Imprisoned in a damp, stone cell, Lancelot had nothing but his ragged breathing and the phantom glow of the system's words for company. His wrists ached from the iron manacles and his thoughts churned with the scent of roses and the memory of Guinevere's touch. He tried to dismiss the shimmering letters as a fever dream, but they hovered on the inside of his eyelids whenever he blinked.
The whisper in his mind insisted: **Through oath you gain power. Through oath you pay a price.** Alone, and with boots already echoing toward his door, he chose desperation over surrender. "I swear I will protect Guinevere at all costs," he murmured, forcing the words through a throat dry with fear. The system's response was immediate. Agony lanced through his veins, a cold that burned, and he felt years peel away from his life like pages from a book. In their place came warmth—a golden aura flaring to life around him, clinging to his skin like liquid sunlight. The chains fell away as if they had been threads.
Lancelot staggered to his feet, the glow illuminating the cramped cell. Somewhere down the corridor, keys jangled. He didn't understand what this new power was or how long it would last, but he had no choice but to trust it. The door to his cell groaned open under his hand. As he slipped into the shadows, the disembodied voice whispered again, almost playfully: **More oaths await.** He glanced back at the cold stone slab that had been his bed and wondered how many years he would have left by the time he saw the sun again.