My arms ached, the pain so deep that it seemed to emanate from within my soul itself. I stretched my arms as I followed Lilan and the others back inside the gates, where other prisoners were already lining up for their afternoon bowl of goop. Some good news had arisen from my time behind the axe, though. The System had not only gifted me with the supposed "boon" for completing a hidden quest, but it had also provided me with some more information about how it worked. I sifted back through the notifications as I walked.
Physical Power +1
New Skill: Ironclad Body – The user's physical endurance has increased. Able to withstand intense physical activity for a longer time before becoming tired.
I mulled over the last of the messages. When it had first appeared, I'd immediately noticed a different feeling to how my body was responding to the swings of the axe. They still tired me, but each swing seemed to feel easier, somehow.
"How are you feeling?" Lilan asked me as we stepped in line.
"Not as tired as I expected, but it's taking a toll."
He nodded and grabbed a bowl, waiting for a dirty-looking soldier behind the pot to pour in a spoonful. He did, and then I stepped up to the pot, bowl in hand.
"Carry on," the man said, motioning with his empty ladle.
"You haven't given me anything," I said, the words drawing Lilan's attention back to the table.
"This is the last meal of the day," Lilan told the man. "Surely she can eat?"
The man shook his head slightly, swinging his ladle out once more in a 'begone' motion. "We're running low and got plenty of others to feed. General says she goes hungry so others can have full bellies."
I gaped and noticed the pit in my stomach where a monster of its own was starting to growl. Another soldier stepped forward, removed the bowl from my hand, and pushed me out of line, letting the others continue getting their food. I watched in disbelief for a moment.
"Come on," Lilan finally said, grabbing my arm and leading me away.
I didn't stop him, letting him pull me through the camp toward the sleeping tents. He let go once we had settled between two of them.
"Here," he said, holding out his bowl. "You need it more than I do."
I met his gaze, his eyes gleaming with that same kindness he'd shown me the first day. The growling pit in my stomach wanted nothing more than for me to snatch the bowl out of his hands. To shovel the sorry excuse for stew into my mouth. But the thinking part of me—the part that realized I was in a terrible place and completely at his mercy given what he already knew about me—couldn't help but wonder…
Why was he being so kind? I wanted to believe that it was because he actually trusted me. But the other part of me was far too suspicious of his behavior. What did he have to gain by trusting and helping me?
[Insight]. The word echoed across my mind without any real intention behind it. Gold shimmered in front of me.
=User Information=
Name: Lilan Tevarne | Title [Unknown] | Class: Warrior | Subclass: Guardian
I dismissed the window immediately, trying my best not to show any signs of what I'd uncovered. It took everything to keep my breathing steady as I reached for the bowl and took it slowly. "Uhh… thank you."
I used [Insight] once more, just to make sure he hadn't somehow poisoned it in the time that I'd been distracted, and was relieved when the System didn't find anything. I forced myself to eat the goop slowly, and when I'd eaten around half of it, I held the bowl back out towards Lilan.
"Best if we both have some energy, I think."
He nodded and took the bowl, finishing it off. Thoughts raced around in my head as I watched him eat.
Why hadn't I thought to use [Insight] earlier? It was such a basic skill, and it didn't cost me anything to lean on it. And yet, it had taken him almost slapping me in the face with his goodwill and kindness to make me question him. I had these benefits and boons, which the System had given me, and yet, I wasn't properly making the best use of them. I needed to change that. To stop letting myself be caught with my wings tucked.
Lilan finished the last finger of goop and eyed me over the empty bowl. "You hanging in there alright? Excuse my bluntness, but you look awful."
I met his gaze once more, the sincerity in his eyes stinging all the more at the System's revelation. If he somehow had access to the System, did that mean he knew what I was, too?
Who I was?
"Why did you decide to help me again?" I asked.
He shook his head and shrugged. "You still can't trust me, can you?"
I smiled the best sheepish smile I could muster. "Bad habit, I'm afraid.
"Well," he started, letting out a long sigh after the word. "I decided to help you because I saw what you tried to do for that woman."
An image of the soldier shoving his sword into the older woman's gut flashed across my mind. "Oh." The word was small.
Nodding, he continued. "I saw that and I realized that you had something a lot of the others are missing; fire."
I had to stop myself from laughing. He had no idea how much fire I had within me.
"I see, and you thought I'd make a good addition to your escape plan?"
Another shrug. "Pretty much. It wasn't a well-thought out plan, I'll admit. But, like I said. I've got a gut feeling about you, and I like to trust my gut."
There was those words again. But was it really a gut feeling, or did he have a System whispering little secrets into his mind the same way that Sil did? I was about to ask him another question when he spoke again.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"We'll be going back out now that mealtime is wrapping up. However, that doesn't mean you have to."
I quirked my head to the side. "And how am I supposed to get out of working? If I don't, the General will just find something else for me to do—probably something worse. It's best if we just continue as they expect."
Lilan shrugged. "Your choice, but I could get you out of it."
I thought about turning him down again, but then something jumped to the forefront of my mind. The System boon. "On second thought…"
*** *** ***
Twenty minutes later, I was standing behind one of the tents alone, Lilan having just left to share the news of my absence with one of his soldier friends. I still wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that he had System access, or even whether or not I should trust him all that much. What if he was like Ophelia and someone else had given him System access? Would they also be able to control him in the same way it said I could control Ophelia?
The questions hurt to think about and I had to admit; he had managed to get me out of spending more time chopping away at tree trunks. And that meant more time to investigate what the System boon was and whether or not it would actually prove useful.
I focused my thoughts on the message from earlier. I wasn't really sure how these things worked, but Sil had simply held out his hand and accepted whatever the item was when he had summoned the ring earlier. Perhaps it worked similarly.
"I accept the System's boon," I whispered, holding out my hands in front of me. Nothing happened for a long moment and then gold shimmered before me.
Boon accepted…
Benefits randomized…
Item spawning…
Something heavy fell into my hands, coarse fabric rubbing against my skin. I looked down to find a massive blanket draped over my hand, the ripped and torn material flowing down into the dirt. I quickly pulled it up off the ground as the messages updated once more.
Tattered Blanket of the Unseeing: When equipped, grants temporary invisibility for 10 minutes. Found in a terrible state of disrepair by researchers in the Southern Reaches. May explode upon overuse. Once activated it cannot be deactivated.
Peering closer at the blanket, I could see that it was exceptionally torn and worn down. The rips within the material—while not overly large—were noticeable enough. It was in such a state of disrepair, that had the System not literally spit it out into my hands, I likely would never have given it another glance.
I dismissed the windows and gathered the blanket up. Ten minutes wasn't a very long time, and the fact that I couldn't activate it in small bursts meant that I would need to move quickly, while also not attracting attention. I had to assume that being invisible didn't allow me to simply walk past people unnoticed. I'd still have to worry about sound and knocking into things. Not to mention leaving footprints in the still damp dirt.
"Best to hold off on it until I absolutely need it then," I muttered, tucking the blanket under my arm.
I already had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish with the free time that Lilan had given me. My first goal was to get to the healing tents and then sneak inside. I needed to know if Ophelia was okay, or if she had even woken up yet.
I left the safety of my hiding spot behind, trudging out into the main path. I kept my head down as I walked, as I was still worried I might run into the guard from the night before. They might have executed a woman for what I'd done, but I wasn't naive enough to think the soldier had forgotten what I looked like. That woman had looked nothing like me, which meant her death had been a message.
Fight back and die.
The only problem there was I had no intentions of dying, and unlike Lilan, I had no qualms about letting others die if it meant I could continue fighting. Perhaps that made me a monster, as the [Hero] had always claimed, or maybe it just made me pragmatic. I wasn't wholly sure, but I knew dying in a prison camp in the western forests of my empire wasn't going to change anything that was coming six years from now. That meant I had to stay alive, no matter what it cost me.
I followed the path deeper into the camp, avoiding soldiers when I could. I carried the blanket in my arms, tucked against my stomach, and hunched over it, as if injured in some way. Nobody stopped me, though I did spot a few soldiers giving me a suspicious look, their eyes narrowed and their heads tilted to the side.
Navigating the camp was a nightmare, even in the daylight, but I had just spotted the healing tent when a group of soldiers turned the corner between me and it.
An audible gasp filled the air. "That's her," a deep voice said.
I glanced up to find the soldier from the night before pointing at me, his hand already moving to his sword.
"Get her!" He yelled, the soldiers with him rushing forward.
They were still a good distance away, so I pivoted my body and picked up speed, sprinting between two tents to cut off their line of sight. I heard their yells behind me, but kept moving, turning around another tent on a path that led me away from the healing tent. I counted the tents I passed—three in total—and then pivoted to the right again.
I wasn't wholly sure how to activate the blanket that the System had given me, so I tried the first thing that came to mind and slung it over my entire body, covering my head. A chill like that from a cold bucket of water splashing over me rippled down my body and the blanket began to shift colors. Tiny sparks erupted from some of the tears, one even smacking against my cheek with a bit of an electric bite. I flinched at the feeling, but didn't rip the blanket off.
Everything around me shifted, a haze covering my surroundings as the blanket became translucent, allowing me to see through it. I pressed my body close to one of the tents and waited, holding my breath.
Would this truly work? The tears throughout the material continued to emit tiny sparks, and I could see the world clearly through one of them. Did that mean others could see me through them, too?
My heart pounded in my chest, the crescendo rising until it reached my throat and my ears.
The yells of the soldiers grew louder and then they rounded the corner into the place that I'd run. I watched as they slowed, looking around.
"She has to be here somewhere," the soldier from the other night said, pointing his sword in an arc. "Split up and find her. Bring her to me when you do."
The all moved off in different directions, each one peering behind crates and other items that lined the grounds around the tents. I waited until two of them had passed by me to move. I wasn't sure how long I'd been using the blanket, and if the description was in anyway truthful, then I only had a limited time to take advantage of its benefits.
I retraced my steps back, slipping past one of the soldiers as he stepped back into the middle of the pathway. I held my breath again as I walked past him, and I felt his eyes as his head twisted, following me for a moment before shaking his head.
"Dammit," he muttered, trudging off toward where the others had gone.
I let out my breath and followed the path back toward the healer's tent. The fact that the soldier had once again found me near this tent wasn't likely a coincidence. And it meant he would likely make his way back here at some point again, hoping to catch sight of me once more. I could only hope that I found what I was looking for this time.
I reached the tent without any other issue. Keeping the blanket close, I carefully slid through the closed flap, trying not to disturb it too much and draw attention to the fact that it had opened without anyone entering or exiting. Inside, the tent was dim. Flickering lanterns ran along the center of the path, painting orange and red glows across the forms that filled the beds lining the tent walls.
Now all I had to do was find Ophelia before my blanket ran out of power and exploded on me.
“Simple.” I muttered, cringing beneath the blanket as I started moving, casting [Insight] on each of the forms that I passed. I almost expected the System to tell me information about the blanket the first time that I triggered the skill. However, it seemed to understand what I was asking for when I activated it.
I started on the right side of the tent. Each use gave me a standard description of the person, similar to what the System had told me about Ophelia before I'd granted her System access. I'd checked everyone on the right side, and was halfway back up the left side when I found her, the golden words before me outlining her name, title, and class information.
I tucked in close, leaning over her bed. She was still unconscious, at least from what I could tell, but she was still breathing. I still had no idea what had caused her to lose consciousness for so many days—the attack by the other version of me had been so quick and unexpected—but it was a relief to know that she was still alive.
I reached out my hand, touching her face gently. I couldn't quite tell if the reason I cared so much was because of the connection we now shared, or because something else within me had connected to her in some way. It was a strange feeling, one like I'd felt with Irinda that first night, too. Almost like I had finally found someone I'd been looking for all my life.
I didn't have time to think too much about the feeling and what it might mean, though, as the flap at the front of the tent opened, sending bright afternoon light erupting across the beds. I pulled my hand back into the blanket and glanced up, eyes widening as the soldier from the night before strode in.