The second floor looked way different than the third. All the green and the forests were gone, replaced by a sandy desert as hot as a sauna.
"How can they live here?" Druvana asked.
"This only proves how capable they are. But still, they must be afraid of the vampires, or else they could have raided the third floor," Damian said.
Those orcs had total control of the portal that led them from the dungeon's third floor to the second, yet Serana never saw those orcs attacking their floor.
It should mean they were weaker — Damian hoped so, as they had to escape from their grasp, or they would die.
They walked through the desert, pulled by the orcs, and each time Damian breathed, the sand and the burning sensation of the desert entered his nostrils. "This sucks."
The change of environment was hard to adjust to. Damian and the girls were sweating like crazy, especially Serana, a vampire, and although she did not burn with the sun, she disliked it very much.
Three hours of walking. It took them that long to reach what looked like a village of orcs surrounded by a log wall. There were some towers, four to be precise, each in the corner of the orc settlement.
"They have bows aimed at us. Rustic snipers," Damian thought as he stared at the orcs on the watch-tower.
When they entered the village, passing through the front gate, almost all the orcs present yelled after seeing three humans. It was like they were making fun of them.
Damian could not be sure of it, as he did not understand anything the orcs said and guessed it based on their facial expressions.
The orcs pulled them through the village, passing by the simple houses straight to a secluded area with cells made of steel. There were others there, other humans.
"Yo," Damian said, looking at the humans in the nearby cells.
Two were men with messy hair and beard — long, meaning it had been a while since they were there, trapped.
There was also a young woman with red hair. Damian could tell she was pretty, but the dirty and precarious nutrition made her look worse.
They stared at Damian, Serana, and Druvana, surprised to see other humans, but it soon changed to a face of despair.
"Kid," one of the men said, "what did you do to deserve this?"
"Me?" Damian said, pointing to his chest, "they were jealous of my pretty face."
"Ha. Brave of you to have the guts to joke around in this situation. We are doomed!"
"Don't be such a pessimist. We are alive, aren't we? I'm Damian, this is Serana, and that angry one is Druvana. The orcs caught us when we passed through the portal from the third floor."
"What? They also caught you by the gate? We three are from the first floor. I'm Leslie, this skinny bro next to me is Tyler, and she is Hazel."
The coincidence was just too good to be true! Damian looked for the portal to the first floor, and the humans before him knew exactly what it was, making his time way easier.
"You know where the portal is? We want to go there. Look, if we all work together, then we can escape!" Damian said.
He was someone who trusted his capabilities. Serana and Druvana were also there, so escaping was not a pipe dream, especially if the other three helped them.
Leslie frowned, thinking about the possibility. If it was only the three, then escaping was impossible, but now in six, it was doable.
"If we want to do this, it must be tomorrow night."
"Tomorrow night?"
pαпdα-ňᴏνêι·сóМ "Yes. The orcs will put us to fight against other orcs in a festival-like thing. This is our best shot to flee," Leslie said, looking downward as he spoke about the festival.
"They lost friends in this arena…." Damian guessed.
They came up with a simple plan, one that had to work the next night.
~~~~
Orcs came to their cells a few times daily, bringing a soup that tasted like aged broccoli. They were getting more food than usual because of the upcoming fighting festival event.
Damian ate the terrible food like an animal and slept on the cell's hard floor, making him miss his tiny room inside the academy even more.
The orcs screamed the following day, drinking their liquors before the festival. That was precisely what Damian wanted — drunk orcs were easier to flee from.
Before the event officially started, the orcs brought other humans, who looked healthier, as if they had just been caught, like Damian the previous day.
These humans were the first to go and fight, and the drunk orcs were cheering around the humans, who were trapped in a circle, having to fight till one died.
"Let's move. This is our best shot!" Damian said.
Tyler looked at him and said, "but how are we supposed to escape from these cells anyway?"
Damian had tried to destroy the cells using his mental abilities, and Serana tried with her supernatural vampire strength. It did not work, and it was made of another material, not the steel they had first guessed.
Still, that was no problem for Damian, who gazed at the keys the orc responsible for watching them had put attached to a wall.
His mental abilities may be insufficient to break the cells, but making the key chain fly toward his lock was a whole other thing.
It twisted to the side, and Damian's cell was open before long. Everyone there gapped their mouths, "what was that?" they said.
Even Serana and Druvana, who had spent quite a time with Damian, did not know he could do something like that.
Damian grabbed the keys and opened the other cells, "what are you all shocked for? Remember, we have to escape from the orcs."
The only reason all that was happening was that the orc, who was supposed to be there, watching their cells, was drinking liquor, watching the fights.
They stealthily moved away from the cells, but one of the orcs, above the watch tower saw them, and it played a horn to warn everyone!
Before long, each orc knew humans had escaped, and Damian could only curse within.
"Fuck this shit."
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