Chapter 11: In the punishment tent
Stefan’s POV
[TIME LIMIT: 10:09:00]
The punishment tent reeked before I even got inside it fully.
The warrior shoved me through the flap and walked off without a word, leaving me standing there blinking in the dim light until my eyes adjusted enough to see what was sharing the space with me.
"Hmm..." I sucked in a breath when I saw a person.
A man. He was alumped against the far wall, his left leg stretched out in front of him at a wrong angle, the skin around his shin gone dark and weeping, and it was oozing the smell of rot thick enough to taste.
He flinched when he noticed me staring, and he tried to drag himself half upright like even that small movement cost him everything he had left.
Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t do anything. He was naked yet he was sweating profusely.
"What happened to you?" The words came out from my mouth before I’d thought better of asking.
He looked at me like the question itself was strange.
"The General," he began meekly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Is it her you angered? If so..." He trailed off, swallowing hard. "You will not see outside this tent again."
I swallowed hard not knowing how to react in this situation, not knowing what to reply with.
The way the man’s words landed certain like a man who’d already accepted his own ending, made the formation of words die somewhere in my throat instead.
At that moment, I realized why the man was sweating profusely despite being naked.
"God damn it!" The heat in the tent was fucking too much and unbearable.
Indeed, it was nothing short of a punishment space.
I swallowed hard and shifted my weight from one leg to another but I was still curious.
"The general did that to your leg?" I asked, nodding at the wound.
He didn’t answer. He just looked away, like even talking about her too much might summon something worse.
I shivered despite myself, then caught it and forced my spine straight. No. I refused to believe one woman could really be that far gone. I’d met plenty of dangerous people back on Earth, and most of them folded the second you found the right angle to work them from. She was no different. She just hadn’t met the right con yet.
I sat down hard against the opposite wall, putting as much distance between us as the small space allowed, and stared at the countdown still burning steady in the corner of my vision.
[PRIMARY MISSION: Make Jonquil laugh genuinely for the first time.]
[TIME LIMIT: 9:54:00]
Less than ten hours, and I was locked in a tent with a rotting man and zero access to the woman I needed to make laugh. This was, without question, the dumbest position I’d ever managed to talk myself into, and I’d talked my way into some genuinely stupid situations back on Earth.
"I need to find a way out of here very soon. Whatever it takes," I muttered, mostly to myself.
It wasn’t completely about the mission anymore. It was mostly about my survival.
Beads of sweat were already forming on my forehead.
~~~~~~~~~
Time flew so fast. Or was it because of the mission hanging on the time?
I checked the timer more times than I wanted to admit, watching it bleed down minute by minute while I sat in the dark with a man who occasionally groaned in his sleep, the smell of infection slowly becoming something I’d half stopped noticing, and absolutely nothing to do except think about how badly I’d already failed at being efficient with the time I’d been given.
[TIME LIMIT: 5:12:00]
Then I was already drenched in sweat. The slave cloth on me did absolutely nothing in absorbing the sweat so it was slowly dripping on the floor I sat.
Before then, I had stood up, paced a little then sat again.
"Should I just go out and see the worst she could do?" I thought then dropped the idea like I had dropped a few others.
I was halfway to genuinely panicking when the tent flap finally tore open.
A female warrior ducked inside, hauling another slave over one shoulder like he weighed nothing, and dropped him onto the ground without a hint of ceremony.
"Oh, thank God!" I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw it was Jonquil. I stood up quickly.
However, she was too busy on her task to even spare me a glance.
She planted one foot on the slave’s chest, pressing down hard enough that he wheezed, said something sharp in that growling language I still couldn’t follow, then turned to leave like the whole exchange had cost her zero thought at all.
"Hey, gorgeous-" I tried to sound gentle even though my situation wasn’t allowing that.
Futile endeavor! Jonquil just kept walking away.
"Sweetheart, wait-" I tried again. Still nothing. Apparently pet names didn’t translate any better than my jokes had. She was already out of the tent then.
"Jonquil!" I yelled.
That landed. The flap opened and she peeped inside, staring at me with the same flat patience she gave everything, like I was a minor inconvenience that had developed the ability to speak.
"I need to get out of here," I went straight to the point.
Her brows came slightly together as she looked at me like I’d suggested something genuinely unhinged. "You are under the General’s punishment. You cannot leave unless she says otherwise." She replied after a split second of silence.
"There has to be something you can do. Pull rank, talk to her, anything. Help me." I rushed out impatiently.
"Why would I help you?"The question came out of her mouth like a whip.
"Ouch." I pressed a hand to my chest, mock-wounded. "Okay. Fair. I deserved that." I dropped the act a second later, leaning in slightly, lowering my voice. "But you should help me anyway. So we can get back to what we were doing earlier."
"That will not be necessary. I’m busy." she said, flat as ever.
The System chimed quietly, almost helpfully, like it enjoyed kicking me while I was down.
[JONQUIL’S CURRENT MOOD: Indifferent - slightly irritated.]
I decided to use that anyway. I dug into every piece of material I had, every joke that used to kill at parties back on Earth, every bit of physical comedy that had once made grown women laugh hard enough to spill their drinks onto my shoes.
"Do you know that you look really intelligent when you are angry? I think I should be making you angry all the time so my view will be blessed by your intelligent appearance. It can enlighten even the deafs." I winked at her.
None of it landed. Not one flicker. I did the voice, the exaggerated faces, even tried tripping over my own feet on purpose for a cheap laugh, and she watched the entire performance with the same expression she might give a rock that had suddenly, inexplicably, started talking.
Then she simply turned and walked out, leaving me standing there mid-sentence, words dying in my throat, dignity somewhere on the floor behind me.
"Good going, Stefan! Good." I gritted my teeth, dropping back down against the tent wall.
[TIME LIMIT: 4:47:00]
If I didn’t figure this out soon, whatever waited for me at zero wasn’t going to be pleasant. I’d already seen exactly what this camp considered an acceptable outcome for failure, rotting in the corner not three feet from where I sat, breathing through his mouth like even that hurt.
I needed a new plan. Fast. Comedy or sweet talks clearly wasn’t going to be the way in, not with material built for an entirely different species.
I was still turning it over in my head, sorting through every other angle I had left, when the tent flap ripped open again.
Jonquil stood there, jaw tight, something close to pure anger flashing across her face for the first time since I’d met her.
"The General has demanded you," she said in a sharp voice.
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
