Mr. Bell listened patiently to Liam’s tale.
Finishing school, he won himself an apprenticeship with the local baker. His parents were so proud. Getting into a trade like that was no easy feat.
The position required a very early start, so he went every morning at the crack of dawn.
One of those mornings, everything just went black.
When he eventually woke up with an aching head, he was on this same bed, chained to this wall.
His clothes and his belongings were all gone. This uniform, clearly for someone younger, was shoved on him.
Mr. Fisher had eventually come in and kept calling him Ron, explaining his new reality and the rules. Naturally, Liam fought. He screamed. He shouted.
Fisher just kept punching him in the stomach until he stopped fighting back.
The clients hit him in other places, like his face. But Fisher didn’t care.
He just charged more.
How long he had been here, he had no idea. He gave up counting the nights.
The more the young man retold, the quieter he had gotten. If possible.
Liam eventually stopped talking, hunched on the old bed, rubbing the red ring above his ankle.
Mr. Bell continued to listen patiently until this point, deducing that Liam wished to speak no more of it.
"Have you ever seen magic before, Liam?" the older man asked.
Liam looked back at him, as if waking up from his thoughts. "Everyone... has seen a mage or two perform, Sir. Why?"
"Would you like to see one way of how a spell works?"
The young man blinked, more attention forming on Mr. Bell.
"You are a mage... Sir?" he whispered in disbelief.
"I am." Mr. Bell smiled. "Would you like to see some?"
Liam nodded frantically. Remembering when this man took his shackle off, Liam assumed he used a lock pick with expertise.
But he didn’t see a lock pick, now that he thought about it.
Mr. Bell stood up and took a piece of chalk from his waistcoat pocket. The large man then knelt on the floor in front of the door and drew a wide circle.
"One way to conduct an effect in magic, Liam, is with something called glyphs," the man explained, his hand drawing lines and shapes with startling efficiency.
Liam held on to the bed frame, leaning over, watching in awe.
"Glyphs have to be drawn perfectly or else they won’t work," Mr. Bell continued, his attention fully on his work. "And the more complicated the desired function of the spell is, the more complicated the glyph would need to be."
The young man nodded eagerly, the logic making sense.
"The best use of glyphs like this, you would find in expensive equipment or devices that require mana to function."
Finishing his drawing, a circle of complicated lines lay on the floor within it. It looked like nonsense to Liam, beautiful nonsense.
"But the best use of glyphs for me personally, Liam," Mr. Bell finished, eyeing the circle. His voice had gotten quieter.
"Is for traps."
Liam frowned, his face becoming startled.
Mr. Bell looked up at him from the floor. "Whenever I activate this, Liam, make sure you do not cross over it, understood?"
"Yes, Sir." The young man nodded adamantly. "What does it do?"
"Did you learn about a thing called gravity in school?"
"Yeah..." Liam admitted quietly. "Things falling. About how the orange fell on the bloke’s head?"
"Close enough." Mr. Bell smiled.
"This is a gravity well. Inside this circle, gravity will be much stronger than what anyone would be used to. If your foot enters here, it will become impossibly heavy, making it hard to move."
"Would it be painful?" Liam inquired in a whisper.
"Yes. Yes, it would."
"Good."
The older man didn’t react to that. He just moved a finger to the edge of his circle. A faint glow of light came from his hand and started to fill the lines he had just drawn.
Then the circle and its contents faded, nearly matching the floor. If you didn’t know it was there, you would have missed it completely.
Which was kind of the point.
"Remember, Liam. Do not cross over this." Mr. Bell sternly reminded the young man.
Liam just nodded.
Mr. Bell returned to his chair, and they both waited.
A few minutes later, footsteps came up the hallway to the door. A sharp knock sounded, with Davy’s voice coming through.
"Time’s up, Mr. Bell. The journey ends here unless you agree to pay further. I also need to see if Ron is still breathing, as that will affect the rest of the price."
Liam’s face paled, his expression startled, edging further away on the bed. Looking to Mr. Bell for reassurance, but the older man was calm. He just raised his finger in front of his lips, asking Liam to be quiet.
The young man nodded.
After a beat of silence, the door was knocked on again. A little more harshly this time.
"Mr. Bell. I beg of you, do not make me come in there. Finish up or agree to pay further."
The silence continued for a beat further.
"Right," came a muttered snarl.
The door thrust open. A furious Davy stood, filling the doorway.
As the chair was right beside the door, Davy spotted the calm Mr. Bell first. His hands were on his knees, staring ahead.
"Never took you as a watcher, fooled me good you did." Davy sneered. "Regardless, you’ll still pay the rest, take part or not."
Mr. Bell ignored him, still staring ahead.
"Ron." Davy growled, "Stop whatever show you are doing until this shit pays up."
He turned and looked past the door to the bed, expecting his orders to be followed to the letter.
What he did not expect was Liam hunched up on the bed, shaking.
Unchained.
"The fuck is this!" Davy bellowed, stepping forward.
The angry man didn’t even see the glyph glow as his right foot stepped right in the middle of it.
He collapsed immediately to the floor, as if pressed down by a machine. His right leg collapsed onto his foot at an unhealthy angle. The force from the circle was trying to draw the rest of him in.
Like a fish.
A startled gurgle erupted from him, which then turned to a roar of agony as the pain caught up to him.
It was only noisy for just a moment, before Mr. Bell’s hand clamped over Davy’s mouth, silencing him entirely.
The trapped man’s bulging eyes looked at Mr. Bell’s arm, coming through the circle’s space, completely unaffected.
"As you just heard, Liam," Mr. Bell addressed the room calmly. "It is quite painful indeed."
The older man’s eyes looked away from the struggling Davy to Liam.
"I need you to go into the other rooms and free everyone else."
"How can I do that?" The young man spluttered.
"With this." Mr. Bell took something out of his pocket with his free hand, holding it out to Liam. A small slip of paper with another glyph on it. "This is already charged. Just hold it to the shackle, and it will release."
Liam nodded again, taking the piece of paper between his fingers, as if it would bite him.
"But, but what if there are other... clients?"
"There aren’t." Mr. Bell assured him. How the man knew that, Liam had no idea. But he believed him.
"Walk around me, Liam. Stay away from the circle. Gather everyone and take them downstairs. Wait for me to come down. Whoever wishes to leave, they are free to do so. But if you wait for me, there will be a hot meal, and I will organize things with the City Guards."
The young man walked around Mr. Bell and headed out of the room.
"Also, Liam," Mr. Bell continued, his gaze firmly on Davy’s reddening eyes. "Close this door. Make sure no one comes in and stays downstairs."
"Mr. Fisher and I must chat."