The solid thudding of footsteps brought a halt to my rising panic, and I rushed away from the door and sat down hurriedly. It only took moments for a group of what looked more like unkempt mercenaries than the Guard to show. These men were no doubt the ones who kept the order in the slave pens, or lack thereof as it were. At this point I had started to seriously doubt that this place was anywhere near the slave markets.

I had the dark thought, that perhaps my accident with the door had not been such a mistake after all. The ruffian in the front of the group unlocked the door with a large key and stepped partly into the cell. His face scrounged up, no doubt disgusted by the smell. With his free hand he held up a dark gem, inside which flickering lights moved. The sight reminded me of something, but whatever it was stayed just out of reach, before slipping away completely. Another four guards fanned out behind him, none had weapons drawn. No doubt they thought that unnecessary with the catatonic mob sitting in their own feces. There was supposedly no one here to give them any resistance.

A pit of cold, hard rage started to boil inside me as the men looked out over the clumped up people with scowls of disdain on their faces. I wanted to shout at them that they were the cause of this, they could have kept people clean and decent. I palmed as many stones as I could hold without dropping them, as I considered what to do. Just what would make my large enchantment go of? The idea of hitting the bars was just silly, I did not have the accuracy for that. But hitting the men on the other side, who were standing there showing contempt for the suffering of others, that I could do. With a swift motion I unleashed the Stones of Fire Burst I was holding, towards the mercenaries.

None of them even reacted to my motion, and a mere moment after most of my thrown stones hit the men, the wall was bathed in fire as the whole thing went up in flames. I could hear something crack and splinter and a few small stones fell from the ceiling, before the raging inferno subsided a few heartbeats later. It had been remarkably controlled, never moving far from where the bars were. As the fire fell away I steeled myself for what I would see. But in the end there was nothing much at all. There was a deep groove in the floor and ceiling where the grate had no doubt been lodged, but the whole metal wall and the five men were just gone.

You have been victorious! You have slain enemies stronger than you! You gain 164 Experience!

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 4!

You have unallocated Attributes!

I did not quite know what to think or feel. Some part of my mind noted that these five men gave less experience combined than Jab had done on his own. Was that a result of my level? Or were they just a lot weaker? Though the Order claimed they had been stronger than me, my inadvertent trap had killed them before they could react to it.

I looked around at the slaves who just sat there, unmoving on the ground. One of the women nearest the door had a small cut on her face, and a slow trickle of blood ran down her cheek in a macabre parody of a tear. I stood there fighting my indecision, I did not think I could do anything for them. I did not know how my own collar had come off. It was a well known fact that special tools were required to remove a slave collar, that fact had made it so rare for a slave to escape that it was almost unheard of.

They all looked so weak, I doubted they could even get out of here by their own power, even if the collars were removed. My own strength was also fading. I could not carry them all, one by one, with any hope of getting away. While my trap of happenstance had killed a few guards there would be more. If I was found out, that would not bode well for me. I needed distance between myself and this place. It tore at my heart to turn my back on the room full of quietly dying people and walk away. But I did.

With my clothes sticking to me and making disgusting noises I did not want to think about, I moved as swiftly and silently as I could down a stone hallway. I had taken a right out of the cell, hoping this was the way to the outside.

After a short while the hallway ended in a wooden door. I stopped, and put an ear to it to listen, but it was soon rather obvious that I could hear nothing. The door fit snuggly into its frame and was solid. The chances of it carrying sound were slim to none.

I hesitantly opened the door, peeking through the widening gap. What I could see of the room on the other side was two chairs, the edge of what should be a table, a part of a door on the opposite wall and wall-sconce flickering on the right. Of far more interest though was the smell of food. It took effort not to throw the door wide and rush in. I contained myself and slid it open slowly.

Had anyone been sitting at the table, the creeping door would have been very conspicuous, so after a heartbeat of no reaction I opened the door fully. A superficial scan of the room told me there was no one in it, and so I rushed up to the table to see what was edible.

There were some half-eaten pieces of fruit, a few bones stripped clean of any meat, as well as some rather sad looking vegetables. I swiftly ate the fruit, hoping that it was not too much for my abused stomach to handle. Getting sick all over the place would not improve this day.

"You know, there is fruit that no one has chewed on yet, in the cupboard. But, each to their own, I guess." I stopped with a piece halfway to my mouth, the voice was squeaky and nasal, but try as I might I could not make out where it came from. I once more took in the room, but there was no one here.

"Up here. You are not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?"

I looked up. Near the ceiling hung a sizable cage, out of which stuck out a small head. I was immediately fascinated by the creature, I had never seen anything like it. In shape it looked like a small human head, rather than an animal, but that was where visible similarities ended.

If I would make a comparison, it looked like a mix between a human, a goblin and a fire-lizard. It was covered in red, leathery skin, with a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. It also sported a rather large nose, was bald and had yellow eyes. On the sides of its head were large pointed ears, with the points facing mostly outward, rather than upward like on an elf or a faerie. To my mind it seemed to fit the description of an imp of some kind, possibly fire-aligned judging from the skin color.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I missed mother. She had not been likable by any means, she had been brusque, rude and abrasive. Having spent the last five years without her meant I did not feel much of a connection anymore. Though, having always been treated more like a project than a daughter, meant there had not been much to lose. But for a moment I missed having her around. When we would see new things and she would say, "Well, child, what do you see and what does it mean? Don't guess, never guess, observe, analyze and consider! Then you form a hypothesis, knowing you might very well be wrong, but that is the mindset you should have!"

She would always say the same thing, be it a noble or a dead bird we were watching. She would make me read her books and then recite them from memory. I would be beaten horribly if I got anything wrong, and that was also a part of what made me not have many fond feelings for her.

After her death all the books had gradually turned moldy and fallen apart. I could not keep them safe in the slums, as she had. People had feared mother, but had no such fear for me. So I had hid them under the floorboards of our shack, and water had gradually ruined them all, cutting of the last connection we had, with her gone. Something I was surprisingly ambivalent about.

But trying to figure this creature out had brought back memories. Along with the oft repeated question; just why had my mother not only moved to the slums but decided to raise a child there? Even now I could barely think about the question of a father without involuntary flinching.

"I know I am an extraordinary beauty, beyond the compare of any mortal you have laid eyes on. But cut back on the staring, would you?"

The imp brought me out of my reminiscing, and I smiled at the guts of the thing. Even if it was an attuned imp, it should not be much more than two hand-spans in size, having maybe fifteen Health. It looked down at me with a frown, turning its head this way and that, as if trying to get a better view.

"Is that..." The imp's voice trailed off.

"Have you considered some basic hygiene? I know that this is a backwaters place, but surely you know about disease, yes? Or at least you might feel that there are benefits, not to smell like a cesspit? Or is this part of some kind of courting ritual? Those always seem to include bodily fluids, be very unhygienic and confusing."

While I was still taking that rant in, not quite sure how to react, I decided to focus on the fruit that the imp had mentioned and moved to the cupboard in question.

"But that residue... you have come out of the pens, have you not? Well done there! I guess that wave of Mana was your work then? Or just something you took advantage of? Either way, well done! Perhaps you are not a total waste of space. Even though you smell like something that's been dead in the sun for a week."

I left the imp to its running commentary, as I found the fruit and even some bread that looked reasonably fresh. My joy at the food was tempered by the imp's reminder of just how filthy I was. I did indeed know some about disease, it had often been a tirade subject of mother's, when she made me bathe on our ramshackle porch, regardless of how cold it had been outside. I looked down at my dirty hands and then shrugged, if this would kill me, I was probably done for already.

With that cheerful thought I carried my haul back to the table and resumed eating. It did not take long for me to feel like I was about to throw up, and had to stop stuffing myself.

"Well, that was decidedly disgusting. When are you getting around to letting me out of here?"

"Do you know how to get out of this place?"As I asked, I looked around the room for a way to lower the cage. The answer was rather obvious, there was a rope attached to the top of the cage, going through a metal loop fitted to the ceiling and then to a loop on the wall until finally down to a peg where it was tied off.

I looked back to the creature, to see it roll its eyes at me.

"Yes, but that is not the hard part. You do realize that you are not just waltzing out of here, right? While I do not know what you did to the five idiots who used to be on guard here, there are a bunch of people through the door over there. Then down the hallway you came from, you can get outside into the compound proper and find even more people. They do not all suffer from major cases of stupidity, though there is a lot of that going around, I admit. There is a gate and a latrine-door in the wall of the compound. Good luck!"

The imp pulled its head back into the cage, seemingly intent to ignore me now. I rubbed my forehead and sighed.

"I assume you have a suggestion, or even a plan? What is that going to cost me?" The imp's head popped back out, wearing a toothy grin.