Where Legends Go To Be Forgotten

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Solo.

I slowly came to, terribly disappointed to find that I had been bound in multiple ways.

Out of curiosity more than anything, I tried to move the various limbs of my body. My arms rustled around in the space of a few centimeters, but were otherwise kept in place by thick leather straps. I stretched my hands backwards, and noted that they brushed up against the thick cuffs and chains that kept me from doing anything drastic should I figure out a way to escape from being strapped to a dolly.

Not that I would have been able to go anywhere. I was acutely aware of the chains that bound my ankles together, and the extra-thick leather that prevented me from bending my knees at all.

My breath was hot and moist inside the leather muzzle they had placed over my mouth. The too-small breathing holes carved into it made it difficult to take in fresh oxygen, and what air I could breathe was incredibly dry and musty.

I closed my eyes for a moment as I was wheeled along the dark corridor. Taking as deep of a breath as I was allowed, I assessed my situation.

I remember getting captured in Salvar and tagged with a device that suppressed my emotions and ability to act on my own free will in any way more than casually shrugging at any given idea or situation.

I remember being handed over to officials in Eiskalt, who then paraded me out into the town square and proceeded to light me on fire.

I remember them doing it again, as they weren't aware that I can regenerate.

I remember the magistrates gathering together when they figured that fact out.

I remember them agreeing that it would be best if I were sent somewhere where I could be forgotten about. Somewhere I could be locked away forever. Somewhere I could never again be a threat to anyone.

Terrinore.

For a brief moment, less than a fraction of a second, I felt fear well up in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to break my bonds, I wanted to run away, I wanted to kill everyone that tried to keep me from doing so. I didn't want to be here. I knew that I shouldn't be here. This wretched place... This is where the worlds worst criminals were sent to live out their countless life sentences. This is where conspirators and the enemies of the most powerful people alive were sent to disappear. As fearsome as I may have been considered outside these walls, it meant nothing to the true monsters that dwelt in the darkened corners of Terrinore.

The rock embedded in my left temple itched for a moment, and then a warm wave of apathy washed over me. All my worries melted away with the thrumming of the rock's magic. I closed my eyes, and then opened them once more--content to simply lie there as the prison's guards wheeled me down the hallway, passing the time as they did so by counting the glowing amber rocks in the walls that cast an eerie light down the length of the passage.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I'm not sure how much time passed while I was being pushed down the hall. The four prison guards that flanked me were completely covered in form-fitting scaled leather armor, dyed deep shades of black and red. Each of them also wore a vlince mask and a set of glowing goggles that allowed them to see better in the dim light of the prison's interior. Their steps were perfectly in time with one another, marching as they were to the beat of duty. I could only imagine what the extent of their training was in both physical and magical arts, given the monsters down below that they had sworn to keep locked away.

One of the guards that walked behind me, pushing my dolly down the stone hallway, was the first to break the silence. “What did this one do?” To my quaint surprise, the guard's voice was a feminine one. “She a political prisoner?”

“Nah,” one men walking in front of me said. “She's a war criminal. Unleashed a plague on some dumpy little island east of Salvar and ended up killing half of its population.”

The female guard whistled. “And they didn't hang her for it? A length of rope is cheaper than a bunk down below.”

The other guard in front of me spoke up. “Actually, her file did say that they tried to burn her at the stake. Twice.”

“Not well enough, it seems,” she said, clicking her tongue.

“The prisoner's file says that she regenerated her body both times.” The guard on the right glanced over his shoulder at me. “That would explain why they shipped her here for an extended vacation.”

“How long is she scheduled to be here?”

The guard turned away from me. “Indefinitely.”

Indefinitely.

Also known as eternally.

Forever.

All I could be bothered to think was “oh.”

It wasn't long after that that we arrived at a door at the end of the hallway. The two forward guards peeled the skin-tight gloves off their right hands and placed them on a pair of nodes at each of the door's sides. A soft, warm hum filled the air for several seconds, before about a dozen different clicks and lock mechanisms activated within the door. Within seconds, the portal opened, revealing an empty room that was easily four times as wide as the space we stood in.

The two guards behind me pushed my dolly into this new room, and pulled the door closed behind them. One by one, they undid the bindings that kept me secure and unlocked my shackles. I stood there and let them work, compelled as I was to remain in my haze of apathy by the stone planted in my temple.

“There we are,” the female guard said as she knelt down and popped the cuffs that kept my ankles locked together. As she collected them and twirled them around in her hands, she looked me in the eyes. “Welcome to your new home, prisoner.”

I could not read the true meaning behind her words, but I could clearly see the mirth in her eyes through the lenses of her goggles.

One of the other guards began to undo the magical locks that lead into the prison proper. I took a step towards him, but felt the female guard's strong hand grip my shoulder.

“Where do you think you're going?” she asked. She tapped a finger at the rock in my temple. “You know there's no jewelry allowed down inside.”

She produced a small knife in her left hand, and reached up to my face. The woman dug the tip of the blade into my skin, and with a quick flick of her wrist, popped the stone out of my skull.

I was on her before it even fell past my shoulders.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Everything came back to me in a single moment. All of my rage, my hatred, my fear, my sorrow--it was like the flood waters breaking through the dam and unleashing its terrible fury on the world beyond. All of the feelings I had been denied during my capture and immolation in Eiskalt. The dread I should have felt being shipped off to this wretched place. The growing darkness I missed being wheeled down the hall towards this very room, where beyond I would be locked away from everyone and everything and forgotten.

It all came rushing back to me when she popped the lobotomy stone out of my temple. It welled up in the pit of my stomach, and manifested itself as an unearthly, terrible scream that echoed against the stone walls of the chamber.

Before the guard could react, I had her up against the wall. The other three, caught off-guard by my thunderous outburst, backed away several feet as the back of the woman's skull cracked hard against the stone blocks. She cried out in terrible pain as I jammed my thumbs through her goggles lenses and into her eyes. Blood and ocular fluid began to pool up in her headgear until it overflowed and dripped down her dark leather outfit.

She tried to fight me, but the pain was too much for her. The woman grabbed at my briar-knit wrists, she slapped at my head, she scratched and clawed and punched but nothing would work for her. A flurry of vines erupted from my arms and wrapped themselves around my hands and her head. I squeezed her like a vice. Several loud pops filled my ears, and the guard's screams grew in kind.

My face twisted in a monstrous scowl, and I threw my entire self into crushing this bitch's head. A split second later, I felt her skull cave in beneath my hands, and she went limp. I ripped my blood-stained thumbs out of her eye sockets and withdrew my vines just as the guard to my right regained his senses.

There was a bright flash of light, and I suddenly found myself propelled several feet away with a pair of broken ribs. I rolled over a few times while the guards shouted words at each other, but quickly scrambled onto my knees.

I looked up at the guard who struck me with the concussive blast, and a blackened fury consumed me. My vine-woven arms immediately turned blood red, and the man's goggles popped off his face, having been removed by a set of ruilserk vines that grew from his eyes. Before he could scream, the crimson tendrils wrapped themselves around his throat and tightened, nearly crushing his windpipe against his spine.

Another flash of light filled the room, and I was tossed into the wall ahead of me. I hit the back of my head hard against the rock with a heavy thunk as I crumpled to the floor beside the guard who was grasping futilely at the vines around his throat as he quickly ran out of oxygen.

I barely made out what the two remaining guards shouted over the ringing in my ears. “Leave them! Let's go!”, or something like that. They were out of the room and the door was locked before I could make it to my feet.

I leaped over the twitching leg of the asphyxiated guard and exploded towards the door. I howled with primal anger as I banged my fists against the door. My screams quickly died away to desperate sobs as I beat my hands raw against the slab of iron.

“Let me out of here! Let me go!” My cries fell upon the deaf ears of the two dead guards left behind by their comrades. My hands desperately scrambled for something, anything that I could break or twist or turn or manipulate to open the door and escape this place, but came up with nothing.

Slowly, I realized the finality of my situation. There was no getting away this time. There was no escape, no way to disappear, no one to know that I had been stolen away and locked up in this hell hole.

Terrinore.

Where legends go to be forgotten.

All of my feelings slowly drained away, leaving me a numb, empty husk of a woman as I gazed out the window. So, this is it? After all I've accomplished, this is how the fates decide to dispose of me? Me? Madison Freebird? The Scourge of Eiskalt, the killer of the Forgotten One Podë?

I felt a rogue tear well up in my eye as I quietly contemplated all I had left to do in this world. So many grand experiments that I wanted to do. So many new plagues and life-forms that I had yet to discover and engineer.

So much left to do, and now I couldn't.

How long was I sentenced to rot here for? The guard said “indefinitely”... And I knew for a fact that I would survive that long.

I felt my heartbeat quicken inside my chest and my throat tighten. I would be stuck here forever. A permanent fixture in the worst place on the planet.

I pressed my face against the cold glass window embedded in the door, trying to will myself to melt through the impenetrable slab of iron and out the other side.

It was then that I noticed the soft amber glow in the view port. Startled, I pulled away from it, only to notice it quickly dimming. Cautiously, I leaned forward once more...

...and could make out the vague visage of my Briarbane friend, Hyperion in it. Pressed up against the glass on the other side.

No, it can't be, I thought to myself as I furiously rubbed my eyes. I opened them again and leaned closer into the glass, seeing nothing for several seconds before Hype's face faded into view again.

A wave of elation washed over me. She must've followed me here! "Hype," I cried, "Thank the gods you're here! Figure out a way to open this friggin' door so we can get out of here!"

Her lips moved with mine, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. She stood there, not doing anything, just standing there, completely still, pressed up against the glass, her eyes glowing in a dull amber hue.

What is going on here.... "Hyperion?" I called out. She did not respond.

I tilted my head, confused, and she followed suit.

No...

I slowly raised my right hand and hovered my face. Hyperion did the same.

I touched my cheek, and felt a tangle of vines spread over the thick bones of my jaw. My hands crept across my face. Every inch had been regenerated from being burned at the stake in Eiskalt by thick tendrils and scraps of plant matter. I felt my teeth--no longer the smooth, defined teeth of a human; but the sharpened fangs of a Briarheart.

A cold pang of realization sunk into my chest. The tear that had been sitting in the corner of my amber-hued eye tumbled down my cheek.

I screamed.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

My tormented screams echoed off the rough stone walls of the chamber as I relentlessly banged on the door. I shut my eyes, refusing to accept the truth of what... what I had turned into. I didn't want to believe it. I refused to believe it.

This couldn't have happened. Not to me. Not to me.

The door didn't budge an inch as it slowly took layers of green skin off the sides of my briar-knit hands. A mix of water and blood began to smear on the heavy iron slab from where I kept hammering away at it. I tried to form words, but the only sounds that came out of my mouth were these twisted, primal howls that barely scratched the surface of the hell I found myself in.

It must've happened when I was burned at the stake in Eiskalt. My body must've regenerated itself like this. I've noticed over the months that any cuts I've gotten in the lab or in the field healed over with a sort of greenish scar tissue--when... everything got burned away, this must've been how the briarheart regrew everything. As this... this monster. This walking mass of vines and bones and glowing eyes and poison and acidic death.

And now I'm here. Reborn into the dark, hellish pit that is Terrinore as a monster fit to dwell in it.

I slammed on the thick metal door one last time, defeated, my energy spent, my amber eyes sore, my throat raw. The echoes slowly died out, fading like the last flicker of hope I had that this was all just a terrible, terrible dream. My hands ached, and there was a dull, warm throbbing in my wrist where I had sprained it banging on the door. It was then that I felt a tingling in my ribs--my body was already working to heal the broken bones from when the guards hit me with concussive spells.

I slowly turned to look at the two bodies that were left behind. The faint smell of blood and shit had begun filling the room. The ruilserk vines that grew from the second guard's eye sockets squirmed around as they continued to choke his corpse. I halfheartedly waved my hand, and they immediately receded back into the bloody pits from where they grew.

The cold metal of the door felt cold through the rough fabric of my clothes as I slid down to the floor. I buried my head in my knees and held myself tight. I was too drained to cry any more. I was too exhausted and upset and scared to do anything other that just sit there. I'm not sure how long I was there--minutes? Hours?

A voice inside me, breaking through the maelstrom, spoke up. I'm not sure where it came from, but it urged me to pick myself and move forward. It told me that I could do this; that I was strong enough to persevere, that I would survive this, that I would one day make it out of this prison alive.

I didn't believe it, of course. There had only been one documented escape from Terrinore since it first started locking up the world's most undesirable centuries, even millennia ago. There was no possible way that I could ever get out of here. I was doomed to spend the rest of my years locked up in this pit, all of my grand schemes and aspirations left to collect dust and rot away in the world above.

And yet, the voice continued to tell me that everything was going to be alright. It urged me on through the doors at the opposite end of the room. I told me to be calm, be careful, and be sure of myself. It told me that things were going to work out in the end.

I still didn't believe a single word this voice was telling me, but what choice did I have anymore?

Unsteadily, I rose to my feet, and after taking a few deep breaths, I put one foot ahead of the other. Slowly but surely, I made my way towards the imposing set of iron doors that would reveal to me the prison proper.

My breath began to falter as I drew closer to my future. I suddenly was reminded of what I looked like--a ugly, twisted mass of vines with glowing eyes and sharpened fangs for teeth--and decided that I needed to make myself as innocuous as possible.

I darted over to the male guard's rapidly cooling corpse and sized him up. He was roughly the same build as I was; maybe a couple inches taller than me, but about as lanky. I fumbled around for a few seconds, softly cursing to myself as I worked at the metal buckles that held his leather jacket tight around his waist. I was able to get them all undone after a bit, and roughed around his body while I yanked his arms out of his sleeves. This will have to do, I thought to myself. I contemplated grabbing his mask too, but decided against it at the last second.

Jacket in hand, I rose to my feet and slid into it. It was a little baggy at the shoulders, but otherwise it fit well enough. It smelled of sweat and earth. I pulled the leather hood over the top of my bald head, hoping that the shadows would hide my gnarled, vine-wrought features from the sight of others.

My hands hesitated for a few seconds, hovering over the handles of the doors that led into the prison. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes.

This was it. This is really happening. This is my future.

The little voice, calm and steady, promised me once more that everything was going to be alright.

I pushed the handles, and the heavy iron doors opened with a long, rusty creak.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I remember hearing stories about Terrinore when I was younger. Stories that had somehow escaped the labyrinthine interior about a prison system that was far different than any other in the world. It was a place that was very hands-off in its administration, I suppose you could say. One could look all around the corridors, cell blocks, and recreational areas to find no guards present. You didn't need them, really. The inmates more or less policed themselves. When you've got the most violent scum, the weaseliest of politicians, and just enough of a different sort of person to hold it all together, what you had was a microcosm of civilization buried deep within a thousand foot-tall hunk of volcanic rock.

Of course, that's not to say sometimes things got a little too hairy that the guards didn't just show up, dealt with the issues at hand, disposed of those who didn't survive, and then disappeared. It just didn't happen as often as you would think.

Generally speaking, from what I had heard, Terrinore was more often than not a peaceful establishment. About as peaceful as Rubbletown or the Red District in Radasanth, but there you go.

However, I heard tell of one or two occasions where tensions boiled and a full-scale riot had broken out within its depths and the guards weren't able to contain the chaos. That's when the Wardens moved in to... well, subdue isn't the best word to use. From what I was told, squash would be more appropriate.

You see, the Wardens are exactly what their name implies; they're this group of figures who run the prison. They keep an eye on everything that happens inside Terrinore. They know every side-eye cast between inmates, every word spoken, every breath taken. I heard talk that the Wardens have some sort of supernatural abilities, employing beyond magic as we know it to assist them in their duties.

And when you piss off a Warden, bad things happen to you.

It was something I found out the second I crossed the threshold from the receiving room into the amber-lit halls of the prison.

A terrible shriek filled my head. It echoed around the insides of my skull, shot down my spine like lightning, shook me down to the very core of my being. I cried out, but could not hear my own screams. My body convulsed as I dug my fingers into the sides of my head and clenched my jaw. The horrible, horrible noise continued for seconds that seemed to last hours as I fell to my knees.

“PRISONER NUMBER MF-06-30-07,” a haunting, raspy voice rang out, audible over the noise. I tried to open my eyes just a crack to see where it came from, but saw nobody ahead of me.

“YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED GUILTY OF VIOLATING THE TERRINORE CODE,” the voice continued.

“Wh-what--” I managed to stutter between clenched fangs.

“THE WARDENS HAVE FOUND YOU GUILTY OF VIOLATING ARTICLE 45, SECTION 2: ASSAULT OF AN OFFICER RESULTING IN DEATH.”

The two corpses in the room behind me.

“YOU ARE ALSO GUILTY OF VIOLATING ARTICLE 83, SECTION 11B: THEFT OF OFFICER PROPERTY--CLOTHES, WEAPONS, AND/OR PERSONAL EFFECTS.”

The hooded leather jacket that hid my deformed features.

“YOU NOW HAVE TWO STRIKES ON YOUR RECORD, MF-06-30-07,” the voice continued. “SHOULD YOU OBTAIN ONE MORE STRIKE ON YOUR RECORD, YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM YOUR CURRENT LEVEL AND PLACED IN A LEVEL DEEMED APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. YOU WILL ALSO FORFEIT ALL STOLEN PROPERTY, AND LEAVE THE ITEMS BEHIND FOR COLLECTION.”

I immediately scrambled to remove the jacket and threw it on the floor before me. I felt naked and exposed again, without anything to cover my briar-knit features, glowing amber eyes, and sharpened fangs. “Fucking take it! Just make it stop!” I managed to scream through the pain.

And it did. The shrill drone immediately ceased, and left behind a faint ringing in my ears that slowly faded away.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION,” the voice said, calm as ever.