Mountain of Monsters
A middle-aged woman is walking down a dirt road, when she abruptly stops and looks to her left. There, stands a tall wooden statue that's in the middle of being carved. Seeing the recognizable Warden's emblem carved on the statue's chest, the woman looks away and winces.
One of the villagers standing to the side notices the disgusted look on the woman's side, and he runs up and lands on his knees before asking cautiously, "Is there something about the statue you don't like, oh, goddess."
A shiver runs up Prella's spine at being addressed as "oh, goddess".
"I told you, I'm not a…" Her voice trails off at seeing the expectant man's face.
Ever since Prella came down the mountain several days ago, she… made a few mistakes.
First off, her Vanteri Family always knew this land has no ambient mana, which is why they chose to build the Pit here. However, she never considered that the locals might start worshipping her as a goddess the moment they saw her using magic.
All she did was try to exchange a magical favor for food and other assistance, but they got fanatical looks on their faces and insisted she must be a savior sent to save them from some weird curse.
"Guru," Prella asks the prostrated villager, "how goes the construction on the boats?"
The old man looks up happily and says, "We've built plenty of fishing boats before, but nothing so strong and sturdy before. Still, the instructions you gave us are simple enough to understand, and we have plenty of capable carpenters!"
Prella nods and helps him back to his feet. "Good. I promise I'll do what I can to repay you all for helping me out."
These villagers seem to have absolute faith in her, so she feels bad about using them…
Thus, in order to satisfy her conscience for using her influence as a "goddess" to lie to them into helping her, she decides to help them out and do miscellaneous errands around the village.
Yesterday, she enchanted a well to always make water, so long as someone turns a wheel. She enchanted the houses to be more sturdy, and she build water purifiers to protect against parasites.
On top of that, Prella told the villagers that there are vast lands across the sea – a place she's going to. She did offer to take anyone with her who wants to come. However, these people seemed really attached to their homes, so it was mostly a few of the youngest, unmarried men who raised their hands and offered to help man the ship on her one-way trip back to Brancotte.
Over the next week, Prella is treated as a guest of honor, though she, herself, is so embarrassed to be treated this way that she stays holed up in her home most of the day and prays to the gods that they'll forgive her for pretending to be a goddess.
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"Oi, Brandy," one of the bandits chuckles while pointing down the hill, "you see that? Those native savages are building boats. Think we could use them to leave this weird place?"
Brandy, the leader of these bandits, looks down and remarks, "Since we escaped the Pit and came down here, we've all been slowly losing our mana. Those villagers look like they have food we can use to replenish our mana. If we want to be able to win against them, we have to move now, before we lose any more mana. We can talk about whether we want to leave on the boats AFTER we conquer the village."
The other escaped prisoners all look at each other and nod. Boss Brandy is a 3rd Gate mage, while they're all 2nd Gate mages. Even if there ARE mages down there, they're sure that with a score of mages on their side, none of the locals can stand a chance. Heck, even in Brancotte, they'd be a formidable force in any place but the Threshold itself.
So, the released prisoners all get in positions and ready themselves to strike the village…
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Wrong. Everything has gone wrong.
Prella looks at the burning village with disbelief for a moment before she starts using her magic to pull the burnable air away from the fires.
Before she even finishes saving the first house, she narrowly dodges a strike straight to the back of her head. "Oooh!?" comes a slimy voice from the darkness, "these people DO have a mage, and a 4th Gate one too."
The man looks to the side and laughs, "We got you outnumbered, lady. If you surrender, we won't kill you."
Prella scoffs in fury, "Hmph! Just a 2nd Gate mage, and you dare threaten me?"
Before she even gets to strike back, she sees a horde of enemy mages all round corners and jump off of rooftops – completely surrounding her.
"!!!" ~ Prella
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A few minutes later, Prella is tied up in some VERY familiar mana sealing chains, and she's buried shoulder-deep into the ground. Just from her swollen and bruised face, it's clear she suffered quite a lot before she was finally put in the ground.
There is a little local girl on her knees, sobbing her eyes out while she's dabbing the blood off of Prella's forehead with a wet rag. "I'm so sorry, goddess. We're so useless!"
Prella looks to the side to make sure the guards watching her aren't going to hurt the little girl for helping them. They don't seem to care, so the former Warden relaxes.
Then, the imprisoned mage looks up and asks, "Why do you still call me a goddess? I lost."
"We all watched your battle. You were clearly stronger than them, but they only beat you because they outnumbered you."
One of the other imprisoned villagers buried in the ground turns his head to the goddess and asks, "What are these creatures? Some kind of demons?" In the villagers' minds, these enemy mages must be the "great evil" talked about by their folklore.
Hearing this, some of the bandits burst out laughing. "Demons?" the nearest bandit chortles, "Haha! That's kind of true, huh? Haha!"
Scared by the "demons" confirmation, the villager looks down, then whispers more softly to Prella, "Where did these demons come from? Is there anything we can do to help you beat them?"
"I…," Prella trails off her voice, "I don't know how to beat them yet, since I can't use my powers unless I can move my limbs. However… the d-…. No, they came from up there, in the mountains."
The little girl gets extra scared hearing this. "Those are the cursed mountains!" In her heart, these vile demons with supernatural powers must have caused the curse!
Since the mage bandits have extra-sensory spells on, they hear all the whispering. So, one of the bandits walks up with an angry look and kicks Prella's head with a lot of force. Her neck pops loudly, and she screams in pain.
One of the villagers yells at the little girl, "Dina! Pop her head back into place! Her neck is dislocated!"
"H-how!?"
"Grab her head and yank it upright."
Prella tries really hard to hold her breath and suppress her tears. She knows how much these former prisoners hate her, and she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of showing pain.
Now that she's prepared, she barely lets out a grunt when the little girl bursts into tears again and gently holds Prella's head in place.
Feeling how the goddess's head isn't budging easily, and feeling the unnatural angle of her bone, the child is deeply disturbed and completely freaks out. "I… I…," the child stutters through sporadic sobs. "I can't do this!"
Some of the bandits snicker off to the side, and one of them flicks his hand up. In that motion, Prella's head is snapped back into place with a sickening click. "Hahaha!" they all burst out laughing at the ridiculous scene.
Seeing Prella being tortured so, the child Dina stands up and screams in a fury, "Stop hurting the goddess! She's-" *SMACK*
One of the bandits backhands the child and sends her screaming on the floor. "You were funny at first, but you're annoying now. Shut up." He turns to Prella and spits on her head. "And stop calling her a goddess! She's just the emperor's stupid lackey!"
Once the bandits finally calm down, Prella looks up at Dina in pity and tries to comfort her. Seeing that isn't working, the ex-warden sighs and tries to explain, "These people only have a grudge against me. Please… don't try to put yourself in danger again. You can't defeat them."
The villager buried to her right turns and whispers, "Why do they have a grudge against you?"
Sighing heavily, Prella answers, "Up in the mountains is a place called 'the Pit'. It's a hole we bury very, VERY bad people in. I used to be in charge of the Pit. My job was to make sure none of the prisoners got away. These men here have been buried underground for hundreds of years for their crimes, and they're VERY angry."
She looks up at the mountain and thinks of all the subordinates she left behind… If those released bandits, rebels, and insurrectionists are alive, maybe some of the guards are alive as well? If they're alive, there's a chance she and the villagers might make it out of this alive.
Figuring the bandits already know about the Pit guards being alive and not wanting the villagers to worry anymore, Prella opens her mouth and whispers to the little girl, "I had a lot of powerful people working for me at the Pit. After the prison was destroyed, there's a chance some more good guys are still alive. They might come down and rescue us."
Hearing this, Dina finally calms down and wipes her tears. She curls into a ball and lays down next to Prella while softly whimpering and cradling her swollen cheek.
Prella's gaze hardens in fury as she looks at the bandits. 'I don't know what they're planning,' she thinks, 'but what'll I do about it if I get out? …Screw my job as a Warden! I won't bother taking them into custody. I'll kill them all!'