EGBERI

Chapter Seven - The Upgrade

Several months passed, they moved as a unit, robbing for gold. He was now 26 and the prisoners who escaped with him; Avian 28, Sivon 30, Mereba 28, Tyrees 25, Konard 37,Dune 27, Rex and Travis 29.

Avian, a noble man of his clan. He was once a royal constructor, building for the leaders of his clan. Unfortunately for him a structure he built collapsed on thesame day his leader hosted a banquet for his friends celebrating his wife on her birthday, the leaders sold off his wife and kids to slavery and locked him up.

Mereba had a brother who owed a huge debt to a wealthy noble man, he was murdered because he refused to give up his farm land which was later claimed after his death by the noble man. Mereba got furious, Sivon her partner and her went on a revenge mission and massacred the household of the man without successfully ending the man's life from a spirit plane. They were intersected and apprehended by other spirituals protecting the man. Sentenced to live for 2 months before Razan broke them out.

Tyrees, a young archer left for dead by her pack members during an ambush. She was captured and sentenced to live for 5 more months.

Konard, a war slave served a lord for years under hard labor and mockery from the family members of the lord who made him deaf piercing in ears as punishment over an offence. He got fed up and killed them all escaping into the woods. He was captured and locked up awaiting trail.

Dune, an orphan killed 5 guards with a whip while defending a little slave girl almost molested by the kings guards. She had 6 more days till her execution.

The twin spirituals , Rex and Travis, prisoners of a recent war where their village was destroyed.

After a while, they moved to another country still as a street pack. And with time Razan completed his skills and became a demi-god; the god of Perception and increased their attacking advantage. He became immortal with infinite energy and could revive anyone's energy from the spirit plane with just a touch.

He fell in love with Tyrees, and became the leader of their pack and everyone loved and respected him focused on restoring the balance of their world.

On one of their attacks on a noble, they were over powered by defending spirituals on the spirit plane losing Konard to a spear head and Tyrees hit by an arrow. The rest of them managed to flee without any spoils.

The death of Tyrees left Razan thorn apart. He was no use in anyway, always drunk and whiling in frustration blaming himself for not protecting her. The pack became week and broken, Mereba and Sivon abandoned the pack, Avian also left for greener pastures in another country.

Dune was in a sexual partnership with Rex and Travis and they decided to take care of Razan until he was himself again.

Months passed and Trivan in the spirit plane asked him if he had abandoned the mission of liberating his people and in a response he said they  seemed too deviated to be saved. It looked more difficult as the story sounded funny and nobody was expecting to be liberated. They were used to how they suffered and a majority of people hated knowledge of scrolls preferring hard labor to anything else. So they suffered more from lack of knowledge than anything else.

And Trivan replied him saying if a part of the body had become rot from disease and there was a cure for the disease in an impossible part of the world, it'll be always better to find the cure than becoming incomplete by cutting it off, for in time it's presence would be missed.
Saying it'll do him no good if he was the only one left in the planet.

He thought for a while and asked what he should do. Trivan told him to seek the throne of the continent but in a way that would be unnoticed. He had to penetrate the kings cabinet but not with the way the hypocrite dignitaries did, hoping to be favoured.

He would start by conquering a clan as a warrior does, then using influence to keep moving until he reached the kings cabinet. A difficult task that only had his immortality as an advantage, but even that would have to be a secret else the mission could be sabotaged by the king.

The next day he seemed more purposeful and the rest were glad to see him in a better state. He told them about what Trivan said to him and they all pondered on how to conquer an entire clan having no army, if he was leading them to a suicide mission because he could not die, as though he had no value for their lives.

Days past and he met with Trivan on the difficulty of gathering an army, who would listen to his funny story and join his mission. Trivan advised of an approach without violence. Using Sei-Teme's trickery of making dignitaries look more important, he would have to win a popularity contest fighting in the pits with his pack.

The pits were fighting arenas where wanted outlawed packs fight for entertainment and gold. Once marked as a pit fighter, they were granted pardon for their crimes and only the champions could regain their freedom to leave the arena after defending their title for 5 times. The popularity of a champion was more esteemed than the position of a clan leader. With enough support of the people a champion could challenge the leader in a battle for his position.

He told the rest and they went to the arena, getting the fighters scars burnt to their face.