Unspeakable Secrets The Alchemist Series (A Dark Medieval Progression Fantasy)

Chapter 48 The Cell

Connor heard the man walking away even as heavy footfalls tromped up to him. Rough hands pulled Connor up by the shoulders, hoisting him to his feet.

Connor's head slumped like a wet noodle as a pair of men dragged him out of the container, his feet scraping over the slick, wooden floorboards. Connor's eyes remained the only thing he could move and he looked around as best he could.

But, he saw little other than legs, feet, and the dark wood beneath him.

He took in every scent and paid careful attention to every sound. There was no telling what might later prove useful.

For one thing, the ship sounded huge. That implied interesting things about the resources the Syndicate had access to. Though if the ship was as large as he suspected from what he could hear, then it wasn't exactly new knowledge about his enemy having vast wealth and power.

It did however tell him a little more about how that power manifested.

The question is... is this ship as large as it sounds like it is? For that matter... does this ship belong to the Syndicate themselves, and how many others do they have access to? Connor thought.

Not that the answers to such questions seemed as though they'd prove immediately useful... but he was determined to wring every drop of useful information out of his unfortunate situation.

Moreover, he couldn't help but wonder where they were taking him that they needed a ship. Particularly what sounded like such a large one. He wondered who else was on this thing. If any of the others were being taken elsewhere like he was...

The thunderous crack of something striking wood with impossible force rippled through the ship in a small quake as another distorted, unnatural roar howled below.

Or what else...

Connor tried to move. To will his limbs to respond. To break free and slip away. But, his limbs hung limp and the men carried him down a set of polished wooden stairs like a rag doll. A hive of activity surrounded him as they went below into a deck lit primarily by magical torches or some form of lanterns.

He heard Vadik's much lighter footsteps behind him and it was an effort of will not to focus on that. On his anger. On his searing hatred for the man he'd once thought of as a dear friend.

Instead, Connor counted every step the men carrying him took. Every turn no matter how slight. And tried to extrapolate out from that a sense of the environment they were hauling him through.

They went down another set of stairs, again of polished wood. One of the men carrying Connor stumbled over the boots of a dead man sprawled on the floor but quickly regained his balance.

The men's heavy footfalls crunched on the layer of smoking wooden splinters littering the floor as dark red liquid oozed over them with a soft sizzle.

Connor caught glimpses of other bodies on the edges of his vision.

Unease slithered and coiled in Connor's gut as they brought him down another set of stairs. He couldn't help wondering if he was about to be fed to whatever creature had caused such mayhem even as his anger silently praised the monster for dispatching of a few Syndicate agents.

As far as he was concerned, that meant whatever it was couldn't be all bad.

The men carried him across polished wooden floors that gleamed like metal in the dim light. Though that impeccable order was disrupted by more carnage as the men dragged Connor through a lake of blood.

It lapped against his shoes and rippled in his wake. He caught glimpses of more bodies and a damaged mast. Not badly enough that it couldn't be repaired, unfortunately. But whatever had cracked the thick, enchanted wood had to have unbelievable strength.