Chapter 35: Caged

  Alex startled awake with a stifled grunt. He sat up from where he lay on the ground, his head spun and he gagged from the taste that assaulted his mouth. He looked about blearily, unsure what was going on.

  He remembered the badger fights. The bodyguards, the den mother, then Holly. He remembered trying to save her, spending his points, and the pain. It was just all too much, his head hurt. Somehow he was alive, so maybe that meant Holly was too, and the others. Where were they?

  Alex looked at his surroundings. What is happening now?

  He was in a cage. Why did his team put him in a cage? Where did they even get a cage? What had he done after running away that prompted his team to put him in this? It was ridiculous. What happened? How did I get here in this... cave?

  He was sitting in a metal cage, inside what looked like a cave cavern. The floor and walls of the cavern were made of stone, natural, unhewn stone. The room was very poorly lit, with a few torches in sconces attached to the walls. From the dim light that they did give off, Alex was able to notice more details of his predicament.

  On either side of him, Alex saw other cages with more people. His friends.

  He saw Lance, Devon, Peter, Cole, Zach and Eric to his left down in a line of cages. Garret and Henry, he couldn't quite see, but he guessed they were further off in the darkness just beyond his vision. Allie, Holly and even Kate, were in separate cages as well on his right. It looked like the women were separated out a little.

  "He's awake. Guys, he's awake." Lance whispered into the cavern.

  "Oh thank god, Alex are you okay?" Allie whispered from his right.

  "Alex, yes, finally. Can he take a bath now?" Alex heard Garret off to the far left. Alex ignored him.

  "You alright man?"

  "I'm okay, I'm okay." Alex said, waving away the concerns. He really was okay after all. His head hurt and he was a bit sore, but he felt really good like one of those great days at the gym. He felt like he had an adrenaline high.

  He was covered in the black residue of his refinement still, which was probably what he tasted in his mouth. But besides that, he felt good.

  He brought up his stats and notifications.

  Before the fight even began Alex had enough experience to push his vitality to five. Not his strength though. The royal bodyguards, or the Den Guardians as the system seemed to title them, were the kills that gave Alex enough experience to push his strength up to such a point to begin the refinement, and to pry Holly from the den mother's grasp.

  Alex's vitality had already been more than halfway through to five, so the remaining amount was enough to let him kick that up while he was running away. Going through two refinements at once was a crazy idea, especially if doing even one during a life or death fight was already. Alex knew his body wouldn't hold together during its strength refinement and running away at the same time, so he panicked and tried pushing his vitality to get the healing and endurance to survive.

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  What he didn't understand was how he got the experience to also push up his willpower while he was running away from the den mother. An action that was also crazy, but something Alex at the time had hoped would let him have the mental ability to stay conscious just a little longer to carry Holly further away.

  The answer came with the next notifications the system had sent him.

  Alex almost began laughing. He got the experience from the den mother and quest completion which let him increase his willpower stat to the refinement threshold. That also meant the den mother had died as he was running away and he didn't even notice. He didn't need to keep pushing at that point, if he just paid attention to his notifications he would have known.

  Not like I was in the state of mind to stop and read my pop-ups. He thought.

  He looked back at the quest completion and sighed. The system was getting more and more annoying. More antagonistic almost. Though Alex would call the system’s antics more mockery than antagonism. It was strange, or it would be if Alex didn't remember what Celeste told him about elements and attunements.

  I'm fire element, which is passion and action. So, the system is trying to get a rise out of me and piss me off. He realized.

  The system notifications were seen only by each person they were meant for. Alex was getting notifications that taunted and insulted him. Allie seemed to be getting ones that were pompous and belittling. He assumed everyone else got ones that were tailor-made to motivate and push them. It was, in a roundabout way, encouraging each of them to fight more and progress based on their personality and elements.

  Then it does actually want us to survive? Wants us to get stronger and pass its crazy trial. Why? Alex didn't know the answer to that. For now, he had other things to look through.

  "Alex, hello?" Allie's voice brought Alex back to reality and he blinked about.

  "Uh sorry, I was looking at my screens." He said. Everyone was looking at him now and he waved away their concerns. "So what's going on? I just remember the den mother fight and running away, then I blacked out."

  "Well you stumbled up to us covered in that black stuff, you even got some on Holly," Lance said. Alex looked over to his right at Holly. Sure enough, she had stains all over her clothes, it looked like his refinement spree caused quite a mess.

  But, her arm was wrapped in clean bandages and in a sling. She still had the arm at least, that was something.

  Lance continued, "Allie got to bandaging her up and stuff when you collapsed to the ground and you just passed out."

  "Makes sense, but why are we in cages?" Alex asked.

  "I was getting there," Lance said.

  "It's the lizard people man, the damn lizard men got us. The internet back home would be going wild right now." It was Garret's voice again, Alex still couldn't quite see him in the low light.

  "The lizard people?" Alex muttered to himself. "The kobolds? The kobolds got us? How?"

  "They surrounded us as we were recovering from the fight. I think they were waiting for us." Devon spoke up this time. "They probably had a way to track you and Garret from when you fought some of their kind. They showed up with like thirty warriors, Kate and Zach were with them." He said this last part as he shot Zach an angry glare. It was obvious what Devon was thinking about the situation. Alex didn't blame him.

  "I told you we didn't tell them shit," Zach sat in the corner of his cage. The guy still looked to be recovering from his injuries.

  Alex looked down at his own knee, finding that it looked completely fine. Moving it around let him know it didn't feel injured at all either. His arm was the same. The wound from Kate stabbing him all but vanished, leaving only a tiny thin scar. He didn't know if it was from the increased healing rate, or the body refinement. He didn't really care either way.

  "Bullshit, then why were you with them?" Devon pressed himself against the bars of his cage, glaring at Zach.

  "Maybe because we didn't have a choice like I said the first time." Zach appeared outwardly calm, but his voice held venom. "They showed up at your camp while we were still injured. We don't know their language at all so we couldn't even speak to them. It doesn't take a genius to know we were your prisoners though and to track you guys to where you went. You weren't exactly covering your tracks."

  Zach was right on all accounts. They didn't have the ring Alex had, so they couldn't talk to the Kobolds. Alex felt the ring still on his finger and looked down at his hand. He was still wearing it, they hadn't taken it off him. The same went for his armor and his bracelet.

  His weapons were gone though. Along with the coin pouch holding all their money, of course. Their backpacks were gone too, containing all their other gear and goods. But why didn’t they take the ring, or his bracelet?

  I mean, neither of them look like they are worth anything. Alex realized as he looked at the items. The ring was woven plant vines, barely even looked like a ring. His bracelet looked like just a stone loop on his wrist. It didn at all look shiny, expensive or valuable either. SO the Kobolds probably only took the things they saw as valuable? That made since to Alex.

  "You all just left us there," Zach went on, "The lizards arrived, yelled at us some, then forced us at spear point to leave with them. It was that or die. So here we are.”

  "Whatever," Devon pushed away from the bars and sat down. A silence hung over everyone for a long minute. It appeared to Alex this wasn't the first time this argument occurred and everyone was wrung emotionally dry.

  "Thank you, for saving me," Holly said, "I didn't get to say it since you were passed out. Then we got captured. But, thank you."

  "Of course, I was saving a teammate," Alex said. "It's what any of us would have done." He smiled at her. She looked away.

  "So how the hell do we get out of here? I don't think this is some lizard-person version of treating guests." Eric finally got everyone to refocus on the task at hand.

  Alex looked at the cage he was in more closely. It was big, big enough for him to stand up and stretch. There wasn't any walking room, but it was more than he expected.

  They are probably made for beasts, not humans. Then he thought better of it. Maybe both . The cage was two stone slabs (one above, one below) separated by metal bars closely set together. There was maybe a hand-width between each of the bars, not enough room for any of them to fit through. Metal bars though, didn't seem that tough, not with their new stats.

  "Garret, can you not bend the bars?" Alex called out to the darkness to his left.

  Metal was strong, but he was pretty sure with Garret's refined strength he should have already been able to bend them and get out. Hell, there were people back in their home world who were strong enough to bend metal bars with the right training and practice.

  "No," Garret said. "I tried. These things are made of some sort of super strong metal or something. I can't even budge them."

  "Damn, does anyone have any plans then?" Alex asked.

  "Wait for lunch?" Garret said.

  No one laughed.

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