_ What did they arrest you for?
Raven asked his inmate - a middle aged man who had a shaggy beard and a bored look on his face. His name was Bucarin, who was incarcerated in the same cell with Raven. Normally there was a high chance that Raven would be confined in a cell in solitary imprisonment, but at that time the prison was so crowded, the number of prisoners swelled and grew beyond the capacity of the facility, so when Raven was there no one was actually condemned to solitary imprisonment treatment.
After hearing Raven's question, Bucarin opened his mouth to answer while eyes still lazily staring at the torch hung upon the wall outside of the cell:
_ I'm just a plumber. They summoned me to the royal palace to fix the sewage pipes. After having examined them, I shouted loudly to inform people who were far away from me: "Hey, the entire system needs to be replaced". Then they decided to give me seven years of imprisonment and threw me in here.
_ Just so? I don't understand at all.
Raven exclaimed and was genuinely surprised. That sounded like an extremely implausible crime to him. But Bucarin just shrugged:
_ Probably they didn't expect to replace the entire malfunctioned system? As an experienced and prestiged craftman, I can assure you that there wasn't just one or two sections needed repairing. Rather, it seriously required nothing less than a total overhaul and replacement, otherwise the entire sewage structure of the royal palace would cease to function, soon…
Not in the mood to query Bucarin any further regarding his case, Raven sighed when he couldn't help but feel increasingly disillusioned upon learning examples of injustice such as this case, when he was incarcerated in that prison of the state of Velder. Before he thought just his own charge alone was unjust and trumped-up.
When Raven was arrested, he was surprised and couldn't see it coming. After so many years of long, hard labors and after so many sacrifices, serving the nation faitfully and celebrated by the people, but at the end he was betrayed by the very regime he helped to preserve and stabbed in the back, framed by someone he trusted wholeheartedly.
In the interrogation sessions, Raven was hounded by the investigators, who tried their best to lure Raven to confess to crimes he didn't commit. After long and arduous sessions, designed to whittle down the resolves and sapping the mental strength of the suspect. But ultimately after having not achieved anything, they changed their methods.
They resorted to violences, trying to force Raven to admit to the crimes. But Raven still refused their lies, and rejected their accusations. They were frustrated, but couldn't do anything more than that to achieve the results they wanted.
The subsequent show trial progressed as expected. The crimes and penalties were already determined even before the judgement happended. The exits of the court were closed the whole time when the trial occurred, neutral civilians were not allowed to observe the progresses of the trial.
Seeing Owen Felford who was actively framing him in the court, Raven couldn't keep his temper and said angrily while pointing his index finger at the direction where Felford stood:
_ Stop lying, for once in your life as least! You are lying even now in court.
The judge stated:
_ Order! Suspect Cronwell, don't interrupt!
_ I couldn't restrain myself...
Answered Raven while still glaring at Owen.
Raven was so disappointed. The pains from betrayals and monstrously growing disaffection in him had broken his heart. In his whole life until then, there had been hardly anything which hurt him more than what they had done to him.
In prison Raven kept thinking and thinking, trying to remember what was wrong with Velder, and the more he thought about it, the more he couldn't help but coming to accept the painful conclusion: something is rotten in the state of Velder.
Before, when he was a rising star in the nation, Raven Cronwell had turned a blind eye to the negative aspects of the regime. He reasoned that those were just particular cases of individuals, and he could tolerate their greeds, their envies, their self-serving agendas and actions…
Now, when in prison, having time to recount his past experiences and searching through his memories, he could woefully realize the direction Velder's established institutions were heading toward: spiralling downward in a race to the bottom…
These were days when Raven was visited by feelings of melancholy and contempt so strong that he couldn't imagine was possible before. The circumstances had transformed him, opened his eyes to the naked truths regarding reality. Raven regretted that when he had finally realized the extent of systemic and deep-rooted corruptions which spreaded through the regime, he couldn't do anything about it, as he was already near the very finale chapter of his life.
Raven Cronwell hardly believed in the deities before, but he was so desperate that he even began to pray to the gods: "Please save me, give me a second chance and I will devote my life to set right what went wrong in this world, so that never again will anyone have to suffer the same fate as me".
The night before his execution, Raven was drowned in waves after waves of anguish. But he tried his best to restrain himself, he wanted to be remembered as staying defiant to the bitter end - defeated, yet remained unbroken.
Suddenly Raven heard very loud noises and then the prison's gaolers were seen hurriedly running past, as if in response to some threats. Raven concluded it could only be an attempt to raid the prison to bust someone imprisoned here out.
Shortly later the door to Raven's cell creaked open and there stood a gaoler who said:
_ Captain! Let's escape!
Trying to observe closely, Raven recognized it was Frank Castor – one of his Crow Mercenary Knights Company's officer, who disguised himself as a gaoler. Castor was accompanied by half a dozen of men too. Realizing they stormed the prison to rescue him, Raven felt hope had begun to return to him.
Raven felt grateful for the efforts of his comrades who risked their own lives just to save him. He also didn't forget to thank the gods for this deus ex machina act of deliverance. Raven was surprised and amazed because his comrades managed to carry out this rescue maneuver. He thought this kind of thing could only happen in fictional works.
Raven told Castor:
_ I don't know how can I express my gratitudes for you and repay you enough... But thank you all. Is Seris here?
_ She is with the team which is attracting the bulk of the prison guard's concentration of force, so that we can secretly infiltrate and sneak you out.
Raven nodded to Castor in approval and shook hands with him, then turned to face Bucarin - who was scared and confused because of the events which transpired before him. In that very moment, suddenly Raven was hit with a significant realization: he had finally understood the reason why Bucarin was arrested.
The plumber inadvertedly stated the truth. The entire system indeed needed to be replaced. But such system - which had grown paranoid and oversensitive - mistook Bucarin's request of merely replacing the system of sewage pipes for the calling to replace it itself(!). It then promptly punished the innocent man.
In a way, admittedly that system was even more filthy than the system of sewage pipes itself.
Raven gave out a hand to Bucarin and offered:
_ Bucarin, escape with us. We will complete what we have left unfinished before coming here. It's still not too late yet... Together, we will replace the broken systems by our own hands!