19 By the skin of his teeth!

MARKUS.

A terrible and splitting headache was the first sign Markus got that he was, in fact, alive.

Oh, joyous day!

Praise be to whatever god had decided to intercede on his behalf.

However, the agony he suffered was akin to the very worst of mornings he endured, usually after being dragged along by his co-workers while they hopped from tavern to tavern, blowing as much coin as feasibly possible on drink.

The thought, strange as it was, given he didn't recall getting drunk, was merely the first vestige of his mind trying to parse the reason he was so indisposed.

Nevertheless, it only took a hazy dozen moments before his eyes shot open, fear and despair, madness and lust, all of it returning to him in a wave of nightmarish reality that had him shooting bolt upright regardless of the pain!

His eyes were wild with uncertainty and fear, his gaze flitting about the gloomy shadows that danced by torchlight, his mind whirling as he tried to understand what was happening.

The cool shift of something foreign around his neck alerted the mage to a painfully glaring memory, his fingers reaching to the silvery chain that ‘the creature’ had donned on him...

A beat later and his fingers gripped it as though in preparation to tear it away, fury filling his veins.

Yet, caution and logic managed to push away the hurricane of emotions battering his sensibilities as Markus forced himself from the ground to his knees.

He wasn't naked, his robes having been returned to him. However, his pack was gone, along with all his possessions.

Nothing remained save for his clothes—and the necklace.

His mind returned to the heinous pleasure that he'd succumbed to, his memories fixating upon the horror that had him in her mocking clutches…

For a juncture, brief as it was, some part of his brain even reasoned that he could simply return to the creature.

Allow her to take him however she wanted, let her use his body for her desires, devote himself fully to her supernatural touch and sinful designs…

Yet, he ruthlessly stomped the thought down!

Markus scrambled to his feet without grace nor a second moments consideration, the muscle in his chest pounding all the way up and into the back of his skull as he looked around, instantly recognizing the strange misty edge of the dungeon entrance, then raced towards it as though death itself nipped at his heels.

Seconds later, he exploded through the veil!

His gaze was frenzied and frantic, his body losing its balance as soft cave dirt transitioned into the cobbled roadway of the city he’d been born to.

He tripped, skittering forward, windmilling his arms in an attempt to catch himself, which merely caused him to awkwardly collide with a nearby youth who grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Oi, you alright blud?"

Markus's gaze widened, his breaths coming in rapid, hyperventilating shakes; he stared at the younger boy who held him in place, the lad's companions spreading out as though to get a better look at the insensate mage who had just hurtled into the street.

He was free…

He was free!

He chuckled, releasing a single barking laugh, his entire body convulsing with a deep-seated and writhing disgust as several others on their way to and from the dungeon paused to glance their way.

He was free.

Yet that didn't erase the—the violation of his very being, n-nor what had happened to his fri—comrades…

"I'm—fine…" he stated shortly after, once his brain had truly reconciled that he was no longer in immediate danger.

Then, a crazed grin overtook his features as he pulled away, and the boy who'd held him allowed the departure with no small degree of concern.

"Maybe we ought to walk you to the guild medics; you don't seem—"

"I'm fine!" Markus affirmed, his words more of a statement as he rose to his full height and wiped his hands on his robe, taking in deep and calming breaths as he turned and spied a curious guard already approaching from the checkpoint. "Thank you, but I'm okay, just a bit rattled, is all.

"If you say so…" the boy allowed, shrugging before turning with the rest of his team, heading straight for the crawling mist after a series of silent gestures between their group.

For a moment, brief as the flash of inspiration was, he wanted to call out to them, to warn them, warn them all that there was a living nightmare stalking the dungeon's halls! One so strong that none save the senior suppression teams might be capable of besting it.

And even then, nothing would put it down for good… not while it remained within that now ‘cursed’ place pretending at domestication.

Yet, the icy chill of the chain as it righted itself around his neck, shifting with gravity but reminding him of his promise all the same, had him hesitating.

His promise and its consequences rose to the forefront of his thoughts, grabbing onto the words as they tried to escape and yanking them right back down his throat.

The young man’s mouth dried as he watched the teenagers disappear through the fog, his jaw clenching with fear and disgust, not only for what might happen to them but for himself.

He was right here,

He could do something about it!

Still, he merely stood there, gazing forlornly at the party while they vanished through the mist.

“Fuck…”

Again, Markus felt a swell of self-loathing, his lip rising to a snarl of revulsion for the secret he was now being forced to share.

Yet before he could descend too deeply into the misery of his own mind, the clinking shift of a mail shirt brought his attention right back to the world around him.

"Ay, you there, no sittin' about around the entrance, you know the rules, get moving or fuck off back inside!"

Markus looked at the guardsman who had gotten near enough to single him out, the man's lazy and disinterested glare enough to remind him that ‘regulations’ and those who enforced them did not pause, sadly, even for the dead.

He nodded at the large figure, pulling air through his teeth and walking towards the checkpoint.

There, he approached the guild kiosk, earning himself several strange looks from the many successfully returning teams who were each documenting their earnings with shrewd clerks and city watchmen standing over them.

His steps felt leaden as he dragged himself before a somewhat apprehensive steward, his heart heavy with what had to be done.

"I'd like to make a report…" he murmured, quaking hands resting on the woman's desk as she looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow. "Suppression team zero-zero, forty-two has been—lost…"

It took the guild representative several long moments as she stared at him before her expression grew grim and all businesslike. "Your name, young man?"

"Markus—Stillwater… and I am here to report that my team is deceased. Huebert Smith, Alicia Goldfield, and Lisa Viniti. They all perished while attempting to perform their duties."

A tall man, dressed in a degree of armored finery that set him apart from the drab but efficient gear of common guards, watched Markus as he offered his morbid answers as best he was able and taking immediate interest in the younger man who had arrived.

No, he wasn't sure what had killed his team.

Yes, he had seen the bodies.

No, he did not know how he survived.

Yes, he was of sound mind.

No, he looted nothing from his comrades' corpses.

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With each new question, the small blue sphere on the woman's desk never shifted in coloration. The truth seeker orb that rested there was not alerting its user to any duplicity because, in truth, Markus really wasn't lying.

Most just assumed them to be the foolproof tools they might at first appear as; however, Markus had studied the art of artifice as one of his primary pillars of education while enrolled at the academy. And he just so happened to know they weren't as perfect as some assumed.

Half-truths and willing omissions, so long as they were absent an outright falsehood, almost never caused the orbs to react.

Nevertheless, as most users were typically aware of its shortcomings, their handlers tended to pose questions in ways to avoid this. Or, if they suspected an individual was hiding something, they would continue along a specific line of questioning until their interrogation managed to uncover a suspicious story, often not letting up until the interrogators were satisfied.

Markus was simply lucky that the woman clearly didn't think much of him.

Granted, he was still level six, despite having been approved to be added to a suppression team; however, the clerk was far less suspicious of his wrongdoing after a handful more questions and much more concerned by the apparent ‘mystery danger’ that had eliminated his team.

"Mr. Yannis, would you terribly mind taking my report and this young man to Master Thorbin? I'm sure he will desire to have his own conversation with him…"

"Aye, ma'am, as you say." The large warrior who had sidled ever closer to listen in, nodded, filing out from behind the desk where he stood sentry and accepting a scroll presented to him by the clerk.

She gave him an apologetic and pitying look as Yannis placed a hand on Markus's shoulder, the woman calling out as they departed, "And see him to the bloody medicus! He's got a concussion."

So saying, Markus felt his legs wobble as they moved, only managing to catch himself at the last moment, but now that the adrenaline was fading, he felt immensely tired…

"Oi, don't be going and falling asleep on your feet, boyo; you've got duties to see to before rack time!"

"I'll be fine…" Markus assured, though as to whether he even believed it, the young man honestly couldn't say.

Either way, Yannis didn't seem to possess much of a friendly cadence towards his charge, Markus noting the occasional dubious look from the man as he stumbled along toward the guild, but received to ‘helping hand’, merely a sense of disdain.

Yeah, sometimes, there were those who didn't exactly look too kindly on those of other classes. False bravado, a predisposition toward conflict, or maybe just a handful of bad experiences, the ‘reason’ really didn't matter.

Instead, Markus just gritted his teeth and trundled forward, resigned to his fate as Yannis marched him past the triage tents without so much as a sidelong glance.

Thankfully, the building in question wasn't far away, situated, as it had been envisioned, at the largest entrance to the dungeon within the city.

Tall, intimidating, and uniformly gray in its palette, the Taeldrian Guildhall was much more reminiscent of a soldier's fortified barracks than anything approaching the softer touch of its new-age doctrine.

While some attempts at bringing a little color and charm to the bleak stronghold had made inroads towards an air of levity, its looming stonework and draping banners still often invoked a sense of foreboding menace.

He'd, of course, walked nearly every corridor within it, moving through its interior rooms and offices when it had often been just another day at work.

However, despite this and the fact that it was filled with people of a predominantly exuberant cheer, partly thanks to the lively tavern-house on its first floor, the structure ‘loomed’ across his perceived wrongdoings. Seeming to almost desire to reach out and arrest him for unlawful collusion with a monster…

There was no theoretical law that stated one couldn't have their throat fucked by a lascivious and murderous monster's tongue, but there were rather notable issues surrounding the willful withholding of pertinent information towards the city's safety.

Of which, he was already technically guilty.

Though vague and somewhat arbitrary for the common citizen, such fail-safes did indeed exist, even if they'd been enacted to help the emperor seize control of the city…

If ever caught, spending the rest of his life in a dungeon was about as good as his fate would get.

In reality?

His days would be numbered from the moment he set foot behind a cage, and the only reason he’d be left breathing between sessions of torture, would be because those who had done the deed were not yet convinced he’d yet ‘shared’ all there was to offer.

Naturally, the thought made his asshole tighten with concern!

When they passed the wing leading to the medical chambers, the true medical facilities, and not just the nurses stationed outside to attend to the most severe emergencies, Markus felt a tinge of concern about his situation…

"Shouldn't I get looked at?" he couldn't help but ask as the large warrior placed a burly hand on his back, pushing him along the corridor as they approached the stairs.

"Don't worry yourself, lad; the guild-master will treat ya to a potion ‘ta cure the woes. What's more important is you getting there in a timely manner. I don't think you fully understand the gravity of our situation," he supplied, following Markus up the spacious stairs, his armor clinking with each and every step.

"Your team was nearly wiped out to a man, and even if you're not the most impressive when it comes to raw power, I knew Alicia and just how talented she was. Nothing in that dungeon should have given her trouble, and your man Huebert wasn't without skill with that large axe of his.

“I'm not calling ya a liar, boy, but you've got to understand that the supposed events surrounding your team's demise are ‘concerning’ as they are absent desired detail."

Markus could only agree with the older guildsman, his mind flashing to Alicia's begging face and sobs, but moments before they'd gone horrifically silent…

Of them all, she had been the most naturally gifted when it came to the system.

Alicia had been awarded all manner of spells and feats for her academic excellence, heralded as something of a prodigy, one that even he had heard of despite being several years her junior.

While levels were indeed important, effort and discipline could oftentimes be just as necessary to one's personal growth. Without practice, the system rarely awarded an individual any form of boon towards their class or profession.

The base experience was, simply put, not enough. Doubly so when one understood that their repertoire of abilities could be improved by their own hand.

Certainly, Alicia hadn't received her lightning spells as a mere mage, given they were of a higher order of wizardry than the base fire spellcraft that their shared class typically would provide.

Her loss was likely the real reason behind his current predicament.

With her request for a transfer, she'd probably been on the guild-master's shortlist to make an attempt at maintaining her presence in his hall, the city's budding doctrine to try and keep young talent from leaving Taeldra for better prospects likely meaning that she would have been placed in a senior suppression team the moment an opening was made.

That was a kind of position that set oneself up for life.

Not a princely one, but she'd never want for good meals, soft beds, and easy monster cores so long as she tied herself to the city. It was no secret that the guild purchased experience to keep its elite members up to par.

And, given the sheer quantity of people who flooded its dungeon and enriched its adventurer's branch, it was no surprise they had the coin for such significant expenditure.

Before long, Markus found himself waiting before a set of ornately carved wooden doors, the depiction of sea monsters and leviathans, artistic renderings of historical descriptions of the horrors that had caused the desolation, now relegated to masterful decor.

Unlike its exterior, the top floor of the guildhall was lavish as it was tasteful.

The satin red carpets, hand-painted pictures, and marble busts of previous guild masters all added to an atmosphere of opulence one might expect within the waiting room of nobility.

A single desk within the semi-filled space served as the lone steward's primary resistance, the man eyeing the two newcomers with equal parts curiosity and lazy indifference as Yannis marched up to his domicile.

"I've urgent business with Master Thorbin in regards to the ‘disappearances’…"

Though his voice was strangely curt and professionally soft for a man of his stature and somewhat gruff cadence, the intensity of his words seemed enough for every ear within the room to perk up with intrigue.

Markus noticed a myriad of eyes falling upon his person while he stood there, somewhat ill at ease, just trying to keep himself together for at least a few more minutes before the exhaustion finally won out and he collapsed.

Even so, the steward rose after briefly scanning the scroll Yannis had provided, then dutifully knocking on the closed doors with a rapid series of sharp rasps.

There was a pause, silence filling the space between heartbeats, but then, the steward opened the heavy portals, revealing a posh parlor wherein two men were already standing and in the midst of conversation.

"Apologies, Captain, I don't usually like to do this, but an important matter has, evidently, arisen."

"No, no, don't worry about it, Charles; it's time I should be returning to the palace regardless; it was nice to sit and catch up with each other, but duty, honor and—all of that…"

The man's words trailed as he turned, a crisp and laundered uniform belonging to the guard, but with the addition of a royal-blue cape that hung from a single shoulder, marking him out as an officer of the city watch.

His face was harsh as it was clean to the grain, his hawk-like features and watery pale eyes regarding first Yannis and then Markus as he shifted the helmet resting under his arm with a curious but fleeting interest.

"Actually, Lord, Master," the steward began, bowing to them each as he shuffled with a kind of nervous uncertainty, "Guildman Yannis has brought with him a young man who just suffered a rather—unfortunate incident that might be of interest to the good captain and of course, yourself."

"Is that so?" An older man of middling height and a neatly trimmed goatee asked, his fingers rising to brush ever so softly at his chin. Where the Captain was a hard man who looked used to making decisions that were as harsh as they were efficient, Charles Thorbin, the guild's current master, shared much of his appearance with a more rotund and jovial merchant.

He wore fine and well-tailored clothes, impeccable in their finery as they were flattering to his otherwise significant girth. Fat and caterpillar brows overhung twin orbs of bright and intelligent brown eyes, while the slight smile that ever graced his features never once slipped, even as he clearly tried to discern the reason behind his current meeting's interruption.

"The scroll will better explain, as I am sure," the younger man stated, handing over the tightly wound parchment before stepping aside to allow whoever might desire an easier avenue to the guildmaster's lounge.

Accepting the report, Thorbin unraveled it without saying a word, briefly skimming its contents before his gaze narrowed with almost imperceptible intensity, his eyes locking onto Markus's person as he handed the note to the nearby Captain.

It seemed to take even less time for the armored officer to move through the paperwork, his eyes darting back and forth with quick and practiced ease before he rolled the scroll back up and frowned at Markus, his expression accented by deep-set worry lines seeming to have become a permanent fixture on his face.

"I believe I can make room in my schedule to be present for these proceedings," the Captain mused, shifting to hand the scroll back to his counterpart, who in turn tucked it into a breast pocket. "Has the boy been checked by a Medicus yet? I see the telltale signs of head trauma in his gaze…"

"Not yet, Lord," Yannis offered, straightening as though on parade. "I deemed it of more importance to see him delivered in a timely manner, given the situation."

"Fine, fine, I'm sure I have a potion lying around up here somewhere," Thorbin sighed, waving his hand at the large warrior who stood at the doors as though uncertain what to do. "Go on, back to your duties, Yannis, and thank you for your escort. Markus, is it?" he added, changing gears and dismissing the older guildsman, who looked somewhat put out, as though he'd been hoping to be allowed to stay and listen.

Yet a hard look from the guard captain was enough to cause the man to reconsider any half-hearted attempt at weaseling in, the warrior nodding as he took a step back. "Please," the guild master continued, "Come in and take a seat, young man, I don't doubt you're rather exhausted after the ordeal you've suffered through…"