《Regenerator》 Prologue - A Thousand Deaths Alive The first thought I ever remember was a gnawing, gut wrenching pain. My first rational thought although I did not have the words to speak it the understanding was much the same. ''This fucking hurts'' It''s ironic really. My first thought I woke to conciousness to was exquisite agony and it is a constant my entire unending life. Almost philosophical.. Life is pain and you may rest assured when I tell you this it is not from any basic level of knowledge. You see I have a vast and deep understanding of pain and it''s multitudes of flavors in both giving and receiving. I''m going to let you in on a secret, but you can''t tell anyone.. Who am I kidding you''re not even from here so it doesn''t matter who you tell. I cannot die. At least not in any traditional sense. You see I posess a unique trait that lets me recover from any wound. Any. I have thoroughly tested the bounds of my mortality from hunger and dehydration to being eaten alive, being melted, vaporized, crushed, drowned, burned, suffocated, poisoned.. i''ve been cursed to have my limbs fall off for a whole year. Honestly this list is too long to truely do justiceso pleaserest assured i''ve handled the wrath of gods, spit in the eyes of immortals and equally built and destroyed civilizations for millenium. Age is an irrelevant number to someone who doesn''t grow old. For a while I lamented on my existence like any other creature. Why am I here, what is my purpose, who made me this way.. I wanted to be special. It took me about a thousand years to come to terms that while I am certainly a unique case.. There is absolutely nothing special about me. No gift from some divine being, no blessings on the everlasting soul.. It does exist by the way.. The soul.. It''s real I know this because I traded mine away for super powers, don''t worry, I already told you I heal from all wounds. I already grew it back, it only takes about a hundred years. I''m on a bit of a tangeant here.. But you''re probably wondering what super power would someone who can heal from any wound possibly want? Transmutation. The ability to change my shape or absorb characteristics of other creatures. You might imagine being able to live forever gets a bit boring, life has a pattern and if you live long enough you find it''s the equivilent of walking a big circle in the woods. The first circle was new and interesting, the next circle you recognize certain trees that stick out.. the third you you give them names by the fourth your kind of tired and it continues like this until you''ve memorized the blades of grass down to the count and you can tell what creature passed by where. The only bit of excitment is when something has a new litter and you get to pick out new names or a new tree takes root and you get to see if it has what it takes to sprout or get choked out by the other seedlings. It gets to the point you start praying for something to happen, like predicting where lightening will strike or some kind of disease strikes a race causing the food chain to struggle or collapse. Sorry.. got carried away there. Moral of the story is it can get boring. Instead of being a blatant outsider to whatever race or creature i''m observing I can pass my time being one of them, learning them, their behaivor the primitive forms of communication. It lets me amuse myself.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. What..? Don''t judge me.. You live a million years and tell me morals are not subjective to whatever society is in charge and believe it and I will eat my foot. Moving back to the original point, super power set to the side. My existence is full of ups and downs.. I wasn''t always so sure of myself, I feared death like any other.. I contemplated that maybe one day I would simply not wake up from one of my deaths. I''ve long since washed myself of that illusion.. I miss it. It made life a little more interesting. Another little nugget of truth for you, I am still searching for something that can hurt me this particular information brings me to my current predicament. I already told you I cannot die in anytraditional sense, however despite my never ending life and transmutational powers I am still limited by physical form. I can''t fly unless I grow wings and while I can make my body extremely fuel efficient I still require energy to burn to complete an action. Not to mention when I ''die'' or run out of energy I revert back to my natural form. Which is roughly around 4 feet tall, hairless,moderately to exceedingly handsome features with milky white skin. I have yellow eyes that let me seein the dark as well as register heat signaturesand I am cold blooded. That''s right people.. I hatched out of an egg. Probably. No nipples and no belly button. I mean who really knows maybe i''m a freakish abnormaility to my own race. By the time I woke up I was the last of them anyways. Based on what little reasearch I bothered to do over a million or so years I place my origins along with the beginning of the races of course I only use vast amounts of circumstantial evidence using my size and particular humanoid traits to theorize I was one of many failed races that didn''t adapt well enough to the climate change or any reliable dietary changes that abruptly sprung up. Did I mention I prefer my food raw? Damn, I really like to get off topic here. So I can''t die in a traditional sense. Forgive me here i''m trying to focus because i''m dying at the moment. While I heal rapidly I have limited strength and I tire like anything else. This isn''t the first time this has happened but somewhere along the way someone built a whole prophecy about the comming of the Pale One. The First and Last... There are a few other names but they are all pretty badass, got to love the naming sense of some of these people. They herald my comming as an inevitability. I''m surprised the amount of clues that have been passed down and the wisdom of small minds to take heed, they say I come in many forms and I am both saivor and deliverer. From scratchings on cave walls from primitive tribes to elaborate paintings I had done when pretending to be nobility. Millions of years of clues and the angry whispers of those I have made enemies of determined for revenge. Immortals, gods and other extra worldly things like shades or spirits that speak in riddles due to certain universal law that prevents direct interaction. Despite it all, here I lie.. Dying. They struck me when I was out of energy in my natural form. I gave them a run for there money though, I always do.. I''ve had a lot of time to brush up on my skills and I can be pretty cuthroat. They brought the best of their mages, a few preists andthe most powerful warriors they could find. Don''t ask me why they came for me the reason is always different. God told me to, the voices demand it, spirits of our ancestors demand retrobution, my families legacy..Seriously when you live as long as I have you got at least a thousand people trying to kill you at any given point give or take a few hundred. They struck me down and pinned me with a blade forged in the heart of a glacier, the smith that made itfroze to death and a few more people died transporting it out. Once they had me down they sealed me away. So here I am..Hopeful for a final end but my heart is just not in it, I know I wont die I can feel it. I''m not surprised, however I am chagrined at the prospect of another thousand or so years of being frozen with naught but my own thoughts to keep me company until this sword runs out of juice or someone greedy comes looking for treasure. So while I wait.. I decided to contemplate my beginnings Chapter 1 - Ignorance Is Not Bliss I can relate to my humble beginings to my current situation, so that is where I will start.. With life and agony. This world I live on, any world populated with life period really, is a constant struggle for survival. "Life is hard; it''s even harder when you''re stupid." -John Wayne ----------------------------------------------------------- Agony wracked my body, it consumed mind as my body forced life into itself for the umpteenth thousandth time. I was unaware of this number as this sensation of pain and agony was my first moment of clarity I can recall, even with a mind as sharp as mine I can recall no moment before this one. With every fiber of my being I was utterly consumed by a single thought. Pain. You can rest assured you have never or ever will be as pained as I was in that moment, my husk of a body literally eating itself to the point I cannot even move properly to feed myself. I literally chewed rocks and swallowed dirt just to ease my stomach pains, but there was no nutrition to be had from this and I was merely prolonging my own suffering, although I did not know this at the time. If I could do things over I would certainly have let myself die much sooner but a body instinctivly clings to life and refused to submit to the wisdom of clarity. It took me nine more days before I died, I would have died from dehydration but it rained on the fifth day and my little hole I made from eating rocks, worms and bugs that crossed my path made a muddy puddle to slake my thirst.. I damn that puddle with every fiber of my being. After death, in my case, the ceasing of bodily function my ability to heal goes into overdrive. I could explain how it works but this will come in due time, for now remain in ignorance as I was. No point in spoiling all the details in the beginning. Regardless, I fell into a blissful state of death until I awoke some untold hours later, completely repaired and I mean I was reborn flawless aside from the dirt I rested on with only a dull ache in my stomach. That hunger ever persistant and whatever had happened certainly did not curb the effect. The hunger was the first thing that got me going, not knowing any better and being as stupid as a newborn I found out quite quickly that I had no idea how to operate my own body. I was not an infant, I feel I should mention that by the time I awoke to concious thought I had already grown to my adult form. So with the strength of an adult I flopped around inarticulately for several hours figuring out how each and every one of my limbs worked. By the time night fell I was thoroughly exhausted but I had established how to crawl around on my hands and knees and had set out on exploring my immeadiate area with the level of interest only a newborn could have. It might even be considered cute,because nothing says adorable more than a drooling, dirt covered, nakedmess. I could feel the hunger pangs growing as I crawled around and I recognized several bugs that had wandered past me during my awakening and recalling that agonizing pain of hunger I proceeded to stuff myself with the bugs, handfulls of dirt and whatever else I could stuff down my awaiting maw. While I was certainly satisfied for the moment I settled in to position on the ground to enjoy my full stomach.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Ignorance is not bliss. An educated mind would have noted that despite the fact a whole body was sitting unmoving in a forest there was nothing eating this perfectly free meal. I did not in fact wake up ONLY hungry. I woke up being eaten alive although I simply did not know it at the time. My skin is quite durable almost leathery like a lizard or a snake but smoother like that a human. Bugs could not eat the outside of me. While I had been dormant a particularily feirce bug had dominated its own territory, the few miles around my corpse. I was the ultimate breeding ground for these little bastards. They had a particularily unique method for fighting off predators. They carry their eggs on their body, under their shells and when you eat them and your stomach acids melt the chitonus shell they release their young to infest you. No animals came here to eat because eating something might risk swallowing one of these bugs. I had eaten to my hearts content, fat and happy. I died three days later, screaming in agony, vomiting and bleeding internally until these things did enough damage to drive me into smashing my own skull against the nearest rockendingmy miseryand allow them to eat their way out. I awoke with a healthy new respect for these insects and crawled as far as I could get. Life was torture for severalweeks as I learned the hard way each new lesson, sleeping with my head in the dirt to prevent them from climbing into my mouth while I slept. I ate bark, roots, plants and other small vegitation, worms and the like and died repeatedly in various ways. It took me almosttwo weeksto crawl out of the bug''s territory leaving them to find a new breeding ground with a primal, inborn fear of all insects. In fact I had found a veritable paradise after I left the bug territory behind me, the chirping of birds and other small insects, new smells and sights to take in with a clear foundation to warrent caution in all new things. Despite everything I still had no concept of death or even the fact I was dying, just that there was excessive pain when you do certain activities or eat certain things. My excellerated healing process meant I recover from heavy falls, sprains and other detrimental physical ailments in seconds. My recovery speed was intermittent, healing me in seconds sometimes and other times it takes all day. I had yet to tie it to nourishment and the hunger itself was so distracting it drove me to think of little else. I found a decent spot of soft grass near a lake and promptly fell asleep. One of my few nights of peaceful rest, easing into the new status quo of not suffering debilitating cramps I scrounged a few bits of food I had dubbed safe enough not to cripple me and was moderately saitiating. Drank from my newfound watering hole and basicly enjoyed several days of this until I had fallen into complacency of my meager existance. Each day I ranged a bit further to find new food until one day I awoke to something new, it was a sound I had not heard before and I felt my body tighten the sound was somehow low but loud enough to be threatening even worse there were several of these sounds. "Grrr..." it accompanied a set of yellow eyes, attached to a four legged creature covered in hair. There were eleven of them and the biggest of them was tall enough to reach my throat, the smallesteasily outweighing me by at least a hundred pounds. Chapter 2 - Hunted The very first experiences you have in life shape you in very obvious ways, while not always a predictable result certain things leave a lasting impression. I will grudgingly admit that, perhaps, without the motivation of these creatures I would have developed radically different, the difference between catastrophe and opportunity is often the result of poor timing. For instance did you know that mammals during birthing cycle can, on very rare occasions, adopt a completely different animal as a part of their family when their maternal instincts kick into gear..? That didn''t happen here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Grrrrooowwwl..." To say I had no idea what was in store for me is a gross understatement. I had a healthy respect for things considered ''new'' because generally speaking everything i''ve met in this forest has tried to kill me, even the tretcherous ground was a death trap waiting for the unwary. Therefore I raised myself to a crawling position so that I can be ready to move as I regarded these four legged creatures with the same curiosity they seemed to find me, I was an unknown, an animal in their territory they had neither seen nor smelled and hardened by instinct and generations of survival they approached me cautiously. The one I was watching held my stare hypnotically so when it darted forward I was captivated at how exquisite it''s movements were, a gentle almost graceful lope as the powerful body surged in my direction it clearly expected some kind of defensive manuever on my part because before delivering a killing blow it simply raked my chest with it''s massive paw it''s movement a feint as it darted not into me but past me with intended damage done. The damage which instantly dropped me to the ground screaming in pain as I clutched at my newly blood covered chest, I say blood covered because I had already healed from the wound. The attack had it been an inch or two lower would have disembowled me however as it was I merely suffered a blow hard enough to tear half my upper torso off on the ground in a bloody lump, so when I grasped my chestI found it still there my pain lingering but fading with each passing breath. I say this but you have to understand that hardly seconds had passed in this moment, the exhange so quick I was left reeling at the sheer level of violence against me, having never been attacked aside from the unfortunate design of a certain insect I was at a loss for my next action like a deer in the headlights my blood pumping and thundering in my ear as endorphins and adrenaline rushes through my veins I was so focused on the distraction infront of me I forgot that there were 10 more of these things and when I felt two hundred pounds of giant animal fall onto my back I didn''t even have enough time to suck in a breath of air after my scream before it''s weight knocked what little bit of air I was lucky to suck into my lungs. They were very meticulous about what they did, distraction from the front attack from the rear, only one other approached to wrap it''s jaw around my leg and tear a massive chunk off my thigh effectivly crippling any ordinary target. The one on my back was busy chewing on my spine it''s powerful jaws had broken my back as the third watched me to make sure I was weak enough for what happened next. Had I explored this area when I first arrived I had an opportunity to have stumbled into the gracious nest of this animal and quite possibly have been raised by them like some kind of savage. I had wasted countless daysroughly amounting to two or three weeks scavaging and eating everything around me leaving huge and obvious trails leading right back to me. Of course my primitive mind had no notion of any of this.. No I was too busy weeping at the sensation of my spine breaking to truely appreciate what they were doing to me, when I looked up I couldn''t move my legs at all, those powerful jaws were firmly wrapped around my spine while several other animals pushed what I can only consider the young since they were only half the size, of the eleven five of them were young. As the five approached me in an even small circle with the three previous adults stalking around them, watching me. This included the one on my back which had released me to give the pups the opportunity to finish off a live kill. A handfull of seconds passedbefore I felt my legs again, my shattered spine naught but a horrifyingly traumatic phantom of pain, quite honestly I was so messed up from the sensation I couldn''t use my legs due to how shaky I was. Those five young were just as vicious as their adults andwhere they lacked finesse they more then made up for in raw energy, indeed you can imagine my predicament as five inexperianced wolves all rushed me to inflict as much damage as possible. My own instincts cueing in I naturally tried to fight back, kicking or swinging my arms and screaming loudly. I had noticed my first scream startled the young and gave me a few blissful moments of not pain. I had tried to use this time to get back on my knees so I could make a feeble attempt to crawl away. However the larger animals seemed to notice I had my energy back so they began to harry me, meaning any time I moved too quickly or made a motion that might allow me to crawl off they would take turns pulling on one of my four limbs and dragging me onto my stomach. All while encouraging their young to take large chunks out of me, let me assure you that animals are not stupid either and they pick up quite quickly how their adults had taken me out. It a matter of minutes I had found myself at the mercy of children as they took turns tearing at my throat, clawing or biting at my back and wrenching my limbs back and forth in an attempt to cripple or distract me. My wealth of healthy eating for the last two weeks was coming to bite me in the ass, quickly prolonging my misery as my wounds vanish shortly after each attack although any peices that fell off stayed off, my blood pooling around me only further preventing my escape. The pack seemed to know something was wrong, I was a stubborn prey simply refusing to die and the area was covered in bits of meat and blood causing them to lick their chops at the prospect of a meal. They interrupted the young ones by coming over and once again stomping and clawing my back to pin me down while I felt those massive jaws reach down and crush my neck or head because I remember blacking out. If I woke up at all during it I certainly don''t remember or perhaps they were so busy gorging themselves on me they managed to keep me unconcious during the feeding frenzy, anything that was ''left'' abandoned for scavangers to scrounge from. I woke to the sun in my eyes, I had been dragged off aparantly, half buried under a log somewhere as if stored for later. Nothing looked familiar around me so I had no clue how far they took me. I knew that if I didn''t get as far away from this place as possible, I was looking at repeating the bug incident here only under much more intelligent creatures. It wouldn''t take them long to figure out if they wait long enough there will always be more of me to go around and I was seriously beginnng to get angry at getting eaten and killed. It was a maddening circle, everything in these damn woods seemed to want to cause me harm. My small little brain working overtime to come to these basic conclusions, the fact that it''s an eat or be eaten world. My next real powerful emotion I could truely appreciate and understand was fear, a palpable sensation of the bile reaching the back of my throat with the contemplation of being caught by those wolves again. The bugs, despite the misery they caused was not so traumatically violent as what had happened with the encirclement of animals. Beaten around back and forth by claws and teeth, the growling and barkingthe feeling of hotbreath, the sensation of my spine cracking made me want to vomit just thinking about. It was horrifying, of course these animals don''t play with their food but this case was special they were teaching the young to kill quickly and efficiently I just refused to cooperate and prolonged my own suffering.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Pushing myself up out of the dirt I tilted my head and listened as carefully as possible, I was waiting to hear the tell tale growl of the animals closing in but I heard nothing but the birds and insects and other noises of the forest. I quickly settled onto my hands and knees and began crawling away, I should note this is not the standard shuffling of a child but rather the crouching gait of a gorrilla my knees bent to keep myself as low to the ground as possible I began to scurry. My pale body emulating the rocks on the ground, chalky white, I had yet to realize how much it had already saved me in my explorations until I spotted yet another animal, this one was floating in the air, or so it seemed at the time but it was actually flying each powerful beat of its wings keeping it in place as it looked around. It was looking for me. I had stopped moving the moment I saw it, pausing on the top of the rock I was climbing to watch with bated breath, reliving the horror of being mauled earlier before. I knew this thing could only want to do something similiar and with every passing moment my eyes grew wider and wider as my adrenaline spiked. If I had waited calmly I would have easily escaped the clutches of this bird but instead I had stumbled across a new ability my widened eyes were an easy target for the wind blowing dirt around and when something flicked against my eye I blinked. Now I don''t know how to explain this to anyone that doesn''t have eyes like mine, but the moment I blinked a lens of membrane stretchedover my eye causingmy entire worldto godark with splotches of bright light everywhere. This caused me to flinch and tumble off my rock while grasping my face, I had thought I was injured somehow and having had my eye sight wounded beforeit had healed quickly enough although this time it wasn''t coming back so with my anonymity ruined I tried to navigatewhile unable to make out my surroundings properly. I did manage to put two and two together however in the concept that the bright lights were living creatures, this particular revelation came to me as the flyer dived towards me and I rolled to avoid it''s approaching talons. A futile effort as my roll thrust me right into a nearby object, perhaps a tree stump or a rock or maybe just a big mound of dirt but I effectively stunned myself before feeling powerful grip sinking into my body my stomach dropping as I was lifted up into the air. Distracted by the pain I blinked rapidly as my eyes kaldescoped, transforming rapidly into several different types of vision as different lens covered them.Like flexing a muscle repeatedly as you flail while in a panic Iswapped through night vision, heat and normal vision. I didn''t have time to enjoy my returned vision because the flyer released me and I hurled down towards the rock that had once sheltered me allowing me to have the perfect view of my world eclipsing before I impactedand everything went dark. I awoke yet again in a new environment far from my place of origin. Frustrated at my lack of power, the flying creature had not set out looking for me originally, it had come hunting for the young of the same four legged creatures that had brutalized me earlier. I was little more then a snack to be chewed on to store a bit of extra energy for the flyers hunt but I didn''t know this. I was angry.. Four feet of howling rage hurlingmyself through the woods as fast as my feet could take me. I had not realized it yet because the terrain was full of hazards that required me to use my hands but I was actually running and I was faster then I had ever managed, my surroundings like more of a blur as my quick little form sprung from rock, to low hanging tree limbs my momentum was unstoppable, frustrationevaporating into elation as I realizednothing could catch me..! A snap brought my exhiliration to a crashing end as I had carelessly lost my footing between two rocks and broke my leg. I tumbled head over heel down a sharp incline until I hit the bottom where I threw up from the dizzyness my mind reeling from the several new broken bones I earned crashing my way down. The pain was short lived, gone and easily ignored as I healed. Don''t get me wrong the pain did not hurt any less than it always did.. I just had some reference for things that hurt far.. far worse and while this was enough to cause a grown man to weep it was nothing compared to the sensation I felt when my spine was gnawed on until it broke, or the sensation of your insides being devoured slowly. It was a sharp instantaneous thing that exploded with hurt but just as quick as it came if I held my focus I knew it would go away so I could manage. I did not know it yet, but I had been seriously underestimating exactly how dangerous I was. You might wonder how something only four feet weighing only 80-95 pounds of muscle could possible be lethal? Despite all the animals tearing me to shreds with superior strength my skin was very durable and it took actual effort to rip me apart. Nor was I entirely defenselss I did not do my struggle againstthe creaturesjustice each one of my fingers ended in a wickedly sharp talon where a fingernail would normally be. Intead of curving gently my claws were straight and as sharp as knives. You were not paying attention but a majority of the ground is quite rocky yet I was digging up roots, vegitation and peeling thick, aged tree bark off with my bare hands. I lost to technique, supirior strength and experience. In fact the bird itself couldn''t peirce my flesh easily enough with it''s claws so it had dropped me on the rocks tofinish me off. I was the equivilent of a four month year old child fighting grown men that fight for survival on a daily basis.. I could blend in with my surroundings, see in the dark and find anything with a heat signature. While I was not aware of how lethal I was I knew somewhere in my primitive mindset that I was learning, each experience taught me something new. Places to avoid, things I can and can''t eat, hell I even established I don''t even know how to control my own body my vision changing intermittantly when I don''t want it to, I had only just found out how fast I was when I ran. I moved slowly after recovering from my tumble. Deep in thought but never a moment passed where I was unaware of my surroundings, I had absolved to never be caught unaware again I hugged closely to a rock while my vision shifted between various visions scanning the area in every way I could I marveled at all the hidden creatures around me. I had been truely oblivious before.. I approached a hole that had a large light in it and thrust my hand inside grabbing hold of a small, furry object that screamed from the pain of my grip sinking my talons into it. I was startled at the noise, just as I had startled with cubs from before the comparison echoing in my head before I took a page out of their book and ripped the little furry creatures throat out like mine had been. The taste of warm blood was divine. I had been eating bitter, disgusting things covered in dirt or the occasional rock that would cause me agony as my sharp teeth chippedon it. This morsal in front of me was perhaps the most delicious thing I had ever tasted and as if I had never eaten a day in my life I threw caution to my surroundings and gorged myself on it. By the time I had finished devouring most of it-- some partsI avoided eating because it tasted vile and had the stink of excrement. Regaining my senses I felt my body grow heavy after my meal and I regarded the hole my meal had come from, it had hidden away out of sight. I had been sleeping wherever I felt like stretching out in the open to nap and I remembered how vulnerable I was to the four legged creatures that had surrounded me. I began to dig the little nest wider, carving a hole into the side of the hillI had rolled down and half buried myself before relaxing. As I idled I contemplated what I needed to do, something needed to change I had yet to push myself to my limits and I found eating things much more suiting to me then being eaten. I lacked control of my enviornment and control of my body.. Things were about to change, I did not like being hunted and I determined before I drifted off to sleep I will learn control. Chapter 3 - Control Rarely has anything I learned truely come ''easy'' to me. Even things that should have been perfectly natural for me I still had to put forth a great deal of effort, you rarely pause to think about how hard it was to learn something once you''ve established how easy it is. The comprehension of something as simple as the value of 1 is an astounding thing, it''s a profound bit of knowledge that you take for granted but not me... I''ll never forget the amount of effort I put into controling my body and into pushing myself the first foundation of my undying power of will started when I got back up after my first bout with hunger and insects. The second portion of my foundation was right here where I learned that every failure is a lesson and if you persist long enough you can accomplish anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I was being lazy. I had woken hours ago yet I was content, spoiled even, with my current situation. Here I lay half covered in dirt in the saftey of my burrowed home with a full belly and not a care in the world and despite the few hours I slept my body was still digesting and I didn''t feel like exposing myself to danger while feeling lethargic. I still yearned to do something though my fingers curling as I contemplated going out to hunt for other hidden creatures and evaluate their taste the only thing stopping me was the caution I learned from eating those bugs, so while content I waited a bit restlessly to see if I was in for an unfortunate experience. It turns out I was not, well into the morning I was still perfectly fine and after making my decision last night I was about to begin my first steps in experimenting in my level of control. In order to accomplish this I was forced to relive some of my experiences recalling exactly what it felt like to cause my eyes to change, to draw out that membrane that wrapped itself over my eye like a natural lens. I widened my eyes as hard as I could and nothing happened so I waited until they dried out, but still nothing happened and despite the short amount of time I was already beginning to grow frustrated because even when casually blinking while I was relaxing my vision occasionally resulted in a change. I tried to keep blinking until it changed but I found the more I blinked the less likely it was to happen I picked an object in the distance, a particularily long branch, as I focused on it I tilted my head from side to side as if maybe the lens would fall over my eyes and still nothing happened. My gaze narrowed dangerously at the innocent tree in the distance and I felt my eyes blink before the membrane stretched out across my vision turning my world into a mix matched shades of black while everything that appeared to posess heat appeared to have different shades of brightness representing the level of heat each body gave off-- to my evident surprise the stick I had been watching was actually an animal! A giant snake coiled across the branches of two trees blending in seamlessly to it''s surroundings and awaiting prey. I started to value the idea of caution and patience even more as had I left early in the morning I would have gone that direction, perhaps the snake would be eating me, most likely the same reason the snake chose it was because there were a lot of little lights hinting at something edible hidden away in burrows or under rocks tucked away into little nooks. I repeated the experiment with my eyes, narrowing them a second time and the second lens flicked over my eye although I regretted it instantly sucking in my breath and quickly burying my face in the dirt as I clawed at my eyes, stinging in pain. My second vision gave me the ability to see in the dark so I had pretty much blistered my eyes however the damage, if any, was quickly repaired. This is how I spent the next several hours focusing entirely on my eyesight and swapping between each vision until I could do it reliably by then I was feeling particularily energetic and I could not contain myself so I crawled out of my hole and after brushing myself off I climbed up the hill onto a nearby rock to soak up some of the suns warmth while I stretched. I had established I could move quickly when running but my balance was garbage, my hand and eye coordination was atrocious and the only thing keeping me on my feet was my momentum and as I teetered on my own two legs the motion seemingly unnatural as I got used to shifting my weight around my feet I stumbled forward a few times as I did a few laps around my hill, this was actually learned fairly quickly only about an hour of attempting various ways of standing and walking although I often switched back to my crouching gait since the terrain was easier to navigate on all fours. With a newly forged confidence I began to skulk about what I had officially decided would be my new territory. With warrented caution I surveyed the nearby area with my heat vision for any large threats although I quickly established I was in the clear so I began pushing myself to my limits I would practice leaping across rocks, fallen logs and running around and exploring the various types of animals that lived near my newly created domain. The hill I lived under truely provided an excellent vantage from the top, my domain had several larger white rocks I could use to hide near along with a rather large one ontop of the hill itself letting the light of the sun drop down almost perfectly illuminating the nearby area despite the massive trees and their boughs vying for the suns attention there was a large enough gap in the clearing to filter in the sunlight. The tall grass nearby was more blue than green there were all manner of flowers, weeds and vegitation, tiny flyers chirping, it was the second paradise I had found. Another excellent find was a source of water, I had not found it before but I smelled water while I was out exploring and found a small creek roughly 400 to 500 feet from my hidey hole providing me with the three essentials for survival: food, water and shelter. On occasion I still reminisce about moments like this, simple moments, when everything you need to do follows a set sequence of actions; eat, sleep, repeat. With my new found eye sight I was utterly spoiled with choices for things to eat, there were all kinds of creatures living nearby so sure of their ability to hide I could walk right up to their hiding place and they didn''t even run away, so certain they would be overlooked. It gave me an opportunity to inspect several animals ranging from tiny hairy creatures that leapt from tree to tree and ate nuts to larger fatter creatures that moved in bigger groups and ate anything in their path, they were hairless like myself and made lots of squealing noises, their teeth so large they poked out of their mouths. There was the occasional short green animal that walked on two legs it was only three feet tall and it scurried about like it knew I was watching pausing to smell the air but unable to find me so it left quickly enough into some kind of cave I was not ready to explore. So like this I began repeating this cycle, days would pass while I was practicing using my eyes, stalking the life around me for as long as possible all while ranging out a little further each and every time until I knew the extent of the life in my domain but never more then a mile or two since I knew I was near the territory of the flyers or the four legged creatures that had brutalized me and I wasn''t prepared to draw their attention. I was beginning to grow frustrated though because despite my best efforts to be silent and the fact I could smell my prey getting close to them was decidedly difficult and even in perfect silence they seemed to be alerted to my presence and bolted off, the effect seemed to be random sometimes they would catch me and other times they would be oblivious. Once again you have to keep in mind I do not put two and two together all the time and I couldn''t quite comprehend that if I could smell them than most likely they can smell me. I was tracking things with the wind at my back all but blowing my vile, stinking presence to everything I stalked. I didn''t know the names of these things residing in my domain at the time but I had found worgs, goblins, snakes, hares, harpies, wild boar, squirrels, foxes, birds.. Assorted creatures large and small, you might wonder why such a large variety of creatures were living so close. I did not know it at the time since I take my own needs for granted, I didn''t bother to think that because I needed to eat and drink so too did all of these animals, sure I knew they needed to eat because they hunted me and chewed on me but I didn''t put these two facts together. I had been suffering under so much attention because I didn''t know how to skulk properly and avoid predators that were simply seeking a bit of water and instead found a free meal. No intelligent beast lives right next to a water source because they would suffer competition on a daily basis on animals just looking for something to slake their thirst. While my new domain easily reached the nearby creek I had essentially set myself up for failure I just didn''t know it yet. One particular day I noticed a large group of little green creatures while I was out and about, trying to stalk a fox that kept somehow knowing I was nearby causing it to flee rapidly I had chased it down three times already and yet again I watched helplessly as it fled the moment I was within eye-shot of the damn thing. That was when I smelled something on the wind causing me to turn around I followed my nose to find a group of eight of these little green creatures and I instantly thought of the pack of worgs that had ambushed me, the movements of the goblins were much less graceful however they were headed in my direction so I quickly moved in a seperate direction, likening after the fox that had fled before it dawned on me-- finally. I scented the goblins and moved away from them I had been giving myself away! I wanted to hit myself in the head at my own stupidity however I lacked the requisite time so I scaled some nearby rocks and squeezed between two of them before going motionless swapping to normal vision. There was definatly some kind of pack mentality to them, the biggest of them constantly reaching out to strike its fellows the entire time they were.. Growling? Yipping.. They made a lot of noise and once one person was done growling the next started in a constant flow. I shook my head, these things were never going to catch something like that however I had noted they were not moving after they reached the clearing instead they began gathering items like large sticks and rocks. That was when I noticed they were even more strange because I had initially thought they had hair but when the biggest of them took their hair off and revealed their naked chest I was surprised. I did not know animals could climb out of their fur.. I did not like the taste of hair. Next they began piling wood into the center of the clearing stacking rocks around the pile I watched in fascination at what they were doing, hours had passed and the biggest of them would constantly strike them causing them to speed up until he turned his back. As more time passed more of them started to arrive, eight turned into thirteen, thirteen turned into twenty.. Just how many of them were there! I did not know so many animals lived together the longer I watched my fascination turned into irritation as I began to get hungry. If there are so many of these things wont they eat everything in my domain? What happens if they find that plump hare I was saving, or track down that fox? Irritation turned into anger. How dare they and I snorted as I felt my blood begin to boil.. I had been practicing and I was quite fast my strength surprising for my size however I had yet to truly test myself against anything and all I knew how to do was run away. Aside from instinctively lashing out at those worgs I was lacking in my martial prowess.. Even the food I ate and killed was pathetically weak if not quite tasty so a small bit of reluctance crossed my mind. Leave them to eat my domain or chase them off as I had been chased off. The answer was obvious the more I thought about it.. I was already here, I had not run off. I was going to go fight them and so I settled in and waited until it got dark. As night fell I swapped to night vision. Watching as they brought all manner of strange things with them sticks with fur stretched along it they wore fur that resembled many creatures I had seen as if they were pretending to be these animals by wearing them while others wore nothing at all. They seemed enamored with sticks because they had so many of them, bent sticks, sticks with rocks on them the biggest of them had a particularily shiny object that glinted when it caught the sun it was rounded on one end and flat tapering to a point like a shiny stick only it was perfectly straight. I wasn''t ready to move yet however my hand was forced when three of these goblins had somehow made it to my hiding place they sat down and stretched out ontop of the rock merely inches from my hiding spot as I felt a brief tingling of cold fear. How had they snuck up? I had heard nothing from them and smelled nothing until they were right upon me. I felt for the wind and noticed it had died my negligence hadn''t noticed I was relying on it as an early warning system yet didn''t even pay attention to the details of which direction it was blowing. I made a mental note to always remember which way the wind was blowing.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. These goblins had snuck off to take a nap rather then work, although I didn''t know that.. To me they were dangerously clever things on the verge of finding me so I darted out of my hiding place with all the energy I could muster my first goblin kill was quick as my hand tore it''s throat open I spared no lingering glance to ensure it was dead.. there were two more one had watched me dart out and was in the midst of opening it''s mouth to scream while grabbing a stick it had left on the ground but I had already tackled him and my jaws sunk into his throat as I held him down ripping a bloody mouthful away and licking at my lips as I regarded the third one. It had bright yellow eyes that almost glowed in the moonlight unlike mine which were more like a dull gold, I noticed at this distance they did have hair although it was patchy and it only grew on their head this creature was utterly paralyzed. I remembered the first time I saw violence, that deer in the headlights look before I was pounced on and my spine broken I darted forward and grabbed the goblin around it''s neck releasing it from whatever stupor it was in as it grabbed my arm and I lifted it off the ground while squeezing until I heard a satisfying cracking. Panting heavily I dropped the goblin and felt a wash of emotions hit me like a hammer I had felt more alive in this moment then ever before my heart was hammering my blood raging and my whole body felt like it was on fire I felt all the unknown rage and frustration at being helpless wash away as I realized I was not going to lose my domain, I could fight these things and claim what is mine. Kneeling down I thrust my hand into a goblins chest cavity and tore out it''s heart. I had found these things, hearts, held the most blood which I found to be the most tasty and took a large bite out of it, chewing the tough meat as blood poured down my chin still warm I felt a sensation to scream as loudly as possible as if announcing my presence, a direct challenge to them for daring to encroach on what I have deemed was mine. Restraint was not my strong suit, nor was intelligence and I was drunk on the multitude of elation from my victory, feeling invulnerable I let out my challenging roar stomping my foot down as I stared down at the clearing from my rock. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" My voice was alarming even to myself, my tone was deep however it broke towards the end from the amount of force I put into it my stomach ached for a moment and my body shook. I kicked the heartless corpse down letting it tumble towards their camp, towards all who had heard the noise trying to pinpoint it''s origins as it echoed a crowd of six or seven had spotted me, the corpse and readied their weapons as I threw myself down after them, I had yet to vent properly and let out another cry this one even louder as I charged seven of them, three of which turned and fled my warcry the others terrified thrust their sticks out at me holding them still as if they thought I would run myself into them. Before I lost my momentum I simply curled onto all fours and leapt forward my body spearlike as I tackled one of them in amidst their group my claws trying to tear it''s throat out but it was determined to live blocking my attempts I gave up and sank my hand into it''s stomach disembowling it. I then felt something thrust against my back, it hurt but it didn''t do much more then scratch the surface of my skin. I turned and glowered at the goblin that had struck me, batting the stick to the side I leapt on it next this one had clung so tightly to it''s stick it''s throat was an easy target and it was dead in but a moment that is when I felt four more jabbing sensations. It hurt but only barely so I lashed out at the sticks knocking some away only to have them replaced by more.. I was not killing them fast enough and the three that had run off came back with more. Their weapons were not effective against me but while they couldn''t peirce my skin with their feeble attempts my forward movement was kept in check by the same stick. I had killed two in the first exchange five total counting the three slackers on my rock. I don''t know how it happened but now I had almost twelve of them surrounding me so I grabbed one of the sticks and yanked on it pulling a goblin too foolish to let go of its weapon into the circle I began to pull it apart, venting my frustrations on it to the abject horror of the other goblins around me they began shaking all of them growling more nonsense. What truely scared them is when I licked my fingers clean and bared bloody teeth at them I let out another roar which gave them pause causing them to cease their tireless jabbing long enough for me to dart forward and curling into a ball I rolled under the spears and began pulling at the goblins legs.. The nearest ones simply gave up and fled while I had grabbed three different feet and pulled them down I suffered from countless jabs as I began to bleed my three new victims. I was trained by wolves.. in a sense, not to play with my food each one of my strikes aiming for a throat, heart or lungs did the most damage although I did not know what they were I just knew if I struck at their chest often enough they would die faster. By now I had over twenty of them surrounding me in a wide circle. Too many for further tricks as the moment I moved forward they all pushed together and forced me back into the center, their primitive weapons was simply not sharp or strong enough to hurt me without more strength. That is when they began to growl in unison, a single noise repeated again and again. "Gaaju.." "GAAju..!" "GAAAJUU...!" The momentum of the noise startled me and I had nothing better to do but stand in irritation searching for a way out. What happened next bewlidered me as I saw something I had never seen before. While I was busy fighting goblins far more then twenty had arrived to this clearing.. There were probably closer to eighty and I was dumb enough to think I had everything handled. No, they sent a small group after me to simply hold me down while they prepared in the center of the clearing. A bright light illuminated the area as someone lit the massive bonfire they had been building and I let out a scream of pain as I stared directly at the bright blooming of flame flicking back to normal vision as I shook my head blinking away the pain as my eyes healed themselves. I felt something strike me but no speartips were nearby, a goblin had let loose an arrow and it struck me in the chest embedding an inch or so into my durable skin causing me to hiss and pull the arrow out. More of them began to fall and continuously strike me, occasionaly they hit my particularily sensitive bits which made me charge the awaiting spears demanding blood but I was simply pushed back into the center. The goblins were watching me with very clear fear. Smarter then your average idiot they knew wounds don''t simply heal, my skin was difficult to peirce and nothing they did kept me down while every wound I took simply vanished. I had a small pile of arrows on the ground now pulling them out and glaring at the archers in the distance, they had given up trying to kill me. Everyone was waiting on something, everyone except me who kept lashing out. I managed to get one more goblin with the stick pulling trick the goblin so determined to keep its weapon it''s fellows could do nothing but watch as he fell into the center. They had tried to push me off with their jabs but I just dragged him with me and I made an example out of him by ripping his heart out and taking a bite out of it, letting the meal fall to the ground I picked the corpse up and threw it at a group hoping to break their wall but they just knocked the corpse out of the air with their sticks. Clever little bastards. After what felt like a long time but was only a couple of minutes, I got to confront what I would soon learn to be my very first nemisis. Gaaju. Gaaju was massive. I''m talking five foot eleven and a half inches tall rippling with thick corded green muscle, he had a suit of shiny fur that clinked strangley while he lumbered forward. Gaaju was a hobgoblin which meant he was smarter, stronger and faster then all of these goblins he also had shiny sticks just like the first big goblin I had seen only his stick was much longer. They were swords. When the massive hobgoblin arrived the crowd parted to let him pass before closing up behind him and ending any ideas of me escaping. I was stuck starring up at possibly the biggest damn thing i''ve ever seen in my life and watched as he gestured and growled pointing his finger at me and then his growls got louder while all the surrounding goblins looks terrified. He drew out his stick and yelled before swinging it at me, unphased I was under the impression these sticks simply couldn''t hurt me although I still didn''t stand still I darted to the side allowing the stick to draw a long graze diagonally down my all the way from my shoulder to my waist the single blow sliced my thick skin open by an inch or two and the hobgoblin laughed in amusement at how easy I was to dispatch and I reeled under the pain but pushing through I darted forward despite the pain and thrust my hand towards his chest, thinking victory within my grasp as I watched his eyes widen, I was caught by surprise as he began laughing again while I struck his chest. He was wearing chainmail. My only weapon was entirely ineffective against him.. He didn''t even bother to defend himself as I threw all of my anger onto him punching, kicking clawing at his limbs he just howled in laughter at my ineffective attacks before swinging his sword again, this time he thrust it forward impaling me along the weapon he pinned me into the ground before grabbing a few of the goblins spears. He used them to much better effect as he all but nailed me into the earth with the spears his superior strength showing it''s ability to thrust the dull rock blades at the end of each spear through my tough skin. Withdrawing his sword he watched as I healed and frowned before raising his sword and smashing it against me, again and again I screamed until he was fed up with my screams and chopped my head off. That was why, when a minute had passed and I had regrown my head even the mighty Gaaju had a bit of fear in his eyes. Barking loudly he immeadiatly sent the goblins off running, I wasn''t even exhausted yet but I could do nothing, healing my wounds and regrowing my head so quickly had taken a lot of energy out of me and I began to feel the stirrings of hunger despite even my most recent meals. I watched as the goblins began piling sticks around me, they didn''t make a particularily large pile before the hobgoblin took out a foul smelling liquid and poured it over me and some of the logs and a goblin arrived next to him holding a torch. He gave me a lingering, worried stare before tossing the torch onto my body. My screams echoed well into the night. To this day I hope each and every one of those goblins die a horrible death filled with agony and pain for what they did to me and I curse their entire legacy to death.. I was burning, flames licked at my skin as I roasted amdist the logs no part of me was free of this and I thrashed violently amidst the flame my whole world was pain my skin repairing itself as the flame rapidly burned through my resevoir of energy I had built up. I had to wait until the fire caught the spears pinning me down. It took almost fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of eternity as far as I was concerned my body savagely burned while embers burying themselves into my flesh only to have my regenerative effect combat it with new flesh to burn. It was hell. I can''t even explain how painful it was because it wouldn''t do it justice and I understand that is a lame excuse but imagine every burn you''ve ever gotten now imagine stabbing your wound with a red hot knife covered in salt and twisting the knife, then do that all over your body. On your privates, your face, mouth, eyes and anus.. all of these sensitive places. Do it for fifteen minutes. By the time I could finally begin to crawl away I had officially made Gaaju begin to sweat, how do you kill something that can''t die? He thought I was a troll and that with fire I would loose my regenerative abilities. Oh it certainly slowed things down damage on such massive scale exhausted me down to the very basic level of regeneration meaning when I crawled out of the embers of the flame I was more bone and muscle then recognizeable flesh. Pure willpower pushed me to drag myself from the flames waiting for muscles to regenerate long enough to push or pull myself into the clearing. There was a moment of silence as my enemy regarded exaclty how to deal with me with yet another bark and series of growls goblins reappeared with yet more new and interesting items, although I couldn''t appreciate them as I lie in the dirt waiting for my skin to regrow itself my eyes would have to wait. I felt pain again as a powerful grip grabbed my arms and clasped chains around my limbs after that I lost conciousness as I felt that the edge of a sword on my neck the second time, with no reserve of energy to call on it would take hours to repair all the damage done to me. I had lost control and paid the price. I had no idea what was in store for me. Chapter 4 - Escape I have found that simplicity is often profound however you cannot truely recognize how profound something is until you''ve gone a long ways into analyzing something only to come back to it''s simplest form to find it radically more complicated then you initially understood it. The more you study the more you find yourself moving in a big circle back to the beginning. This particular chapter in my life is about escape and the things you are willing to do when pushed. It is from experiences like these I argue with myself for years to come whether or not I hated it, was thankful for it.. or a combination of both. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So here I was, deep in the bowels of the earth and bound by chains by the Hobgoblin Gaaju. I should mention this memory is not my initial capture.. This was countless days later or perhaps even longer. Time blurs when you cannot sense the passing of the sun. My deeds in battle struck a deep fear into those that had witnessed me not so much the handful of goblins I had slain and feasted on but the fact wounds would simply not kill me. The idea that something like I could exist would give anyone nightmares. "Sakrat su oooor.." The hobgoblin growled after me as he watched me. "Gaaju tek ese enma" with an impossibly low baritone his voice boomed even when talking normally. I responded to his growls with some of my own bearing my perfectly white teeth, my newly regrown head didn''t have blood stained teeth yet my gaze never left his as if sensing the subtle nature of what the gaze stood for the first act of establishing dominance over any creature really was subjecting it to your will. I refused to yield and I earned myself a broken jaw as he delivered a devistating punch to my face for refusing to look away, this action naturally forced me to look away but I did not consider myself any less for it and after a moment passed my jaw clicked back into place to the irritation of my captor. We had several of these talks him and I ending each one like this as he tried to subject me under his will. As he stalked away I took the time to recall the various methods were used to this end. Recalling the first day I woke, I was in this exact same spot,chained to a large stalagmite that pushed up from the ground and it was pretty much in the center of the goblin''s cave allowing me to watch all of them and in turn it allowed them all to see me. Gajuu was smart, smarter then even me maybe.. He understood the fear I represented especially if there were more where I came from so he laid me out for everyone to see what happens when someone challenges him, that even though I cannot die, I was still at his mercy. The knowledge that I can regenerate from any wound did not deter him from trying to find exactly how to kill me, he went to great lengths to growl at me every day before we began he would say the same phrase over and over only rarely adding new noises although I had no idea what he was saying, I thought it simply the Hob''s version of growling. It started rather tame, by that I mean he started by physically beating me and even with his great strength he quickly realized how tough my skin is andwhile his blows were still powerful enough to shatter bone and deliver damage a single one of these fists that could probably pulp a goblin was only managing to severly wound me, a wound that didn''t last long, my ribs repairing themselves by the time the second blow struck and while each one was painful enough to draw a cry of pain from me it was nothing compared to having been set on fire, that was my new measuring post, those flames that had seared the flesh from my back and cooked my spine, my insides.. repeatedly. Compared to that then these small pains were almost laughable. Like pinching really hard. That day I considered my first win since he had given up after only a few minutes of beating me to instead stand off in the distance watching me with calculating eyes. Several days passed as he prepared his next attempt, oh he came by each and every day to growl at me and try to stare me down, slapping me around while roaring loudly at nearby goblins but he always left shortly after to deal with something else. This gave me time to watch the goblins, I noticed there were young ones and older ones a majority of them were naked or wore flimsy loincloths and the stench was almost unbearable it was ripe with unwashed bodies and excrement. Handfulls of goblins died from sickness but they repopulated so quickly the loss was negligable at best. Instead what stuck out to me the most was none of them were ever idle for very long, a bigger goblin would always come by and start slapping them around until they began moving. I observed the various groups and noticed a pattern the strongest goblins were the ones bossing the others around they wore the skins of animals and clutched their sticks or in a rare case a bit of metal in the form of armor, weapon or shield. The rest were put to work moving chunks of meat around, sharpening sticks or rocks. More of them would take tree bark and skin it into long strips that were braided into rope to tie sharpened rocks or metal onto their sticks to make primitive weapons, tendons and guts were stripped of some kind of fiber and braided as well to make crude bows or more string. Anyone caught eating the material for weapons was generally beaten to death which happened more often then you might think. My observations would have to wait though, because I was once again underestimating my foe. A true nemisis is someone mortally opposed to your existence someone that forces you to overcome trials in order to subdue them before they subdue you. You learn quite a bit when galvanized by conflict and Gajuu was a testiment to the sinister nature of intellect when applied with a calculatingmind andif I were more attentive I would have noticed it the first time he walked away to watch me. Instead I had grown complacent with his daily beatings and stare downs I had thought I was combatting his attempts. I was a fool. When Gajuu arrived for hisnext attempt I started off by immeadiatly raising my head defiantly.I was awarded with a large Hobgoblin hand grabbing hold of my bald head and pinning it against the rock I was chained against while one of the two stakes plunged into my eye and as I howled in agony my wound healing around the stake, the last thing I saw as the second stake descended wasGaaju''s ugly, grinning face. The pain subsided quickly and the only thing keeping me from healing my damaged eyes were the large peices of wood emedded in my face, which I was unable to pull out, leaving me effectivly blind while blows started raining down on me and I could find no discernable pattern. Believe it or not this was actually his one and only act of mercy he spared me, a very brief respite, a sense of normalcy with the beating and the roaring before he stalked off as he usually did. People fear the unknown.. I am certainly no different in this regard so used to my enhanced senses I don''t think Gaaju truely realized the damage he did to me. He knew, of this I am certain, that he could not battle me on a physical front so he decided to wage a war of mentality of which I was vastly outsripped. I had only just realized the potential my eyes afforded me and the ability to pinpoint living creatures to see almost perfectly in the dark and the comfort of recognizing your surroundings and yet here I was stripped of the very thing that gave me a measure of confidence. My senses are quite sharp and with my eyes blinded they almost doubled I could hear things so much more clearly that it startled me I lost track of time but every loud noise, rattle or goblin scream startled me as I was unable to cope with such a radical change so quickly my mental barriers were crashing by the time I heard the tell tale growl of Gaaju.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. "Sakrat su ooor.." He growled and I felt the heat of his breath causing me to flinch as I recalled the experience with the worgs. The reaction clearly pleased him as he laughed rather then roared "Gahhahahhahha! Gaaju tek ese enma bas tu gikn..!" His tone lowering into a hiss as he whispered towards the end. What should have happened was he started beating me but instead I felt myself being lifted from the stalagmite and the sensation of weightlessness hit me before I realized I was flying through the air my body was not weakened from hanging there. The only pressing concern was the stakes lodged in my eye sockets and the pressing desire for food I had been deined so long. My thoughts of hunger interrupted when I impacted the ground and the loud snapping noises of bones breaking from the fall, I felt a wetness near my feet and despite the agony of my bones reknitting themselves I plunged my face into the water drinking heavily. More laughter from the deep voice that somehow made it down behind me despite what felt like a long drop. "Cani..?" Gaju growled "Tekn gri..!" His last word was punctuated by thumping a hide covered foot into my gut forcing the air out of my lungs and causing me to heave before I found myself surrounded by water-- unable to swim and weighted by chains I didn''t have much else to do but drown. I sunk into some of the nastiest water I had ever smelled or tasted a stagnant pool that suffered the neglect of goblins, I struggled and thrashed for a what felt like forever as my chest burned.. I felt like I had a hot iron thrust into my lungs before I eventually gave in and began sucking water into my lungs that were desperatly searching for air. Convulsing violently from the pain and my muscles twitching I eventually ceased movement and I lost conciousness. This sweet release was very short lived however as I can only guess moments had passed.. or perhaps quite some time? I had no way of knowing. I was awakened as the water was forced out of my lungs still sputtering only to hear the dissapointed growling of my captor and as he spoke to me, I felt myself being dragged along the ground I was lifted up and tossed again but only a short ways before I felt the heat of the fireplace he had thrown me onto scattering a handfull of goblins, I assume, from the sounds and random touches I felt as I tried to roll away from the flames while screaming in pain. After I had crawled away from the flame I felt the tug of my chain reeling me toward whoever held it''s leash, presumably Gaaju, who then grunted before I felt myself being lifted up and deposited uncerimoniously onto the original stalagmite I had only just begun to know. Time would pass Each day the wait between beatings would grow longer each session seemed to last forever or perhaps it was quicker.. I was loosing myself quite assuredly. It was the not knowing when it would happen that was killing me because sometimes I could hear him approach only to walk past other times he would walk up to me and roar and beat on me and I was left waiting in the anticipation of a newly visited horror not to speak of the few he had already amused himself with.. Dismembering, skinning, grinding bones, drowning and burning me. I will admit that at this point I was officially broken, but that wasn''t enough for Gaaju he had to make his point that his existance was that much more superior to me. His punishments only grew more elaborate as he drove nails into my ears leaving me with only taste, smell and touch meaning I could feel things twice as acutely as before it also meant I wouldn''t know when it was coming until I felt him beating me or moving me. I managed two more of these sessions before I went from broken to shattered. The powerful willpower I had built from marching out of the insect territory was left laying in peices inside of me, the meager lessons and instincts the worgs imparted onto me was useless in this case while the confidence my recent hunts and combat with the goblins developed had evaporated. I just wanted the pain to end, I would do anything for it to stop.. To be able to see again, to hunt again, to eat and drink my fill.. I was stripped of everything that it meant to be alive. Isolated in the darkness of my mind with nothing better to do then conetmplate the most recent event, reliving my torture in my sleep. So when Gaaju approached and I felt his hand on me, I didn''t bother to flinch I didn''t care anymore, I was empty. He must have sensed it because the beatings started to be scaled back and like any good tyrant he mixed rewards with his punishments, he removed the nails first and for the first time in what felt like forever I could hear again I almost relished the sound of Gaaju''s arrival. Again the beatings scaled back until he would only come by to growl at me before one day he pulled out the stakes from my eyes and I could hear him breathing as he waited, I felt the weighted pressure of his gaze despite not being able to see yet.. I knew what he wanted and by the time my eyes were healed he was glaring venomously at me his body language screamed for me to dare to challenge him again so when I was about to raise my head.. I hesitated. Was it really worth it...? I was a shattered husk my original personality.. what little I had managed to develop all but gone my conciousness had retreated into the depths of my mind to protect itself and while over the past couple of days of nothing but casual beatings some of my mind had crawled back out, I was still just too vulnerable to his manipulations. I bowed my head in defeat and learned the next most valueble lesson, one that I cannot express how invaluble it truely is and that those who underestimate it be warned of your own folly.. I had learned humility. While Gaaju was busy roaring with laughter at his victory over me, he would slap me around and bellow challenges knowing I would keep my head bowed. He had won.. He put in the effort and deserved the credit for it. However for all of his craftiness had he watched just a little longer he would have noted the determined look in my eyes as I kept my head lowered he would have noticed the tiny, smoldering embers of what used to be me not quite extinguished or perhaps he did see it and simply mistook it to be the reflection of one of many goblin firepits in my eyes. I wanted to escape his clutches and I will admit I was terrified of him. So terrified I knew I could not find another peaceful night knowing he was alive.. His methods were too effective and the resultant torture I had suffered made me willing to do ANYTHING to avoid it ever again, even if it meant crawling through a river of excrement or obeying the orders of a Hobgoblin. My fear of the void of being unable to hear or see transcended my fear of him. Of course humility was not the only thing I learned, blossoming in my heart lay the core of the heat that showed in my eyes. Hatred. Hate is a powerful word but I can rest assured even all these years later that I hated Gaaju, despite everything he provided me and taught me. I mentioned it before, that a true nemisis will teach you many things but the only way to end your grudge is over the body of the other and I cannot die. Gaaju didn''t realize it yet but he had lost the moment he started, he had won every battle only to be doomed to inevitably loose the war.