“What are you looking at?” Ella snapped. “You, go deal with Jennei and Haleia. You two, get this man’s clothes off.”

They stood, their brows furrowed.

“Now!”

The younglings bent down and slid the robe off, revealing the smooth upper body with heavy scarring around the legs and feet on both sides.

Ella touched the cuffs on his hands and neck, the mirror image of her own. It was as if they thought Sam was an elf… Ella peeled his eyes open. They were dilated and unresponsive to stimulus. His heartbeat was still steady and strong.

She knew this wasn’t her Sam. That man was long gone, but sentiment and cold hard calculation met in this instance. If she could wake this S4M unit up, he could lead the charge out of here, missing a foot or not. It definitely wasn’t just because she missed him.

“Put him in the light,” Ella commanded, crawling back to her comfortable spot in the shade. “find a way to get liquids into his stomach, I don’t care how.”

The younglings nodded and set to work, dragging the nearly three hundred pound man out into the light.

“Keep his air pathways clear, don’t let him choke on his own vomit.” Ella called, folding her good leg underneath and letting the stiff one splay out in front of her. Ella sat back and thought, watching the younglings flail around.

There was only one reason someone would be rendered comatose when the Binding Collar was locked around their neck. That person had been manifesting their consciousness inside their Yuenan when the collar was locked.

That meant Sam could be revived, but only if the collar was removed in the next few weeks, before his Yuenan flickered out like a candle that had run its course. That also meant that this particular Sam was a wizard. Ella rested her chin on her palm, weighing her options.

Two weeks since Sam had been trapped inside his Yuenan, and he was starting to get desperate. Sam counted the days by the tremendous shaking that rocked the entire world every twenty-four hours or so. Sam had no idea if it was truly a valid clock. What if it just seemed longer because he had no visible reference for time, and no one to talk to? Valid clock or no, it was counting down to something, as his Yuenan shrunk a little more each time. The glowing orb inside him was smaller, dimmer now, barely lighting up the elven scripted steel trapping him in there.

After he’d excised the roots of the curse, he’d gone on to attempting to escape the enclosure, but the steel dome around him was in one solid piece, all the way around the burning ball. Sam had formed Nuetta from his Yuenan into a pile driver, trying to force a hardened glowing yellow rod of energy through the steel wall. The rod had evaporated like an icicle on cherry-hot steel, scattered and drawn into the steel, causing the shifting elven script to glow and pulse before disappearing.

Sam couldn’t even access his implant, which was so invasively buried in his brain that it was akin to saying that he couldn’t access his brain. Sam’s first idea after the pile driver had failed had been to use his Implant’s passive audio-video capture wired into his visual cortex to restablish the ability to see, and maybe use the implant as a relay to control his body like a puppet until he could get the cuffs locking him inside off.

It seemed, though, that Sam was entirely disconnected from his own brain. How does that work? Sam thought. I can still think and make decisions. I think one of the other Sams has seen something to that effect… the usual flood of memories did not come. That information was stored by his implant, to be accessed when necessary.

His spirit, if that’s what Sam was right now… had only a faint recollection of memories given to him by his implant. Sam right now knew he was in a bad place with bad people, trapped inside himself by something magical, but the details of why escaped him. Sam could recall waking up in the glass tube, the trip through the plains, the city, and that was it. Only a faint thought shaped his memory of why he had been there in the first place, as though the memories had left a gaping hole that he was able to tell the basic shape of by feeling around the edges.

Sam set aside what he did and didn’t know and focused on escape. If he got back outside his Yuenan, he would be able to deal with whatever came next.

The Yuenan and everything in it, including Sam, began to shake violently, like he was in the center of a massive earthquake. The ball of light at the center of his being dimmed and brightened, as though it was a bulb in the middle of a brown-out.

Sam huddled in his Isayatta, keeping an eye open for wooden bits of the curse that might land in his wellspring and begin siphoning what little power he had left. Sam had formed a thin membrane around the ball of fire to prevent hacked off bits of the curse from taking root. The damn thing was unbelievably resilient, and a single hacked off piece would take root and begin growing again in moments.

Sam watched with narrowed eyes as his shaking core made the hacked off bits of the curse that he had missed in his last roundup fling themselves around the steel trap, pinging against the rune-covered steel walls. When they finally settled down, Sam floated through the empty space, picking up any branchlike bits of the curse that were illuminated by the dimming light of the Yuenan.

If these things were destroyed like his own magic whenever they touched the steel walls of the sphere, Sam wouldn’t have to spend so much time making sure that every last piece had been accounted for. As it stood, thousands upon thousands of bits and pieces had been scattered throughout his inner space while he had desperately hacked the roots away from his Yuenan. They were out there even now, resting in the dark, unlit spaces, waiting to take root again. It was a pretty shitty situation, all things considered.

Sam glared at the wrist sized chunk of wood in his hand, then down at the dim light emanating from his Wellspring. Sam released a wave of pent up frustration, screaming wordlessly and flinging the chunk of wood out into the darkness. There was a ping of steel in the distance, and the wood floated back in front of Sam’s face, unmarred.

“That’s interesting.”

Sam grabbed the chunk of wood, and floated to the boundary of his consciousness, where the steel wall sat, oppressive and heavy, stretching in all directions.

Sam summoned a small bar of golden power from his Yuenan, and watched it melt away and be absorbed by the etched steel.

Sam held the wood against the steel.

Nothing happened.

Sam slammed the wood against the steel. Sam knew it wasn’t wood, it was his spirit’s interpretation of the curse, but even though it was nothing more than a thought, the wood slammed against the steel dome all the same, causing a ringing sound to spread through the dark space.

Sam’s gaze fell on the netted bundle of curse fragments he’d gone through the effort of securing in one space so they weren’t floating free. There weren’t enough large pieces to create anything, and besides, the wood was nowhere near as hard as the steel, it would simply shatter… Unless…

Sam glanced at the dim light of his Yuenan. That might work.

“And I’m telling you, they weren’t meant to come off!” Jennei said, glaring at Ella. “I had to spend three nights with that disgusting man, at great personal risk to myself, just to get you the information that, yes, we are in fact totally screwed. They won’t come off until the person wearing it suffers from complete brain death, typically about ten minutes after the person in question shits themselves.”

“I see,” Ella said, looking down at Sam’s gaunt figure. He’d been steadily losing weight since he’d arrived, but they’d managed to keep him alive with sunlight and thin broth. Ella hadn’t been able to shield him from being sent to the machine to be drained, not without revealing who he was to the rest of the camp, elves and humans alike. There were elders in the other pens who would gladly end him themselves, damn the consequences.

Ella knew it was a long shot, and that she should give up hope, but something in her wanted to see that Sam again, despite all that had happened between then and now. In a life of misery that had grown so long that the misery seemed to be the way life was meant to be, a cherished figure from her past had shined a light on everything wrong with the world, and the demons of her world stood out in sharp contrast rather than slink about in the shadows. Ella felt like she was losing her mind.

She felt this way, and while she knew it meant nothing, she felt that only talking to him again would bring some closure to her life. He wasn’t her Sam, but she felt the need to tell him everything, ask questions he had no answers to, and gain some kind of closure. It was a pipe dream.

“He recognizes me now!” Jennei continued her tirade. “And worse, other officers recognize me too! You can say goodbye to getting intel or smuggling things between the pens, because now they all say, ‘hey, it’s Drake’s pet rat’!”

“I hear you,” Ella said, tearing her eyes away from Sam and fixing the younger elf with a fierce glare. She was being very loud in the middle of a camp under constant surveillance. Ella was under the impression Jennei was more in control of her emotions than this.

“I hope he was worth it.”

“He would have been,” Ella said, stroking Sam’s cheek. “He would have torn this place apart like a stick fort built by children, and lead us to freedom.”

“So what do I do now?” Jennei asked, her arms crossed below her breasts.

“We’ll arrange for you to ‘die’ next time a young woman is exhausted in the machine, we have enough gasoline to mar their face if the damage isn’t severe enough. After that you can escape through the tunnel in Kehalar’s pit. With luck you’ll be in first Word in a month.”

A red robe stepped into the periphery of Ella’s vision. “Please, continue. Who is this Kehalar fellow?” Marcus, the leader of the compound stood in front of Ella, rocking on his heels, grinning wickedly.

Ella’s gaze travelled to Jennei, who cast her eyes down, then back to Marcus. “So It’s come to this.” Ella said with a sigh.

It was understood that Jennei was too valuable to lose, and if discovered, she would turn in an elder and worm her way deeper into the graces of the human’s running the camp, until she was either able to escape or find some fatal flaw that could get them all out. Now Ella had some acting to do. Although she was nowhere near as convincing as their dear spy, she had no need to be, the man was blinded by his triumph.

“I do not know this Kehalar,” Ella said, shaking her head and passing her disfigured hand in front of her chest. “perhaps someone from another camp?”

Marcus leaned down and grabbed the old woman by her neck. She didn’t need to fake a pained yelp as her bad leg was twisted and bent. She desperately put her good foot under her as the sorcerer glared into her eyes.

“ You’re not fooling me, old rat. You die tonight, along with Kehalar. Now you just need to decide how many other rats are going to join you dancing on the gallows tonight.” Marcus studied her head to toe at arm’s length.

“Although I’m not sure you’ve got enough meat on your bones to snap your neck, scrawny as it is. You’ll probably just choke to death, all of you.”

“Kehalar… is the sanitation officer’s assistant…” Ella said, giving them the name of the man who’d become a petty tyrant lapdog of an officer. One old woman weighed against one man who wouldn’t spit to save his species. At least they were getting some good out of her death.

“That’s a lie,” Jennei said. “Kehalar is post digger on the north side of the camp. The tunnel is below a crooked fencepost.

Ella began to struggle sincerely. Jennei had betrayed them! “No!” she shouted, trying to free herself from the sorcerer’s iron grip. “Jennei! You can’t!”

“I’m sorry,” Jennei said, her eyes downcast. “He has my husband.”

Ella snarled and scratched with her few remaining fingers, flailed lamely, trying to get at Jennei. If it was an act, Ella was convinced. If it wasn’t, it meant the leadership of the camp was about to be wiped out.

“Well,” Marcus said, glancing over at Jennei. “I don’t think I even need you anymore, old hag.” Marcuse began to twist Ella’s neck, overpowering her with one inhumanly strong fist. Ella’s head twisted to the side, and she cast one last look at Sam, wishing she could have shared another moment with him before she died.

Ella’s eyes widened as she spotted the sickly green branches growing along the surface of Sam’s collar.

“Wait,” she said, her voice a groan through the constricting fist.

“Wait for what?” Marcus asked with a raised brow.

“You’re… about.. to have… a bad.. day…” Ella said, fighting to live even an instant longer, if she could see him again.

“Oh?” Marcus asked “I don’t suppose you’ll be around to see it.” he squeezed the old woman’s neck again, pushing her spine almost to the breaking point.

Sam’s eyes flew open, and he gasped in a breath, coughing as the air touched a raw throat and lungs. It was like some asshole had been pissing straight down his throat into his lungs. Sam sat up and hacked out a ball of dust. When his eyes adjusted, Sam was greeted by a strange sight. An old woman dangled from a red-robed man’s grasp, and behind him, a beautiful elf woman watched Sam with wide eyes.

No time like the present. Sam grabbed the cursed steel around his neck and tugged. The steel crumbled into pieces around the vine-like green shapes that permeated it. Sam did the same with the bands around his wrists.

“What’d I miss?” Sam asked, coughing and attempting to stand before falling to the ground with a yelp. His legs were much weaker than before, and somebody had taken his pegleg.

“Who the fuck steals a peg leg?” Sam asked, leaning against a fencepole as he came to stand on his left foot. His amulet and staff were gone as well. Might as well have never bought them. Although, to be fair, the amulet had saved him from some minor wounds on the way over, so it was a wash.

He could just get his stuff back after beating the stuffing out of whoever this guy was anyway. The red-robed guy was staring at him, mouth agape. Looked like he’d seen a ghost. Or someone escape the unescapable.

“Who are you. What are you? How did you remove the Binding Collar?”

Sam wasn’t feeling very generous. He was hungry, tired and weak, naked again, and just got done risking his life getting out of that damn trap. The bastard could wait for his answer. Sam did a Self-Eval. His yuenan was (very slowly) refilling. In maybe twelve hours it would be safe to cast spells again. Sam was down a leg, and the other guy appeared to have superhuman strength, as he held the old woman who had to weigh at least ninety pounds outstretched in front of him with a single hand. Seemed like a fair fight.

Sam bunched his one good leg under him and leapt at the red-robed man, enjoying the wild look in his eye as Sam sailed through the air toward him. The two impacted, and the old woman tumbled to the ground.

Sam didn’t bother to scrabble around in the dust for long, kicking, biting and cursing. Sam forced himself into a mounted position and began beating the man mercilessly. The sorcerer tried to ward off his punches with iron-like arms crossed in front of his face, but Sam wrenched them aside as he delivered three vicious punches to the man’s nose, forcing the man’s head to strike the packed dirt beneath him with a meaty thud.

The sorcerer’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Sam stood, hopping for balance a bit on his one good leg until he could lean against the fence. In the distance, Sam heard shouts and horns blowing, causing Sam to raise his gaze and take in the entire situation. Sam was fenced in, literally.

Sam was leaning against one of three poles that suspended a stitched, oiled leather skin casting a negligible amount of shade on a small dirt hill. He stood near the center of a bare dirt field surrounded by steel fencing, guarded by dozens of grim looking men with crossbows trained on him.

Sam realized that they hadn’t shot him yet on account of the scuffle with their boss, but now… Sam fell to the ground as crossbow bolts whizzed over him. in a fraction of a second, Sam scuttled over to the supine form of the red-robed sorcerer. Sam idly thought he might’ve outscuttled the giant spiders of the plains as he grabbed the sorcerer and flung him over his shoulders. Social body armor acquired.

The pelting of bolts stopped as soon as Sam came close to the sorcerer, and Sam kept him on his back by tying the man’s sleeves together under his chin, wearing him like a backpack. He took a moment to compare the red robe to the one he’d seen in Maria’s room. They had the same material, and similar gold embroidery. There was a good chance he and she had a similar rank, which meant that if Sam hadn’t knocked him out when he did, the man would’ve probably started shooting lightning at him. It also matched Faera’s description of the man in red. Could be the same guy, even.

“You, drop the commander and lay down on the ground!” a man wearing white and gold with extra tassels on his shoulder pads shouted in a furious voice.

On the dirt behind him, the old woman had raised herself to her elbows.

“Old lady,” Sam whispered. “how many of them are there?”

“Over two hundred. Be careful Sam.”

Sam gave the old woman a second look, and his mind ran though the thousands of elf women he knew... When his mind adjusted for time lost, a face was revealed beneath the age and misery, one that one Sam in particular thought he would never see again.

“Ella.” Sam said, causing the old elf woman to draw in a shuddering gasp. “S4MOK 0349 left a message for you.”

Sam hopped over and knelt beside Ella and grabbed her wrinkled face in his hands, drawing her in for a passionate kiss. Ella sat, stock still, with her eyes wide when Sam pulled away.

“He’s sorry about what happened to you and your father, he’s glad you’re still alive, and he’s pissed off that he didn’t play things smarter when he had the chance, at least long enough to see you again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go kick some butt.”