'Ohhh... a mellow breeze brushing through my hair. Mmmhh... the sun kissing my face. Yeaaa... the sweet chirps of the birds. Ahhh... vibrant grass shuffling between my toes. Nature's so beautiful, nature's so wonderful. This is what bliss feels like... well almost. Now, if only I could just get these blasted shackles off of me, it'd be so perfect.'

The shackles wore on more exhaustion ever so gradually. To Remus, they were absolutely horrendous, he had definitely sported better before. Despite wanting to just relax and unwind under the clear blue sky, he trudged onward, baddie A of the three baddies that chained him, shoving him forward every so often.

How he got captured was unclear, perhaps a mixture of being unguarded from being euphoric to see alive people, being caught unaware with the sudden appearance of shackles out of thin air and fatigue weighing on his reflexes.

The three unknowns seemed off-put by his appearance with the way they were eyeing Remus. Short pitch-black hair, shimmering an almost imperceptible purple hue from the reflections of light. Eyes a clear milky white with iridescent pupils, the colours dancing inside, held within a deep gaze, all the more complimented with thick eyelashes and eyebrows that shared his hair's qualities. His height extending almost a head taller than them only exacerbated the issue.

Remus attempted conversation with his capturers "Erm, hello? I think you've made a mistake somehow... I promise I'll forget this ever happened if you let me go, pretty please...?"

The attempt was only met with an aggressive gibberish retort from baddie B "Shhh, # #### ## ###!".

Guessing on his reply "Ohhh, you mean this is just how things are done here?". Ways of greeting seemed quite unsavoury in these parts.

Tired and not sensing any ill will beyond that of annoyance and weariness from the trio, Remus stayed his hands for now. The main priority on his list was to get rest and replenish his energy. He inferred that they were leading him to some settlement, where they should have some food stocked up somewhere and proper shelter. Looking forward to eating, he hummed along the whole walk.

This carried on until roughly an hour after they entered a forest area. Remus noticed some oddities cropping up into view from the surroundings. What a normal forest ambience would have, this one did not. Present were scatters of rocks, plants, shrubbery and trees, whatever was typically available here. However, the clear lack of insects buzzing around, the stilling void of prancing birds and squirrels in between trees, the jarring mute rustling of the leaves in the tree crowns, and even the gentle rays peeking through the foliage seemed dull somehow. These signs tripped up alarms in Remus' head. The trio escorting him weren't the slightest bit bothered. Something wrong was clearly going on.

The deeper they went, the worse the forest looked. Trees progressively appear more and more sickly, the vegetation became sparse, few and far between, while the ground hardened solid and hoarse. All left on the forest floor were small patches of monochrome lifeless grass.

"Heyyy, guys... can we turn back?"

"#### ###!" baddie B interjected.

"Oh come on! If you're not letting me go, I'll let myself go!"

'Okay, I admit that my judgement hasn't been sound for a while. Wherever they're taking me spells bad news, maybe even more than what I'm cut out for. It was always the Murim cults that lived in the most disturbing of places, and I see signs...'

UGGGHHH!- Remus tugged on his chains, pulling his hands apart. Ever so confident in his strength despite running on fumes.

"ARGG! WHY ISN'T IT WORKING! I'm no wee lil' mortal! I have exactly 42 times peak mortal strength!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! ### # #### ####!" baddie A and B took clear amusement from his attempt at escape.

Ah, how the mighty have fallen, things were looking down for Remus. No amount of tugging, pulling or twisting worked. He had nothing to show for his efforts, not even a creak from the mystical metal that constrained him. It wasn't long after that he noticed he couldn't access Mana which was normally used for enhancements of speed and strength in the Murim, he almost panicked and slowed down to a halt. As ever his habit for when preparing to decide to enact some kind of rapid change...

"Display Status", Remus firmly called out. Nothing happened. No familiar translucent screen interposed his vision. No Attribute list detailing his capabilities. Not anything. That was the last straw for him.

Realising that he was now paralysed of all agency except for his capacity to walk, he sprinted away from the trio, fast. Leveraging the most out of his available physical Attributes, he blasted past them like a nimbus. If it wasn't already obvious, the trio were very unhappy with the sudden turn of events.

"### #### ###!!!" the ever so silent baddie C, the apparent leader of the group ordered chase.

"Nope, nu-uh... I'm outta here!"

***

"Huff, huff, huff- Yes! huff- I huff- I got away!" crouching, his right hand holding onto the bark of a luscious tree with his left hand supporting himself with his knee. He couldn't take any more exertion. He felt as if he was swimming in molasses with a boulder pushing him down.

PLOPP-

Absolutely shit-faced, Remus drew a blank and darkness claimed him.

***

'I've failed in my escape... how do I know? Well, I know a cage when I see one... F***'

"F***- F***- F***- FF*****KK!" Remus cursed his fate, in concert with a futile tantrum of head bobbing and violent pulling and pushing away from the cage bars.

Remus wasn't alone in the cage, two others were with him, standing on the opposite end of the cage. The bigger of the two which Remus dubbed Shiny had a frame slightly bigger than that of Remus himself clothed in hunter wear, with a definitive lack of hair on top, bright fair skin, thick brown facial hair with brown eyes to match. The other one was a scrawny, malnourished boy barely a metre tall, overall dirty blonde hair of shoulder length, his bangs covering most of his face, dressed in brown rages barely recognisable as a robe. This one he dubbed Butter.

The environment surrounding them was simply put, disturbing. An antithesis of what nature represents. The atmosphere was all dark and deary, echoing around were the sobbing of others, all caged. An underlying rotting smell in the air, damp with the tang of iron and burdened with a feeling of dismay and desolation. The ground was covered in a black lichen, almost slime-like yet unusually granularly coarse, while dark clouds overhung the whole prison encampment.

From his limited view, Remus estimated there to be hundreds of cages, some of them packed to the brim with maybe twice a dozen people. The confines of the cages measured 2 metres on all sides and were threateningly cramped for some unlucky enough to be overcrowded.

Complexions differed greatly according to the cage. Full cages that seemed to be the majority, homed people with sickly, starved and dirty complexions, barely any dressed. Other cages were like that of his own, with barely any people, approximately a quarter to half a dozen at most. They Looked mostly healthy albeit with expressions of distress or melancholic acquiescence.

***

For two days Remus had been confined within these metal bars. The same mystical metal that made up the shackles on his arms. Shackles that were only worn by another, Shiny. He had been making other observations of the state of the concentration camp, looking for anything that he could take advantage of to make an escape.

'Ahh, it's the friends of those three arse-heads that brought me here. Damn them. All freakin happy in those gaudy, oversized.... clean robes.'

Walking around the encampment were supposed sentries, locking down the order. Occasionally they poked fun at the prisoners, literally, with their spears.

'It's always just four different coloured squads doing rounds simultaneously. Each squad make shifts of eight hours each, rotating with another squad within their respective platoons, at least that's what I assume those colours represent. I'd assume there is always a well-rested squad on standby. Four... hmmm, it matches with seeing the occasional march of some more armoured sentries, probably the platoon captains.'

Each captain seemed to hold onto a spear that had a slight glow. He suspected that those spears were his ticket out of here. Remus tried recruiting his cage mates into his plan, but communication was a big issue for Remus. He didn't recognise the language being used in this place. Remus resolved that escaping would have to be a solo venture since collaboration seems circumspect, mostly fearing miscommunication which will most definitely end any escape attempt in failure. 

'Hmm...  here comes the food of the day, right on time. Hopefully, there'll be more meat in the stew this time. Sure not the tastiest of thing but there are worse foods out there...'

Remus thought wrong. What arrived into the hands of all prisoners was a dish so horrifying, that Remus almost fainted again. It was the most dubious of gruels, surely a true test of Remus' character, to be eating the vilest of foods. Remus strongly hung onto the principle of foods existing not just to nurture, but also to bring joy and adventure through the artful expression of differing tastes from the ingredients that contributed to the crafting of the meal. But the slushy gruel did not taste good, should not even be considered a taste, impossibly foulest of a taste. Truly Remus tried, truly but...

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm... yummyyyyy...... afuhhh- ughh-" Remus displayed a look of torture, utter sadness and despair.

"It doesn't blarg- it is not smell gud, that uhh doesn't smell good," A melancholic expression made up a million words of his suffering "my bo-dy... am i doin it?"

CHOMP!- om nom nom-

BELLCCH-

"THAT'S DIABOLICAL... no, not good... ahahaha..."

GULP-

sob- sob- ughuuhuuhuuhuuh- ahuhuhuuuu-

Remus ugly-cried to his predicament. Slowly but surely the gruel emptied from the rough wooden meal container while tears streamed down his face. The only other victims of the dish were all the eating implements used by the prisoners.

"Mark my words! Thou shalt feeleth mine own wrath, I swear!"

Remus swore vengeance on the oppressors that forced such monstrosities onto him. All the while his cellmates for the whole debacle kept a moderate amount of distance from him in silent judgment of his craze.

***

As days passed by, things seemed bleaker. The food being served devolved further and further from being edible. Every three days, hundreds of prisoners were let out of their cages and escorted in a certain direction. Many, many attempts at running away failed. Those that tempted their fate were dismembered and returned to the procession. They likely succumbed to injury along the way.

All of Remus' attempts to snatch up a captain's spear failed. The whole of the militia was now weary to approach his cage ever since him taking hostage one of the food distributors. He didn't take things too far, he just broke any and all bones that he could reach from within his confines in an attempt to attract the attention of the big wigs. He didn't bother checking out the person, and it didn't matter to Remus as he actively practices gender equality. But the attempt fell through, horribly. All he earned was a new cellmate, the same one he had broken bones of. There was no love here. Evidently, the ex-capturer's useless state now qualified them a place in whatever plans their wardens had for all their captives. This one he dubbed Bones.

Remus passed his time by singing and attempts of bonding with his cellmates through jokes. Somehow they enjoyed the jokes. They always laughed at them, even at the most boring ones that got lost in translation. Truly awesome people. Well besides the new one that just moaned, groaned and loaned a huge part of cage real estate.

Aiming for a change of pace, Remus occasionally took up to bestowing a few nuggets of wisdom scrapped on the cage floor, to the curious little boy, Butter. In between sessions, when bored he tried dancing. All sorts of manoeuvres were tried, before settling on ballet movements. He spun, 'tounered' crudely. 

thump- thump- swish~ thump-

Then he jumped, 'sautered' unsuccessfully.

thump- swooosh~ klang!-

"Ouch! My head!" he exclaimed midair when his head clashed with the top of the cage.

thump- crunch- bletch-

1x Dour Snail Slain
+0.001% Essence Accumulation

"Huh? A snail? .... Well at least that didn't get in my foot. Better than having slime on my clothes Haha!"

Behind Remus, hidden from his view, all his cellmates appeared mortified. Shiny, Butter and even Bones crept their way to the furthest point from Remus. For Remus, that night and all of the subsequent ones were full of rife with horror.

***

This is what hell feels like, being enveloped by slime day in, day out. Ooze, sludge, muck, mucus, goo, an unpleasantly thick and slippery liquid substance. That's what he became, he became one with slime. 

All over him was slime. After accidentally crushing that poor snail, the brethren of that one innocent squashed swarmed him nonstop. These snails were very guilty, very, very guilty snails. Guilty of desecrating his clothes. So he flicked them, each and every one of them into the horizon. It sort of became a sport for himself to set a shot further than the last one.