Chapitre 33: Prison Break
"Hey, someone cut the lock on my cell!", "Mine is cut too…", "Let's get outta here!" Those were words that spread through the entire floor of the dungeon, and with time the intensity of this uproar only rose. Meanwhile, I finally pulled Nila out of her cocoon, and we dashed towards the iron bars, but before I could open it, Nila stopped my hand.
"Wait a moment." she whispered and observed the prison break that was in the process. Several people ran past our cell without paying any mind to us, others hurried to the other staircase as there were two escape routes from this place. I glanced at her in concern and said, "What are we waiting for, the guards will soon come here!"
She did not answer, but instead kept watching over the chaos, without giving me any chance to follow the common turbulence. Was she planning on keeping me here? My execution was scheduled for next week, I really could not waste any more time here, as I now had hope of survival.
I narrowed my brows and exclaimed, "Just let's go already, or are you planning on selling me out!?"
"Just trust me for a second, the same way I trusted you…" she answered, her words were cutting into my stomach like a knife, thus I remained silent and watched over the rat race that was in the process. Soon enough, I noticed that most of the prisoners went to the right, but I was not really sure what was hidden there as we had been brought here via the path on the left. It was a fair assumption that they both led to the outside, however, soon the prisoners who previously tried their luck on the left path, hurriedly returned with warning screams.
"Guards are coming! Hurry, hurry!"
Tailing them were indeed a few men in chain mail, green tunics and swords in hands. In fact, one of them was holding onto a wand in his second hand. As they ran past us, they did not pay any mind to the fact that we were together in the same cell, they were fixated on the ones running for their lives. But after they all disappeared in the hallway to our right, Nila finally pushed the cell door and silently motioned to follow her. We did not run past the cold stonewalls of the dungeon, instead we strolled in a quick pace by the sounds of battle that was echoing from behind us.
"Are they fighting now?" I whispered, to which Nila nodded, "That path had only an emergency exit that is usually closed, but there was a storage room where prisoners could find brooms and such to use as a weapon. They will be busy for a while. Do you know who cut all the locks?"
"No, I saw only a silhouette, but wait, how do you know about the emergency exit?"
Nila hummed monotonously, her ear twitched a little as she hesitated, but still answered, "Well… this is not my first time here. Upon my arrival, I have been imprisoned for a year."
I stopped for a moment to process what she told me, then I shook my head and dashed forward to line up with her. Upon exploring her face, I noticed her lip unusually tugging to the side, she was certainly not joking about it, "The hell did you do?"
"Illegal trespassing… You see, I am bad with directions and got lost on my way through the monster realm. Once I pushed through into the Schöltum region, I ended up in the forest and the first wagon that I hitch-hiked happened to be an envoy to Wiskoschia. You should not be Moreau the cunning to deduce that an elf without documents is a trespasser, thus I was sent here immediately after being searched at the city entrance."
"Then why haven't we been imprisoned immediately after stepping into the city while they inspected Zanuff's wagon? And who is Moreau?"
He could have been someone famous in this world, but since I was a foreign element, I could not possibly have known him and judging by Nila's energetic reply, he was indeed a more niche figure.
"He was a general of the fairy legion who repelled waves upon waves of golems, avoiding the early encirclement of the city of Fiqclum in the Poyrot region. As it had happened at the very beginning of the Great War of Trinity, not many people remember him, especially since he was part of the enemy army, but he was a great and respectable man!... Oh, and the gate guard's job is to simply inspect the goods, I happened to be asked to show documents twice, because I am an elf. The guard seemingly did not notice that mine were overdue when we arrived here."
It was a lot to unwrap on the spot, golems, fairies, this world was really brimming with all kinds of fantastic beasts, huh? As I understood, that battle happened in the fairy realm she mentioned way earlier, but was there some kind of golem realm as well then? Also, this Great War of Trinity caught my attention as she talked about it as if it was still ongoing. I wonder if it was possible to avoid it on my path to slay the goddess, as I would not want to put myself between the stone and a hard place with that.
Right now, however, it did not matter as much, thus, I decided to leave contemplation for later and instead focus on our escape plan. Nila was confidently going further, but the deeper we went into the castle or wherever we had been at the moment, the more I doubted her intentions. At one point, she stopped and turned around, but then looked at both sides, exploring each of the pathways through the place that was above the dungeon. There were not any signs of guards, although I could clearly hear footsteps spreading through corridors as we were strolling. Luckily, none of them stumbled upon us yet, but as I was observing Nila's actions, I began slowly realising that it had nothing to do with luck, but rather her major flaw.
I came closer to her and put my hand on her shoulder. As she turned to me with her listless expression, I asked, "Did we get lost?"
"No." she said confidently, then shot her eyes to the left and right before continuing, "I just can't find the right way."
"We totally got lost then!" I cried out and jerked my head upwards, I could not even pray or ask God for guidance as I needed to slay it, meaning my pleas should not reach it. Then I came to the window and looked outside, we were on the 2nd floor of the building, thus it was possible to jump off here. Alas, all the windows were toughened up with iron bars.
"You can use wind magic, right?"
She tilted her head, but soon after her eyes widened in realisation of my intentions, and she shook her head, "We can't escape yet, we need to find a warden cabinet and fetch our items."
I raised my brows and stepped away from the window, her words made sense, as we would lose our provisions if we escaped right now. But were we really in a position to waste our time like that? If we had to do it, then it would be better to do it fast, thus I leaned on the wall and tried to recall all the turns and stairs we took upon our escape along with the warden's characteristics. This place consisted of several floors, but more importantly it was built to be wide with the reason being prison cell placement, it made the watcher's job much easier as they did not need to wiggle through several blocks and only went forward to check on inmates. There were two escape routes and the closed one probably led outside, thus this dungeon technically had one way out into the upper floors where guards resided. Wardens do not usually need to overwatch inmates, they have to command the place from the safest spot as if the riot spreads through the place, inmates would be more likely to escape immediately rather than search for the warden. It was natural for his cabinet to be furthest away from the prisoners.
Moreover, you could not access the 2nd floor without going through the entirety of the 1st floor, the staircases from the dungeon to the 1st floor and from the 1st floor to the 2nd were situated in opposite ends of the facility, thus I concluded that warden's cabinet should have been at the end of the 3rd and last floor.
"I know where to go." I whispered and dashed forward, to which Nila only hummed, but ultimately did not protest in my overtake of the lead. It was a right call, since the warden's cabinet was indeed established at the very end of this prison that went upwards in a snake-like pattern.
It was eerily quiet despite the commotion downwards from our current position. Nila did not knock on the door, but instead pushed it with all her might, and immediately the iron smell punched through my nose.
"What the hell?" I said in disbelief at the sight that was hidden behind this heavy door. Warden was not sitting by his desk, but rather lying down on it. All of his paperwork was soaked in blood that slowly flowed out of his slit wound on the neck.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone