Glen ran along the streets for quite a while, getting strange looks from the paranoid citizens.

He didn’t care if he looked suspicious, because he would get the rest of the guard called on him pretty damn quickly either way, for obvious reasons. He was also too busy trying his hardest not to think about what just happened, not to mention how it happened.

In the meantime, he seemed to recall from somewhere that the guards had been imprisoning anybody who tried to enter the city, all under suspicion of ‘shape-shifters’, which he supposed was a kind of creature that could substantially alter its physical appearance somehow. It was probably a fairly reasonable guess given the context, much less how clearly self-explanatory the name was. (Liam sneezed in his cell)

Eventually, he arrived at the city jail.

It wasn’t as far as he expected from the gate he entered from. He desperately hoped there wouldn’t be too many guards standing watch in the jail as he quietly approached the entrance.

He carefully shut the door behind him…

“Uh… who are you?”

Glen jumped as a voice spoke up from behind him.

“Do you have some business here? Visitation hours aren’t until 3:30. Or are you here to pay a bail? Also, could you please leave the door open?”

Needless to say, it was a guard.

Glen glared nervously before slowly approaching to answer.

“Yeah! Yeah, I just need to, uh…”

He got to an uncomfortable close distance.

The guard tried to back up, only for Glen to cold clock him in the face as hard as he could, completely out of nowhere. It seemed like the guard fell unconscious.

Glen let out a deep sigh of relief as he pilfered what he assumed were the cell keys from the man’s unconscious body.

Glen stepped around the corner to the cells.

The first cell had several gruff, scarred men in it.

“Who the fuck are you? What happened to the guard?”

Glen didn’t answer. He figured they were probably just regular old criminals. He ignored them and walked further down.

Once he got to a cell that he didn’t spot any people in, he looked in the one before it.

There were only two people there, so this was probably the active cell, assuming Tabre followed the same logic as the jail in Jarea.

One was a rather disheveled, but still fairly good looking man with short brown hair and a determined look in his eyes. The other was a shorter blonde… uh... ‘person’ who seemed extremely uncertain and anxious.

The blonde looked like they had been there longer considering how much grimier their hair was.

The blonde spoke up first.

“Uh… Who are you?”

“I’m guessing you two are travelers who got detained in their search for shapeshifters?” Glen responded with his own question.

“Umm… that doesn’t even remotely answer my question, but yeah. What’s it to you?”

The blonde tilted their head curiously, mimicking the gesture of the brown haired man beside them. Glen, again, didn't answer the question. Instead, he found the key which had a label matching the number on the cell door, and opened it.

“I would’ve been in there with you, but I uh… didn’t fall for it.”

Glen smirked deviously.

Both of them stared at him, mouth agape.

“Then how’d you get in the… Wait… Don’t tell me you–!”

“Yeah, yeah, anyways, they’ll be onto me pretty soon. I need some help. Do you guys know where the guards keep their weapons?”

“Are you out of your mind?!” The brown haired man spoke his first words of the interaction in a shout.

“Absolutely, yes. Now do you want to be stuck in here forever, or do you want to help me fight for some basic human decency?” Glen asked in a ridiculously matter-of-fact tone, given the seriousness of the request.

After a few seconds of silence…

“Sure, I’m down.” The blonde stood up and stepped outside the cell. The man, still in the cell, looked absolutely floored.

“Xerxes, are you serious?! We don’t have any way to–"

“Liam, how eager are you to stay in this cell? Like, I know you’re a bit of a pussy and all, but you can literally just backstab this guy whenever you want if he turns out to be evil or something.”

The blonde, apparently named Xerxes, leaned over and whispered, “No offense by the way.”

Glen smiled at the gesture and whispered back just as exaggeratively, “None taken.”

The man, apparently named Liam, let out a long sigh. He had an extremely resigned expression, like he had no idea what to say.

“Alright, fine. Whatever. That door behind you there leads to the confiscation locker. They put my weapon and armor in there, so I’d be willing to bet there’s even more armaments to be taken.”

Liam got up and stepped out of the cell.

“Awesome. Thanks, Liam. I’ll be right back. Oh, by the way, I’m Glen. Glen Hiscovol.” Glen said this without even looking at his conversation partner, as he was already busy finding the right key and unlocking it.

“We’re not suddenly on a first name basis, but whatever.” Liam mumbled a complaint under his breath as Glen suddenly exclaimed in victory as he unlocked the door.

Upon opening the door, he was unsurprised to find a multitude of items confiscated from the inmates here, among which appeared to be several weapons and a dirty suit of armor.

“Hey, come get your shit, you two. Be quick! Also, don’t worry everyone, we won’t steal your stuff! I'll get to letting you out once these two have all their stuff out.” Glen shouted the majority of that sentence and the various inmates down the hall.

Liam quickly donned his armor and longsword, while Xerxes used a set of rather light but immaculately crafted armor in tandem with an equally beautiful rapier.

Just as Glen was about to open the next cell, they heard a bang on the door.

“Oh fuck. That’s on hold. You two, get ready.” Glen whispered, hiding in the locker room, signaling for the other two to stay quiet.

They both gathered he intended to catch the incoming guards by surprise. While Liam certainly didn't appear excited to be taking orders from him so suddenly, he also clearly knew that now wasn't the time to complain.

And so, they stood in wait.

A few moments later, the sound of a few frantic footsteps all at once echoed through the building.

“Theo, there's a– oh.”

Glen gathered Theo was the guard that the group probably just found unconscious on the floor. A loud slap suddenly echoed down the hall.

“Ah! What the-” Spoke the panicked voice of the guard he recalled knocking out.

“Wakey-wakey, sunshine!” The person who woke him up interrupted in an extremely patronizing tone.

“I'm guessing he knocked you out. Get up, we need your help.”

It sounded like ‘Theo’ had grasped the situation and decided to shut up. Footsteps echoed again, reaching the entrance to the hall.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are! If you surrender, maybe we'll hang you instead of whipping you to death for mutilating a city guard!”

The speaker was clearly not in a very good mood.

He no doubt had either witnessed or been informed of Glen’s handiwork. Liam kept his mouth shut, but was nonetheless glaring daggers at Glen upon receiving this new information. The group continued to stay silent.

All they had to do was wait for the guards to walk past the door-

“Hey. Where’d he go? He’s obviously been here.” The guard asked one of the gruff men in the front.

Damnit, how could he forget there were other people in the room? Glen tried his hardest not to make a sound, clenching his teeth and listening carefully.

“Huh? Whaddaya’ want?”

Glen desperately wished he could see the expression on the inmate’s face. He had no way to gauge whether or not he was about to tell the guard where he was without judging the man’s face.

“Don’t play dumb. How about this; we’ll let you out if you rat him out. What did he offer you? We’ll let you stay in the city legally. He definitely didn’t offer you that.”

The guard snapped back with a painfully good offer. A bead of sweat formed on Glen’s brow. He could guess that the guard was probably outright lying, but he had no way to guess how smart the inmates were.

There were a few seconds of painful silence.

“Do ya’ mean that fella who busted in here and knocked out the guard? He already left.”

The inmate actually played dumb. Glen resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief. He could practically hear the guard narrowing his eyes through the wall.

“Don’t lie to me. I’m serious about that off-”

“Ah, fack off! Like I’d believe you even if I knew. Eat shit!”

The sound of the inmate spitting at the feet of the guard was audible throughout the jail. The guard clicked his tongue.

“You’ll regret that. Francis and Theo; search the building. Yell if you need me. I’ll deal with this little prick right now.”

He heard the guard jingling keys like he was about to open one of the cells.

Glen had spent a fair bit in Jarea’s jail before. He had never once seen a guard go on this level of power trip, even against a disrespectful inmate. He really wanted to be able to take advantage of the element of surprise while he still had it, so he had to sit and wait. But that inmate trusted him despite never even interacting with him.

Was he wrong to paint them as common criminals in his mind?

Glen heard the sound of a cell door opening.

“Come here, you little shit.”

An impact against flesh resonated through the building.

Glen couldn’t stop himself. He leaped out the door as Liam and Xerxes stared in shock. He was about to shout at the guards, only to suddenly come to the realization that none of them noticed him.

He was standing directly in front of a pair, and they looked right past him.

“Hey, Francis, what’s that?”

One of the guards asked, turning to look directly at Glen.

Glen shifted his posture to guard himself.

“It's nothing. Back to work, stop getting distracted.” His superior responded as if Glen wasn’t there at all.

What was going on?

Another smack resonated through the building, the guard in the back shouting at the inmate. Glen tried not to think about what just happened and dashed straight for the guard holding the inmate, stabbing the man in his shoulder.

“ARRGH, FUCK! What was that?!”

The guard collapsed to the floor and shrieked from the pain, looking around and staring straight at Glen, only to write him off as if his presence couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the sudden injury.

“Come on, get out of there!” Glen shouted to the inmates to get out.

If he was going to fight against the guards, he’d need all the help he could get.

As soon as he shouted, the guards’ gazes all suddenly snapped toward him as if he’d appeared from thin air.

“What the fuck? How did he–”

Glen kicked the guard in the head before he finished his sentence, completely knocking the man out cold. Everyone in the room stared in abject confusion for a few seconds. The guards tensed up and turned toward him, their expressions shifting toward anger.

“Get that bastar–” The guard that was speaking collapsed to the ground as Xerxes knocked him out from behind using the hilt of their rapier.

“Sorry!” Xerxes whispered, the second guard turning toward him, as they punched him in the face so hard he flew into the wall, knocked out cold.

There was a devious smile on the blonde’s face that concerned Glen a bit over who exactly he was working with.

“Thanks, uh… man. That was impressive!” Glen spoke to them while looking at the aftermath of the past few seconds.

It really was ruthlessly efficient.

Just who was Xerxes? They didn’t seem like someone with much fighting experience at first glance, and he assumed they were just a rich-kid from the equipment they wore. Clearly, he had misjudged them.

“No problem. Speaking of impressive, holy hell! How did you just walk past them like that? Are you a magic caster?” Xerxes reminded Glen of the strange occurrence he had dismissed a few moments ago.

“I’m not really sure…”

Had he ever done something similar before? He didn’t recall having any similar experiences before… Something suddenly clicked in Glen’s head. He kept completely overlooking the cloak he was wearing when he first found it in the room he passed out in a few days ago.

Was this some sort of enchantment on the cloak?

“Actually… I think it's the cloak. I’m not exactly sure what it does, but… it is definitely enchanted somehow.”

Glen shrugged as he stared at his bewildered new friend.

“Also… do you mind if I take a look at these?”

Xerxes had already reached toward Glen’s gauntlets without him noticing and was about to remove them before Glen reflexively shouted.

“No!”

He pulled his hand back before he could even think. Liam narrowed his eyes as he watched, deciding not to say anything.

“Uh… alright? Could you at least tell me where you got them? I’m relatively knowledgeable about enchantment, but those things are ludicrously intricate! I’ve never seen anything quite like them. Normally I’d be able to get a general idea of how they work from reading the runes but… I can’t even begin to decipher those.”

Glen’s eyes were a bit glazed over as Xerxes rambled on. He wasn’t really sure what they were talking about, but he at least heard the question at the beginning.

“Oh… I uh… I found them in a magically protected room in one of the ruined small villages I passed by on the way here.”

Xerxes was about to ask another question, before the completely wide-eyed Liam exclaimed and interrupted.

“What?! A magically enchanted room? What kind of ‘small village’ was this? Let me see-”

As Liam stepped forward forcefully, reaching forward to grab the gauntlets and examine them, Glen leaped backward, landing in a defensive stance that nobody present recognized.

There was an incomprehensible expression on his face. It looked like a strange mix of anger and primal fear.

“D-don’t touch them.” Glen was visibly shaking, even if only slightly.

“Why not? I just want to-”

Liam narrowed his eyes and was planning to press the matter, as it seemed he had something very important in mind with the line of questioning, but Xerxes stepped between the two men and interrupted.

“Liam, just lay off the kid. Nobody likes being pried into.”

Liam glared intensely for a few seconds, shifting his eyes between the two, before eventually relenting.

“Alright. Fine. I’ll ask about it later. What’s the plan going forward?”

There were a few moments of silence before Glen snapped out of his stupor.

“Oh. Uh… I’d like to free these prisoners and move as a group toward the town center, then hopefully hold the mayor hostage so we can negotiate some basic human rights.”

Liam had an extremely displeased expression; Glen was willing to hazard a guess as to why.

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on actually killing anyone. We just need to make our point. Their behavior is blatantly unethical in the first place, so I’m sure you can excuse this.” Glen grinned as he elaborated.

Liam sighed resignedly.

“Fine, fine. I will under no circumstances kill a civil servant, though.” Liam made the statement with utmost sincerity.

Glen nodded, understanding the sentiment.

“Alright then. Let’s do this.”

<==>