Chapter 18
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There may be rumours of the dwarf going mad and wearing a mask.
afaik the only people on the entire planet who saw that were Quint and Elizabeth, and you can have my solemn word that neither of them started any rumors about it, especially not in the Loveless. Did Fassogen see Nephiron like that? I don’t think so, but can’t say I specifically recall. Despite Fassogen not seeming like the rumor mill type of lad (esp not with the inmates?), that would be @falconius 's call, I guess.
If anything, I would have thought you were trying to use the mask bc it likely came from close to where Nephiron is, allowing Lemmy an angle at getting a location to look for hints of Nephiron and perhaps finding him.
That being said, I don’t think the mask makes any sense here. It would have been in the water for months now (if I have the timeline straight), and after cursory research (yay Tor), I don’t think it would be recognizable as skin at all. It would be a pastiche of greenish-blueish bacterial colonies, crumbly gray-white wax due to adipocere formation, some parchment-like pieces that were collagen earlier, would have lost tensile integrity, and frankly, wouldn’t be in one piece. That’s without considering if there’s anything in the water that could have eaten it.
@Quint It’s been 3 months since the explosions in the tunnels. I will assume the face was desiccated and put into some form of embalming chemical prior to Nephiron discovering it. Also, it was found outside the water, on a levee, and suffered less water damage. It may have been sandwiched between some stone slabs, offering some form of protection. Therefore, while I appreciate the research into decay [I did try researching this myself on ChatGPT, but the results were banned due to the use of words such as ‘flayed’, ‘face’ and ‘skin’] I am going to disregard the real-world decomposition data in our fantasy setting (no thank you Tor)
and allow the readers to make their own assumptions about the mask.Other theories could be that it’s not even the same mask Nephiron had. Maybe Fassogen has been experimenting with more waifs.
I read an article about people who now flay the tattoos off the skin of a deceased partner, and mount the skin into a frame as a memento. Granted, the skin of this face mask was left floating in the canal, but if it had been preserved prior to that, rather than just being raw skin, there’s some credence to it still being recognisable.
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There may be rumours of the dwarf going mad and wearing a mask.
afaik the only people on the entire planet who saw that were Quint and Elizabeth, and you can have my solemn word that neither of them started any rumors about it, especially not in the Loveless. Did Fassogen see Nephiron like that? I don’t think so, but can’t say I specifically recall. Despite Fassogen not seeming like the rumor mill type of lad (esp not with the inmates?), that would be @falconius 's call, I guess.
If anything, I would have thought you were trying to use the mask bc it likely came from close to where Nephiron is, allowing Lemmy an angle at getting a location to look for hints of Nephiron and perhaps finding him.
That being said, I don’t think the mask makes any sense here. It would have been in the water for months now (if I have the timeline straight), and after cursory research (yay Tor), I don’t think it would be recognizable as skin at all. It would be a pastiche of greenish-blueish bacterial colonies, crumbly gray-white wax due to adipocere formation, some parchment-like pieces that were collagen earlier, would have lost tensile integrity, and frankly, wouldn’t be in one piece. That’s without considering if there’s anything in the water that could have eaten it.
I would have thought you were trying to use the mask bc it likely came from close to where Nephiron is
This is the main reason. I think the rumours of a mad dwarf being in the tunnels are the main clue. The mask, doesn’t really establish anything definite, but points to somebody having been down in the tunnels relatively recently.
the entire planet who saw that were Quint and Elizabeth
Probably, true, so anything else regarding Nephiron’s association with the mask is speculation. All it does hint to is that some weird burchery has been going on, but whether Fassogen operated alone or had minions down there with him, could lead to rumours or information about the exact whereabouts.
I think Gavinger will keep the mask, so while it has made an appearance at the end of this chapter, we are unlikely to see more of it.
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I would have thought you were trying to use the mask bc it likely came from close to where Nephiron is
This is the main reason. I think the rumours of a mad dwarf being in the tunnels are the main clue. The mask, doesn’t really establish anything definite, but points to somebody having been down in the tunnels relatively recently.
the entire planet who saw that were Quint and Elizabeth
Probably, true, so anything else regarding Nephiron’s association with the mask is speculation. All it does hint to is that some weird burchery has been going on, but whether Fassogen operated alone or had minions down there with him, could lead to rumours or information about the exact whereabouts.
I think Gavinger will keep the mask, so while it has made an appearance at the end of this chapter, we are unlikely to see more of it.
We never established what was Fassogen’s motive for flaying off Elizabeth’s skin. I assume it was due to experimentation, possible to see if he could do a face transplant - focus on the mask - or to see if a person could be made faceless, and survive without the features of a face (sounds useful in making unidentifiable assassins) - focus on the person. Or for both elements of research. Or just because he is weird and evil and wants to eat people’s flesh. But he could have done this to more people, not just Elizabeth.
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@Quint It’s been 3 months since the explosions in the tunnels. I will assume the face was desiccated and put into some form of embalming chemical prior to Nephiron discovering it. Also, it was found outside the water, on a levee, and suffered less water damage. It may have been sandwiched between some stone slabs, offering some form of protection. Therefore, while I appreciate the research into decay [I did try researching this myself on ChatGPT, but the results were banned due to the use of words such as ‘flayed’, ‘face’ and ‘skin’] I am going to disregard the real-world decomposition data in our fantasy setting (no thank you Tor)
and allow the readers to make their own assumptions about the mask.Other theories could be that it’s not even the same mask Nephiron had. Maybe Fassogen has been experimenting with more waifs.
I read an article about people who now flay the tattoos off the skin of a deceased partner, and mount the skin into a frame as a memento. Granted, the skin of this face mask was left floating in the canal, but if it had been preserved prior to that, rather than just being raw skin, there’s some credence to it still being recognisable.
Hexlor said:
allow the readers to make their own assumptions about the mask.
Ths does raise an interesting point: the author does not need to define everything they introduce. Like when people ask the Star Trek writers about specific technical details. Writers can introduce elements which the readers can theorise, and the writer does not need to make a specific judgement on which theory is true, because the writer is only ever telling one facet of the story. We only see what is shown to us. The rest is guesswork.
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We never established what was Fassogen’s motive for flaying off Elizabeth’s skin. I assume it was due to experimentation, possible to see if he could do a face transplant - focus on the mask - or to see if a person could be made faceless, and survive without the features of a face (sounds useful in making unidentifiable assassins) - focus on the person. Or for both elements of research. Or just because he is weird and evil and wants to eat people’s flesh. But he could have done this to more people, not just Elizabeth.
We never established what was Fassogen’s motive for flaying off Elizabeth’s skin.
If it’s of any help, I seem to recall Fassogen referring to the tunnel waifs as having been made “more beautiful” through his experiments. I’ve generally thought of him as being a kind of (even more) warped Transhumanist, having long since graduated past our concepts of what it physically means to be human, his experiments being largely his progress in the evolution of what he considers transcendence of sorts.
Though ofc you’d need @falconius for confirmation.
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@hexlor though to get back to the topic at hand, am I understanding right that at this point you’re fine with Lemmy just randomly running into Nephiron’s ossified self? (As to say, without him putting in a specific effort that delivers him in the region through his own deduction.)
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@hexlor though to get back to the topic at hand, am I understanding right that at this point you’re fine with Lemmy just randomly running into Nephiron’s ossified self? (As to say, without him putting in a specific effort that delivers him in the region through his own deduction.)
@Quint I think Lemmy’s established enough facts so far to know his next step in the investigation should be down in the tunnels. So I wouldn’t say it would be random, but yes, I suppose I don’t need him doing much more investigation. If somehow they can search and get lucky, I’d be okay with that.
Do you have enough to go on, for picking up the next chapter? Sounds like my installment hasn’t diverted your original plan much and you have an idea of where you want to take it.
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Ok. I see a lot of unexpected things here.
It’s safe to say the skin is not Elizibeth’s, but that it’s quite likely she wasn’t the first or last for that mode of experiment, and there are quite likely other faces Fassogen had stretched and framed. Probably all of such experiments, since he’d only do it on those who he found beautiful. And that was the main purpose in preserving the face.
I’m not sure where the collapsed -anything- comes in, but because of a second issue I’ll get to in a sec, we can say that during the lab’s mothballing and hiatus it was actually separated from the Loveless for some amount of time and the tunnels connecting the two both deliberately collapsed and also due to secondary causes some collapse. So we can say that in the meantime, to restore the clandestine connection tunnels and traps etc. the prison is using prison labour.
My intent, and perhaps I didn’t make this clear, was that the Loveless’ only integration to the Necrolabs, was as a feeder organ for raw material and labour ie men go from Loveless, when the Imperium is finished with them, to the labs, they don’t come out, they are not housed in Loveless, they are passed over and wiped off the books. There are no Majikar personnel openly working in Loveless, no four armed monsters, no experimental surgeons, just regular ones to keep the prisoners alive. All the monster, body horror stuff, occurs over in the Necrolabs.
I don’t understand the inclusion or intent with bringing in the Jackals to Lovelass. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It feels forced, and cheap, and bit of a weak use of some strong characters who are still more useful being characters out there in the city. There is no satisfaction at all for me for their comeuppance here in this manner because the story hasn’t earned it. Perhaps we can work with it, but we might also want to cut it. Roddy was set up as a strong antagonist for Owen, until Owen and Lemmy actually do something on their own in the story against him, I suggest we just leave him and the Jackals out there being antagonists. So my recommendation and vote is to cut them out.
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@Quint I think Lemmy’s established enough facts so far to know his next step in the investigation should be down in the tunnels. So I wouldn’t say it would be random, but yes, I suppose I don’t need him doing much more investigation. If somehow they can search and get lucky, I’d be okay with that.
Do you have enough to go on, for picking up the next chapter? Sounds like my installment hasn’t diverted your original plan much and you have an idea of where you want to take it.
Do you have enough to go on, for picking up the next chapter?
Not yet, but that’s also ok. Especially bc there might be edits, looking at James’s response. More on that below.
Sounds like my installment hasn’t diverted your original plan much and you have an idea of where you want to take it.
Plan? Do I look like the kind of person who has a plan? (Well, truth be told, I probably do.)
I could go with where I was originally going to take things, but it would be a divergence from the direction you seem to be pointing at, which is that you want Lemmy to go investigate the tunnels, and somehow find Nephiron there. I think. Am I reading your intent correctly (that you’d like this to progress with Lemmy getting to the tunnels)?
(I suspect one of the two of us is mistaken about the scope of the tunnels and difficulty of finding anything in them. I’m not sure that it’s you who is mistaken. I feel like this would be like finding a needle in a particularly malicious, subterranean haystack.)
Even if the plan is Lemmy going down to the tunnels, I can probably come up with something.
My intent, and perhaps I didn’t make this clear, was that the Loveless’ only integration to the Necrolabs, was as a feeder organ for raw material and labour ie men go from Loveless, when the Imperium is finished with them, to the labs, they don’t come out, they are not housed in Loveless, they are passed over and wiped off the books. There are no Majikar personnel openly working in Loveless, no four armed monsters, no experimental surgeons, just regular ones to keep the prisoners alive. All the monster, body horror stuff, occurs over in the Necrolabs.
Ok, this is closer to what I thought, but I hadn’t been sure. (And is a bit different than what I thought, too.) I went looking for the old conversations about it, but I think they may have been on the old server. Or I’d hallucinated them. Can’t have AI doing all of the hallucinating, after all.
Do I recall correctly that there wasn’t any quarry/digging work in the Labs? I thought I’d recalled that being why I would have needed to rewrite a bunch of the start for 18 that I’d written. I see that you’ve mentioned that there could be some forced labor clearing tunnels now, I’m more trying to see if I’m misremembering that.
On the bright side, I don’t think the chapter would need to change much to accommodate this, and it might even give @hexlor a convenience - move Owen from being in a quarry to being one of the people clearing the tunnels. That would probably get Lemmy even closer to being able to get to the tunnels. Past that, I think it’s just a matter of changing references to the Loveless to being references to the Labs, though I’d need to read more carefully. [Oh wait, there’s also the reference to the surgeon making more visitations.]
I don’t understand the inclusion or intent with bringing in the Jackals to Lovelass. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It feels forced, and cheap, and bit of a weak use of some strong characters who are still more useful being characters out there in the city. There is no satisfaction at all for me for their comeuppance here in this manner because the story hasn’t earned it. Perhaps we can work with it, but we might also want to cut it. Roddy was set up as a strong antagonist for Owen, until Owen and Lemmy actually do something on their own in the story against him, I suggest we just leave him and the Jackals out there being antagonists. So my recommendation and vote is to cut them out.
fwiw, I was going to bring Roddy and Tinto (specifically, without Morning, Breeze, and the rest of the gang) to the Labs in my version. I do agree that the inclusion here doesn’t seem to have any body - they don’t contribute to the story outside of showing up and existing. (Thank you for not writing Morning and Breeze like Abbot and Costello, though.)
I did like the name Vatador Freesh, while we’re at it.
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Do you have enough to go on, for picking up the next chapter?
Not yet, but that’s also ok. Especially bc there might be edits, looking at James’s response. More on that below.
Sounds like my installment hasn’t diverted your original plan much and you have an idea of where you want to take it.
Plan? Do I look like the kind of person who has a plan? (Well, truth be told, I probably do.)
I could go with where I was originally going to take things, but it would be a divergence from the direction you seem to be pointing at, which is that you want Lemmy to go investigate the tunnels, and somehow find Nephiron there. I think. Am I reading your intent correctly (that you’d like this to progress with Lemmy getting to the tunnels)?
(I suspect one of the two of us is mistaken about the scope of the tunnels and difficulty of finding anything in them. I’m not sure that it’s you who is mistaken. I feel like this would be like finding a needle in a particularly malicious, subterranean haystack.)
Even if the plan is Lemmy going down to the tunnels, I can probably come up with something.
My intent, and perhaps I didn’t make this clear, was that the Loveless’ only integration to the Necrolabs, was as a feeder organ for raw material and labour ie men go from Loveless, when the Imperium is finished with them, to the labs, they don’t come out, they are not housed in Loveless, they are passed over and wiped off the books. There are no Majikar personnel openly working in Loveless, no four armed monsters, no experimental surgeons, just regular ones to keep the prisoners alive. All the monster, body horror stuff, occurs over in the Necrolabs.
Ok, this is closer to what I thought, but I hadn’t been sure. (And is a bit different than what I thought, too.) I went looking for the old conversations about it, but I think they may have been on the old server. Or I’d hallucinated them. Can’t have AI doing all of the hallucinating, after all.
Do I recall correctly that there wasn’t any quarry/digging work in the Labs? I thought I’d recalled that being why I would have needed to rewrite a bunch of the start for 18 that I’d written. I see that you’ve mentioned that there could be some forced labor clearing tunnels now, I’m more trying to see if I’m misremembering that.
On the bright side, I don’t think the chapter would need to change much to accommodate this, and it might even give @hexlor a convenience - move Owen from being in a quarry to being one of the people clearing the tunnels. That would probably get Lemmy even closer to being able to get to the tunnels. Past that, I think it’s just a matter of changing references to the Loveless to being references to the Labs, though I’d need to read more carefully. [Oh wait, there’s also the reference to the surgeon making more visitations.]
I don’t understand the inclusion or intent with bringing in the Jackals to Lovelass. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It feels forced, and cheap, and bit of a weak use of some strong characters who are still more useful being characters out there in the city. There is no satisfaction at all for me for their comeuppance here in this manner because the story hasn’t earned it. Perhaps we can work with it, but we might also want to cut it. Roddy was set up as a strong antagonist for Owen, until Owen and Lemmy actually do something on their own in the story against him, I suggest we just leave him and the Jackals out there being antagonists. So my recommendation and vote is to cut them out.
fwiw, I was going to bring Roddy and Tinto (specifically, without Morning, Breeze, and the rest of the gang) to the Labs in my version. I do agree that the inclusion here doesn’t seem to have any body - they don’t contribute to the story outside of showing up and existing. (Thank you for not writing Morning and Breeze like Abbot and Costello, though.)
I did like the name Vatador Freesh, while we’re at it.
@Quint said:
Do I recall correctly that there wasn’t any quarry/digging work in the Labs? I thought I’d recalled that being why I would have needed to rewrite a bunch of the start for 18 that I’d written. I see that you’ve mentioned that there could be some forced labor clearing tunnels now, I’m more trying to see if I’m misremembering that.There was no quarrying or digging of any kind. There was slave labour the necroengineers are using for their work in the labs. I just reread the small part in my chapter indicating this stuff and I can see it wasn’t absolutely crystal clear, but I also don’t see where the digging stuff comes in. As it happens I’m glad It did since it allows us to basically ignore the last part of my chapter, since it’s pretty clear that isn’t going to be used.
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@Quint said:
Do I recall correctly that there wasn’t any quarry/digging work in the Labs? I thought I’d recalled that being why I would have needed to rewrite a bunch of the start for 18 that I’d written. I see that you’ve mentioned that there could be some forced labor clearing tunnels now, I’m more trying to see if I’m misremembering that.There was no quarrying or digging of any kind. There was slave labour the necroengineers are using for their work in the labs. I just reread the small part in my chapter indicating this stuff and I can see it wasn’t absolutely crystal clear, but I also don’t see where the digging stuff comes in. As it happens I’m glad It did since it allows us to basically ignore the last part of my chapter, since it’s pretty clear that isn’t going to be used.
@Falconius based on your clarifications; the prisoners are taken down from the Loveless into the tunnels to clear them out. No quarrys or mining, just removal of rubble from the tunnels to restore the connection from the Loveless to the Necrolabs.
Once the tunnels are reopened and the structure is stabilised the work will be done. This seems like a smaller task than just mining for ??? (insert whatever we thought they may be mining for).
I don’t understand the inclusion or intent with bringing in the Jackals to Lovelass.
I was expecting @quint to reintroduce the Jackals in any case. He had suggested “If anyone is looking for ideas, towards the end of 15 I suggested that Fassogen was going to rat out Roddy’s side hustle to TFoG, which means that Roddy and/or some of the gang could always show up in collars.” I just thought I’d get them in sooner.
I can make the edits based on the above, and happy to cut the Jackals out of this chapter and replace with other generic prisoners but @quint do you still intend to introduce the Jackals into the Loveless in your section? As seems pointless for me to cut them out only for you to have them appear again.
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@Falconius based on your clarifications; the prisoners are taken down from the Loveless into the tunnels to clear them out. No quarrys or mining, just removal of rubble from the tunnels to restore the connection from the Loveless to the Necrolabs.
Once the tunnels are reopened and the structure is stabilised the work will be done. This seems like a smaller task than just mining for ??? (insert whatever we thought they may be mining for).
I don’t understand the inclusion or intent with bringing in the Jackals to Lovelass.
I was expecting @quint to reintroduce the Jackals in any case. He had suggested “If anyone is looking for ideas, towards the end of 15 I suggested that Fassogen was going to rat out Roddy’s side hustle to TFoG, which means that Roddy and/or some of the gang could always show up in collars.” I just thought I’d get them in sooner.
I can make the edits based on the above, and happy to cut the Jackals out of this chapter and replace with other generic prisoners but @quint do you still intend to introduce the Jackals into the Loveless in your section? As seems pointless for me to cut them out only for you to have them appear again.
@Falconius based on your clarifications; the prisoners are taken down from the Loveless into the tunnels to clear them out. No quarrys or mining, just removal of rubble from the tunnels to restore the connection from the Loveless to the Necrolabs.
Once the tunnels are reopened and the structure is stabilised the work will be done. This seems like a smaller task than just mining for ??? (insert whatever we thought they may be mining for).
I never thought they were mining for anything. I never thought they were mining. What would be so important? If they were actually actively mining how would they possibly escape the notice of the dwarfs? If there were anything important under the ground of Vereign it’d be more likely to be under The Column or under the old city.
Which is why the only task I could think of would be to clear out the collapses you said occurred. But, if you guys want the mining so bad all you got to do is come up with a better reason for it. You got to answer the questions of why would they be using these special hidden prisoners, rather than just regular prisons in a project they don’t care about hiding (there are no regular mines I can think of that anyone with the power of an empire would bother hiding, maybe a plutonium mine if that was at all a relevant mineral in this age)? What is so import to mine that they have to keep it secret? What reason would they need the Majikar involved in this secret mine? What reason would they have to bother keeping the Majikar a secret and not simply wipe them out and do it on their own? etc etc.
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@Falconius based on your clarifications; the prisoners are taken down from the Loveless into the tunnels to clear them out. No quarrys or mining, just removal of rubble from the tunnels to restore the connection from the Loveless to the Necrolabs.
Once the tunnels are reopened and the structure is stabilised the work will be done. This seems like a smaller task than just mining for ??? (insert whatever we thought they may be mining for).
I never thought they were mining for anything. I never thought they were mining. What would be so important? If they were actually actively mining how would they possibly escape the notice of the dwarfs? If there were anything important under the ground of Vereign it’d be more likely to be under The Column or under the old city.
Which is why the only task I could think of would be to clear out the collapses you said occurred. But, if you guys want the mining so bad all you got to do is come up with a better reason for it. You got to answer the questions of why would they be using these special hidden prisoners, rather than just regular prisons in a project they don’t care about hiding (there are no regular mines I can think of that anyone with the power of an empire would bother hiding, maybe a plutonium mine if that was at all a relevant mineral in this age)? What is so import to mine that they have to keep it secret? What reason would they need the Majikar involved in this secret mine? What reason would they have to bother keeping the Majikar a secret and not simply wipe them out and do it on their own? etc etc.
But, if you guys want the mining so bad all you got to do is come up with a better reason for it.
I’d misunderstood the ending of 17 (it was the hardest part of the chapter for me to understand), and I’m not particularly attached to it.
Though just bc I like justifying myself, at the time I’d thought they’d been ‘engaged’ because Fassogen was extending the Labs underground, or bc of something to do with the chasm that’s mentioned there.
Though once you’d said that I’d misinterpreted the intent, I planned on rewriting the piece. As it happens, that’s when Jacob started talking about what direction he wanted things to go in, so I ended up just handing off instead.
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Speaking of handoffs, @hexlor should I be assuming there will be rewrites I should wait for?
(Not that I have a clear idea of what I’m doing, but trying to figure out if I should even be brainstorming.)
@Quint There will be a rewrite, but all I’ll be doing is editing out the Jackals and just putting is some generic criminals, and clarifying that the work they are doing is clearing out the tunnels, rather than mining. Note, I have no attachment to having our characters mining, it was just a misundrstanding of the end of chapter 17. So, no need to wait for my rewrite, but I should have it done this weekend in any case.
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Well, don’t edit out the Jackals. Clearly I’ve been outvoted on that point!
I’m somewhere in the middle. If there’s a reason for them to be there and they’re written well, then I’m all for it. I don’t think the chapter as is really gives them any reason to be there, so I’d say either removing them or doubling down are both options.
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Well, don’t edit out the Jackals. Clearly I’ve been outvoted on that point!
I’m somewhere in the middle. If there’s a reason for them to be there and they’re written well, then I’m all for it. I don’t think the chapter as is really gives them any reason to be there, so I’d say either removing them or doubling down are both options.
So I used the Jackals in two ways; 1) to provide information about the explosions/tunnel collapse, which they had been tasked by Fassogen to clean up 2) to continue their involvement with Owen, by having them follow us into the Loveless.
I think I can remove the Jackals without losing anything:
Regards the first point, since all the prisoners are now cleaning out the tunnels, they are directly involved down there and the reasons/rumours for the tunnel collapse could have come from someone else, it doesn’t have to be the Jackals.
For the second point, I agree that their introduction in chapter 18 is weak. They can follow us into the Loveless, but I’ll remove them here, and leave that for a later installment (whoever wants to write them in). -
Chapter 18 – Lemmy
Time dragged on in here. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed! Each morning we were taken into the tunnels which ran beneath the Loveless prison, and put to work clearing them out from rubble. Shoring up the walls with timber struts to make the passages passable. The other prisoners called them the Necros.The guards called them the Labs. Nobody knew why we were clearing them out or where the tunnels led. My theory, it was pointless backbreaking work. They wanted to make sure we knew we were now their slaves.
Wholly underground, day and night lost their meaning, but we could guess that our work started at dawn and ended at nightfall…The time we spent back in our cells was spent in fitful slumber, coughing out the rock dust coating our lungs.
Owen had returned to fitness and I helped him to practice his breathing and regulate the dread of claustrophobia. “I’m getting used to being in tunnels with you,” Owen commented. “Seems like you feel at home down here, being an honorary dwarf and all?”
If these were escape tunnels rather than dead ends, I’d feel a lot more comfortable.I pocketed a small stone from the tunnels each day and brought it back to our cell, and when I counted them tonight I found I had forty three in total. By my reckoning, we’d been in the Loveless for nearly three months. Today was the thirteenth of Sepersil and I mused with sadness that it would be my birthday in eight days.
I would pick up the more unusual stones, those which were part of the natural geological strata. Most of the other rubble was made from collapsed granite bricks which would have been transported here to build the tunnels. These tunnels had been dug out and reinforced with timber and brick, obviously of human construction. Dwarfs would have dug deeper and found the rock stratum; carved out the tunnel through the rock bed. That would have stood up to whatever had caused these tunnels to collapse.
The orderly who had initially been taking Owen to see the surgeon, would still check in on us, even once Owen was fit again. His name was Gavinger and he enjoyed showing me the artifacts he discovered in the tunnels. It was never clear whether he had been tasked with sweeping the tunnels for treasures or if this was just a curiosity he indulged when off-duty, but he had initially found what seemed to be a precious stone and had been sifting through the debris since then.
I regaled him about my time spent with the dwarfs and speculated that if the stone was cleaned and cut, it would fetch some monetary value. Since then Gavinger continued to show me his latest finds and encouraged me to appraise their worth. Most were mundane items that had likely been washed into the tunnels through floods, such as animal bones and bits of broken pottery, but there were occasionally some more curious bits of stone or metal that he’d recover, and we’d posit their use and value as treasures that may soon make him a rich man.
I was the smallest of the prison crew, but what I lacked in brawn I made up for in my knowledge of excavation and knew where it was best to dig. Nevertheless, after the first few days, my body was feeling the results of the relentless work and I managed to persuade Gavinger that I could be more useful to the digging efforts in other ways. Perhaps out of our kindling friendship, Gavinger made the suggestion, and I was transferred to kitchen duties, or what passed for a kitchen down here. I’d worked in the kitchens during my time in the military so the tasks were familiar although the quality of the food was decidedly worse.
I ferried supplies and rations, along with any of the other odd jobs that weren’t hard labor. It didn’t entirely exempt me, but it made the situation closer to temporarily survivable. It also meant I was exempt from the leather collar and chains that bound the rest of the crew together. It was a minor liberty, but I knew I would be watched more closely.
The kitchens gave me access to pen and cloth (which they allowed for recording recipes and quantities of ingredients), that I used to compose a letter to Arwana, my dwarven princess wife. The letter was coded in my best dwarven runes, but for now there was no means of sending this to her; and although I never saw myself as the sentimental type - isolation cultivates a longing for lost friendship. I would keep the letter rolled up in my bedclothes and wonder each night with what words she would respond on learning that I had been taken prisoner in the Loveless.
Owen remained my stalwart cellmate throughout this time and continued to benefit from my share of food and water, even once he had regained his full fitness. He assumed it as an established right, which I had not the heart to contest. Fortunately, the kitchen assignment allowed me to replenish what I had been lacking.
The masked, four-armed monstrosity who had rowed us to the prison on that first night, would appear at the end of each day’s shift to survey the progress we made. We had learned to address this overseer as Vatador Freesh. Vatador being some form of title, and Freesh being a name, although one which seemed to homophonically mock the putrid hell in which we now lived.
On one particularly difficult day, where the rubble had been packed solid and we hadn’t cleared more than a few feet, Vatador Freesh passed along the line of the chained prisoners - we couldn’t see the scowl behind his mask but we could feel the anger - he made each prisoner hold out their hands. One of the prisoners, calling himself Derris, who was particular to wrap rags around his palms when working, to keep them clean and protected, tried to justify our slow progress. As Vatador walked by Derris, one of his four arms reached out, casual as plucking an apple from a tree, a glint of metal reflecting off the lantern light. The knife was in and out before Derris knew he was dying. His clothed hands clutched his bleeding neck in shock and the rags turned red. Then his legs gave way and he hit the ground, the chain around his collar dragging his neighbouring prisoners to the floor with him. I was made to pick up the legs of his lifeless body and drag it back up to the cells before it was unchained and we were put back in our cells.
A couple of shifts later, I received a visit from Gavinger, which led me back to my erstwhile investigation regarding the disappearance of Professor Nephiron. He had been told by one of the other guards that he was unlikely to find anything of value in the tunnels, since a crew had already been down there and cleared out anything of value. He also heard that the rockfall had been caused by a dwarf through a series of explosions. Good old dwarfs!
Rumours of a dwarf in this area had my nose back on track again. Confined as I was, I had time to think and piece things together. The beetlemen were known to operate Nephiron’s airships: fact. There had been a sighting of an airship near the Waistrils on the night Nephiron was last seen: fact.
Conclusion? At the exclusion of other dwarfs flying around in airships; Nephiron had entered the Waistrils, and was indeed the dwarf who was rumoured to have set about the collapse.Gavinger ventured further into the tunnels each day and came back with reports of deeper levels, a lower canal and dormitories. He soon had a pretty good idea of the underground layout, and I suggested to him that he may have better luck finding artifacts of worth if he directed his searches to where this explosion had taken place.
I chuckled to myself as I imagined Nephiron - true to the noble spirit of the dwarfs - must have been after Fassogen himself and had thrown a literal spark into the infernal plans of that savage beast.
A week later, in the middle of the night, I was woken by a wrapping on our cell door. Owen turned in his sleep, but it didn’t wake him. I stepped to the door and looked through the barred window. Gavinger appeared there grinning, his face grubby with dirt, with only his teeth showing through.
“What’s the matter,” I asked.
“You’ll never believe what I’ve found,” replied Gavinger excitedly.
“Did you find something in the tunnels, where I told you to look?” I enquired.
“I’ve found the most amazing thing!” He said, as he held up a parchment with holes in it. “It was floating atop the levee.”
“It’s parchment! What’s written on it?” I asked.
“No, it’s not parchment,” corrected Gavinger. “Look,” he said, as he held up the skin to his face, and the two holes at the top matched up in line with his eyes, and the small holes in the middle matched up in line with his nostrils, and the long horizontal slit, which was circled with a reddish lip, matched up with his smiling mouth. “It’s a mask! A human face mask! Incredibly preserved. Made of real skin.”
Gavinger’s dirty face disappeared behind the flayed skin mask of a young girl.
I’ve posted the rewritten version of chapter 18. I wasn’t sure whether to keep the original version in the channel, since that was what the messages were in response to, but I decided to edit the original post and replace it with the updated version. It seems that there is a feature, at least for the one who edits their own post, to view previous revisions. Nonetheless, I’ve saved a copy of the original in my Google Drive.
In summary, the changes remove the Jackals from having entered the prison, and I’ve clarified the work which the prisoners are doing is clearing out collapsed tunnels.
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