The Oracle of Goltan - Part 8

The guards surrounded the two "criminals" and dragged each of them away in pairs. To prevent Quincy and Adán from seeing where they were being taken, a sack was placed over their heads.

Although Adán was now an old man, he seemed to be fitter than Quincy: while they were being dragged away by the guards to an unknown location, Quincy complained the whole time about foot and back pain. The guards' sympathy for him seemed to be limited.

When the sack was removed from their heads, they were already sitting in a dark prison cell dimly lit by torchlight.

"Hey?" Quincy tried to get Adán's attention, while Adán inspected his surroundings carefully, perhaps looking for a way out. Then he paused and listened: "Hm?"

"Why do you have the symbol now?"

"Which symbol?" Adán obviously couldn't quite follow. Then he remembered. He groaned and decided not to say anything more—for now. Because he was embarrassed that he couldn't figure for a second that the Symbol on his robe was meant.

The prison bars were made of dark wood and reinforced with iron at the four corners of each individual bar. The cell door was equipped with a mechanism that required someone to be on the floor above to open it. It then lowered very slowly—and I mean really slowly—into the ground, and after 5 hours, one could walk out. Closing the cell took only seconds, and accidents—such as blood and other substances on the ceiling—were not uncommon. To open the door, the contact between the guard and the cell operator for the respective cell was established using magic. If the cell were to be opened without the guards and operator's agreement, it would be the responsibility of the respective responsible party to inform the central control and call for reinforcements.

Adán and Quincy were chained to the wall with an iron chain around their arms, legs, and torso, although "chained" might sound a bit harsh. Let's say they could still move a little and explore the entire cell. It was very uncomfortable and not at all Quincy's style.

"Did you see that grin?" Quincy asked the old man across from him, staring at him expectantly. The old man remained silent and simply shook his head.

"You know," Adán began, looking at the symbol on his no-longer-white robe. "It doesn't matter. I can get us out of here. So please don't waste your time thinking about it..."

"Like, why the oracle that's not Yasmin looks like her and obviously ruled or why every other person in Goltan is Yasmin..." Quincy abruptly stopped rambling when he caught Adán's deadly glare. Adán sat down and turned his attention back to his robe. He continued:

"Not wasting your time thinking about what... I forgot. If you want to hear the story, I can continue telling it to you. But I don't remember every detail."

He paused, looked back at Quincy, tilted his head slightly, cleared his throat, and then asked:

"Are you interested?"

"Interested in what?"

Quincy was quite surprised at how quickly Adán could become annoyed.

"Well, in what I've experienced and how I got this symbol!"

"No," Quincy replied, yawning. "I'm going to sleep now."

The cell was luxuriously equipped with a cold stone floor, sporadic puddles that hopefully contained water, some sand, dirt, and sparse straw scattered about - some of it in the puddles. A decorative corpse of a frog-like creature had been cleanly rearranged by mutant guinea pigs. They were eating the carrion.

On the other side of the cell door sat the cell guard - and his assistant stood - on a cozy wooden chair that had apparently performed admirably over the last 150 years, judging by its appearance. It was a wonder that one could still sit on it. And it was absolutely unnecessary, since there was a stone chair right next to it, cushioned with sand pillows. But the cell guard apparently liked his wooden chair.

His assistant was the kind of person who only carried a weapon to appear less threatening, which made no sense until he put down his weapon. He was also not particularly talkative. This resulted in the cell guard always getting bored, and he had hoped that the old man would finally tell his story - but because of the younger criminal who had gone to sleep, there was nothing more to hear today. And shift change was coming soon.

"Bedtime is not for another hour!" the cell guard meowed into the cell and banged the flat side of his stone battle-axe, reinforced with copper, against the cell bars.

DUM DUM CLONCK

Stone against wood isn't particularly loud. Sometimes it hit iron, but it all sounded very muffled.

None of the cellmates reacted in the slightest to the cell guard. He tried a few more times and left his shift growling with his chair under his armpits.