By Accursed Means

The Pits [Chapter 2]

The darkness became consuming as Virgil walked down it's cascading stairs. The sounds of rhythmic "Ticks" always echoed out with each step he took. The pressure pushed on him threatening to tip him over without a care in the world as he took a step after step sweat beads dripped off his forehead.

As he reached about 25 percent down in the Pit, his knees buckled, and he went down. No one paid him any mind as they all continued; they work without pause. They've all been there before, so the "Tinks" continued without stop. Time passed, and Virgil sat there, but he knew he could stay too long, or he would find himself thrown over the edge.

Time ticked away as he dragged himself to his designated hole for the next two days. Each prison on any shift had to spend two days in it before they could leave. As he made it to 80 percent down the Pit, his cave was the last at the end of the wooden steps. A guard stood there waiting for him with a scowl on his face.

Virgil approached, and before he could open the bars to go inside, the guard grabbed him. "Listen to me, you seedless brat, and If you ever have me wait again, I will have the Sergent keep you locked in here for a year, Just because the Warden knows you have s**t to do with me " The guard spouted, and Virgil shook his head in understanding.

The guard looked up at the call of his name, "Deker!!" The mid way platform and the other guards were looking down at him, so he released Virgil and threw him into the cave and swung the Iron bar closed and stomped off. Virgil got himself together and focused his eye's into the cave, and it seems he had been able to tunnel it rather profoundly.

He pulled his pickaxe deeper, and until he reached the wall, there were already deep strike marks in it. He looked at it for a moment and placed his pickaxe to the side and sat down; there was no light beaming in, so the cave was pitch black without restraint. Virgil sat down and peered out into the darkness, and a smile slowly stretched his lips.

....

"There's no change to either of my lives; This world has drilled my blood into the ground, home nothing but empty dreams and promises." Virgil sat there thinking, His mood growing darker as each passing second. "Live and restore what I couldn't," his mother's voice echoed in his subconscious, and he began gritting his teeth.

A thought that was foreign to the body began to bubble to the surface of Virgil's mind. "Escape" crept to his lips, and he dears not to repeat it. He bit into his bottom lip harder as he stood up from the ground and grabbed his pickaxe and began chipping away at the wall, Mud and rocks flew off without a care. Virgil's mind had become tunnel vision, only looking for an opportunity to strike.

...

Decker!! the voice called, and the guard made his way up the stairs and back to the 50th platform.

The platform spaned the entire Pit so much so that it became a small guards village, three Barracks for the rotating guard, A Blacksmith, Chef, and a tavern laid on the 50th floor. As Decker walked onto the 50th floor, an arm swung around his shoulder, and an overly cheerful voice clipped his ear.

H..Hey Sergeant" Decker's voice cracked a bit, and he kept his head pointed to the ground this was a Bronze Wild level human that could crush him, who hasn't even stepped into the right path of Rooting so he clenched himself and kept his head down. "I saw you were putting the push on the Wardens little toy; I thought you knew better" The sergeant spat a little as he spoke.

"He was late reporting in Srg Quincy, and I had to put him in line if he thinks of trying anything funny" Decker quickly shot an excuse out in hopes of saving his neck. The area around them had guards of all kinds moving through it, and they all heard him. Decker started to feel pain running down his body from his neck as Quincy's muscles began to bulge and tighten around Decker's neck.

"Listen to me real carefully, you s**t stain, That little fucker that sits in bar 89 can meeting in accidents, but if he dies, then you are going to die with him DO I Make myself clear" Quinces voice jolted Decker as it travels to his ear. He rapidly flung his head up and down in agreement. "Go now the Warden has passed out an order to keep that little s**t down there for the next week so, when his two days are up, let him he's not going to be leaving until next week.

"Yes, Srg Q, I will let him know" Decker nodded rapidly. Quincy released his arm from around Decker's neck and walked off with a pep in his step. Decker stared at his back with a murderous gaze which oozed bloodlust and hate, Quincy, who was not far from him, felt the bloodlust and a smile spread itself on his fast.

"It seems another one is underestimating the Front Lines again; It may be time to thin the herd" He spoke to himself as he continued his walk to the primary office building on the floor. Without a care in the world, Quincy and swung open the down and stepped in a fine but petite girl sat behind a desk adjacent to him.

She looked at him for what seems like a second too long then went back to work. She paid him no mind as he walked from the front door, passed her and into his office to the right of her. Quincy sat down and gazed at the papers litter about on his desk, and With a sigh, he grasps a parchment that seemed to be bigger than the actual size in his hand and soo he pulled it apart.

The parchment unfolded, and straight lines and circles mixed in with a right side up triangles and such littered the page. Quincy waved his hand over the paper, and a small shimmer flicked under his fingers.

"Dwarfs sure know how to hind things, It's been 50 years since the empire has been fighting off the hordes of the Ashen Continent, And this encampment is one of many on the front line was once owned and operated by the Dwarfs, Each new generation of guards and Wardens which are deployed here receive two orders when stationed here 1)Find the dwarven treasure buried in the pit and 2) Protect our front line." Quincy thought over the past as he stared at the parchment in his hand.

"In the Empire, there stood three great Kingdoms; Siltonia of the West, Mardova of the North and Vorin of the East; The Capital of the Empire lay in the direct middle of all three, and it lands where the largest. The southern line of the Empire has encampments and strongholds that guard against the Ashen Beast and Humanoid Fiends.

Quincy sighed and placed the parchment back down and looked at the door, he looked at the door and shouted "Shalane whens the next guard rotation." The door crept open slightly by a hand, and it seemed Shalane didn't choose to get up, and she looked back over her shoulder and with a glare and said, "In four days Sergeant," she spoke each word slowly while staring at him in his eye.

The door crept back slowly, and Quincy's left eyebrow began to twitch slowly. The only reason why she's acting this why began because he slept with another officer, and she walked in on them. Shalane however, decided not to leave her post; the benefits of The Pits overshadowed people's emotions to a significant degree.

Only those who had the potential of Rooting their Seeds and blossoming into someone worthy of Joining the Gavein Military of and ascending the ranks, Shalane happens to be one of such potential. The Pits offered such people the power to train their body and increase their control over their seeds. "Rooters, they are all the same, " Quincy sighed as he tilted his head back and let the matter go.

...

Virgil stood in his place, dripping in sweat and dirt clung to his hands, face body, and legs. Mine was grueling work, and it was not for the faint of heart. His fingers trembled, and there was a dark look in his eyes. After a momentum pause, his body shook, and his arm contracted and went back down, slashing away at the wall.

He repeated the motion way into the night and when all others had stopped and rested, but the "Ticks" kept ongoing. Without Virgil realizing it, his strikes had cut more in-depth into the rock, and a different color began to cut through, He struck it over and over, and his pickaxe collided with a hard and metal material resounded and echoed out to the entrance of his cage.

The ding woke him up, and his eyes scanned over what laid before him, but before he could examine it, his body began to contract, and pain ran down every bone in his body ached and screamed for relief. The pickaxe fell, and his body went with it; the impact was hard, but there was no stopping him.

Virgil laid there stiff as a bird, and time ticked away, and his consciousness slipped away with it, He found himself dreaming about his mother and the life they had lived before and after 2020. His father went missing one night when he said he was going to buy milk and never came back, his mother never spoke on it and always changed the subject when he brought it up.

When 2021 struck and the new grading systems and policies were released to the public another event struck the world, A seemingly out of nowhere terrorist group emerged and announced their mission to go against the new world order and few CryoDivers at the time and all who would follow them. At that time, Virgil was still in high school, and his mother was a nurse working two jobs and barely making ends meet, so he devoted his time to learning all he could about whatever he could.

When their savings had reached the minimum requirement to afford a chance at one of them becoming a CryoDiver, he told his mother to take the opportunity and better her life in his word "Mine is just getting started," and so she did. As he now knows, she struggled in this life too, but the blood of who took her life stilled lived. His mother loved humanity's history and one of her favorite quotes, whereby Fredrick Douglass "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

As he dreamt of each word, a profound understanding of what the government had done before his time and after 2020 began to enlighten him to the inner working of society, But this was not a novel or comic people where dying or are dead. His mother had paid the price to society in full with her life.

Virgil had no delusions of grandeur, and he wasn't a captain save a hoe, A delt needed to be collected, and NewYork owed him.

...

"WAKE UP YOU POOR SOULS IT'S TIME TO GET BACK TO WORK" The voice of the officer reached down to all the cells, and the inmates rose from their slumbers: porridge and a thick loaf of bread. The grones of aggravation because of the meal could be heard to the first to the fifty cells beyond than they didn't much care food was food in their eyes.

The eye's of Virgil blinked open.