The Memories of Steelhill

Arrora – Half-Elven Woman

21st of Trilqilst, 4986 A.E.

Surrounded on all sides by iron colder than ice. Bars of uncaring metal like the fastened jaw of some great beast. Mystic runes of pale blue carved with malice into every rod. Bathing my form in the freezing aura of depletion. My body grows weaker by the second. These detestable sigils sapping my strength. Syphoning it from my very soul. Preventing me from accessing strength of both arm and arcana.

In a desperate grab for freedom, I throw myself at my uncaring wardens. My body slamming into the iron cage. I feel my flesh bruise, burs from unbuffed carvings delicately slicing through my skin. Drawing thin trails of red down pale flesh. Like blood across snow. The pair barely acknowledge the attempt. One of them, the woman, rolling her eyes in mock-amusement. I feel more than speak a rumbling growl that claws its way through my throat. I rear back. Slamming once again into the walls of this cage.

My efforts gain even less attention the second time. The cultists laughing at some joke shared between them before walking away. Nonchalantly. As if strolling through a park of flowers and not the display of cruelty that actually surrounded them. Walled on either side by cages, each larger than a person.

Made to keep people.

Before one is thrown to the cage like a common animal, they will lie to themselves. Imagining the hypothetical. They will speak in their own mind of the ways they can, and will, escape. How they will throw themselves against the chains and bars. Every day. Every second. Steal a key. Seduce a guard. Break the iron that contains them. Snap the will that holds them back. A command to themselves. A rule, self-imposed, they will follow to the letter.

All of this, every word and thought of escape, is a lie. A horrid, dripping, venom-coated lie. It is nothing more than delusion. A languid fantasy that I partook in more than most. I dream of escape. I lie to my own subconscious. And I sit here, rotting. My mind the only thing that’s moved in weeks. If not months. Should the day come when the door to my prison opens, I fear I’ll prefer the solitude of consistency and rebuff the freedom of escape.

But even that is a lie.

The door will never open.

So, I keep my thoughts of escape in the furthest recesses of my mind. Keeping them, hoarding them. Holding them like precious jewelry. Things never meant to be used or worn. Meant only to be polished and admired from time to time. So, I watch. I watch the wardens change shifts. I memorize every face, every detail. I hear every name. I learn every silhouette.

I watch the captives come and go. I see them enter as victims. Stolen from the street. Kidnapped from their beds. Tricked into slavery. And I see them leave as prisoners. Broken, defeated, downcast. Dead. Always dead. I watch them and I remember. Every name. Every face. Every victim.

Adrian the human.

Ulana the elf.

Quelle the goblin.

Tyrim the dwarf.

Rhall the orc.

Kerra the leomi’i.

I’m too tired.

I’m the only one who stays behind. Most only last for a week or so. Their bodies pulled from iron cages like string from a sweater. Thin and strained. Their bodies more bone than skin. Hair clutching to scalps too weak to hold back. And I never see them again. Jealousy floods through me. Followed by shame. At least they found a way to escape I confess quietly to myself.

We’re somewhere in the plains I think. That’s where I was last, before I forgot who I was. The wind howling like banshees through the night agree with that conclusion. Nowhere else on Pakresh does the wind run like dogs. Free from grasping trees and walling rocks to calm it’s pace. The species of the people drug into the cages surrounding me agree with my conclusion too. The orc and the leomi’i call the Uzaryn Plains homeland. Humans till the fields just to the south. Dwarves patrol the Dead to the north. And goblins protect the green to the west.

It’s good information to keep stored in my head. I’ll know where to go when I escape. Another pearl, another secret, to keep hoarded in my mind of useless knowledge. A lie I tell myself to forget the fact that I can count my ribs. Running fingers down the protruding lumps like they were the bars to my cage. To forget how heavy my head feels. My neck bent, swaying to the sides. Wavering with the herculean weight it now carries.

I’ve lasted longer than any other. But my day comes soon. I’ll leave this place. I’ll escape. Like all the others.

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I pay more attention now. Now that I know it’s my turn soon. A new victim’s been brought in today. You can tell because the wardens swarm like locusts when that happens. Happy for fresh meat to steal and minds to rot. Though this new one is strange. They’ve brought in a bigger cage. Pushing empty ones to the side to make room for this new monstrosity. I’m the only one left. So whatever giant they’ve captured to place in a cage twice as big as the others will get to squander next to me. Neighbors together in this circle of hell.

They brought the towering figure forward; bound in chains. Unlocking them only once the gargantuan man had been thrown into the den of iron. The crowd of cultists stalking away with cruel laughter, leaving the two of us alone. Prisoners.

He was intimidatingly large. That much made obvious before I even saw him. But he was odd. By both species and coloring. A leifr. A mountain-man. A goliath, some call them. His skin rough and flaking. Cracks and ridges of stone-like protrusions run in soft circles over the edges of his musculature. Across each shoulder blade, down the clavicle, in uneven bursts across forearm and stomach. These odd bumps and divots matched by naturally-occurring markings. Harmless, powerless, arcane sigils that dance in dark greys across his body. Almost tribal in appearance. A far rougher, far less elegant mirror to the ink-black tattoos that carve across my own form.

They lived in the far north. On literally the other side of the continent. Few in number with a fierce reputation. Almost never leaving their homeland. What was a leifr doing here? Though perhaps this mystery had already been answered for me. The skin of the leifr species, usually in shades of blueish grey, was an anomaly across Pakresh for both color and texture. In the case of my fellow captive, it was a near baby blue. Greyed by shadow and dirt. But clearly blue, nonetheless. An almost perfect match to the color of my own eyes.

For a people ruled by granite-like stoicism and honor, a warrior the shade of the sky, rather than the earth, would likely have merited banishment. If not outright, than at the slightest of faults. I felt shame rush through my soul in a rush of sucking ice. For a moment I thought of myself as lucky. Better to be me, than this poor soul. So harsh a life he’s led to be banished from his homeland and end up beside me.

At least my family cared for me once.

I didn’t hear what the wardens called the behemoth. If they even have a name. I’ll wait and listen in the coming days. See if I can’t learn what it might be. With the guards having just left, there’s no way for me to learn for a while.

The sounds of shuddering mass turns my attention away from own drowning psyche. Looking, but not really seeing, as the mountainous man throws himself at the bars of his cage. Unlike my pitiful attempts when first captured, no blood is drawn from his skin. Though, despite his powerful build, his attempts are as fruitless as mine were. His prison shuddering. But nothing more. Rocking, but not lifting. Not bending. Not breaking.

The giant rears back, a growl familiar to those that tore through my own throat roaring from his. Throwing his body back against the cold iron once again. The thunderous shudder of muscle meeting cold metal fills the quiet in our den of chains. Another growl. Another slamming force.

My eyes are dull, barely looking. Hardly seeing. Irises of icy blue watching with the same muted apathy as I have for dozens of others. Better to keep your dreams of escape in your own head. They hurt less. There they can shine, like jewelry never meant to be worn. Doing as the leifr does, doing that only dirties the pretty glint of gold. Dulls the glow of gemstone. Better to keep it withi-

What?

The man rushes forward again. His body not yet weakened by the glyphs of sapping strength. The iron shuddering beneath his might. I hear then, again. A soft whine. Barely audible. A roar. A rush. A slam. Another whine. The sound of bending metal.

My eyes open fully, then. A wild panic caught beneath the iris. I don’t know this man. He didn’t have much time. If he was going to escape, he had to do so quickly. Before the sigils took his power away. But what about me? He didn’t know me. Wouldn’t ever. I was dead weight. I couldn’t escape. Could he take the extra time to free me? Would he care to?

No. No, no, no, no, no. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t. I feel the sting of tears prickle at the edge of my sight. The hot flow bubbling through dry sinuses and onto the cracked skin of my deadened face. My eyes were wide now. Drinking in the sight of this man doing the impossible. Following the promises he made to himself. In the way that I couldn’t to myself.

Panicked. Utterly and truly.

I had to ingratiate myself. I had to make myself useful. I couldn’t stay here. I open my mouth. Broken lips trying to force a ruined voice to speak.

All that left my throat was a wheeze of dust and desperate air. My chest shuddered in time with the cage. I was going to be left behind. The whine was reaching a crescendo. Metal twisting before the might of the leifr. I had to do something. Anything.

I forced myself to move. Head lolling with weakened muscle. Raven-black hair cascading across my face. Body collapsing on itself. Without the power to stop, my shoulder lands heavily against the bars of my cage. Flowering pain runs across my torso. Deep tissue, if not bone, bruised by the sudden stop against metal. Sucking in air in quivering breaths I try and ignore the throbbing pain. One of my arms, thin and weak, rolling across my body. Reaching out from between the bars. Hoping. Wishing. Praying for mercy. For help.

I wanted to wear my jewelry. To dance with gems in my hair. Necklaces of sapphire shining with the joy of freedom. I didn’t want to just look. I wanted to wear them. To run. To dance. To laugh. To feel. To live again. I wanted it. The greatest lie I told myself wasn’t that I wanted to escape. It was to languish. To be content with pain. With a slow, smothering death. I wanted to live again.

My fingers like the talons of a songbird, fragile and small, waved in the night air. The cool wind of the plains washing across my dry, cracked skin. My eyes closed shut. Tears streaming from them in rivers of desperation. I wanted to leave. I wanted it so bad. And all I could do. All I could do. All I could do is lay against the bars of my cage. A prisoner to myself as much as this iron trap. Wishing, hoping, praying for a man I’ve never met to take my hand. To rip me from this hell.

I waited there. The cooling wind washing across my skin. Silent.

Until, for the first time in as long as I cared to remember, I felt the touch of another.

A hand, infinitely larger than my own. Gently holding onto my fingers.

And I heard the bars to my own cage squeal in protest.

Hey, my name’s Syd and this has been a single chapter to a much larger project, my homebrew world of Pakresh that I’ve been working on for well over 4 years and counting. In this short chapter, and all future stories, I’ve taken the world, lore, NPC’s, and player characters, and turned them into something I hope you’ve enjoyed and will continue to enjoy reading. And In the (hopefully) very near future, all of it will be compiled and sold in a Powers of Pakresh campaign setting book compatible with 5e, several other popular TTRPG’s, and my very own TTRPG. All of which is already currently in development!

Thank you so much for reading all of this. I have a patreon (/Pakresh) where you can access each and every chapter 10 days early as well as exclusive bonus chapters, voting power, and much more. I also have a discord (/4nVERA7sJ9) available for everyone who wishes to join! I’d love to see you there!