Asil awoke with a throbbing pain at the base of her skull and the bitter taste of iron and ash on her tongue. Her arms were bound tightly at the wrists, and a persistent ache burned in her shoulders from being suspended for what felt like hours. The air around her reeked of decay and something older—stale magic, as if the world itself had forgotten how to breathe. Flickers of dull light danced across warped stone walls, casting long, inconsistent shadows, but there was no true warmth, no flame.

  This wasn't Fort Warren. This was something far worse.

  She tried to summon her strength, to call out to Lucia, to pull from her talents—but nothing answered. Her gifts, which once burned so bright, felt like embers smothered under stone. A strange pressure circled her wrists, pulsing faintly with violet light. Asil looked down and grimaced. Shadowsteel.

  She remembered it from SR3 lore—Jack used to tease her for hoarding trivia from the game like a dragon with its hoard. He once joked that the only thing that could ever stop her was a pair of Shadowsteel bracelets. Apparently, someone had taken that joke literally.

  She was alone, crammed in a cage bolted to the back of a massive cart. The plain they traveled was twisted and broken—crimson skies smudged with soot, black lightning crackling across jagged, obsidian mountains that clawed at the heavens. Dozens of other cages rumbled alongside hers, some empty, some occupied by other prisoners. None of them held Abby. Or Lucia.

  “Abby…” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the creaking metal and moaning wind. The last image burned into her mind was Abby’s catatonic face, pale and distant, after seeing the vision of her brother’s supposed death. The memory cut deep. But Asil steeled herself. Abby was strong. She just needed time. And someone to find her.

  Hours passed—at least she assumed so. Time moved strangely in this place. When the convoy stopped, it did so before a fortress of jagged basalt and bone, stitched into the landscape like a wound refusing to close. Towering gates yawned open, and she was dragged through, her boots scraping uselessly against the black stone floor.

  They didn’t throw her in with the other prisoners. Isolation. Psychological warfare. Break the strong ones first.

  Her cell was carved directly into the stone wall of the complex—cold, narrow, and utterly devoid of light when the bars sealed behind her. She didn’t sleep. Not really. She drifted in and out of awareness, her thoughts fractured between panic and planning.

  Eventually, the shriek of rusted hinges roused her. One of the ash-skinned jailers pulled her from her cell without a word. His face was crude, tusked, and unmistakably orcish. Asil blinked in confusion. Orcs had been absent from SR3—cut content, a mystery from SR2 days. Some fans claimed they’d been exiled, others insisted they never existed at all.

  But here he was. Real. Huge. And very much enjoying his job.

  He kept his back to her the entire march, his thick armor clicking softly with each step. She tried to lash out—test the bounds of her strength, her physicality—but the manacles clamped tighter with each attempt, sending a cold jolt of suppression through her core.

  Not the walls. The shackles. That’s what kept them in line.

  They entered a courtyard—the heart of the prison camp. It resembled a makeshift village made of junked stone and twisted metal. At its center sat a squat, rotund orc behind a crude desk cluttered with scrolls and rusted tools. A line of prisoners stretched before him, each being processed, cataloged, assigned.

  When it was her turn, Asil barely registered the guard calling her forward. It took three shouts and a jab from a club before she stepped into the orc’s gaze.

  “Name,” the orc drawled, not even bothering to look up.

  “Asil,” she said instinctively, too dazed to think of a false one.

  That was a mistake.

  The air shifted. Whispers passed between the guards. The fat orc looked up with slow, deliberate interest. His eyes gleamed like wet stones.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” he said, his voice like gravel soaked in venom. He reached under the stack and withdrew a scroll sealed with now-broken wax. “The boss has plans for you. But for now? The mines.”

  Before she could ask, she was yanked away again, dragged deeper into the camp.

  The path wound through shanties made from scavenged wood, bone, and scraps of machinery that shouldn't exist. At the heart of it, a vast pit yawned open, shadowy, deep, and lined with jagged rocks. A ladder led into its depths.

  Asil didn’t get the chance to use it.

  The guard shoved her. She fell hard, crashing to the ground below, pain radiating from her shoulder as the wind was knocked from her lungs. Above, the orc chuckled before turning away.

  She barely had time to sit up before rough hands grabbed her by the collar and hauled her upright.

  “Lying down on the job already?” a gruff voice snorted.

  She turned to swing. The manacles pulsed again—another cold jolt. Useless.

  The cavern she was led into was enormous. Dozens of prisoners chipped away at glowing veins of ore running through the rock. Some were suspended on ropes, others on platforms made of old lumber and metal beams. The glow of the metal made the sweat on their backs shine like oil.

  They shoved a pickaxe into her arms. She didn’t hesitate—Asil turned the weapon on the nearest guard with all the speed and fury she could summon.

  It was like swinging against gravity itself. The axe stopped inches from its mark.

  The orc laughed, and then backhanded her so hard she hit the wall.

  Dazed, aching, and bound, Asil crumpled to the floor.

  Asil forced herself to stay conscious. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision, but she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. She would not give them the satisfaction. She would not let these bastards see her broken.

  She stood slowly, spine rigid, lifting her chin as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Wordlessly, she bent to retrieve the discarded pickaxe. Her eyes never left the orc who had struck her—eyes like forged steel, cold and burning.

  Then, without flinching, she turned to the rock wall and mimicked the other prisoners, raising the tool and swinging. The motion was stiff at first, but with each strike, something inside her stirred. The fire. That old, relentless fire.

  Her muscles remembered. Every battle. Every sparring match. Every war game she was dragged into. Her arms moved with precision, the pick cutting into the stone with increasing ease. With each crack in the wall, she felt a crack form in her bindings too—not physical, but symbolic. The illusion of control was fading.

  Confidence surged. She spun sharply, using her momentum to hurl the pick toward the guard—an arc of righteous fury behind the blow.

  And just like that… it vanished.

  The pickaxe became an immovable weight in her hands, like trying to lift a collapsed mountain. Her arms dropped with a humiliating thud, strength bleeding from her as if drained through the cuffs. Her eyes snapped to the orc.

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  Gone.

  Already walking away, laughing, finding his next victim.

  Only then did she understand—the shackles were enchanted to allow just enough strength for labor, but not rebellion. It was engineered servitude.

  Rage surged again. Asil turned back to the wall, not to follow orders, but to release the fury building behind her eyes. Her pick struck harder than before, over and over, not to escape, but to remember who she was.

  A soldier. A survivor. A godsdamn force of nature.

  Days passed. She couldn’t be sure how many times blurred into monotony—wake, work, ache, sleep. Her quarters were a barely standing shack, shared with five other prisoners packed like livestock. The “mess hall” was a rotting tent in a clearing of scrap and smoke.

  She always ate alone.

  She let others try their charm, their jokes, their offerings of food or friendship. She ignored them all. She wasn’t here to make allies. She was here to plot.

  And then came the snitches.

  Three men—smug, lazy cowards bloated on scraps of power—approached one evening while she ate. Everyone in the camp knew them: lapdogs for the guards. They got better rations, lighter workloads, and sometimes… privileges no one spoke about aloud.

  Their leader, Darius, sat beside her, reeking of spoiled meat and pride.

  “Well, well,” he said, flashing yellowed teeth. “What’s a lady like you doing all alone?”

  His cronies flanked her, one on either side. She didn’t look at them. She chewed her bread slowly.

  “Do... you... not... understand... common?” Darius drawled, enunciating like a schoolyard bully.

  “She deaf?” the nearest one snorted.

  “Maybe she’s just shy,” the other said. “Or maybe she likes it rough.”

  Darius reached to brush her hair back, and her hand lashed out, slapping his hand away like swatting a fly.

  The table quieted. A few prisoners nearby paused mid-bite.

  “Oh?” Darius leaned in, menace curling in his smile.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came a voice from the end of the table.

  Asil turned sharply. An old man, cloaked and still, sat at the far end, hunched over a stale crust of bread. His grey beard spilled from beneath a hood. He hadn't even looked up.

  Her glare was sharp.

  The man sensed it. “Not you, lass,” he murmured. “Them.”

  Darius barked a laugh. “You gonna stop us, old man?”

  The elder chuckled, without lifting his head. “Me? No. I’ll just watch.”

  Darius scoffed and grabbed Asil by the hair.

  The next moment, he woke up an hour later with a fractured skull and a mouth full of dirt.

  Asil had moved like a coiled viper—her cuffed wrist slamming into Darius’s temple with a sickening crack. She spun, kicked the nearest crony square in the chest, sending him flying into the third. Before they could recover, she bashed both in quick succession, sending them crumpling to the ground.

  Three men down. One breath. No hesitation.

  The tenant was silent.

  Asil sat back down, retrieved her fallen bread from the table, and finished her meal.

  Two guards rushed in moments later. They didn’t even look at her. They stepped over her tray to grab the unconscious snitches, dragging their limp bodies away.

  The guards never said a word to her.

  Asil may have lost access to the Source, but the strength and agility she had forged through months of training, battles, and survival in Aerothane remained. Her power wasn’t just magical—it was earned, carved into muscle and memory through relentless effort. She hadn’t needed enchantments to fight before, and she sure as hell didn’t need them now to hold her ground.

  She eyed the old man warily as he slid closer on the bench, chuckling to himself like some weary traveler with too many secrets.

  “Handled ‘em well,” he said, nodding toward the memory of the three unconscious snitches.

  “I can take care of myself,” she replied curtly.

  “Aye, that you can,” he said with something like admiration, then pulled back his hood to reveal a worn but noble face. Grey threaded through his beard, and deep lines carved his expression into one of weathered resilience.

  Asil froze. “You’re… Viktus. King Viktus.”

  For a moment, the name hung in the air like a sword waiting to drop.

  He tilted his head slightly, as if tasting the name. “Haven’t heard that in a long time.”

  “But… that’s not possible,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re supposed to be… You were around during the Great War.”

  “That’s right,” he replied quietly. “Two centuries, give or take. Haven’t aged much since these bastards decided I was more useful alive.” He gestured broadly at the camp, the guards, the sky that never brightened.

  “I believe I’ve been expecting you,” he said after a pause. “Although… my instructions mentioned you wouldn’t be alone.”

  At that, her heart clenched. “Abby,” she said softly. “I’m trying to find my friend. She was with me when we were taken. And… our wolf companion, Lucia.”

  At the mention of Abby’s name, Viktus visibly straightened—but the shift was so brief it might’ve gone unnoticed to anyone else.

  “I see,” he said. “Then time is shorter than I thought.”

  “And who told you to expect me?” she asked, already suspecting the answer.

  His face darkened with memory. “Vee,” he said simply.

  Asil stood abruptly, eyes narrowed, the fire in her chest rekindled. “That witch betrayed us. She sold us out to the Dark Wizard and helped imprison Jack.”

  Viktus didn’t rise. He simply held up his hands. “It’s not as simple as that, lass. I know what she did… and what it looked like. But not everything is what it seems.”

  “We saw you,” Asil hissed. “In a vision. I thought you were the king—Viktus. You looked like him. Like someone who was supposed to matter.” She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “That’s the only reason I didn’t gut you the second I recognized your face.”

  “And maybe that’s why I was shown to you at all,” Viktus replied, his voice calm but grounded. “I don’t know what you were meant to see, but I do know this—I was sent to help you. I can help you find your friend. But only if you’re willing to let me.”

  Asil didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted toward the dying firelight at the edge of the mess tent. Finally, she spoke, her voice rough but resolved. “Friends. Plural. Abby and Lucia. I don’t leave anyone behind.”

  Viktus gave a solemn nod. “Aye. And I don’t break my word. But you should know… your arrival here means the Dark Wizard is closer than ever to releasing the Demon God.”

  Asil flinched at the name. Her fists clenched beneath the table. “Then we don’t have time to waste.”

  “No, we don’t,” he agreed. “And before we go further… I have something for you. Something I was meant to pass along.”

  He reached into his cloak, but when his hand emerged, it was empty.

  “A message,” he clarified.

  She raised a brow, guarded.

  “Vee told me to tell you one thing: Play the game like Jack.”

  The words hit like a slap. For a moment, Asil forgot to breathe.

  She said nothing. But something inside her shifted.

  “I don’t know what it means,” Viktus continued. “But she was adamant. Said it was the only way to save him. To stop what’s coming.”

  “‘Play the game,’” Asil repeated, the phrase laced with bitterness. “That’s what got Jack captured. That’s what let the Dark Wizard win.”

  “Maybe,” Viktus said carefully, “but she believed it’s also the key to saving him.”

  Asil leaned back, eyes distant. Her thoughts twisted like a storm—memories of Jack, of late nights talking lore, of his obsession with playing clever, even reckless, like the whole world was a chessboard and he just needed to see the moves before anyone else did.

  And then… it clicked.

  Jack didn’t survive by brute force. He adapted. He played with what he knew—even when the world made no sense.

  This world was real. The pain was real. The loss was real.

  But so was her knowledge.

  The lore. The systems. The exploits. She knew this game. She knew the world.

  Maybe it was time to stop surviving like a prisoner… and start thinking like a player.

  Viktus saw the change in her and smiled softly. “There she is.”

  A horn blared in the distance. Curfew.

  Asil’s eyes snapped toward the sound, then back to Viktus.

  “I need a place. Quiet. Somewhere I can think.”

  Viktus nodded and motioned for her to follow.

  They wound their way through crooked shacks and scattered debris, arriving at a collapsed mining shaft. At the far end, he slipped into a narrow crevice behind a broken wall. Asil followed, sliding through a jagged crack.

  The space beyond was tight but dry, walled in by jagged rock and old support beams. A crude sleeping mat, a stack of worn books, and a flickering lantern made the place feel almost… human.

  “It’s not much,” Viktus said. “But it’s been home.”

  Asil looked down at the violet cuffs that still bound her arms.

  “They won’t track you here,” Viktus explained. “The rock around this shaft interferes with the enchantments.”

  She exhaled slowly and stepped further inside.