an interesting one, that Aen.

He’d found out that she was Hiwiann—something that was apparently supposed to have been evident. How was he to know that the Aen had been one of two founding species of that culture? They took anyone—he was more used to guessing based on clothing, accents and names.

Apparently Kenva’s clan was from the deep south-west, close to the Sawtooth Alps and the Drozag Stoneholds within them. Between her unfamiliar accent, and the lack of bright colours, it had completely missed him.

At the very least it explained why she was confident that they would be able to make a blood oath—she must have had a shard in her belongings. If they were lucky, all of their things would be in the same room as his blade.

“You okay?” Kaius asked as she hacked up phlegm.

“Mhmm” she nodded. “It’s the damp—my people were made for hotter and drier climates.”

Kaius nodded back, only for a shuddering crash to shake the building by its bones. Powder fell like rain, coating Kaius in a thick layer of grey—like the compound had been hit by a giant’s hammer.

“What the hell was that!?” Ianmus called loudly, holding the wall of his cell for balance.

Kaius jumped to his feet and ran to his cell door.

“Earthquake?” Porkchop asked.

“In the middle of the plains? This far from the Wildguard mountains? No.” Iasmus said, his brow furrowed.

“What else could it be?” Kenva asked.

“No clue, but be quiet please.” Kaius interjected, straining his ears.

“Hear anything?” he asked Porkchop.

His brother’s ears swiveled towards the exit of their jail. “Lots of running, lots of shouting. One set coming closer.”

Kaius grinned, wide and predatory.

It was time.

“Tell the others to ready themselves, and distract the guard when he comes in.” he said

Porkchop grunted in affirmation. “Do you know what’s happening?”

He met his brother’s eye. “An opportunity.”

There was no doubt in his mind that the approaching footsteps were their jailor. More than once he’d raced to their cells after the slightest of noises—taking any chance he could to punish them with the pain enchantments.

It was a little sooner than he’d like. Ideally, he would have had some more time to plan their route, but moments like this came rarely.

It was time for decisive action.