Megumi breathed a small sigh of relief as she was dragged off the ship and onto the dock. At last she was on sturdy ground again. 

These assholes are going to die painfully for making me go on that rickety boat! Gods I hate boats! 

Her mouth tasted of bile and the guards shoved her to the ground hard in her chains and went back up the plank to get Undine. While she was on the ground, the mage that had traveled along with them crouched down next to her.

"It was a lot of work to set this up, you know? The price on your head is high, little girl, and the warden has been sparing no expense to keep tabs on you since you left the capital. We have such... fun things... in store for you and your friends." The man whispered into her ear while caressing her hair.

Megumi had to fight the urge to vomit at being touched by this man. He was vile. The bastards had been getting information on them for that long? These were definitely not some low ranking members of the Villain's Guild to have been able to pull something like that off. 

How in the hell is the Villain's Guild in charge of the most highly secure prisons on the continent? And why? Is it to get people who got caught out of their charges? Not likely. So what's their angle? There's no way that I'll be able to get word to Reynard for help or that we'll even get a trial. We need to get out of here, but do I break free now, or wait?

Megumi considered her options carefully as Undine was deposited next to her. They were keeping Poro-tan a short distance away from them. Perhaps they thought he would break free from those chains somehow. Physically, he was the biggest threat, and the guards would definitely not see her as intimidating. She could use that when the time came to get away. Were all the people here in on this or were they merely corrupt guards?

Breaking free now would mean that she would have to fight off the guards unarmed, and contend with the mage. If she killed one or two guards, she could raise them or even summon her Blood Golem, but would it be enough? He had her belongings, and was a powerful Aeromancer from what she had gathered. Her destructive power would be lessened without her staff to channel her power through as well.

Don't be an idiot Megu. They aren't going to kill us, so I have time to wait for a better opportunity. I'll only get one shot at getting the inhibitor off and then they'll know I can do it. I have to do it only when I'm sure that we can win.

"We're taking them to see the warden, get them up."

The guards yanked them all to their feet and flanked them as they traversed the wide dock towards the guard house leading inside the keep. Megumi stared up at the enormous structure and wondered just how many prisoners the place held. The Aeromancer knocked on the heavy guardhouse door and a fat, bald guard came out and unlocked the heavy iron gate leading inside the keep for them.

"Move!" A guard shoved his fist into her lower back and shoved her through the dark entryway. 

Megumi was adding people to her kill list left and right tonight. She turned and made sure to get a good look at the guard's face after she was inside. Torches lit a narrow passageway that they now wound their way through. The place was like a maze, full of twists and turns, and every so often there were gates blocking the way that had to be opened.

Escaping this place would be a nightmare. Several more minutes of winding through the labyrinthine passages of the keep, they came before a large, heavy looking wood door. 

Time to see who the man behind this is. He'll probably be powerful, but when we make our escape, we'll need to come here and deal with him. He's definitely going to have information on Thera's whereabouts, too. We can get what we need out of him before killing him slowly. 

"You four, stay out here," the mage said to the guards, "Prisoners, follow me."

The room beyond the door was utilitarian in nature, as she supposed that most of the rooms in a place like this would be. Nothing adorned the walls, and the only real decor in the room was a large bearskin rug that sat on the ground in front of a heavy looking wooden desk. There was an extremely large and heavy looking two-handed great sword leaning against the wall in a scabbard behind the desk by one of the barred windows overlooking the ocean outside. On one side of the room was a bank of file cabinets and a door with a calendar hanging on it.

Their tour guide, walked over to the door and knocked on it loudly a few times. Megumi could hear someone grumbling and groaning for a moment behind the door, and when the mage knocked again a loud, irritated, voice boomed from beyond.

"Somebody important had better be dying if you're in here banging on my damned door in the middle of the night!"

The magician winced at the man's tone. "The ones you have been waiting for are here. You told me to notify you immediately upon their arrival."

Another moment of waiting and then the door swung open. A humongous mountain of a man walked out into the room, he wore a pair of brown trousers and no shirt. He had scruffy sand-colored hair and his face was covered with stubble and looked to Megumi as though he could snap her neck like a twig with his hand with minimal effort if he tried with all those muscles.

He gave a quick once over and then snorted as if disappointed before going behind his desk and taking a seat in the chair. The warden leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and cracked his knuckles while staring them down.  "So this is the little girl is the one who ruined Thera's chimera operation and has been giving the guild so much trouble? You really stepped into a pile of shit, you know that, girl?"

"They were experimenting on orphans. The alchemist and all the people in that village got what was coming to them," Megumi replied cooly.

"A guild member with morals, eh? You really are an odd one. I like that though. You see, you three are going to make me a lot of money, one way or another."

Megumi didn't reply, but instead gave him a heated glare. I won't be making you anything, except maybe an undead slave to use while I get the fuck out of this hellhole!

"There it is! That fire in your eyes. That's what we love around here, am I right, Olie?"

The mage who had been their tour guide grinned widely. "I am sure they'll live up to your expectations."

Expectations?

The warden opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small wooden box and popped it open. Inside was a row of cigars and he casually reached in and grabbed one, clipping off the end and then sticking it in his mouth and lighting it up. The embers on the end glowed brightly as he inhaled and then he blew out a large puff of smoke in her direction. 

"I bet you're wondering what we have in store for you here? Well, you see, this prison is a venue for one of the oldest forms of entertainment in the world. High ranking members of society as well as other members of the Villain's Guild like to come visit us and watch as our prisoners compete for their lives in fights to the death. They place bets, and we make a killing." 

He stood up from the desk, taking another puff of his cigar as he walked around and stood right in front of her. She itched to kill this man here and now, but could she even get a spell off were she to break free before he could smash her like a bug? He loomed over her and blew a large puff of smoke into her face before he flicked his cigar over her head, dumping ashes on her.

That's it. This fucker is going to burn.

She was seriously considering going for the kill, when he reached down with his large hand and grabbed her hard by her chin and made her look up into his face. "Yes, I can see it now, you're going to be a good one, and even if you're not, I still get to collect your bounty afterwards. It's a win-win situation." 

He let go of her and shoved her back a little. Her jaw hurt where he had squeezed her, and she wanted badly to kill him and every guard in this place, but it really would be stupid to attack someone without knowing anything about their abilities. The man was in a position of power here, not that different from the alchemist in the mountain village, and that meant that he was likely powerful in some way.

Judging by the sword against the wall, he was likely some sort of swordsman like Hideki, but she couldn't rule out the fact that he could be hiding any number of nasty abilities.

"Why would we fight for you? You're just going to kill us anyway."

"Well, if you don't fight, then I will make things very uncomfortable for you before I let you die. If you do well, you might even find that life here isn't so terrible. Our best fighters enjoy some pretty nice perks. I will let you live so long as you continue to struggle. It's up to you if you want to die or not, but we will get at least one match out of each of you. Best not be disappointing me."

Megumi wanted to say something else and opened her mouth to do so when he cut her off and continued, "Olie, get them out of here. We're done for tonight. Take them to D Block and separate the ladies from the fighter. I don't want them together, because I'm sure the wheels are turning in that cute little head of hers about how she can get out of here. As for the ladies, put them in one of the special cells just to be on the safe side. After that, take their belongings to the treasury."

"You heard him. Move it. We have a long walk ahead of us still and I want to get some damned sleep tonight."

Olie ushered them out the door and back into the hallway. She stole one glance back at the man who was eyeing her like a piece of meat as he continued puffing away on his cigar before she was shoved out into the hallway. Megumi's companions had done good to keep quiet, she didn't want them letting slip any information by accident that could be useful to their enemy. Poro-tan knew that she could break free of her collar, but she had never divulged that story to Undine. This meant that he was probably watching for an opportunity when she was going to break free, but that Undine wasn't. 

Once they were back into the hallway, they continued winding around in the building for at least another twenty minutes before finally coming to something different from winding hallways. A large room served as the entryway to what she assumed would be their dungeon, and there were beasts chained to the walls eating what looked like the bloody remains of human bodies that were heaped in piles on the floor.

There were guards posted at the entrance to this room and they saluted as Olie approached before breaking off to grab hold of large chains that came out of the walls. They pulled on the chains, which she now realized ran through the walls and to the beasts themselves, and the monsters were pulled back safely so they could proceed.

The beasts snapped furiously as they passed and she weighed the monsters, which resembled some kind of mutated dogs, as a minimal threat for their escape. What was really interesting about this room, however was the treasure that these idiots had unknowingly set out for her. All those body parts were like gold, and seeing as they looked to be fresh, she could utilize the blood to summon her Blood Golem when the time came. Her Golem would would surely make quick work of those monsters and their keepers at the end of the room, she was sure of it. 

Beyond the room with the monsters, there was a large, wide corridor lined with cells. Half of them were empty, and the ones with occupants were quiet as most of them were asleep. Poro-tan was shoved into a cell by himself and they were taken all the way to the very end of the cell block. The cells in the back were slightly bigger than the ones that they had seen so far, and there was something interesting about them as well.

Embedded into the ceiling above each of the cells was a glowing purple gemstone the size of the palm of her hand. She suddenly realized what they were, and felt despair as the heavy steel bars clicked shut behind them. 

"Enjoy your stay," Olie chuckled as he walked away from their cell with the guards. 

"I'm going to personally burn that fucker's face off," Megumi growled under her breath as the light from the torches the guards had been carrying dimmed away, leaving them awash in the purple glow of the gemstone above them.

Undine had collapsed onto the uncomfortable looking cot in the back of the cell and was weeping. Megumi almost wanted to join her, as it was clear that her initial plan of breaking free once the mage had left was now impossible. The stone above her worked just like her collar did, except on a large scale. The stones would create bubbles of nullification magic that would prevent them from using magic even if they were to get free. 

I should have known they'd have something like this here. We're going to have to escape when they come get us and we're away from these things. It takes away our upper hand of just waltzing out of here, but we will still escape. I will have that warden's head before we leave this shit hole. How dare he dump ashes on me!

Megumi walked over to Undine's cot and sat down next to her, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Undine, we're going to get out of here. It'll be okay."

"How? No one has ever escaped this wretched place!"

"I have a plan, it's not a great one, but I should be able to get us free from these collars at least when the time comes," she whispered.

"You're delusional," Undine said between sobs as she shoved her face into her lumpy pillow.

"Listen. We're in this together, and I'm going to need your help. First, you're going to tell me everything you know about this place. I don't believe for a second that you didn't know about what goes on here."

After a few more moments of whimpering, the noblewoman sat up, wiping tears from her face and took a deep breath. "I'm a high lady, I can't believe that I've fallen so low as to end up here, but I do know some things about this place."

"Great. I need to know everything. Have you been here before?"

The woman shook her head. "Before he died, my father used to come watch the bouts when I was younger. He would leave me in Seahaven and come watch with his friends. I know that they pit prisoners up against each other and that they also force them to fight vicious beasts. They have matches once a week as far as I know and back then, they were always on the last day of the week."

"So that means we have our first fights in about five days, assuming that they wont leave us to rot for longer. Let's try to get some sleep, okay?"

Undine nodded and buried her face in her pillow again. Megumi walked around the cell for a few minutes before sitting down on her own cot. There wasn't anyone in the cell next to them and had stone walls on two sides of them. Across the way, it looked like there was someone in a cell sleeping. 

I wonder if that person will talk to us and tell us more about this place? We'll have to try at least, but we should be careful about being overheard. I need to make sure I keep important things to a whisper.

Megumi laid down on her cot and stared up at the ceiling. The warden was definitely high enough up that he would have information on Thera. She needed to get it out of him before they escaped this place, but what kind of abilities did the man have? Since there wasn't anything for her to do here, she decided it was long past time to spend the TPs that she had been holding on to. She really had been neglecting to do this for too long now. She pulled up her skill tree.

There were some interesting new things on here for sure. She had two points to spend, and each of the new skills looked to be interesting. She didn't really need any explanation on Fortify M. Resist, so she skipped it. She decided to see the details on Curse Mastery, however and focused on it to bring up the description.

She had been disappointed with how often her curses had failed, but those spells were far from her favorites to use anyway. She would probably pass on this one for now. Next up on her list was Crimson Infusion. If it was anything like Sanguine Infusion, then she was sure that it would be useful.

This spell had potential to turn her into a true powerhouse if she worked on it enough. If she poured skill points into this new spell, she could steal stats to become a true powerhouse down the road. It was something she would definitely want, but would it be useful to her right now? The other huge downside was that she couldn't use this in addition to Sanguine Infusion. Would it be worth having a chance to boost her magic permanently over gaining a skill point right now? She would mull it over while looking at her other options.

The limitations on this spell spoke only of its potential power. If she was to kill a powerful opponent during a battle, she could temporarily bring them back to fight for her and utilize their abilities for her favor. She didn't need to think about this one, she unlocked it before moving on.

This one didn't sound particularly interesting to her. She was already sufficiently protected through Magic Skin and if it came down to it she had her Spirit Barrier spell as well. The only benefit that she saw from this at all was that she could use it to shield her allies. Not only that, but she had a feeling that Undine could already create something very similar and more effective with her water magic. This spell was a loser.

Pretty low chance of success on that one, but I really like the idea of exploding people's eyes! What a fantastic way to cripple an enemy! I will definitely be getting this one down the road.

Now that she had seen the details of all her options, she decided to opt out of getting any of the other new skills for now and instead gain a second level on Raise Enhanced Undead. The skill would be the most valuable right now, and she intended on harvesting a lot more TPs on her way out of this place. With luck, she would leave here with a good collection of TP to spend. She grinned at the thought and closed out her windows, before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep on her tiny cot.