When I woke up, I felt like I was exactly where Libby was at Renegades. My hands were chained to the wall and I appeared to be in a dungeon. Outside the cell, I could see devices of torture lining the walls. If I stretched my chains as far as they could go, I could see a guard overlooking all the cells. I was the only one there, however. I promised Libby I’d figure something out, but what? I guess I just said that to please her. I’m going to die. What an interesting thought.

A grinding sound broke me away from my thoughts. It sounded kind of like gears turning. I then heard a heavy metal door swing open. “Leave, all of you, I wish to directly punish this one. Privately. Don’t come in, no matter how loud the screams.” Libby! Wait, that was kinda scary there, Lib. I heard hurried footsteps and the door swing shut and lock. And in front of me stood Libby.

“Luke! I’m so glad you’re alright. I can’t believe I let you turn yourself in. Here.” She grabbed a set of keys off of what I assume was a hook and unlocked the door. She came in and unchained me.

“Wait, Libby, what’re you doing?”

“Breaking you out,” she answered nonchalantly.

“You can’t get caught doing this! There’ll still be people outside the door!”

“Just play along.” She winked at me. Ah, always two steps ahead of me.

“No!” I wailed, “Don’t! Please, don’t!” I let out a blood curdling scream and cut it off in an instant. We were always the perfect acting duo. After snickering for a little bit, she suddenly got serious.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s my father. He isn’t himself. He wants to marry me off to some unnamed guy. Before, he had always wanted me to be the one to succeed him. I don’t like the sound of this.” She seemed really worried. Of course, I wanted to kill that little twerp, but I couldn’t where I was at that point.

After a little bit of contemplating and using my knowledge of Isekai and Fantasy, I blurted, “What about mind control?”

“Mind control?”

“Yeah, like wizardry. I haven’t heard anything about there being wizards in this world, but I don’t know.”

“Actually, I do remember reading about wizards in a fairytale-style book. One day, people with amazing powers started showing up. They then came to power, but they were corrupt and power-hungry, so they were banished into the mountains, along with all other magic users.”

“That has too many plot holes to count,” I said sarcastically.

“Yeah, but it’s something. I think you actually might be onto something.”

“Wait, Libby, how long have you been here?”

“I don’t know, an hour or two?”

“That’s too long for a torture session, we gotta go.” We both got up and ran out the door. On the other side, we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I needed to find Andy and Lana and try to get their help with dealing with this prince thing.

                                    -------------------------------

I was going to check out the cottage to see if they were still there. If not, I didn’t know where to look. As the cabin came into view between the trees, I also saw Andy and Lana saddling up. “Hey, guys,” I said casually.

“‘Hey guys’? Where have you been!” Lana screamed, though her voice was a little hoarse from the previous night.

“This, there, the royal palace’s dungeon, anyway, I need your guys’ help.” This is gonna be hard to explain, I thought. “You see, the King is trying to marry the princess off to some unidentified dude. We think that the King might be under some sort of spell and that signals so many bad guy flags. I need your help in… now that I think about it we don’t have any plan whatsoever.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Lana said, arms crossed. Thinking back, they haven’t even met her.

“Uhm, me and the princess, but all you need to know is that she’s on our side. Please, I need you guys. I don’t know how, when, why, anything… but I do know that something bad is about to happen to this place. I need your help!”

Andy finally spoke up. “You’re always dragging us into stuff like this.”

“I’m sorry, a lot of stuff has been happening recently and I-” he cut me off.

“Don’t worry about it, at least our lives are interesting. I mean, without whatever is going on now, we’d be living out our lives in the slums not doing jack.” He smiled at me. “Come on, let’s go.”

Lana glared, but she sighed and got another horse for me (I walked all the way there). I hopped on and we set off. “So,” Andy said, “Where to?”

“Renegades.” I was dead set on this.

“What?” they yelled in unison.

“We need supplies. We’re going on a raid.” Lana seemed like she was going to burst.

“T-that… makes... sense. But it’s too dangerous!”

“They normally just have one night guy there. All we’ll do is knock him out and get what we need. Nothing more to it than that. It’ll be fine.”

                                    -------------------------------

Although it had only been about a week, sneaking into Renegades seemed so unfamiliar. The streets seemed darker, but it was as black as it always was. Winding through the alleys, we found the door leading down into the main gathering room. After Andy picked the lock, we opened the door and began our descent. As the gathering room came into view, dark memories came flooding back.

Having gone in there once or twice, Lana led us into the munitions room. It was more of a closet than a room and it was mostly full of raw materials. I grabbed some rope, hooks, and what was going to make or break my case. “Alright, I have what I need. Let’s go.” I said this but I also wanted another bow and maybe a knife, but I couldn’t find a single weapon. Oh my God, I thought. I caught a single glimpse of something in the corner of my eye.

“Get on the ground!” I yelled and collapsed onto the floor as well. I then heard an all too familiar sploosh that broke me. I turned to see Andy with an arrow in his shoulder.

“Get Andy into the closet, then give me a hand!” Lana ordered. I complied because I had just calculated everything as well. I drug Andy into the closet all while getting shot at and shut the doors. By the time I had gotten back up, Lana had taken two out. “Here!” she called out as she threw a bow and a quiver at me. Driven by rage, I took out everyone I could see before the first body hit the floor. I never knew what I was capable of, but I thought I had just found out. A bunch of grunts with dull blades then came charging out. I was out of arrows, and I couldn’t see Lana anywhere.

After all this way, this is how I go. I came all this way, so it can’t end here. I have to buy time. I ducked into the closet and shut the doors. I then heard many screams and a couple bodies slamming against the door. A couple of what felt like hours went by until the door slowly opened. The gathering room had been turned into a burial ground. Dead bodies littered the area. Lana stood there, out of breath, with blood-stained clothes, and collapsed.