Chapter 47 - A Second Chance

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Chapter 47 - A Second Chance

Rivia stood in the middle of that small room upstairs with only two lanterns lighting the small quarters. It felt claustrophobic, having such little space and so many bodies in there all at once.

There was an old feather bed, weathered and worn down from frequent use over the years. Dark stains covered the old comforter, and the pillow was in even worse shape with a couple tears along the fringes.

Other than there, there was only a single wooden chest along the side of a wall next to an old and dirty window that rattled with occasional gusts of wind.

And then there were the four human men, ogling her greedily as she tried to avoid their gazes. She held her black silk robes tightly against her body as if to ward them off, but knew that this couldn’t be avoided. A knot in her throat was growing, and she was trying her hardest not to cry as the skinny drunken farmer – the packrat leader of their group – groped her rear end as he literally drooled with lust.

“Oh you got a fine ass donchya lassy!” the farmer crowed as he cackled and gave her a grin to show off a missing tooth – only a couple inches away from her face.

She recoiled at his touch and stepped back, feeling sick to her stomach under his touch – an act that only caused him to laugh as he aggressively groped her more tightly to the laughter and cheers of his friends.

The door shut behind them and Atharost stepped in, ignoring her completely as she gazed his way with wide teary eyes as if to say – ‘help me.’

An aggressive shove flung Rivia onto the bed, and her head hit the backboard with a thunk.

“Demon bitch…” the farmer said in a low growl as he began to take off his pants. Pulling out his erect cock and stumbling over his own clothes, he actually fell over and clocked his head on the near wall.

One of his friends, a brawny redheaded man with a beard, went over to pick him up. “Get up Landry! You’re takin your sweet time and holdin the rest of us up!”

Landry, the skinny guy, shrugged his friend off and fumbled over to the bed where Rivia lay like a deer in the headlights and breathing fast. “Just give me a minute Jarga, I’m working here!”

Landry wrapped a claw-like hand around Rivia’s right ankle and yanked her down towards him, flinging up her silk bottom to get a good view of everything below her belly button. Landry’s eyes went wide and some of the other guys cheered or whistled at the site of her long, perfect legs.

She recoiled, yanking her leg back and scooting across the bed with her lip beginning to tremble. [Human Dialect] “Please stop.”

Landry and the other four men roared with laughter, and he took her by the ankle and pulled her down a little more roughly this time. Then, yanking her to the left, he flipped her onto her stomach and groped her two toned ass-cheeks. “Hope you like anal lass! I’m an ass man!”

Spitting on his right hand, he wet his dick and prepared to sodomize her.

“Please!” Rivia said, now openly crying as her legs shook and she buried her forehead in the bed. “Please stop!”

One of the other men yelled out to Landry: “Just fuck the bitch so we can go next!”

Landry cackled and was about to put it in when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around, still in a drunken haze, he looked up at the ifrit that stood a good two feet taller than he was. “You want somethin, demon boy?”

The complete lack of respect was evident in the drunkard’s words, and it made Atharost’s eyes burst with flames. “Watch your tone with me, little man.”

The farmer stepped back, with a scowl, but liquor’s bravery kept his fight-or-flight initiatives a little skewed. “I paid your fuckin summoner! Now fuckin tell me what you want or let me get to fuckin!”

Atharost frowned, folded his arms, and head bobbed at Rivia who was still quivering and crying on the bed in a bent-over prone position. “I should inspect her first for teeth.”

“Teeth?” repeated the farmer with a drawl.

Atharost nodded promptly. “Teeth. Culn women have teeth growing around their orifices… ALL of their orifices… You have to remove them before mating, or they’ll bite off the parts of you that you hold most dear.”

It was utter bullshit and Atharost knew it, but he had absolute faith these dimwitted drunken humans wouldn’t know any better.

And he was absolutely right. The farmers all gasped and Landry even took another step back. “Then remove the fuckin teeth! I want to get rompin!”

Atharost chuckled to himself at the stupidity of these men, and then bent over to ‘check.’ He sighed loudly, spread Rivia’s ass-cheeks as the girl flinched under his touch, and pretended to look around. He didn’t know why Trey’d asked him to stall, but he really didn’t care either. He just did as he was told and waited for Trey to get up here. Maybe Trey was wanting in on the fun? Who knew. Maybe he’d even let Atharost in on it. At the very least, Atharost was getting a good look at Rivia’s wares.

Thirty seconds later and the farmers were beginning to complain and huff about how Atharost was taking too long.

Landry in particular was outspoken about his discontentment – being the first in line to have sex with the living sex-symbol on the bed. “Geeetttt ON with it demon boy! Or I’ll go tell your master that you two aren’t holdin the end of the bargain! We paid-”

The door opened and the next moment Trey stepped in. Landry and the other farmers paused what they were doing, and Trey took in the scene. He saw Rivia bent over the bed, crying into the covers. He saw Atharost doing whatever the hell he was doing… and he saw Landry with his cock out a couple feet away.

Then Trey held up a single finger, and caught Landry’s attention by making eye contact. “One question. Were you really going to report me to the guards if I didn’t follow through with this?”

Landry’s jaw slowly dropped, and his face began to grow red with rage. “BOY! If you don’t get on the fuck outa here I’ma do that right now! Get goin so we can have the fun we paid ya for!”

Napoleon, who was perched on Trey’s shoulder gave Trey a curious look. “I right you left left?”

Trey’s eyes narrowed. “Do it.”

Napoleon shot off Trey’s shoulder like a cannon ball – right into Landry’s neck. Blood sprayed across the room and plastered onto the wall as the farmer fell back, croaking as he gurgled blood.

The other three farmers would’ve been in a state of shock, if they weren’t also also in deep shit.

Trey flung Talsh’Noc’Un into the furthest man from him – the greatsword slamming into the man’s face and impaling him completely as Trey shadowstepped directly inbetween the other two. As he materialized inbetween the drunks, who were far to slow to react beyond gasps of horror, he summoned his claws and tore out both of their necks in a gruesome display of garnage.

The attack had lasted less then three seconds, with one man dead and the other three quickly dying from extreme blood loss.  None of them were able to call out for help or make a sound other than flop about on the floor, and with a malicious grin – Trey turned back to the scrawny farmer who’d threatened him.

Landry was literally being eaten alive by Napoleon as the imp ripped off pieces of the man’s body – in particular the fingers as they played a game of cat and mouse as Landry tried to desperately swat the imp away. However, Napoleon was far stronger than he was even though the imp was many times smaller – and the venom from Napoleon’s teeth was causing Landry’s nerve to light up with pain.

He began to involuntarily spasm. Horrified, wide eyed and gasping for breath as his lungs filled up with blood, Landry watched Napoleon rip off his fingers and eat them one by one like a child at a candy shop.

Trey took three slow steps over to where the convulsing farmer lay on the floorboards, and with a grin… watched as the light left his eyes. A minute later, and Landry had become completely still.

“You have gained XP.”

Trey spat disrespectfully on the corpse. “Bitch.”

Then he stood up, brushed himself off and turned around to find Rivia staring at him with an expression he’d never seen her make before. There were still the remnants of tears on her beautiful features, but the waterworks had stopped coming. Her jaw was hung loose and her eyebrows were both raised and scrunched together – it really had him wonder what the hell she was doing.

“What?” Trey asked with a grin and a shrug. “Did you really think I was going to let them fuck you?”

He shook his head with a low chuckle, sighed, and came over to sit next to her. Pulling her robes back down to cover her legs, he lowered his eyes to Landry’s corpse with a saddening smile. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Rivia’s expression flattened slightly, and she slowly nodded her head – speechless.

Trey was beginning to grow uncomfortable, but he cleared his throat and glanced over at Atharost who was now leaning against the closed door a few feet away. “Rivia… I want to say sorry.”

Rivia just stared blankly back.

His postured shifted, a little hesitantly, and he turned to face her full-on. “Sorry I made you go through that. It’s just that… if the guards were really called, we could have gotten a lot of people killed in the fighting. I needed this to be a secluded incident, one that was out of the public eye. So… I lured them up here. With you as bait. I know that we don’t really like each other much… we both have reasons to hate each other. But… for what it’s worth, you’ve been a very valuable asset to the team I’m building. I wouldn’t do something like that to you. So…”

Trey paused what he was saying and raised his eyes from the bed when he saw another tear fall. Two more tears fell in rapid succession, and then even more as he met her gaze again. She was weeping, with her hands over her mouth and her face scrunched up in a mixture of extreme emotion as she began to silently sob.

He felt guilty. REALLY guilty, and a knot in his stomach formed as he lowered his eyes in shame again. He really didn’t like her, but she also hadn’t deserved this. She’d almost been gang raped, at least in her mind…

He probably should have outright told her what the plan was before going through with it. Honestly, he hadn’t because he had wanted her to feel fear… to feel the same fear that she’d caused those people back in Oblivion with her kin. The fear that those people had felt when they’d been sacrificed or fed to monsters. But now… seeing her like this… she hadn’t deserved it one bit.

Trey slowly stood up, and lowered his head. Taking two steps forward, he paused and glanced back. Rivia was still giving him that look… and was still silently sobbing into her hands as they cupped over her mouth and nose. “Uhm… the people downstairs think I’m gone on a piss break, but they think these dead men will be preoccupied with you all night long. They did rent the room out for the night… so just stay here for a little while until I come get you. Then we’ll leave and get lost before anyone knows what happened.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned to leave again – but as he did, Rivia called out.

“Trey…”

He turned, head swiveling to watch as she jumped up off the bed and ran over to him. Flinging her arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder, he flinched a little bit when her small horns poked into his neck unintentionally.

Awkwardly standing there and not knowing what to do, he gingerly reciprocated the hug. He really didn’t know how he felt about this, but she was emotionally wrecked, sobbing, and quivering as she held onto him. This had been his fault, so at the very least he could comfort her when she literally had no one else in the world to turn to.

“T-Trey…” She said again between sobs, still burying her face into his neck while she shook. Her grip tightened and she squeezed up against him with renewed force. “I-I won’t f-forget this. Th-Th-Thank you…”

“Your minion Rivia has increased its opinion of you from ‘Loathed’ to ‘Thankful.’  Your minion gains a 15% experience increase due to it entering the positive category.”

Trey just stood there, holding her, and let her cry. Perhaps… perhaps he needed to treat her better. Perhaps she wasn’t the monster he’d made her out to be… and perhaps she had a little bit more humanity than she had initially let on.

At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to try. Who knew, maybe things would turn out for the better if they weren’t always so hostile to one another.

==============================================================================================================

Years ago in the past...

Name: Taen Movorio

Level ???

Class: ???

Name: Chris Ederson

Level ???

Class: ???

Name: Michael Noren

Level ???

Class: ???

Taen, Chris and Michael were having the worst time of their lives.  For what seemed to them to be an endless amount of time, they underwent what Maltetious claimed to be training... though the three friends found it more akin to torture and personal pleasure on her behalf.  Whenever mistakes were made, which was quite often, they were punished with some form of injury.  Be it temporary maiming, burns, shocks, spears through the chest... being killed off and resurrected again repeatedly began to take its toll on their psyche.

Hopelessness and denial of their situation was replaced with hatred for their captor and a desire to excel so that they may be spared the tortures that failure induced.  Prizes such as food and rest-days were given for high levels of success, and it all began to take the form of a competition between the three.  Often they were even pitted against each other against their will to see how they would fare, and if they refused to kill one another they were both set upon and tortured by Maltetious or her terriths; making an example of them for the third onlooker at that given time.

These months soon turned into years.   Every day it was a new way to kill something, every day the trials were postponed.  The three lost track of time, and had completely given up going home at this point.  The only thing they had to look forward to now was completing the tests or trials and moving on to what Maltetious called ‘the next step,’ where they would be given some variant of freedom from this place.  According to her, anyways.  They weren’t told what this next step was but were told that they’d need all of these experiences in order to do what she intended them to do.  She had also talked about ‘the great coming of Earthborn’ on occasion in reference to the All Spirit’s message, but refused to elaborate on what it was.

All types of weapons were to be mastered, while their two magic attributes were to be obtained and expanded upon.  Only then would they be able to attempt the trials again.  In the meantime, other forms of tests were given to them.  They were taken to different places and areas throughout their training so they could practice in different elements of cold or heat - such as the plains, mountains, deserts, and ocean.  Land, water and even air combat were all tested.   Archery, swordplay, survival skills, varieties of new languages, battle magics, healing magics, stealth techniques, hand to hand combat (which they already knew a great deal about and was the one thing they excelled at), dagger throwing and knife play, as well as various other types of combat or specialized magics were tested and applied.  The only downside to all of this was that they died so many times during this trial-and-error period that they didn’t really get to keep most of their progress.  The sessions were so intense that in the beginning: they averaged a death almost every other day.

Maltetious made it a point to let them know what adjustments she had made to, what they assumed to be, their very genomes.  She had given them vast amounts of speed and strength, much more than that of ordinary humans.  According to her, she had manipulated and improved upon vampiric bodies to the point where they had none of what she called the ‘adverse effects,’ but still had some of the positive characteristics in order to achieve what they were now.  This even included an ability to see in the dark, though when they used it - their eyes glowed a faint blue... and any sources of bright light while using this ability were aversive to them.

***

Many months ago...

“So Maltetious, I’ve got a question for you.” said Taen at one of their training sessions along a vast coastal gulf.  Dark clouds covered the sky and it was starting to lightly drizzle.

“What is it, precious?”  She replied, giggling while attempting to catch raindrops in her cupped palms.  Maltetious had chosen to remain in her mid-twenties form over the time they had spent together, because the men had claimed that the little girl version was incredibly creepy.

Taen scowled, crossed his arms and leaned back against a sand dune.  “Don’t call me that, witch.  Now... many things here don’t really add up, but one thing in particular doesn’t really make sense to me.  You took us from Earth right?  You’ve spent years training us with various magics and weapons.  But many of these weapons are primitive.  Swords?  Bows and arrows?  If you were able to take us from earth and bring us here, why not take some of the weapons as well?  Wouldn’t a gun be nice to have in one of your trials as opposed to a sword?  Or is this really all just a fucked up game like the All Spirit said it was?”

Chris and Michael both look at each other and nod their agreement as they lay down recovering from their previous exercise just moments before.

Pausing, she turned slowly and responded with: “Do you know how much power and energy I put into getting the three of you here?”

“You’ve told us it’s a lot, but I don’t know what a lot entails.”

Maltetious grimaced.  “To follow up that question… Do you truly think all of this is actually a game?  Because if you do… then you are a fool.  The All Spirit is not what it seems to be.”

Taen did not reply, and her words only confused him further.

Pausing again, deep in thought, she turned around and began to walk down the beach; wind whipping her dress and hair about in a way that made her look quite pretty to the three men despite her psychotic personality.

“This existence… This realm is special and specific to me.  It is mine.  Though I am a Numen, I can only truly use the full extent of my powers here.  I was created this way.  I am able to travel to your Earth and to other worlds as well, though doing so weakens me.  One of the many reasons I took the three of you in the first place was due to this... I need tools such as you that I can use to manipulate my interests when you reach the destination I have set for you.  After the tests are over.”  She momentarily stopped to drink the water she’d collected from the rain drops, then shook her damp hair out while giving Taen a backwards grin.  “Do you have a guess as to why I only took three of you, or why Earthborn are unable to use magic in their own plane of existence... yet are VERY able to do so elsewhere?”

Still confused, Taen shook his head no.

She raised a pointer finger skywards, and gave him a dazzling smile.  “The reason is one and the same.  Earth is a unique plane of existence.  The magical forces there are hindered by... something else.  I’m not really sure what that thing is, but not only does this… thing... block magical ability - it also, for lack of better words… increases this now latent magical pool of which the creatures on your planet innately possess when they finally travel to a world where they can use it.  This in turn affects my ability to visit earth.  When I visited your Earth with the All Spirit’s permission, I had no more than six minutes to locate and ensnare souls that I felt would be a good fit for the jobs I have in mind… after many years worth of saving up my energy to do so.  Six minutes...  That is not much time to do things, and traveling to Earth needs certain requirements to be met.  To make a long story short, traveling to Earth is incredibly hard to do and takes a lot of energy, where deities and Numen only have very small amounts of time to bring things back with them before the void pulls us back to our own existences.  These opportunities occur very rarely.  The second question you had regarding technology - well I couldn’t take it even if I wanted to.  It is against the All Spirit’s laws to look into such matters… though I am not sure why.  The Earthborn who do possess knowledge of those things are systematically eliminated by the All Spirit, again... for reasons unknown to me.”

Taen scowled, drawing up his cloak and hood to stop the rain from berating his face.  “So… you took the three of us… Why?”

“Because you were all close in proximity when I found you, and you exhibited qualities I valued for these jobs.  Were you not warriors of some variety from where you are from?  I saw you battling others in hand to hand combat and it was all I had to go off of to tell you the truth,” she snickered.  She began to laugh at the expressions upon their faces in response to what she had just said.

Chris sighed with a defeated downcast gaze. “Damn those martial arts classes.”

“Yeah.  So unlucky for us man.” whimpered Michael in response.

“Oh you know you enjoy my company, boys!  Besides, you’re getting a head start on all the rest of your Earthborn friends.  All you have to do in return is undergo the jobs I will assign you before Beta ends.  Aren’t you happy that you have each other to endure all of this?  BEST OF FRIENDS FOR ALL OF THESE YEARS?!  You should all be honored to have such a beautiful and amazingly talented woman such as myself to spend time with!”

Michael shot her a glare and humphed, ignoring the rain as it began to get heavier in the drizzle. “If you weren’t a complete nutjob and weren’t completely hell bent on causing us pain or anguish I’d agree with you.  Don’t deny it, you get off on punishing us when we screw up.”

With a frown, she turned 180 degrees to look at all of them head on.  “To be quite honest, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.  I’m usually very lonely, but the past two years have been very happy for me because you three have been here to talk with me.”

Taen rolled his eyes.  She was full of it.  “If you wanted companionship it doesn’t make much sense to torture the people you interact with.  For… wait you said two years?  So we HAVE been here that long!?  Nevermind, back to the big picture: it doesn’t make sense for you to do all of these sadistic things to us if you want us to both A - work for you in the future and B - enjoy our company.  Makes NO sense whatsoever.  What makes you think we’ll work for you when we get to wherever we’re going?”

Giggling, she skipped over and tackled Taen to the ground - pinning him there while teasing him by pushing her breasts into his face.

“Call it a personality flaw!”  She said, winking and kissing him on the cheek, before getting up and loudly laughing as she skipped away again.  “I have faith in you three!”

Bewildered, Taen just shook his head and began making a bed out of nearby materials he could find amidst the drizzle.  There really wasn’t much to work with, but he did his best with the seaweed that’d washed up on shore.

“I’ll never understand her.  Though I will admit...” he added loud enough for the other two to hear, “she at the very least isn’t a boring individual.”

“Not bad to look at either.”

“Aye.  The only positive quality she has in my opinion!” scoffed Michael.

Chris threw his hands up in delight.  “By the way guys, you know what I found out the other day while I was on break?  If you roll up the dark grey leaves off the small berry trees back a couple hundred yards east, crush them up a little bit and smoke them, they give you a high!”

He then waved his hands around like a maniac - or better yet, like some genius who’d just made a huge breakthrough.  “I’m saved boys!  I call it, DA GRAY CHIEF!”

Michael eagerly held out his hands.  “Pass me some if you’ve got it!”

“You’re both hopeless...” chuckled Taen.  Brushing his hand through his chestnut colored hair, he took a deep inhale.  Eventually settling down in the soft dirt, he closed his eyes - ignored the assholes nearby as they bickered with one another over various stupidities - and went off to sleep.

***

Upon the next day, they were woken up with a loud bang.

The three friends immediately sprang up from their interrupted slumber, not knowing what to expect next.  Having memories of tricks played upon them in the past by the infamous she-devil, they could only guess at what the hell that noise was.  However, all they found - to their annoyance as well as relief - was a very amused and laughing Maltetious.

“You are all so cute when startled!” She exclaimed profoundly with arms stretching out to the clear blue sky.  The stormclouds had long since left, and the ocean waves made soothing crashing noises as they hit the beach.  “Quiz time!  Are you all ready?  If you get the questions wrong, I light you all on fire again!”

Michael sneered in defiance, but not obviously enough to get himself roasted.  Tucking his chin into his hands and shoving some of the wet sand out to his right for a better position to lean on, he huffed - and really hoped it wasn’t one of those dreaded Q&A sessions.  “Christ I hate this woman… Get on with it, witch.”

“Very well!”  She said happily, dancing and spinning around in mid air.  “First question goes to you Michael!  Tell me all you know about battles between mages.”

Ugh.  Not another one of these.  Question and answer sessions with her were often just ridiculous and had, at least at some point, an unanswerable one thrown in there so she could just fuck him up.  Sighing, he reluctantly replied.  “Other mages are able to sense the magical disturbance you create, enabling them to locate you if hidden and if they’re good enough at it they can identify which type of magic you are using depending on the aura it emits.  They can then counter it in turn.  You are still able to use magic undetected if you do it carefully or are around people who aren’t able to use it.  When fighting other mages, you often involve others unintentionally if they’re nearby or can unintentionally cause unwanted destruction of things in the area when the magics clash  - as the two forces can then leave the primary caster’s influence when conflicting.  Other than that, you suppress another mage’s ability to cast spells if their guard is down by flexing your mana signature over theirs, though this is often hard to do.”

Pausing a moment to think and scratch his arm, he then gave another shrug..  “Is there anything else you want--- Oh yeah.  You should probably take out enemy mages with basic assassination techniques such as a well placed arrow, poisons, or a knife to the back due to these previous reasons.”

“Very good!  Very good indeed, my most unruly student!  Now Chris, tell me about the nature of magic to the best of your ability.  How is it used and improved?”

Chris was repeatedly throwing a rock up into the air, each time he’d catch it and repeat the action.  “Although all things are born with innate pools of magic, only a percentage of the mortal races’ population is able to successfully tap into it without vast amounts of practice.  Two out of five people on average.  Earthborn and other higher races like the demons, fae and angels have a very, very high success rate tapping into their magics though.  Magic is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it becomes and the more frequently you are able to use it again in turn.  This is often seen with the leveling system built into these Nirvana Worlds.  You can tire this so-called muscle out and use up your magic supply if you aren’t careful.  If you do that, you'll have to wait for it to recharge or regain its potency when not pacing yourself.  Monitor this via your MP bar.  Also, the farther you are away from your intended target when using magic, the less of an effect it has.  Because of this, you only have a certain length away from your body, depending on the person, for which your magic is effective.  Lastly, you can cast magic without incantations or audibly commanding the magic to do your bidding, but it is often more potent if you do audibly command it because it usually gives your mind more of a focus point.  Good enough?”

Maltetious nodded politely.  “I suppose.  And now for your question Taen, what is… my favorite food?!”

Taen winced and braced for the punishment that was almost certain to come.  “Well over the time we’ve spent here I’ve only ever seen you eat thrice.  So I’m gona take a guess and say it’s those weird looking frosted pastries with the berries decorating the sides.  Though I wouldn’t call this a fair question.”

Malktetious screamed in delight.  “No, you are most certainly RIGHT!  I’m impressed that you have such a good memory!  And with that, I believe that you are all ready for the trials again.  You have each specialized in your chosen classes and have each reached a professional grade for perfecting your arts.  Are you ready to try the first major trial again?  What say you?”

All of their eyes went wide, and Michael’s jaw even dropped.

For two years, Maltetious had been putting the trials off.  For two years, they had been perfecting their chosen roles of combat with intense training every single day.  Taen had chosen the path of the Necromancer, using Alteration in conjunction with his Necromancy to further perfect his undead.  He still had a long ways to go in terms of learning Alteration abilities, but he knew that eventually it would pay off when he learned more as it was very synergistic with minion-related classes.  Chris had chosen the path of the Celestial Paladin, specializing in Celestial magic for a more offensive edge while taking Holy magic as his second attribute for a more healing based combination.  Considering Chris’ sincere lack of courage, it was comical to the others that he’d chosen this path… but neither Trey nor Michael ever told him this.  Meanwhile, Michael had chosen the path of the Juggernaut - choosing the Earth attribute to boost his defenses while he chose Alteration for further augment his body.  This in turn resulted with gaining a wide variety of sacred arts geared towards defense.

The three men had requested these trials of her over and over again but to no avail, trying to escape the hell hole of an existence they had come to know under the iron boot of her amusements.  They had struggled long and hard to get to where they finally were - spending hours upon hours of studying, training, gaining levels with their accomplishments and then losing levels via death for a final net gain.  To hear her say those words of her own accord, none of them knew how to react.

“YES!  OH GOD PLEASE!” finally exclaimed Michael as the other two started grinning widely and hugged each other.  “It’s about time we get a move on out of here!”

She held up a hand before they went berserk in celebration of their newfound step towards freedom.  “Now, now...  We must be sure you pass these trials first before I let you go!  They are designed to let me know whether or not you are ready, and how you will behave in future assignments I task to you.  Expect the first of the trials to start tonight, though things didn’t progress as I had originally intended - I am sure that you will do much better with thisgo around.  Please make yourselves ready, and do not disappoint me again!”

With a brief flash and crack of noise, the three men appeared back to the place they’d for so long been away from…  They were back at the ruins they’d first arrived at those two years ago.

Cheers to a second chance.