Eritance - Chapter 52

I awoke some time later in a darkened room. I couldn’t see anything at all. I tried to move but realized that hands had been shackled above my head behind me. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had also attached shackles to my feet. This severely restricted my movement. I could essentially wiggle my torso, but that was it. Try as I might, the shackles were just too strong to break. It seems that these shackles had been magically strengthened as well.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have any sort of blade that I could use my strengthening aura on. This meant that I had no way of cutting through them myself. I was truly in a desperate situation without any sort of method to escape.

I called out several times into the darkness. Screaming in rage to have my kidnappers release me immediately, but nobody came. I wasn’t sure if I was in the ruined castle still or if I had been moved somewhere else. It was so dark, I couldn’t tell. For all I knew, a drow was staring me right in the face.

After a long time had passed I began to grow extremely frustrated. Why go through all the trouble to capture me, if they were just going to ignore me? I didn’t completely remember what happened, but I was quite certain that Apollos said that he had use for me.

What was the point in making me wait in the dark? Still, although I thought this, nobody came. I sat that for such a long time, I thought I was going to go crazy. I decided to try to sing songs from the village, recite readings that I had learned, and entertain myself anyway I could. However, still, nobody came.

I was beginning to feel desperate, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed but I was becoming quite thirsty, hunger was also building up inside of me. However, my trials were not yet over. I wasn’t sure what they were playing at, but I wouldn’t allow myself to just roll over and die.

I began to struggle as much as I could. I pulled so hard on the chains that the flesh around my ankles and wrists became raw. I could feel blood starting to trickle down my arms as I the chains cut into my flesh. I struggled like this for a long time. I struggled for as long as I could manage until I grew too tired to continue.

My body was aching from where the chains had cut me. It was at this point that I began to feel very depressed. I had grown too confident in myself. I thought that there wasn’t anything that I couldn’t accomplish and yet, here I was, chained to a wall in a dark cell. All of this was the result of my hubris, I shouldn’t have fallen for a trap like this so easily. Yet, I did, and now I would die here in this cell.

I wasn’t sure how much longer I could survive. I wasn’t sure if hours or days had passed but I was extremely thirsty. My lips were cracked and my tongue dry. I licked my lips, but no moisture came to them.

Finally, some time after that I heard a noise. It seemed to be the sound of a door creaking open and shutting. I then heard soft foot steps in the distance. Finally, a quiet clanking of keys could be heard too. A light slowly grew closer to me. It was Apollos and another man I had never seen before.

After being in the darkness for so long, the bright torch light burned my eyes. I grit my teeth and endured the pain. “What do you want with me? Why have you kidnapped me?” I asked.

“You forget very easily” Apollos began. “We’ve always known you were a loose member of the cause, as soon as you could have rank, we knew you wouldn’t try your hardest to support us”

“That’s not true! I would have given my best effort, but so what if I want time to myself in the future? Should I sacrifice all of my time in this political war?!” I roared. This caused me to start coughing though, due to the dryness in my throat.

“For the rebellion to succeed, sacrifices must be made. Your sacrifice will go a long way towards freeing the people of this land. You should consider it an honor. Now, onto the first order of business. You will imbue all of your power into these weapons”. With that, Apollos snapped his fingers and two drow silently brought forth two swords each.

“Your power to imbue objects with power will be used to create weapons for all the organization members. These weapons will need to vary in power, but they will ultimately be used to boost our fighting power significantly” he said.

“No. I refuse. I will not give you all my power. Do you even know what I went through to get where I am today? I worked hard, I put my life at risk. I nearly died many times. I will never work with you” I proclaimed.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll get your power back soon enough. The drow have long controlled the goblins and kobolds in the under dark. They generally raise them up as fodder for their armies, as many as necessary will be delivered for you to kill so that this production can continue” Apollos said.

“It doesn’t matter. I refuse. I won’t ever work with you. You can forget about it!”

“A pity. I’m sure another day or two without food and water will change your mind” Apollos indifferently said.

Upon hearing that I regretted my words. “No wait! Don’t leave me here without water. Please, just one small drink” I shouted.

“No, I don’t think so. You need to learn your place Orin”.

With that, Apollos and the others left me behind again.