"Thou seems to hold these two in thine heart. Let mine prowess shatter those feelings that dwell within," Adonarr said with a grin. He reached down, helping Lileen to her feet as he delicately undid her clothing, leaving her barren in the mountain cold. She shivered and shuddered but there was an expression of pleasure across her face.
"Let us leave, boy!" Janius shouted as he grabbed Jin's shoulder and started to pull him away. Adonarr shot a glance at him then snapped his finger, leaving the both of them rooted in place.
"The young one had sealed his fate. Now he must watch these two be taken. But thy hast intervened in mine plan. Thy should be grateful for mine benevolence. So I shall let this be with a gift from a friend of mine." Janius tried to shake his head vigorously to no avail. Adonarr grinned wickedly as he pulled out a small black box the size of the palm of his hand. He took the box and placed it in Janius' shaking hand.
"Go on, open thy gift," Adonarr said devilishly. Janius strained and struggled as he tried to look away and not open the box but his hands moved according to Adonarr's wishes.
The black box opened and Janius forcibly peered into it. A million different realities flash before his eyes, things he had never seen explained in scripts he had never seen but now he understood. Everything that had ever existed came to be in his mind, his thoughts spiraled and stretched and shrunk and twisted and turned and tore at the seams.
His eyes went vacant and his mind seemed to drift out of control. He wobbled a bit before he started to mutter under his breath in a low droning. The mad mutterings continued as Adonarr laughed and raised the box, clamping it shut with a grin. He watched for a moment, amused by the sight of the crazed man before he pocketed the box and returned to the sight of the naked elf before him.
A small push hits him as Marim nudges against him. Adonarr grins and stands her up as well.
"Very well, thou may aid me in this demonstration of power," Adonarr said with a wave of a hand. Marim scrambled out of her clothing.
Jin fell to his knees as he was forced to witness the next few hours of heartbreak. When Adonarr had had his fill, he put the two unconscious naked women into his compass. Jin sat there in the whipping wind and snowfall, his head cast downward and his eyes wide and beady.
Janius had wandered to the rock where he had told Jin his story. He was now sitting there muttering to himself quietly while rocking back and forth.
"Thou heart has been ground into a fine powder and thou spirit will be forever vanquished. Mine name shall henceforth be hallowed on thy tongue," he said as he grabs Jin's face and stares into his empty eyes. Jin's head was malleable under his touch. Adonarr chuckled.
"I shall take thine soul to the divine realm. Let thine cowardice forever be known by thine hollow, soulless hands. Taken by none other than the King of the Gods, the God of Lust and Beauty, Adonarr. Never forget." Adonarr's hand glowed a holy light. Jin shuddered and writhed as his soul was torn from his body until Adonarr withdrew his hand.
Attached at the fingertips were wispy white translucent strings that connected Adonarr's fingers to Jin's head until they had snapped and hung from Adonarr's hand as ripped cloth would from a banner of bar.
Without another word or glance, Adonarr turned and left into the snowy mountainscape.
Jin sat there, his eyes hollow and sunken in, his mouth hung open as snow fell gently upon his brown curls. During the process of having his soul ripped out, he had blacked out, left to the elements.
Janius stumbled over, muttering and laughing under his breath. He looked down at Jin, the face of utter despair still carved on the boy's face. He muttered again, laughing aloud as he continued stumbling about.
###
The jostling of metal armor echos, shouts and the clashing of blades follow. A bright orange flame sparks, but it quickly grows into untamed destruction. Families cry out, the women and children's tears flow down the river, bathing Jin in misery.
A voice echoes through the fiery night. The flames all turn blue and suddenly, all is silent aside from a low buzzing and chittering. A mouth leans in and whispers in his ear.
"Who are you?" it says, the voice feminine.
"Never forget," Adonarr's voice says in his other ear. A sharp stab pierces Jin's chest. He claws at the pain as he looks down at it. In front of him was none other than himself from ten years ago.
"Useless. Not even blueflies would eat your corpse," the young Jin says heartlessly as he pushes the blade deeper into Jin's chest.
"Wh-What?" Jin says fearfully. He struggles to push the boy away and remove the blade, but neither move an inch with all his might.
"After everything I endured, all the pain and suffering, you cast it aside and forget where you came from," the boy says.
"You don't know who you are," the feminine voice whispers again. A hand reaches out and grabs Jin's head.
Standing behind the young Jin was none other than the handsome glow of Adonarr, his hand at Jin's head.
"You ran off to play house with two girls while you left me to die," Adonarr and the young Jin say at the same time, their voices overlapping.
"Don't listen, arise, my dear," the feminine voice urges quietly.
"You did this to us, to me. You let them die with no vengeance. You have not grown stronger to fill the shoes you should be wearing, the weight you should be carrying!" The boy and Adonarr say. Adonarr grins maliciously and the boy stares at Jin with judgment.
"Arise, please arise," the feminine voice echos in his ear, a desperate echo that never ends. It grows in volume until Jin jolts awake from the voice. His panting and sweat-laced, thinned form rises up from a dirty straw bed.
He looks around fearfully. His surroundings had changed drastically, he was now in a dark grimy cell with none of his belongings beyond his own clothing. And sitting in front of him was multiple other people, many of them young and weak. But one of them did stand out, a woman around the same age as Jin.
Her hair is dirtied and tangled, but it is most assuredly red in color. Her eyes are a deep brilliant purple. Her nose is small and button-shaped. Her skin, despite its layer of grime, is pale with a soft complexion.
"Arise, stranger!" The woman says with a final shout. "You are scaring the others!"
The other odd cellmates, a mixture of men and women, sit huddled together on the far side of the cell.
"I… am sorry. I have been through a lot," Jin says with a groan and a hand to his aching head.
"We have all been through a lot to end up captured. But none of us speak in tongues foreign to this land and jostle around like a demon had possessed us," the woman informs, cautiously backing away from Jin.
"What?"
"Your eyes were coated white and you muttered in a tongue none of us had ever heard," the woman says.
A boy no older than ten pokes his head out, "Not to mention the shaking and bubbles coming out his mouth!" Other cellmates grumble in agreement or nod silently.
Jin looked
"What was I saying? No, you wouldn't know such things… Just… Just tell me where I am and how I can escape." Jin looks around for old man Janius, hope bright on his face, but with no sign of him, he sighs, and the light dims.
"Oh, you don't know? I figured anyone in the mountains would be coming here…" the redhead says with a hand politely in front of her mouth. "This is the famous city that sits between the North Wilds and the Southwest Midlands; Soul City."
Jin's eyes widen and he bolts to his feet, startling the others. He grabs at the bars and shouts for the guards. The woman calms her racing heart with a deep breath before she stands as well and limps over to Jin, resting a hand on his shoulder.
"There's no one coming, stranger. They only come once a day to drop off any prisoners and hang out food," she explains sadly.
"And to collect applicants!" the boy chimes in, causing nearby others to lunge and cover his mouth. The woman looks at Jin, nervously praying he won't ask.
"And what are these applicants for?" Jin questions suspiciously.
The woman lowers her head. "W-Well…"
Suddenly, down the hall a door burst open and soldiers poured in with a man in wealthy attire between them. The soldiers all ran down the hall and filed into two lines to allow the man passage.
He walks down the hallway slowly, each step echoing in the quiet cells. His eyes analyze each cell, waiting for anyone to peer up at him. In one cell, a man glances up at just the wrong moment and makes eye contact.
"You," the wealthy man says. The prisoner backs away as he starts to beg.
"No no no, I wasn't looking. I'm not trying to apply. I just want to stay here! Please, sir! Please!" he shouts as guards enter the cell and drag him out.
The prisoner's shouts echo down the hall until the door at the end slams shut and all is eerily quiet again. The wealthy man continues his slow walk.
"Where are the two new ones?" The man asks lazily with a wave of a hand. One soldier nods and sprints off down the hall, stopping in front of the cell of Jin.
"This one and this one, sir," the soldier says as he points at Jin and at the red haired woman.
The man slowly walks over and peers down at the two. The woman had grabbed Jin's head and forced him to look down.
"It was a revolutionary and an unconscious man out in the mountains, correct?" the man says with a small lick of his lips at the sight of the woman's body.
"Ah, y-yes sir. The woman is a known revolutionary. And the man was found unconscious by a trader's caravan who brought him here and sold him. They report he was carrying three bronze fangs of the adventurer's guild and a sword," the soldier reports from a piece of parchment.
"I see. A shame she's a revolutionary, she would have made a good service slave. Send both of them along too. Foreign adventurers must prove their worth and revolutionaries must pay for their crimes," the man says with a wave of his hand.
Soldiers rush into the cell and grab the two of them, both resist, but neither shouts out.
The redhead turns back to the other occupants of the cell and silently prays for their safety as she's dragged off. Jin is rougher with his resistance, but they subdue him and drag him off as well.
The two are dragged down the hall and out into the courtyard of a dark stone castle. Soldiers were yelling and sparring together, others were drinking and discussing while some were practicing quietly.
The few guardsmen holding the two of them, drag them off through the courtyard to the front gate where a gatekeeper documents their information.
"Jin. 17 years old. Adventurer," he states to the gatekeeper who scribes down the information.
"Ismerialle. 17 years old. Revolutionary," she says to the gatekeeper as the two of them join a larger group being guided through the gate.
"You all are now soul slaves, property of Soul City Council. You will be sentenced to serve your time by entering and exploring the famous Soul Dungeon. You will not survive. And if you somehow do, if you return with enough wealth, your sentence will be reduced," a guard shouts out to the small crowd of people. Most of them look terrified, but Jin and the woman, show no fear.