??? POV
Another day begins with one of the slavers banging the bars of our cells and yelling at us to wake up and get a move on. As I slowly stand up and make my way to the line of enslaved people by the entrance, I look across at a nearby cell and realize there are a couple of new faces.
'Guess a new shipment was brought in last night.'
From what I could see, a lot of them had some fresh wounds, no doubt given to them by the slavers. I could also see, clear as day, a similar expression across quite a few of their faces, one of determination and rebellion, an emotion I've seen many times in new arrivals, but one that faded quickly as the days went on.
As we were being led down one of the various tunnels, I could hear the slavers preparing to open the other cell with the new arrivals. It was more than likely to put them to work immediately and possibly try to break their spirits. I didn't pay much mind afterward and continued walking down the tunnel.
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A little while later, as we were put to work mining and transporting minerals, the new group finally arrived, with some of the people covered in new bruises and cuts, being forcefully pushed towards their new stations. Probably tried to fight against their captors when they opened the cells, for all the good that did.
As they were pushed to their workstations, I was able to get a better look at them. Most were demi-humans, and most had distinct tan lines. Were these people brought in from a desert area?
I was quickly snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of a whip striking one of the new arrivals, who seemed to be refusing to do any work. Still, they were quickly beaten down, and it only stopped when a man wearing something that resembled a brown military uniform and a face mask told him that the Mistress wanted to see him. In an instant, the slaver flinched and stopped what he was doing and quickly made his way out towards one of the tunnels, wearing a look of fear on his face.
The Mistress. She was someone whom I've only seen once down in these mines, but she has always struck fear in the hearts of the slavers whenever they hear she wants to see them and rarely comes down herself, preferring to send down one of her lackeys to send messages. I clearly remember the day I saw her for the first time. She was a slightly older-looking lady, probably in her forties, with brown hair and red eyes. She was wearing a uniform similar to her lackeys', except hers resembled a general's attire.
She was clearly in a foul mood and took it out on one of the slavers. The slaver she decided to take her frustrations out on had his leg broken, causing the man to let out a horrible yell that made all the slavers, including the enslaved people, flinch and look away. The Mistress had a sadistic looking smile at the man shivering in pain in front of her. She was preparing to continue but stopped when one of her lackeys needed her to check something. With a slight scowl, she told two of the man's lackeys to drag the injured man to the medical bay and to continue with their work. As she began to leave, I saw for a split second that she shot a glance in my direction, but looked away and made her way out of the mine.
She almost never comes in person, but it was more than likely either to check on the state of this place or to oversee new arrivals; from what I know, she rarely does the latter in person.
'What was so special about these people that she would personally show up?'
The two people who had helped the beaten teenager to his feet seemed to whisper something to him that was too low for me to hear, and I saw the beaten boy quietly grit his teeth and begin to work alongside everyone else. I began mine as well, but I was partially focused on this new group, as I couldn't help but be curious about what made these people so special.
As the slavers focused their attention elsewhere, the small group of three began whispering to one another. I hid behind two small stone pillars, saw them partially through a narrow opening, and began eavesdropping on their conversation.
"...we can't just roll over and do nothing!" Loudly whispered the youngest of their group, a human boy with pale red hair who had a nasty-looking bruise across his cheek.
"I'm not saying that, but it's dangerous to go up against all these people without any kind of plan; we'll just get ourselves killed!" Whispered the girl in their group, a demihuman with dark green hair, her skin covered in what looked like scales, and what appeared to be snake fangs.
"Both of you need to keep your voices down before you call more attention to us." Said the oldest-looking of their group, the teen boy who was whipped, another demihuman with brownish-yellow hair, catlike ears, and a tail that matched his hair.
They seemed relatively normal, and I couldn't understand what could be so special about them. The three continued to talk about various ways they could escape, which were all plans I had heard before and thought of myself, but quickly realized that nearly none would work. They then began to speak of one plan that quickly caught my attention.
"Look, there's a rune on these shackles. If I can just chip away at some parts, I could change what it does, and we could use our magic!" said the red-haired boy as he began to pick at the shackles.
"You shouldn't mess around with that if you want to keep your limbs."
The three flinched and looked around for the source of the voice, since I was covered by a stone pillar and they couldn't see me clearly.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Questioned the blond-haired boy as he looked around.
"Just another slave like you who's just trying to survive".
After hearing and locating the source of my voice, the group remained in a defensive position and continued to question me.
"Why are you listening in on our conversation? Are you trying to rat us out?" asked the red-haired boy.
"And I thought I had trust issues. I was just curious as to what was so special about all of you that would warrant the head of this place to show up personally."
The three exchanged confused looks, but the green-haired girl eventually spoke and asked, "What did you mean by keeping your limbs?"
"Those runes have a secondary effect in which, if they detect a significant change to the formula, they will cause the metal to explode, taking both the person's hands and their feet." I then recalled the time another enslaved person attempted that very thing and had been chipping away at the rune; the shackles exploded and took his hands and feet in an instant.
Hearing this, the red-haired boy flinched and immediately took his hand off the rune he was still picking at. "What the hell?! What is wrong with these people? How could they treat all these people like this?!"
"Keep your voice down, or you'll end up worse than your leader; they don't like it when the slaves talk amongst themselves."
" You know you could show your face to us instead of hiding behind that pillar. Hard to trust a person we can't see." Replied the green-haired girl.
" In my experience, I tend to get nasty looks from others, and some tend to stay away from me completely once they get a good look at me."
The group looked at each other in silence, and then the blond boy spoke: "We won't judge you, and we won't look away from you if you show yourself."
I silently stared at them through the small crevice and replied:" ...fine, but know this: I don't mean you or anyone else any harm."
They agreed, and I slowly made my way out from behind the pillars and instantly saw their faces change from calm to genuine fear and shock.
The group backed away a little and stared at me until the blond-haired boy eventually stammered, "D-Did you mean what you said? You really aren't going to hurt us?"
... I will admit that I was a little surprised at the fact that they didn't attempt to run away or even yell after seeing me." I have no intention of hurting any of you. I want to survive and eventually get out of this place." I still had no idea exactly what about me led to this response, but I tried not to dwell on it and focused my attention back on the group.
In my response, the group, still looking on edge, began to speak to me.
"Wow, you're real..." responded the green-haired girl.
" Woah... I only heard stories about them..." replied the red-haired boy while staring at me in amazement.
Before I could ask anything, the blond-haired boy spoke and said, " Alright, we'll take you at your word and trust you for now," while looking at me as though I were an enemy. " Do you have any idea as to how we can get out of this place?"
" Honestly, not really. I've been here for a couple of months and have gone through various scenarios in my head, but they all end up in failure."
"Why?" Responded the blond boy.
" First, you need to have a route planned out to leave the mines and find their central command. You would also need transportation to take you away, but even that won't work unless you find a way to take off the shackles and manage to evade all the personnel in this place, and that's not beginning to list off the issues with everything that comes after that."
It was something I constantly thought about: even if I somehow managed to address all those issues, the real problem was my lack of knowledge. I know very little about the world, and from what my nose has told me, I caught a slight whiff of sea salt, which told me I was somewhere near the ocean or in the middle of it. Survival was the next-biggest issue, as was heading into an area of conflict. I've also heard tales of monsters that range in size from a small dog to larger than mountains, and that constantly attack and eat people. Due to all these factors, I couldn't decide on a decent plan that wouldn't kill me.
As I told them my plans, they stared at me, and they quickly snapped back to attention. " You thought of all that? You look as though you're not more than eight." Replied the green-haired girl.
"Ten actually. I'm a little small for my age," My system told me what age this body was, and I was a little taken aback as I looked smaller than the average ten-year-old, no doubt due to the poor nutrition.
"So, unless we have a solution to all those problems, we can't escape?" Questioned the blond boy
" There are a few other things to consider, like surviving afterward, but those are the main things to worry about."
"Well... if you don't know where to go, as long as we can find an airship, I could probably get us to our village in the Ember Dunes," said the blond boy.
" The Ember Dunes?"
"Yeah, it's a large desert area. The area itself is pretty rough, and the heat can get bad at times, but the villages in the region have special barriers that prevent the intense heat from affecting us too badly, as well as when it gets too cold." Said the green-haired girl.
It was the first time I had heard any solid information about this world and its landscape, but I was even more surprised to learn that the blond-haired boy was confident he could fly a ship.
"You know how to fly a ship?"
"Sort of. My father is a repairman for cargo airships that stop in our village for repairs, and I've helped him repair a few. I know how to start one as well as what the instruments of the ship do."
It didn't fill me with confidence, but it was better than nothing, as he at least knew the basics of starting and operating one.
"That's great and all, but we would also need to take off these shackles, and they more than likely have a failsafe if we get too far away," I responded
"Hmmm, I may be able to do something about the runes." Replied the red-haired boy.
Confused, I asked the boy what he meant.
"Back home, I would read and mess around with runes, usually for fun, but looking closely at it, I could probably change the rune a bit to deactivate both the magic nullification effect and the explosion effect as well." Replied the red-haired boy
"Are you sure that you could do something like that? Even one error and you could lose your limbs. If you wanna move fast, you would need something sharp, hard, and durable enough to carve into the metal so you don't lose any speed. The only thing I can think of is the mining equipment, but it would be difficult to keep them on you without attracting any attention." I pointed out.
As we grew silent and thought about what we could do, the green-haired girl spoke up, " I might have an idea of what we could use in place of the mining equipment. It's actually in our cell."
The other two, along with me, were shocked to hear that, but soon the blond-haired boy seemed to catch on to what she was referring to, and so did the red-haired boy.
"Yeah, that could work. It's definitely stronger than any normal metal and could definitely get the job done," said the blond-haired boy
"Something in your cell is strong enough even to damage normal metal? What is it?"
" Who actually. A small girl arrived with us. Her scales on her tail should be sharp enough to get the job done." Replied the green-haired girl.
" What kind of scales could be strong enough to do that?"
" A dragon demi-human."
My breath caught. A dragon? While my mind was still registering this, another thought passed through my head. This was the reason the Mistress was here. This dragon girl had to be incredibly valuable, and the head was here to make sure nothing went wrong with selling her.
"If you plan on having her help you, then we probably don't have much time," I told the group.
"What do you mean?"
"There are probably a lot of people who, once they hear that a dragon demihuman is for sale, they'll pay anything to get their hands on her, and the head will probably be in charge of transportation."
"Not only that, but we might be able to take her airship off this place and head to your village."
" You make a solid point, but I don't feel comfortable going up against that woman even if we were to gather all the enslaved people against her. You know who she is, right?" Replied the blond-haired boy.
After looking at my puzzled expression, he responded, "That woman is named Rekka; she's famous for her brutality and was a Sergeant for Firefells' military until she was dishonorably discharged."
It was my first time hearing her name, and I didn't know she was so well known, nor that she was apparently strong enough to be a high-ranking officer in a country's military force. It complicates things if someone that dangerous is here, as she would kill us in an instant and wouldn't be able to secure any airship as long as she's here. There is, however, no guarantee that we would be able to secure another airship, as they more than likely travel more by boat than by airship to attract less attention from possible enemies.
"If we can cause a big enough distraction to cause Rekka herself to investigate and possibly trap her even for a while, we could probably secure her airship and leave this hellhole," I replied
"That could work. Especially if we convince the other enslaved people to help us, we have a chance at getting out of this place," said the blond-haired boy
"Alright, our deadline is probably a few days, which is a bit tight, but if we start preparing tonight, we might be able to be fully prepared to leave within a few days."
Before the patrols returned, we finalized our plan.
The red-haired boy pointed to himself with a grin. "Name's Max!"
The green-haired girl smiled and said, "My name is Clover."
"I'm Lucas. And you are?" Lucas signaled to me.
It was the first time someone asked for my name in this world... and no one had cared enough to ask back on Earth. I hesitated for a bit, as the person back on Earth had died, and I wasn't sure what to tell Lucas. I took a moment and told him my new name.
"Gale."