Green mushrooms swaying, stalagmite dripping, crawlies skittering in the walls: the periodic cries of ghosts moving like clockwork formed from the memories of both beasts and men. I in comparison, reside in a wooden box left in the middle of level 1. Nothing to my name but the clothes on my back my wallet, a toy switchblade, the chains around my body, a sword, rations, and a torch.

Sitting there in the musty box, my thoughts drifted to the shocked face of the priest. We had just left the courthouse, moving by carriage, when I broke the solemn silence in the space. "What are the alternatives?" My voice was stained by my horrid prospects. She fought back tears as she shifted her gaze away from the moving scenery before steeling herself. "You have five choices, though in reality there are only two."

"And those are?" My voice was becoming tense, and I was far too stressed to care about her pausing antics. Noticing my mood, she answered, "You could challenge the prince, but he would fold you like grass." a bit painful, yet I totally agree. I nod. "You could try to escape, but your security would do the same." The first issue with my haphazard attempt at self-heisting stuttered on. "Then you have the caverns: payment, time, and survival."

Now that’s got my interest. "Caverns?" Nodding herself, she responded. "Places of power that regenerate an almost infinite amount of resources." A breath to catch up. “They are mined, raided, and farmed because of this are a supplementary resource for many countries.” Shaking her head because of the derailed answer. “For those sentenced then can instead put in labor, this is spilt into their methods; Payment, time and survival.” The last bit said in more of a whisper.

"A payment type would require you to pay an equal amount of money for the time spent on your crime, in this case, 30 dragon heads." The currency was new, but I nodded either way. "Compared to the fastest payment, how long would it take me?" The question stumped her for a while, so she took out a notebook and scribbled down a long multiplication table. "If you had a godly start and raking growth, you'd be gone in... 600 years?" The number floored me for a minute, as it took me some time to understand what she had told me. Looking up, I can see that she was equally floored.

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"I have no reference point here, but even in my world, people who were in the thousands in the negative took at most 50. How?" Her answers were to double-check her math before answering. "Cavern limitations." He nodded as if it made the most sense. Thinking about the words, I respond more vehemently than anything else. "Are you saying that the bottleneck is the caverns themselves, yes?"

"yes?" Her response was uncertain. "If not, what am I looking at? And you should slow the growth until it's just below superhuman," he says. Scribbling again, though with less multiplication than last time. "You’d be out in 15 years?" That answered a lot of questions about how the legal system worked. Time, man's greatest foe and annoyance, uses its mind-shattering effect in an unusual way on superhuman civilians and the powerful, but if it works, it works.

"Forget payment for a bit; what’s time?" Payment was a lost cause in my mind. "Time payment is done by finishing a number of raids against different caverns with adventurers." Ok, good until now, so where's the [but]? "But I would not recommend this option as it would lead to you being dragged around by who knows what force; not only that, but the sentence is known to have a high rate of [accidents]." Okay, assassination, great; I slump in my seat.

"Survival?" hope tinging my voice. Looking around nervously, she responded. "That’s the death sentence one." My mind became blank at that point as I replayed the entirety of my day in my mind, asking without much thought. "How?" Taking a deep breath that threatened to burst her clothes, she spoke in a blur. "Survival is just that; they leave you in a cavern with nothing but some rations, a sword, and a torch and promise to kill you if you come out before the time is right."

My mind focused intently on the last few bits, and with renewed hope in my heart, I asked, "How long?" "10 years" was the immediate reply. We both looked at each other, doing nothing more than breathing as the gears in both our heads clanked along at full speed.

Reaching the church, we left the couch with no fuss; the sky was gray with a few streaks of sunlight streaking through. Upon entering, I was escorted to a refurbished summoning chamber, where I was then promptly chained to the bed. Left alone to stew with my thoughts as I gazed out the window at the sunset, I made a decision—a stupid one, but one of which I am proud.

When those last rays vanished, I heard a knock at the door. "Enter. I need some company." My amusement did not have an effect on the entering priest. "Ronald, have you made a decision?" The question was so full of piety that it could have filled a lake. "Yup, I would like to take the cave of survival, please." My zeal had finally gotten under her skin. "Why? I know 600 might seem like a lot, but you are a hero; time is the last of your problems, and who knows my math didn’t account for hero powers, right?" There was pleading in her voice.

"Isolation will kill me; challenging the prince will kill me; escaping will kill me; payment will kill me with tedium; time will kill me because of enemies aplenty; survival could kill me, but it could also save me!" I counted the options presented to me, leaving my pointer alone as I would be further down the road.