Ch. 23 Breaking Out

I slowly come to, my head hurts, my body feels like it's on fire and I realize that I can't move. Gritting my teeth through the pain I take a good look around and see I am strapped to a table, arms and legs are both tied down with metal chains and leather straps.

'My human, you're awake. You have been out for almost 12 hours.' I hear inside of my head, I sigh 'Bella you made it.' she sighs 'That Troll took my life, but I can come back to you in another 12 hours. We are Soulbound, as long as you live I cannot truly die'.

I nod my head 'Where am I?' she takes a moment then replies 'I do not know, I cannot see anything. I am only allowed to speak to your mind.' Taking a deep breath I try and calm down before looking around again.

I am able to see 3 hanging bodies on a wall to my right. Each of them is chained at the wrists and hanging, unmoving.

Watching them closely I can see that two of them are dead, their skin is too pale and there is no movement. The other one is breathing very shallowly. That's when it hits me. 'It's Jessica, Kenny and Nick.' Jess is the one still breathing.

I hear the creaking of a door being opened to my left and turn my head. 7 feet of blue troll is walking towards me from the open doorway. It is clothed in light leather armor and wielding a staff that is topped with the skull of what looks like a wolf.

"Ah good, you wake. Fresh meat better than dead." it says. It's voice sounds harsh and guttural, the words hard to recognize, but I can understand it.

"What do you mean fresh meat?" I ask, then I scream in pain as he takes a small hand axe from his belt and slams it down on my left wrist, severing the hand.

He grins at me evilly as he picks up my still bloody hand and puts it in the satchel at his waist. "Now you understand hooman?" He asks me laughing as I try and pull myself free, still screaming in pain.

He stands there listening to me scream as he rummages around in the satchel, then grabs a small bottle of liquid, pulling out the stopper. He goes to grab for my face, I bite at his fingers. He smacks me hard, my mind is reeling and I think my jaw is broken.

He pulls open my mouth and pours the liquid into my mouth, then closes it. I try to spit it out, breathe through my nose, but he clamps my nose shut with his fingers. I don't have any choice so I swallow the liquid. It surprisingly tastes like cinnamon.

He stands back and watches me for a reaction, immediately I feel what is going on. My mind starts to get fuzzy, my body grows numb and I can barely concentrate. I can however still feel my hand, or the loss of it and the pain shooting up my wrist. I scream even louder and he cackles with glee.

I pass out.

I wake up some time later, still feeling groggy, but notice the lack of pain. I try to lift my head to look down at my hand, it takes me a few minutes to get the coordination to do so. I see that my hand is back, but so is the Troll.

"Good, food is awake." he says moving towards my hand again, this time he takes out a small dagger from his satchel and brings it down to my hand. He puts the edge of it against my first finger, I know what's coming, but I bite my lip and stifle the scream that wants to come from my lips.

He grins at me again and slowly begins cutting through my finger, it is the most intense pain I have ever felt. The scream rips from my throat just as he finishes. Picking up my severed finger, he brings it to his mouth and pops it in like popcorn. I pass out again.

I wake up and the pain of a lost finger is no longer there. I shake my head 'Just let me die' I am able to mumble, in my head. My thoughts are still foggy and I can almost hear someone speaking.

The voice is faded, but it is there. I just can't understand what it's saying. Again I see the Troll, this time he has another vial in his hand. This one has a yellowish liquid in it. He walks up to my mouth and opens it, I have no ability to fight back.

Pouring the liquid in he smiles and my head once again goes foggy enough that I can't even think. I can however feel him sawing through my wrist. I scream in pain, but I am not greeted by the bliss of blackness this time.

I feel every bit of what he is doing to me. Then I see another Troll walk up to Jess hanging on the wall. He grabs her and unlocks her chain, then slings her over his shoulder. The pain intensifies as the Troll finally gets through the bone in my wrist.

"Gill me. Blease." I cry out and the Troll laughs "No, we have 4 moons to Rift Awaken. You feed us, we take your world." then he puts my hand back in his satchel. My head lolls back on the hard stone surface.

I can't fall asleep no matter how hard I try. My hand itches where he sawed it off. I can feel the cold stone under me, my ass has gone numb from laying on it for I don't know how long. I can hear Jess scream as Trolls laugh and grunt through the doorway.

That's when I realize that I can think straight for a moment. I notice flashing in my sight, a new notification.

New Skill Learned: Mana Construct - Using the Mana within your own body you are now able to create a construct made of Mana, its size and shape are limited by your Mana Pool and imagination.

New Spell Learned: Mana Claws

Spell: Mana Claws - Cost 30 MP

Uses Mana from your body to create a Mana Hand with 6 inch Claws on the tip. Deals 50 points of Damage to opponents MP and HP pool. Can be resisted if opponent has a higher max Mana Pool than you.

Mana Construct Level 2

New Spell Learned: Rift Manipulation

Spell: Rift Manipulation - Cost 500 +X MP

Uses Mana from the Herald to open and close Rifts. X=20MP/Level of Rift.

I realized what those ignored Dings meant now that I was partly lucid. My eyes water as I feel more itching and mind numbing pain in my wrist. Looking down I can see bone sticking out of where my wrist was, it seems to be trying to grow, very slowly.

'This hurts so much, why won't they just kill me'. As I say this in my head I hear a voice 'I feel the pain you feel my human, but you must live. You have children and a wife that need you'.

'It just hurts so much Bella. I don't know if I can do it', 'How lost did you feel when your father died?' she asked. That thought brought me a moment's reprieve from the pain of my regrowing hand.

I had been 18 when my dad died, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I had nobody, but my mom to rely on. I felt lost, felt like life had kicked me in the balls and sucked. I had suicidal thoughts for months on end until my mom finally brought me back from the edge. It was a hard time for me then. 'Imagine what it will be like for your children, being so young.'

I closed my eyes. 'Alright, I will do it. How do I escape?' 'I don't know, but I do know you have just under 2 more hours until I can be summoned.'

The Troll came back into the room, followed by another who had Jess slung over his shoulder. I could see gashes and bruises on most of her body. The Troll with the staff walked up to me, "Good, new potion working. You stay awake, I eat."

He leaned over and slid a carving knife from his satchel, taking my arm in his hand and placing the knife to it. Slowly he began sawing strips of skin off my arm, plopping them into his mouth and satchel as he did.

'No no no, I can't do this.' went through my head as I screamed, the pain becoming unbearable.

He did this for another ten minutes, I was lucid the entire time. When he was done I could see muscle and some bone here and there poking through on my arm.

He grabbed another potion bottle and poured it into my mouth, again the world became foggy. Then I heard a Ding and the world stopped being foggy again.

New Perk Acquired: Resistant

Through multiple and strenuous experiences you have gained resistance. Resistance is used to combat mind altering toxins as well as body and mind damaging poisons. Resistance is based on Constitution and Character Level.

I felt the pain lessen on my arm as lucidity came back to me. I acted as if I was out of it though, I didn't want the Troll to be able to see that I was still lucid. I watched as he finally walked away after he had carved up enough of my arm for a snack. 'Don't worry you big bastard, ill shove my foot down your throat next.'

I waited for about ten minutes before looking down at my arm and sighing. The hand was almost fully regrown, whatever they used to regrow it didn't take as long as I thought it would. Moving my fingers, I cast Necromantic Healing, taking care of the missing skin and helping the hand to finish regrowing.

I struggled with my bindings, they still wouldn't budge. I pointed my finger up towards them, but I couldn't get a good angle on them for Ray of Frost. Force Missiles didn't do enough damage to break through them.

I leaned my head back, slamming it on the table I was on 'Think, what can I use to break out?' then I smiled remembering my new skill. I visualized a small hand holding a knife, the construct fought me for a moment, then snapped into place in my mind. Ding.

I pushed Mana into it and it appeared over my right hand. I could feel it as if it was an extension of my own body, it was awesome to say the least.

It took a while to cut through the bindings on my arms, a few minutes each. whatever the bindings were made of was strong. Then I had the blade cut through the bindings on my legs, again they were strong as heck, but I was able to do it. A ding let me know Mana Construct was now level 4.

'How long until they come back?' I asked Bella, she didn't respond for a moment then said 'Probably an hour. They come around once every two hours I think.' I nodded, I had some time.

I tried sitting up on the stone slab, it hurt, my body had gone through multiple bouts of massive regeneration. My muscles burned as I got myself to moving. Slowly I slid to the edge of the stone slab, my bare feet touching the floor.

I stood up, again this in itself was a chore. I gritted my teeth through the pain and exhaustion, with that little voice in my head telling me to just give up. I almost wanted to, but Bella reminded me of my children. I firmed my resolve.

I walked over to where Jess was hanging from the chains. They hadn't healed her like they did with me. I put my hand on her shoulder and she gasped in surprise as her eyes widened from my Necromantic Healing.

It took most of my MP to heal her, but once I did she didn't have any of the cuts or bruises that had plagued her body. Now the only reason I know that was because we were both naked. I was definitely doing all I could to ignore that part of this whole adventure, but it was definitely hard, no pun intended. "How?" was all she asked.

I told her about the Feat I acquired, she nodded and said "Look, we don't have a lot of time left. What are we going to do, they'll be back soon?" she asked, I smiled "We will have a surprise ready for them. We might not be able to take them one on one, but I have an ally that will be back just as they come back." She nodded and I used my Mana Construct skill to create another knife.

I cut through the bindings holding her wrists and caught her as she fell. I wrapped my arm around her waist and helped her stand up. "Walk around, move your muscles, you will be sore." She did, slowly at first, then after a few minutes she was feeling much better.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, I grinned.