An Unbound Soul

I paced the corridor outside the dormitory in which I'd imprisoned the Earthlings. I could hear them yelling, but I hadn't left an ear on the inside, and the door and ice provided enough soundproofing that I couldn't make out their words even with my enhanced catkin hearing. I found it hard to care about what they had to say, anyway.

Cluma had been safely teleported back home—where I'd remained for the rest of the day, my makeshift ice lock working far beyond my expectations and giving me an opportunity to refuel on hugs and cuddles—but I couldn't put off dealing with them forever. If only I could decide how to deal with them.

I was in danger of the status quo becoming 'just leave them in there'. I'd fed them a loaf of bread, ejected from my finger. There was an en suite to the room, with running water. Whatever air conditioning this place had was keeping the room at its normal temperature despite the icy door. There were only four single beds between the six of them, but they could sleep in shifts, or I could teleport in a couple of extra mattresses. Either way, their basic needs could be taken care of.

I'd watched them hammering on the door and walls all day to no effect, so I knew they weren't getting out. Perhaps they'd make more sophisticated escape attempts in time, but likewise, that same time would give me the opportunity to block them in with more than just ice. Or I could build a proper jail cell somewhere.

... Actually, thinking back to my previous home-building attempts, perhaps not. I wanted them secure, not to be able to shove their way through a wall bare-handed.

On further consideration of my desire to send them home, I'd decided I was just misleading myself. I didn't want to send them to anywhere. I just wanted to send them away. It had all the benefits of killing them without the associated moral quandary. Sending them home actually had a big negative beyond the microbial issues, in that Harry and his juniors could lend their expertise to further portal research. Perhaps they'd visit a third world and cause trouble there, or find some way around whatever the System was doing to block further portals.

If I hadn't destroyed their new portal apparatus, perhaps I could have ended up sending them to an unpopulated third world, that nevertheless had plentiful food, and no dangerous carnivores or new pathogenic microbes. That was just another style of sending them away, though, and was even more unrealistic than sending them back to Earth.

I simply had no good options.

Perhaps I should punish then forgive. With Earth now safe from the Law, if I used the crystal in the great dungeon and it protected them, they shouldn't have any reason to be antagonistic. Maybe a year or two in their cell before letting them out. Or take a page from Cluma's book and get inventive. I'd love to get them maid costumes of their own and set the System to only adapt their souls for Law compatibility while they weren't wearing them, but that would require cooperation from Serlv. Also, it was a bloody stupid idea, and wouldn't actually help.

The problem was that shouldn't was a different matter from wouldn't. Harry had previously expressed his intent to 'save' this entire world from the Law. We had our deal in which I protected him in exchange for him working on portal defences, but he'd made no secret of his intention to work to destroy the Law completely once he was done with his half of the bargain. I'd tolerated it because I didn't believe he'd succeed, but now he knew I had administrative access to the System and he'd shown a willingness to get at me via my loved ones. Those facts combined were enough that there was no way I could let him out safely.

A sudden silence distracted me from my brooding, and it took me a second to work out that the background of incomprehensible shouting had stopped. I quickly checked via my finger, where Dominic had his gun drawn, pointed at Calvin.

It occurred to me that the shouting probably hadn't been directed at me. The last they knew, I'd been near Dawnhold. I'd left them here for hours, without interaction. All I'd done was gifted them a loaf of bread. They'd have no reason to believe I was outside, listening to them. Perhaps they thought I could hear them through my detached finger, somehow, but more likely was that they were arguing amongst themselves. And now it seemed to have boiled over to the point of threats.

Or it was a ruse to get me back in there. I had no eyes or ears in there, and only [Soul Perception] and [Mana Sight] to watch them with. I could see that all of them were agitated, and Calvin's heart was racing, but that didn't mean much; his heart would likely be racing with a gun pointed at him even if it was staged.

But again, they had no reason to believe I was watching. On balance, it was probably real. So what should I do? If things turned violent, I could clear away the ice quickly with a flame grenade, but unlocking the door risked them escaping. I could teleport in, but that would leave me vulnerable while the teleport completed.

A part of me pointed out that if they all killed each other, it would neatly solve my problems. A more logical part pointed out that the wrong side would win; Dominic and Russell had guns, while the scientists were unarmed, and the guards seemed to be on Harry's side. Meanwhile, another bit offered the opinion that if I was going to let them kill each other, I might as well just go tattle on them to Serlv and let her do it. To let a gun fight break out when I could prevent it would be hypocritical.

Calvin raised his hands, backing away from Dominic, who in turn lowered his weapon. Their mouths were moving, but they were no longer raising their voices, and even with my catkin ears pressed against a wall or held near the ice I couldn't hear what they were saying. Learning to lip read through [Mana Sight] would be a useful skill, even if it wasn't a skill in the System sense.

With a big sigh, I pulled out a couple of flame grenades and left them a little way down the corridor on either side of the door, so I could detonate them remotely if needed, then packed away the ice crystals, replacing them with fire crystals that ate away into the ice. It was a quieter way of getting in than detonating a flame grenade, besides which I didn't have an unlimited supply of grenades on me. My prisoners didn't immediately notice, continuing their argument, and once I had an ice-free patch of door to hold an ear against, I could listen in.

"I didn't know that, and I wasn't going to take the risk," said Harry.

"So you've said a thousand times, but that doesn't explain why you felt the need to take another, bigger risk instead!" answered Calvin.

"Oh, will you both just shut up!" shouted Cara. "You've been arguing in circles for hours! Work on breaking out of here if you want, or wait patiently, but either way, please do it quietly. I'm going to bed."

"Easy for you to say. You'd be perfectly happy if all of Earth got brainwashed," whined Abigail. "Perhaps that's what Peter is doing right this second, now that he's rescued Cluma."

"Unlikely," said Harry. "Had he been lying about his administrative access, he wouldn't have destroyed our wormhole generator. It's safe to believe both that the System now prevents contact from Earth, and that he really has detached Earth from the System. Given that he can guarantee no further interaction, he has no reason to reattach them to the System on our account."

"Then where is he?" asked Abigail. "Is he going to leave us here to rot forever?"

"Probably until the Law takes us," answered Cara, now lying in one of the beds with a duvet pulled over her head.

"That's also unlikely," said Harry. "We won't gain levels while trapped in here, which makes leaving us here an inefficient way to brainwash us."

"What if he uses his administrative access to order the System to convert us?" asked Russel.

"If the System was capable of doing that, there would be no reason for the current roundabout levelling-based conversion."

"Then what do you think he's doing?"

"Nothing. As far as I understand his personality, he dislikes making difficult decisions, and will procrastinate for as long as possible before deciding what to do with us."

Harry definitely scored points for insightfulness, as tough as it was to hear that appraisal coming from someone else.

"So, what then? We just sit here until he remembers us? Hope he keeps sending us food?"

Harry stood up from where he'd been sitting on a bed. "I know you all have a low opinion of me right now, but no, I do not intend to just sit here. Look around you. The furnishings are nothing like what we've seen in Dawnhold. The walls are made of metal. The light comes from panels set into the wall instead of light crystals. Even more telling is the bathroom, which doesn't seem to contain a single magical crystal. The toilet flushes. The sink pipes in water through the wall."

"So? What does it matter if we're a long way from Dawnhold?"

"It doesn't matter where we're not, but where we are. Peter needed to send us somewhere that not only was secure, but where we wouldn't have contact with anyone brainwashed. That rules out any settlement, yet here we are in a facility that doesn't use the regular technology of this world. I believe we're in the ark."

"He would be pretty damn stupid to leave us unattended somewhere so sensitive," pointed out a dubious Dominic.

I didn't think it was that stupid. I had nowhere else secure, and I could watch for them trying to escape.

"We aren't unattended," pointed out Russel, waving a hand in the general direction of my finger. It may have been invisible thanks to [Shelter], but I hadn't exactly made a secret of placing it. "He's probably listening to us right now through that wacky magic of his."

"He is not," answered Harry, without his usual accuracy. "I've been slipping interesting information into our conversations all day, that would certainly have caught his attention had he been listening."

Drat. What did I miss? Probably nothing much, if he was just trying to bait me.

"Nor was there any reaction to our escape attempts, or Dominic drawing his sidearm, making it possible he can't see us either, but that's less certain and I do not wish to rely on it. If he's confident we can't escape, and doesn't care if we kill each other, he'd have no reason to react to either event. Given that our first contact with him involved him using his magic on an eye, I feel safe to say he can't see visually through that finger, but it's possible he can use sensory skills."

"So? What's your point? If we can't escape this room, why does it matter where we are, or how closely we're being watched?"

"Because mindlessly bashing the door is not a serious attempt at escape. Now that I'm sure we aren't being closely monitored, we can make a more considered attempt, and should we succeed, we find ourselves right in the home of the System. The attack from Earth has already proven it lacks defences."

"No," mumbled Cara from under the duvet.

"Pardon?"

"I said no! Earth is safe, and this world is safe. We're the only ones in trouble. We're locked up because you didn't trust Peter, and now you want to make things even worse!"

"Safe? Everyone in this world is still brainwashed. We have a duty to save them."

"You were pretty quick to abandon them in exchange for Earth earlier."

Harry frowned, but didn't argue. He'd abandoned them? Yes, of course; when I'd found out about Cluma, his method to prevent me taking revenge was to threaten me into Lawifying myself. On top of the hypocrisy of relying on the Law to protect himself, if he'd ever destroyed the Law completely, I'd have been freed too, putting him back in danger.

"Then let's vote," he said.

"Oh, not this again. You know you'll win."

"Be glad I'm treating this as a democracy, and not part of your job. I haven't fired you, nor have you quit. I'm still your boss."

"Fine. I quit, for all the difference it will make," she mumbled.

Harry held the vote anyway, with Cara and Calvin voting to politely refrain from any escape attempts, and the other three siding with Harry.

"So it's all well and good saying we'll try more seriously to escape, but do you actually have any ideas? We can't break our way through metal walls, there are no handy vents around to crawl through, and this door is frozen solid," said Dominic, rattling the handle, which caused the door to swing open, revealing me standing behind. The ice had finished melting a while back, but I hadn't wanted to interrupt their conversation.

"Hi!" I exclaimed, grinning.