???, Velmont Empire – The Disease Pit
Liam Weston woke up to dust in his mouth and blood on his leg.
And not the cool kind of injury either. This was the "oh my gods I can see the bone" kind of injury.
He tried to sit up.
[System Alert: Lower Tibia – Fractured. Tissue damage – 84%. Nerve health – Not great. Pain levels – Spicy. You are, as they say, royally f****.]**
"...Perfect," Liam croaked. "Love this for me."
He had blacked out after the whip. Woke up here. Somewhere worse.
Way worse.
The ground was not ground—it was rotting corpses, squishy mud, and diseases that probably didn't even have names yet. One body next to him had a rat crawling out of its eye socket. Another looked like it had been halfway eaten—twice.
He gagged.
"This is a health code violation."
FLASHBACK: Earlier That Morning
"No food for the crippled," the overseer grunted. "Waste of grain."
"Then kill me properly," Liam had spat back.
So they did.
Not with honor. Not with a blade.
They dragged him by his busted leg, laughing, and threw him into this hole like moldy bread.
A place the guards called…
"The Pit of the Unwanted."
Locals called it: "The Devil's Outhouse."
Liam called it: "Hell's Underwear Drawer."
Hours passed. Maybe days.
He slipped in and out of fever dreams.
The system tried to help.
[Passive Healing: Disabled]
[Sanity Buff: Degrading]
[Comfort Suggestion: Try dying]
"…You're an asshole," Liam mumbled.
Suddenly…
Horns blared.
Far above the pit.
Then—screams.
Not the usual ones. These were different—desperate, terrified, wet.
The guards were being butchered.
"KILL THE SLAVE-MONGERS!"
The cage above cracked open.
Steel clashed.
Liam's brain lit up.
The cage door to the pit was suddenly pulled up revealing smoke and dust
And from the shadow came a boy, around his age, covered in soot and blood, holding a jagged blade in one hand and a torch in the other.
"You alive, idiot?" the boy growled.
Liam blinked.
"Define 'alive'."
"Good enough. Come on. Before they throw another spear down here."
The boy dragged Liam out of the pit, half-dangling his leg.
[Pain Surge – 91%]
[New Status: Suffering]
[New Status: Bond Formed – Name: Tavian – Title: Runaway Scavenger]
"Wait—bond?" Liam asked. "Are we married now?"
Tavian: "Shut up before I toss you back in."
Outside the Pit – Chaos Everywhere
Fires raged. Arrows flew overhead.
Bodies littered the walkways. One guy got stabbed by his own sword after slipping in pig fat. An officer was screaming while being dragged by his hair by a girl twice his size.
Liam limped beside Tavian, wheezing.
"I feel like a side quest that nobody accepted."
"Huh! Just keep limping or you'll die," Tavian muttered.
They ducked behind a wagon. Liam fell.
His leg screamed. So did he.
"I CAN'T—TAVIAN—I THINK MY BONE IS SHOWING ME THE MIDDLE FINGER."
Tavian ripped part of his shirt and bound the leg roughly.
"You complain too much someone might mistake you as rich ."
"I used to own an espresso machine that cost more than this entire prison!"
"What's espresso?"
Liam blinked. "…My god. You are a savage."
Eventually… they escaped.
Through the back tunnel of the slave pens, down the dry aqueducts, and into the wilds of Velmont.
Tavian led. Liam limped like a dying goat ignoring the pain.
they were alive.
Just barely.
Nightfall – Campfire (Kind Of)
Tavian made a weak fire using flint, dry moss, and an old boot.
Liam lay on a flat rock, groaning.
"So… got any antibiotics?"
Tavian threw a leaf at his face. "Chew that. It numbs the tongue."
Liam chewed. "MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE!"
"Means it's working."
"You know what's funny? A week ago I closed a million-dollar deal in Manhattan. Today I crawled out of a corpse-pit with a maniac plant-doctor and a leg that bends sideways."
Tavian raised a brow. "SHHH! Do you hear that."
Liam straightened up looking alert after grabbing a burning stick from the fire.
[System Alert: Wow. A flaming twig. Truly, the weapon of legends.][Analyzing Combat Readiness... 0.7%. Generous.][Strategy Detected: "Heroically poke until death arrives."][Final Note: If you survive this, I'm logging it as a bug.]