Heroes and adventurers alike seem to manifest the origin of their stories, quests, and travels within the shared existence of a bar, tavern, or in this case, at the horse water trough before entering the establishment. It was here that our man was splashing water on his face and sorting through the horse goobers for a refreshing drink of less than clean water. Already having stepped right into a fresh patch of horse manure, he wasn’t particularly interested in getting any more horse in or around his body; at least not today.

The town of Dodger’s Canyon was a quaint little refuge only a few stops from the city of Fleeing Sands, where his wife and children were waiting eagerly for his return. A short business trip had come in the way of his marital bliss, but it would mean another few months of uninterrupted sanctuary in the presence of his family, with work beginning again at the end of summer. His sons nagged and nagged him so that he wouldn’t forget to bring them souvenirs, as always. And as always they would specify and change their minds until he left. His wife asked him for nothing but his safe return, and this time around they were expecting a baby girl due to join their family in a few weeks. He wanted something special for his new daughter, and ended up writing her a series of letters documenting all of his past trips to be delivered on her 18th birthday, as a way to encourage her to broaden her horizons. His other two gifts were where he finally caved, and pending a discussion with their mother, he had two hunting knives made using a shimmering steel, and had each blade stamped with their family medallion (a black rose bleeding viscous gold liquid).

It was turning to late afternoon upon his arrival and the subsequent step off his horse that found him standing ankle-deep in manure. Hitching up his horse and checking the locks on his wares wagon, he grabbed a beat up satchel that served as his overnight bag, as well as a classical guitar, and made his way up to the tavern named ‘The Institution’. Having an instrument with him at all times provided a feeling of security that he could not explain. Leaving a squelching trail of smelly boot prints on the veranda, he was promptly stopped by the entry security and told to take his shoes off before he entered. Now in socks, and with his age verified, he walked inside.

If you’ve never heard of a Rave Wizard before, this is what happened next. Music filled with hard beats, gentle melody, and a feeling of nostalgia made its way to every corner of the sprawling dance floor throughout the room. It enveloped all who heard its majesty and coerced them into an electrically charged, alcohol absorbed dance. Lights flashed like thunder and a mist covered the ground causing a slight chill that would make you want to move your feet all the more. At the head of it all, on a stack of books, stood a Gnome in blue wizard’s robes, aviators, fingerless gloves, and with 2 inch stretchers occupying his earlobes. The Lord of Bubblegum Butt Buttons himself; Master Rave Wizard Jeffereray Puddingtone. He was famous around the entire town, and still lived with his mother.

On any other night our protagonist would have been up there on stage with him, just absolutely shredding that which should not be shred. There was a powerful paper shredder on stage for just such an occasion obviously. He might have even played a few tunes on the guitar, but it was not meant to be this evening. Right now he was too tired to take too much notice of his surroundings. As he spoke to the barkeep the mana-based music changed its perceived volume, and made it so that they could hear each other perfectly, even though the party continued to rage on around them at full volume. Negotiating a price to stay the night came easily and quickly, handing over some small wares instead of gold. He signed his name ‘Georgery Donald Luxemburg Pracilla Tirdentia III’. “Alrighty there uh, Georgie. It’s up the stairs and to the left”. They always seemed to pronounce his name wrong. How hard was it to say ‘George’ while adding ‘ery’ to the end? Taking the key, he decided not to correct the barkeep on his name this time. He was far too tired. He made his way right upstairs and walked towards his room number. This decision has always weighed on his mind years after its conclusion of surrounding events. What if he had stayed downstairs? What if he didn’t stand in soft and warm poop? What if he had gone to the next town over? Or what if he never took this trip in the first place? He turned the key, and walked into the room.

*

*BANG* Georgery ran into the bars of his cell, and was hurled out of his memory. Reality flooded back into his conscious. He was in one of the many cells in his immediate area, and the only one remaining alive. Looking at the other cells, his inmates caught his eye, now long decayed skeletons. A set of stairs marked the corner of the room, with a sign on the wall reading ‘Welcome to Liberation Asylum. You’ll be happy here.’ as well as a type of flip clock under it that read, ‘300Y:07MO:04D:19H:43MI:16S’, still counting upwards. This place was far underground. The air had remained stagnant, and the years of neglect had left this place in complete disarray. There were no longer any guards, and the researchers had left far before their experiments on the inmates were supposed to conclude. Georgery hadn’t managed to find a way out. The years of immobility and malnutrition left his body in poor shape, giving him the appearance of a walking corpse or mummified remains. It had been so long since he had bathed that it actually didn’t matter anymore. His body no longer produced any sweat or released any waste due to bodily functions, keeping his skin dry, and his many wrinkles pronounced, completely intact. As if his long grey mop and beard weren’t enough to indicate his hardships, he felt tired. Tired as if an eternal sleep were ahead of him just out of reach. He had tried many ways to catch up, but to little success.

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In the beginning he had tried to kill himself; each single attempt concluding in failure. The experiments had left him with something that he did not understand. It kept him sustained through the starvation that now felt like a part of his wavering existence. Food continued to be supplied by magical means, but the spell’s potency had long since minimized, now only providing sustenance once every few days. As the years passed in his prison, in part as a result of the experiments, he began to slowly lose the quiet in his mind. The very same quiet that we all take for granted. Voices began to intrude on his conscious. His brain was trying to entertain itself through the loneliness that plagued his now hollow existence. It flickered through memories, gave him people to talk to, distracted him from reality, and changed the fundamental core values that keep most of us fit to conform in society. His family became a mirage of hope for a while. A motivation proved to be in vain as the years turned to decades. Realising soon enough that his wife and children would be long gone through old age or external interruption. Knowing that they would currently be nothing more than bones and dust. Due to all factors of the situation he had found himself in, losing his family was the jelly that put his bananas into question. The tuna in the tuba for him. The kazoo to a devilish melody. A sick joke. He was trapped in reality as much as he was a captive in his own mind. You could say that’s when he went a little bit insane.

For so many years he looked around this small room that at one time was so foreign to him. Originally feeling a cold and alienating loneliness, now it felt more like home to him than his warm, loving dwelling on the surface ever had. His food from yesterday still sat in a corner half eaten. His hunger had been disappearing of late. Whether it was a good thing or not, he had no idea as to its cause. In the other corner of the cell stood a hole once intended to be used as a toilet, no longer in use, and dried up decades ago. A small stone horse lay in the middle of the room with several other carved miniatures. They all sat in specific spots on top of a large map scratched into the floor. The map was labelled ‘Dodger’s Canyon’, and the horse was outside of a box named ‘The Institute’. There were no windows, except for a false one carved into the back wall, which was aptly illustrated as if it were showing the outside.

Georgery knelt and carved another counter into the floor. The cell was covered with markers in groups of 5. Before realising the numbers on the wall were in fact recording his time here, the markers served as an attempt at logging how many days he had been imprisoned. Using the daily meals to discern the passing of a single day. However, it had now turned into an obsessive habit with little to no application upon his current set of circumstances. Completing his mark with a few scratches of the horse’s leg, Georgery felt a change within the pressure of the room. It felt as if someone had entered without the slightest hint of a physical presence. The years of not speaking had warped his vocal chords. What used to be a deep baritone of enunciated molasses now came out as a croaky, strained, yawn of a call, “Who’s there? Why have you come so far into the decommissioned waste I call home?”

For a single moment the voices in his head stopped, the silence proved deafening. An auditory reply was never given. Well if there was, it was never received. Instead came an earthquake shaking the large room without a single sound, collapsing the stone ceiling of each and every cell, except for Georgery’s. In a ball on the ground he lay shivering. The lock on his cell made a *click*, and the door swung open. The timer stopped, and Georgery stood up. On the floor outside the cell, in a large scrawl of some unknown red liquid were the words ‘Welcome back Georgery, we sure have missed you’. Standing up, his bones cracked and his muscles spasmed. His sanity had been taken from him. Fear disappeared from his being completely. He had nothing, now grasping freedom as his one and only possession. He stepped past the boundary of his cell for the first time in over 300 years, “My name is Georgie. Georgie The Unwashed.”