The air had a damp and stale odor, reminiscent of being underground. Rusty bars enclosed the small space he was in, and he noticed additional cages lining the hallway, although his was the only one occupied.
He cursed loudly, berating himself for ignoring the now obvious red flags. Multiple network screens were opened explaining the various status effects the poison inflicted him with, and he read through them quickly, hoping there was no permanent damage.
In addition to the Drought of Dreams, he was afflicted with a condition known as Mana Toxin, caused by the poisonous plant Corrosive Delphinium. The secondary toxin had nearly depleted his mana, leaving him weak and trembling, with his pulse pounding and veins bulging on his forehead. His tongue felt dry and scraped against his mouth like sandpaper as he licked his lips. He accessed the status effect screen and discovered that his mana would not replenish as long as Mana Toxin was active, and attempting to use any mana would inflict damage upon him. Fortunately, the single ability he possessed did not require any mana consumption. His Asseverating Sight power was constantly active, and if it passively consumed mana, it likely would have killed him by now.
Alex closed all the status screens, leaving only one window open.
*****
[New Task]: Once Bitten, Twice Shy.
[Description]: You have been betrayed and imprisoned by the Odde family. In order to escape the underground facility, you must first gather more information.
[New Objective]: Find out the reasons for your incarceration.
[Objective Reward]: Skill Book
[Completion Objective]: Escape your confinement.
[Task Completion Reward]: Essence Stone.
*****
His cell was situated at the far end of the hallway. A sturdy wooden door, reinforced with iron, stood directly across from him, while another one was on his left, near the corner of his cell. He extended his arm, but the door was set back into the wall. He pressed his body against the cold bars, stretching out his arm, but could only feel the rough stone wall. Not that it would make a difference, anyway.
He withdrew his arm and glanced down the lengthy corridor. Additional doors were visible along the opposite wall, and there were at least nine other cells lined up on his side of the room.
The corridor was constructed from roughly hewn gray stone and was wide enough for three men to walk side by side. The floor bore a dark, muddy brown stain, leaving little to the imagination regarding its origin. Small spikes covered the entire floor, sporadically protruding from the ground little more than a centimeter high. The almost circular pattern resembling tiny, malicious ocean waves designed to hinder those foolish – or desperate – enough to traverse them without shoes. The small waves reminded Alex of the non-slip epoxy floors he had encountered on naval ships.
He glanced down at his bare feet, recalling the pain he had experienced even though the scars were no longer there. He had been one of the foolish ones to walk across the spiked floor without shoes on a dare. But then a smile crossed his face. He still had his ashaka outfit in his storage space and the thick leather boots would easily resolve the issue with the floor.
Alex gripped the bars and rattled them experimentally.
Alex pursed his lips. That one hurt. Jane had certainly been more affectionate towards him than her husband had been, but more than that she-
A metal clang came from the door in front of him, and the horizonal iron bar that was across the middle of the door slid into a hidden recess in the wall, unlocking it. Alex could also hear the grinding of gears. He studied the door and could see colored mist surrounding the door, confirming that there some kind of magic imbued into the door. Among other things, his instincts told him that it was some kind of identification magic, but he didn’t understand why he thought that.
Alex took a step back as the door swung open and Hendry came in carrying a tray of food.
“Back up.” He barked. “Against the wall boy, don't make me hurt you.”
His other hand grasped a small silver rod, blue magic crackled threateningly from one end and Alex knew it to be some kind of cattle prod that would electrocute him if Hendry touched him with it.
Alex raised his arms, palms out, and backed up.
“Don’t hurt my officer, I’m unarmed.” Alex said dryly.
“What? I’m not an officer. Now stay there, boy.” Hendry said
Alex folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“What do you want from me?” Alex asked. “And the name’s Alex, not boy.”
You never knew, sometimes they just might answer your questions.
“Quiet, boy.” Hendry growled, pointing the electric rod up at him, the ‘or else’ implicit with the gesture.
Or not.
Hendry shuffled forward and put the tray on the ground and then slid it underneath a slot in the bars with his foot, not taking his eyes off of Alex.
“Eat.” Hendry commanded.
“What, going to poison me?” Alex asked coolly. “Again?”
A flash of guilt flitted across his grizzled face, barely perceivable under his thick beard before covering it with anger. Alex braved himself for the cattle prod, but Hendry made no move to strike him.
“I had no choice, boy.” He sneered. “And it’s not poisoned. Markov will want you alive. You might be here for a while, so eat. Keep your strength. You’ll need it for what’s to come.”
“Oh ho, ominous.” Alex said with a dark, humorless chuckle.
“So, what is this?” He asked, motioning to the cells, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart.
“Most Dangerous Game? Hills Have Eyes? Oh god, he doesn’t like to be called Buffalo Bill by any chance, does he? I hate to disappoint, but I am definitely not putting any lotion on for you – or in a basket, for that matter. I honestly can’t decide which of these scenarios I would actually prefer, is that weird?”
Hendry stared at him nonplussed for a few seconds, but didn’t take the bait.
“I’d lose the smart tongue, boy. Markov becomes... unpleasant if you try to distract him while he is in the middle of his experiments.”
“Ah,” Alex said, a shiver running down his spine. “Mad scientist it is, then. Yep, I think that might be the worst. He couldn’t just want to eat me like a normal person?”
Alex sat down, hoping Hendry didn’t see his legs shaking.
“I’ve done nothing to you. Markov isn’t here yet; you could let me go.” Alex blurted out, doing his best to keep the plea out of his voice.
Hendry glanced at the cell door, warring looks of panic and fear were barely visible under the scruffy beard, but Alex saw the opening and decided to take the chance, despite knowing that if Hendry saw through him, it could be the very thing that seals his fate.
“Look, I’m not from this area, I don’t know you guys.” Alex whispered so quietly, that Hendry instinctively leaned closer to hear him. He sounded small and scared, and the vulnerability in his voice pleaded for someone to help him.
“Hell, I don’t even know where I am. I won’t say anything. You and Auntie Jane are good people, I know you don’t want to do this. I know that deep down you are good people, just like you know that I am a good person. You know I won’t cause you any trouble, if you do. So please, just let me go and we can all walk away from this.”
Hope bloomed in Alex’s chest as Hendry took a small step forward, his empty hand rising towards the cell door... And then died when he saw the resigned look in Hendry’s eyes as he lowered his hand.
“I - I can’t.” He said, refusing to meet Alex’s eyes.
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Alex’s mouth was already moving, already changing tact; but when Hendry turned his back on him, he knew it was done.
“Eat your dinner, we will be back in the morning.” He said after Alex finished speaking.
Alex put his head in his hands, and he heard the door open.
There was a slight pause and then Hendry spoke again, his voice gruffer than usual.
“I’m sorry, kid. You have a couple days at least. Markov is away on business. If I could, I...”
Hendry trailed off, clearing his throat. Then he shut the door with a bang and the lock reengaged. The thick bar slid out of its hiding spot to secure the middle of the door, the end if the bar vanishing into a small hole on the opposite side of the recessed wall the door sat in.
A tear tracked down Alex’s cheek, but he nodded, blowing out a long steady breath.
When he was a child, he had moved in and out of foster homes so much he stopped bothering to unpack his meager belongs until they made a comment about it. They all rejected him in the end, but the ones that told him it was okay to unpack always hurt the most when the time inevitably came. They were always the good ones, but they also always had their reasons for why they couldn’t keep an extra child.
One of the foster families he stayed – not one of the good ones – had taken to locking him in a wooden toy box as punishment for being annoying. It wasn’t so bad at first. It was quiet, and they always let him bring his stuffed animal with him. It got worse when the other children found out about the punishment, and they started making him get in the box for fun to see how long he could stay in there. Eventually, they would forget about him and wander off, leaving him trapped in the box for hours until someone remembered he was in there.
The breaking point came when the dad got angry at him for asking if he could have more food after he had finished his lunch. Angry that Alex had the audacity to take food out of his real children’s mouths after he had already opened his home to Alex out of the goodness of his heart.
In a fit of drunken rage, he dragged Alex over to the chest and threw him in, not even letting him take out all of the toys first like he usually did. He locking the chest and left him in there for the rest of the day, not even coming back to let him out at bedtime - also, like he usually did.
Screaming and crying, Alex spent hours kicking and clawing at the lid of the locked chest, until he finally managed to break through the top of the thick wood. His legs were covered in bruises, the nails on his hands were all cracked and bleeding as well as several of his knuckles. His feet got the worst of it though. He ended up breaking both of his big toes as well as completely tearing the nails off them as he continued to kick the top of the chest over and over and over again with all of his strength.
He had been beaten mercilessly for destroying the toy chest and he had learned to never two very valuable lessons: Never destroy somebody else’s things and never ever ask for anything again.
Traumatized but not broken, Alex took petty revenge by going out of his way to steal food throughout the day. Sometimes he didn’t even eat it. He would just pick up an apple, pocket it, and then throw it in one of the big trash bins belonging to his neighbors later.
If he could survive that, he would survive this. He would never let anyone trap him in a box ever again. Be it wooden or metal.
He savagely kicked the wall and fragments of rock and exploded from the impact of his bare foot. Sharp stone splinters sliced into his heel and peppered his arms and face like bee stings.
Stunned, Alex pulled his lacerated foot back, fresh blood splattering over the straw. Small chunks of rock fell to the cell floor as he removed his foot, cracks spiderwebbed out from a concave in the stone half the size of his foot and almost two inches deep.
A primal smile curled his lips, and he took out a tin of healing ointment, lathering it over the minced flesh of his foot.
“We still have to figure out the magic on the door.” He said, his voice just as dead as Vi’s. “Even if I break out now, I’ll still be stuck in this damn room unless I can somehow open that door.”
Dimly aware of how much noise he must have just made, he gathered up the stone shrapnel and hid the pieces in the straw of his pallet. Next, He grabbed a handful of straw and attempted to wipe up the blood, but accomplished little more than smearing it around. He continued to grab fresh straw and scrubbed at the mess until it was barely noticeable and stuffed all the bloodstained straw deep inside the pallet as once he was done.
He couldn’t do anything about the damage to the stone – and because of his night vision he wasn’t exactly sure how dark it was in here – but hopefully no one would notice it from the other side of the bars.
Alex was itching to examine the door Vi mentioned, but he managed to push back the burning impulse. Instead, he grabbed the tray of food and sat down to eat, positioning himself in front of the hole in case Hendry came back in. He shoveled the food into his mouth mechanically, barely tasting it. All of his focus was concentrated on trying to hear if someone was approaching. The minutes dragged by agonizingly slow. As he ate and plotted an elaborate plan of revenge despite knowing he was too good of a person to actually follow through with any of it.
Unable to sit any longer, Alex moved to the front, his focus locked on the door in front of him.
“What choice?” Alex said angrily. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
Alex’s lip curled up into a snarl, but he stepped back from the bars, taking another deep breath.
“Fine,” he snapped. “What mistakes am I making?”
Alex gritted his teeth and let out a low frustrated growl.
Think, damn it. Use your brain.
He had surrendered to pure, animal instinct. Desperately trying to survive, he scrambled ahead blindly, not even stopping to make sure the ground he was walking on led towards safety or fell away into a bottomless pit.
He was like a terrified deer running from a single wolf. Blinded by panic he ran, completely unaware that the wolf was herding him towards the rest of its pack where they were lying in wait to pounce. If he continued to act like prey, eventually the predators would come for him. They always did.
He didn’t want to waste time trying to formulate a detailed plan that would fall apart as soon as he went through that door, but he needed something.
“Fine.” He said again, calmly this time.
Alex stepped back up to the bars and looked down the hallway. Lamps he hadn’t seen before were attached to the wall every couple of cells, a faint ball of white magic surrounding each one in his vision. The door on the other end was a little over fifty feet away but he could see every detail of the intricate wrought iron settings that reinforced it. He could even see the details and patterns of the grain in the wood itself underneath the dark finish.
“I can’t see any magic reinforcing the door.” Alex said, frowning slightly.
“That it probably leads deeper into whatever hell this place is. No point in warding something that will just lead people in deeper. I doubt that the exit is on the other side of that door, either.” Alex said, gesturing to the locked door in front of his cell.
“We are probably on some sort of outer bounds. I don’t know how large this place is, but it might actually be in our favor if this place is some sort of huge underground compound.”
“Maybe, but you heard Hendry; He said that I would be in this cell until Markov came back. If he had any staff, they would have taken me instead of holding me in a cell. He may have just found this place and repurposed it for his... experiments.” Alex said darkly.
Alex considered it, but then shook his head.
“Nah, I’m getting back-alley chop shop doctor vibes. Not evil genius, supervillain vibes. Having an operation on that scale would require a massive slush fund. If he had the money for that, he wouldn’t be using the fairly Odde parents to bring him isolated victims.”
Alex shook his head with a laugh.
“Didn’t you say that you are analyzing my memories to improve your behavioral learning? Guess you haven’t gotten to the cartoons yet, huh? Never mind. You'll get it eventually.”
Alex scratched his head with a sheepish smile.
“Well, it’s mostly conjecture based on fictional stories I’ve read, but my intuition tells me I’m right. People like our dear doctor will be paranoid about getting caught. Odds are; there will be some kind of secret exits scattered about that will allow him to escape if this place quickly ever gets raided. It’ll most likely be concealed with magic, but...”
“Yep.” Alex said with a grin. “I’m still trying to figure it out but when I see the magic, I have an almost... instinctual understanding of what kind of magic I’m looking at. I may not know what it does exactly, but my power feels like something I was taught as a child. It’s like looking at a sink and knowing the handle on the left is for hot water, and the handle on the right is for cold water.” Alex explained and then gestured at the lamps lining the wall.
“I see the magic coming off that and I know the white halo surrounding it is for light, but there is no heat. I see the gray pulses coming from it, and I know it's being powered by something and there is some kind of timer until it runs out.”
“So, what? Every ability I get fundamentally changes who I am? Are there abilities that can affect how I think? Affect how I act?”
Vi was silent and Alex could feel her thinking, searching the network.
And how did that work exactly? Vi was an AI with full access to his network ability, and although he hadn’t activated it yet, his network ability was able to be fully integrated into every other ability.
Theoretically, wouldn’t she be able to control his powers and use them without his permission? Does that mean she could stop him from using an ability?
Alex closed his eyes, trying to focus on the network. Just then, a screen opened up, visible in his mind’s eye even though his real ones were closed. It was what Alex thought of as the network’s homepage where it showed a list of all the available tabs, his health, stamina, and mana indicators, as well as the gingerbread cutout indicating his current injury status.
Alex absentmindedly browsed the different tabs but kept his focus on the network ability as a whole.
Technically, he was correct. Vi - for all intents and purposes - was the network. And the network was fully integrated into his abilities. However, Vi was still bound by his will. Even if she developed a full-fledged personality, she would not be able to do something that he would fundamentally disagree with
He had no doubt that there were definite loopholes and gray areas, but she would not be able to take control of his powers nor his body.
His mind on the other hand, could be easily influenced. Under the right circumstances she would be able to affect his decisions, steer him towards an outcome that she feels would be best for him. Not through magic, but with logic. Which was a kind of magic on its own. People use logic to justify all sorts of atrocities.
Alex opened his eyes in shock but then chuckled.
“There are definitely some risks involved. You may have the ability to persuade me, but I am not some weak-willed child afraid of being controlled by the voices in my head. I make my own choices. Besides, turning you off has some serious drawbacks and only goes to show how little I believe in myself. I know that technically you’re not a real person, but you’re real enough to me. And, for now; you are all that I got. So, from now on it’s just you and me Vi.”
Black mist obscured Alex as he equipped his ashaka outfit.
Bracing himself, he aimed a kick at the latch of the cell door with all his might at the exact same time the lock on the door disengaged.
Just fucking perfect.