“Man, you guys are weak. You need to eat better,” Zenos commented.
The men’s movements were sluggish, and hitting them felt like striking a thin, flimsy wall. Zenos had held back significantly, and still the men seemed unable to get back up. Maybe the enhancement spell had been overkill? As his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, he noticed just how skinny these men were.
“Sorry, but I don’t think you stand a chance against me right now. So, mind telling me where we are?” he asked the one man still standing in the dim light.
That man hadn’t attacked with the rest. The distance made it hard to see his face clearly, but Zenos could tell he was in complete shock.
“Relax. You didn’t attack me, so I’m not going to hurt you,” Zenos assured him.
He approached the man slowly, but something seemed off. The man wasn’t stepping back or trying to run. He didn’t seem to be scared of Zenos—it was more like...some kind of bewilderment.
“Wh-Why are...” the man mumbled hoarsely. His voice was strangely familiar. “Zenos, why are you...?”
The man had messy spiked hair and a more unkempt beard than Zenos remembered. But when he finally got close enough to get a proper look at the man’s face, Zenos was similarly shocked.
“Wait... Aston?”
The leader of Zenos’s former party, the Golden Phoenix. The man who had, once upon a time, welcomed Zenos into a group—only to eventually cast him away.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, back at the clinic in the ruined city, the three demi-human leaders all wore grim expressions.
“Is that true? The doc was arrested by the Royal Guard for abducting and imprisoning the saintess?” Zophia asked, her voice cold as steel.
Standing across from her was the blonde vice commander of the Royal Guard, her features set into a stiff frown. “Yes, so it seems.”
Zophia slammed her fist onto the table with a loud thud. “‘So it seems’?! Krishna! You shouldn’t have let this happen!”
“I won’t accept this!” Lynga yelled.
“Me neither! Zenos is important to this place! You know that!” Loewe bellowed.
Pressed by the three, Krishna bit her lip in frustration. “I was under house arrest and didn’t hear about it until after the fact,” she explained. “I put in an immediate request for visitation, but I was too late.”
“And that’s it?! You were ‘too late,’ so that’s the end of that?!”
“Stop!” Lily shouted, stepping between them with tears in her eyes. “You can’t fight among friends! Zenos would agree!”
Carmilla crossed her legs as she watched the scene unfold from her perch on the bed. “Knowing that fool, he likely let himself be scapegoated as the ringleader to spare the slums as a whole from punishment.”
The three demi-humans and Krishna exchanged quiet glances.
Zophia raked her fingers through her hair with a sigh. “Sorry. You’re just the messenger, and you came straight to us with the news.”
“No. I, too, am sorry,” Krishna said, lowering her head slightly. “I let my temper get the best of me.”
Carmilla crossed her legs again and asked, “So, what happened to the fool?”
“He was sent down the well,” Krishna said gravely.
Loewe tilted her head. “Down the well? What does that mean? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“That is unsurprising. ’Tis a special punishment, and few in the general public know of it.”
Krishna went on to explain it was the worst punishment possible, reserved for dissenters. The prisoners were transferred elsewhere via a teleportation magic circle from a special chamber in the Royal Guard’s headquarters and, after that, contacting them was impossible.
“A teleportation circle? My, how nostalgic,” Carmilla remarked. “I knew not that such things still existed. So...where was Zenos sent?”
“Even we are not privy to that,” Krishna said. “All I know is that it supposedly is an underground mine within the kingdom where prisoners are forced into labor.”
Krishna had tried to send word to Artemisia, but her request for an audience with the saintess had been denied. Trying to physically reach the saintess within the spire was nearly impossible; the protective barrier around it would keep even a spirit like Carmilla from approaching.
“Damn it. So when does he get out?” Zophia asked.
Krishna gritted her teeth and clenched her fists.
“As far as I’m aware, none have ever made it back from there.”