(This was another one of my fiction pieces for a class that I had finished. It is based on a D&D campaign that I had run with some friends. While I think this piece works, it's not how I want it to be in its final form. Enjoy and let me know what you think of it. Thanks.)




Chains. They always placed them in chains. This time it would seem iron manacles. Last time they used silver. Silly humans and their silly superstitions. Ever since the pantheon left them to their own devices, they’ve become more and more superstitious and controlling. Rather amusing to watch, at least for the first few centuries, but now I think I would very much like to change this cosmic channel. Or maybe add some drama. Oh, yes, that sounds amusing, perhaps I shall change the world indirectly. The others would get mad if I were more direct. Now then, where should I start…

Talrok had just arrived at his new master’s estate, a human lord of the southern kingdoms. Only clad in the rags his slaver masters had given him as a parting gift, something to better their deal with the lord. Now he was being pushed and prodded deep within the estate’s castle dungeon, for something the guards kept calling “processing” and laughing. Some kind of sick joke that these humans thought they needed to fulfill to break in new slaves and break older, rowdy ones. Talrok, as he was shoved into the grimy dungeon halls, had overheard the guards talking about how the inhuman races could not be trusted, especially not the dragon-kin like himself. He knew he was in for a world of pain if he could not do something, but he could not, no point. He would be killed swiftly in the name of “justice,” so he submitted to the servants of his new master.

As the gruff guard prodded Talrok deeper into the dank dungeon, its walls scarred and covered in moss, they heard heavy grunts along with the occasional, crisp snap of a bull whip. The guard behind him slowed as they approached the processing station and chained the newly purchased slave to the cold, stone wall with even more restraints. This was the captain’s favorite job in the castle, breaking in the new ones. He found them more amusing to torture than the older ones, with their layers of scars from his previous beatings.

“Always better fresh,” the guard captain thought to himself as he took off his ceremonial cloak and gathered up his favorite knives and whips. This temporary reprieve allowed Talrok to finally see where the sounds of anguish were coming from, but what he saw was not what he expected. A pair of prison guards, their crimson tunics soaked in sweat, groaned as they tiredly slashed their whips against the burly slave strapped to the opposite wall. Oddly enough, the giant was grinning, his lips and hooked mandibles wide.

Then this slave spoke through his grin, rumbling in the dim lighting, “No. No. No. That’s not how you do it. It’s more in the wrist.” The guards slashed him again, in unison this time, leaving scratches along his front, before his thick skin healed back over. “No. Not the back, the wrist. That’s not how you do it at all.”

Talrok’s guard laughed heartily, anguishing the other two soldiers further, “He’s even teaching you to do it better. You too are too fresh. Durge is the dumbest son of a b***h we’ve ever bought, but he’s also a tough one. If there’s one thing you need to learn it’s that you have now power at all if-” He turned and glared warningly at Talrok. “the slave teaches the master.”

“Teach?” said the giant slave Durge, perking up again. “Hmm…alright.” Then he pulled away from the wall, tearing the iron chains from their supports and stones. Then he wiped his arms, like he was washing his arms, breaking the chains free.

Silence filled the dungeon halls, all eyes had turned slowly to the giant who had just broken free. He was still smiling. It was the smile that frightened them; it was how he smiled as the chains dropped from his body. It was not a smile of malice or revenge, but it seemed to be one of genuine happiness. Like he was able to repay a friend a favor.

“Now then,” said Durge, taking a whip from one of the guards, still frozen in panic at the freed slave. “Teaching tends to be hard, but I’ll do my best. Like this.” Durge lashed out with the guard’s whip, tracing his sternum with red ink which splattered along the walls with the giant’s strength. With a look of surprise on his face, the guard collapsed onto the floor, his eyes locked open in death’s grip.

Durge leaned forward to look down at the guard he whipped, looking quite surprised on the man’s frailty. “Odd. I haven’t seen something like that happen before,” he mused as the corpse he watched grew paler, blood pooling in the crags of the stonework. Talrok chuckled in spite of himself, perhaps there was a way out after all.

“He’s escaping!” cried the dead man’s partner, drawing his rapier from his belt and pointing it straight at Durge’s heart.

“No wait! It’s Durge!” said Talrok’s guard, now reaching for his own blade after the first man drew his. “Don’t tell him that!”

“I’m escaping?” said Durge, glancing about the room to see if they were talking about someone else. “Well, I guess I am. I better act like it.”

With that, Durge took a deep breath and picked up the first man with his massive hands, pinning his arms at his sides and twisting the steel weapon between his knuckles. The man squirmed and yelled, fear had already overtaken his better judgment. Now panic had joined its chaotic brother, making him cry out, “Why! What are you going to do?”

“I am going to…” started Durge, before pausing to think. He turned to look at Talrok, “What was I going to do with him? Play a game?”

Without pausing to think, Talrok shifted in his chains, “You were going to knock him out with the ceiling.”

Everyone looked up at the ceiling for a moment, before the man’s head was slammed between a pair of bricks with a grunt, sending cracks sneaking into the darkness surrounding the torches. The man’s limbs went stiff for the briefest moment, before going slack. The captain sighed and stepped closed, starting to speak before Durge interrupted, “That wasn’t a very fun game. He just stopped moving.”

The guard captain sighed before looking at the hulking slave, “That’s because you killed him.”

“Killed him?”

“Yes, he’s now dead. He will not play with you ever again,” he replied, exchanging smiles with Durge, looking smug as he started to discourage the confused slave’s behavior. He knew what to do when he got rowdy, usually.

“Oh,” said the giant, stewing in this thought carefully before smiling his wide smile once more. “Then I guess we can play together, right?”

“No,” the man said simply, keeping his sword ready to strike. Though this gesture went unheeded by the one it was being directed at.

“No?”
“No.”

Talrok’s eyes gleamed in the darkness, chuckling with an idea. His teeth shone in the darkness as he looked at Durge and suggested, “Well then I guess you better hug him. People like hugs.”

Durge’s attention quickly swiveled to the other inmate, “They do?”

“No.”

Talrok nodded approving. “Yes, hug him!”

Durge started moving toward the human, who had grown a dark and angry look on his face. The captain swung his sword at the slave, where the skin caught its sharp point and held it. The tough skin started to heal around it, leaving it stuck in Durge’s shoulder as he attempted to catch his attack in his arms. But he was not done yet, he would not be caught in such a humiliatingly simple trap. He ducked under the slow grasp of Durge’s arms, sidestepping the attempt to hug him. Something he knew would not end well for him, and he could not have Durge wander around the estate grounds causing trouble.

“Hey, get back here. All I want is a hug.” Durge continued to walk after the man, swinging his arms in a haphazard attempt to catch the captain in his arms, who continually avoided capture and slowly was leading Durge away from the processing station toward the entryway, where he would hope to find more soldiers to help him subdue the giant. However, his resistance did something else he did not intend. It started to unravel Durge’s instilled slaver behavior, something that had been guiding his hands for centuries. He had been an obedient farm hand, following any order without question, but now he was starting to remember his own free will.

His face met that of his foe with a solid crack. Unconscious, the guard captain started the fall to the mossy floor, until Durge picked him up in his arms and started to squeeze. Unable to hold back his strength, bones started crackling with their echoes in the dim light of the dungeon. Then he dropped the body, as if bored with a ragdoll he picked up off the street, and walked back into the processing chamber. He paused before Talrok, tilting his head to the side as he stared at him.

“You’re awfully helpful too, yes?” Durge said simply, after a long silent stare.

Talrok paused a moment before deciding it would be a good idea to team up with the strong brute who appears to accidentally kill humans. “Yes, I would be even more helpful if you would let me down from this wall.”

In response to his new friend’s request, Durge pulled his chains from the wall and broke them from his wrists and ankles. Within moments, the dragon-kin was free once again. Talrok started to rub his bruised, scaled arms from where the chains had been tight and chaffing, looking up to Durge to ask, “So, you know this place better than I. Do you know a good place that we could escape from here?”

Durge looked around the room thoughtfully for a few moments, before stating with a shrug, “the door?”

Talrok rubbed his temples, his eyes drooping in the obviousness of Durge’s response. He sighed before asking again, “I meant from the estate. Do you know a good place we can escape from the estate?”

“No one ever escapes from the estate. The mistress sees to that. The master used to be more nice to us, until he died. Now she is in charge and is very cruel,” he replied with unusual clarity, looking quite serious.

“Does she know we escaped?”

“No,” he replied, shaking his bald head.

“Is she a formidable fighter?”

“A what? How rude.”

Talrok frowned. “Is she a good fighter?”

Durge shook his head, causing Talrok to smile before saying, “Then how about we go kill her. She doesn’t sound very tough. If we kill her, I bet it will demoralize the guards she’s hired. See? It’s a good plan isn’t it?”
“Yes, but what about the guards?”

“Just follow me,” said Talrok, tired of explaining things to his new friend, as he started to walk from the dungeon. Durge nodded and lumbered after him all the way up the tunnel and into the barracks, where no guard was to be found. “Where’d they all go?”

“They sometimes have parties with the mistress,” said Durge helpfully as he plowed through a table, spilling its contents all over the floor. Then he went about piling it up in a corner in an attempt to fix his accident.

“They have parties? Why? Don’t they have things to, you know, guard?”

“I guess. Ask them, they would know more,” Durge replied, stepping back from his pile of tables and tableware he had built, grunting his approval of fixing them.

Talrok frowned at Durge’s pile of garbage, “Well how about we go crash their party? Where is the fastest way to the lady’s bedchamber from here?”

“The fastest? Through the laundry room, then the kitchen. But only senior slaves are allowed to go through the servants hatch into the keep. They say it’s safer that way,” replied the large man, pointing at one of the nearby doors inside of the barracks.

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” said Talrok, slowing walking over to the door and started to crack the door open. He wanted to make sure there were no more guards or surprises for them as they started to sneak around the castle at night.

“Where are we getting?”

“Shh!!” Talrok hissed, glaring at Durge. “Be very quiet. We are going to sneak up to the bedchamber.” He watched Durge, who nodded in understanding, before he opened the door into the laundry room beyond.

Though the sun had set over the glowing horizon, the laundry room itself was still busy. A variety of different races and slaves were busy at work either cleaning or mending the clothes of the estate, working on things from slave garb to the tunics of the soldiers. None of the servants paid the two slaves walking through their work stations from the guard quarters; they were too busy with their own tasks to worry about anything else. No one paid them any heed, not even when Durge make the same hissing noise and put his fingers to his lips to them, informing them that they were trying to sneak around. Occasionally, a head would pop out from their work to give them a strange look before diving back into their sewing or washing.

When they had finally crossed the long, busy room, they opened the door and walked into the kitchen, where they were greeted by a couple other slaves who were cleaning up after making dinner for their master. Tanis and Matrim were the two cooks of the kitchen, but who had decided to quit their jobs in order to go along with the escape plan when Durge said randomly to them, much to Talrok’s annoyance, “We’re escaping.”

“Must you tell everyone we meet?”

“No,” said Durge, walking over to a stairway on the side of the kitchen. “I didn’t tell anyone else. I was telling them to be quiet.”

Talrok narrowed his yellow eyes, “Now where are you going?”

“Me? I’m going to go to the bedchamber and crash a party.” Durge squeezed up the narrow wooden stairs, which barely fit his form. “Stay here. Only senior slaves are allowed.”

“Oh no. I’m coming with you,” said Talrok, as he started to walk to the stairs before he was stopped by Tanis’s outstretched arm.

“He’s right, you can’t go up there,” explained Tanis, lowering his spindly arm back down. “Only senior slaves and servants, guards, and lords are allowed up there. There’s some kind of enchantment or something up there.”

“Turns you into a potato I heard,” added Matrim, the wolfman who was leaning over a tub of dirty dishes.

“Hey!” said Tanis, looking over at Matrim again. “Stop that, we’re quitting, remember?” Matrim jumped away from the tub as if it was on fire, before looking at Tanis again and shrugging as if to say that it slipped his mind.
“So, you’ve been here awhile it seems. What’s the deal with Durge anyway? He seems a bit odd,” asked Talrok, trying to wait patiently for the lumbering giant to complete a mission on his own upstairs. “And shouldn’t we hear something?”

“No, we never hear what’s going on up there. Floors are too think and I think that magical barrier also keeps sound in, but I am not sure. I’m just a cook,” replied Tanis, looking up at the ceiling made of stone supports and carved wooden planks. “As for Durge, I’m not sure I understand him. Then again I’m not sure anyone understands him. He just does things. Usually it’s what he is told. But I think something changed, he’s acting a little different.”

“Different how?”

“He’s following commands longer, I think, considering how I think he’s doing what you told him earlier. Sometimes, he just forgets what he’s doing after a few minutes. But it sounded like, from the way he was talking, that he is coming up with some of his own ideas. Otherwise, he would have asked how to crash a party. I doubt anyone has ever told him to do that before. Durge has always been a pretty fun parlor trick.”

“Maybe he went to ask the mistress how to do it?” suggested Matrim, walking closer to them to join their conversation next to the stove.
“Well, then I guess this escape attempt was short-lived, wasn’t it? While Durge is not the brightest, he is super strong and hardy. As well as gullible, so I’m not sure what to call him. Good or bad? What do you think?” said Tanis, looking back at Talrok.

“I don’t know. It depends how this goes, I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he replied, looking over at the stairs again as they started to groan slowly as something started to walk down them. It sounded too heavy to be a human, but he could be mistaken. He raised the rapier he had taken from the guards in the dungeon and held it toward the stairs, something too light and he himself could have made better. Much to his uneasy relief, Durge emerged from around the corner of the stairwell, with some drying blood on his chest and having a quiet conversation with something sitting on his shoulder.

“What’s that?” asked Talrok, commenting on the humanoid creature sitting on the giant’s shoulder. “What happened?”

“Oh! Hello,” said Durge, sounding like he was surprised that Talrok was still waiting in the kitchen. “I came in and crushed the party like you asked. Many people died. Made a new friend. We are free to go.” He indicated his shoulder where a small, winged man sat in his own rags.

“Aha. Not to sound rude, but what is he? And what exactly did you do?” said Talrok, still eyeing them suspiciously. He had to be certain that things had been resolved, no loose ends.

“He said he’s a fairy and he’s very interesting. Has had adventures. We need to have adve-” started Durge, before the fairy on his shoulder flew to the middle of the group to be heard better and interrupted.

“My name is Halogen, and your friend here freed me from my…prison cage. They had been using me as some kind of novelty lamp, but then Durge here came in and body slammed the party all at once. Crushed the bed too. It was amazing! But now I think we should leave, before the guards on duty come and find out what happened in there. I think I remember someone saying something about a private ship somewhere along the castle wall.”
Talrok paused a moment, watching Halogen flying in the air for a moment, “For someone who talks a lot, you didn’t really say very many specifics on what happened in the bedchamber up there.”

“You shouldn’t ask things you don’t want to know the answers to,” came the fairy’s response, looking slightly annoyed at such a question as he moved back onto Durge’s broad shoulder.

“But-”

“No!” interrupted Matrim with a yell. “Do you want us all to be turned to potatoes?!”

Everyone in the room looked at the wolfman very seriously a moment, as if he were joking, until Durge replied, “Yes, but that is not related. Let’s go!”
“Where?” asked Tanis, gathering up some of his knives and pans.
“To the ship,” he replied as he walked to the door of the kitchen which lead to the great hall of the castle. “We can get there through the main hall and go through one of the tunnels. It’s in the cliffs, right? Halogen told me.”
“I think the fairy is rubbing off on him,” whispered Talrok to Tanis, as they left the kitchen into the great hall. Then he asked more loudly, “Aren’t there usually guards in here?”

“Not after dinner,” replied Tanis. “They tend to go party with their mistress, no point to guard in here when they can ‘guard’ her someplace else.”
Durge lead them to a large, old wooden door off to the side of the main hall. He opened the heavy door with ease, allowing them into the carved stone tunnel. It appeared more like a cave the further the group of escaping slaves walked, as if it had simply been repurposed rather than built. They walked in silence as they deepened within the tunnel, Halogen glowing slightly to provide light enough for them to see as they moved. When they finally arrived at the ship, they found themselves in a large cavern that opened up to the sea beyond the estate. Four guards near the ship marched toward them with their spears up at attention. Although the ship was a well crafted sea vessel, it was not extravagant enough to warrant to the stationing of additional guards, much to the former slaves’ pleasure. It would be much easier to get away.

“Halt!” said the first of the guards, who quickly shot a warning glance to the soldier standing immediately next to him. He did not need his smartass comments about the clichés he usually used right now. Something was up, he could feel it. “The cooks, the work horse, a dragon, and a light bulb all coming down to see me how nice. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be doing the things we tell you to?”

Before anyone else in the group could think of a clever lie or petty excuse to give the man, Durge pointed at him and blurted, “The captain is dead. You’ve been promoted.”

The man turned to his comrades, who shrugged, and faced Durge again, “What do you- Gah!” When he faced them again, Matrim took the distraction as an opportunity to tackle the soldier and bite him with his sharp fangs. The man yelled for help as he struggled to get the beast-man off of him, but was soon cut short by the ferocity of the unleashed wolf.

Then Durge pointed at the next soldier, as if not paying attention to what was going on and states again, “The captain is dead. You’ve been promoted.”

This time the other soldiers had a little more time to react, but not quite enough. As they started lowering their spears, both Talrok and Tanis lunged at them with stolen swords and quickly dispatched the crimson guards, all of them splattering streaming their uniform’s color along the stone dock and into the cold ocean water. When the soldiers were dead, Talrok smiled up at the others. “Well that went well. Let’s get out of here while our luck is still good.”

“But then who will be guard captain?” asked Durge, quite seriously.

“Enough fooling around, Durge. Let’s just get out of here already. You can be the captain as far as I’m concerned,” said Talrok as they boarded their new vessel. Little did he know these words of control would echo in Durge’s mind for many years, linking and guiding the group together, as if by some divine purpose.