Runic Domination

Chapter 6 || Finally, Food

The alarm kept blaring as Tyler and I sprinted to a door opposite of the one we'd broken into. A few feet in front I stopped short as I noticed a teenager, maybe fifteen years old, in one of the cells we ran by. His eyes were the only ones I'd seen that still looked somewhat clear to me.

He was very skinny, just like the rest, making the runes on his upper body look even more pronounced. Unlike the others, his runes were pulsing with dim light as if his body was still trying to assimilate the amount of mana forced into it. Most of the prisoners were banging on the walls, shouting and crying, riled up by the noise, but he was watching us quietly.

The desolate look in his intense blue eyes gripped me as I stood aghast, completely rooted in place. He seemed hopeless. For someone so young, he lacked life in a sense.

In the meanwhile, Tyler had broken down the other door in a similar fashion as before, and finally realized that I wasn't behind him anymore. "Kaia, we have to go!" he shouted at me.

I knew we had to, but still, I hesitated. My eyes rapidly scanned the runes inscribed around the cell.

If I overload the set on the right, maybe I can-

But even if they were disabled, he was still chained and behind a thick set of bars.

My thoughts got disrupted by Tyler, who'd grabbed my arm again and started dragging me towards the opening he'd created.

"Tyler wait, we-"

He stopped, turned, and put my face between his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze. "Listen, K. We cannot save or help anyone here. Trust me, I know." His dark eyes were dead serious when he looked at me.

I dropped my gaze and nodded in defeat. Deep down I knew he was right. It just felt so wrong to just run away and leave all these people at the mercy of their jailors.

He took my hand, and to my own surprise I didn't shake him off. His warm grip felt strangely comforting. He pulled me towards the opening he created and then, we were running again.

It took us around two more hours to finally get out of the mountain. Tyler led us through the maze of tunnels, dodging most of the guards out looking for us. We let out our frustration on those we couldn't avoid.

I felt kind of dull when I looked up at the sky that was turning brighter every second as morning approached, my thoughts wandering to the cruel scene we'd witnessed.

When the mind and body were unable to adapt to the amount of mana and pain of the runic inscription, the person started to go mad, slowly turning into something else.

Skeiran, that was the name they were given. A simple shell of their former self, they went on rampages, attacking everyone and everything in an attempt to relieve the immense power they couldn't handle. They were dangerous. The overloading runes empowering them to something beyond possible, at least for a while, until they finally ran out of juice and died.

This discovery changed everything. For months, people from guilds, officials, and everyone else had been clueless about the increased number of Skeiran sightings. Now, I finally found the answer, but it was not something I could just go out and broadcast to the world.

Victor Cane.

I had identified the council member who ran this place previously. He was the one behind all this. I kept twirling my knives, lost in thought, as I contemplated how to approach this.

Victor Cane was definitely not someone to be trifled with. His rise to power was still somewhat recent but he had already firmly established his position. He represented progress, innovation, and campaigned to support the little man. It would seem that his innovational drive ran a bit deeper than people expected.