A little over a hundred outlaws were pushed in through the gates of Raventor — the most ancient and bizarre prison in Moores — and only around sixty were still breathing. The hunters, natives of the prison who called themselves Enforcers, chased the criminals through the woods. Arrows whizzed; blood flew; the smell of death hung thick in the air.

 

Not all the blood was of the outlaws, however.

 

At the foot of an old elm tree lay a corpse of an enforcer, glassy eyes staring up at the swaying branches of the tree, blood trickling down from his open mouth. Beside him sat Roid, an outlaw, leaning against the tree, panting and grimacing as he clenched his pale hand around the shaft of an arrow that nailed into his dark shoulder. He took in a shaky breath, gritted his teeth, and snapped the shaft closest to the wound. 

 

A grunt escaped from his lips as the searing pain burned through the dark arm and up over the neck.

 

He’d need to pull out the arrow and cauterize the wound before it festered, but that could wait. Hunters were still loose in the woods looking for outlaws, and he wasn’t safe yet. He closed and opened his dark hand, and worked his elbow to see the extent of the injury. Luckily, the arrow missed the bones and slid through the flesh over his shoulder joint. It burned whenever he moved his shoulder, but otherwise fine. 

 

Roid hugged his pale leg, forehead on the knee, and sighed in relief. There were days, in his time as a gladiator, he had to fight with wounds far more grievous than a shaft in the shoulder. As far as he could tell, it was not a bad day.

 

He put down his pale leg and pulled in the dark, dead leg with a hand, and began going through his things, to plan for how to proceed from here on. He used up a vial of glint to kill the enforcer. That left five. Two vials filled with brown, gritty fog swirling inside — earth glints that enhanced his strength for the period of time he could hold his breath. Three vials of soft milky fog — wind glints that boosted speed. He wished he could’ve lifted more in the colosseum. What could a black and white freak with a limp leg like him ever do without them!

 

Beside the vials, there was a rusty shiv, two dead rabbits, and a feisty snake head which, even after separated from its body, opened and closed its mouth with hatred. Roid just hoped it still held some venom in those fangs. Could come handy against those enforcers.

 

He then crawled over to the dead enforcer to fish for useful things. No vials, unfortunately, but he found two shining daggers, razor sharp. The bow, he ignored as his dark arm wasn’t good enough to hold a bow. But he snapped shafts of arrows in half and kept the arrowheads. 

 

And that brought him to the last thing the enforcer had to offer — clothes which were much more safe and comfortable than the scratchy roughspun he had on him.

 

He almost successfully shrugged into the studded leather vest when a voice came floating in the air. The announcer’s voice which he had been hearing for a while, no matter in which part of the woods he was. “Bunnies, my dear miscreants! Catch a bunny and you live,” the voice called. “Raventor isn’t a place for the soft and weak. Neither is it so easy to wriggle into our noble order of Enforcers. Catch a bunny, and prove that you can hunt, that you can work under extreme conditions, that you can be useful to the order. Or die here, that’s much better than ending up in the bellies of ghor beasts.

 

“Anyways, Just catch a bunny and you’ll be safe, I promise!”

 

Bah to your promise! Roid spat. And bah to you!

 

Bunnies, he had them alright. Two of them, in fact. But he couldn’t trust a word rolled off their greasy tongues.

 

If the world was so bright a place that you could hold a man to his promise, he’d never have been in a hellhole like this. He’d have been free instead.

 

He woke up that morning, expecting to be freed from the clutches of the colosseum like the arena masters promised. Expecting to be finally a free man — like any other, somebody with more dignity than a slave, somebody who was protected by rights of the world, somebody that just lived like a man would instead of being forced into killing to live.

 

Win a hundred battles, they said, the arena masters. You’d be set free, they promised. But when Roid finally managed to pull it off after three grueling years in the pits, they packed him off to Raventor, a prison where you ditch criminals who were deemed too dangerous to roam free outside.

 

Him? A criminal? He was forced into the pit where only one man can walk out alive from. What choice had he had? He never harmed a soul that didn't try to kill him.

 

But who was listening?

 

People never listened to a gladiator except when they shouted for a kill or screamed in pain. Muchless now… he didn’t even know what he was now. A soon-to-be-dead prisoner? A plaything of enforcers to hunt for fun?

 

He raised the bunnies by their ears and eyed them, kneading his jaw. Or a future enforcer?

 

It was a brief wishful thinking, but Roid shook it off. Luck never worked for him, if his past experiences were anything to go by.

 

A good ending never seemed to be in the cards for him. When he tried to help his family off a debt, he was sold off to a beggars’ temple. When he fled from that, he found himself in the colosseum. And now… 

 

Everytime he struggled, he ended up in a worse situation. 

 

What’s next? A morbid thought. One would think it wouldn’t get any worse than this, but then again, Roid wasn’t so sure. Not with his luck the way it was.

 

But whatever lay ahead, he didn’t intend to give up. Sun didn’t stop rising, and Roid didn’t stop chasing freedom. 

 

He pushed back a lock of dirt, gray hair that plastered to his face, pulled on the breeches (had to do a little dance to shove in his dead leg), picked up his glints and other things, and dragged himself through the woods away from the direction the voice came. Walking was a battle of its own: he put forth the pale foot, swung in the dead one after it, and then leaning all his weight on the log of a leg, he hopped, bringing forth the pale foot. On and on and on.

 

It became his own little dance now: hop and swing, hop and swing, hop and swing it went. Crunching of fallen leaves and branches under his feet worked for music. 

 

In the dead silence of the woods, the music was broken only by the death screams of his fellow outcasts all around him, away from him in the beginning, but drawing closer with time. Threatening to consume him soon. It was a good thing he killed the enforcer scouting in his direction; that brought him some time. 

 

Not long enough though, seeing how close the last scream was. Roid hurried by as fast as his dead leg could carry him, sweating and panting. He was almost at the edge of the woods when he saw it: a looming earthen wall, rising high above the trees, spreading far and wide around the woods, blocking any outlaw from fleeing. 

 

Roid pulled up short with a sinking sense of disappointment in his gut. There it goes into the gutter, my precious Plan A.

 

Hardly any surprise in that, he supposed. You didn’t let loose a hundred beasts in the woods and expect to catch all of them with ten odd hunters. Still, it didn’t hurt to check the options.

 

He looked at the towering wall again, taking in the unnatural aspects of it — in the way how smooth and polished it was as if it was built a second ago, in the way how it rose out of the land as if by a spell. How could a man build a wall made entirely of mud to that height? How many people must have slipped and fallen and died to build it?

 

It didn’t make any sense, honestly. But again, nothing quite did about this place. A famous tale in Moors was that, in ancient times, Raventor used to be a prison to hold the mighty gods. Gods, if you could believe it. And one day a criminal came in, secretly carrying with him the most precious treasure in the world. But like all secrets, it leaked. What followed was endless battles between gods. They fought and fought for the treasure until they all died, until the prison broke and became the ruins that it was now. 

 

A stubborn ruin that still took in prisoners, but refused to let them go. It stood for hundreds of years, but there was yet to be a prisoner who escaped it. 

 

There’ll soon be one, Roid thought. I don’t know when or how, but I’ll escape. You can depend on it.

 

The mud wall seemed to say otherwise. He could almost see it taking on an arrogant face and mocking him: Worry about escaping from your situation first. 

 

“Not so fast, you stupid mud wall,” Roid retorted, holding up the dead rabbits. “I still have Plan B.”

 

Almost as if in answer, a clip-clop of heavy footfalls reached his ears. Turning around, he saw two enforcers sauntering over towards him airily, perching on their heavy mounts. Brogs, he heard them called — horse-sized pigs with the snout of a cow, quite quick on hooves despite their thick build.

 

He never saw such beasts in Moors; another curiosity exclusive to Raventor.

 

One of the enforcers was a skinny, harelipped man with a cocksure smile playing about his lips, as though he knew it all. The other was a stocky man with a size that matched the mount he rode, narrow eyes always squinting in dissatisfaction. 

 

“Look! A rat has slipped from the nest,” said the harelipped enforcer, grinning and patting his thigh. “Told ya, we’re better off staking out the wall. Whoever manages to avoid the enforcers and can come here, they’re bound to be worth ten times the contribution points of those rabble.”

 

“Ye sure about that?” asked the fat enforcer, his squinty eyes scanning Roid with disgust. They started with the dirt gray hair that framed Roid’s face, lingered around his almost pupil-less white eye, followed down the line where the pale and dark sides of his skin lapped against each other, and finally stopped at his dead leg. “This one doesn't look like much. A cripple with queer complexion. I don’t like him,” he declared.

 

Roid frowned. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he was made light of. Three years ago, perhaps, when he was a beggar. And he burnt the beggar temple to cinders in the end.

 

“You don’t need to like him to kill him, Jello.” the harelipped enforcer laughed at his own joke. “We just have to finish him and farm the contribution points.”

 

“Let’s see what he’s worth then,” said Jello, nudging his mount closer to Roid, wheeling around him like a man around a whore before he paid her advance. Roid didn’t like it one bit, but he reckoned a little forbearance was required in this situation.

 

Well, it’s time to see how much water their promise holds, thought Roid even though he reckoned it won’t be much. “Oh hello there, esteemed enforcers!” called Roid, trying to put in as much enthusiasm as possible in his tone. “I was just looking for you to handover these bunnies.” He waggled the rabbits at them cheerfully.

 

“Oh, he has bunnies!” laughed the harelipped enforcer. He laughed at everything; it was fast getting annoying. 

 

Jello ignored them and continued to stare at Roid for what looked like forever before he finally said as if reading from an invisible paper hung in front of Roid’s face, “Name: Roid, age: 19, Crime: killed 181 men, Contribution points upon execution: 36.” 

 

Roid’s pupils shrank. How did Jello find out the details about him that even Roid himself only had a vague idea of? Was there really an invisible paper hung in front of him? Stupidly, Roid waved a hand before him, but he found nothing.

 

“36!” whooped the harelipped enforcer in surprise and delight. “We hit the jackpot, I tell you! A goddamn jackpot! With that many contribution points, we can get a job. Might even buy entry into a cemetery and forge a new rune!”

 

The way they eyed was not unlike a wolf stared at a fat sheep. Jello’s piggy little eyes were dripping with greed as he advanced on his mount, his arm in the air to grab Roid. And the skinny enforcer was licking at the cleft in his upper lip.

 

And there it goes up in the flames, my Plan B. Roid clicked his tongue. I knew I shouldn't trust these bastards. 

 

Although he was a pessimistic soul who always expected the worst, at heart, he hoped to be wrong. That there were still some men with morals left in this world. That this world wasn’t all a dark place… 

 

But unfortunately, not today. Plan C, it is then. 

 

It was a simple plan: kill everyone who stopped him from walking away. It was a plan he was most comfortable with. No ifs and buts. No dithering. Only fight, which he was good at.

 

A hundred battles he won, all death matches, and always walked out of the arena alive no matter how strong his opponents were, no matter how grievous his injuries were. They called him Roid the Roach for it.

 

Let’s see if his winning streak will continue today.

 

He waited until the unsuspecting enforcers came within three strides from him before lashing out like a storm. With a swift swing from the dagger he had been hiding, he sliced at the fat man’s outstretched hand. Two stubby fingers flew in the air.

 

“Gah!” cried the fat man, reeling in his perch, cradling the bloody stumps in the other hand, wincing. 

 

Even as the skinny enforcer was shocked by the turn of events and was fumbling for his sword, Roid threw the snakehead at him. It bit the man around his mouth, giving him a feisty kiss on the lips. The man went down with a yelp, rolling on the ground, pulling at the snake head, trying to wrench it free.

 

Before they could recover, Roid brought the wind glint to his nose, unstoppered it with his thumb, and greedily sniffed the contents of the vial. The soft, milky fog burned as it went its way down into his lungs. And the burning produced a cool sensation that spread around every fiber of his body. That was how a glint worked; it burned your lungs, trying to escape and meet the atmosphere it was once part of. For the period of time you withstood the burning and held it in, you borrowed its elemental power for your own use.

 

Like how water brought life to dead land, it brought life to his dead leg. The stiff leg pulsed into life, feeling responsive again. Roid twitched his toes of the dark leg, rocked his knee, feeling the leg throbbing into his control. 

 

His gray hair whipped around his face. The cloak he snatched from the dead enforcer billowed at his feet. And he trained his steely black and white eyes on Jello who had recovered and was swinging a broad ax in fury.

 

He took an unsteady side step and dodged. The ax blurred through in a silver arc, sending off a gust of wind. The fat man doubled over after his ax. Roid stepped around and launched himself into the air, appearing behind the fat man, and stabbed.

 

Now, the back of Jello’s neck was wide enough that you wouldn’t miss it even if you stab it blind, and the dagger was so sharp it could’ve cut through the flesh like butter. So it was only appropriate when Roid put him off his mind and thinking about the skinny one, but—

 

The dagger shattered when it met Jello’s flesh with a clang (a noise that had no business being there), and his fist got dislocated. Roid grunted and fell to his feet, and stumbled, still troubling with the wobbly dark leg. Tendrils of pale, smoky wind glint escaped from a corner of his lips. 

 

What the fuck was that? he thought as he whisked out the last dagger he had and readjusted his wrist, looking at the enforcer, and paused at the sight that greeted him. 

 

The fat man was shivering and grunting in his saddle as his plump skin cracked and shrank and hardened like the plates of a tortoise shell. Strange brown glyphs flashed in the pupils of his piggy eyes. They shook and pulsed, sending off some energy waves into the atmosphere.

 

Something similar to glints, but far more intricate and complex. 

 

His skin… hardened?! If he hadn’t had a glint to hold in, Roid would’ve gasped at the sudden turn of events.

 

Jello rolled off his mount and landed on his knee. The ground shook as though a boulder fell. When he raised his head to glare at Roid, the glyphs in his eyes were stable now, no more shaking. “You,” Jello barked, “I’ll eat you alive, you fucking cripple!”

 

He charged at Roid, swinging his ax furiously. Despite his size, he moved almost as fast as Roid who was using wind glint to boost his speed. 

 

What the bloody fuck was that? Roid thought as he ducked, dodged, and retreated from the flurry of ax swings. Glint? But the man was shouting and swearing; it couldn’t be glints. Then another curiosity of Raventor? 

 

It lived up to the name of the most bizarre prison alright, but he was fast getting tired of its tricks.

 

The fat man not only got fast, but his swings were incredibly strong as well. They whistled through the air, sending off strong gusts of wind. Roid reckoned if he met the blow, even to parry the ax away, he’d lose his arm clean. 

 

Fast, strong, and rock hard skin… the man was almost invincible. It would take time to deal with him, Roid judged. 

 

He better dealt with the other enforcer first.

 

He whirled around and charged for the skinny enforcer who had managed to pull the snakehead off his mouth. Four bloody dots marked around his mouth where the snake bit him, purple veins spreading out against his pale skin. 

 

Strange glyphs sputtered in his eyes too. Different from Jello’s and shining in green. And his skin seemed to melt like wax. Again different from Jello.

 

Roid didn’t have time to think about them. He just rushed at the harelipped enforcer, intending to finish the man before his transformation had stabilized. The fat enforcer was hard on his heels. 

 

Roid threw an arrow at the skinny man. But the imagined blood didn’t spill. It sank in his flesh, buried into it, and disappeared as though it fell into a quagmire. 

 

Damn, cursed Roid. He slipped around the skinny man and gave a strong kick in the back where the skin was yet to turn, sending him flying towards the mighty ax swing of the fat enforcer. The skinny man didn’t even have time to scream before the ax cut him into two cleanly at the waist. 

 

A mess of flesh, blood, and the liquid from his skin splashed against Jello’s face who screamed and doubled back, his bloody hand going up to clumsily wipe at his eyes. Smoke rose from his skin where the liquid was splashed. 

 

Now! Roid rushed with all his strength, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder where the shaft of the arrow squirmed against the flesh. 

 

He made a stab at Jello’s eye with the dagger, but the big man caught his wrist inches away with his mangled hand, eyes still closed and watering. “You fucking cripple! I’ll eat you! Eat you!” he roared as he raised the ax to cut Roid clean.

 

But Roid didn’t falter. So close, it didn’t matter if Jello caught his hand. He flicked his wrist and released the dagger which went straight and lodged into the opponent’s eye. 

 

“Argh!” the big man screamed and stumbled back.

 

Roid followed his attack by throwing an arrow even as he moved forward. The arrow lodged into the enforcer’s other eye. Another scream echoed. Not unlike a squeal of a pig about to be slaughtered. 

 

The gladiator jumped into the air and kicked at the dagger so hard that the dagger sank into the opponent’s skull up to the hilt. 

 

Jello, the arrogant enforcer, stumbled back two steps back before collapsing onto the ground with a thud, kicking and thrashing as blood puddled under him. The plates on his skin slowly loosened out back into the plump skin.

 

Roid exhaled and the glint left him in thick white smoke from his mouth and nostrils. His dark leg slowly returned to its slumber, leaving him a cripple again. He had to take three clumsy steps to balance himself on his pale leg.

 

His shoulder throbbed badly. Blood seeped out from the wound. He could barely feel the other hand. It was all he could do not to collapse there and then.

 

But not yet, he was yet to escape the hunt. He dragged himself to the skinny man’s mount which was placidly eating the grass at the edge of the woods. It didn’t make any movement when he approached it. Neither did it protest when he wound a rope around its mouth tightly, and when he pulled himself up over it, grunting and panting.

 

Roid adjusted his breath and pulled the beast into the direction of the wall. He took out earth glint, and leaned forward to reach the brog’s snout, and unstoppered it. The beast tottered and shook its head but he firmly clung onto it, closing both its nostrils by stuffing patches of rags with every ounce of energy left in him. 

 

Nobody ever tried glints on beasts. But Roid was left with little choice other than experimenting.

 

He tried to nudge its flank with the pale leg (that was how he remembered learning to ride horses in his childhood), but it remained unresponsive. Without many options, he fished an arrow out and drove it into the rump of the beast.

 

With a muffled squeal, the beast charged at the wall, much faster than it should be capable of. Roid clung to its neck with his life as the towering wall drew closer and closer until it was all he could see.

 

Just before the beast slammed into the wall, Roid slid around the saddle, and hugged the mount’s underbelly, screwing his eyes shut, praying the trick would work. 

 

And it worked. 

 

The wall shuddered at the impact as the spidering cracks spread across, sputtering. And soon Roid found himself flying through the wall, thrown away from the squealing mount, along with clods of mud. He rolled over grass and rocks. The world spun around him in a brown blur and the shaft inside his shoulder broke as a rock dug into him. When he opened his mouth to scream, dust went in, leaving him coughing and sputtering.

 

“Oh another escapee,” came a croaky voice, a few strides away from Roid. “And he makes quite an entrance too.”

 

“It must be Roid!” squealed another. “I told you he’d come!”

 

“Quiet, boy! Lemme see this guy first.”

 

“I’m sure it’s Roid. He’s the best fighter there is in Moors. You must recruit him!”

 

“Enough fanboying, you hear? Roid that, Roid this, I’m done with it. One more word, and I will hand you back to those enforcer fuckers.”

 

Roid was hawking up a dusty phlegm, lying on his belly when a man appeared before him, shooing his hands to clear up the swirling cloud of dust in vain. A lanky man in what appeared to be the clothes of a priest — a blue robe that went unwashed for moonths, speckled with black and brown stains. A festoon of godly sigils were weaved into them around the neck. His cheeks were so hollow that you could dog a knuckle into them without touching the skin.

 

“You’re quite… colourful alright,” said the man, taking in Roid’s queer appearance, not unkindly. “Heard a lot about you, boy!” he said, flashing all his betel stained teeth in a smile and extending a hand. “I’m Petero the Priest from the order of wardens. Nice to meet you.”

 

“And I’m Paco,” came a voice from behind the priest as a boy around Roid’s age emerged from the curtain of dust, wiping at his opticals and squinting. “I’m your fan,” the boy said, thrusting a hand into Roid’s face, shoving the priest’s hand away.

 

What is it now? Roid frowned. The dust was clearing now and he could see the boy’s grinning face, not unlike an idiot. It was a familiar face from the outlaws that entered the prison along with him — the face of a boy who volunteered to enter this shitty prison even though he didn’t have any criminal record. Roid made a note to remember the face because it seemed fishy.

 

But they couldn’t have been the same person because there was no way someone else could’ve escaped the hunting ground. Not in this direction, at least. If they had, there would’ve been a hole in the wall. 

 

Twins, perhaps?

 

Roid looked around, past behind the two men, and near a tree—

 

A stocky, green creature. Standing at four foot two fingers perhaps. With a bulging paunch and hooked nose. Naked but for the skulls of variety hanging around his neck and leopard hide that wrapped around his waist. It supported its chin on a curved and knobbly cane, watching him curiously.

 

A goblin? Straight out of the tales told to scare the children? 

 

Roid gasped, his eyes wide, and crawled back awkwardly, fumbling for the dagger or arrows or glints. Anything, really. Anything that could help provide any semblance of protection.

 

“There, there. We are here to help,” said the priest. “Including the greenhead here.”

 

The goblin’s mouth quirked into a smile in what seemed like an attempt to show he was harmless, accidentally revealing the barbed teeth and red tongue within.

 

Roid turned and tried to run, but tripped and fell into the grass, face first.

 

Petero rushed to help him up. “Close your mouth, old man. You’re scaring the kid.”

 

The goblin grumbled and looked away. 

 

Petero pulled Roid to his feet with one arm, patting the dust off him with the other.

 

There were so many messy thoughts flowing around in Roid’s brain. But the prominent one — even more pressing than the sight of the goblin — was: ‘Hot! Why is it so hot?’ 

 

His hand went to his chest, to the copper stud that hung around his neck. It was burning as if on fire. And suddenly, a scroll jumped out of it and spread in the air before him. Blue and semi-transparent, inked in white with words and pictures.

 

He blinked at it, nonplussed.

 

The first line read: Roos and Wheel’s intergalactic trading port (ITP#2) recognizes a tradable item.

 

In a picture below the line, the goblin’s head was placed over its limbs and torso, all neatly cut and piled together. Then there was ‘+’ followed by a picture of the cane and the anklet the goblin wore. And then there was ‘=’ followed by ‘340 sics’.

 

Under the pictures: Do you like to trade? [Yes] [No]

 

“…join our order?” Petero was saying when Roid tore his eyes off the paper.

 

He looked at the sly-looking priest and the enthusiastic boy, then at the goblin, and finally back at the translucent paper hung in front of him.

 

He raised his hand to tap at [Yes].