Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the menagerie of monsters for a bit, getting used to the fact that his eyesight was different now, too. His eyes seemed to be much keener and were naturally able to see in utter darkness — as opposed to being gifted this trait by his Aspect — but had trouble differentiating colors.

The world was basically black and white, or rather consisted of various shades of grey, similar to how he used to see the world through shadows. His sense of smell was also enhanced, overloading his mind with an avalanche of new information. It was hard to concentrate on any one thing, let alone make sense of all this mess.

'Ah, who cares. Let's just get out of here.'

Just like in the Night Temple, the cage limited his shadow sense. However, this one did not sap him of shadow essence, which was a pleasant surprise.

Sunny's joy was short-lived, however.

As soon as he tried to Shadow Step away, he realized that he couldn't teleport through the iron bars. What's more, even his shadows couldn't slide through them, as though there was an invisible barrier blocking their way.

Sunny gritted his teeth, and felt a sharp pain as his fangs sunk into the soft flesh inside his mouth. He tried to curse, and produced a furious growl instead. After that, he simply remained motionless for a bit, staring at the other prisoners of the dungeon with gloomy resentment.

'Curse it all.'

Finally, he shook his head and awkwardly knelt at the bottom of the cage, grasping the iron bars with all four of his hands. Moving twice the amount he had possessed previously was a bit of a challenge, but he did manage after a couple of attempts.

'Fine. There are other methods… I'll melt this whole damned cage, if necessary.'

He stretched one hand through the bars, and summoned the Cruel Sight.

And then… nothing happened.

The only thing that changed was that his steel collar turned a little colder for a moment.

Sunny frowned, his black eyes growing even darker, then tried again.

The somber weapon did not appear. There was no tenebrous mist shrouding his hand, and no feeling of a small portion of his shadow essence disappearing to grant the Memory a physical shape.

Feeling unease, Sunny lingered for a second, and then tried to summon the Midnight Shard.

grew colder for a moment,

what is going

even a single spark of

Even Weaver's Mask…

he hurriedly summoned the runes, hoping to see that he was

no,

But…

was nothing in the air in front of him, just cold and

'Wait… what?'

but they were inexplicably gone. His collar was now

'Can't be!'

almost

was completely cut

Sunny leaned heavily on the bars of the cage and

a

was it even possible to lose connection to the

Spell, damn

snatch an Awakened away

to

living with the Spell that he almost didn't remember what existing without it felt like. It was as though an integral part of his being was suddenly taken

'I don't understand…'

footsteps suddenly resounded in the ghastly dungeon. Raising his head, Sunny saw a giant of a man walking between the hanging cages, his powerful figure radiating a sense of vast, solemn

back, a barbarous curved blade hung, wide and heavy enough to split

was hidden beneath a hood, but Sunny didn't need to see it to know that he was looking

walking straight to

But, uh… to

devoid of the ability to summon Memories. He was unarmed and defenseless. He didn't even know if his Aspect

with his