Synexus barely read the last bit of the letter. His mind was caught on the mention of the Coalition. The same organization that ruined his home, killed his people, and hunted him. These people, this ordinary family with a tragic story, were part of this organization. Guards doing the bidding of those that believe genocide is a right course of action.

  As he was reading the letter his thoughts instantly were sorrowful and of course, he would do as they asked. That was who he was. He would always respect people and their wishes. If he died with his family in a situation, he would hope someone would carry out his wishes. Then the letter ended, and it wasn’t so clear anymore. Why should he help his enemies? Were they truly his enemies? Should a person be held responsible for the decisions of the organization they may have been forced to serve?

  Another thing itched at his brain: the prisoners. Who were they? The enemy of his enemy was surely his friend. Then another question struck through his brain like one of Kumo’s lightning bolts; were any of them Zaxillians? He needed answers.

  “Synexus, are you alright?” Kumo was tugging on his arm, and he didn’t even realize it.

  “Yes. Just trying to make sense of this. Why are they here? Does it prove that these worlds are real?”

  “This does seem to complicate things more, but our goals remain the same. Whether we follow their wishes, I’ll leave up to you.” Vorin pulled a blanket from the dimensional bag and laid it over the skeletons.

  “Then let’s find out who these prisoners are.”

  “We should, Synexus, but know that I will not leave anyone barely living. That sounds like torture beyond belief. I will execute them with my blade before leaving with them still bound by unnatural magic.”

  Prith pulled his sword from the sheath, and they all followed him into the darkened hallway towards the prisoner’s cells.

  Another long passageway made from damp bricks that turned countless times and had metal gates overhead passed by in silence. The subtle glow of the flowers bounced off water droplets forming from the humidity. At one point the ground became slick and a soft squish under their boots consumed the silence. Soon the passageway opened up into an even bigger room and mana danced across Synexus’ vision.

  “This is incredible. Complex enchantments are running through the entire room. Will pathways counting in the tens of thousands making up an unbelievably powerful enchantment. This must be the sustainment magic the letter spoke of.”

  “Can you make sense of it?”

  “I believe I can. It will take time.”

  “Well, let’s see if it’s even worth it first.”

  Vorin flooded his flower with mana and the light became brighter to illuminate nearly the entire room. Dozens of cells lined each wall running the length of the room.

  The cells weren’t made of brick. Instead, they were made of some kind of metal that even Synexus didn’t recognize. Built into the wall in each cell were four pods that held a soft glow. Next to each pod was a device of some sort. Inside each pod, there was a person.

  Bonus Objective: Free the Prisoners

  Bonus Objective: Kill the Prisoners

  “What is this? What kind of life is this?” Prith’s hand clenched around his sword. His knuckles turned white. All semblance of levity in his voice was gone and heavy notes of fury filled in the blanks.

  Wind ripped through the room, wild and unbound. Vorin and Synexus turned towards Kumo who was standing off the ground. Her teeth grinded together and her armor roiled around her like a twisted storm cloud.

  “All their freedom gone. They can’t live or die. This is an abomination!”

  “They’re right, Synexus. This is wrong. Morality twists her barbed knife in us yet again. We release them and we may be setting murderers free in the world. We also disregard the dying wish of that family who gave their lives to guard this place. If we kill them, we may be killing innocent people. Either way it would be better than this. No one deserves this.”

  “We need more information. Morality can twist her knife all she wants; we will do what we think is right and that’s the best we can do.”

  He approached the first cell and pressed his sensors to one of the bars making up the cell door.

  Tungsten-Carbide Reinforced Steel: 100%

  He quickly edited the matrix making the heavy metal mixture to collapse from its own weight. Then you put it into his Progress Garden for further experiments. Next, he went to the odd metal of the wall and pressed his sensors against it.

  Mana Mirror: 100%

  Mana Mirror (Rare): Using mana infused glass over layers of purified Zaxillian silver, and copper forged in ghost fire, a mana mirror is created. Has the passive ability of reflecting any mana back towards the user copying their will.

  Synexus stared at the description. Not only did the Coalition destroy his people and his planet, but they continued to use the fruits of their labor for their nefarious dealings. Mana surged from him before he remembered the second half of the description and refrained from doing anything rash.

  “These walls are extremely valuable; can we try and break them down into their separate components without using mana?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The other three nodded and started to inspect the wall. Normally, they wouldn’t have even thought about it, but all of them needed to keep their mind busy or they would want to rush through and release the victims of the cruel torture.

  Synexus approached the panel next to the first pod. Frosted glass obscured whomever or whatever was trapped inside. Dust had built up on the display, and he brushed it away with his sleeve. As soon as it made contact, a light came to life and revealed strange symbols. A jumble of another language.

  “Hey Vorin, can you come look at this?” Any of the three would have sufficed. One of their lineage traits was the ability to adapt to different languages faster. His thought was perhaps System would nudge them in a certain way when operating the panel.

  “Not a language I’ve seen before. Interesting that the letter was in the common tongue and then we find this.”

  “It makes sense. He left the note asking whoever found them to check the prisoners were still here, not to release them. This was yet another security measure. Quite clever of them. If I had to guess, this is a Coalition-made language.”

  “Could we not simply rip the pods open?” Kumo said from the other wall.

  “If we do, we could kill them. The letter spoke of sustainment magic. I’m guessing that this enchantment puts their bodies in some sort of magical stasis. If we don’t wake them up gradually, they could die.”

  Kumo grunted at Synexus’ comment and went back to work manually taking apart the fine layers of the wall without disturbing the pods.

  Vorin continued to stare at the display hoping to pick up some of the language or get some kind of hint.

  Synexus started to look at the pod itself and read the will pathways. Along the device were hundreds of thin pathways acting in different ways to keep the pod working. Some were acting as funnels for the energy produced by the larger enchantment; others were for finer details like connecting the pod to the lifeform inside. On top of the will pathways, there were electronics connecting the controls of the panel to the pod through a bundle of wires. A redundancy in case the mana failed no doubt.

  He brushed his hand over the pod mesmerized by the craftsmanship that clearly went into the machinery and the enchantments. Such complex work that more than likely took years for each pod. Only for them to be lost in some prison world inside an ocean bubble.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Vorin reach out and hover over a section of the display.

  “Synexus, I can’t be sure, but I believe I’m being nudged to press this word right here. Something about the letters seems inviting to me. It almost feels positive, if that makes sense.”

  “Perhaps your passive skill is kicking in, and your will is helping it along. Let’s press it.”

  Vorin nodded and hesitantly pressed his finger to the word on the smooth display. More symbols popped up including what looked like a bar that was slowly being filled up. Above it were two symbols changing every now and then.

  “Those are numbers. I’m sure of it. Ascending numbers. Each time they go up, the bar fills more.”

  “That’s incredible, Vorin. I suppose we wait until it’s full?”

  While they waited, more of the material in the walls was separated and Synexus started a small pile of it in his Progress Garden. Every now and then the pod would flash with light and strange noises would come from it, putting the party on edge.

  After forty minutes, a great hissing came from the pod and streams of visible gas shot out. Slowly the door of the pod opened by raising towards the ceiling on a hinge. Obscuring steam dissipated to reveal a naked humanoid woman. She looked desiccated. Skin pulled tight over bones. A living skeleton. On her head she had two pointy ears on either side, one pointing upward at an angle while the other pointed at the same angle downward almost like butterfly wings. Her big eyes stayed closed, but her body fell from the pod lifeless.

  Prith went into action and caught her before she hit the metal floor.

  “She’s freezing cold. I can’t feel a heartbeat.”

  Synexus pulled clothes out of his garden to put on her including one of his warming coats they wore on the mountain.

  “Let’s give her a moment. I doubt she is truly dead with the amount of effort that went into these enchantments.”

  Kumo dressed the woman inside a tent and then rested her head on a pillow with a blanket to cover her body. Then the party went back to taking apart the bars and some parts of the walls on the cells without doing anything to disrupt any of the other pods. Vorin had contemplated going around and starting the process on the others while they waited, but if the people in the pods were hostile, it could turn messy. A hundred against four were never good odds. It was better to get as much information as possible first. That’s why Synexus focused in on the woman sleeping in the tent.

  Name: Dancer in the Cosmos

  Race: Salkvaarian

  Class: Painter of Constellations LV 68

  Skills: Constellation Beast, Constellation Weapon, Summon Starlight, Light Travel, Star’s Beauty, Void Creator, Star Sight

  “Father!”

  The woman’s shriek made the party jump. Synexus stopped reading her will pathways and saw she was sitting up looking around frantically like she had lost something and was looking for it.

  “You’re okay. We just woke you from that pod.”

  “Get away from me! I will not surrender!”

  “You misunderstand. We are not who you think we are. Look around.”

  Synexus stepped from the entrance of the tent so she could see out at the dark prison they were in. Rows of metal cages with pods holding people. She wobbled as she attempted to stand and then stumbled out of the tent.

  “Where—where am I? The caves of Scarrach?”

  “No. Truthfully, we don’t know exactly where we are. So far, we have worked out that we are on a prison planet named the Bubble.”

  Her face flashed in recognition before shades of a thousand emotions followed eventually landing on deep loss.

  “They attacked. It was the middle of the night. Our moons gleaming overhead. Stars across the sky watched as we celebrated the next generation of Star Artists. We were naming them when we heard the horrid beasts growling their one-note song. Alarms rang through the city alerting the other factions. The Star Artists met the enemy on the fruitless plains riding our constellation beasts, but there were too many. Many of my friends died. My family. Then the sky lit with fire as the Fire Bringers joined the fight. Accompanying then were the Stone Emperors, and the Water Witches. We fought. We fought. We fought.”

  Her memories were returning and she was struggling to process what was happening. She clearly had been through a lot.

  “Take your time. You’ve been through something horrific. These pods were designed to keep you alive. We have no idea how long it’s been.” Synexus waved towards the pod she had fallen out of.

  “Are the others still alive?”

  “We don’t know, but we would like to find out. Do you know who attacked you?”

  Her fists clenched and she punched the metal floor. A bone in her hand snapped audibly, but she didn’t show any sign of pain.

  “Creation’s Coalition. Their honeyed words landed them an audience with our emperors the day prior. It had to be them.”

  “That tracks with what we’ve learned here. “

  “Are you part of the Coalition?”

  “Far from it.”

  “Good.”

  She finally found her footing and stood.

  “I will help release these people. We will get out of this prison you spoke of. And we will end them with the stars as our witnesses.”

  Kumo looked towards Synexus, Vorin, and Prith before smiling towards the woman and laughing.

  “Wow, I like her already. She’s right, we should get moving.”

  Vorin nodded and pressed down on the pod next to Dancer of the Cosmos.