Inside of their mind, Vorden knelt down to the little one’s still body. His form was slowly breathing, yes, but he wasn’t even crying anymore. Unlike Vorden or Raten’s souls, his was far more translucent than theirs, as if he had given up completely on existing.

"Hey, are you there?" Vorden carefully asked, grabbing his hand.

"..."

"See what I mean? We’re wasting time," Raten scoffed.

Vorden chose to ignore him, and held both of the little one’s hands. Even if he was barely responsive, Vorden still wanted to say something to him.

"Me and Raten are going to do our best to get us out of here. We’re going to do everything in our power to not go to the temple tomorrow. You deserve to have a better life than this. It’ll be dangerous, but if you’re fine with us taking this risk on your behalf then just say the word."

He didn’t say anything, not so much of a blink. It really did seem like Raten was right.

Raten wanted to get mad, but he sighed dejectedly and gestured towards the chair with his head.

"Come on, let’s just go."

Vorden glanced back at the little one before getting up.

They almost didn’t hear it, but right as Vorden was about to get on the chair, they heard a faint "...Okay."

Inwardly, Vorden smiled a bit.

"Now, the problem with my plan is that we don’t have any abilities," Raten began, standing next to Vorden, "Honestly, it’s not much of a plan, and I wished there was a better day to do this, but we’re just going to have to deal."

"What kind of abilities do we need?" Vorden asked, "I think I can get us some."

—

Walking through the halls was a servant walking alongside a tall woman with shoulder length blonde hair parted to the side, and a vindictive smile. She wore a dark sea-green tank top, revealing her muscular arms, and had baggy pants to match.

"Yeah, he won’t let me leave the island even though it’s been years at this point. I mean, I know we’re isolating right now, but we’ve completely ran out of Valley Dew, and—"

The servant raised his hands up, and turned to look towards the taller woman.

"I’m sorry, Vicky, but you’ve talked about this issue every day since the family head put the island on lock down."

Raising a hand, Vicky commanded the moisture in the air to collect into a thin water blade, and held it next to the servant’s neck.

"What was that?" Vicky threatened, and the servant got the idea.

"Um... You train pretty often with the water ability, huh?" The servant nervously complimented. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Thanks," Vicky flashed a vindictive smile, "Now where was I...?"

She growled, and flicked the water into the air, "Why’d we even go on lock down anyways? So what if we had some encounter with a guy on another planet? Big deal. I torched a whole faction years ago, and only I wasn’t let off the island."

The servant gulped, "You know we’re only on this lock down to let the situation die down, right?"

Vicky scoffed, "That hadn’t stopped us before. The big four listen to grandpa, not the other way around... Honestly, the best part of this whole thing is that you guys know what it’s been like for me. No one’s been able to leave the island, except for him."

Before the servant could continue to listen to Vicky’s ranting, she immediately squinted her eyes only to see Vorden sprinting in the same hall as her, quickly raising his hands.

"Don’t hit me! I had too much water today," Vorden lied, before pushing past Vicky.

There was a small tingle as their skin had physically touched, momentarily copying MC cells, but he ran to the bathroom just up ahead, and slammed the door.

Vicky squinted her eyes, suspicion creeping into her. There was something about him that didn’t seem right.

"Do you think.... he’s been hogging all the Valley Dew?!" Vicky accused, pointing at the bathroom door.

The servant frantically looked around, he could tell that she was getting worked up, "Uh... I don’t know?"

Vicky didn’t wait for an answer as she stomped up to the door, and waited a minute, listening for sink sounds. Once the faucet turned off, she kicked down the door.

Vorden jumped back, splashing water everywhere. Vicky lifted him by the collar, and started yelling.

"You HAD to drink all my Valley Dew, why else would you use the bathroom this late in the day?!"

"I swear! I just drank a lot of water today!" Vorden defended himself, "Training is hard work! And I don’t even like drinking that stuff anyways."

Vicky glared deep and hard into his eyes. He placed his hands on Vicky’s and mouthed "Please let me down?"

Letting go, Vorden dropped to the floor, and Vicky stomped out of the bathroom.

"I’m checking your room," Vicky muttered as she stormed off to Vorden’s room, the servant following after her.

"You’re not going to find anything in there!" Vorden shouted after her.

"Wow, what an excellent plan," Raten mouthed off in their mind, "Just had to get us another scar before we left?"

"Shut up Raten, we got an ability did we not?" Vorden said, "Besides, I knew Vicky likes to use the water ability a lot, and it’s one we’re going to need."

With no one around, he immediately began using one of the water abilities he got from Vicky and commanded the water in the sink to move around.

"Do you still know how to make a water bubble?" Vorden asked.

Raten scoffed, "Of course I do."

Sensing the MC in their body, Vorden realized that Vicky had actually copied two abilities.

"Hmm, I knew it, Vicky had copied invisibility. With the way her latest sparring victim talked about how she kept disappearing, it had to have been invisibility or teleportation."

Then Vorden disappeared from view, his form vanishing without a trace.

Of the two abilities they had copied from Vicky, they had managed to get a level 7 water ability, and a level 5 invisibility ability.

"Now we’re cooking with gas. It’s almost like she wanted us to escape," Raten excitedly muttered, rubbing his hands together.

The problem with invisibility was that it only made you invisible, as it didn’t silence things like footsteps, or opening and closing doors. There was also the 10 minute time limit at this level. It wasn’t like he could stay invisible forever, but it would last them long enough to not have any witnesses

"There’s another ability we should get," Vorden began, leaning in towards Raten inside their shared space, "Water breathing, just in case the water bubble doesn’t work—"

"Wow, ye of so little faith," Raten snarked.

"You can thank me when we’re not suffocating under the ocean," Vorden shot back.

Thankfully, Raten’s memory of where the servants and guards were came in handy. They managed to reach the giant staircase that led to the deep basement of the castle without bumping into a single one. There, that was where their family stored the chained, the place where they went to copy abilities.