Tisis

Prisoner once again (S)

It's now been a few weeks, since this Rose has taken us in as her 'guests'.

Rose keeps sending me out to go and procure food and water for the two of us, while keeping Nym inside this strange invisible wall of hers, essentially making her a hostage so I'd come back.

But then again, would she even mind if I didn't come back?
The animals have grown far more ferocious as of late and more than just once I escaped death by the skin of my teeth.

It's still kind of hard to believe that Rose had been protecting us all this time, but seeing how much more dangerous the world has been become since we got here, there's only one other explanation...and I like that one even less than the one of the 'invisible guardian'.

She wouldn't just 'not mind' if I didn't come back...she doesn't want me to come back at all.

I've fulfilled my purpose...and brought Nym to her.

And there's little to nothing I can do about it, because Rose is holding all the strings...so in the end, all I've managed to achieve was exchange one prison for another.

While dragging my prey of the day back towards the 'bunker' as Nym called it, I wonder, what I could do about this situation.

Nym tells me to stay patient and that we need to stick to the deal we made, but isn't this exactly the same kind of deal my ancestors made with the Asmodei 400 years ago? Protection for slave labor?

After coming 'home', Nym greets me, obviously exhausted, but when I ask her how her day was, she just waves off, telling me, that I wouldn't understand half of it either way.

Not that I doubt her on that, when we first looked at what Rose wanted us to fix, all I could see was a mess.

One day, Nym proudly proclaimed, that she managed to get the water treatment engine back to work and that we could now use the subterranean gardening area with the artificial sunlight to supplement the food I bring in.

So my role changes from 'hunter' back to garden worker in an enclosed space...which means, that for all purposes, I'm officially back to square one.

But at least that also means, that I don't have to go out there again, where it would be a lot easier for Rose to arrange a 'hunting accident' I would not return from.

And thus the days and weeks pass rather uneventfully.
One could almost call it 'peaceful', but it's a treacherous peace.

After Nym managed to get the gardening area to work, Rose started to make sure to occupy me with other, menial tasks within the grounds.

By now I have no doubt, she's actively keeping me away from Nym.
And if I do get to meet her, she's usually so tired, I can't even have a proper conversation with her.

Not like there would be that much to talk about, seeing how each time I want to discuss our situation, Nym quickly changes the subject and after a while I also realized why...Rose is listening to every single word we're saying, which is why she cannot talk about what she's planning.

At...least I hope that she has a plan on how we can get out of here.
Because once Nym has repaired everything Rose needs repaired, she won't be needing either of us any more.

And then what?
Would she keep us around, just in case she needs some 'hands' again?
Or would she really let us go?
Or would she kill us, so we can't undo what she's made us do?

But then again, we aren't really a threat to her, once we're outside of that force field of hers...it's not like we have any means to overcome that, after all.

So, as long as we don't give her a reason to see us as 'threat', she'll also have no reason to dispose of us...at least I hope so.

One evening, almost an entire month later, Rose suddenly asks us to meet her in the 'Atrium'.

After both Nym and myself have taken our seats in the freshly restored room, which really looks a lot better than when we first arrived here, lights appear in the middle of the room and morph into the face of a young, human woman.

Nym is the first to react and asks, "So you finally got what you wanted, huh? We're done?"
"No, dear child, there are still a number of compartments I cannot access again yet, but I wanted to commend you for the good work you've done such far...and also reward you. Both of you."
"...reward us? Whatever do you mean?"
"I understand, that we our circumstances of meeting were not...ideal, but I assure you, that I mean you no harm. On the contrary, your versatility has convinced me, that it would be beneficial to keep you around."

"Now hold on! You promised...!" I start, but Nym motions me to shut up.
"You don't intend to go back on your end of the deal...right?"
"No, child of Garkla. You are free to leave, just as we discussed. However I offer you to come back and take up residence here. I am sure, that, given sufficient effort, you could make a splendid residence on the surface. You would be under my protection, but still free to roam the lands as you see fit. This is my reward for your cooperation."

My hand cramps, but Nym quickly takes it into her own and squeezes it lightly, as if to tell me to remain quiet for a little longer.

"That is...very generous of you Rose. However..."

"Furthermore..." Rose interrupts Nym, "...once my functionality is fully restored, I could use my communication facilities to reach out to the stars and, quite possibly, establish contact with nearby space ships, who could, again maybe, take you away from this world."

"...there's nobody there though. Otherwise they would have responded to the emergency beacon a long time ago."
"That signal never left the planet, Ms. Lushomagans. The highly ionized atmosphere, which I am sure you've long since been aware of, destroyed the signal long before it managed to leave the atmosphere."

"So...you're saying that you can overcome the interference?"
"I have facilities that were specifically constructed to do so, so yes, I can."

I lean against the back of my chair and ask, "Say, I'm a little curious...what exactly is Nym repairing for you? Could you put it in a way, a normal person can understand?"

Nym looks at me with a hint of fear in her eyes and looks up to the large head of Rose...apparently Nym wasn't allowed to tell me.

Rose however doesn't seem offended and says, "The incident severed my control connection from most of the facilities features, like the automatic repair, the water treatment, the light control, the primary generator and many others you didn't even see yet. I did not want her to speak about it, because I am aware how this must look to you...that someone tried to shut me down."
"...you are right, it does look that way. So...did they? And why?"

Rose remains silent and Nym takes over for her, "I've asked her the same thing...apparently, when the people who ran this joint left for their home world, they wanted to 'turn off the lights' and destroy the entire compound, so their enemies could not use it against them."
"And...why didn't they pull through? I mean, clearly they didn't."

Rose takes over and explains, "Everything had been prepared, but before they could do it, their enemies entered orbit and they sought to flee in a panic, leaving me behind...disconnected and mostly shut down..."
"Yeah, the explosives are still in place, believe it or not. I didn't remove them, cause I'm not an expert on explosives."
"Wait, we're sitting on a bunch of explosives?!"
"Relax, they didn't detonate the past thousand years, they're not going to go off now...unless of course someone tampers with it."
"I...see..."

And just like that, under the guise of explaining to me what was going on, Nym revealed her escape plan to me.

Now all that remains is to see how we can set these explosives off...and still have enough time to get out of here before the whole place blows.

Until then, we will remain to be prisoners.
At least I know how to do that.