4.5 This Place Again?

“Open your eyes, Silven.”

He opens his eyes. The deep voice sounds like thunder in the shadows of the chamber in which he finds himself. He can make out no details in the darkness, but he can certainly feel the cold stone of his rough slab bed pressing into his back. He stands and shakes away the deep ache in his bones.

“Follow the signs, Silven. Your destiny does not lie here. Go, and find me in the Three Toes Tavern.”

“Who are you?” Silven croaks into the night, and, against the far wall, the ghostly image of a werewolf flares briefly.

“You’ll have your answers soon enough. Now be quick! The guards will come to hang you any minute now. Follow the siiiiiiiign!” The voice fades.

Silven groans. He better not be the Chosen One or something.

Up ahead, a dim yellow light appears in the arch of a stone corridor. Footsteps echo down stone stairs beyond and into Silven’s stone cell with its stone walls and stone cobbles. Deathrot, he thinks. A curious word, but right for this place. He doesn’t have time to ponder, as a voice rings out against the stone. “We’re coming for you, worm!” chuckles that cruel voice, and the steps quicken.

Silven sits down on his bed. He really should be looking for a way out, with the whole upcoming hanging thing, but he can’t just now. His heart aches with the overwhelming sense of loss. His head aches with the nagging sense of being part of some horrifyingly long-winded anticlimax.

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“Almost there!” snarls the guard, and his companion cackles in delight.

He feels he has done some bad things. Well no shit, that’s why he’ll be in prison. But he’s done so many good things too. He’s left behind so much, and he starts to get the crazy notion he’s here of his own accord.

“We’re coming for you, worm!” chuckles the cruel voice. The steps roll on.

He’s left friends too. Left for dead, and left dead, or just abandoned. There’s an agonising stab of pain and guilt, but also the soothing touch of hope. They’re all here, he thinks madly. Not in prison, of course, just....here.

“Almost there,” snarls the guard, and his companion cackles in delight.

A bright red light flashes out to his right. It’s the secret passage out of here, he knows. But this... feeling is too important. A name composes itself, the almost visible letters rearranging themselves in the shadows. Olgred - Olgy! Please, don’t think of that, whatever that is.

“We’re coming for you, worm,” chuckles the cruel voice, and the steps roll on.

He remembers.

He stands. He raises a fist. The grated door explodes in a ball of flame. The guards who have conveniently just reached the threshold are blown away into dust, leaving nothing behind but a common helmet, a coin, a set of keys, a letter, and an apple.

Silven strides through the inferno. He takes the frog-sword from his belt. Upstairs, Oldeburgh awaits. “I’m coming, Wallace!” he yells across the fortress. “Just for you. As in, now, and I’m err, like really tough, so.... yeah.”