The captain, who was dishing out tasks, was clearly overworked to exhaustion. Hirrus would have felt sympathy for the man, if he weren’t working for a monster who was audibly torturing people only a few yards away.

He gave each of the three of them different assignments. Nidra was to deliver a coded message across the camp to the guards at the front gate and return with a response. Alric was sent with a sack of sand to replace what had been used putting out a particularly nasty fire to the west.

The man looked Hirrus up and down and directed him to the cart outside. His obvious physical strength was to be put to use there.

Hirrus was loath to leave the tent - he didn’t want to take his eyes off of Rumi until the man was a shattered pile of limbs - but Nidra gave him a sharp look.

Forcing down his own defiance, he went to his task.

It took a while to figure out what he was supposed to be doing. When he got to the cart, there wasn’t anyone to direct him as to what was supposed to be loaded into it, nor was there an obvious pile of cargo near at hand.

The cart itself was another of the larger sort, the ones that Fire’s masked crew had been using. With the large cargo area in the back, it had been able to accommodate and transport large monsters, and large numbers of innocent people, like those that Hirrus and Alric had freed at the last large town they’d been at.

He made the mistake of peering inside. He had wanted to see if there was some sign of what he was expected to be doing. Instead, he was met with a sign of what he wanted to be doing.

The back of the cart held the townspeople Rumi had been handing off. The old woman whose arm had been twisted was here, as was the woman with the broken hand, and a half-dozen others. They were bound in a long chain that was riveted to the back wall of the cart, and from up close the signs of their physical and emotional suffering were all the more obvious. The way they flinched back from him when he appeared in the entryway told him everything he needed to know about how they were being treated. Hirrus felt an overpowering urge to shatter the bindings with his bare hands.

“Little help?” a voice interrupted Hirrus’s moment of horror.

A guard was standing next to him with the teenage girl with the black eye. His gauntleted hand was closed around the back of her neck, holding her at arm’s reach as she tried to break his grip with one hand and clawed at his armored elbow with the other. From the visible chips and cracks on her fingernails, and the calm on the guard’s face, this was not unexpected behavior from this particular prisoner.

Hirrus’s first instinct was to break the man’s jaw and free the girl, but he clamped down on the feeling and stepped out of the way.

“You look lost,” the guard said conversationally, as if he wasn’t manhandling a struggling child into the back of a prison cart. “Did they not tell you what you were doing here?”

Hirrus nodded, afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he spoke.

“Not surprising,” the man said, grunting in a brief struggle to force shackles onto the flailing girl. “They forget that not everybody has spent time in this part of the camp.” He snarled in pain as the teenager got one hand free and clawed at his face, trying to gouge out an eye before he twisted away. “Come on, man, are you going to help me, or just stand there and watch?”

Hirrus heard a growl forming deep in his chest as he stepped up into the back of the cart. He had always cut an imposing figure, but his size and demeanor didn’t seem to have an effect on this guard. The man probably assumed his anger was for the girl. She seemed convinced of the same and reoriented her focus, baring her teeth at him like an animal.

“Come on, then,” she spat. She was obviously trying to put on a brave face, but her voice quavered. “Show me how big your boots are! That’s what you monsters are all about, isn’t it? Grinding us under your heel. You’re all compensating for something, I think!”

The distraction seemed to be all that was actually required. With her focus briefly turned to Hirrus’s approach, the guard managed to control her hands and get her shackles affixed. Hirrus loomed over the guard as he locked the shackles and gave them a shake to ensure they were secure. It took a long moment before Hirrus could physically move without doing terrible violence to the man.

“Don’t worry, kid,” the guard said as he stood and moved to exit the cargo compartment of the cart. “It’ll all be over soon. You’ll be free of that nasty decision tree, and you can make your own choices. There’ll be no more need to be a petulant rebel just because some higher power decided you were supposed to be.”

He turned to Hirrus as he hopped down. “This way, I’ll show you what you’re here for.”

Hirrus felt convinced that he had been shown what he was here for already, but stepped down as well and followed the man around to the side of the cart.

“This is the thing,” the man said, kicking a long pointed rock that lay on the ground next to the cart’s tires. “It’s usually standing in the middle of the courtyard over there,” he added, pointing across to where the army of guards had formed ranks, “but they need it for the demonstration. Gabrielle hauled it over here before the cart was ready, and now she’s off to try and test her might against… Well, you know who. If he’s even here.” He shrugged. “Anyway, they need it to be transported with the prisoners, so I’m guessing they want you to load it up. They probably should have said something though, because otherwise how were you supposed to know it wasn’t always here?”

Hirrus knelt down and examined the rock. It indeed seemed quite unremarkable, and without direction, he might have believed it to be a marker for where the cart was to be parked to ensure the space remained clear. If it were standing upright, it would be perhaps eight feet tall, and under a foot wide at the base. It tapered gradually until the taper sharply angled to a point at the tip. It was entirely unadorned slate-gray stone.

“Just toss it in the back there, with the townies,” the guard said with a smirk. “If you can. Get the boy to help if it’s too much for you. He should be out with the next prisoner in a minute. Or else you could try and find Gabrielle and get her to do it.” He put a hand to the small of his back. “I’d help, but I’m about to throw my back out just looking at the thing.”

The guard headed back into the tent, and Hirrus considered his course. This was just a plain stone obelisk that had no obvious purpose. It didn’t seem clear how he could sabotage it besides just not loading it onto the cart. He was supposed to be blending in, and leaving his assigned task undone would draw attention to him. He could have simply waited for someone to come offer their help, and then intentionally drop the stone when they lifted it in an effort to injure them, but he couldn’t trust himself to do something like that subtly enough to go unnoticed.

There was a more obvious course more in line with his abilities, though. It would draw the eye, but that might be just what he needed to make it appear all the more accidental. It would be dangerous, though, and he needed to do one thing first to minimize the risk.

Stepping back to the rear of the cart, and up into the cargo compartment, he started to try and form an apology for their situation before he warned them of what he was about to do, but he stopped when he saw them.

The teenage girl with the black eye had wiggled one hand out of a shackle. Her free hand was wrapped around the other shackle as she tried to squeeze her hand out of it. She was frozen in terror now as she stared at Hirrus’s silouette filling the door. The other prisoners were similarly mortified. They were visibly braced for some show of violence. The old woman chained next to her averted her eyes.

Hirrus stepped up before her, and knelt down. She seemed to collect herself and restored her earlier defiant demeanor, though the fear was plain in her eyes as he took hold of her shackled hand. The shackle was slightly too large for her young hands, having been designed for imprisoning grown men. Her other hand was bleeding where the edge of the shackle had scraped away a layer of skin when she’d withdrawn it.

What did she expect? Punishment for the attempt to escape? An injury severe enough to stop subsequent attempts? She couldn’t force another taunt or mockery past her lips, but the warring rebellion and terror in her eyes made it clear that she expected something terrible. Hirrus wondered between the two emotions which part was the decision tree, and which was the girl beneath.

Hirrus’s hand guided her thumb and fingers together as he helped her squeeze out of the shackle.

“Why?” she asked. Her voice still quivered with fear.

“I’m about to create a distraction,” Hirrus whispered to her. He looked at the others. “I need you all to stay to the sides of the cart so that you aren’t hurt.” Turning his attention back to the girl, he warned. “Stay out of sight. The chaos might give you enough cover to avoid being caught immediately, but I can’t give you any guarantee beyond the reach of my arms.”

“Who are you?” the old woman asked. She was peering at him with equal parts concern and curiosity.

“I’m just trying to do what’s right,” Hirrus said. He looked over the others. “I promise, I will free you all as well. I am going to end this nightmare. But I need time.”

“You’re him, then,” the old woman said. She sagged with visible relief. “If you’re here, that means it’s nearly over. Do what you must.”

Hirrus didn’t know what to say to that, and so he stepped out of the cargo compartment. He stepped around to the stone obelisk he was supposed to be loading up and bent down, finding a spot to grip it. Despite the guard’s words, Hirrus didn’t have any trouble lifting it. He wondered if that might have been a sign that his BUR stat was dramatically higher than anyone else in the camp besides the Gabrielle he’d mentioned.

It wasn’t important. What was important was that he saw that the girl had slipped out of the back of the cart, and was creeping up along the side towards the shadow of the command tent. It was a risky direction to go, but when her absence was noticed, it was likely the last place they’d look.

For his part, though, he hefted the stone obelisk, walked to the back of the cart, and smashed it down on the roof of the cargo compartment. The weight of it warped the metal frame of the cart, and the wooden parts around it splintered and cracked. There were cries of alarm from around him, as Hirrus pretended to struggle with the weight of the stone.

“Holy shit, dude,” an adventurer cursed as he ran up alongside Hirrus, grabbing the stone and trying to help. “What the fuck?”

“My Arcana,” Hirrus grunted. “It wore off before I was done. I thought I could get it.”

“Jesus,” the adventurer said as he struggled, completely unable to contribute to the effort alone. “Little help? Somebody?”

Three other people joined in, helping to muscle the obelisk into the cart. That first adventurer started chastising Hirrus for being so reckless and not asking for help, but he ignored him. Instead, Hirrus peered into the cargo compartment to confirm that the people within were alright. They had appropriately taken cover per his warning, and so were unharmed.

“Just go back in and tell them what happened,” the adventurer concluded, patting Hirrus on the shoulder. “And try to stay out of the way, alright? It was lucky you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Hirrus nodded, sparing another glance around. The girl was just gone. He had no idea how effective her escape was going to be, but her combative nature meant that there was no avoiding getting in trouble if she remained in custody. This way, at least, she would have her hands unbound when that trouble came.

He hoped it was enough as he went to report the damage to the cart.