Abandoned Prison

Kass looked at the woman with panic in his eyes but she just smiled at him. "Oh don't worry. I always give paralysis potions to people I burn here so they don't run around too much. As long as you hurry and clean up everything quickly nothing will happen to you," she said with a soothing and even friendly voice.

"But I can't do it now. The floor is too hot. Maybe I can do it after it cools down," he said while trying to keep his mind focused.

"Just go on. It will be more fun to watch," was her simple answer.

Disbelief appeared on his face. He couldn't understand how someone could enjoy making him do this. It looked like she really didn't intend to let him out so he took a deep breath and stepped on the hot floor.

He picked up the broom and the shovel and he started to sweep the ashes on the shovel as quickly as he could and then he dumped them in the bucket.

The floor was burning his feet. It became unbearable after a couple of minutes so he decided to quickly switch between stepping on his left and right foot. He must have looked really silly doing that while trying to sweep the ash and dump it into the bucket. He heard a sweet giggle from behind the iron bars but he couldn't help to imagine evil intentions behind those sweet sounds.

He thought that maybe she is not a human. She could be some sort of demon that transformed in this innocent looking woman or she could also be possessed by a demon or some evil spirit.

After he already had some ash in the bucket he saw remains of human bones. It was terrifying to just imagine what happened here today. He could hear the screams of the man being burned here and the sweet giggles of the woman or the thing that was looking at him.

He felt disgusted when he was putting the bones in the bucket but luckily he was almost finished with this twisted job.

"Hurry up. I can't wait forever," said her cute and melodic voice.

"I am almost finished, just give me a second." He couldn't prevent his voice from trembling because he didn't want to be left here alone.

"Okay, you have one more minute," she said playfully.

His heart started beating faster and he started to feel desperate. He hurried up even more trying to be as fast as he could and he started to hear her giggles from behind the bars.

His feet got burned so much already that he couldn't endure it and he had to get on his knees to finish the work. The last bits of ash slid from the shovel to the bucked. The bucket was almost full and his work was finally finished.

Kass then quickly stood up, got on the stairs, and told her that he is done. She looked inside and she saw that he did what she wanted.

Her face was a little bit disappointed at first but then a slight smile appeared on her lips.

"There is just one more thing you need to clean," she said.

He didn't want to stay in the room any longer and he felt fear when she came up with something new and didn't let him out yet.

"Just let me out of here. I did everything you wanted," he said with a pleading tone.

She gave him a stern look. "Get on your knees," she said.

Her look made him shiver as he never saw her like that before. The stairs were too small for kneeling so he had to kneel on the hot floor again. Because his knees were already burned before the pain was even worse now and his face got twisted in pain.

It looked like it lifted the woman's mood as she smiled again. She was quiet for a moment and he was trying to figure out what she could make him do in this humiliating position.

"I want you to lick the ash from my boots," she said with a strict voice.

He looked at her brown leather boots and he saw bits of ash on them. He hesitated for a second. What she wanted was really humiliating and it would hurt his pride but at the same time she was really dangerous and he decided to rather let her have her twisted pleasure than face her anger.

"Make sure to lick every spot, don't leave anything out," she said.

He was sweating a lot because of the uncomfortable position and the heat in the cell. Her boots tasted bitter just like the ash did but after a while his tongue became numb and he couldn't feel any taste anymore.

His tongue got tired and started hurting but he was done with just one boot. He just wanted to be finished with this as soon as possible so he didn't even care that his tongue got grazed after licking for this long.

He somehow managed to clean her shoes before she got impatient and he told her that he is done.

"Hope you didn't miss out any spot," she said with concern in her voice.

"I didn't. I always finish the work," he said and tried to sound confident.

She looked at her shoes and said "It looks like you are really good at cleaning. I think that I might visit you again when I need cleaning."

It wasn't exactly an honor for him to hear a compliment like that and he hoped that he won't see her again but he felt safer now that she was satisfied.

To his relief, she then led him out of the cell to the upper floors. When they were back on the highest floor where the ritual was performed on him he noticed that one of the doors that were closed before was open now.

He saw two undead there. They were wearing only some tattered rags. One of them was really tall and the other one was quite small. They were working around what seemed like a forge. One of them was heating an iron rod in the flames and the other one was striking a hot piece of iron with a big blacksmith hammer. The sound was so loud that it could be heard through the whole floor.

He didn't have too much time to see what they were working on because they quickly walked past them but he could see a couple of big iron cages behind them.

Once they were back on the floor where his cell was he was cuffed to the wall again by the ghost guard.

"Hope to see you again soon," she said with her sweet voice and she gave him one last smile. He didn't reply anything because he didn't share the excitement about meeting her again.

Then she turned around and left him alone again in his cell.

Kass let out a deep relieved breath when he was finally out of reach of that crazy woman. His feet and knees didn't hurt as much now because he wasn't stepping on them but he felt really thirsty.

He drank the rest of the water in the mug but it wasn't nearly enough but he saw a puddle in his cell. He didn't think that he would get any more water or food today because no one here cared about his health. This was the only water he had left here even though it wasn't the beverage that he was normally used to.

He leaned forward and laid on the ground so he could reach it. He took a sip. The water tasted of dirt but it wasn't too bad so he drank all of it until there was just mud left at the bottom. He could drink some more but his thirst was almost quenched.

Then he leaned on a wall and let out a heavy sigh. He hoped that they would leave him alone for some time.

Nadia was sitting at the long wooden table in the dining room with Zanzarah and three other witches. They were all eating the mushroom soup that Mika and Vera cooked this evening. It was still warm and even though it wasn't the tastiest food that she has ever eaten the herbs from the forest gave it at least some taste and the mushrooms would make her full.

Orange Oghen mushrooms were bitter and poisonous when they were raw but when cooked the bitterness was gone and the taste wasn't so bad. They had orange caps with red stains and they grew only in the darkness underground where they were emitting orange light.

Because of that, they weren't used too much for cooking but here at the Abandoned Prison they couldn't buy any food from the market so they had to eat what the forest and the dark caves below offered.

The room they were in didn't have any windows but it did receive a lot of light from the candles that were on the table and on the candleholder hanging from the ceiling. There were only two small holes in the stone wall. They didn't show much but she could see that it was almost dark outside and the stars started to show up in the sky.

Suddenly without seeing her enter the room she saw that Ania was getting near the table holding her own bowl of soup and it looked like she was looking to sit across the table.

She had an unpleasant feeling in her gut. She knew that Ania will have something stupid to say again and she could recognize the malevolent smirk on her face.

There was no point in trying to have a conversation with her so she took her soup and stood up. She wanted to leave the room and eat her dinner somewhere else but it was too late.

"Wait Nadia," a voice behind her said with the sweetest tone in the prison. Even though she knew it was a mistake a reflex made her turn around.

"I heard that your little experiment failed. I went to see that man and I can tell you that his soul is not in a very good state. I am not sure if you can try it again. His soul would probably get completely broken if you did" Ania said with a mocking but gentle voice.

Nadia looked around her and she knew that everyone was listening but no one would come to defend her against Ania. Everyone was afraid of her since she was the strongest with magic. Maybe even just as powerful as Zanzara even though she was more than twenty years younger than her.

Even though Ania was mean to everyone except Zanzara no one wanted to anger her so she understood that everyone stayed quiet. Zanzara was their teacher but she never intervened in any of their problems. She just treated everyone the same which was good and bad at the same time.

She tried to defend her self "It was almost successful I got far but I just didn't finish it properly that's it. I will do it again on someone else," she said with the most confident voice that she could manage right now.

Ania giggled and said "I don't think there will be any next time. Zanzara probably won't allow you to make an experiment like that on someone else for a long time. That would be a waste of material don't you think?"

"I don't think that. I learned a lot when I did it. I can do it without a problem next time," she said with an upset voice.

Ania giggled and said "You can dream about that but we both know that it takes you forever to learn even simple spells.

Nadia had enough of this conversation. She felt like she lost the argument with Ania like she did every time. Talking to her always drained her energy so she couldn't continue anymore. She said that she has work to do and then she quickly left the room before Ania could say anything.

She couldn't stand Ania but she was here and she couldn't do anything about it. She decided that she needs some fresh air so she took the turn right in the corridor leading from the dining room and walked the stairs that were at the end of it that led to the top of one of the two prison towers.

One of the reasons why she couldn't stand Ania was because she knew that she was right. It was true that it took her longer to learn even simple spells than to any other necromancers she knew. While everyone else was making progress since they came here it felt like she was still standing in place. It was something that she had to think about every day and it sometimes made her tired.

She could make an undead out of a corpse at most while other witches could summon ghosts or drain life from animals and plants.

Unlike her, Ania had the strongest connection with magic she had ever seen. She could learn almost every spell just after reading about it once.

They knew each other for three years already because they both used to study at the fire mage guild in Grengrod but they both left for different reasons.

Ania left because she was bored in the fire mages guild. She always kept complaining that the teachers there don't teach her any spells that could let her use her true power and that they didn't learn anything from the darker side of magic which she was interested in.

The reason why Nadia left was however much more unpleasant. One day a teacher asked her to assist her with a ritual. The teacher told her that it is a special ritual that they don't normally teach but that it is not anything forbidden.

However, the ritual had gone out of hand and it turned out to be necromancy. When they were caught the teacher blamed everything on her. She was arrested and put in prison for half a year. When they let her go she didn't even think about coming back and she left the city instead.

The time in the prison was a terrible experience but it made her realize what kind of a city Grengrod is and that she needs to leave.

She finally walked up the stairs and she was at the top of the tower. The second tower was ruined by the storm ten years ago and the entrance to it has been buried by rocks.

Nadia looked up at the sky. It was dark blue with the stars shining down on the rocky peaks of the mountains below but the ruler of the sky was the dark blue moon.

The wind was cool but it didn't make her feel cold. Even though it was summer the nights weren't really warm but the fresh air made her feel a lot better than the stale air inside filled with the smell from the candles and from the cooking.

She could also hear the wild river flowing below the prison. There used to be a bridge over it but it was only a bunch of rocks that served no purpose anymore. Behind the river was a valley with deep forests. She thought about all the wild spirits that inhabited the forest at night. Some of them were good and they came to the forest to dance in the moonlight. Others were dark and evil lurking in the shadows to catch a lone traveler and feed on their fear.

Occasionally a fairy or some lost creature from the wilderness beyond the Drevov mountains could be seen as well at night.

She remembered the ritual from yesterday. Every time that she was doing magic she was disappointed with herself and yesterday wasn't an exception but it didn't feel like that at the start. Everything was going as planned except for the end and because of that, it looked like she had completely failed others.

She knew that they are her friends so they won't tell her anything but it made her angry about herself and she was tired of always looking incompetent in front of them.

She was frustrated and an upset expression appeared on her face. She remembered Ania and her face that always had a smile on it. She knew how much Ania loved hurting people and maybe that was the reason why she was always so cheerful. Maybe she should try it as well.

Nadia thought about the prisoner that she performed the ritual on yesterday. "Kass was his name," she thought.

She decided that he won't be allowed to rest today and she started to think about the painful things she could put him through. To her surprise it made her feel really excited it was as if life had flown back into her.

A few years ago she would think that doing something like this was cruel and wrong but now she had the power over someone and it was hard to resist the temptation to torture that man when she felt so bad right now.