Originally Posted by
More than ten years ago...
The cell was carved into rock by some nameless, cursed generation of slaves before you; and the work they had done is uneven enough to have profited you in that desperate moment. You recoiled even as your swift moments seem to cause the madman - the werething, if the Norscan rhymes have any truth - to take offense. He scrambled after you as you wedged yourself into a crevice in the cell's corner that may once have been the dream of escape for a predecessor; now, a hope of safety for you. And all this happened in the pitiful gloom of the cell, made discernible only by the murky gloaming of lanterns down the end of the hall where another shift of slaves did their part of the toil that waited for you. Screeching and snuffling, the man crowded against the crack in the stone and blocked what little light remained for you. Plunged into black, you felt cracked nails and fingertips pawing furiously to seize you, giving you no option by to kick wildly back to spurn and delay. Then his grip, iron-tight with insanity, cinched around your ankle and began hauling you out of safety. Your cunning and quickness, and mental fortitude had seen you through trials that had broken so many others; but locked in a cage with a madman, all these virtues felt insufficient. The brute reality of strength asserted itself on you like it had when you were first hoisted from the devastation of your village by the warrior with four eyes.