Chapter One: Focus

Ashilis was drifting, floating between two places that felt equally foreign to him. He couldn't see anything, not even darkness. Shouldn't there be something here? The between-space felt empty, like a familiar room with all of the furniture removed. Ashilis didn't think he had ever been here before, though. He looked around, and almost thought he spotted a little twinkle of something in the distance, like a candle's light blocked by a blanket of fog. If he could just focus on it...

An awful pain in the back of his neck, right at the base of his skull, drew his attention away. The pain had been there for a while, he thought, but he was only now becoming aware of it. Something inside the burning agony in his neck wriggled, then popped out. Ashilis felt himself begin to fall, and his vision returned just in time for his face to hit a plush white carpet. 

He was in a warm room, face-down on the floor. There was a low hum of noise around him—voices, maybe, but he couldn't reconcile the sounds into words. The pain in his neck pounded insistently in his head, knocking his thoughts loose before they could fully form. He had to fight for focus for what felt like several minutes, but Ashilis eventually managed to push through and start thinking in complete ideas.

He groaned, feeling liquid spill down the sides of his neck as he struggled to lift his head. He needed to figure out what was going on, but his mind was so foggy. Ashilis tried to stand, but something was holding his arms behind his back and locking his legs together, so the best he could do was get his knees up beneath him. Even that much took incredible effort, though the movements—if not the strength they required—came easily to him for some reason. He strained his abdomen, but couldn't sit upright, only managing to lift his head an inch or so off the ground before his strength failed him. Maybe that was for the best. Some primal part of him was warning that whatever that liquid on his neck was, it shouldn't be allowed to leak.

"Poor thing," a resonant voice drawled as Ashilis collapsed back down, forehead to carpet. At least he had managed to get his mouth off the floor. "Someone get it out of here before it ruins my rug," the voice called. Both times, Ashilis had to focus for a few protracted seconds for the words to resolve out of and noise into something meaningful. His thoughts were still coming much too slowly.

Hands grabbed Ashilis by the ankles, then pulled. Without his knees to support him, Ashilis fell flat against the ground. Whoever was holding onto his legs reset their grip and began to pull Ashilis along at a steady rate. The movement helped shake some of the delirium out of his mind. However, where the initial disorientation faded, it was quickly replaced by a more worrying kind of confusion. Where was he? Why was he tied up? Where was he being taken? And what in Zix's name was causing that pain in his neck? Ashilis had to strangle down the desire to fight against being dragged away.

Focus. Focus.

He almost called out for answers, but thought better of it. If he was bound, dragged around, and referred to as a "thing," then he couldn't imagine he would like any answer he got, if they gave him one at all. Instead, Ashilis surveyed his circumstances. He was some kind of captive, judging by the way his arms and legs were bound. Wrists and elbows tied behind his back, knees and ankles locked together. Rather extreme measures for a prisoner that they obviously need to be moving between locations. Why not just make him walk? He didn't feel particularly strong right now, but surely he could manage that much.

The carpet beneath Ashilis' face transitioned to dark stone tiles, and he thought he spotted walls on either side of him. His legs were set down for a moment, and booted feet passed by his head. Curiosity and worry finally boiling over, he risked looking to the side, and the fresh spill of fluid down his neck that came with the movement. There he saw a man with pale skin and deep blue hair that almost looked black in the hallway's dim light. Most strikingly, he had two long, thin crystals extending from right behind his ears. They were vaguely cylindrical, with rounded tops, and they glowed with a rich blue light.

The man quietly shut the door that Ashilis had just been dragged through, then jumped—literally jumped a few inches off the ground—as he saw Ashilis looking up at him. At the same time, the light from his ear-crystals flashed with surprising intensity, bright enough to illuminate the man's face. His eyes were odd. The "whites" were actually a pale blue, and both iris and pupil glowed with the same color as the crystals on his head, with only a thin circle of dimness differentiating the parts of the eye. He scowled at Ashilis as his glow dimmed, and he kept firmly out of reach as he returned to Ashilis' ankles.

He's afraid of me, Ashilis realized as the man began dragging him once again. That must be why I'm tied up. I'm a threat. He smiled grimly. Ashilis couldn't remember anything about his circumstances, or even about himself, really, but the idea that he hadn't taken all this lying down—metaphorically speaking—felt right.

Bolstered by that hope, Ashilis tested the bonds on his wrists, trying to tug his hands apart. They remained firm. That made sense, if these chains were made specifically to keep him in check. Though he didn't think he could snap the chains and force his way, he was rewarded with another flash of panicked blue light from his captor.

You'd think I was Zix himself by the way crystal-ears flinches each time I so much as twitch, Ashilis mused. Regardless, he knew better than to waste his energy on a futile struggle, so he settled in to wait for a better opportunity. In the meantime, Ashilis focused on trying to memorize the path he was dragged along. His limited view of his surroundings made it remarkably difficult, but it was better than doing nothing.

It took a while to reach their destination, and during that time Ashilis could feel his thoughts flowing more clearly, like he was coming fully awake. He was taken to a cell, of course. Ashilis was dragged inside, then crystal-ears scampered out of the room and shut the door. The lock clicked shut a moment later. He hadn't undone Ashilis' bonds.

Ashilis squirmed, worried that he was just going to be left tied up like this. He kept struggling until another door opened on the other side of the room and someone else walked in. They grunted in what sounded like surprise as they crouched down beside Ashilis, then pulled his head up and wrapped something around his neck. A moment later, they set to work on his bonds.

Ashilis let out a sigh of relief and tried to be patient. Strange, how difficult that became once the wait was almost over. It felt like several minutes before he was loose, and even then, he still had a set of chains connecting his wrists and ankles together. It was enough for him to climb up to his feet, at least, and though the one who took off his bonds didn't help him up, they didn't force him back down either. Getting himself upright was so much easier when he could move his knees properly. In fact, Ashilis felt much better than he expected he would have now that he could actually move.

 He flexed his shoulders back and pushed his chest out, glad to be able to stretch, if only a little. With a huffed breath, Ashilis turned to face the one who set him free. He turned out to be a tall, well muscled man with a greasy mop of auburn hair and an intense expression. Lines of iron ran up and down the length of his arms, starkly contrasting with his pale skin. He was dressed in rags and had his hands and feet chained together, though his wrists weren't behind his back. He was looking at Ashilis with one eyebrow raised, as if expecting something.

"Waiting for a thank you?" Ashilis asked, a little more sharply than he intended. He immediately chided himself. This man was obviously a prisoner, just like him, and he's the only person that Ashilis could hope to get some answers out of right now.

The man grunted, looking away as he tossed Ashilis' bonds into a box on the far end of the room. They were more heavy-duty than Ashilis thought: a set of metal bracers that ran from wrist to elbow, latched together at six points along the forearm, and shin guards that stopped just below the base of the knee, also with six latches. The simple manacles and connecting chains around his wrists and ankles felt wondrously light and unrestrictive by comparison. He could almost forget they were there.

Forcing himself to focus on the man who released him, Ashilis softened his expression and tried to speak in a friendlier tone. "Hey, listen, I-"

"You can talk, you can balance, and you can see. Your brain is still working. This is good," the man rumbled. His voice was deeper and smoother than Ashilis had expected, and he had a faint accent.

"Sure, but I-" Ashilis began, taking a step forward. He tried to spread his hands in a placating way as he spoke, but the chain barely let him extend his arms past his hips. Ashilis cut off, grunting in frustration. Then, acting more on reflex than thought, he jumped, tucked his knees up to his chest, and swung the chain connecting his wrists beneath his feet, bringing his hands around to the front of his body. He landed awkwardly and stumbled to the side of the room before he could regain his balance. Slumping against the wall, he looked down at his hands, stunned. How had he done that?

The man let out a bark of a laugh, and Ashilis balled his fists, feeling heat rise in his face. Was that maneuver what he had been expecting, or was he laughing at how confused Ashilis was? The uncertainty, the degrading way he had been treated, and the pain finally overwhelmed Ashilis' calm. He heard its hissing a moment before Anger rose around his feet, its muddy red faux-liquid boiling and steaming. Anger was immaterial, as always, but it felt somehow incomplete to Ashilis—a kind of poor imitation, like a shadow cast through a dirty window. When he saw the umbra, the man laughed again, louder this time.

Ashilis snapped upright and stomped over to the man. "What's going on?" he blurted out "Where am I? Who are you? By Zix, if I don't start getting some answers soon I'll-"

The man clamped a hand over Ashilis' mouth, casting a worried glance at the door that crystal-eared dragged him through. With a grunt, he towed Ashilis through the other exit. The room beyond was large, with a low ceiling. People scurried about inside, performing menial tasks. Some cooked food over a copper plate that hissed and steamed, others patched or washed clothing, and a few were even farming some large opalescent mushrooms with flat tops and thick stalks in a particularly dark corner of the space.

Everyone went around with hunched postures, casting narrow-eyed glances at one another. A few stalked around the edges of the room, watching the people at the cooking station. A few more stood protectively in front of the cooks, pulling their chains taut between their hands as if they intended to use them as a weapon. Ashilis also spotted a few humanoid shadows that didn't seem to have any body to cast them flitting around the room. Strangely some pointed towards the light, rather than away, and others had eye-shaped holes in their heads. It might have been another umbra, though not one Ashilis recognized.

The man dragged Ashilis into a smaller room, the nearest one to the room he was dumped in. It was a dull room, barely as wide as Ashilis was tall, and its floor sloped downwards towards the far wall, where a drain was set into the floor. Once inside, his companion swung the door shut and spun around. Ashilis took a half step backwards, lifting his hands to defend himself. He gripped his wrist chain in an imitation of the people he saw outside.

"I am Drym," the man—Drym, apparently—said quickly. He didn't seem particularly threatened by Ashilis' defensive stance. "You are Ashilis. We are friends. Yes you can trust me. Because I helped you when I did not have to, and did not even force you to give me food first," Drym planted his hands on Ashilis' shoulders. "This is a Vicart prison. We are livestock. They eat our memories."

Ashilis furrowed his eyebrows, glancing back towards the door. He wasn't sure what a Vicart was, or how they could eat memories, but that would explain why he couldn't recall anything from before being dragged out of that carpeted room. It would also explain why the concept of being imprisoned and fed upon didn't worry him as much as he felt that it should have. Something about him knew that he had been here for a long time, even if he couldn't remember any of it. The scars and calluses around his manacles and the way he so easily brought his hands around to the front of his body, as if he had done it hundreds of times, reinforced that.

"That sounded practiced," Ashilis said carefully, lowering his hands.

"I know what questions you will ask, so I answer them first." Drym took a step back and folded his arms. "Go. Do your surveying, then come and tell me the plan. I will gather things and meet you here."

Ashilis frowned. Drym was doing a pretty good job at guessing what he was thinking. Did that mean that he was telling the truth, or was this line of questioning so common that it could be easily predicted? Did it matter? He was being friendly and offering answers. Even if Drym's intentions weren't entirely pure, Ashilis couldn't exactly turn away freely-offered assistance. Beyond that, Ashilis couldn't help but feel that Drym was being sincere. He couldn't remember a single thing about him, of course, but there was something nebulously familiar about the big guy.

"I have a few more questions..." Ashilis said.

"We will be here until Death arrives if I try to answer all your questions," Drym said, then pointed to the door "You are smart. Answer for yourself. I will try to explain what you cannot figure out when you are done."

That made sense, Ashilis supposed. He didn't relish the idea of walking out into an unfamiliar and, by the looks of it, hostile environment with so little information, but Drym was right. There was too much that Ashilis didn't know, and the best way to learn was to experience. He nodded slowly to the taller man, then turned and pushed his way back into the common room.

Time to see what he had to work with.