He took a breath, calming his disordered thoughts, though it felt like trying to spit water onto a forest fire. He knelt and examined the door, studying the latch and the script together, but so many of the symbols were unfamiliar to him. He recognized something similar to the circle he'd used to ward off Remnants, but with ten times the complexity.

That was it. There wasn't much else to examine. No other tools to use, no threads to pull, just idle time to pass before whatever had shredded the other prisoners' bodies was used on him.

Though when he spent some time thinking about it, he thought he might know what had happened. These must be miners.

When he looked up, the blocky silhouette of the Transcendent Ruins blocked out the moon and a good half of the stars. They were camped right at the base of it—so maybe this wasn't Sandviper territory at all, because all of the five allied factions would want to share access to the Ruins.

The Sandvipers he'd met before had mentioned miners, and Fisher Gesha had told him the story of how dangerous it was to go inside the Ruins to draw scales from the air. She'd suggested a survival rate of less than thirty percent.

Lindon took another look around him as he imagined what had happened to the rest.

Laughter echoed around the camp until it sounded almost like screams...no, those were screams, along with some shouts and the ringing of metal.

He craned his neck, trying to stick his head between the bars—though they were too closely set for that—in order to see down the row of cages and storage buildings.

Another cage, just like the one in which he found himself, was rattling back and forth as its inhabitants threw themselves against the sides. It looked as though it would actually tip over, but a couple of Sandvipers appeared out of nowhere at the final instant. One of them sent two bright green lights flickering into the cage—he couldn't see the details, but it was obviously a technique of some kind—and the other grabbed the cage in both hands.

He heaved, lifting the entire cage off the ground, and then slammed it back down.

The screams had redoubled in intensity, but now other cages were rattling, and more guards were pouring out of nearby shelters.

When the commotion spread closer to him, with Sandviper guards running past him to help, Lindon stepped back. He was getting too detailed of a look at what the Sandviper techniques were doing to prisoner flesh.

And his cage seemed least likely to join in. Not a one of his fellow inmates even looked up.

He sat himself with his back against the bars, trying to think. What did he have on him? He didn't have his pack, of course, but even his pockets had been emptied. Except...

A smooth, round ball slightly bigger than his thumbnail sat at the bottom of his pocket, forgotten. He reached in, pulling out the glass marble from Suriel. A single blue candle-flame flickered in the center, pointing straight up no matter how he turned the outside.

The marble had no use, unless he could throw it like a pebble to distract a guard, but it was a comfort. A concrete reminder that the heavens hadn't given up on him.

He rolled it between his fingers as he took further stock.

He was in reasonably good physical condition, and he'd recovered most of the energy in his cores that he'd spent earlier that night. Not that either of those things would help him against the Sandvipers.

Other than the marble, he had nothing but his clothes and the familiar presence of wood against his chest. So they'd left him his Unsouled badge. How considerate.

The badge itself was tied to a ribbon of blue shadesilk, which was bright as day in direct light and absolutely black in the slightest shadow. The interesting reflective properties of shadesilk had allowed Sacred Valley to keep trading with the outside world, but now Lindon found himself considering more about the fabric's strength. Could he strangle someone with it?

Not anyone who mattered, not with a Copper's strength. Maybe he could take a toddler hostage, assuming a toddler passed within arm's length of this cage in a prison camp, but that would be as cowardly of an act as he could imagine.

But if he stayed, he'd face the Ruins.

The sky began to lighten before he'd come to any conclusion on a strategy, and in the distance, he saw an enormous block sink back into the wall of the Ruins. A small army filed out, the Sandvipers in the front carrying weapons, and the collection of people in the middle carrying iron barrels speckled on the bottom with crystal chalices.

They passed close enough for Lindon to make out the wounds on the prisoners—missing limbs, fingers, chunks of flesh. The procession turned to a building that looked like a big, painted wagon...

And Lindon gained his first truly interesting piece of information. The back of the wagon lifted open, and the first prisoner—prodded by a knife—dumped his barrel into the back.

Scales clattered out. They fell into a box specially prepared for the purpose, and then the second miner stepped up, also emptying her barrel. It took twenty or thirty people before the box was filled up and pushed to the back.

To join dozens of boxes just like it.

Lindon's eyes were glued to the stack of boxes, the blue-lit marble spinning in his fingers. Fisher Gesha had said that scales could be used for advancement, but doing so was like watering down your madra. Well, his madra was essentially all water.

How many scales would it take to break through to Iron? Twenty? A hundred? However many he needed, they were right there.

He pushed himself against the bars, eyes stuck on the boxes.

When the prisoners had finished delivery, the door on the wagon slammed shut. Something like an angry trumpet blast sounded, and the wagon actually rumbled forward, sliding out from between a pair of cages.

So the fortune didn't stick around. That was a disappointment, but it was a good policy not to leave their treasures sitting among a group of disgruntled prisoners.

A Sandviper woman walked up, and Lindon backed away from the bars just in time to avoid her slapping her sword against the cage. It rang like a hideous bell, hurting his ears, but not as much as her voice. She propelled her words with the full force of her Gold spirit and Iron body, causing him to clap hands over his ears and his cellmates to scramble to their feet.

“Wake up, wake up. Feed time, and then it's day shift.”

So there was a day shift. Meaning the wagon would show up at sunrise and sunset, for the two mining shifts to deliver their haul.

She pulled the squealing door open, stepping back, and Lindon eyed the gap uncertainly. Was she really trying to fight six people on her own? He couldn't contribute much, but the others were Gold. Even wounded, they should be on her like a pack of wolves.

That was when he noticed the collars, iron and scripted just like the bars.

He touched his neck, in case he'd somehow missed being collared in metal, but his fingers met only skin. He wondered if they'd put one on him later, but he found it unlikely.

He probably just wasn't worth collaring.

Four of the five prisoners shuffled forward at the Sandviper's prodding, but the woman with the missing eye had curled back against the bars. She shook as though weeping, but made no sound.

The Sandviper woman looked bored as she stepped past the other inmates and into the cage, holding her sword in one hand.

Before she could reach the crouching woman, Lindon bent over and grabbed the prisoner by the shoulder. “Stand up. I don't know what's happening, but I know you'd better stand up. Come on.”