Jort tells me to hurry up as he walks briskly through a large tunnel. Of course, his brisk walking is equal to my jog thus I have to expend more energy to keep up.
"Why are we going so quickly?" I grimace in annoyance.
"Food, breakfast is only served for a limited time and only a small amount of it is handed out. If we don't get there quick, we won't get any food," he says without breaking his pace, in fact he seems to be walking faster.
The longer we walk, the more frantic Jort becomes.
"Can you run?" he asks suddenly.
Before I even assent, the Anuin starts running albeit not at his highest speed. I move faster to catch up eventually sprinting alongside him. We run through the long tunnel as we finally reach a different room. Crowds of Sunbound mill around the room as they hold bowls of what seems to be food. I recognize that they are Sunbound based on the clothes they wear, the Sunbound wear yellow robes with a chain pattern painted on the front of the robe.
"We're too late," sighs Jort as his face contorts in disappointment.
"I'm sorry, I slowed you down," I apologise.
'No, its no problem, we just have to be quicker next time."
Jort and I stand around awkwardly as we wait for our tasks to be assigned.
"I have been curious about this for some time, but how does your magic work? One time, I was even put to sleep by a wave of a hand," I ask.
Jort looks around furtively as he says," I don't think I should be telling you about this. It isn't classified information but considering you are of a different race, I'm not sure if I am allowed to tell you."
"Oh," I say dejected.
"Don't worry, I am sure the handlers will teach you soon. Most of our tasks involve some amount of magic, you will be required to learn some.
Immediately, a look of expectation blossoms on my face. Who wouldn't want to learn magic? I feel jumpy with excitement, just the thought of learning magic wiped away my overcast mood. Jort grins in amusement as he watches my expression light up.
Suddenly a thought surfaces to my head, why is Jort helping me? Every other Anuin I had met had left a bad taste in my mouth. I debate whether to ask him why he is helping me, but my cautiousness wins out as I decide to not say anything. As the saying goes, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
Finally, after what felt like hours worth of staring at people eating, another bell rang. The clamour died as people started putting away their empty bowls. Jort took one last longing look at the bowls as he told me to follow him. As we walked through a crowded hallway, he explained that the Sunbound started their day with little to no food and ended dead tired and passed out immediately. From what I could infer, the Sunbound were mostly criminals or people who got on the bad side of an Anuin with status. These Sunbound were made to do hard labor and other odd jobs for the family they worked for.
The Sunbound all around me were servants of the Jarkit family of the Anuin race, the Jarkits were supposedly a family that was pretty respected and was one of the most powerful families of the Anuins. Every family with some amount of status had a group of Sunbound that worked for them.
Jort told me that we were heading to the mission center. Every day, the Sunbound would gather in a room that was officially known as the Dump, the Sunbound refused to call it that way and referred to it as the mission center. It was here that the handlers assigned different tasks to each Sunbound. The tasks ranged from emptying days old garbage and sewage to cleaning the tunnels, not very glorious work although highly necessary.
As the whole city was underground, much of it made up of highly cramped rooms and tunnels. That's why it was surprising when Jort led me into a large field of sorts. Trash was piled in unflattering mountains which let off a distinct smell, the stench almost brought tears to my eyes. Whose genius idea was it to dump heaps of rotting food into an underground cave system? The lack of ventilation amplified the smell and almost made me puke. Jort walked into the field, stony faced as he tried to ignore the smell, he seemed quite used to it.
"Welcome to the mission center," he told me in a magnanimous voice.
I feared opening my mouth to answer, scared of tasting the air. It seemed as though the stink had made me muddle headed, I couldn't taste a smell, what am I worried for? Although I poked fun at myself in my head, my brain still forbade my mouth from opening, it wouldn't take any chances. Stomach turning, I followed Jort as he led me through the maze of rubbish.
Jort was short for an Anuin, what he lacked in height he made up in stature. He had a longer snout than other Anuin and also had a frizzy mop of hair on his head. The glassy eyes above his snout flickered from side to side in a constant state of alert, a practice he had developed over years of living beneath looming threat. The life of a Sunbound was not valued in the Anuin society, Sunbound were expendable, mere pawns on the vast chessboard that was the greater world. Thus, most Sunbound were always on high alert, scared for their lives.
We seemed to be moving towards the center of the Dump, the trash here had less of a stench. Although, that was because the mountains of garbage were smaller in the middle of the room. Already, Sunbound were milling around the middle stretch of the Dump. The middle, thankfully, was completely clear of garbage and looked much more cleaner than the rest of the room. As we walked into the patch, multiple Sunbound stared at me with ill concealed threat, I felt uncomfortable because of their penetrating gazes. Jort told me to ignore them and to not look them in the eye. Obediently, I stared at the hard sand of the ground thinking to myself what I did to get myself into this predicament.
A few minutes later and the square patch was almost packed full of tall Anuin. I heard a loud whistle like sound as two huge Anuin walked into the patch. I recognized the two as the so called twins that Jort told me about.
"ATTENTION," they screeched, seeming to enjoy the power they had over the Sunbound.
"The square grew quite as all the Sunbound stared at the two Anuins without making a sound.
The twins smirked and began speaking.