The Price of Freedom

The commander stormed out of the room with the armored guards in tow. Chris picked up Aayla and jumped onto the top of a nearby cage as soon as he left. Aayla finally got a good look inside the cage. Her eyes lit up in joy.

"It's Daren!" she excitedly whispered.

Chris happily nodded. A lonesome dark-haired young man sat quietly in the center of the cage. He glared at his captors. The workers swarmed the wagon and redoubled their efforts to crack the cage.

"Why did he take the guards?! What if the prisoner tries to escape?"

"You idiot! Even if he's skilled, he's just a student. The shackles should have drained his mana. Moreover, he hasn't studied combat and has no actual experience. All of us can easily take him."

"Why do you think the other prisoners sabotaged the cage instead of escaping? This way we can't touch him."

"Tch. Those Nafriton professors sure are persistent when their students are involved. Too bad they chose the wrong side."

"ALL OF YOU SHUT UP AND WORK! We cannot fail the Prophet."

Chris and Aayla watched as they tried to pry open the cage. They tried different methods on different parts of the cage. Nothing worked. The bars that they tried to pry open barely budged. The lock stayed a partially melted mess. Daren was trapped, but safe.

"Ugh. Someone go get one of the barrier artifacts. The defense system is already down, and each one consumes a lot of energy. Maybe it can absorb enough to give us an edge and protect us while we work!"

"Brilliant idea boss!"

"You're a genius! That's why you're the boss!"

"Shut up and go already! The rest of you help me recalibrate this machine for another attempt."

Most of the workers scrambled out of the prison. The rest gathered around the 'boss' and began to modify the machine. Aayla and Chris snuck to the back of the cage. Chris lightly tapped on the ground to get Daren's attention.

Daren turned and crawled over to the edge of the cage to investigate. When he got close, Chris disabled his invisibility spell. Daren's grim expression lit up as Aayla held her finger up to her lips.

"Shh! We're here to rescue you!"

"Your grandfather sent us!"

"That's who that old guy was?"

Chris looked at Aayla and patted her head like she was some sort of wayward wild child. She angrily brushed his hand off. Daren's happy expression slowly faded.

"I'm not sure that's possible. This place was built to house the more powerful faculty. They sabotaged the door earlier when a few of the guards left. I'll be fine for now. The True Order can't touch me. You need to hide. Grandfather and Headmaster Marin can help when they arrive."

"No way. You heard what the commander said. If you can't come out of the cage, then the cage will come with you through the portal. Transporting broken, complex magical artifacts through portals is extremely dangerous! Death could be one of the better results."

Aayla carefully examined some of the bars. One of the more successful attempts was on the back. The bars were bent enough for a person to squeeze through, if the light barrier wasn't present. The symbols lightly flickered every minute or so.

"Hey, can you isolate these two bars from the others? Maybe we could drain the power to remove the barrier just between these two bars. Daren might be able to fit through them."

"We don't have enough time to figure out how the cage works."

Daren shook his head. He couldn't even see the engravings, let alone understand how they worked in a short period of time. The cage was just too complicated. Aayla looked at the New Moon Bracelet. It was a greedy little jerk. If it had a mouth, it would be salivating to take a bight out of the cage.

"Maybe I could try something?"

She held out the New Moon bracelet close to the cage. It began pulling at the mana in the cage almost instantly. The barrier of light warped towards the artifact. Aayla quickly pulled back her arm. The cage returned to normal.

Chris glanced at the frantic workers. They were almost finished with their modifications.

"I'll keep those guys busy. You keep working on the barrier."

The workers suddenly started suffering from strange mishaps. Tools were misplaced or malfunctioned. Parts disappeared or broke. The workers themselves suffered headaches and sudden loss of consciousness. They thought that they were losing their minds from all the stress!

Meanwhile, Aayla worked to open up a hole in the cage. She slowly grew adept at manipulating the barrier. She discovered that if she limited the bracelet's range and placed it directly on the bars, then that section would soon lose power.

Unfortunately, the bars would regenerate their power within minutes. But if she timed the drainage correctly, then the barrier could collapse temporarily. That would give Daren the opportunity to escape. Daren quietly watched out for any workers while Aayla worked on the timings.

"Hey, is your artifact feeling hot by any chance? Does it have any cracks?"

Aayla carefully checked the New Moon Bracelet and shook her head. The New Moon bracelet still had its enormous appetite.

"No. It's fine."

"That's weird. It's drained a lot of concentrated mana already for an artifact of that size. How peculiar. Let me know if it starts acting strange. You might need to find a way to safely release what it consumed."

Just when the workers started going insane, Aayla decided to take a small risk and increase the rate of mana absorption. The light barrier started to collapse. After draining a few more bars, a hole formed in the cage. Aayla let the New Moon bracelet absorb even more energy as Daren pushed his way out.

Chris appeared out of nowhere and helped pull him out. The next second they could hear footsteps approaching and heavy doors unlocking. Chris immediately cast a spell. Suddenly, there were two Darens and no Chris. The one without handcuffs unlocked the ones on the original and jumped into the cage with them.

The hole slammed shut just after the duplicate jumped inside. He disabled the cuffs and placed them on himself. Aayla covered his mouth to stop Daren from yelling. Tears rolled down his face as he tried to bang on the bars.

"You need to leave NOW young master," Chris said with neutral expression. "Miss Glowery's not good enough to block the mana signatures of more than two people. Besides, your captors can't find out that your gone. Not until you are safe."

The workers stood up and crowded around the entrance to welcome the new guests. Aayla began to pull Daren away. She didn't particularly like Chris, but they had to go at this point. Daren was too weak to cast spells, and without Chris they lacked any visual concealment techniques.

"Look, good people die young but disasters last a thousand years. Chris is an arrogant, womanizing snake. A complete disaster. He's better at getting out of tight situations than a weasel dripped in grease. He'll be just fine. But we won't be if we stay."

The duplicate's face twitched for an instant before it bloomed into a beautiful smile. "She's right, young master. Besides, I'm in the cage. They can't harm anyone inside it. You said so yourself. The military should rescue me shortly once they know that you are safe."

Daren stared for a couple of seconds before nodding. She supported Daren as they climbed onto the top of a nearby cage. While the workers were busy showing off the modified equipment to the guests, they grabbed a couple of extra uniforms and snuck out the front door.

The duplicate's smile dropped as soon as they left. He carefully checked the back of the cage to make sure that the hole properly filled up. Then he sat in the center of the cage and calmed himself. Within moments not a trace of Christopher Vear remained. Only 'Daren Forolan' sat in the cage.

Eventually, the guests grew annoyed with the workers' meaningless flattery and approached the cage. They pulled back their hoods with a smile.

"Jerome Foryl… and Marc Lupton… you two…"

"Are proud agents of the True Order? Yes, and we would love for you to join us."

"The Forolan family does not consort with terrorists. Not now, not ever!"

Jerome lightly smiled and shook his head. "We are not the evil ones. The weak ones in power are. They strive to bring others down to keep their own falling statuses up. Vanessa Landrienne was a prime example of this mentality. The entire country is degrading under them."

Marc scoffed at the thought of that stupid woman. Even in death she still annoyed him.

"Have you seen the state of this once mighty nation? Mighty magical houses are now ruled by those with inadequate talent, and a non-wizard has come to power in the nation for wizards. How preposterous. It's only a matter of time before everything collapses."

"Says the ones who betrayed the university and let lunatics kidnap our students, murder our professors and steal all of our hard work?"

"No, we helped to liberate them. We only killed when necessary."

"You mean when they didn't submissively agree with you?"

As they coaxed and tried to woo him over, 'Daren' refused to listen and tried to buy the others as much time as possible until the bitter end.