He blinked, and the chamber around him took form. The walls were stone, but not ordinary masonry. Runes etched themselves into every surface, their faint dark glow pulsing in time with some invisible rhythm. He tugged at the rope—slim, fragile, laughably weak at first glance—but the fibers resisted with an unyielding force. It was as if every strand was fastened by a will beyond the physical.
"Binding dark art," he realized, his breath catching. He had studied enough to know: when sorcery decided that a rope was stronger than steel, it became exactly that.
He fought against it anyway. He twisted his arms, tried to wrench his shoulders, even shifted his weight to snap the rope with the leverage of his body. Nothing. Not even a shake. The rope did not so much as quiver.
The room was silent except for his own breathing—until a sound seeped through the heavy door.
"…Bullteik," he whispered, recognizing the voice at once. Sharp, sly, impatient, exactly as he remembered. The words, however, broke apart in his ears like waves against stone. Another voice accompanied it, deeper and calmer, carrying the weight of command. But El Como couldn't make sense of either, because the runes themselves were working against him.
As the voices spoke outside, the carvings on the walls shimmered and melted faint lines of light, twisting into shapes that stole meaning from the air. Every time El Como thought he recognized a phrase, the symbols pulsed, drowning it out in silence. He clenched his jaw, frustration building. He was trapped in a cage not only of rope, but of incomprehension.
Then the whispers began.
At first he thought it was Bullteik lowering his tone. But the sound was inside the room, soft and close, like a chorus breathing just behind his shoulder. Words he didn't know, spoken in layers, curling around his mind. He shivered. The runes were not merely barriers; they were alive in some dreadful way.
He pressed the back of his head to the wall, forcing his thoughts to stay focused. They want you distracted. Don't listen.
But it was hard not to.
The latch scraped. The door opened.
Light—not sunlight, but the wan silver of torches—spilled inward. El Como squinted as a tide of figures poured into the chamber. He counted instinctively. Ten, twenty, fifty… until the numbers blurred. They were all the same man.
Each one had the same face, the same stride, the same glint in the eyes. They moved with eerie precision, like echoes walking in parallel. In their midst walked one who did not need duplication to command attention: Darr.
El Como's breath stilled.
The runes flared brighter in acknowledgment, whispering faster, as though thrilled at his arrival. The rope at El Como's wrists tightened—not cutting into skin, but settling with the authority of a thousand unseen locks.
Darr's gaze fell on him. Unblinking. Steady. Behind him, Bullteik smirked as if he had personally orchestrated this spectacle for El Como's benefit.
"So you wake," Bullteik said, his voice smug.
El Como straightened his shoulders as best he could, rope biting like invisible chains. "You should have let me sleep. Dreams are kinder than this farce."
"Kindness?" Bullteik chuckled. "This is not about kindness. This is about witnessing." He gestured, and the runes along the wall answered with a low hum. "The whispers tell us things you cannot imagine. But you'll have time to learn."
Darr spoke then. His voice was deep, resonant, carrying an odd effect as though it came from every duplicate at once. "The bindings hold. The runes are satisfied. The trial begins."
The hundred identical men moved in perfect unison, circling El Como. Their boots struck the stone in a rhythm that matched the pulse of the runes. It was not quite a march, not quite a ritual, but something between.
El Como fought to steady his breathing. His mind reeled with questions: What trial? Why him? But above all, the sight of the duplicates struck him hardest. He had heard of such gifts—abilities born from old bloodlines and strange bargains. Few were as unsettling as this one.
"Ubiquity," he murmured, almost involuntarily.
Darr's eyes narrowed, confirming his suspicion without words.
The circle tightened. El Como felt the heat of their stares, identical and endless. But within his chest, a small defiance stirred. He had been bound before. He had faced enchantments meant to crush his will. The rope might restrain his body, but not his resolve.
Inside his mind, he began forming a plan. Not yet an escape, not yet a victory—just the seed of resistance. He would not give them the satisfaction of despair.
Bullteik leaned closer, voice dripping with mockery. "Still plotting, even now? Your thoughts are as transparent as your failures."
El Como met his gaze steadily. "If you could hear my thoughts, you'd know I never stop."
For a moment, the smirk faltered.
Darr lifted a hand, and silence swept the chamber. Every duplicate froze as if time itself obeyed him. Only the runes whispered, their voices swelling.
"The trial begins," Darr repeated. "And the runes themselves shall judge."
El Como tightened his jaw. Whatever came next, he was ready to endure. The whispers grew louder, the chamber darker, and in the center of it all, the fragile rope that held him felt suddenly less like a prison and more like a test.
He would find its weakness. He always did...Alright—here comes Part 2 (about 1,000 more words). We'll continue smoothly from where we left off: El Como bound in the runic chamber, the duplicates encircling him, and Darr declaring "the trial begins."
The runes along the chamber walls dimmed suddenly, as though inhaling. The whispers fell quiet. For a heartbeat, the silence was absolute. El Como felt every drop of his own blood coursing in his veins, loud in his ears.
Then the runes exhaled.
A soft wave of energy rippled through the room, bending torchlight, distorting the air. The duplicated men stiffened, every one of them standing at attention. Their heads lifted in perfect unison, eyes fixed on Darr.
Darr spread his arms. "The runes accept your presence, El Como. They mark you for trial. You will not leave until judgment is decided."
El Como tested the rope again—still unmoving, stronger than iron. "Judgment," he said, forcing his tone to remain steady. "By whose law? By whose measure?"
"Theirs," Darr replied, tilting his head toward the walls. The faint light of the runes brightened, as if pleased to be acknowledged. "These runes were inscribed long before us, long before kingdoms rose and fell. They are ancient law made stone. They know truths even kings fear to utter."
Bullteik grinned, pacing at El Como's side. "And what better subject to place before them than you? A man who resists, who claws against every fate placed upon him. They will taste your defiance and decide whether it holds worth… or whether it is wasted."
El Como said nothing, though his mind spun. The whispers had begun again, low and insistent. They crawled through the chamber, overlapping, forming half-words that danced at the edges of comprehension. He shook his head to clear them away, but the sound pressed on.
Darr stepped closer. "Do you hear them? They call out. They want to know you."
"I hear only noise," El Como said.
"Noise is simply meaning you refuse to understand."
The duplicates began to move again. They formed two concentric circles around El Como, the inner ring pacing clockwise, the outer counterclockwise. Their boots struck rhythm on the stone, syncopated with the pulse of the runes. The effect was dizzying, as though the entire chamber had become a living heart.
El Como's vision swam. He forced his breathing into steady cadence. He had survived worse—he reminded himself—though nothing quite like this.
Bullteik leaned in, smirking. "Do you feel it? The weight of inevitability?"
El Como's lips curved into a thin, defiant smile. "I feel the desperation of men who need walls to speak for them."
Bullteik's expression soured, but Darr lifted a hand, halting him. "The trial is not ours to argue. It is the runes'. Let them speak."
At his words, the runes flared white-hot. The whispers rose into a sharp chorus, the sound resonating in El Como's skull. He clenched his teeth as visions flickered behind his eyes: fragments of memory, shards of faces and places he had known. His childhood village. The battlefield where comrades had fallen. The shadowed valley where he had once made a choice he never spoke of aloud.
Each vision stung like an open wound, yet carried a strange clarity. The runes were prying—not at his flesh, but at his truth.
He gasped, jerking against the rope. "Get… out…"
But the rope pulsed with energy, holding him steady. He could not fight the visions; he could only endure them.
The duplicates kept circling. Darr watched, unreadable. Bullteik's smile returned.
The whispers shifted, harmonizing into a single phrase that echoed within his mind:
Show us your core.
El Como inhaled sharply. They weren't content with memories—they wanted essence. Strength. Conviction.
"Is this your trial?" he said aloud, voice hoarse. "To strip a man until nothing remains?"
Darr's eyes glinted. "No. The trial is to see what remains when everything else is stripped away."
The visions pressed harder. El Como shut his eyes, clutching at the fragments of himself he refused to surrender. He thought of the faces of those who still relied on him, of the promise he had made in the silence of his heart.
The runes hissed, probing. Show us.
Sweat rolled down his temple. His muscles burned with restraint. He felt as if his soul were being pulled apart fiber by fiber.
Yet within that storm, a spark of will blazed brighter.
"You want my core?" he whispered, his voice steadier than he expected. He opened his eyes, glaring at the glowing walls. "Then see this: I will not break. Not for your whispers, not for your bonds, not for a hundred men with the same stolen face. You want judgment? Judge that."
The chamber quaked. The whispers faltered, splintering into discord. The duplicates staggered for half a step before regaining rhythm. Even Darr's calm expression flickered at the edges, as though he hadn't anticipated such defiance.
Bullteik snarled. "Arrogant fool!"
But the runes' glow shifted—no longer dark, no longer white-hot, but something in between. A twilight hue, uncertain. The whispers did not vanish, but their tone changed. Less accusation, more curiosity.
Darr studied the walls, then returned his gaze to El Como. "Interesting," he said quietly.
El Como exhaled, exhausted but unbowed. "Is your trial over?"
"Hardly." Darr's voice echoed, carried by every duplicate at once. "The runes have only begun to weigh you. They will not release you until they are satisfied. And they are rarely satisfied quickly."
The duplicates' circles expanded, creating more space. The runes hummed with new intensity, their whispers swelling into layered song. The chamber seemed to tilt, as though reality itself were bending to their will.
El Como steadied himself. The rope still bound his arms, but his spirit remained unshaken. Whatever came next, he would face it.
Because if the runes sought his core, they would find it indomitable.