Shadow Slave

[You have slain a dormant beast, Mountain King's Larva.]

Sunny fell to his knees, breathless. His whole body felt as though it just went through a meat grinder: even large amounts of adrenalin could not wash away all the pain and exhaustion. And yet, he was exhilarated. The satisfaction of killing the larva was so vast that he even forgot to be disappointed about not receiving a Memory — the special item tied to a Dream Realm inhabitant's essence, which was sometimes awarded by the Spell to the triumphant Awakened.

A magic sword or a suit of armor would have come in handy right about now. Damn, he would even settle for a warm coat.

'Three seconds. You can rest for three more seconds,' Sunny thought.

After all, the nightmare was far from over.

A few moments later, he forced himself to come back to his senses and looked around, trying to ascertain the situation.

The larva was dead, which was great. However, he was still tied to it by the damn chain — the shifty slave and the scholar, both pale as death, were busy untangling it to buy the three of them at least some freedom of movement.

Further away, torn bodies and pieces of flesh were lying on the ground. Many slaves were killed. A few had somehow managed to escape and were now running away.

'Fools. They're dooming themselves.'

The chain, as it turns out, was at some point broken in two — that's why it suddenly slackened when Sunny was being dragged by the mass of panicking slaves. If their shackles had a less sophisticated locking mechanism, he could have tried to free himself now. However, each pair was fixed to a specific link: without unlocking them, no one was going anywhere.

The tyrant — Mountain King, presumably — was hidden from sight by the bright glow of the bonfire. However, Sunny could feel its movements due to the subtle tremors spreading through the stones, as well as the desperate screams of those slaves who were yet to perish. An angry below or two could also be heard, indicating that some of the soldiers were still alive, desperately trying to fight the monstrosity off.

What pulled his attention the most, though, was the fact that several of the maimed bodies were starting to move.

'More larvae?'

His eyes widened.

One after another, four more corpses slowly rose to their feet. Each beast looked as disgusting as the first one had, and not a bit less deadly. The nearest was mere meters away from Sunny.

'Damn it all!' he thought.

And then, weakly: 'I want to wake up.'

turned its head toward the three slaves and gnashed its fangs. Shifty fell on his ass, whispering a prayer, while Scholar just froze in place. Sunny's eyes darted to the ground, trying to find something to use as a weapon. But there was not a single thing he could use: full of vitriol, he simply wrapped a length of chain

at me,

to react; however, before he could do

Sunny blinked.

'What was that?'

young soldier who had once offered him water. He looked calm and collected, if a little

Awesome,' Sunny

I mean he's a

suddenly turned around and gave Sunny a long look. Then,

'Save yourself!'

was gone

reflexively caught the item and watched the soldier go. Then he lowered his gaze and studied the

narrow iron rod with a

It's a

began to

key

dropped on one knee and began to maneuver the shackles, trying to get his hand into a suitable position to insert the key. It took him a few tries to understand how the

bloodied wrists. Sunny rubbed them and

'Just you wait now.'

of violence and revenge filled

"Boy! Over here!"

considered

and overall unpleasantness, Sunny would have felt bad leaving a fellow slave in chains — especially since freeing him would

over to the other two slaves and quickly unlocked their shackles. As soon as Shifty was free, he pushed Sunny away and did a

at last! Gods must be smiling

was more reserved. He squeezed Sunny's shoulder in gratitude and smiled weakly, casting a tense

still trying to tear its opponent apart. The young soldier danced around it, moving with a graceful fluidity of a natural-born

are you waiting

run away, but was stopped by

"My friend, I would…"

"advise" again, I swear to gods, I will bash

two slaves looked at each other with open animosity.