Penitent-Chapter 27: Entombed

Michael sat on the cold stone for a long while, cooling off. He’d never been that angry, at least not in his old life. A lot of it was because of Marcus, but he knew it was mostly something that had been simmering under the surface for him for a while. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to live, that’s why he fought against the pull of whatever it was he saw when he died, but not on these terms. He wanted his wife, he wanted his children, he wanted to see his grandson again. He roared again and threw himself against the door, smashing his shoulder into it, then his fists until his hands were bleeding and his knuckles near shattering. He’d tried to be grateful, to be reasonable and make the best of what was happening, but he didn’t want to be there, and that just made him feel guilty. He’d taken a life that should’ve been someone else’s and it wasn’t even one he wanted to live. He hadn’t known that, but rationalizing only minimized his frustration, put it out of his mind for a short while before it wormed its way back in.

He raised a right hand and focused, making it glow gold. He placed it against his chest, feeling the hand itself mend as well as some cracked ribs, dozens of bruises, and a number of scrapes from his rough handling when he was thrown into the ‘tomb’ as they’d called it. Once he was healed he closed his eyes and forced himself to take several dozen long breaths. That was enough wallowing. When he opened them, he looked around his home for the next two weeks. There was a bucket in the corner, and nothing else. The stone walls ended in small slats that let him look outside if he leapt up and did a pull up, but as it was night and most of the recruits were involved in the ongoing exercise there wasn’t much to look at. When the magical lights were all shut off he was left in utter darkness and cold. Even though it was nearly the middle of spring, he’d had yet to experience a warm night or morning. He fell asleep curled up in a ball in the corner.

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It was still cold when he was awoken by a knock on the door. A slat at the bottom was opened, and a tray of food slid inside. He pushed himself up and managed a “Thank you,” even in his tired and sore state and moved to the tray. It was bread, some kind of pea-like soup, and bacon. The isolation seemed to be the punishment rather than starvation. That made sense, they had to keep their recruits, willing or otherwise, healthy until they could be thrown into the grind of war.

He ate slowly, knowing that food was likely to be his only entertainment for quite some time. He’d had a few friends that had worked as prison guards back on Earth. They’d told him that the boredom and isolation of solitary regularly made people crazy. They’d smear shit on the walls, try to hurt themselves in any way they could, or just rock back and forth mumbling incoherently. Here they used solitary as a way to punish children, which wasn’t too much of a surprise given everything else about Stent he’d encountered so far. Michael accepted quickly that he’d probably be spending some time muttering to himself, but he was hoping to avoid playing with his own shit if he could.

He practiced his magic for a while. First producing little motes of flame a few inches from his fingertips, then marking different pieces of stone on the walls and activating his navigate spell to see if it still pointed him to the black flag back in the woods. It did, meaning it would as long as he left it marked. When they were in the field, would their equipment also be marked? Would their every movement be tracked when they were off behind enemy lines? It’s what he would do, on top of the brands.

He didn’t have any clothing to practice his tightening spell, and there was no reason to purify the water they’d given him. He stood and started doing exercises. He did squats, push-ups, situps, and anything else he could. He would do as many of each exercise as he could, and when he was done doing all three he’d take a break and do it again. He stopped when even with his recovery ability he was starting to feel exhausted.

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He managed a pullup to look out the slit at the top of the tomb, and realized it was not yet even noon. He slid back down and laid against the cool stone. He focused on his magicka channels, burning five new ones for a lack of anything else to do. He had a feeling that he was nearing the limit of what burning the new channels could do. All of the small pools were connected and he’d then connected those to the long pool that extended from his gut through his left arm. He’d been widening some of them, and connected a few multiple times to turn some lakes into something more akin to rivers, but the gains were minimal. Overall he had improved though. He could extend his magicka five inches from most of his body with enough focus, far from where he’d started, and it was much easier to channel it for spells in general, even when wearing or holding iron.

Once he’d recovered from his boring of new magicka channels, he considered what to do next. He felt recovered enough for more exercise, but didn’t just want to continuously do calisthenics. He could shadowbox, practice his wu-tang style, as it were, but most of what he’d been taught for hand to hand was grappling and holds rather than strikes, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do alone. He looked at the hard stone walls. He remembered watching old movies where monks and karate masters would condition their bodies by striking hard surfaces. Over time their skin would callus and their bones would strengthen until they could strike even stone without pain. Two weeks wouldn’t be enough time to have the hands of a kung-fu master, but… he did have the advantage of being able to heal himself when he did it.

He stood up and took a stance. He threw a cross at the wall with medium strength and immediately regretted his decision as it came in contact with the wall. He doubled over and grasped his wrist with his uninjured hand.

“Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. He healed his hand and flexed it. It felt the same as it had before. He shook his head. His healing restored things as if they’d never been hurt in the first place. He could punch the wall and heal himself a dozen times and it wouldn’t have the effect he was going for. He could still attempt to make some progress on it. With his enhanced recovery he still had an advantage over what the average person would, but that would mean a lot of pain. He could also punch the wall, let it heal by itself for a day, and then heal it. That may still lead to some improved conditioning since some of the natural healing was already done with the recovery.

He placed a hand against the cold stone. There was another option. He may only know a handful of utility spells, but he’d seen many others, including shield. He hadn’t been taught it, and from what he’d learned from Ollie, inventing your own spell was hard, but not impossible. He couldn’t project a shield far, nor could he make a large one, but a small one? Over only his fists? That felt manageable. He’d need a focus for it, a word or phrase. He didn’t know the word for shield in spanish, or hard, but he had an idea. He took a breath, and started moving magicka through his channels and over his fists. “Soy fuerte,” he muttered, taking his stance again. He threw another punch, this time at full strength. His fist hit the wall, and the shield over it shattered immediately.

He fell over, doubling over his shattered hand and cursing loudly. He healed himself quickly with his left hand. That hadn’t worked out exactly how he’d hoped. He pushed himself up and flexed his fingers a bit, making sure there wasn’t any remaining damage. He sighed and lifted himself back up to check the time, it was just hitting noon.

The small slit at the bottom of his door opened.

“Old tray, then you get your food.”

Michael took his old tray and slid it under. It was quickly replaced with a full one.

“Thank you,” he said, though the person on the other side didn’t answer.

He sat down and started to eat. It may not have worked this time, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t with some practice. He had time for some conditioning, he had time to practice it, and he could heal himself if he fucked it up too much. He took a bite of bread.

“What else is there to do?” he muttered to himself.