When I was sixteen, I decided I had to have a sporty, fast car. I thought it would make me cool and help me attract the girls. You know how well that worked out. It didn’t matter, though. I was obsessed. I wore down my parents over time. Eventually, they caved in when I said I would pay for the car, the registration, and the insurance with money I had earned. Although I am certain they thought I was going to kill myself in a car wreck or get myself into trouble with the law, they eventually relented, probably just too tired to hear me keep yammering on.

I worked all summer to earn enough money for that car. I had a job at a local restaurant that served both pizza and Mexican food. It was one of those small town businesses that wouldn’t fly anywhere there was real competition. I worked in the kitchen, and our primary seasoning was salt. In my spare time, I mowed lawns. I didn’t spend much money that summer, saving for the holy grail that was a 2008 Mustang GT that was languishing at one of our local car lots.

Of course, it was languishing for a reason, but I was too young and dumb to figure that out. I had to have the car, and by the end of the summer I had saved up enough money to buy it. It was one of the proudest days of my young life when I paid cash for that car. Of course, like the dolt I was, I had neglected to have it checked out by a mechanic before I purchased it.

That car had been used hard. The engine still ran well, and for a couple of weeks I lived the high life, the envy of all my friends. Then, the transmission started failing and a new transmission cost a lot of money, money I didn’t have and had no potential to earn now that I was back in school. It sat around in our driveway like an overpriced piece of yard art for a couple of months, then I was forced to sell it. I got back less than half of what I paid for it.

Since I had come to this world, I had been that car. I am not a stupid man. At times in my life, I have felt pretty smart. But since I got here, I was that car with a good motor but a failing transmission. For some reason, I couldn’t channel my intellect into tangible action that positively affected my situation. I kept making stupid decisions, ones that seemed to make sense in the moment but led me deeper and deeper into misery. I needed to stop merely reacting and start planning for the long term, and in doing so perhaps I could better serve my self interest.

As they say, the longest road begins with a single step. My first step was to provide for my basic needs, and right now that meant getting something to drink. Then, I could move on to long term planning. I needed to get stronger and develop practical skills. I believed I had what it takes, but let’s be honest. For all my talk about wanting to be a survivor, to this point I more closely resembled a pathetic loser. That needed to change.

I crept back out to the guardroom and retrieved the coil of rope that I had found earlier. The fibrous material the rope was made from had dried out over the years, and I wasn’t sure how much weight it would bear, or whether it could take any weight at all, but it was all I had. Luckily, I didn’t encounter any hostiles running this errand.

Once back at the water source, I decided that it would be idiotic to trust this ancient strand of rope to hold my weight. Instead of climbing down, I thought I would just tie my waterskin to the end of the rope and then dip it into the water, filling it that way. That was a neat idea. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Any knot that I tied strongly enough to hold the waterskin also had the unfortunate side effect of constricting it enough so it wouldn’t fill. I tried at least ten times, but the only water I retrieved was the few droplets that clung to the exterior of the skin when I pulled it back up. Of course, I greedily licked those off, but instead of slaking my thirst they enraged it.

I had two choices. I could continue exploring the building in the hope that I would come across some vessel that would hold water, a bucket or pot, that was intact enough to allow me to hoist water up from down below. Or, I could climb down and get the water myself.

I spent quite awhile internally debating the options with myself. Although I hadn’t yet seen any other creatures in the area, I wasn’t naive enough to think that there weren’t any. There was also no guarantee that anything was intact enough to hold water. On the other hand, I didn’t feel very strong right now, and if I were to climb down to the water I would have to trust the sturdiness of an ancient strand of rope as well as the diminished strength of my muscles. Either choice was perilous. The more I thought about it, though, the more certain I was that I couldn’t win too many more fights in the condition that I was in, so climbing down the rope made the most sense.

I spent some time preparing. First, I tied a series of knots in the rope to give me something to hold onto when I climbed up and down. Then, going back out to the canyon again, I grabbed a large solid piece of rock that I used to bash around the edge of one of the holes in stone bench. I keep calling it a bench, but shelf might be a better word as the area from the seats to the floor was made up of mortared stone. I took care to smooth away any rough edges in the enlarged hole as I didn’t want my rope to be accidentally cut. Then I rigged the rope through the enlarged hole over to the neighboring one, flipping it back over and sliding it through a loop that I had fashioned on the end of the rope. All of my efforts had shortened the rope considerably. I hoped that it was still long enough to get me where I needed to go.

Then, I tested the rope. Planting my feet on the side of the stone shelf, I tugged on it as hard as I could. A few of the fibers frayed, but overall the rope held. Then, it was time for the moment of truth. I spooled the rope out into the darkness below and was pleasantly surprised when the end of the rope tugged to the side by what I presumed to be the current below. Apparently, it was still long enough. After ditching the weight of the rest of my gear, I swung my legs over the side and began the laborious task of descending knot by knot.

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I nearly lost my grip on the rope when the little light that was filtering down through the hole cut off. I should have been expecting it though, as whatever triggered the lights no longer detected me in the room above me. I climbed down through the inky blackness, wishing that I had pocketed my last essence stones for the little light they provided. Securely gripping the rope with both hands, my heart pounding, I reached down with my legs to find the next knot. Securing my feet on it, I readjusted my hands. Repeating this over and over, I made it down into the hole.

As I descended, the sound of flowing water grew stronger. Finally, when I reached down to find the next knot, I gasped when my foot instead plunged into cold, running water. I reached out with each of my legs in an attempt to find solid ground, but I wasn’t successful. Finally, I slid the rest of the way down the rope, my legs becoming immersed to the middle of my thigh.

This underground stream was clearly being fed by a spring of some sort. Wrapping the rope around one of my arms so I wouldn’t lose track of it, I reached down and scooped water to my mouth over and over and over again. The water tasted like minerals, and was tinged with the smell of rotten eggs, slightly sulfurous. At the time, I thought it was the best thing that I had ever tasted in my life. After drinking what I could, I carefully filled my waterskin, not wanting it to be swept away by the current. Then, on slightly numbed legs, I started ascending back up the rope. Going up was much more difficult, and by the time I wearily pulled myself out of the jagged hole, I was exhausted but ecstatic that I was still alive. Finally, something had gone right on the first try.

After gathering my strength once more, I retreated back out to the canyon floor. It was night out, cloudy and dark. I fumbled into my pack for some food, and ate my fill. Then I passed out, sleeping until the warmth of the sun awoke me.

That’s when I realized something. I would have to climb down that hole every time that I needed water, putting more and more strain on that ancient rope. I either needed to go for broke and try to escape the canyon soon, or I needed to dedicate myself to plumbing the secrets of the building behind me. Eyeing the canyon wall, I was fairly certain that exploring the building was slightly less suicidal.

And so, if this were an action movie, it would be time for the training montage. I sat in the canyon, consuming my dwindling supplies and gathering my strength. I exercised, stretching and strengthening my body. One day I remembered the plaque on the wall at the entry to the building and using the flickering light of my essence crystals, I was able to read it:

Bastion of Hope – Our Final Redoubt

So this was a bolthole of some sort? Who was it protecting and what was it protecting them from?

I finally took the time to absorb my last usable essence crystal. I know at this point, you would probably expect me to relay the whole story of what I experienced, but I need to be honest. Juma, the hunter, the older woman, these folks had redeeming characteristics. I liked them, and thought their stories were interesting. The same was not true of my last vision.

I followed a day in the life of a man named Dalmazio, and simply put he was an insufferable ass. Presumably, he was the owner of the rapier that I was carrying. He was a pompous aristocrat, a strutting cockerel who walked around with a chip on his shoulder and sought to avenge any slight, whether real or imagined, with the tip of his blade. I followed him through a day when he was preparing for and then fighting a duel. From the context of the conversations I experienced, I think the duel was fought to avenge a perceived insult about the color of the clothing he had worn to a ball. His opponent, another young noble, was clearly overmatched in skill, and both men knew it. The duel was supposed to be to first blood, but in this case first blood was Dalmazio thrusting his rapier through the other man’s throat. Dalmazio certainly could have ended the fight in any number of other ways, but decided to kill another person for the sin of commenting about the color of his clothes. For the first time, I was not too sorry that someone had found their way to the harvesting floor of the Resource Camp. Dalmazio’s world was a better place for his absence.

After the vision was done, I felt dirty. I had no idea how compatibility between a person and an essence crystal was determined, but the fact that I was compatible with Dalmazio made me die a little inside. I did receive quite a boost in my skills with a sword, but I am not certain that was worth spending a day behind his punchable face.

Twice more, while I gathered my strength, I was forced to descend to get more water. Neither time was as difficult as the first. The second time I went down, I took the time to wash up a little. It didn’t really improve my appearance but it made me feel better.

After a few more days, when I had exhausted approximately half of my supplies, I decided it was time to make my move. I packed up my things and made my way back into the redoubt. Electing to return to the hallway with my source of water, I stashed my non-combat gear in the locker room and then wandered back out into the hall. As you probably recall, there were three doors on the wall across the hallway, and one more at the end of the hall to my right.

I decided to be systematic in my approach, starting on the leftmost door across the hall. Striding up to it, I listened but could hear nothing. After taking a deep breath to gather myself, with the squealing of rusted hinges I forced the door open.

The room beyond looked was a twenty foot square and appeared to be designed as quarters for a higher grade of soldier. Perhaps this is where the squad leaders slept. When I stepped into the room, as expected the ceiling lit up with this building’s ubiquitous sigils. I noticed movement on the floor, the scurrying of some small rodents. The room was a mess, decayed furniture and rodent feces covering most of the floor. Strangely, there was a potted plant, a small tree of some sort that appeared to be in perfect health at the center of the room. It was laden with some dark-reddish fruit about the size of a cherry.

I stepped into the room and started making my way over to this strange tree, wondering how it could be so well preserved in this field of debris. The tree’s branches undulated in a mesmerizing pattern, as if blown by some unseen wind. When I got within a few feet of the tree, however, my fascination was broken when one of the branches flashed towards me, quick as a cat. It attempted to wrap itself around my leg, but I nimbly skipped backwards just out of its reach. The tree’s bark split in the middle to reveal the leering visage of a humanoid skull.

After quickly drawing my sword and adjusting my stance, and briefly considering whether I had chosen the right weapon, I moved forward to engage.