CAPITULO IV: The price of tomorrow

Part I

The patrol, upon crossing the city, arrived at a skyscraper elegant as a palace.

At the front,

it had a hologram floating with the symbol of the armed angel.

Once they were

near, a door opened. Submerged right in front of the building, the entrance was of marble, gold, and crystal; as they descended, they passed through hallways that connected to areas quite clean and modern.

It was a

sort of futuristic police station, the people here wore rather elegant clothes, some quite extravagant, but most adorned with jewels. Going further down, they passed through an area similar to a high-security futuristic prison, but the cells looked rather clean and welcoming, and thus they descended the first 9 levels.

But as they went deeper…

The truth emerged.

The following 11 lower levels still looked

equally elegant, but with slight differences: stained walls, a bit of rust on the metal, and the people here looked elegant and with some jewels, but not the kind of jewels or extravagant clothes worn by the people of the upper floors.

The prison was still high-security, but fights, disturbances, and gunfire from the guards could be heard, and the cells did not look welcoming at all. Still, these areas were fairly decent, so to speak—old, but with some things resembling the previous areas.

Upon reaching the last 5 levels.

Lights flickered with sadness, and as they descended further, a smell of grime and rust began to be distinguished.

There was no longer a police station; what could be seen

was a sort of check-in, with armed guards taking data from the marked. The people here had chains and iron collars that bore magical runes.

The guards beat them to hurry them along.

There were many people of different races, but all here had something in common: they were slaves.

The deeper they descended, screams could be heard coming from below…

They arrived at the last 4 levels, a rotten area

in inhuman conditions—it was the slave prison.

In this place there was no trace of technology; they were ordinary cells, but inside them could be heard sobbing instead of fights, and instead of gunshots there were cries of pain.

A world totally different from that of the upper floors.

Thanks to the rights of the citizens, even

criminals who had committed heinous acts had better treatment than the slaves.

Part II

And so they reached the last floor and carried down Bayón’s body to take it to the medical area. An elegant name for a butcher’s shop; upon arrival they dumped his body as if it were nothing more than a piece of meat.

But Bayón did not respond: the damage he had received was far too severe.

—Well, routine procedure, ladies —said a guard while pointing at the floor.

—This slave caused destruction in the city and we need to know who his master is. —Restore only the part of his body that has the slave mark, so we can take his data.

The guards left the room, leaving the “doctors” to do their work.

—Well, what do we have here, this guy sure got roasted, I can barely hold myself back from wanting to eat him —said a Lizard Doctor.

—Hey, hey, hold on, I’m hungry too, it’s almost mealtime, but that hungry that you’d eat a human?… —said a Human Doctor.

As they chatted, the doctors took out small vials with a blue liquid that had a faint glow, and one was dissolved in saline solution until it lost its glow.

And they began to pour it into the wounds.

The liquid regenerated his skin in the most common places where slaves have their marks, but they found nothing.

The doctors began to grow a little unsettled.

So they had to pour more, this time in the uncommon areas where the nobles’ slaves were marked, but this favored Bayón’s body regenerating a bit more.

The doctors started to get desperate, since it is not common at all for a being to be unidentifiable in this world.

—This is too much, we’ve already poured a lot of diluted elixir and nothing. —said the Human Doctor.

—This has to be a joke, this is going to take us all day, they’re going to ask us to present a full report —exclaimed the Lizard Doctor.

—But I just want to go eat, and honestly they don’t pay us enough to do this kind of stuff, if at least they asked us nicely.

In a mocking voice the Human Doctor —“Don’t worry, doctor, just call us when you have the information,” but noooo, here they have us like slaves! heh heh heh…

—HEH HEH HEH… —The Lizard Doctor looked coldly at the Human Doctor.

—Look, I agree this is way too much time we’ll be stuck here, I’ve already worked three overtime shifts this week and they took a bunch away in taxes.

—If I have to stay for another extra, I won’t get anything, damn taxes… honestly it’s not worth it. —said the Lizard Doctor with a tired look.

—Well… I suggest… we switch him with the slave they found dead this morning from an overdose —said the Human Doctor while pointing to another body.

As they looked at the corpse already inside a bag, they turned to see the clock and only 10 minutes remained before their mealtime. The pair of doctors turned their heads, facing each other, looking decided at what they were going to do.

They began to prepare both bodies on the metal slabs.

—All right, the spell needs us to sever the slave mark from the corpse, and the area where we’ll place the mark on the receiver —said the Human Doctor while reading a book of dark sorcery.

The Lizard Doctor took some sterilized medico-magical instruments, and cut a piece of skin from both. —I hope this works, you can still stop this, because if we get caught, I’m going to say it was your idea.

—Don’t worry, it’ll work out, you know my specialty is dark magic, I’ve studied this spell enough —said the Human Doctor while making signs with her hand and reciting incantations in a strange language.

The Lizard Doctor took the piece of skin that had the slave mark and placed it on Bayón’s neck.

In the end, the doctor poured elixir to heal the wound, but Bayón’s body seemed to reject the mark and the skin began to dissolve slowly as if acid were poured over it.

—Don’t take it personally, you just had bad luck… —said the doctor looking at Bayón’s face.

—Well, at least let me ease you with this. —Said the Lizard Doctor while spraying a concentrated elixir over all of Bayón’s body.

While the Lizard Doctor made preparations, in the background the Human Doctor prepared the spell; the more verses she recited, her eyes began to glow and little by little she started to separate from the ground as if levitating, and a purple magic circle appeared beneath her feet.

—Ancient spirits that dwell since before our ancestors and remain in the memory of all, those who take life as their property and grant us existence to their service, —Recited the Human Doctor in ancient tongues.

As she continued reciting the spell, the magic circle grew larger, enveloping the entire floor of the room, lighting it up with a purple light.

—Grant us your favor and bind this soul to eternal slavery! —pronounced the Human Doctor with a firm voice.

She raised a single hand and traced in the air an ancient sealing gesture.

But something was not right, the spell should have sealed and vanished with the last gesture… But it did not….

The old medical room stood still with the spell active, trapped in an unnatural silence, as if the air itself refused to move. The lights flickered once… and died.

Something else had answered the call, something that should not be there.

Suddenly the temperature dropped sharply, and the magic circle, which until that moment glowed with a clear and stable purple light, began to change.

From the center of the magic circle, a black tint began to spread like poison, slowly covering the carved lines.

The purple was still there… but now it seemed trapped, as if it struggled to keep shining under a dense layer of darkness.

The shadows from the corners began to move, slide, stir—there was no wind… but the hanging bandages trembled.

Then it was heard.

Not music.

Something deeper.

A dull rhythm, like muffled drums underground, each beat seemed to come out from the walls, from the very concrete of the place.

And after that pulse came the voices.

They were not entirely human, they sang in a dead language, in deformed echoes, as if someone had locked a choir inside an old, rusty music box.

The Lizard Doctor shuddered, stepped back, and hissed with her scales bristling — What… what did you do? This doesn’t smell right.

The Human Doctor did not respond instantly, her eyes still glowed, but something inside them broke and returned to normal.

—It wasn’t me —she sighed, chilled.

—Something else took control… this is crossed magic.

A darker magic, a high-level one, something dominated the spell.

The runes of the magic circle vibrated with a dissonant and incompatible frequency.

The carvings of the runes began to deform on their own, as if being rewritten in real time by an invisible hand.

And then the shadows came.

First they were stains on the wall, then figures, shapeless and incorporeal, they danced around the circle as if celebrating a silent victory, stretching deformed limbs toward the carved magic circle, as if they recognized it…

As if they had been waiting for it…

The slave mark on Bayón’s body responded.

It moved, as if something beneath the skin wanted to come out, and a thick, glowing purple liquid began to ooze from the tattoo as if it bled.

From that substance, chains burst forth.

And they bound him.

One after another, the chains tightened violently, and began to burn.

The fire that arose was a purple flame climbing up the links as if feeding on his soul.

Bayón’s face contracted by reflex, as if his soul still tried to resist.

The chains burned more intensely… and then disappeared, dissolved into a fragmented glow, like embers that no longer needed to exist.

At the same time, the magic circles, already corrupted by the intervention of the spirits, began to decompose, their runes fragmenting, cracking like old pottery, while the corrupt magic they harbored slowly dissolved.

And the shadows…

Those incorporeal forms that had emerged, dancing among the shadows during the spell, kept circling around the room with a broken, spasmodic dance, celebrating not with joy, but with ancient satisfaction.

As if a sacrifice had finally been claimed…

Some stretched deformed limbs across the floor, toward Bayón’s body, as if they wished to touch him, as if they recognized him.

As if he belonged to them…

And then, the entities stopped.

As if a primordial will had brought it to an end, the remaining runes in the magic circle suddenly went out… with no explosion, no spark, they simply extinguished.

In that instant, the entities merged into the dense darkness, and the music ceased, as if they had never been there, as if reality, unable to sustain them any longer, devoured them back.

And then the room was left in darkness.