Sanctuary: Safe Haven

Canna leaned against the cold stone wall of his cell, his eyes scanning the dimly lit surroundings. The air was damp, filled with the echoes of distant drips and the occasional shuffling of feet. As he looked around, his gaze settled on one of the other cells, where he noticed a pair of eyes staring back at him.

The figure was small, stout, and cloaked in the shadows, but there was something unmistakable about it.

"Are you a dwarf?" Canna asked, his voice breaking the silence of the dungeon.

The dwarf, equally surprised that Canna could see him despite the darkness, responded with a gruff tone, "Aye, I am. And what brings you to this lovely place?"

Canna, still in a bit of shock at actually meeting a race he had only seen in movies, replied, "Interesting. I wish I could see you up close. Anyway, we're under suspicion of destroying a kingdom."

There was a collective "ehh" and "huh" from the surrounding cells, and soon, other prisoners began to chime in, their voices mixing in the confined space.

"Did you actually destroy a kingdom then?"

"Another lunatic sent here, huh?"

"Quiet down! I'm trying to sleep!"

The random voices made Canna smile. He found the situation amusing, despite the circumstances. "Well, I didn't," he clarified. "I'm not an idiot who would just destroy a kingdom, you know."

Behind him, Kael was giving Canna a deadpan stare, thinking, 'You're my friend, Canna, but yes, you're exactly that type of person.'

Canna turned his attention back to the dwarf. "How about you? Why are you here?"

The dwarf grumbled and sighed. "I'm not the only dwarf here. There are at least a hundred of us. We were lured in with promises of great pay after working for them, but it was all a scam. Once we finished the job, not only did they refuse to pay us, but they also enslaved us. Almost everyone here is in the same boat."

Another voice chimed in from a nearby cell, "They're known for their military strength! Of course they'd do that! That's the only thing they spend on! All the other departments are just enslaved. They make announcements that they need workers, and once the job is done, they blackmail and enslave them. I spit on them!

I spit on all of them!"

"Well, you're one of us now," a dejected voice added. "They'll enslave you too and make you work for free, while they put all the money into the military."

Hearing this, Kael's ears perked up. He had a question that had been nagging at him, so he asked it aloud, "So, none of you here are actual criminals? Just people they enslaved to further their agenda?"

The dwarf responded with a heavy sigh, "Of course not. The real criminals are kept in a different dungeon. In fact, the really bad ones are sent to the slavehouse, the black market where all slaves are sold."

Kael's mind began to whirl with possibilities. If what the prisoners were saying was true, then didn't that mean they were all important personnel? Skilled workers who had been forced into servitude to keep the kingdom running? Kael couldn't see it in the dark, but Canna could.

Despite the dim light, he noticed that all the people in the dungeon were wearing the same slave collars that Grimruk had been forced to wear when he was enslaved.

Intrigued, Canna asked the dwarf another question, "What did you do, dwarf?"

The dwarf grumbled again, "My team handles maintenance in the castle, or wherever they need us. Mostly, they have us build or repair things. We're skilled craftsmen, after all. But now, they've turned us into slaves, forcing us to work under the threat of those damned collars."

As the conversations continued below the dungeon, a different discussion was taking place above ground, back in the meeting room where the kingdom's upper echelon had gathered.

The atmosphere in the room was tense, the air thick with conflicting opinions. The nobles and high-ranking officials were deep in discussion, their voices raised in heated argument.

"This is madness!" one noble exclaimed, slamming his fist on the table. "We cannot simply let Canna Yakane walk free! He's a threat to our kingdom!"

"He's more than a threat," another chimed in. "If he truly destroyed Avaloria, what's to stop him from doing the same to us?"

"But think of the potential!" a third voice argued, this one more measured. "If we could control him, make him work for us, just imagine the power we could wield. He could be the ultimate weapon in our military arsenal!"

A burly man, who had remained silent up until this point, finally spoke up. "And how do you propose we control someone like him? He's clearly powerful, far beyond any of us."

"We enslave him," the third voice continued, undeterred. "We use the same method we've used on others—collars, threats, whatever it takes. Once he's under our control, we'll have nothing to fear."

A murmur of agreement spread through the room, but not everyone was convinced.

"Are you all out of your minds?" an older noblewoman interjected. "You would risk everything on the hope that you could control him? What if he turns on us? We should eliminate him now, while we have the chance."

The room erupted into chaos, voices overlapping as the debate intensified. Some argued for Canna's immediate execution, fearing the danger he posed. Others, seeing the potential to harness his power for their own gain, pushed for his enslavement. The division was clear—those who sought to use Canna as a weapon versus those who wanted to eliminate the threat entirely.

In the end, the decision fell to the king, who had been silently observing the heated exchange. His cold, calculating gaze swept across the room before he finally spoke.

"We will not kill him—yet," the king decreed, his voice cold and final. "We will attempt to enslave him, to bend him to our will. If he resists, then, and only then, will we eliminate him. Until that time, he is to be kept under the strictest watch. We will see if this Canna Yakane can be made to serve the kingdom of Arenthia."

With the king's word, the debate was settled, though the tension in the room remained palpable. The nobles exchanged uneasy glances, knowing that they were treading on dangerous ground. The plan was set, but whether it would succeed or backfire spectacularly remained to be seen.