The lights in the hallway burned very bright after being in the dark so long. It seared through his eyelids, despite being closed. But it wasn’t the lights that unsettled him, it was the faint cries that echoed through these corridors. He could he the muffled and distant, yet unmistakably human voices. Each carried a different weight: pain, despair, the hollow rasp of someone who had already given up.

  Yet, no matter how hard he strained his vision, he couldn’t see them. Dr. Vulcan ensured that thse corridors were deliberately left empty, sanitized of all reminders of the lives being crushed within these walls. Rome didn’t need him to witness suffering, it only wanted him to feel it.

  This prison was nothing like the stories that whispered in the shadows of Vetera. There were no iron bars, no dank stone cells carved from ancient tradition. This was something else entirely. It was a modern design to break not just the body, but the mind.

  His answer came soon enough.

  They passed an open door into a sterile, clinical chamber, and inside, the floor gaped open into a familiar void. A hole carved into the ground, no larger than the cage he’d just left behind. Ampelius even questioned if this was the same hole.

  But the realization dawned on him. This wasn’t punishment for what he’d done, this was just procedure of how Rome operated. A system that was designed to bury people like him without any thought or effort.

  Though before his thoughts could settle, the guards escorting him stopped abruptly. There was a security panel that blinked lazily in the harsh light, as if it was waiting for authorization. Dr. Vulcan stepped forward, producing his ID badge.

  The scanner let out a sharp beep as the door unlocked with a mechanical click.

  “Thank the gods for those generators,” Vulcan remarked. His voice was flat and clinical, like an offhand acknowledgment of functionality, not just relief. It was just another machine doing its job. Another system that couldn't fail.

  Upon entering the other side, the hallway split three ways. Ampelius caught a glimpse of the sign above the door behind him—Cavum. Hole in the ground, he thought. Fitting. A name like that didn’t even try to hide what this place was meant to be, a tomb for the forgotten.

  They turned left, and that’s when the prison began to feel… ordinary. Not the cold and clinical void of the isolation pit, but the familiar and brutal machinery of incarceration. Metal doors lined the walls, each with thick bars welded across them. Behind those bars were inmates, some with one, others with two, and sometimes three were crammed together in a space barely large enough to stand.

  Some looked like anyone you might pass on the streets, like ordinary people, worn down by bad luck or wrong choices.

  Others were different. They had the mean eyes, which followed him from behind iron restraints, their faces carved from anger and desperation. They'd as soon kill him if given the opporunity. And then there were the broken ones, the thin and pale figures with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, barely clinging to consciousness.

  As Ampelius was dragged forward, his legs buckled beneath him. His body was too weak to carry its own weight, and forced him to stumble. That was when the shouting started.

  Voices erupted from the cells like an animal chorus, jeers, curses, and laughter that echoed off the cold metal walls. A pack of predators smelling weakness. Their cries were feral, guttural, more like the screeches of cornered beasts than words. Like monkeys, Ampelius thought bitterly, starved of dignity for too long.

  The sharp sting of smoke hit him next. It was thick, acrid, and suffocating. The scent clung to the air, but heavy with stale bitterness. Guards lounged near their control stations, uniforms unbuttoned and posture lazy. They were exhaling plumes of cigarette smoke as if the prisoners around them were beneath their notice. Rome’s discipline didn’t extend here. This wasn’t about order, this was about power left to rot.

  As they reached the next checkpoint, Dr. Vulcan raised his ID badge and scanned it without ceremony. The door buzzed and clicked open.

  One of the guards muttered something in passing—“Alius captivus.” Another prisoner.

  Ampelius understood just enough Latin to catch that single, damning word: captivus. Which means prisoner. That’s all he was now.

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  The guards continued their conversation in clipped Latin, mixed with some english words. Ampelius caught fragments here and there, scattered like broken glass across his mind. “Pugna… Septentrionalis Vetera…” The words stirred recognition in his memory. A fight in Northern Vetera, he thought.

  But the rest slipped through the cracks of his understanding, muddled by fatigue and the constant ache behind his eyes. The cadence of their voices suggested urgency, maybe tension simmering just beneath the surface. Were they winning? Losing? He couldn’t tell. The only certainty was that the battle still raged on and Rome wasn’t finished bleeding yet.

  Suddenly, Ampelius was outside. The shift was so abrupt it jarred his senses, but the sky stretched wide and merciless above him. The air felt a bit heavier here, compared to the suffocating chill of the inside. He stood in a fenced-in yard, exposed yet confined, with freedom hanging just out of reach.

  The cold hit him first. Not the biting chill of ordinary winter air but something deeper and sharper. It was that mountain cold. The wind cut through the thin fabric draped over his frail frame, slicing down to the bone. It wasn’t violent, just steady and relentless. His hands curled instinctively, but there was no shelter here, no warmth to be found.

  Instinctively, his gaze drifted upward, as he was drawn by something looming at the edge of his vision.There it was. A towering, snow-draped giant, its peak towering into the sky with white, jagged fingers. He knew this wasn’t Mount Nerva. There was no green-tinged ash that bled from its summit. There was no smoke coiled toward the heavens, and most importantly, there was no sign of the Zavons.

  It took him a minute to recall which mountain this was.This was Mount Trajan. He recognized the shape immediately, its shadow had haunted his childhood maps and imperial propaganda broadcasts for years. One of the most dangerous volcanoes still active within the Empire’s borders, as its power slumbered just beneath the ice and stone. A reminder of nature’s raw, untamed fury.

  But why here? His thoughts churned with suspicion.The Romans weren’t careless. Every decision, every structure, every strategy was born from purpose. Why would they continue to operate this close to an active volcano, especially after what happened with Mount Nerva? The Zavons used volcanoes as springboards for their assaults. Why risk proximity to another one?

  He studied the snow-blanketed peak for any signs of corruption. Again, he saw no green ash, no unnatural glow at the peak, nothing to suggest the Zavons had laid any claim to this mountain, yet.

  His pulse quickened, but not from the cold, but from a creeping realization.They’re here. I can feel their presence.

  Not yet, maybe. But they would come. The Zavons had proven relentless in their strategies, exploiting nature’s fury as a weapon. Why wouldn’t they come for Trajan next? The idea of Rome gambling its strength by keeping this fortress here, it didn’t make sense. Unless…Unless Rome wanted to be here when the next eruption happened.

  Perhaps this wasn’t an ordinary prison. Maybe this was a hidden fortress built to meet them head-on.The cold worked deeper at his bones, but the chill inside him had nothing to do with the wind. His eyes lingered on the distant peak, and for the first time since being dragged into this living tomb, he felt something worse than fear. Dread.

  The longer he stared at the mountain, the more something inside him shifted. A pressure, subtle at first, like the faint tremble of a distant earthquake had stirred beneath the surface of his thoughts. It slithered through his mind like smoke curling into forgotten corners, pulling at the frayed edges of his consciousness. And then, he felt it. The Asventi.

  Their presence wasn’t a voice this time, there was no command, no whisper of intent, but a sensation he knew. A raw and invasive awareness that crawled back into place, as if something ancient and cold was rebooting inside him.

  Then Ampelius realized that the silence had never been absence. It had been patience.The connection was returning.

  But then he felt the pain. The cold and mechanical grip of reality dragged him back. Dr. Vulcan and the escorts resumed their march, unceremoniously yanking him away from the fence line. The sudden motion wrenched his weakened body forward as legs scraped against the ground like dead weight. The biting wind was replaced by the cold sting of steel fingers digging into his arms.The Asventi’s presence faded into the background again, not gone, just waiting.

  The metallic clank of gates echoed around him as they passed through one layer after another. Each door opened with a harsh buzz and a dull thunk. First gate. Then another. And another.

  By the time they reached the fourth checkpoint, the cold air felt suffocating, an irony not lost on him. The more open the space became, the more imprisoned he felt. Every layer of security wasn’t just to keep him inside, it was a declaration of fear. They’re scared of me.

  But why now? He wondered.

  His gaze drifted up just as the final gate opened, revealing the hulking mass of a prison transport truck waiting like an executioner in the yard. Thick metal plating reinforced every inch of its surface. A mobile fortress, built not just to hold, but to contain. The thought crept in: How far are they planning to take me?

  Dr. Vulcan answered his question, as if he could read his mind. “You’ll find your new accommodations… adequate. The journey will not be long.” The wind still howled behind them, carrying with it the faint scent of sulfur from Mount Trajan, which was a reminder of the dormant fury slumbering within the mountain. Or maybe, not so dormant.

  As they dragged him toward the transport, the Asventi’s presence pulsed faintly in the back of his mind again, though stronger this time. It was like a heartbeat syncing with his own.They’re not gone. No, they were waiting for something. Watching. Preparing. And as the heavy doors of the truck slammed shut behind him, Ampelius couldn’t help but wonder, were they waiting for him? Or for Trajan to awaken?