I am cold. What has happened? I feel like coming awake after surgery, but without impairment, like the modern stuff does to you, except for a feeling like somebody wound too tight a bandage around my head. I find myself in a cage with fairly coarse meshing. This is alarming, but not a reason for panic. If they put you into a cage, they don’t want you dead right now. Though that may be subject to change. Still this is a time for deliberate action, not immediate action.

  I look around myself. It takes a moment to convince myself that I am not consuming some apocalyptical neuroware. My mesh is giving me the indication for a full rebuilding. That is not good, but also something that can wait. If somebody goes to the trouble of putting you into a cage, they’ll also block communication. The mesh would be useless right now. I get up from the cold floor, noting that I am naked. That is also no immediate danger, but it means that I’ll have to get out of here without tools. The ground I was lieing on is made from iron. It is full of runes and diagrams. Around my involuntary domicile somebody has rammed metal poles into the ground. Their upper parts are glowing red hot. I won’t freeze to death in the immediate future. I turn around. The cage is circular and fairly large. I can lie down comfortably without touching the bars. In the ring of glowing rods three gaps are left. They are filled with low metal slabs also covered with runes and diagrams. To those slabs three women, barely above the age you’d have to say girls, are chained loosely. They are beautiful and they are naked. Under other circumstances that would be exciting. Under these circumstances it looks more like somebody is taking something he has seen in a streaming series too far.

  One of them is a tall blonde type with an athletic figure and some definitely visible muscle on her shoulders. I cannot tell whether she has blue eyes, as she is asleep. The next slab holds a very pregnant woman. With dark hair. She is lieing next to the product of her digestion, her back turned towards me. They don’t unchain these women for basic necessities. This is bad. I am in the hands of some hardcore psycho. The last slab holds a woman of Indian descent. Her hair is so dark, it is almost blue. Her face has the classic heart shape. She is awake. She looks in my eyes. There is no defeat in these eyes. Neither is there shame. That may be because she is not fully naked. She is wearing a kind of loincloth stained red. Menstruation? Am I back in the 2030ies? It also does not matter right now. Her face stays serious as she slowly puts a finger in front of her mouth in a gesture indicating silence.

  That gesture is called for. I still let a low gasp escape my lips as my gaze wonders further. Behind each of the women three people are clustered. They are dead. Their throats are cut. They have been crucified upside down. Blood is still trickling out. Seeing such a thing in real life is different from seeing it in a ware or – in my youth – on TV. I quickly divert my gaze to an object closer to my cage. An ornate vessel. It looks fairly oriental, like a flask for stupidly expensive oil or perfume, though it is too large for that. A further turn reveals that there are three more of them, adding up to four, equalling spaced in a ring behind the ladies but before the crosses.

  I let my gaze wander into the distance. We are in a brightly lit clearing around noon on a sunny day. The trees and the more distant, less heated parts of the clearing are covered in light snow. Off to one side there is a honest to god tent made of white cloud. It is not even a small tent. About 6 meters long and about 3 meters in height. In front of it stands, for lack of better words, a robot horse with two handles in the shape of blunt horns coming out of the chest replacing head and neck of the creature.

  It is not looking good. My neural mesh is unavailable. Reason unknown, but irrelevant for now. The consequences, however, are highly relevant. I have purchased skill files on armed and unarmed combat. I have mostly done the exercises, but I don’t trust my ability to use them without the aid of my implant. That introspection brings up another worrisome fact. I have large gaps in my memory. Much personal information is missing. In particular the last two days or so. I remember that I have bought skill files, I remember even more or less when I did so, but not where or how. Have I suffered a stroke? That would explain why my neural mesh is rebuilding. The list goes on. The hair on my chest is blonde. It should be white. That pretty much rules out the stroke theory. Cancer? This is no longer the 2030ies. I cannot access my enhanced immune system with my neural mesh inoperable, but anything like that it should catch autonomously. Has the big war broken out and I am suffering the effects of a superexotic bioweapon? No, that makes no sense. I’d be dead, not delusional.

  Should I talk to the people chained to the slabs? For now, no, I should not. There is a line between taking the initiative and willfully disregarding the advice of people who may very well know more than I do. Besides I really doubt we have a language in common. Something very odd has happened. I study the cage. I better not touch it. The rods forming it are not attached to the base plate I am now kneeling upon for a closer look, but separately driven into the ground leaving a gap of a few centimeters. I get a nasty suspicion about the principle of electrified fences applied to cages. Yet my curiosity is kindled. This cage has no door. How have they gotten me in here? Is the base plate the cover of a trap door? That makes most sense, but raises the question how they got it closed after pushing me into the cage. Did they lower the cage into place after putting me on the plate? If so, where is the crane and how do they want to get me out again? Sure they could just shoot me, but this setup is too elaborate for that. Do they want to make a movie of us dieing from thirst? That theory is not in contradiction to the observable facts, but it is ridiculous. Ridiculously little benefit for the risk. Besides, that tent must be a very expensive effect.

  I sit down to closely study the plate. I notice something on my palm. Welts are forming a pattern on my left palm. It’s a list.

  ignis

  spatium

  vita

  vista

  ventus

  corruptio

  maledictio

  sunt tibi

  iis iubeto

  iis regito

  That is an unusual way to use a classical education. Fire, space, life, view, wind, corruption and curse are yours. Command them. Rule with them. Before I jump to concluson I need all facts. That’s what they tought us. Immediate priorities, investigate, decide, execute, evaluate. I don’t need much effort to see the same phenomenon on my other palm. Hunc locum fuge et arcem defendito. It is a command. Flee from the this place and defend a fortress.

  I blew up the communication fibers of my neural mesh. Not exactly a standard command, but then I did things that are not standard with my neural mesh for the inofficial part of my livelihood. They’ll take a few days to regrow, which does not matter, as reforming the part in my brain will take longer. I have sent myself a command. I fight the impulse to jump up and pace to aid my thinking. I may be under observation.

  I knew that my memory would be affected. I also knew that my neural mesh would become unavailable. You have to trust yourself.

  I find this faintly ridiculous nevertheless. I command fire to melt a bar of the cage.

  My head feels constricted and little discharges between the base plate and vulnerable parts of my anatomy make me yelp. I get an answering yelp. The pregnant woman has awoken and retreated until she is sitting with her back to the slab she’s attached to. The blonde woman is rubbing her eyes. The Indian woman, however, is kneeling with a fairly wide stance. She starts pointing towards the tent and moves her mouth in silence. She wants me to talk with someone in the tent. I can investigate odd phenomena later. I turn my eyes towards the tent. A man clad in a suit of chainmail with interspersed small solid metal plates emerges. His outfit reminds me of Mongolian or Indian armor. A sword on his left hip, a backpack on his back, leather gloves on his hand, gauntlets clipped to his belt, but wearing a kind of tiara around his head. He approaches at a leisurely gait.

  This man has captured us and killed nine people in some kind of religous ceremony. I resolve to treat him as an enemy. A very dangerous and capable enemy though. I need to gather information to attack him at the right moment. There is no running for help from this situation. I am naked. This man has a sword and this robot horse thing, plus whatever else he keeps in his tent. There is also no room for negotiation here. He has already killed nine people. You don’t just stop after that. I will have to kill him. And kill him quickly. At my age you get to the point that you accept that sometimes your best option isn’t good and that while you need to do your best, sometimes things are not fully under your control. Then you do what you can with what you have. He has a sword and I don’t. I need information. I resolve to observe and get him to talk as much as possible. Besides, my mouth is quite dry now. Not much use for talking. My environment seems to slow down.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He pulls a short metal rod capped with a crystal out of his backpack. He moves it in a complicated pattern. Then he proceeds to pull a kind of metal picture frame from the backpack and inserts the rod through a set of loops apparently designed to hold the rod. His eyebrows go up a bit.

  ?The next time you dream I am going to steal your body and your sorceries. You don’t need to understand this. I just need you to know it for the nightmare to take hold. Six, no six and maybe a third of another sorcery. Impressive. Quite a catch. Enjoy your last day.“ having delivered this speech he just turns away.

  I am surprised. He spoke in a language I cannot identify but understood perfectly. ?What do you …“ I exclaim. He just walks on, doing something to his fly. This guy just delivered an enigmatic death sentence and plans to take a leak after that.

  Change of plans. I will have to try the odd thing with giving commands to enigmatic powers I told myself to command again. I go mentally go through the the list. Fire did not work. Corruption may do the job. I can hear his urine hitting the ground near a tree. I can also hear a wet slapping sound. I look down. A bloody piece of cloth formed into a ball has hit the floor inside my cage. Good aim. I look up. Yes, the Indian girl is now naked. Even under these circumstances that is exciting. Danger and naked women. ?Unfold it. Step on it“ she lets me know in the same language our captor used. This is not a time for hesitation or squeamishness.

  The moment my second foot hits the blood the world changes. I see things I never saw before. Things I could not imagine seeing. I also feel something like additional limbs or organs becoming active. The sense of power is overwhelming. I need to do something. But what? I can see that the cage is indeed much more than metal. And so is the plate whose surpressive effects are now directed at somebody else. My senses also tell me that my suspicions about the purpose of the gap between the cage and the base plate are correct.

  ?What do you say now?“ she is yelling at our captor. He just responds in a normal voice ?You cannot goad me into harming you. I need you in prime condition. You will still perish in the nightmare as fuel.“

  He turns to me ?I am impressed. But you are still confined to that cage. You can do magic only within it and its wards have more power than you. Under other circumstances you might have been an ally. But this is Ragnar?k. I need to use this opportunity.“

  Fear can be the mindkiller. It can also be a great motivator. He should not have said that. I can see him. More importantly, he sees me. Within the cage I can do magic. That is a monumental revelation but it can also wait for later. Vista – I command the power of sight and light among other things. It is a clear sunny day. He stands only a few meters away from me. My powers take over the task of determining the shape of the reflective surface they need to form. I have about seven meters squared to work with in this cage. His retinas are a few centimeters squared at most. The process is inefficient, but my light budget is lavish. His eyes turn astonishingly bright even to look at for me.

  He howls. His hands are jerking up to cover his eyes when it is already too late. This guy has looked through the equivalent of binoculars pointed directly at the sun. He stumbles forward. He misses the cage. He yells out ?Your soul will not depart gently. Your eyes will become mine.“ That is an impressive amount of awareness under the circumstances.

  The blonde woman almost leisurely extends a leg. He falls onto his stomach. She glides on his back in a smooth motion clearly the result of extensive training. The chains attaching her mannacles to the metal slab wind around his neck. It looks like a form of rodeo. She keeps a knee pressed in his upper back, no matter how much he struggles. It takes about eight minutes for him to fall still. She keeps up the constriction just in case.

  The Indian girl says to me ?I am pleased to survive meeting you. My name is Anisha. You’ll need to get out of this cage yourself.“. She looks at the tent and goes on ?It will dissolve. I guess we can assume that he had no helpers. That must have been audible for quite a distance. Creative magic, by the way.“ I reply ?Thank you. My name is Rafael. I have many, many questions. Am I speaking with a fellow wizard?“. She snorts a laugh ?First year acolyte. I started three months ago. I guess I am no longer an apprentice. She just killed the man who killed my master - with our help. My oath of apprenticeship is fulfilled at least.“. I kind of apologetically respond ?I see. Sorry to hear that. Do you think the heating is going to fail as well? If so, I better find a quick way to get out of here.“. She nods ?Yes, I looks to me like the glow is already changing. You lending a hand with that would be appreciated.“. She balls up and tries to shelter from the wind without touching the cold metal of the slab she’s hiding behind.

  I have a little time to think this over. My power informs me that there is something like counterspells. I could break the magic on this cage by brute forcing it eventually. I’d probably die of thirst or exposure first. I am sitting on a metal plate, nude and the weather is freezing. So exposure, unless I’d use my fire powers to warm up. Not an option.

  What have I learned, what does it mean and what do I decide to do? However, in this case that question is not so simple, as I have to ask myself what I had learned and decided. The most important thing is that this message from myself to myself shows that I was in a situation where I had to accept some sort of compromise. And I was either double-crossed or attacked. In the latter case I made a deal with somebody who has enemies.

  I remember the New Year’s Eve of 2033 when the southern horizon lit up for a few minutes to end the War of 2032 in a most drastic manner. I ended up in training as a drone swarm commander with practically no pay for half a year of horrible inflation and a permanent stain on my CV. Nobody is going to push me into a shady deal and then stab me in the back if I have anything to say about it. Those musings tell me that I don’t know enough. Well, I will have to find out. I have enemies here. Or I had enemies. That looks actually pretty likely to me. People who do human sacrifices rarely find willing help. At least not if there is no equivalent reward in it and there is only one of me. First I need to get out of here though.

  Do I need to destroy the cage? Actually no. Lifting it would do the job. But it was rammed into the ground and is dangerous to touch. Can I drain the energy behind it? My power agrees that there is a spell for that, which I can cast. The result fails. I can feel the power acting, but it runs up against some type of shielding. I can even see it becoming active. Should I now attack that shielding? I doubt that’ll be a useful approach. If it were that easy, our enemy wouldn’t have been so confident.

  Can I make the trap spend its energy supply harmlessly? Going by logic that should be possible. I look at the cloth I am still standing on. No, I may not be able to fend off the base plate. Can I make something? I try. Metal is not available to me.

  I need to use my brain. This trap is not electrical in nature. I don’t need an electrical conductor. What is it supposed to trap? People, maybe also dangerous animals. I don’t have a lab rat on my person. Can I make something organic? My power is happy to make me a wooden stick. I rest it on the base plate and let it drop onto a bar. Massive sparks and I end up with charcoal. That may even be useful. There is snow on the ground. And the cage looks less charged to me.

  I end up using five more sticks, but that gets the job done. As a positive side effect the base plate also falls magically dead. I step off my rather peculiar … cloth of protection. By now this is actually fun. I want an elegant solution. What is strong enough to lift this cage?

  I have an idea. Yes, there is a seed. It is not the proverbial acorn, but the seed of a birch. I dont care. The power lets me get the soil to a usable temperature and lets me make it sprout. My tree pushes the cage out of the ground, lifts it and finally topples it over. There is a drain on my reserves, but growing something seems pretty efficient, more so than making sticks myself.

  By now I have gained spectators. Two of them with admiration; one showing an effort to control fear. All of them are shivering and huddled down. Whether for modesty or warmth I cannot tell. Yes, it is getting cold. Time to hurry up. I form a flame over my hand. Impressive. A bit hotter but smaller. Watching this is fascinating. Anyway, with a murmured apology I walk past my incipient colleague and work as a human plasma torch. In less than four minutes I have cut her loose.

  She does not tarry and makes straight for the place the tent had been. It has left behind a chest and a field bed with some bankets and bedding on it. Quick thinking. What was her name again? Ah yes, Anisha. I would not let people freeze to death anyway, but she seems to be actually useful to have around. I take the pregnant woman next. She says nothing and just covers her most strategic places with her hands.

  I approach the killer lady. In this case I better say something ?Hello, do you understand me?“. Her answer is in a language that sounds Icelandic to me. This could be a problem. However, she does not object to me cutting her chains. Anisha has returned and is distributing blankets. In this case I take warmth over a number of nice views.

  For immediate relief I ignite the charcoal sticks I have had made. But that is no solution. The cloud tent is gone. The robot horse? No. Too much of a gamble. We would get lost in the woods. Anisha interprets my look ?I have no idea how we got here. I had been rendered unconcious by a curse. And no, I am not rich enough to own a cloud tent, not to mention the lack of a pocket to carry it.“

  We need shelter. If you can make sticks, you can make primitive shovels. On frozen ground? Forget it. I look at my tree. I make it grow a bubble on one side. I turn the entrance into a long corridor folding back on itself a few times.