In Chains

The sky was a murky shade of dark gray, preventing the moonlight from reaching the earth below.

The banged-up slave cart rolled along the ruined, uneven cobblestone path.

The road itself, once perhaps a proud pathway leading to something grand, had long since crumbled into something barely traversable.

Every so often, a wheel struck a particularly deep crack in the road, sending a violent jolt through the cart. The captives barely reacted anymore.

The first few times, there had been startled gasps, the weak groans of those too frail to absorb the impact—but now? Just silence. Resignation. A few muffled whimpers from the younger ones—poor souls secretly questioning what sort of sin they had committed to be condemned to such a fate.

Inside, men, women, and children, many in tattered robes, some in armor—adventurers who had unfortunately been kidnapped—were seated very closely to one another, herded like cattle.

The scent of damp stone and old blood clung to the air, thick and suffocating, like a butcher's shop left unclean for far too long, even piss from the ones who couldn't help themselves.

A mother—her face streaked with dried sweat, blood, and dirt—held her child close to her chest, whispering words of comfort into his ear. Lies, mostly.

Things like, "It'll be alright" or "Mommy won't let anything happen to you." But her hands trembled as she stroked his hair, and the boy—far too young for this kind of hell—knew well enough that when adults looked that way, it meant things were far from alright.

Up ahead.

Jagged stone towers jutted from the ground at unnatural angles, their surfaces fractured and worn by time.

Faint engravings, half-buried in layers of grime and creeping roots, traced the weathered pillars—symbols that no longer held meaning to those who walked these lands.

The structure, massive and broken, slumped against the earth like a fallen giant, its highest spires barely visible through the gloom.

And yet, despite its decay, there was something unnatural about it. The way the air felt heavier here. The way the shadows pooled too thickly in the cracks of the stone.

A temple. Or what was left of one.

"Looks like the gods gave up on this place," a voice muttered from the cart.

A man with hollowed-out cheeks and an old scar running down his arm shifted uncomfortably.

"No. More like the people here gave up on their god."

His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "I've heard stories about places like this. Places where the faithful stopped praying… and the gods noticed."

The woman, cradling her shivering child, glanced at the ruined structure with wary eyes.

"Then what happened?"

Silence stretched for a moment, thick and uneasy.

"Depends on the tale," someone else said, their voice edged with a touch of amusement.

"Some say the ground swallowed the temple whole, that it was cast down into the depths as punishment. Others say the priests turned on each other, that the blood they spilled soaked into the walls until even the stone couldn't bear it anymore."

Another scoffed. "Superstition. This place wasn't damned by any god—it was abandoned. Like everything else in this world."

The woman held her child closer, as if the stories themselves could reach out and take him.

The cart creaked as it rolled forward, carrying them deeper into the ruin's shadow.

Up ahead, the guards—cloaked figures in tattered black, their faces obscured by the hoods of their ragged robes—spoke. Some barely tried to keep their conversation quiet, either confident that the captives were too broken to care or simply relishing the fact that they had an audience who couldn't talk back.

One of them nudged the man beside him. "I say, after the next batch is sorted, we keep a few. The high-ups won't miss 'em. The ones with a bit of fight still left—those are the fun ones."

The other laughed, like some bastard who had spent too many years drinking himself half to death. "You always say that. But last time, you nearly got gutted, remember?"

The first man scoffed. "That wolf bitch had a lucky swing. Wouldn't happen again!"

A third voice, colder, more measured, cut in. "You're fools. Do what you want, but don't let your fun cost us good merchandise."

"Tch. Always so serious."

"I take my job seriously."

A pause. Then, a different voice sighed. "Speaking of merchandise… have you seen that vixen in the third cart? That thick one?"

The drunk one let out a low whistle. "Oh, yeah. She's really… different… bodies like that are why beastkin are always the most sold slaves in the black market. Although, judging by that red claw marking on her back, she might be a descendant of Fin'Ra. You can tell by the way she carries herself, even in chains."

"Prideful." The first guard grinned. "I like it when they're still proud."

"Doesn't last."

A dry chuckle as he licked his lips. "No. It never does."

They laughed again as the ruined temple loomed closer, its entrance swallowed in an eerie black-violet glow.

The man in black walked ahead.

Unlike the others, he didn't bother whispering crude jokes or exchanging lazy banter.

His silence was heavier than words, the kind that suggested he had nothing to prove, nothing to fear.

They arrived at a passage beside the ruined temple. It was narrow, carved from the rock itself—

A corridor of jagged stone, slick with moisture, coiling deeper into the earth like a gaping hole in the land.

The walls had faint etchings, the remnants of an old language—curved strokes that had long since faded, eroded by time and neglect. Some were barely visible, others obscured entirely by the dark, pulsing veins running through the stone.

Not natural veins. Something else.

The air here felt heavier. Warmer, too, but not in the way fire gives warmth. This heat was suffocating, like something breathing against the skin.

Up ahead, the man in black reached a set of double gates, wrought iron fused into the stone itself.

The metal was… a bit rusty… old, tarnished, but still whole. Strange symbols ran across its surface, curling into jagged, unreadable spirals. They pulsed faintly, like dying embers.