Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) V.A. Lewis (feel good books to read .TXT) 📖

My heart skipped a beat. "Tonight? But that’s so soon. My leg is not healed yet!"

"I know," he sighed, shutting his eyes for a moment. "I just don’t know if we’ll get a better opportunity than right now. From what I managed to hear from eavesdropping, this is the last small town the Mancis Company will be passing through on the way to Bys. They won’t even be selling any slaves here— it’s just a night layover they’re taking for some odd reason. The rest will be cities full of guards and the like. Far more dangerous if we break out now." The Dog Beastkin opened his eyes again, his ears lifting slightly as he looked at me. "You said you could help get us out. I don't know how you’ll do it. But if you can give us that moment tonight. I promise you, we’ll keep you safe no matter what happens."

I met his gaze, hearing a voice screaming internally telling me that I was not ready yet. I saw Rin leaning over the metal bars, chatting casually with one of the neighboring Beastkin, and that apprehension got worse. But I bit back my tongue, and nodded.

"I will help us get out," I said, trying not to reveal any signs of the nervousness I felt in my voice. "Tonight, right? Just sleep like you usually do. I will wake you up when I’m ready."

Shang eyed me with worry. "Are you sure? I don’t want to push you, Melas. If you need our help—"

"I’m fine," I cut him off. "I… just can’t get distracted, you know?" I made up some lame excuse, but it seemed to convince him well enough; he settled back down, nodding.

And then, it was night. I wanted to try and get some rest before we attempted this escape plan, but my nerves did not let that happen. The slavers came as usual, serving us some slops, while giving the actual cages a large berth; they slid the bowls into the cages, rather than get up close to it, probably out of fear of the Beastkin.

I made sure to pay careful attention to each of the slavers that came into the wagon. Most of them did not have keys on them, which made sense, but one— a supervisor of sorts— seemed to have a set of keys hanging around his waist.

I paid careful attention to what he was wearing; he did not have the same garbs as the other slavers. He was not like Marcus, who wore better armor, nor was he like Julian, who had a suit on. He simply had no armor on, and was dressed in plain clothing. An employee of the Mancis Company hired to handle paperwork, perhaps.

He seemed to pay less attention to myself and the Beastkin, than he did toward the boxes full of wares with us. So keys are going to be with the unarmored man. Got it, I told myself.

Soon after we were served our dinner, the slavers left us alone. Then it was dark, and everyone slowly went to sleep. Shang was the last one to close his eyes, and he shot me a look, to which I responded with a reassuring nod. I waited a few more hours before I finally got to work.

Let’s do this.

A faint blue magical circle appeared around my hand; lines began to appear on the surface of the spell, forming a pattern on the surface of the magic circle alongside symbols and shapes.It was like a round handkerchief with embroidery sewn into it; except the handkerchief is transparent apart for the edges, and the embroidery glowed in the dark.

I felt the magic coursing through the world, and at once, everything opened up; the world grew bigger, and it was like I was suddenly thrown deep into an ocean.

I was so immersed into it, I held my breath for a second, thinking that I was going to drown. But I did not. The cages around me did not disappear, and the shackles that bound me still held tight; I was still in the room with the Beastkin. That was the world I saw.

But in the world of magic, in the vast ocean that I was lost in, I recognized something familiar. It was a small pool that seemed to refract light, making objects in it appear much closer than they actually were. However, when I did dip my hands into the pool, the objects did get within my reach.

The feeling of a third invisible arm settled in, and I experimentally flexed (I can’t actually flex something with no muscles, but the idea is there) it a few times; slowly getting used to the feeling once again.

For about a minute, I accustomed myself to using the spell, moving it around the room, moving it through solid walls, and just touching random objects like small pieces of rocks and dirt.

It was a peculiar thing, really; I could easily control what I wanted my spell to touch, and what I wanted it to phase through. The sensation of doing it was odd— almost indescribable. It was like if you asked me to explain how I moved my real hand to a person without any hands; I don’t know how I did it— I just did.

After getting used to the magical feeling of the basic telekinesis spell, I finally got to work. I sent my mage hand through the front door, and waded my way to the nearest person.

It took me less than a minute to find my first person, and carefully used this magical ‘vision’ (it was not sight, it was simply intuitively knowing what was within grabbing distance of my ‘third’ hand) to figure out who it was.

It took me less than a second to figure out that the person was a guard: