The sight of the slave dungeon appeared plucked from Sune's worst nightmares.
Dried stains of mud and dirt caked every surface, wall to ceiling to floor, hints of crimson interspersed in patches. The iron bars rusty and jagged like thorns, reflecting the dim, flickering lantern-light, which barely reached into the cells.
Sune trod forward carefully. Fearing not only an attacker lurking in the darkness, but that he would somehow become infected with some sort of disease if he were not cautious.
His ears caught the squelching and squeaking of all the roaches and bugs he had stepped on. The stench of depravity thickened the air. A tomb of filth.
Then, he noticed what he had come for.
Or rather, who.
Dark silhouettes in their cells. Hardly moving, hardly even breathing. Appearing as little more than a trick of the light.
Sune inched closer.
The dark silhouettes became shades of dark green as Sune's eyes adjusted to the dark.
And yet still, they were frozen-- like statues.
Carved by King Vikram. Or perhaps they had learned to chip away at themselves?
Perhaps that was how they survived. Staying perfectly still. Perfectly quiet. Offending no one, living for nothing.
Sune crept even further.
Their faces wore no expression. No emotion. The feeling drained from within their bodies.
All except the eyes, which Sune could unfortunately read.
If reading souls were likened to reading a book...
The ink was smeared. Nothing legible as Sune squinted and studied their pupils. Their souls themselves, erased.
'What the hell is this?' Sune cursed to himself.
A head snapped towards him in the shadows.
"Ohh! S--sorry, m'lord! Might there be...m--more work for us?" the Gimen stuttered.
'...He thinks I'm a lord?'
Sune appeared just as Gimen-like beneath his clothes as all the rest of his captured kin. Except he was specifically trying to hide that fact. He wore the longest sleeves and trousers possible, gloves to cover his hands, his scarf to cover his face. Underneath the scarf, he even wore a blindfold with two holes cut in so he could see.
All this made it so there was no chance any human could tell what he was.
This combined with the fact that his eyes bore Assurance, the sacred power only humans are supposed to have access to, and only high-ranking ones at that, it became clear to Sune why they would suspect he were some nobleman.
"I'm no lord. I'm here to free you. I need to know where the guards keep their keys." Sune whispered.
The slave simply stared at him, confused. This was not a sentence he had been conditioned to handle.
"...M-lord? I'm sorry if I upset you! Please... if there's anything you need, I'll do it! Please, have mercy on me!"
He continued apologising as Sune tried to shush him and explain. One ear and out the other. Only growing more and more afraid, upset, confused...
Loud.
The other slaves cowered in fear. But still opted to only speak when they were spoken to.
It became clear to Sune that this man was lost. And clear still that trying to reason with a different slave would prove just as futile.
His reality was set in stone. And Sune was an anomaly in that reality that could not possibly exist.
So was escape.
So Sune simply took a different approach, fleeing the scene temporarily. Hoping things would quiet down as he left.
'If they won't tell me where the keys are I'll have to find them myself. But how the hell do I convince them all to leave?' Sune pondered, as he slinked back into the shadows.
*****
Around fifteen minutes had passed. Sune stood silently in a dark corner, where even the slaves themselves could not see him and alert a guard to his presence.
He had grown bored, but not anxious. Spacing out from time to time. Counting the seconds until a guard bearing a key passed through.
When suddenly, he heard footsteps.
Hard, heavy, and confident. Surely not one of the slaves.
'A guard.'
Sune turned cautiously to peek the corner. There was indeed a guard traipsing towards his direction. Peering into the cells, looking down upon the dark green silhouettes as though he were a god among men.
That was when he heard it.
The distinct jangling of dangling keys.
'...Hard part's over.'
The guard stomped though the threshold, right next to his hiding place.
Sune remained ever-still in the shadows. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Bending his knees and propping himself against the wall for momentum.
'Not yet... not yet...'
Sune knew he would only get one chance. His attack had to be flawless.
'...Now!'
Finally, when the guard's back was entirely past him, Sune pounced. Leaping and hurling his arm towards his neck.
The guard struggled and punched around behind his ear. No clean shots landed.
Sune bore control of his back. Wrestling him to the filthy dungeon floor as he choked him out.
The guard let out a strangled cry. Along the lines of 'help me.'
No help was coming.
The moment his opponent clearly laid still, Sune slid from underneath, raising his hands above his head, allowing the guard's unconscious body to thud to the floor. Sune just turned and wrenched the keys from his belt. He could feel the eyes of the slaves watching him.
One or two of them began to speak out. "I--intruder! Intrude--"
"Silence!" Sune snapped back.
Waiting for that guard had given him enough time to concoct a plan, a way to convince the Gimen slaves to flee. Although, it would be much harder than the act of beating any guard at all.
"Is that how you might address a lord, slaves?!" Sune hissed.
"N--no, my lord! Please forgive us! Forgive us!!" the slaves immediately began begging for mercy.
"That man was disregarding my explicit orders! Unless you wish to meet the same fate, you will do exactly as I say!" Sune pulled his greatest human impression.
"Yes, my lord! Anything!" the slaves exclaimed.
Sune paused.
He needed to be as convincing as was ever possible. The performance of a lifetime. He took a deep breath, paced around some. Thinking of precisely what words he wanted to use.
Then, finally, he spoke.
"Now listen closely. I am going to open each and every one of your cells. Once I am finished, you are to flee. Not just the castle, but the city itself. You are to run, hide and fight every human you come across so long as it gets you out Amandla. You are to question nothing and obey no order from anyone else except me. Once you are out, flee as far away as possible. If you are sent for by human soldiers. Run, hide, fight again. Stop only when you are dead, or when there are no truly no humans at your back. If you refuse, or ever obey another human again, the punishment will be severe. My Assurance shall inform me, and you shall face the consequences."
For a moment, the same hopeless silence ran throughout the dungeon. Sune feared his words were lost on them.
Then, the silence dispersed. Replaced by confused murmurs. At first Sune believed that they would choose not to obey him, but then he came to a realisation.
'No. They--they're thinking about it. The humans taught them never to think for themselves.'
A small step back to the mental autonomy that was taken from them.
Enough to make them follow one last order.
"Yes, my lord!" one Gimen chimed.
"Yes, of course!" another exclaimed.
A chorus of yeses flooded Sune's ears. He let out a small smile beneath his scarf, as he raced to the cell doors and hurriedly unlocked them one by one. Gimen flooded from the cells like poured water.
Sune threw caution to the wind.
"Now go! Go! Leave this city! Let no human stand in your way! That is a direct order from your highness himself!" he commanded.
A cry of valour sounded through the dungeons. Sune could feel the confusion emanating from the upper floors, even while he was not yet there.
Gimen slaves stormed the staircase, clamouring and tripping over each other. Covered by nothing but rags, potato sacks and blackened patches of dirt, hands bound by cuffs, yet their feet untied.
'They must've thought their mind-games would be enough. Nothing will ever be enough to stop what's coming.' Sune muttered internally.
A labyrinth of chaos was born, but Sune was no longer part of it. Rather than lead the Gimen out of the city himself, he fled the scene and ascended back upstairs by two floors, watching his carnage unfold through the windows.
Guards snarled in rage, ordering slaves back into their slaves, wielding pitchforks, trying to herd them like runaway animals. Human civilians cowered in the visceral sight of the 'escaped slave monsters' as they sprinted madly in all directions. The warning bell chimed. But it was all too late.
'They enjoyed following orders, perhaps one day they'll enjoy not having to. Maybe they'll come to realise what really happened today.' Sune thought. Sitting atop the windowsill, both feet up. Watching his work come to fruition, relishing the fact no one would yet figure out it was him.
'That's it! I've done it now. There's no turning back! From this moment on... I am either reborn as someone who can follow through... or I die...
Either way... at least I will not survive.'
With that thought, he left his havoc behind. Lowering himself from the windowsill. Steeling his resolve once again.
'Alright. Only one thing left to do isn't there... King Vikram?'