DCD - B3 - Chapter 42 - Children for the Godsworn

There was a rumbling around her. A darkness that pressed close, washed in muffled noises. Her body felt stiff. Her head throbbed.

Enya groaned—at least, she tried to. Something covered her mouth. Her attempts came out as the same muffled sounds she heard around her.

Her eyes slowly fluttered open.

It was dark. Only thin streams of light seeped through cracks in the walls around her. Shapes sat nearby.

Breathing shapes.

These were people. She was surrounded by others.

Dust, old wood, sweat—beneath it all, a faint metallic tang filled the air.

She blinked a few times, letting her vision adjust. The space remained black, but she could make out silhouettes roughly her size. Heads. Small bodies. Arms bound just like hers.

That rumbling, she realized, was the grind of wheels. She was in a wagon. A box wagon.

Through the haze, her memory returned to her.

The road. The ambush. Assassins appearing out of nowhere. Her summons dying instantly. Elria shouting a warning—then the sharp blow to her neck. Everything had gone black after that.

Enya squirmed, forcing herself upright. Heavy metal cuffs encircled her wrists. They didn’t seem like regular cuffs. They were more intricate and thick, almost like an artifact.

She frowned.

Circulating her mana, she tried to summon a minion.

Nothing.

She tried again, aiming for a simple construct—summon an improvised bone spear to break her cuffs.

Nothing again. No response. No connection.

Her eyes widened as a sudden notification flashed before her. Its faint glow didn’t brighten the darkness of the wagon, but she could read it clearly.

System Notification: You have been bound with a restriction.
All skills are disabled.
All passives are disabled.
Mana usage has been locked.
Soul-Energy has been locked.
Soul-bound items are disabled.
Soul-bound skills are disabled.

What?

The message dissolved. Enya stared at the others more carefully now.

Children. Seven of them. All bound the same way. A girl her age sobbed quietly beside her, shoulders trembling in each breath. A slightly older boy sat motionless, eyes hollow, as if he had already given up.

And they all wore the same thing—plain white tunics and shorts. Enya’s own dress was gone, replaced with the same thin fabric. Her mana gloves, featherstep boots—gone.

Pell and Mr. Bones, her skull necklaces—also gone.

What was happening? Where had she been taken? What was going to happen to her?

Then, she felt something tug in the back of her mind, faint but present.

Her bond.

It was weak, but she could feel it.

Pell.

He was close. She could feel the connection lingering at the edge of her thoughts. She couldn’t reach him, couldn’t speak through it, but the unease was mutual—shared between them like a trembling thread.

Wherever she was, whatever was happening… Pell was trapped in it too.

Enya tried talking to the other children, but it was a fruitless effort. The young girl beside her attempted to respond, yet the darkness and their bindings made even small movements awkward. Some of the boys shifted, clearly irritated by her attempts. As if they already knew nothing would come from it—so why bother trying at all.

What felt like hours passed. Creaks sounded from outside. Footsteps. Muffled grumbling. None of it clear.

They stopped several times.

Just as Enya began to feel the edge of deep hunger, the wagon halted again. Then everything moved quickly.

The lid above them swung open, and a harsh beam of sunlight flooded the cramped compartment. Enya and the other children squinted upward. Some stared with fear. Others with open defiance. Dark figures stood over them.

A woman’s voice cut through the light. “All of you, get up.”

One by one, Enya and the others were pulled from the wagon and marched toward a nearby structure. They were in some kind of courtyard. The masked figures shoved them along without hesitation. The crying girl stumbled and fell, but none of the kidnappers paused. One simply grabbed her by the back of the collar and forced her forward again.

They were herded down a long spiral staircase into a final room. All of them were pushed inside.

Nearly twenty other children were already there—each wearing the same plain clothes, each bound by the same metal cuffs. None had tape over their mouths, yet the room was silent.

The figures removed the tape from Enya’s mouth and the others’.

One of the boys Enya had arrived with immediately shouted the moment his tape came off. He backed away from the masked captors, glare sharp.

“You people dare kidnap me? Do you not know who I am? I’m Billy Farseene, son of Duke Farseene!”

Some of the masked figures traded glances—then chuckled.

Billy growled, louder this time. “You think this is funny? I’ll have every single one of you beheaded if you don’t release me!”

Again, they huffed a quiet laugh. Another gave a soft, amused whistle.

“How cute,” one murmured behind his mask.

Billy’s face burned with outrage. “H–how dare you—!”

Footsteps echoed behind the masked figures.

Slow. Unhurried. Confident enough that he didn’t need the room to fall silent—though it did anyway.

The masked figures stepped aside as a man entered. Not with deference, but with the idle care of men avoiding someone else’s personal space. They didn’t bow, nor showed respect. They simply moved aside.

Amberdean Hainesworth stepped into view wearing a dark-plum robe trimmed in black. His hair was slicked neatly back, revealing the practiced, polished smile of a nobleman… except there was something wrong about it. Too smooth. Too pleased.

Entirely fake.

It was the same type of description Enya would have read about inside of Pell’s novels. About dirty, villainous nobles.

The man’s hands rested behind his back as he surveyed the gathered children, eyes passing over them as if he were assessing livestock.

He finally looked at Billy. “Well, well…” he said lightly. “Such lively voices down here.”

Billy straightened, chest puffed out. “Are you in charge? Good. Order these people to release me at once! I am Billy Farseene—son of Duke Far—”

Amberdean raised a finger, cutting him off with a single gesture.

“Yes, yes. I heard.” His smile widened. “A duke’s son. How fortunate you are. Truly, how… special.”

The tone made the hair at the back of Billy’s neck rise.

Amberdean clasped his hands behind him again and turned to face the ones behind him. “Which among the new arrivals are the commonborn?”

One of the masked kidnappers pointed without emotion toward the right side of the room. There were two children.

A boy—much younger than Enya, with fear in his eyes.

A girl—around Enya’s age, trembling as she tried to hold her breath.

“I see,” Amberdean said softly.

He stepped toward them. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to make the world feel narrower with each footfall.

He stopped in front of the girl and lifted a single finger toward her forehead.

“Die.”

The word wasn’t shouted. It wasn’t even spoken harshly. It was effortless—like he were sighing a command.

The girl stiffened. The air in her throat caught—sharp and sudden. Her eyes widened. Her chest seized as though invisible chains had cinched tight around her ribs. She clawed at her throat, legs kicking weakly as her lungs refused to draw air. A wet, choking gasp slipped out, cut short by another strangled convulsion.

Then she collapsed onto her knees.

One final shudder ran through her body.

She didn’t move again.

The chamber went dead silent.

Billy stumbled back a step, hand flying to his own throat.

Amberdean didn’t spare the girl a second glance.

“I know you are a duke’s son, Billy,” he said, turning his eyes toward the trembling boy. “And it does matter. Just… not for the reasons you believe.”

Billy’s mouth trembled. “W-What… what did you—”

“I am not afraid of you,” Amberdean said, voice smooth as polished marble. “Or of your father. Or of any threat you think your family represents.”

He took one step closer, lowering his voice until it was cold enough to scrape bone.

“No one knows you are here. No one is coming for you. And unless you wish to join that girl on the floor, you will behave.”

Billy swallowed hard, all his earlier bravado crushed beneath terror.

Amberdean turned away from him with casual disinterest—like the boy had already ceased to matter.

He addressed everyone in the room now. “You will all behave. All of you should consider yourself lucky to be chosen. If your potential is great enough, you may become the pillar for a new world. But to do that, you’d obviously have to survive. So I implore all of you, not to do anything foolish.”

Amberdean walked back to the entrance of the room. “You’ve all done well getting four nobles this batch," he said to the captors. “Prepare the children food in half an hour. Can’t have the nobler ones die on us.”

The masked figures nodded once, and followed Amberdean out of the chamber. The heavy door shut behind him.

A girl—one of the nobles who had ridden with Enya—trembled as she edged away from the others. Her voice cracked as she whispered, “A-Are we all… going to die?”

Another boy, older than Enya but younger than Billy, clenched his fists. “What is even happening? Where are we? What does that man even want from us?”

From the far side of the room, one of the children who had been here longer finally spoke. His voice was flat, as if the fear had already burned out of him.

“We’ve been captured,” he said. “All of us. The Veiled Ones brought us here. They are those guys dressed in black with the masks. They work for someone called the Godsworn.”

Another boy chimed in. “My servant told me long ago that the Veiled Ones are like mercenaries. They are a group that does anything for money. A lot of merchants are afraid of them. They are also really good at fighting and hiding.”

A murmur rippled through the new arrivals.

Enya didn’t join in. She couldn’t stop staring at the girl who had died minutes before—her body still lying on the cold stone. The stillness of it. The suddenness of it.

He killed her with one word.

Her brows drew together.

Was that a spell? A skill? A command? Could necromancers learn something like that?

Back in Sable’s dungeon, when she was alone, she was hoping that the system would grant her something just like that. A brief point of a finger, and boom—dead.

Across the room, another child added quietly, “They said the Godsworn need… sacrifices. Or vessels. Or something. They’re testing us. The nobles get taken first.”

The noble girl who had spoken earlier began to cry again. “But why? My father—my family—they’ll come for me. They have to.”

A different voice answered her—frustrated, but hollow. “Guards were killed. Escorts, too. Some of us were grabbed in the middle of the night. Some during the day without anyone noticing. No one knows where we are.”

“And even if they did,” another boy said, rattling his cuffs, “we can’t break these. We can’t use skills. We can’t use mana. We’re stuck.”

Several others nodded grimly.

“We tried everything,” said a girl near the back. “One of the boys has a passive that makes him stronger, But even he couldn’t break the bindings. It even stops passives.”

A boy near the wall hesitated, then spoke quietly. “One of the older kids overheard the Veiled Ones earlier. They said this place used to be an orphanage. Owned by Baron Amberdean.”

Enya’s breath froze.

Amberdean. Was that the man who had just killed that girl? The one who matched the description of a scumbag noble from Pell's novels?

That was Pell's target? His nemesis? The man he wanted to bury in the dirt more than anything?

She finally understood why.

He was a big, mean, noble.

The noble boy who had been asking questions sank to his knees. “So we’re really going to die? Just like that girl?”

No one answered.

Fear spread across their faces, tense, pale, and restrained, like any loud sound might attract something worse.

Enya lowered her gaze, fists tightening against the cuffs. She wasn’t planning on dying here. And she was certain—absolutely certain—that if Pell was anywhere nearby, he wasn’t planning on letting her die either.

The children settled uneasily into clusters—some sitting alone, others clinging to whoever seemed least frightening. Fear had a strange way of grouping strangers together.

A few of the older ones began whispering their names.

A girl with tightly braided hair introduced herself as Mirra, daughter of a minor baron.

Another boy—thin, jittery, barely ten—said his name was Ren. He wasn’t noble; his parents were merchants.

One by one, more voices followed. Some confident. Some shaking.

Out of the roughly thirty children crowded into the room, only eleven were nobles. Billy was the highest prestige among them—the son of a duke. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to look composed, but his eyes kept darting to the dead girl on the floor.

Finally, the circle of introductions reached Enya.

She tucked her hands closer to her lap and said simply, “I’m a noble.”

They stared at her.

“What kind?” someone asked.

Enya blinked once. “The best kind.”

A long, blank silence.

Talon—one of the oldest nobles, around twelve or thirteen—rubbed his forehead. “Right. Okay… moving on.”

Conversation resumed almost immediately, the others deciding her answer wasn’t worth trying to interpret. Not everyone here was in a sane state of mind.

Talon straightened, lowering his voice. “Listen. I’ve been here longer than most of you. I think I have a plan to escape—but the cuffs block every skill I have. We need a way to break them.”

“How?” Mirra asked. “They’re enchanted.”

“I know,” Talon muttered. “I tried pulling mine off until my wrists bled. But if we can find something sharp, or a tool, or even distract or bribe the guys who captured us, then—”

He trailed off as heavy footsteps echoed down the staircase.

The Veiled Ones returned.

Each masked figure carried a tray lined with crude wooden bowls. They moved down the rows of children, thrusting a bowl into each pair of bound hands—thin, watery gruel that smelled faintly sour. Alongside it, a small tin cup of equally unimpressive water.

Enya wrinkled her nose when her bowl was shoved at her. It looked like someone had boiled sadness and disappointment into a paste.

As the Veiled One handed it to her, he lifted his other hand abruptly, swatting at something buzzing near his mask.

“Damn flies,” he muttered.

The insect dodged his swipe and fluttered lazily—then landed directly on top of Enya’s gruel.

Enya stared at it.

Her face fell even harder.

The Veiled Ones didn’t notice or care. He simply moved on, shoving bowls at the next group of children. After a few more minutes, the masked figures finished distributing the food and began to leave. The door slammed shut behind them.

Some children picked at their gruel with dull, miserable acceptance. Others forced themselves to eat. A few refused entirely.

Enya just glared at the fly sitting confidently on the sludge in her bowl.

Then—she heard it.A voice so tiny she almost thought she imagined it.

“Enya.”

Her eyes widened.

The fly lifted its front legs, almost like it was waving. “It’s me,” the voice whispered again.

“El… Elria?” she mouthed quietly.

The fly nodded. Or at least, bobbed its whole body in a nod-like motion.

“How? How are you here?” Enya whispered, leaning close.

A few children nearby shifted away from her. After her earlier bizarre answer about being "the best kind" of noble—seeing her whisper to her bowl of gruel was pushing things.

“We’ve gotten ourselves into quite a dilemma,” Elria buzzed. “Seems like all of you are trapped inside some building in a village. Village looks normal on the outside, but I don’t think anyone knows any of you are here.”

Enya nodded. “I saw Amberdean come by. He’s the one Pell wants to kill. He’s the one who kidnapped us.”

“I’m guessing those cuffs are locking your skills out?” Elria asked.

Enya nodded again. “Even my passives. The other kids say they can’t get them off either.”

“Why is she talking to her bowl…” Billy muttered to the others. “I was going to introduce myself to her, but she seems insane…”

“Alright, listen,” Elria continued. “I’m currently possessing this fly’s body, but I can probably muster enough power to break those bindings off you. The problem is how you’re going to escape. Actually, the bigger problem is how all of you are going to escape.”

“All of us? Why?” Enya asked.

Elria stared at her. “Ah. Right. You probably don’t care about them.” She buzzed irritably. “Anyway. I can break your cuffs, but we need a plan to get you out of this room and rescue that grouchy skeleton. He and that other pendant are currently being worn by one of those masked kidnappers.”

“I can unsummon Pell and resummon him and Mr. Bones inside this room,” Enya whispered.

“That’s a dumb idea,” Elria said immediately. “If you did that, they’d notice their necklaces disappearing. Even if you got them here and broke out, the assassins will kill you. There are a few of them stationed all around the building. We’re too weak to fight them. You saw how quickly they defeated us.”

Enya pouted. Elria was right. They had beaten them in seconds.

“We need a way to kill those assassins without fighting them directly,” Elria said.

“How?” Enya asked.

Elria buzzed around the rim of the bowl, thinking. Then she seemed to perk up.

“How about poison? They have to eat and drink at some point. We poison their food. You’re a necromancer, right? Surely you’ve got a few poisonous or deathly spells?”

“Um… no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I only know how to make skeletons, bone spears, bone constructs, and expand my senses. And sometimes I can see the future.”

“You’re an oracle too? How busted is this system shit of yours?” Elria shook her tiny fly head. “Okay—can you make a small bone and have it expand to the size of an arm if one of them ingests it?”

Enya frowned. “I don’t think I can. But that’s probably a really good way to kill someone.”

Elria sighed dramatically.

“But… maybe Grimmy has a recipe for some type of poison,” Enya added. “I think soul-slimes are poisonous, and I can summon one of those with Grimmy. But I don’t know if that’s enough to kill someone.”

“Soul-slimes, huh? I don’t know much about them. But if you can make something—even if you can’t—we’ll still need a way to infect their food supply. I can only maintain my ghost-form in a pocket layer or a dungeon space—I can’t leave a body for more than a few seconds. I got extremely lucky finding a dead fly nearby to possess. It’ll be tough for me to drag a soul-slime out of here and drop it in the town well or something as a fly. ”

Enya hummed, thinking. Then her eyes brightened.

“Oh. I think I might have someone who can help us.”

“Who?”

Enya smiled. “Me.”