24 - Unchained (Patreon)

As her kidnapper smiled at her from a few meters away, and with the threat of once more having her mind caged within a useless body that she would have no power over, Phoenix glared at the cruel cinderen and asked, “Why are you doing all this? I’ve done nothing to you.”

The man returned her glare as he hissed, “Because of you my daughter is dead!” He walked closer to her and ranted, “You walked into our lives unwanted and stole from her. When she sought justice, she was brutally murdered by your rabid mentor!”

Murinah’s father was fuming as he spoke, carefully maneuvering through the ritual circle to get closer to her, “But now I’ll have my own revenge. With this,” he held up the creepy looking black hand that was currently opened as if to offer a morbid high-five and the cinderen gave that evil smile once more, “Wayland will see you as the weak and pathetic creature you are. He’ll be forced to kill you just like any other monster.”

“You’re the monster,” Phoenix replied through gritted teeth, trying to calm her panic at the Magi’s proximity.

“I should have done this to begin with,” he continued with a smirk as though not hearing the redhead’s words, “If I had just taken care of you and that arrogant Paladin as soon as you came to Tulimeir, my daughter would still be alive and I would have a powerful pawn under my command.”

“Has anyone told you before that you’re delusional?” Phoenix asked, trying to get her enemy to move slightly closer as a plan started to form. She would have to risk revealing her secret key for a chance to escape.

Ruwena’s smirk vanished as a snarl replaced it, “Coming from a foreign peasant who has no real power and clings to a Fallen Paladin who thinks himself above the law.”

“Better an Avenging Paladin than a complete psychopath like you,” Phoenix taunted, needing him just a bit closer.

The noble took another step forward, lifting his free hand as though to slap the chained Wayfarer, and Phoenix shifted herself quickly, utilizing the movement techniques from the Silent Stealth Stance of the Weapon Wielding Warrior. Since absorbing the martial knowledge months ago, she had come to realize that her body itself was a weapon, one that she had now spent countless hours honing control over.

Phoenix’s first kick landed, knocking the device out of the Magi’s hand as her second kick landed on the man’s chest hard, pushing off of him to launch herself back and upwards to flip and wrap her legs around the chains and pull against them, trying to dislodge the spike in the ceiling holding them in place.

It wouldn’t budge though and the lord was starting to recover from his unexpected tumble. As she maneuvered her body further up the chain and brought the barrette in her hair up towards her hand, she held her breath and snagged the key hooked on it. She slammed the key into the collar portion and released the pent up breath as she heard the click of the clasp unlocking.

As soon as it fell from her neck, she triggered two abilities in quick succession. The first one was her portal ability, willing the floating ring to appear below her to catch her as she fell, and the second was her gravity ability as she grit her teeth and targeted the ceiling and pushed it away from her.

The Wayfarer quickly realized that two things had gone terribly wrong. As her body flung itself away from the ceiling, the chains were secured more than the bones in her hands could force. Her jaw clenched in pain as her thumbs dislocated and she was fairly certain one of her wrists had broken from the magically reinforced cuffs.

Then instead of falling through her portal, her back slammed against the stone floor, knocking the air from her lungs and clenching in pain, making another breath nigh impossible. She lay there for a moment stunned, confused, and in pain but forced herself to move, rolling over before her captors might chain her again.

“Stop her!” the man’s voice yelled from somewhere nearby.

As she got to her feet, Phoenix was slammed into the wall behind her, opposite the only door to the room, and she felt the little breath she had managed to gain escape her again as her head swam. She triggered [Ruler of Relativity] again, this time pushing against the Sapphire Caste Arktis that had slammed into her and punctured her gut with both of the katars in the cinderen’s fists.

Phoenix felt the crushing force of her own ability as there was only a stone wall behind her but it did manage to push her assailant back a few paces, leaving gaping wounds where thick blades had been. She conjured her own weapons, gritting her teeth against the pain in her thumbs and wrist that her regeneration hadn't healed yet and she tried to give it a boost, “As surely as the sun will rise again, I will see the dawn of tomorrow.”

Her flesh instantly began to mend and her grip fixed itself with the triggering of the high cost variant of her healing spell. Despite the pain she was still in, she prepared to face her enemies in combat, though the enemy being a pair of Sapphire Casters made her odds fairly abysmal. Death would be better than becoming a Caged monster, she thought grimly.

The Wayfarer was still confused about why her portal hadn’t appeared and then she realized that the silver ring was there, floating in the air, but the sheet of night was missing from inside of it.

Lord Ruwena’s chuckle sent a shiver up her spine as the cinderen said, “Your portal won’t work in here. Nobody gets in or out except through that door,” he gestured to the solid metal slab behind her, “And you won’t get past Arktis or me. You can’t escape this time.”

A small voice inside Phoenix agreed with the maniac but she smothered that nagging part of her and took her dual wielding stance and unleashed her aura. Pushing against the pair of Sapphire Caste ones that seemed to shudder under the force of her own. As her form became obscured in shadows, the mercenary lunged at her again and she barely managed to duck under the bladed fists that almost took her head off.

“Don’t kill her, idiot!” the man yelled at his niece, “You’ll ruin my plan!”

Phoenix ignored the irate Magi as she swung her blades at the assailant. An elbow smashed through her [Sun Shell] and landed on her face before she could blink, and slammed her into the floor. She used her gravity ability once more to [Push] herself away from Arktis, who was shouting at the blinding Bane and rubbing unseeing eyes, as she put more distance between them, sliding against the stone ground.

She changed target, and thus direction, as she used the [Push] variant against the wall and flung herself past Ruwena and lifted herself towards the door only to feel a body crash into her once more. Arktis was fast. Much faster than the Sapphire Caste Frost Lurker she had fought before and she thought she felt a rib crack as she was slammed into another wall.

She reactively used her power to disentangle herself from her attacker and found herself in a far corner. She met Ruwena’s gaze once more and her resolve hardened as she lifted her dagger and sword towards the pair, “You won’t turn me into one of the Caged,” Phoenix announced and she was glad her voice didn’t waver.

The nobleman laughed, lifting up a large crossbow that she hadn’t noticed before, “You can’t possibly win. You’re not powerful enough to defeat Arktis, let alone me,” he taunted and loosed a silvery bolt from the weapon.

She dodged to the side only to feel the slice of a blade bury into her thigh and she swiped her own weapons towards Arktis who stepped back from the attack with a snarl and a fresh wound across the arm. Spending the mana to resummon her shield of light, her little [Starlight Companion] was the next sacrifice as it exploded in a shower of silvery glitter when it had intercepted another arrow from the Magi across the room.

Phoenix found herself mourning the loss of Tala, not because she couldn’t just resummon the Familiar, for she knew that Tala’s demise wasn’t a true death, but because the little bird had become both a valued friend and weapon to help support her in these dire circumstances.

Another shout came from her side as Arktis attacked again only to be blinded by her translucent shield once more but before she could conjure another replacement a poisoned-tipped bolt buried itself into her thigh and she clenched her jaw to keep from crying out in pain.

A cruel laugh came from across the room, “Give up, girl. It’s only a matter of minutes now before the Creeping Heartvine makes you sleep once more.”

Her mind was in overdrive and she went through her options. Trying to buy a bit more time to plan, Phoenix kept the conversation going, “I don’t need to defeat you. I just need to escape.”

“Are you deaf? You can’t escape,” the Magi reiterated and gestured to the intricate enchantments adorning the walls, “Built in anti-teleportation and a Sapphire Caster that’s faster than you, along with a door that won’t respond to anyone but the family, means that you aren’t going anywhere. You will be beaten, broken, and chained. Then you will become one of the Caged.”

Another small voice spoke in the back of her mind, telling her to just kill the insane man and put a permanent end to the threat but she balked at it. Anger rose up at the thought of lowering herself to Murinah’s level. Even if she could, she didn’t need to kill these two, she just needed to escape. This place, and the information she had gained, would surely be enough now to land the corrupt noble in a prison somewhere.

Her foe was right though, she couldn’t escape. There was no running as the feeling in her legs bled away and she slumped against the wall behind her. No portal to run through. No key to the door. No hope.

No.

The word resonated within her, a faint memory of defiance rising up. The first time she had felt this way, her body had felt like it was being burned to ashes in a hospital bed but she refused to give in to death. Phoenix had been running since long before coming to this world. She had been fleeing further and further into darkness as her friends and family died around her. The last time she had felt this sudden resistance to the seeming inevitable despair, she had stood against a foe stronger than her and won. Sure, she had died but she had still stood her ground and defeated the Frost Lurker.

Coming to this world, meeting Paul, and gaining new friends had slowly been pulling her back towards the light but this insane family’s actions had threatened to drag her back into the lonely abyss. She would not let them.

There was always a way. How many times had she read about heroes who had triumphed over and over again during the darkest of times and most dire of circumstances? Now it was her turn to prove that there was always hope. Her turn to stand against evil.

Phoenix took a deep steadying inhalation of air and exhaled her fears and anxieties. She met Ruwena’s malevolent gaze with her own determined one and said resolutely, “I will always fight for my freedom. Until my last breath, I will remain unchained.”

Then she threw her sword, [Caustic Floe], towards the Sapphire Caste Magi only to trigger her power one last time to [Pull] the sword back before it reached the noble and Phoenix took her own head.

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