A Clear Path

As Arran hurried up the stairs, climbing three steps at a time, he heard the mages he had freed following behind. He paid them little heed. What mattered now was what lay ahead of him.

The staircase seemed to go on forever, steeply winding upward, and after some time Arran began to wonder just how far below the ground he was. Although he couldn't be sure, it seemed like he had already climbed half a mile upward, and still the stairs continued.

Had his body not been strengthened through Body Refinement, he would have long been out of breath by now, but as it was, he did not even break a sweat.

Now, he understood why no one had come after he used a vast amount of Essence to escape his cell. Half a mile underground, it would simply have been impossible to sense for those above.

The escaped mages were still behind him, and although he heard some panting by now, he marveled at their endurance. In their current state and without the aid of Body Refinement, that they kept up with him at all meant that they were quite powerful.

Finally, he reached the top of the staircase, stepping into a small, empty hall. The hall had only a single exit, where Arran could see the shattered remains of a door hanging from its hinges. At once, he hastened toward it.

When he stepped through the exit, he could not suppress a gasp at the scene in front of him.

Before him stretched a long hallway, numerous closed doors on either side. The hallway itself was completely covered in fresh blood, and the floor was littered with severed body parts. Someone — something — had passed through here like a storm of slaughter, leaving no one alive in its path.

Amid the slaughter, Arran saw some pieces of cloth that had not been soaked with blood, and from their white color, he knew that the people who had died here were Academy guards or mages.

"What is this?!" Windsong blurted out, voice trembling with shock at the sight.

"You're not the only prisoners I released," Arran said. "It seems the others have cleared us a path."

He glanced at the other mages, and he felt some relief upon seeing that they looked just as shocked as Windsong. If nothing else, that suggested

"We must free the prisoners!" one of the mages said, a short woman in her middle years who might have been beautiful had her face not been gaunt from hunger.

"Prisoners?" Arran asked. "But I already did…"

The woman shook her head. "Not us. The ones who are locked up here. The dungeon below only held the most powerful prisoners. Here, they keep the rest — adepts and below."

Arran did not question how the woman knew all these things. Instead, he simply nodded, then moved forward.

He approached the first door, and although it was thick and made of steel, a small blast of raw Essence was enough to tear it from its hinges. Unlike the doors at the lower level, this one clearly wasn't build to stand up to powerful mages.

Inside, Arran saw a thin man in a tattered gray robe, who looked at him in fright. He did not bother to explain the situation to the man. If the man had any sense, he would seize his newfound freedom.

Arran moved onward and blasted the next door with raw Essence as he approached it, ripping it out of the wall and freeing whoever was inside. He did not stop to check the cell behind it, instead moving on without pause, destroying each door as he passed it.

He was thankful for the opportunity to release some of the Essence that filled him, as it lessened the pain he still felt, if only slightly.

The hallway continued for several hundreds of paces, and at its end, Arran found another staircase. Before he moved on, he glanced backward, and was startled to see that there were dozens of gray-robed prisoners behind him.

He moved up the staircase. There was no long climb this time, and a moment later he stood in another long hallway, a floor higher this time.

Much like the previous hallway, this one was covered in blood, no trace of living guards anywhere in sight. Here, too, there were numerous locked doors lining the sides of the hallway, and Arran opened them in passing, knowing there were more prison cells behind them.

Twice more, he passed steep stairs and blood-covered hallways, and he lost count of how many cells he opened.

After yet another staircase, Arran did not find the hallway he expected to find. Instead, the staircase now emerged into a large stone hall, again filled with blood and dead bodies.

Ignoring the gore, Arran looked around the hall, and his eyes went wide with anticipation as he saw the exit — a large double door to the outside, with half of it currently splintered and broken, and the other half mostly torn from its hinges.

Finally, he had found the way out, and if the remains of battle inside the building were any indication, the path to freedom might already be clear.

Just as he was about to head toward the exit, one of the mages anxiously spoke up.

"Wait!" she said, her voice sounding nervous, on the verge of panic.

When Arran looked over, he saw that it was the woman who had spoken earlier. Understanding that she knew more of the prison than he did, he stopped to listen to whatever it was she had to say.

"Once we leave," she said, "we'll be easy to spot. And even if a few guards have died in here, there are many more Academy members in the rest of the stronghold."

"How many are there?" Arran asked.

"How many?" The woman frowned. "Thousands, at least. This isn't just a prison. It's one of the main strongholds of the Academy in this region of the Empire."

"Thousands?!" Even though Arran's emotions were numbed by the pain that still enveloped his body, he was shocked at the answer.

"Most of them are weak," the woman replied quickly. "Adepts, novices, initiates… nothing you have to worry about."

Arran raised an eyebrow at the idea that he had nothing to fear from adepts, but then, he realized the woman wasn't wrong. At least right now, with raw Essence coursing through his body, killing an adept would be as easy as swatting a fly.

"And the others?" he asked.

She furrowed her brow in thought, and this time, there was a tremble in her voice as she spoke. "There will be a few hundred Masters, and at least several dozens of Grandmasters."

At this, Arran sighed. It was as bad as he feared. Even if the four prisoners who had cleared the path from the dungeon had massacred their way out of the stronghold, there would still be hundreds of Academy mages left.

He looked at the large group of prisoners behind him, and knew they would have to fight. Weak though most of them might be, only numbers would ensure that the few powerful mages in their group would not be targeted and overwhelmed immediately.

Regretfully, he dumped all but the most valuable weapons from his void bags on the floor.

"Arm yourselves!" he called out to the prisoners.

Treasures though they might be, the weapons would do him no good sitting in bags. And unless he was luckier than he thought himself to be, there was a large fight ahead.

The freed prisoners who had not yet picked up blood-soaked weapons from the hallways began to arm themselves with the weapons Arran had put down, and as he looked at them, he felt a moment of guilt.

In a fight with Masters and Grandmasters present, most of the prisoners would have little chance of survival. Once they were out of the building, he might be leading them to their deaths.

Yet when he saw the hard expressions on their gaunt faces, the feeling of guilt disappeared. This was their only chance of escape, and just from looking at them, Arran understood that to a man, they would rather die than go back to their cells.

He stood and waited until all the weapons had been taken. A few unlucky people were still unarmed, but there was no helping it — if a fight broke out, they would simply have to grab weapons from the fallen.

Arran took a deep breath, trying to steel his resolve. Then, with a yell, he charged ahead, out of the prison and into the Academy stronghold.