She awoke to a chill, and groggily sat up and looked around. She was still in the bleak damp dungeon she had spent her entire life in so far. “Of course I’m still here…”- She mutters to herself while sleepily rubbing her eyes.
She looks around at the dungeon cell that she’s known her entire life. It’s constructed of a very dark material that has been fashioned into “stone” bricks, but isn’t actually stone, at least, as far as she knows it isn’t. The cell is fully enclosed, no windows to the outside world at all, and even the door has no handle on the inside, nor a window to look out of. The cell has no light source within it at all, yet it is still somehow dimly lit- She has pondered as to how such a thing could even be possible, but has chalked it up to some sort of magic. She recounts the fact that even though she has spent her entire life in this cell, yet never has needed to eat or drink at all- That the fact that it also be lit without a source, of course it would have to be some form of magic.
She wouldn’t know a life other than this- But… The fact that this is, at least, her second time being alive. She loses herself in thought, thinking back to her past life, and how she ended up here in this world.
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“In my last life, my name had been, Ann…” - She thought to herself. She was an average working class woman, still living at home with her parents. She was an avid fan of anime, especially those of the isekai genre- “Ironic”- She found herself thinking about how she literally was living the genre now herself.
She had been just going through her everyday life, going about living week to week on her paychecks, and focusing on her job the whole time. Then she started to fall ill. It started out as a simple cough- but, within less than a week she was bed-ridden… The hardest part for her, wasn’t that she passed away from whatever this was, but the fact that she had to watch her own parents mourn over the fact that their daughter was slowly slipping away from them at such a young age.
“Shit-” - She muttered to herself, popping back to her current reality as tears welled up in her eyes, as she tried to keep her composure. “I always hate how painful that memory is to relive each time I think back to it” - She says to herself with her voice slightly cracking. After a few moments of quietly crying and some ragged breaths, she relaxed and continued her memory from passing.
When she slipped from her old life, it was like she was waking up from a dream. She opened her eyes, except that she wasn’t in her old world now, or even her old body- Instead, she found herself here, in this exact dungeon cell, in her new mother’s arms as nothing more than a newborn. Still with all of her old memories intact, aside from that, she felt nothing special, no new special abilities, no magic, nothing like she’d seen in any of the isekai anime she’d enjoyed so much. It was quite a damper, but at the same time, a bit of a blessing, that she got to live life, yet again.
This new life however- When she had been reborn, it wasn’t as a girl, like how she had been in her past life- Much to her disliking, she found herself, instead in the body of a boy this time. “Well, what can a girl do…?” - She grimaced to herself in her own baby brain at the time of realizing it. Her mother gave her the name “Rynn”- “Well, at least it’s not a boy’s only name”- She thought to herself with a slight giggle. At this point, she of course still couldn’t speak as she had to figure out how to do it all over again, so not like she could voice her own opinion on any of it.
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Her mother raised her in the dungeon cell- Taught her how to speak, and even fashioned her some makeshift clothing from the random rags around the dungeon cell. For living in a fantasy world, Rynn was surprised with how simple her own mother’s name was when she first heard it- “Elle”, something as simple as she would have seen back in her old life. Her mother explained to her about how she had ended up in the dungeon cell- That the kingdom was so focused on greed, that it made it impossible for most to afford even basic food, so she had tried to steal food. The kingdom was so strict about its laws, that they would toss any who had broken them, into their dungeons for life.
Rynn thought to herself- “Imprisoning someone for life, just does not seem cost effective at all- Like where would the money to feed them come from instead of just executing them instead?”. Elle explained to her, about how even after being there for years at this point, that she didn’t have to eat or drink anything- Something about the dungeon kept its prisoners sustained. Again Rynn thought to herself- “But why though? What could be there to be gained from keeping prisoners alive… And- For years, no less?”
Rynn was at an age of adolescence when she found out, at least, one part of why the prisoners were kept alive. She was asleep one night, when her mother woke her, and told her not to make a sound, as she hid her away in a dark corner of the cell. Her mother had heard the door to the cell click- And soon after it swung open, and a small group of men walked into the cell. They approached Elle, and took hold of her and escorted her from the cell- She glanced back over her shoulder back at Rynn with tears in her eyes as they took her from the room. The door closed behind them, and then with a click, the door was sealed shut again. The men had no idea that Rynn was even in the cell, as she was born there, and since nobody had to ever open the cells to feed or water prisoners, how could they know?
Rynn started to cry again, as she came back from her memory, this time her breathing even heavier- “Wh-What… What- What, could I… What could I have p-possibly done… T-to suffer- Suffer losing my parents… A-and to lose… And to lose my mother again….”- She said while struggling to breathe between her sobs as she cried into the floor.
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After Rynn’s mother had been taken from her- She had spent years living in the cell alone by herself. Rynn had spent a fair amount of time inspecting her cell, hoping to find some means to escape or at least to work at escaping. The walls of the dungeon cell were made of some very hard material- It seemed to be stone-like but it was a very dark material of some manner, it also almost seemed to emanate a very slight energy to the touch. “Likely something magical-”- Rynn muttered to herself while inspecting the material. The cell was mostly just a bare open room, aside from a small pool of water in a corner where a very small trickle had been seeping in through the cracks in the stone bricks.
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Rynn looked at the water, and was able to see her reflection for the first time since she’d been born in this world. Even though she had been born as a boy, her features were still very feminine, for which she was thankful for. She had thick, long, brunette hair that reached down to her legs, and her eyes were a brown color. Of course she already knew her chest was flat due to being a guy in this world, but still she felt exposed if it was left uncovered. Due to the fact that she had been a woman in her past life, when she spoke, it was with a feminine voice as well. Rynn giggled to herself- “I may not be a girl this time, but I suppose I would pass just fine as a femboy if I wanted to”- She felt herself blush a little at the prospect.
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Rynn continued to analyze her chamber. Looking for any small thing that she could find to fashion into a makeshift tool or anything to try to carve out the stone brick and try to make her way out of the cell. Sadly due to the fact that whatever the material was, that the stone bricks were made from, seemed to not ever really break down, there wasn’t even the smallest bit of stone lying around to utilize. She let out a defeated sigh and opted instead to more closely inspect the stone material itself instead. Like she noticed before, it seemed to emit energy, but also it seemed cool and damp to the touch- The coolness of the stone, seemed eerie in almost such a way as to that, it felt like it was pulling Rynn’s own energy from her body if she touched it, slowly sapping her of her strength. She took her hand away and noted that it’s probably for the best that she does not have any prolonged exposure to the material if it can be helped.
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Of course the concept of days, months, and years make no real sense when you’re in a cell that has absolutely no exposure to the outside world, not even noises. Time went on- Rynn had no idea how long it had really been since she had been born, or since her mother had been taken from her. She simply spent most of her time resting, as there wasn’t much else to be done in an empty cell.
One night while Rynn slept she was awoken by a noise- She rarely ever heard anything aside from herself inside her cell. It wasn’t the click of the door opening, it was very faint and came from somewhere beyond one of the walls on the far side of the cell. It seemed to have some sort of a rhythm to the noise, and it was a somewhat high pitched sound. It was so faint though, that Rynn couldn’t discern what the sound was. She got up from her sleeping spot and slowly moved closer to the wall to try to listen more intently to it. Still the sound just didn’t seem to register to her what it could be. At this point about all it told her, is that there was something else, on the other side of the wall, but she couldn’t do anything about it at present, and was too tired to sit and stare at a wall all night, and decided that it was probably best to just simply ignore it for now and rest till morning. Possibly in a more rested state she could figure out what the sound was, if it was still even there at that point.
Rynn awoke several hours later, the sound was much closer and more distinct now. The repetitive tink of metal on stone resonated from behind the stone wall at this point. She immediately knew what the sound was now- pickaxes!
“But if someone is using a pickaxe, behind the wall, would that mean that someone has managed to escape?”- She thought to herself. She sat and listened as the tinking of the pickaxes slowly grew louder- “Why would they be mining towards another cell though?”- She found herself whispering to herself.
There was a slight rumble- Stone seemed to shift behind the wall- “Did part of the cave they were tunneling cave-in on them?!?”- She thought as she stared at the wall. The rumble continued for a moment, and the stone bricks in the wall began to shift, and start to tumble back away from the cell, and into the area beyond it where she had been hearing the noises. Rynn let out a sudden gasp at the realization that there was now a possible way out of her cell- but also panicked about the fact that it could be someone that would attack her, or worse. She quickly hid herself as best she could in a corner of the cell and watched the new opening as the dust settled.
She heard grumbling noises coming from within the dust, the sound of pickaxes had stopped, and could hear a bit of a clammering around in the dust and rubble. There seemed to be shouting coming from the cave, but it definitely wasn’t any language that she understood. As she kept staring at the opening she saw figures appear out of the cloud of dust, but they weren’t the figures of humans. “Goblins-”- She caught herself whispering to herself while watching them.
“This is very, very bad if they find me”- Rynn thought to herself. Having seen so many isekai anime in her old life- She knew that goblins and humans didn’t ever mix very well. Rynn thought to herself- “If they find me and think I’m a woman… Oh gods!!!- Please… Don’t do that to me!!”. She suddenly shuddered while trying to keep herself hidden. “But the fate that awaits me, if they think I’m a guy…. Honestly isn’t much better-”- Rynn shuddered again.
The goblins cautiously entered the cell. Rynn noted that they seemed far more pale than any goblins she had seen on any anime, and the fact that they seemed so very cautious of entering a human structure like this one wasn’t very typical of goblins either. As they cautiously wandered further into the cell, she noted how they seemed to have almost no color at all to their eyes as well. “A-are they blind?”- She pondered as she watched them slowly investigate the cell.
At this point they were already fairly spread out through the cell. Rynn was unsure what they were even looking for, considering how cautious they were being. She kept watching them, and noted that they didn’t seem to be wearing typical goblin types of armor- Instead they seemed to be wearing helmets, but not anything that looked like it was intended for combat, and almost all of them seemed to have a pickaxe in hand, but were holding them almost as if they would use them to protect themselves instead. Then it clicked- “They’re cave goblins!”- She muttered under her breath. One of the goblin’s ears twitched, and they glanced in her direction- She let out a sharp gasp as she covered her mouth in shock as she tries to make herself even more hidden.