XLVIII. The Flask

"Clean this crap!" he said, ordering the two men to clean up the blood and remains of their partner's body.

The two looked at the headless body on the ground, in a pool of blood. Without asking questions, they began to clean the hall.

Hjalmar was supposed to be a tyrant. Evidently, his level of strength was too high than that of the other renegades. Dag wondered which Clan was he part of and why he had been driven out despite his strength.

Hjalmar, without adding anything else, turned angry and left.

"Look what you've done, scum! You the King! How dare you provoke him despite your disadvantageous condition?!" Myr asked Dag.

"Pick on someone as strong as you!" replied Dag.

"And who would he be? You? Don't make me laugh. your strength level is much lower than ours, almost on par with our simple soldier" Myr continued.

"So this is it..." thought Dag. Even the shaman was able to use Niva, or who knows what other skill that allowed him to discover others' level of strength.

Was his level that low? Dag thought back to his fight against Kval. The Ram Warrior wasn't weak at all. He was one of the strongest warriors he had ever faced.

Myr was lying, perhaps fearing his real potential.

On the other hand, he had locked him in that special cage that limited his power.

"Then let me out of this cage and chain me like a normal slave. If what you say is true, I will be harmless and obedient. If I try to escape, you can catch me again and kill me, since my level of strength is so low" Dag said.

"Don't try to be smart with me, kid" Myr said.

"I can sense the aura that you emit. How did you gain the Void power?" he continued.

"The Void power?" said Dag, unaware of what the shaman was talking about.

"Don't be silly, aren't you tired of lying? Your power... cannot come from the Norse Gods. No, the Xis must have donated it to you" Myr replied.

"I don't know what you're talking about, old man" Dag replied.

"I crave it... All my life I've tried to absorb the power of the greatest warriors who ended up in the grip of the Renegades" the shaman said.

"Absorb?!" asked Dag.

"Despite my efforts and devotion, the high Xis have never rewarded me with any kind of supernatural power. But you... you have something more, and soon it will be mine!"

"What the hell is he talking about?" thought Dag, as the shaman looked eagerly at him, as if he had great plans in store for him.

Void power... was that of the Xis. On earth, nannies referred to this power all the time. The power of emptiness allowed the matter to be shaped at will, making a normal body immortal and immutable.

This is exactly why Xis used human-shaped bodies as "containers". The human aspect was only apparent. The true appearance of the Xis was always unknown.

Dag kept growing and his body kept changing over the years. There was no doubt, Myr was wrong: the power of emptiness was an immense power, which belonged only to Xis.

"It's not as you think. I saw it. I know what the Xis are really capable of. Their power goes far beyond the capabilities of the greatest of Skjold's warriors. They would be able to kill you just by looking at you!" said Dag, approaching Myr.

He was speaking sincerely, from human to human.

For a second it seemed to him that the shaman was listening.

"Believe me, I'm telling you the truth. Free me from this cage and I will tell you everything you want to know about them" Dag continued.

The girl got up from the ground, still in a state shock. Her face was partially covered in blood.

Dag was very close to Myr, staring at the floor, thinking back to Dag's proposal.

"Free me…" Dag said, believing he could break into the shaman's heart.

Immediately, Myr grabbed his arm, forcibly pulling him out of the cage.

Dag tried to free himself, but although the shaman was elderly, his strength was remarkable.

Using the arm lever against the cage, Myr immobilized Dag in that position for a few seconds: in the meantime, he pulled out a small sharp knife.

"What... what are you doing?!" exclaimed Dag, terrified.

He couldn't get out of his grip.

Myr quickly cut Dag's forearm, put the knife back in place and pressed his wrist, draining the blood into a small spherical glass flask.

He then loosened his grip and Dag managed to pull his arm back into the cage.

He touched the wound, but the cut wasn't very deep.

"It's a good amount to start with" the shaman said to himself, looking at the flask.

"Boy, I know Xis' power very well. I too have personally witnessed what they are capable to do. Your power will soon be mine!" concluded Myr.

He turned to the girl and said: "You, slave! Go back to your rooms! Your vision disturbs me!"

The girl unhesitatingly turned and walked away, heading for the right door.

Dag took a few steps back and sat on the ground, in the cage.

Myr walked away, exiting the left-aisle door.

"That poor girl..." thought Dag.

"That overbearing bastard Hjalmar touched her whole body, depriving her of her dignity as a woman. She was innocent, yet she was punished because of me".

He kept touching his wound.

Despite being shallow, the cut had been surgically performed, as if Myr knew exactly what point of the arm to sever.

Blood continued to pour from the forearm to the wrist, dripping to the bottom of the cage.

During the quarrel with Hjalmar, he had tried to take a closer look at the room, to see if there was any detail useful to his escape.

The only thing he could figure out was that the right door led to a kind of dormitory or a similar place from which slaves came. Maybe the kitchens were that way since, during the banquet, the slaves with the trays came out of there.