The fourth Rargnes stepped towards him, and the trio approached the inn. On the way, the first Rargnes, still seeming dazed, asked:
"Why did you want me?"
Despite his dreams, he seemed unable to comprehend his new reality, thinking it was but another of his illusions that this man in front of him couldn't be that version of him that had been successful.
Maybe it had been a means of self-defense. The third Rargnes only had access to his thoughts from his three first years of suffering, but what would it be like to wake up one day having only memories of three years and the conviction that this world wasn't his own and that he wasn't a slave?
He had lived in a situation that was too poor to be able to accept that such a good condition could occur. Or maybe he couldn't accept the shock of what he could have been.
"Rargnes, I saw your dreams."
The name seemed to resonate within the first Rargnes as he widened his eyes. He was first surprised that someone knew his name. He had been given another one, which everyone had used for 20 years - Heze, the docile - perhaps it was to condition him and make him forget his origins. Mainly, it was because the master did not know how to pronounce this name well.
Then tears welled up. The fourth Rargnes stared at the man who had constantly curled up on himself. Life had marked him, not with iron but with whips. But more than his aging body, his mind had been damaged.
'I've always thought that I'd rather be tortured than be dead, but would I be able to not succumb to the pain had I lived his life?'
He knew he would react differently based on his emotions and had already reflected on what endless tortures would make him do - probably beg and tell everything, obey everything.
'But as long as emotions don't get the better of me... I thought I'd be able to survive this. And I did. He wanted to live because there is always hope - even just a slight one is still hope, something enough to live. Today, I am his hope.'
He felt like the king the invaders believed for a moment, bringing energy and hope to his own, coming back at the right timing when they were at their lowest.
When they arrived, they had to wait for a day before the portals could be used again. They planned to go in for Rargnes first to be boosted with the power within that world they couldn't access anymore.
Sitting on beds, they discussed.
"But how does it work for your class, then?" asked Rargnes to Sengrar. "Did you have the choice to pick the mage class at the beginning, or did you have to and couldn't pick the lord and warrior class?"
"I've had gotten the choice."
"And that magical class... it was the classic mage class or an enhanced version?"
A smile hung on Sengrar's lips. "What do you think?"
Damn! That was unfair.
"So that means you can accumulate the bonuses and change class again for a few more tokens? Your actual class must be broken."
No wonder he never succeeds in becoming more powerful than him - the tokens needed to increase one's class was to be doubled by each promotion - but with his death, he could reset the process to only cost a single token.
Which meant they might have a chance to turn the situation around. The noble was a great enemy to beat, certainly, but to what extent could he increase his class?
Rargnes counted. If one had to pay a token, then two, then four, and so on, he would have to acquire more than a thousand tokens for his class to be upgraded 10 times - and such tokens were difficult to find.
If the benefits only increased, like the 50% resistance he had gotten, Sengrar might become a one-man army.
If Sengrar died enough, of course. Unfortunately, they did not keep their memories - the first Rargnes had kept no memory of his past life.
They had asked him what his life had been - he only remembered his past twenty years, knowing he had been someone more, yet refusing to believe it completely.
The dreams the third Rargnes heard were long gone to helpless imagination. His life in this world was now all his life.
Maybe it was better for him to just rent a farm or something.
"Do you want to come?"
The man nodded, not because he really wanted to. It was more... because he owed it to his new master.
The situation made Rargnes very uncomfortable and the day went by as he bought new clothes and food for the first Rargnes, always with disturbed thoughts in his heart.
They entered the cellar by the stairs, and the first Rargnes clumsily grabbed the scepter. He disappeared in a fraction of a second and returned without a new item in his hands.
"Did you get anything?" Sengrar asked.
"What do you expect me to find? These lands have nothing of the paradise you told me about."
"Not even a little energy bonus?"
The first Rargnes shrugged.
"Nothing."