“What’s a ‘grenzritter’ anyway? Zilara asked before they dived in again. “It keeps showing up. It’s not in the old tongue and it’s not modern either.”

  “I have a theory,” Calaf said. “But still, let’s finish the testament.”

  The heretical gospel continued…

  The Shackled priestess sat upon the cot, hewn from the rock of their gaol. She did not wear her robes, but the wrinkled cloth that was the cell’s only adornment. The healer hung her head, crestfallen.

  “Though you will not share our task, the bed is wide enough for two. You need not lie on cold stone.”

  “I know that.” The grenzritter’s eyes shifted from the cot to Mia. “Still, given the circumstances, I will allow you to have it for the duration. It’s the least I can do.”

  “The task dealt to us. It is because I was… bred for obedience.” Mia paused to breathe out. “As was my mother before me.”

  Roland lifted an eyebrow. “You implied as much before.”

  “The Warden has found that your unruly ways would be… soothed by my gentler manner… tempered by my more mild-mannered demeanor. I-in forebears…”

  Mia said naught more, merely casting her eye down at the thin cloth that clad her. Then, she awkwardly shifted to make space on the cell’s lone cot.

  But the squire knight did not look Mia in the eyes after that. He turn upon his side on the stone slab that marked the cell floor.

  “Goodnight,” he managed, leaving Mia to slumber in the cot alone once more.

  New Brand-slave Roland kept to himself and caused no bother for the next five shifts. He still chose not to rest on the bed, but on the cold stone slab instead. Yet he toiled hard and met more than his stone-tithe from the lower levels.

  When the grenzritter spoke to Mia, it was just to ask questions about the layout of the pit. In her youth, the pit had been a full ten stories deep, with their gaolers stationed on the top two floors. It was said that in the time of Mia’s erdmother the pit was only three stories max.

  “That wooden board.” Roland motioned to a conspicuous patch on the wall above, near floor six. One of the highest floors prisoners were allowed to visit. “It stands out with a yellow trim in my vision. What is it?”

  “Aye. That was when a hole was wrongly mined thru to the outside,” Mia said.

  It came to pass when Mia was five years old. A blinding light had flooded the chamber, leading young Mia to cower under the cot in her and her mother’s shared gaol-cell until it was mended, by that very board.

  “Is that so?” Roland asked.

  “In this manner, you can gleam a small part of the world-workings,” Mia explained. “Though most functions of the Interface are shut to us.”

  Roland spoke not. He rose and left the cell at a moderate jog.

  Mia beheld as he hurried up flights of stairs and around a winding walkway spiraling along each floor. The Shackled squire was not running swiftly enough to arouse the doubt of their captors, but certainly enough to build up momentum Then, as he reached the sixth floor…

  Roland tucked his head beneath his shoulder and rammed the wooden beam with a mighty bang. Rotted timber yielded at once with a grinding, splattering din.

  A waning midwinter sun broke through the fresh breach in their towering oubliette. Some handful of feeble rays crept in from the west at a most ill-timed angle. Yet even this sent Mia diving for her cot. Snatching and wielding her Simple Feather Pillow +1, she hastily chose [Use] to fling it up over her eyes as a shield. Even so, a reddish sliver pierced her humble pillow and stained her sight crimson.

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  A whole host of nine Demon Sentries was stirred to action by this breach. Two peered through the gap in the wall whilst six dashed forth from the gaol into the surrounding lands. One last watcher, driven by the fear of thrashing, rounded up any stray Brand-slaves below the sixth floor, then stood watch on the stairway.

  When Mia’s gaze adjusted enough to behold all this, the demonic posse was already tower-bound. The twin watchmen by the breach were plodding upward to unbar the sentry’s lone entrance. There, in a yawning gap against the sixth story’s distant wall, lay:

  Roland was borne in through the sentries’ barracks, rather than being flung through the oubliette’s welkinhatch once more. The demons dragged him down to the ‘main’ asylum floor, where they took turns thrashing him to 1 LP repeatedly. Forcibly mending him with demonic herbs that drained strength and other lesser debuffs in tradeoff. Demon Sentry #4 and #7 held ther capt-haft, preventing the squire from striking back or even knowing down from up.

  Then, the asylum warden arose. Soaring down from the guard barracks on demonic bat wings:

  Only twice before had Mia ever seen the warden, both instances for executions. The healer knelt by the bars, timid, gazing out at the prisoner she was to be paired with.

  The Demonic Asylum Warden lifted a mighty hand.

  Even a single blwo from this over-leveled warden would have been enough to smite Roland’s life-points. The guardian seemed to be holding back, though it did little good. Yet, by the end of the storm of strikes, Roland was down to 1/12 HP, dangling at brink of death.

  Mia stepped forth, trembling before the Demonic Asylum Warden. She cast her Basic Heal. Then, when her charge was back to ten, she was ordered to cast it again until he was overhealed. Then, the asylum’s head demon pummeled his charge once more. This continued, Mia weaving her healing as oft as her stamina would grant her focus. Seldom did Roland’s health linger at full for long. Oft, the onslaught was upon him as Mia still struggled to cast her spell.

  After many hours of constant punishment, Roland was hauled into their gaol-cell by a stout level 8 demon and tossed clumsily upon the cot, suffering two harm from the might of the throw.

  Even the power of Basic Heal struggled to keep Roland’s face whole. Great bruises, wrought after countless forceful smites from demonic fist larger than the man’s head, would not fade no matter how many times Mia applied her magical salve.

  “M’lord, surely you know that escape from this place is impossible,” Mia pleaded with the unresponsive shape on her cot. “Verily, none can hope to roam the wilds alone.”

  With his jaw too mangled to speak, Roland summoned great strength to raise a hand and beckon towards the breach in the sixth-floor wall. A Greater Plain Board Barricade was now being built by a trio of Demon Sentries. Night had long since descended, and in the moonless gloom there was naught to distinguish the wall from the shadowy veil beyond.

  Mia cast Basic Heal once more. So tired was she, and so injured was her charge, that it barely brought him up to 6/12 HP.

  “One day.” Roland closed his mangled hand in a fist. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Theres nowhere to go, m’lord,” Mia said, head bowed. “This fixation, these wild outbursts. Another shall see you doomed.”

  “Town to the north,’ Roland spoke, only half-lucid. “Got the whole lay of the land. Confirmed there was a way out through the demon’s barracks. There are only ten of them. Over-leveled for any one prisoner to face alone. But…”

  His voice trailed off, and his head rolled back onto the pillow. The pair waited in silence for a time.

  “I’ve never seen one move like so,” the healer admitted in time. “You struck that barricade without use of an Interface. You just… acted.”

  Mia would have selected the barricade and tried to [Use] it. Finding no means to push or remove it would have proven the end of her escape. Such was her chief way of dealing with the world; she knew of no other way.

  “One day,” Roland said again. “Get you out of here…”

  Mia sighed. Her assigned mate was a headstrong one, no doubt. Any other escape attempts and he’d not be around any longer. Still, Mia leaned forth and…

  The pair shared the cot, Mia embracing the battered squire until the next mining shift was summoned.