"They're following us." A soldier wearing their tightly secured gas mask muttered just loud enough to a fellow soldier. It was still loud because they had to get their voice past Gwen's angry yelling and the nearby gunfire and artillery.
"Do you think they're infected?" The soldier holding Gwen's legs asked the other soldier who was their superior.
"Maybe. They're talking to each other and I can't really see any other reason why they'd have a kid with them on the battlements if they weren't infected. It only makes sense that they somehow got over the wall and nobody noticed."
"Or they killed those that did notice…" The other soldier said with a suspicious tone.
Gwen noticed the opportunity that had presented itself on a platter.
"That's what I've been trying to telling you! You think I'm screaming my head off for no reason?!"
The two soldiers stopped and looked at her. She shrunk back slightly when she saw the black lenses reflect her face as if they were peering into her soul.
"Call a whistleblower." The higher ranked soldier told his subordinate.
"Yes sir."
The soldier lowered Gwen's legs and quickly ran off a short distance and began talking to a horrifyingly fragile man who looked like they would fall apart with a tiny gust of wind. They were stuck in a cage high up in an unreachable place.
Gwen moved slightly and the higher ranked soldier by her side placed a revolver against her head without any remorse. She paused her movements instantly as a chill moved over her body.
The other soldier quickly returned as the man in their cage began blowing a whistle as loud as possible. On this world, a whistleblower was quite literal.
In moments, dozens of soldiers appeared in the small space and the two soldiers pointed out Auclair and their group.
"What are they carrying?" Auclair asked.
"Guns, they just so happen to be tons of fun. They shoot fistfuls of lead that'll surely make you dead. So try not to run, else they might pop you in the head." Jackson said with a giddy voice.
Auclair furrowed his brows at the random rhyming.
Jackson sighed and explained normally, "It shoots metal projectiles that'll kill all of us even with our dandy magic, at least at our magic's level, so I'd recommend putting your hands up…"
Auclair looked at Jackson before slowly shaking his head in disapproval.
Then Jackson mumbled grumpily under his breath, "You aren't any fun."
The soldiers began running up to the four and the group placed their hands in the air and complied with any demands. Auclair thought it was best to not rattle the cage or else their chances would probably be better if they had jumped over the wall.
"Take them to an empty pit." A passing captain ordered. "They aren't the only ones we've found. Either the hive is growing more advanced or something incomprehensible is happening."
After all of their hands were placed in cuffs, they slowly followed the group of soldiers. That's when someone suddenly yelled.
"Where's the kid?" The other soldiers turned and looked around without panicking. They trained their guns on the party and started questioning them.
"I don't know what to tell you! She just disappears sometimes, you guys probably scared her!" Norman yelled in response as guns were waved in his face. Where he was from, they were primitive weapons, but he had seen cocky contestant's get their faces blown apart in the low ranks when they thought the same.
After spending some time with Norman and Connie, Auclair's memories of them came rushing back although he had only known them for a short period of time. So, Auclair obviously recalled Connie was a Regret, albeit a weird one.
"Connie, come out or else your brother is going to get hurt." Auclair said aloud.
A moment later, Connie peeked out from behind her brother.
"She just appeared out of nowhere!" A soldier who was behind the group who saw the whole thing exclaimed in surprise. "Sorcerers!"
The soldiers instantly trained their guns onto the group and were itching for the order to fire.
"Good job, now we'll be dead even quicker." Jackson said enthusiastically to Auclair.
"Lower your guns." The captain said in a grave tone, "As much as I don't like it, we've been given orders to capture the 'foreigners.'"
"Foreigners?" A guard scoffed.
They soldiers lowered their guns after the command without a second thought, even though they didn't want to. They were professionals after all.
"Go, and throw her in a pit too. I've been hearing reports of some squabbles between the 'foreigners' after appearing." The captain said pointing at Gwen. Her face turned dark but she complied with the dozens of soldiers.
The captain then began heading towards the top of the walls through the complicated halls. The group finally started moving again as rain began pouring from the sky, but this time they had an armed convoy moving with them.
After walking for some time, eventually the party arrived at a large prison complex. They could see that along the walls completely surrounding the city, there were dim lights barely illuminating the place in the dark night. All the city buildings were stacked on top of each other to try to get as much space used as possible since they couldn't expand out anymore.
The prison itself was attached to the side of the wall and the concrete and metal were all stained and rusted respectively. There were bright lights shining wherever one could walk or climb on the prison's exterior without falling to their death at the bottom of the city. Making it was nearly impossible for anyone to sneak away.
The group of five made their way across the creaking catwalk and could see how far up they really were. They estimated they could jump off and be in free fall for a while before pancaking onto the ground.
Needless to say, Auclair would probably die unless he slowed himself by clinging to the walls in his Ego form. Even then he'd probably still be injured, if not by the fall, definitely the guards.
They were put into the prison and quickly processed with shocking efficiency before being taken further into the complex.
On their necks were placed shoddily made explosive collars. Auclair fiddled with it before being scolded and threatened, Jackson explained what it was and Auclair stopped messing with it immediately.
Anyone without a gas mask was also given one and forced to wear it.
They were taken and walked past dozens of large pits that hung over a meat grinder. If the groups inside were considered infected, they were dropped into it by the guards without remorse and their freshly ground bodies would be forced out the walls into the sea of carcasses.
"In here." A guard stopped and pointed to a relatively empty pit. Relatively in the sense that the rest were filled to the brim with restless citizens groaning and yelling in pain while this pit was just crammed.
"How do we-?"
Jackson was in the middle of asking how to get down when a guard kicked him in. The others watched him fall for a moment and heard a thud before making their way down voluntarily.
Auclair landed without a sound and looked out at the crowd. There were many people here but they all had in common that they weren't wearing the uniforms of the soldiers or guards. Instead, a lot of them wore armor much like the contestants in Hexshade. It seems their weapons had been taken but the guards were too busy processing everyone to strip their armor.
Auclair saw Jackson laying on the floor with a tiny groan leaking out of their mouth before they slowly shifted to the side and stood up.
"I think I broke my ass." He said while rubbing his butt.
"Think they're contestants?" Auclair ignored him and instead asked a question, waving his hands towards the rest of the people.
"No, they're dairy farmers. Of course they're contestants." Jackson lashed out a bit before apologizing, "Sorry, ass pain makes me a changed man."
Auclair opened his mouth to ask him what that even meant, but was interrupted by an interrogator.
The interrogator dropped a chair with a loud clack above the pit and sat in it. They wore an imposing outfit with an oppressive peak cap. They crossed their legs without uttering a word as their gas mask reflected those below them. They began tapped their fingers against their sleeve while in deep thought.
If the soldiers and guards before had decently clean outfits, the interrogator blew them out of the water. It was completely spotless; there wasn't a speck on their clothes nor a smudge on their lenses or buttons. The interrogator took out a pair of black gloves and carefully put them on.
They stood and placed their arms behind their back and paced back and forward while watching everyone.
"I've had the displeasure of speaking with some of you before the pit started filling. You call yourselves 'foreigners,' yet there are not foreign lands to belong to, besides the outside world. None of you seem to belong to the hivemind, yet that is the only foreign land to exist. The hivemind is always evolving, so maybe that's it. So how exactly are you foreigners? It simply doesn't make any sense. But, alas, I've been informed you are all sorcerers, or at least most of you."
They planted their feet facing towards a wall. They reached out and touched a speck of blood before frowning underneath their gas mask. They rubbed it between their fingers before turning back towards the contestants.
"Sorcerers are sin, and the sinful are sorcerers." They raised their arms wide as they preached to the people beneath them. "Our blessed land has fallen to sin, and we must scrub the sin from our blood, from our skin, from our souls!"
The interrogator's hands plopped to their sides.
"These are the words of our forefathers. They have kept this last vestige of hope burning through our permanent night. I have half the mind to kill you all right now, all I have to do is press this button." They caressed a button right next to the splotch of blood he had just touched.
"However… our forefathers never accounted for our world dying through overpopulation, famine, or madness, only through the hive that brings doom to our doorstep. Our people remain faithful, but without change, we'll all die from the inside. The grand council has granted me full authority to use you, so called 'foreigners,' at my discretion."
The contestants watched the man from below and most were itching to kill the man out of spite. The contestant's familiar with the Hex Trials from their past broadcasting explained that it was relatively common for something like this to happen. They could break out later from the collars if they so wished.
That was enough to get the crowd to settle down and to stop the interrogator from simply pressing a button to kill them all. Nevertheless, Auclair's stomach was growing hungry. He concluded it was a side effect of repairing his core as well as the fixed system.
"So, your excellency… when the fuck are we getting out of here?" A rather vulgar contestant yelled angrily.
The interrogator tilted their head and looked at the contestant for a moment, then looked behind themselves where the contestants couldn't see. A moment later the contestant's head turn to mush with an explosion.
Chunks flew across the room and the man flopped over. Auclair noticed the man's karma was bad, so he didn't even bother trying to taste him to fill the growing pit in his stomach.
"In time. That's your answer." The interrogator said and left.
The contestants shifted around restlessly as a few more 'foreigners' got tossed into the pit or dropped down voluntarily. Eventually everyone began settling down in their teams and discussing a plan but Gwen was still handcuffed next to Auclair's team.
It was simply because she was the only one still trying to kill anyone.
"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? Cool." Jackson said suddenly before pulling Gwen away. She vehemently objected but couldn't do anything about it due to the cuffs.
While the two were gone, Norman turned to Auclair.
"You seem to know him." Norman said while Connie sat next to him playing with his hair.
"Know is a strong word." Auclair replied.
"Gonna explain further or…?"
"I met him in Hexshade, that place we went to before coming here."
"Got it. What did you do during the week by the way? I was looking for you." Norman said.
"Jackson rented me a room in an inn and I just stayed their while letting myself heal."
"Your face did get hit pretty hard by the king." Norman admitted with a nod.
"I guess so." Auclair said without any plan to correct him, "Where did the two of them go by the way? Did you see?" Auclair asked with a frown when he didn't see Jackson or Gwen anymore.
"Now that you mention it…" Norman stood up and looked through the crowd.
"There." Connie tugged on Auclair and Norman's shirt and then pointed towards a corner obscured by contestants.
"Huh…" Auclair knitted his brows together and looked at the threads of fate. Gwen didn't have them anymore after she conquered death while Jackson's went directly through a few groups of threads and he couldn't follow it anymore.
That's when Jackson clapped his hands together in excitement and pulled Gwen back to the rest of the team.
"She'll cooperate now!" Jackson said with an exuberant voice.
"And what did you tell her exactly?" Norman asked.
"I just said some words of encouragement! Trust me, I'm an expert at it! No need to thank me either." Jackson gave a thumbs up.
Gwen just looked away angrily and then decided to glare at Auclair to show her displeasure.
"Although, admittedly, she still might try and kill you if the opportunity arises. But she knows the consequences."
Jackson bent down and shoved his gas mask in her face and muttered, "Don't you…?"