Ryku wasn’t having any of it, “You killed the Baron’s son!”

“Who?”

Ryku pointed towards the back end of the hall where the body of the average-looking man laid, “Him, the one on the left.”

“Ahh. That makes sense.” Dalric just shrugged at that though, “I merely killed a criminal in the effort to free myself from enslavement. Perfectly justifiable. Anyway, everyone’s up now and we’re making a scene.”

“Making a sc—”

Dalric coughed loudly, both cutting Ryku off and getting everyone’s attention, “Hello! I’m sure you’re all very confused and maybe even a little frightened. Worry not. We’re here to help you all.” He waited for everyone to shuffle out of their cells and into the hall, “My name is Dalric, and this here is Ryku, he’s a silver badge Paragon.”

As expected, the mere mention of Ryku’s rank plastered faint expressions of hope and expectation on many of the faces in the crowd. From the explanation he received, Paragons were essentially mercenaries that kind of specialized in community aid. Sometimes they patrolled cities as police, sometimes they protected towns and villages as guards, sometimes they cleared monster or beast infestations as guilders, sometimes they charted and cleared paths as adventures. They did a lot for communities and were often revered because of it. Dalric added the ‘kind of’ bit anyway because reading between the lines of the explanation, whoever was running the organization clearly wanted a bigger spot on the world stage. They’d started branching into work that fell well outside ‘community aid’.

Investigating illegal slavery technically was, but the way they’ve gone about it reeked of ulterior motives. There was nothing wrong with playing the politics game though, every powerful organization had to eventually. At least they were still being useful while they played.

He switched to Surunese for a second, “If any you Sailian do not understand, raise hand.”

Only six hands went up, “Okay, will translate Ryku.”

“Wha—okay.” He stuttered for just a moment before quickly assuming his role.

Dalric switched back to Hellgurian, “We’ll both be leading you, and the rest of the people imprisoned here, out. We’ve already dealt with the biggest threats here, as many of you have seen down the hallway. We’ve even subdued ‘Sunset White’.” Some of the people in the crowd had yet to overcome their astonishment at finding out Sara Hangaku was the person behind the mask, but he wouldn’t wait for them to get over it. “To escape this camp completely, however, we’re going to need your help. By a show of hands, which of you has fighting experience?”

There was a short pause as they processed what he asked but then immediately, to his surprise, every single hand shot up. Even the children who stood at the front.

He immediately turned to whisper to Ryku, “Did they misunderstand me?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“The kids too?”

“They’re probably riftans, though I agree they look very young.”

“Is ‘riftans’ a race or something?”

“No. Uh. They’re like... gladiators. They fight in tournaments for money and fame and all that.”

“In Whitesails? That’s allowed? At their age?”

“The age minimum is fifteen and it's completely voluntary. I don’t know how they ended up here, but forcing someone to participate is thirty years in the black cells.”

They’re at least fifteen?

Dalric looked at them, but even with that knowledge all he could see were small children. He peered closer and then he caught it. That little glint in their eyes. He had wrongfully assumed that was just the jadedness of being, even temporally, child slaves. But no, there was a hint of violence to it, a bit of aggression.

I need to work on the way I view humans.

He coughed loudly again. The little aside hadn’t taken too much time, but it was still an awkward break in his speech.

“Apologies. I hadn’t expected all of you to be fighters, but this works perfectly. I’m about to cast a spell, don’t be alarmed. It’s going to conjure a suit of armor around each of you, suited to your size.”

~”In times of strife, I offer protection.”~

All across the room, bright flashes of light suddenly emerged. Ahjer had gathered around each person and begun swiftly morphing into plates of armor. Though the process appeared the same, the spell was almost completely different from the one that created Dalric's own armor. The suits it made had zero attunements or extra properties, they were just plain metal. Not even the same metal he wore, just a tough jarlon alloy. Jarlon was notably stronger and harder than iron, but nothing too impressive. The suits wouldn’t last particularly long either, only about two bells. Or rather four hours by the current time measurements. They did come with helmets attached at the hip though.

All things considered, they were good enough. Their main purpose was to protect them from the enchanted ‘rifles’ they'd face. They were the weapons the patrol he stumbled upon earlier had hanging over their shoulders. From what he heard from Ryku, most of the camp had them as well but the variety they had was much weaker than the ones Dalric fought against in the past. Those were packed with all manner of death-related attunements. These ones on the other hand just fired fast-moving pellets. The armor could handle that.

He had to supplement and edit the spell with some of his ahjer to make sure it could handle that. It was designed to create armor out of an iron alloy, not a jarlon one, but apparently the iron-based ones weren’t tough enough to be reliable.

It took a bit for the crowd to calm down after the shock of various parts of their bodies suddenly shining brightly and then being covered by hard metal, but once everyone’s suit had fully formed the shock sharply turned into amazement. They admired their new, shiny attire while throwing Dalric looks that ranged from respect to reverence.

And that’s part two done.

With this, both he and Ryku would be given the appropriate room to command authority without having to be questioned and second-guessed at every turn. Capturing ‘Sunset White’ and eliminating the rest of the upper crust might have already accomplished that, but they hadn’t actually witnessed him do it. When trying to influence people, giving them first-hand experience was always for the best.

“Now, I’m going to brief you on what we know and also on what we believe. Breaking out of here shouldn’t be too difficult with our numbers, but we’ve given those who would like to stop us a great deal of time to prepare. So this is what’ll do.”

He first went over the layout of the camp. There were five layers to it, one above ground and four below. They were on the fourth layer underground, the very bottom. Above them, in the third layer, was storage. Food, items, tools, those sorts of things. No one was there, so they’d only briefly stop there to pick up weapons. Then they’d quickly move to the second layer, the floor where the main holding cells were. Dalric’s ahjer sense could only just barely see the bottom of that, too much interference, but based on what he saw there weren't any guards there either. Just more slaves. Whether they freed them first or came back after depended on what the situation was like above that. Dalric couldn’t see it all, but according to Ryku the first layer was the actual main base and the camp on top was just a front. If that was the case, that’s the floor they’d likely meet the most resistance.

That worked in their favor though. The main worry they had was receiving too much penetration damage from the rifles. Above ground, they’d have open space and clear sightlines, not things you wanted when dealing with ranged weapons. Small cramped spaces were much better for them, especially since they were playing the quality over quantity game.

When he finished going over the information they had and their plan moving forward, he opened the floor to questions. He quickly had to close it however as he realized they all just wanted to know more about him. There was one important question he had to answer though.

“After you’re free, you’re free. I ask nothing of you and want nothing of you. Ryku will handle getting you all back to where you belong.”

“W—”

Dalric calmly cut him off, “As a Paragon, I’m sure you can trust he’ll work hard to get you back home. Anyway. Since we’re done with questions, move to the third layer and pick out whatever weapons suit you the most. If you can’t find anything that fits your specialization, let me know.”

There was a palpable buzz in the group as they headed up the stairs behind them. Only two or three of them knew each other, but it seemed the prospect of freedom built bridges. Or maybe it was just sharing in the same nightmare. Dalric was taking this whole situation very calmly, but for them this must be as tumultuous as their lives could get. Trapped unconscious in a hole, only awoken to work tirelessly for days or to be sold to different masters. Not knowing what week was what, how much time was passing. He was in a much worse situation, but he could definitely empathize with theirs. Hope and excitement were rare things when your very sense of self was being eroded.

“That went quite well considering, no?”

Ryku gave him a mean side-eye that he could only chuckle at, “Think of what your reputation will look like after you’re done here. I’m doing you a favor by letting you take all the credit.”

“Ah. In that case, I’m obliged to shower you with my deepest appreciation.”

Dalric lightly slapped his back, “That’s the spirit. Oh. And you might want to put this back on her.” He handed Ryku the white mask he took earlier, “The fewer people know about that before you report it, the better.”

“Right.” He sluggishly placed the mask back on her face and threw her over his shoulder.

It was a bit of a shame to let her go with questioning her about the blade, but Elders knew he would get nothing from her without some sort of trade he would definitely not make. Though, as he watched Ryku walk back to his side he wondered if all was actually lost.

“By the way.” He pulled the blade out of the scabbard he appropriated and showed it to Ryku, “Do you know what this is? Who made it?”

Ryku’s eyes briefly teemed with desire, but he hid it well, “It's an uchigatana. I don’t know who specifically made that one but it's one of the Twelve Arms of the Swordsaint.”

An uchigatana? Never heard of that.

“You mentioned Swordsaints before, they’re the...hm. The leading Surunese duelists?”

“More or less, though they don’t always deserve the title.”

“So what’s the story behind this being one of their arms?”

They talked as they walked up to the third layer, “I don’t know the full story, but one of the Swordsaints some time ago held a competition to make him an incredible weapon. Smiths and artisans submitted their stuff and he picked the best twelve. At some point, I think after he died but I don’t know, people started calling them the Twelve Arms of the Swordsaint.”

Well, there goes that I guess. I’ll have to look for a smith the old fashion way.

He admired the blade.

Now, what do I do with you?

“Are they supposed to be passed down?”

“Oh not at all. A Swordsaint can only become one if they defeat the previous one. No way would previous Swordsaints pass anything down. I’d guess that most of the Arms are held by different houses and factions in Taiyo, I know the Taiyos themselves have four of them.”

Interesting. So it's possible to keep it… but then again if those at the top know it was in her possession I’d look very bad... Ah well, that’s a future cliff to climb.

Once they reached the top of the stairs Dalric remarked on the few examples of new technology he could spot. Instead of the torches, they used on the bottom floor they had some sort of ahjer powered light fixtures for the storage rooms. They were much, much brighter than torches. They were more reminiscent of light spells, but apparently they accomplished this effect without needing any spells beyond an initial jolt of ahjer. That was an impressive feat. Seeing them actually made him a bit excited to see the other advancements that had been made. He’d been a bit blase when Ryku told him about the ships that raced across the sea and incredible speeds, but now he was interested in seeing them and figuring out how they functioned.

He continued looking around as everyone picked out their weapon of choice. Most went with swords, but Dalric was glad to see some were reasonable enough to pick a spear or halberd. Longer weapons were just better. Of course, different circumstances could call for different things, but he’d never back down from that stance overall. The only people who preferred swords were the people who preferred vanity over efficiency.

There were only two people who came to him to tell him they couldn’t find a weapon to their taste and Dalric smirked at who those two were. They were a pair of drakens. Drakens were the only valinoid race that had mixed with dragon blood back when Dalric was still a giant. As such, they were quite a bit bigger than the average or even the above-average human. One of the two was a woman who almost perfectly matched him in height and the other was a burly male over eight feet tall. Neither of the two could find a weapon that matched their physique.

The woman wanted a long sword, which they apparently didn’t have, and the man wanted a battle axe, which they did have but not in the size he needed. They both offered to make do with what they had, but Dalric custom conjured them what they asked for anyway. He went as far as making sure they perfectly matched the weight, size, and design they wanted. He didn’t need to go that far, but aside from Ryku the two draken seemed the most powerful of the bunch. Outside just their ahjer, their demeanor, mannerisms, and the way they moved on their feet told him they were experienced. They also had a very particular kind of rage in their eyes. A type he understood well.

Soon everyone was fully geared and prepped to move on. Unlike the fourth layer, there were multiple exit points front the third layer to the second. Dalric separated the group into squads of roughly twelve to go up all three of them at once. His ahjer sense had failed before so just because he couldn’t sense anyone on the next floor, doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone there. The stairways to the next level were only so big. Trying to get thirty-eight people through one would be ridiculous and, if there was an ambush waiting, deadly.

He was all but completely spent on ahjer now, but thankfully one of the others was also a conjurer. They managed to create six whistles, two for each of the squads. If anything happened to one of the squads, at least one of the two they had holding a whistle would survive long enough to blow it and alert the others. Dalric wanted to give up his squad’s whistles, but he realized that would appear needlessly arrogant. In fact, it could just be needlessly arrogant. He had to eventually come to terms with the fact he wasn’t who he used to be. He couldn’t walk around with the same confidence he was accustomed to, he needed to practice a bit more caution. Like maybe getting a helmet.

It wouldn’t matter for now at least, the second layer was legitimately clear. Of guards anyway. Once they were up there he got a full view of the hundreds of slaves they had packed into the larger cells. Men, women, children, they all featured. Some were even working right now, chained to a wheel they arduously spun.

“Forget what I said earlier, we’re freeing them now.”