“Stop!” an authoritative voice shouted.
A man in the decorated military uniform of a commander stepped into the room flanked by two civies. One of them was the corporal that almost killed me.
“I gave you permission to question him, not to subject him to your experiments,” the man said.
“Charles, please, we’ve been over this,” she said, setting the syringe down and turning to address the commander. “If you cooperate, your family and the insignificant little town where they live will be spared. You don’t get to make the demands here. I do.”
The commander’s eyes went wide, and he took a step back. Whoever this woman was, she was more than a simple scientist.
“Do you know who that is?” he asked. “He’s a Halland.”
“I don’t care who he is. He is what you people call an Oathbreaker, is he not?” she responded.
The corporal shifted uneasily behind the commander.
Alton went on, “He is an enemy to your kingdom regardless of his pedigree, and I was promised prisoners for my trials.”
“And prisoners we’ve given you, but Aren Halland is off limits,” the commander roared.
“You have no authority here, and you know it,” Alton said. “Be thankful that he’s not being subjected to the same testing as the others. We still haven’t perfected the infusion process, and the results have been…complicated. Sparing him from that fate will have to be enough. Now, if you please, I have work to do.”
She lifted the syringe and plunged it into my arm.
Ten
My vision swam, and I drifted in and out of consciousness. I could sense that I was being hauled down to another room, but I couldn’t keep track of the path that we’d taken or who was carrying me.
I felt trapped inside my body, unable to think clearly, unable to move. Something hard and cold collided with my back, followed by an intense pressure across my chest and legs.
A loud, piercing sound caused my head to pound, then my arms erupted into flames. I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my lips. I tried to make it stop, but I was powerless to affect any change in my situation.
When it became it too much, I finally was greeted by complete, unending darkness.
I awoke and found myself in my cell once more. Leon was gone. The pain I remember experiencing felt like a distant shadow—like a bad dream. Perhaps it was.
Looking down at my arms, nothing appeared to be amiss. There were no burns, no sores, no marks of any kind. But most importantly there was no ache or discomfort. Whatever I had thought had happened was clearly my imagination.
Despite my arms being fine, my head continued to throb. I lifted my hand to massage the left side of my head and found something cold and metallic attached there instead. Pressing on it caused the ache to intensify.
Out of the blue, the following words popped up, floating in the air off to the right side of my vision:
AREN HALLAND
LEVEL 9
AFFILIATION: BALGYRA
PROFESSION: GUARDIAN
90/90 MP
2,700/9,000 EXP
0 AP AVAILABLE
0 FAME – UNKNOWN
660 RIFKELS
Whoa. Where’d my AP go? They reset my Fame, too. Hold up. Affiliation: Balgyra?
What had they done to me?
Before I could ponder it further, the lights in my cell went out, but the stats at the side of my vision remained. The blackness was only temporary as a red light above the entrance started to flash. In the distance, I could hear an alarm blaring.
I stood steadily to my feet and wandered over to the door, but it remained closed. I pounded on it, but it still didn’t budge.
Something like an explosion rocked the facility, and I was thrown to the ground as a sizeable tremor caused the walls to shake around me. A crack split the room. Starting at the ceiling, it ran down the wall and allowed the blaring of the klaxon to further penetrate my cell.
I immediately covered my ears as the sound was near deafening, my fingers once more glancing off the foreign object grafted into my skull.
My stats disappeared.
Touching the device again, the stats reappeared.
Had they given me a built-in tracker or something? For what purpose?
The door’s airlock hissed, and I turned just as the civie corporal from earlier ran into the room with his weapon drawn.
No. This was not how I was going to die.
I launched myself at him. His gun started to rise, but before he could point it at me, I grabbed his wrist and slammed it into the wall, dislodging the weapon. Pulling back my fist, I prepared to punch him when my arm seized up and refused to budge.
“That will be enough, Aren,” Alton said from the doorway.
In her hand, she held a small device. I watched as she pushed a button, which immediately allowed my muscles to relax, and I could move once more.
What evil magic is this? She can control me?
As fast as I could, I dove for the device, but she clicked it again, and my body fell to the floor, completely rigid.
Alton sighed. “So, we’re going to do this the hard way, are we?”
I tried to snap off a sassy response, but my mouth wouldn’t move. Whatever she had done to me, it took full control over every aspect of my body.
“I’m going to release you now,” Alton said. “If you try anything, I’ll lock you up again and leave you here to die, do you understand?”
She waited for me to respond, but, of course, I couldn’t.
I heard a click, and my whole body relaxed and settled onto the ground.
“Do you understand?” she asked again.
“Yes,” I said grudgingly. As I slowly climbed to my feet, I asked, “What did you do to me?”
“We gave you a few… modifications. They’ll both improve your strength and make you more compliant,” Alton explained. “You belong to Balgyra now, Mr. Halland.”
I knew that fighting was useless, at least until I could catch her off guard and steal that remote. “You won’t get away with this," I said through gritted teeth.
“I already have,” she said, waving the remote in front of my face. “Enough chit chat, we’re leaving. Now.” Alton turned toward the corporal. “Give him your gun.”
“Ma’am?” the corporal responded.
“Give him the gun!” she ordered.
Fear flashed across the corporal’s face as he unstrung the rifle from his shoulder and handed it to me.
I took the weapon’s weight in my hands and turned it over. A pulsing green light ran the length of the gun.
“Shoot him,” Alton said to me coolly.
Before I could refuse, my arms lifted the weapon.
The corporal’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hands. “No!”
Less than a heartbeat later, I pulled the trigger. A flash erupted in the small room, drilling a hole into the corporal’s forehead and spraying the wall with bright red drops of blood. The corporal dropped to the floor, and Alton stepped away to avoid his falling corpse.
“That’s unfortunate,” Alton said.
I looked over, and she was looking down at a single red stain on her otherwise pristine lab coat.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Feeling that control had once again returned to my limbs, I swung the weapon and pointed it at Alton. Before she could stop me, I pulled the trigger.
The rifle flashed red, and a quick staccato of beeps echoed throughout the room.
Alton smiled. “Your continued resistance is pointless, but hang on to that fire, we’re going to need it to get out of this mess.”
I pulled the trigger a dozen more times, all with the same result. “Chet,” I said aloud.
“Did you think I would give you a gun without first taking the proper precautions? I’ve reprogrammed all the facility weapons to lock when aimed at Balgyran personnel,” she said as she pointed at the name badge on her shirt. “Now, let’s go before any more Allyrians a
rrive with the thought of playing hero.”
She turned on her heel and stepped through the door without another word. A moment later, she returned and tossed my gear at my feet. It was everything I’d had on when they captured me—my civie armor, the gauntlet I purchased, even my bow and dagger, the only thing missing was Leon's power tracker. Guess Alton knew I wouldn't need it anymore.
Alton gave me a moment to put on my things, then she left the room once more.
I followed after her. “What’s going on?” I asked amidst the din.
“A minor inconvenience,” she shouted over the klaxon. “But my mission was a success so I’m leaving, and you’re going to ensure my safety.”
Another explosion rocked the facility, though on a much smaller scale than the first one. I glanced around, but the walls seemed to be holding.
“If it was such a success, then why does it sound like the place is falling apart?”
Alton glared at me but didn’t respond.
She led me down hallway after hallway, none of them familiar. One of the hallways had a window in it similar to the one where I’d witnessed the man being tortured, except it was on the left instead of the right.
The glass had been blasted outward, and small shards of it littered path in front of us. Smoke was billowing out from the room and into the hall. Alton didn’t act surprised in the least.
Pieces of glass crunched beneath her feet as she stepped over the carnage and proceeded to the door on the opposite end. I glanced into the room as I passed.
A surgical table lay on its side in the corner of the room while multiple fires blazed on various pieces of equipment. But the most distinguishing feature was the gaping hole in the wall that looked like it had taken a direct hit from a supercharged high Class magika blast.
“Quit gaping and keep up,” Alton chided.
The door slid open, and we left the devastation behind.
Whatever happened here started in that room. I was sure of it. Had one of their experiments gone wrong? That couldn’t be right, she’d called it a success.
That’s what success looked like? Maybe, maybe not.
Perhaps it was a completely unrelated event; either way, it put me on edge and caused me to grip the rifle a little tighter.
Alton stepped through the next door and into a large gathering space of some kind. Multiple doors branched off from this central room in many different directions, but the doctor didn’t miss a step as she headed straight for a set of double doors in the back.
Before she could get close, the doors burst inward. Alton dove out of the way and hid behind an upended table as no less than six soldiers in full Allyrian battle armor filed into the room.
“There he is!” one of them shouted, pointing at me.
“Kill them, Aren!” Alton called out.
At her command, I felt my arms go rigid as Alton took control of my body. I lifted my rifle and started pulling the trigger in rapid succession.
The soldiers fanned out and dodged my fire. Shields winked into existence around them all as one of them said, “Switch your weapons to stun.”
From where I stood, I could see the soft green lights from their guns turn blue. I tried to move, to hide, to run away, something—anything—but my legs wouldn’t move.
When the first soldier emerged from his cover, I loosed a hail of blasts from my rifle in his direction. The magika projectiles disintegrated as they slammed into his shield. Unlike when I had battled the civie in the woods, this soldier’s shield remained strong even after the tenth hit.
Alton cursed and scrambled away, escaping through the nearest door while the soldier’s focus remained on me. I tried to go after her since I couldn’t let her get away with that darn remote, but her previous directive to kill the soldiers overrode my rational thought.
The soldier that had stepped out took aim at my chest.
Thankfully, even though I didn’t have control of my body, it still responded appropriately and tapped the blue stone on my armor, activating my own shield. Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing.
I watched in what felt like slow motion as the soldier pulled the trigger and a small beam of energy lanced toward me, drilling a hole straight through my barrier and slamming into my chest so hard that it knocked me off my feet.
As I hit the ground, the force of the blow took the wind right out of me.
A moment later, all six soldiers deactivated their shields and converged on my position.
When they passed the door that Alton had taken, the leader pointed at two of his men and waved for them to chase after her. The soldiers nodded and disappeared down the corridor.
Of the four that remained, two reached down and picked me up by the arms while the last two kept their rifles aimed at my heart.
“I’m not the enemy!” I tried to say, but my lips wouldn’t move.
“Lucian, take a look at the side of his head,” one of the other soldiers, a woman, said.
The lead soldier, Lucian—Why did that name sound familiar? —responded, “Chet, what is that?”
“What do we do, sir?” asked the soldier holding my right arm.
“Hayden, you and Izaiah take Aren back to the cruiser. We’ll figure the device out later,” Lucian said. “Bella, you’re with me, let’s see if we can’t find any more survivors.”
Survivors? Of what? The explosion?
The ones called Lucian and Bella broke off and went deeper into the facility while the two soldiers holding my arms carried me through the double doors they’d entered from before.
What greeted me beyond that was absolutely horrific.
So much blood.
Bodies lay everywhere—some whole, some in pieces, some burned, and some… chewed?
The room was a landing bay of some kind with an Allyrian air cruiser parked at the far end. In one corner of the bay, a giant hole in the wall revealed the destroyed lab in the room beyond.
Not an explosion, then. Whatever had happened there—whatever they’d done to that poor man must have caused this. What were these people doing? What had Alton said? "We haven’t perfected the infusion process... results were... complicated."
Was this it? The results of gods know whatever they were pumping into people? If my father is involved in this sort of testing, I don’t think I want to remember who he is.
The soldiers ushered me through the carnage and up the ramp of the air cruiser. The call sign on the side of the ship identified it as an AGIS-Scepter.
Scepter? Like what a king holds?
These weren’t just average soldiers; they were sent directly by the king of Allyria.
I knew Leon said that Oathbreakers were enemies of the throne, but I didn’t think even he expected the king to hunt us down personally. Oh, gods, I was in so much trouble.
My mind started imagining all the horrible things that awaited me: torture, countless years in a dark dungeon, or worse—death. On second thought, maybe death was actually one of the more merciful options.
Hayden and Izaiah escorted me to a small room that appeared to function as a holding cell aboard the air cruiser. A lone bench was crafted out of the hull of the ship that contained several electrocuff braces.
In that moment, the stun effect wore off, and Alton’s command took hold of my body once again. I elbowed Hayden in the face, which caused a sickening crunch, then used my free arm to punch Izaiah in the gut while simultaneously yanking his gun away from him and shoving him to the ground.
I aimed the weapon at him and fired, but he’d already rolled out of the way. Placing his hands on the ground behind his head, he kicked upward, connecting with my own hands and sending the gun soaring through the air.
By then, Hayden had recovered and fired another stun blast into me.
I collapsed to the ground.
Hayden gingerly touched his nose, which had blood flowing from it, and swore.
“Are you all right?” Izaiah asked.
Hayden didn’t answer but instead, ta
pped a blue stone on his gauntlet. A soft blue light ran the length of his body, and the bone in his nose straightened itself. When he wiped his face, I noticed that his nose was no longer bleeding.
A Healing magika stone? Interesting. I need to get me one of those.
“I’m fine,” Hayden said. “Let’s get him locked up before the stun wears off again.”
Izaiah nodded. Lifting me off the ground, they carried me over to the cell and placed me on the bench.
Two electrocuffs locked my legs into the place, and two more fastened my arms to the top of the bench. Finally, they brought a large restraint across my chest and clicked it into place. All five devices glowed with the same white light as my previous cuffs.
“A bit overkill for one kid,” Hayden remarked.
“Do you want that to happen again?” Izaiah replied, pointing at Hayden’s nose.
“S'pose not,” he answered.
“Stay here and keep an eye on him. Don’t let anyone near. I’m going to go check on the captain and Bella,” Izaiah said as he turned and left.
Hayden spun around and closed the door, locking me inside the small space.
Alone and confined, my heart began to race as a pang of fear surged through me once more. Whether it was my impending doom or claustrophobia, I wasn’t sure. One thing I did know, this could not end well for me.
The second they removed my restraints, Alton’s commands would take over once more. Without her here to stop me, I had no reason to believe I’d ever have control of my body again until all six of the king’s royal guards sent to attack the facility lay dead at my feet.
Considering how well my first battle went with them, I didn’t have high hopes.
I must have been locked up for a half an hour or so when I heard my captor speaking to someone outside of the room.
“This area is off limits,” he said to the unseen person who had apparently approached my cell. “Go find your seat and prepare for take-off.”
“I need to see Aren,” a familiar voice said.
Leon? Leon is alive, and he’s here to save me!
“No, no, no!” I tried to say, but Alton’s directive had a death grip on me.
Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1) Page 8
