Eritance - Chapter 51

The energy on the blade slowly whipped back and forth. A faint blue glow could be seen on the edge of my blade. It wasn’t bright enough to light up the room, but just bright enough to be seen in the dark. It didn’t matter though, we would soon be out of there.

I pressed my blade against the magically strengthen bars to test it. I slowly applied strength to the blade and a small cut could be seen on the bar. This was great! It meant that my theory worked. I would have to continually refine this in the future. For now, though, I just had to focus on getting through the bars.

After confirming that my blade could indeed cut the bars I placed a lot more strength into pushing through. The blade lowly went through the bar like a knife would butter. I repeated this process until I had cut through four of the bars on the top and the same four bars along the bottom. I carefully grabbed each of the bars before I finished cutting them to make sure that they would not hit the ground and ruin the silence that I was trying to maintain.

After silently completing this process I had made a hole large enough for us to walk through. Of course, my job wasn’t yet done. I still had to cut the chains that bound him at the ankles to the wall. After that was done we could leave this place.

I wordlessly stepped into the cell and moved to his chains. “Hold still, I will cut these chains off of you. Then we can get out of here” I whispered to him. He seemed to give a grunt of quiet affirmation and I carefully proceeded to cut the shackles off of the wall, and then to cut the braces off of his ankles. This was because it would make quite a bit of noise if he dragged the heavy chains with him everywhere we went as we tried to leave the castle.

I suppose he could always hold the shackles, but I didn’t want to risk him slipping or dropping one of the chains by accident. It didn’t take long to cut the chains off of his body. With that I released the strengthening aura on the sword and whispered, “let’s go”. However, Orkin didn’t move. I wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t get up, so I shook his shoulder and said a bit louder, “let’s go Orkin. We could be discovered at any moment now”. With that he sat up and faced me. He said, “Oh, but you already have been. Besides, it was I who invited you here”.

I was shocked at his words. However, the most shocking bit was that it was a familiar face. This man wasn’t the merchant Orkin, or at least I knew him by no such name. This was Apollos. “What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?” I said with alarm.

I took a step back from him and pointed my sword out. “Start explaining, now!” I demanded. However, Apollos just chuckled and said, “I figured you might struggle, but it will all be for naught”. With that he clapped his hands and immediately the cell was surrounded by a contingent of drow. Apparently, they had been waiting in the shadows for an opportunity to strike. They really were the masters of stealth, I used magic and special techniques, but I still was unable to evade them.

The situation was really bad. I was surrounded by enemies. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of this betrayal was, but I had to figure out a way to stay alive. I decided that my best chance would be to keep Apollos talking, while I tried to come up with a plan of escape.

“Does the organization know that you are colluding with the drow?” I asked. At that Apollos laughed. He moved to sit in a comfortable cross-legged position. “Of course, the council is the one that made these plans after all. From the first moment we found you, we were planning on this”. I was shocked. “So, you were planning on killing me from the beginning? Why didn’t you just kill me when you first met me then? You won’t be able to take my relic just because I’m dead” I declared.

“Oh, of course. However, the plan was never to kill you, rather it was to capture you. You were much to weak in the beginning, and our knowledge on your relic was too limited” he responded lazily.

“What do you mean? Why would you want to capture me? I’m already a member of the organization” I said.

“What we need you for, you already rejected. Truly, you haven’t shown any desire but the desire to strengthen yourself. You’ve always kept away from the others. You’re wasting the relic. However, now that we’re here, I can remedy this and put you and your relic to good use. You will use your power to imbue objects to create many armors and weapons for the cause. You will be our weapons factory” he said with a smile.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “You should have waited until you had truly caught me before saying that!” I yelled as I lunged at him with my sword.

However, Apollos didn’t make a move at all. He instead yawned and placed a hand over his mouth as he did so. While doing all of this his eyes glowed fiercely, and I was hit by an invisible force. “Did you really think your strength was enough to resist me? I’m a high-ranking shaman. My magical powers are vast and immeasurable” he said.

Before I could get up the drow began firing little darts at me from mini crossbows. They were apparently dipped in some kind of sleeping gas. I struggled forward and clumsily swung my sword before falling to the ground again. I looked up, and the last thing I saw before passing out was Apollos using magic on the bars that I had cut. They then wrapped around me. I was caught.