Chapter 79: Prison Blues

“So what are you in for?” Void asked, leaning up against the wall and staring at the prisoner in the cell across from him. The emaciated prisoner had disheveled brown hair and a wild look in his blue eyes. He was relatively tall, maybe a hair over six foot, with the frame of a man who’d eaten well in his youth, only for his luck to turn sour.

A bit like the two of us. Only two of our group left. Just me and Arms.

That was a good thing, because after this debacle was over, they’d either be dead or their no-longer-functional team would be broken up and the two of them would most likely receive a promotion and a new command, where they would never have to see each other again, which worked fine for both of them.

That was about the best Void could hope for under the circumstances.

The emaciated fellow in the opposite cell grunted and turned away, continuing to draw his mad scratches across the wall.

Thankfully his neighbor had managed to pry a loose peg out of the bedframe and used it to scratch a detailed spiral on the wall. Thankful because if the madman had been forced to get any more creative with his art supplies, it would’ve been shit on the wall rather than scratches.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether or not I’m imagining you.” the man said, going back to the outside of the spiral and adding a landscape on the outside, stick trees and animals and figures that fell deeper and deeper into the spiral, forming a loop that was so tight that the details compressed into nothing as they approached the center.

Something about it gave Void a bad feeling.

“Why would you be imagining me?”

“I’ve been trapped in a lightless box for…” The man paused, glancing around them. “A long time.” He turned around and looked at Void. “And I have a great imagination. I’ve been seeing and talking to things for days…or decades…or thousands of years. Not sure.”

After he spoke, the man glanced over to the side, cocking his head as though he was listening to someone speak. “Yeah, I’ll ask.”

“What Floor are we on? What Stronghold?” He asked, turning back to Void.

“Fifth Floor. The city of Akul.”

The emaciated fellow chuckled at that.

“City, huh? I guess decades. Assuming you’re real.”

“Yes, assuming that,” Void said with a chuckle. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, you ever get volun-told for a job by your boss and it goes sideways in the most colossal way?”

“That’s pretty much my life,” Void said, fluffing the pillow of his prison cell.

“Well, my boss says –“ He adopted a high pitched, mocking voice “‘go into The Tower, grab some Sacrifices on an easy floor for Testing.’ Next thing you know, it’s The Cataclysm. The Great Churning, The Big Suck. Upheaval. Whatever folks call it nowadays.”

Void cocked his head.

Upheaval rang a bell. It sounded like the stuff the church of Granesh preached about. Void hadn’t attended a sermon since he could sit on his momma’s knee.

“What’s your name?” Void asked, his curiousity piqued.

“I’unno.” The man said with a shrug. “I’ve always like Reese, though. You can call me Reese.”

“Okay, Reese, how old are you?” Void asked, working on a hunch. With the right build, a person could get pretty old, and Reese was definitely sounding age-cracked.

“I’m not sure…” Reese said, glancing around the room. “I think I’m dead and in hell, and my ‘previous life’ is just a hallucination I made up to grant myself a little comfort as infinite suffering wears away my mind.”

“You think this is hell?” Void asked. That’s an archaic way of referring to the Abyss. I think I’ve only ever seen it in plays and melodramas.

“What else would you call a place that subjects you to your worst nightmares over and over again, each iteration slightly worse than the last, until you’re this close to breaking forever, then a thin ray of hope wipes away all the pain and you spend a lifetime or two as a farmer falling in love, raising kids…just long enough to forget, and then BAM, back to the suck for you, and you remember EVERYTHING, and you know it’s all gonna happen again, and again, and again…”

The emaciated man lowered himself to the floor, shuddering as he drew his knees up to his chest.

“And again, and again…” He whispered between shuddered breaths.

Void’s eyebrows rose.

Well, this guy is Cracked. Sometimes with enough age, the mind just…stopped working, no matter how healthy the body was. Nothing an Ability or his stats could do about it. The brain was still working exactly as intended. The mind however…

Void left his neighbor to his blubbering and turned his attention to the guard marching into their block, a young man with black hair, crooked teeth and a familiar gait.

Vacation’s over, I guess, Void thought with a sigh as he stood, watching as the Tangled reached into its pocket and removed a bloodstained key.

It wouldn’t be long now. The Tangled had infiltrated nearly every facet of the city’s beaurocracy, and Baron Akul was already sniffing around for the rot that had permeated it.

Soon, very soon, the Baron would catch on.

Which was why they were letting him out. They would be moving onto the next phase. The final phase.

Rather than turn towards Void and open his cell, the Tangled opened the cracked Climber’s door, the enchantments keeping Reese’s Abilities suppressed flickering off as the lock clicked open.

“Come on, you’ve got an appointment with my Lord.” The Tangled said, hauling Reese out of his cell before he began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Umm…” Reese backed away from the guard as he disrobed, his gaze searching for an exit.

The Tangled looked somewhat nauseous for a moment before a copy began climbing out of his chest, depositing itself onto the floor.

The new Tangled gasped before his body began to shift, bones lengthening.

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A moment later, an exact copy of Reese huddled in the corner of the cell, while the Tangled put his shirt back on and grabbed Reese by the elbow, guiding him away.

“Hey, what about me!?” Void demanded.

The Tangled looked over at him with passive disinterest.

“Your time has not yet come.” He nodded toward the Reese Lookalike. “My copy will give you the signal. Until then do not reveal that the target has been taken.”

Obviously.

Void waved him off and slumped back down onto his cot.

I guess my vacation continues. The kind of vacation where they pull out fingernails instead of serving drinks. Fantastic.

On the other side of the city, Will and his Party were making the final preparations for the auction.

With a golden ticket and a rather large allowance from the Baron to spend on the items, Will’s entire Party was dressed in their finest apparel and ready to score some once-in-a-lifetime- Sacrifices and Relics.

Will had learned his lesson about attending parties without warning his Party about potential sudden outbreaks of violence.

He’d warned them of his suspicions and was smuggling in his relics, weapons, and those of everyone in his party whose armaments he could fit in his dimensional storage.

It was really only his, Travis’s and Masons.

Mason didn’t have much in the way of weapons, save for a wand he’d gotten to boost his damage output, Travis’s weapons were all small, and Will’s was remarkably thin.

Rings and amulets barely took up any space at all, so everyone’s jewelry was in the Phantom Hand.

Reggie, Alicia and Loth’s equipment were under the building, along with all the bulky Relics, like pants, torsos, helms and shoes, burrowed by Loth’s insects in advance of the date of the auction.

If nothing wound up happening and they attended a simple auction, then Will would be just as happy to walk away without issue.

But if what his paranoia was telling him was about to happen…happened…

Then William Oh was going to show up in full Kit and make some changes to The Plan.

And maybe profit off of it a little.

They arrived at the auction just as the unnatural sun was beginning to sink lower on the horizon, making the shadows of the surrounding buildings cut through the streets, creating an almost striped look on the cobblestones.

It’ll be nighttime soon, Will thought as their Party was ushered inside, getting one last look of the rapidly reddening ball of eye-searing light.

He hadn’t been to the church of Holdna for the follow-up for his damaged eye like he’d promised. He’d been too busy making plans, calling in favors and paying off his debts with the local criminal element.

Squaring everything away for this one opportunity.