Journey Through the Underdark - Eric EarthScorn Book 1 - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

“Full name?”

The officer sounded bored. His inflection was drawn out and tinged with sleepiness. Eric was used to hearing the same sounds of boredom from the few traveling merchants eating at his father’s inn after a long ride. Though, more commonly from the functionaries who passed through the town every month. Boredom and the decided thought that the speaker considers the listener as beneath them.

But it was a lie.

Without his MageSight, Eric would have fallen for it. The man was relaxed, sitting behind a wooden desk, and hadn’t looked up since Eric had been dragged from the holding cell and placed in his hard wooden seat. But the fact that all three soldiers, the two who escorted him and this soldier, were brimming with magical power just hovering over the skin, had left the boy cautious.

Behind Eric, the wooden study door was left open, the sounds of the two soldiers clearly retreating. From Sasha’s mental view as she scouted around Eric’s location, she found multiple groups of soldiers with weapons waiting. She had an issue understanding the why of the situation, but an ambush was something she could easily recognize.

“Eric EarthScorn.”

To this, the wizard pretending to be an ordinary soldier looked up, his eyebrow-raising in a look of definite surprise.

“Noble, huh?” he said as he turned back to writing on his paperwork.

“No,” Eric said, his voice filled with poorly hidden notes of annoyance and disgust.

Putting his writing implement down, the soldier crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, staring at Eric as the boy uncomfortably shifted in his seat.

Eric knew how this game was played. The head pit boss had been scolded by a visiting functionary this way. Sit back silently and stare. It was amazing how quickly the other person would speak to fill the silence, even admit wrongdoing. Eric had thought the head pit boss had been a moron when he confessed to smuggling tin to traders on the side. Though, he found it surprisingly effective when the trick was used on himself. It took an actual struggle to resist reacting to the silent stare.

It helped that Eric wasn’t actually guilty of anything except desertion.

Finally, the soldier uncrossed his arms and took up his pen yet again.

“How long have you been poaching within the Underdark for ‘Lord’ EarthScorn then?” asked the soldier, his hand ready to fill out the paperwork.

Eric shook his head in confusion before he responded, “I haven’t been poaching in the Underdark, and I don’t work for EarthScorn.”

The older man’s white mustache tipped up on one side in a sneer as if he had finally caught Eric in some lie.

“So, you are an official Underdark hunter for the ‘council’ of Southern Alskan then?”

Eric couldn’t help but twitch at the name. Kingdom doctrine was that it was merely ‘the Kingdom.’ It was unnamed since it was the only one in the world, and it was certainly not ‘Southern Alskan.’ The northernmost enemy simply occupied the ‘Alskan region,’ which was undoubtedly not a kingdom. It was the official decree that nowhere else in the world was organized or had the rule of law. That absolutely no one believed that didn’t mean you wouldn’t be hung for saying otherwise. Given how little trade or travel was allowed within the Kingdom, as well that news supposedly only moved through official couriers and propaganda, the name had become verboten.

Seeing Eric’s physical reaction, the wizard’s smile widened as he leaned forward.

“Well? Boy,” he said, his tone less a question than a sneer.

“Kitten, he is fake,” Sasha sent.

Sasha filled his mind with images of prey hissing and snapping in threatening displays. Creatures with colored plumage flashed back and forth or with bristling fur, all ending with Sasha quickly killing her prey. Her message had Eric reevaluating both the words of the man and his actions. He was trying to frighten Eric and get him to act in some way, the open door and waiting soldiers said clearly what that was.

Straightening from his unconsciously hunched position, Eric stared into the soldier’s eyes.

“I’m a refugee from the Kingdom, ‘Southern Alskan’ as you call it. I refused to be killed on the border, and I escaped before they could force me to fight. I have information for Judy Terms of the UWC,” Eric said in as confident a tone as he could.

At the mention of the UWC, the man flinched. When he noticed that Eric had seen his reaction, he scowled at the boy. Reaching to his side, below his desk, he hauled up Eric’s backpack and placed it on the counter. First, he removed Eric’s dirtiest pair of clothes, the smell suddenly wafting around the room, not even his constant use of hot water enough to remove the smell of sewage, dried blood, and fire. Pushing these to the side, he removed Eric’s worn knife, tapping it onto the table while staring at the young wizard, then pushing it to the side. Finally, he removed the two intestinal tubes of stone that Eric had harvested from the worms on a whim, the magic still glowing from within the compressed flecks of stone.

“You want me to believe that an ignorant boy. With no experience in the Underdark. With no resources. With no assistance. With no tools beyond a change of clothing and a worn knife. That you managed to escape from Southern Alskan. You honestly think that anyone would believe that you escaped and collected not one, but two, Stone Burrower worm intestines full of Mage Stone while fleeing? They are worth more than a handful of soldier’s wages for a month! Do you think we are fools here?” The man shouted as he rose to his feet, his hands resting on his desk as he shouted at Eric.

“You are were spying for Southern Alskan, and my soldiers captured you as you came too close to our defenses. You will be interrogated, and once we know everything about your actions, you will be executed!”

The man’s voice rose until it echoed off the walls, his hands clenched as flecks of spit dropped onto his desk.

In Eric’s mind, Sasha snorted, and a curious sensation of laughter bubbled down their connection.

“He is trying to flush the predator into an ambush so he can eat the kill himself. He is hungry. He is afraid,” Sasha sent.

Her focus was on the sweat beading on the man’s forehead and the regular flexing of his hands on the desk that Eric had confused for anger. But it was the envious glances toward the packed tube of magical stones that convinced Eric that Sasha was right. This man didn’t fear Eric, but Eric represented some danger to him, and he wanted those tubes of stone. If Eric fled and died in his capture, then all his problems would go away, and the tube of rocks would be his.

Eric simply sat and stared at the wizard that was pretending to be a soldier. He didn’t fear the wizard now standing awkwardly in front of him. If he could have simply killed him and taken the money, he would have. But that didn’t mean Eric was safe, it just meant that he was safe for now.

“I have information for Judy Terms of the UWC,” Eric repeated, his voice no longer as scratchy and unused as it had been during his time within the Underdark.

Frowning and then sighing, the older man ran his hands through his white hair and then sat and stared at the mess lying on his desk. Pushing it to the side, he grabbed his pen and wrote for a moment on the paper. Standing, he strode to the doorway and then leaned out, calling for the two soldiers to return Eric to his cell.

After being marched back to his cell, the wizards stopping to recharge his manacles, Eric sat and considered his situation. Likely, he was safe where he was. The man in charge, whatever his name was, seemed to be unable to directly affect Eric, but that could change at any time. People had done dangerous, crazy things for money, and he had already tried to set Eric up to be killed during an escape. A normal boy left in the dark for days on end would probably have tried to run in fear.

Gritting his teeth, Eric swore to himself he would be ready. With an iron-like focus to resist the manacle’s pulses, Eric created the Earth shaping spell. Slowly he pulled a thin layer of stone from the ground, packing it into a ball and setting it to one side of his cell. Continuing, he slowly worked his way around the walls and the ceiling, rolling the stone into a large ball temporarily while he worked.

He peeled a thin layer from the surfaces of his cell and was surprised to see the volume of rock he gathered. Next was the most challenging part of the process. He wasn’t even sure that his idea would work, but all he could do was try. At worst, he would just have to smooth the stone out and forget his plan.

Taking a fist-sized piece of stone away from his work material, he flattened it using multiple layers of runes tied together in a sheet. This created two flat plates of force pushing the stone flat. When the rock was flat and trying to push out the sides, Eric stopped to breath deep and recover his mana. When he was sufficiently calm, he made a thin box of Earth shaping runes surrounding the flat stone. From within the box of magic, the stone released soft crunching sounds, the rock compressing under the immense forces. Once he was done, he had a bar of compressed stone that was far heavier than it appeared.

He had compressed what he would have guessed was ten pounds worth of rock into the area of what should have held no more than five. It wasn’t as compressed as he wanted, but it probably would be too heavy if he squeezed it any further. Reshaping the magic box, Eric added two more runes that compressed along one edge of the rock about halfway up. This left him with a poorly shaped stone knife, but it was more than he had before.

Stuffing the blade into his belt, he turned back to the giant ball of rock that he had left. Pulling off a few more balls of stone, Eric placed them in the far corner from the door, these would be useful for later, but not at the moment. The rest of the rock was rolled over to the back wall, and then Eric spent hours forming a duplicate surface at the back of his cell. The most challenging part was creating the last part of the rock wall from within. Once he was sealed in, he asked Sasha to enter the outer cell and check to be sure it matched closely enough.and

“Looks like rock Kitten,” Sasha sent her mental voice still filled with humor.

Eric huddled in his small hiding place, one of the balls of rock already shaped into a sealed container filled with his waste. The chamberpot in the outer cell was still full, so he was confident his escape would be reported soon enough. All he had to do was wait, drink summoned water occasionally, and use his air refreshing spell as needed. Soon enough, they would be scouring outside the jail searching for him. Sasha would hunt and get food for him as needed, as well as keep an eye out for whoever came to discover what happened to the escaped captive. It would be boring and annoying, but it was better than leaving his life in the hands of a ruthless, cowardly, and greedy man.

After a few weeks, if no one came to find out what happened, then he would try and escape. He was sure he would have a much easier time then.