The forest appeared to be withering and despite this the shackled felt immensely weak compared to it, its magnificence was overbearing, the dying giant that was this forest looked down upon them, all her oppressed by it but only one went as far as believing that the forest was sentient.
The trail they were walking upon was beaten up and was just like most, just dirt, each of them wore the bare minimum of clothing, they didn't even wore any shoe, their feet were exposed to the ground, the rocks and insects which mercilessly attacked them without fear.
Their feet bled but they weren't allowed to stop, their captors kept a close eye on them, if any were to slow down, at least they would be hit to put them back on their feet or simply discarded if they really couldn't go on.
Each of the shackled was linked to another with a chain, which was in the end tied to a large caravan pulled by what appeared to be two oxes.
They were slaves or rather, they were soon to be, for now they were prisoners, the common person may take pity upon them for their situation but that very same common person would spit on most of them were they to learn the reason of their imprisonment.
The air was heavy, it was in the middle of the summer, two prisoners had already dropped dead, some became fearful for their own lives, many ignored the fallen but one looked very happy about being chained up.
He had been smiling from ear to ear on multiple occasions, making the other prisoners quite uncomfortable, they would have gotten away from him but in their condition, they could only hope that he wouldn't do any crazy stuff.
The man in question was quite a fair bit smaller than the average and had a large bushy beard, on top of his inadapted facial expressions, he also sometimes mumbled unknown words to himself, not helping the other prisoners thinking that he wasn't insane.
With the large caravan in front of them, the prisoners had next to no idea to where they were going and apparently, their captors also didn't know.
"This clearly isn't the right way" spoke one of them to another one, one that seemed to be in a lower position.
"But we followed the instructions perfectly, we couldn't have missed another road large enough to fit the caravan" responded the other, the bearded prisoner nodded to that answer, clearly the second one made sense, missing a road that large could either only be due to it not existing in the first place or due to a certain someone doing a certain thing.
The bearded prisoner chuckled to himself before turning his head back a bit, looking at the prisoner behind himself.
"Ever heard of guardian angels?" he asked, for all of the other prisoners who had been questionning his sanity, it was confirmed, he was completely and utterly insane.
"Not really, no..." answer the other prisoners, causing the bearded one to smile.
"You see, it is said that guardian angels are given to all of us upon birth, they are to look over us, you see? Angels are of the third sphere, they are the lowest of the 'angels' if you get what I mean" spoke the bearded prisoner.
"All that to say, mine is very good" concluded the strange prisoner before turning back, continuing to walk as he muttered unknown stuff to himself.
The prisoner he had directly talked to was feeling a bit frigthened, he was starting to seriously regret robbing that noble's mansion.
At the very front of all of this, riding upon a horse, the leader of this group was trying his best to find another way to get back on track but he wasn't exactly familiar with this place, deciding that continuing like headless chickens was a stupid idea, he ordered for the caravan to stop, that would allow everyone to get some energy back and allow him to get a better grasp of this area.
The prisoners sat down, still all bound together with the chain obviously, they were given a very small amount of water and food, not because their guards personally spited them, they simply didn't have that much to begin with, otherwise they would make sure that the soon to be slaves would be in top condition, they would sell for a much higher price that way.
The leaders of the expedition was deciphering the map he had, trying to locate exactly where they were on it, it truly was a wonder how they had managed to get lost when they were only that many road that could even fit the caravan, they were at most three and the one they were supposed to take was the only one on the right and he was pretty darn sure that they had done just that.
"Are we under an illusion or something?" he wondered as he rubbed the sweat of his forehead.
From the corner of his eyes, he felt like something had moved in the bushes, he squinted his eyes and went to inform the closest of his men about something.
"I think we are being watched, pass that message to the other, tell them to be on their guards" he told him.
The leader's had had the right idea to immediately tell his men as under the cover of the withering vegetation, a monster was preparing to strike, the monster stayed unmoving until night fell, most of the prisoners fell asleep and the guards vision was impeded by the darkness.
One of the guard approached a nearby bush and started releasing the flood he had been holding in for a while now, after being done with it, he took a step back and prepared to walk back to the group but bumped into something.
"Wha- who is that?" he asked as he squinted his eyes to try and see who had just watched him take a piss.
All he saw was the dark of the night and then the dark of death as two spikes pierced the left side of his head, completely ignoring his helmet.
Meanwhile, the few awake prisoners were doing pretty much nothing.
"Ooh, would you look at that, a fruit!" said one of them.
"That's a turd man" said another one.
"No look, it's a fruit" insisted the other one and indeed he was right, that was a fruit, a fruit that looked like a turd but one nonetheless.
"I wouldn't eat that if I were you, that looks very much poisonous" said a third prisoner.
"The time has come" spoke the bearded prisoner has he stood up, making all of the other look at him, they all thought that he was speaking nonsense but when the corpse of a guard was flung into the only source of light they had close to them, they instead wondered what was happening and forgot about the strange prisoner.
As if it was a grand villain making its entrance, the clouds moved from in front of the moon, letting the moonlight illuminate the night and revealing the appearance of the monster.
A tall and thin grey humanoid creature with shark looking claws on its fingers, a completey blank head and a fleshy tail with a thagomizer at the end of it.
The tail seemingly moved on its own, completely exploding the head of a prisoner, bits of brains and blood showered the prisoner to his right and an eyeball landed in the distance.
Luckily for the other convicts, the guards were very much alert at this point and came rushing at the monster, the monster was very agile and evaded the strikes and blow with very unusual moves, the kind of things any fighting teacher would tell you are only good at showing off.
It jumped in the air and stepped in the helmets of the guards below, using them to jump away, not forgetting to do a backflip as well, the momentum of this action, allowed it to launched its tail into a guards head, bowing it into two pieces.
The monster kept on doing its acrobatic figures as the prisoner did their best to try and break their chains, a useless thought, they had already been marked with slave crest and were unable to use their abilities or stats to break free, the lack of anything to lockpick or cut meant that they could only hope that a guard with the keys to their shackles would die close enough for them to grab them.
However, luck decided otherwise and they hadn't been able to find any way to break free by the time the monster was done with the guards.
One of the prisoners, the one right next to the one who had had his head squandered everywhere, tried to use his chains to block the monster's claws, hoping that they would break them off but had he been more attentive to the fight beforehand, he would have known that the monster's claws weren't sharp enough to cut through steel.
As the thagomizer was about to turn his head into an unrecognisable mess, he heard the sound of that very thing happening but much further than it should have been, right after hearing someone clap in their hands.
The monster had suddenly appeared further to his right and had killed another prisoner, instead of the monster being in front of him, he saw the bearded prisoner in its place.
"This world is doomed but I am not! Bye!" he said as he laughed boisterously before taking off running into the night, the monster turned to the laughing and running man but chose to ignore him, deciding that it had already gotten a jackpot.
Only one person survived this ordeal and it had not been by sheer luck like most would believe, there had been a substantial amount of it but it had been thanks to his not sealed magic that he had been able to trick the guards into taking a wrong way and also thanks to it that he had been able to escape his shackles.
The venerer's presence hadn't been taken into account despite the fact that the bearded man knew of its existence's goal.