What he found up the staircase was not the exit but another thing entirely, though it was something else he was looking for. The shadowy staircase led him to a room about half the size of the torture chamber. All the walls were stone bricks of different colors, and apart from two chairs and a table there was nothing in it. On the front half of it, at least, as the back half was a giant cage. Inside were two men, who were guarding the cage. Where the sleeping and very obviously injured body of the purple-haired spy that had brought him was. 

A part of John’s mind told him to abandon Ember there, but that same thought was furiously beaten down the second it reared its head. There would be no more horrors today. Cliche as it was, he had a damsel to rescue. John proceeded to look across the room, his attention focused not solely on the spy. Only a few torches hanging loosely from the walls lit the room. Giving the room a certain darkness that fekt creepy, especially given the shadows he had just seen. The lack of light in the room gave him an idea on how to handle the situation, and so his mind raced.

He had three main options on how to rescue Ember. Two of which he dismissed almost immediately due to their impracticality. One, he could convince the two guards to allow him to take Ember. A feat which looked to be impossible to achieve after a cursory glance at both their sheets. They were loyal and hardworking men, not the type to fall to bribery or trickery. Perhaps if he had a disguise of some sort, but he wasn’t desperate enough to try that. 

Second, he could sneak behind them and take Ember unnoticed, hoping she is conscious enough to use her own abilities to help them escape. John dismissed that by seeing the spy’s current condition. Even if he was able to wake her up, the various injuries and cuts told him she was in no state to fight or escape. Particularly given how exhausting she found using her magic.

The third was the one he decided to go with in the end, he could fight his way in. Both the men were fairly high leveled compared to him, one was level seven and the other ten. Despite that, if he kept his distance and used the staff, he might still have a chance even in a straight fight. At least if he removed their guns from the equation, the same P90 rifles he saw on the other men which they had along with the military garb and insignia that John couldn’t recognize. All he needed to do was disable or knock them out. Something he might just be able to achieve with the element of surprise on his side. Luckily, the plan needed to do it had already formed in his head. 

It was a long shot, but it was also the only option he had that would not likely end in either his or the two men’s death. With that knowledge, willing to take that risk his own life to rescue Ember and get out of there, he took his first steps as swiftly as his legs could move. 

A sudden light formed behind John’s head as he took the first steps, where it could not interrupt his own vision. It didn’t do the two soldiers the same kindness, and their eyes were filled with light within a second. The young man then threw two rounds of Arcane Bolts into each of the men’s weapons, hoping to knock them out of their hands, but succeeding only barely with the second round. Each bolt scratched the rifles like a knife across wood. John thanked his lucky stars that they weren’t aimed at the guards. He dismissed the ball of light and resummoned it in a split second, hoping to blind the men again. Luckily for him, it worked. 

Thinking slightly ahead, he decided to use the only part of his plan that was even riskier than becoming a human flashbang. He wanted to tie up the men with the various articles of clothing he had in his inventory. Only a few seconds were left as the men were already recovering from the second flashbang, and John doubted a third would work. He needed some way to knock them both out. Panicking, he noticed a small object on the belt of one of the men. A taser. Instinctually, his hand went to grab it.

Half stunned, the man still noticed what the Gamer was doing, and sent his hand towards his taser as well. They both grabbed at it simultaneously, struggling over it for a moment. John managed to pull it off the man's belt seconds later, his grip on the taser stronger. He hit the taser back into the man's body in a blink of an eye, and in the next the man was knocked out on the floor. 

After doing the same to the other man as well, John went about tying up both of them with the spare clothes he had. John ripped apart the pieces of his apparel that were now somewhat useless and made them into the best ropes he could manage. They were flimsy, sure, but they would function just as well as a deterrent. Because any attempt to rip them would be quite loud. The clothes he was dressed in now would serve, so it was a small cost for some level of insurance. While they were still stunned, he looked through their pockets, finding the key to Ember’s cell without much trouble. 

Eventually, when John saw the two men recovering, he began to speak in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

“Sit tight and nothing will happen to you. I’m only here for Ember,” John said as calmly as he could, his body trying to shake with all its might while his mind tried preventing it. He eventually gathered the will necessary to steadily and slowly walk over to the cell she was still in. Opening the door was easy, the hard part was getting Ember out of there while still having any semblance of control over the two men that he had supposedly captured.

John got Ember out of the cell swiftly, hurrying as much as he could. She was lying in there, unconscious, and was very obviously in a sorry state. Sadly, the young man had no way to heal her, and none of his magic would help at the moment. Because of that, he took his only remaining option. He hoisted her up upon his shoulder and began heading up the stairway once again as fast as he could. She was quite a bit heavier than he thought he could manage, but the amount of adrenaline in his system said otherwise. So he muddled through carrying her, for now at least. The bolts faded away as soon as he was on the staircase, but it didn’t matter now, as he couldn’t see the guards anymore. As quickly as his legs would take him with another human’s weight pressing down on his shoulders, he ran up the stairs. 

When he reached the top, he came out not into yet another room but into an open courtyard. The sun had long since gone down, and the entire area was covered with pitch-black darkness. Only one thing was visible, a group of men sitting around a similar looking campfire to before, and wearing the same clothes as the guards. He guessed they were there to guard the building he had just exited.

Luckily, they had not noticed him yet, and John hoped to keep it that way. Casting Arcane Barrier for safety, he quickly headed around the small concrete outcropping that was the stairway and began his escape. Except for the open fields he could see surrounding him from every side, there was only a single piece of light from far away. As that was his only real alternative to wandering around in the darkness hoping to not be noticed, the young man headed there.

He forged onwards, the weight of Ember only increasing as the adrenaline in his body decreased, but he had no choice but to keep moving. Slowly, as he strayed further from the campfire and the underground building, darkness began to envelop him. It was not a sinister darkness as in Graham’s mindscape, but simply a benign darkness that lurked, being held at bay only by the light he was chasing. As he became more strained, Ember’s body became ever less stable on his shoulders, and with every movement her shaky breath became ever more unsteady. His arms and legs eventually gave in, the ever growing stress on them too much to bear, and he fell down, the spy falling from his back and onto the ground. One thing was heard as a small pool of blood soon surrounded her. Two solitary words.

“You pass,” the spy whispered with the last vestiges of her power, and they both disappeared in an array of lights.