Heartstone

How do You Like the Dungeon?

Giant spiders pinned Arwin and Yaz in sitting positions up against the walls of separate dungeon cells. Then the arachnids webbed the prisoners' wrists to the cold, dark stone of the dank walls while a small host of black gremlins gleefully danced around. The devilish little monsters cackled and poked and sniffed, eager to taste the prisoners.

Arwin vainly tried to escape their interest but it was no use. The gremlins crawled right up onto him where he sat, invading every nook and cranny with their taloned hands, licking his face with long black tongues and giving each other approving grunts in gremlin speech. Apparently, he was, if not delicious, then at least tasty? To his great relief, he obviously hadn't been named as dinner quite yet because the giant arachnid guards eventually ushered the gremlins out.

The heavy wooden door slammed shut with a resounding thud, leaving the tiny prison cell in total darkness.

Arwin couldn't see any details around himself. He couldn't even make out his own legs stretched out in front of him. The sheer absence of visual input would have been overwhelming if he'd never been caving and been in similar situations a few times before. As it was, his plight was still very unsettling. What else lurked within the cell that he couldn't see? Rats with big, sharp teeth that could chomp pieces out of his legs and body? Poisonous centipedes? Disgusting cockroaches? Spiders? Well, of course, there were spiders! He shuddered.

His skin crawled as his traitorous imagination pictured the creepy crawlies casually making their way over every inch of him and being powerless to do anything about it. Darn imagination. Why did it have to come up with the worst possible scenarios in a time like this? Why couldn't he be picturing a cozy fire and freshly baked bread? Or being in the arms of a beautiful woman on the beach? One who didn't have fangs or threatened to kill him? Why was he imagining more spiders? Stupid imagination was just making things worse!

Cold stone pressed up against his legs and back, and he knew it would eventually chill him. He tried calling out to his friend. "Yaz? Yaz!"

There was no answer.

Growing worried, he tried again. "Yaz! You there?"

"Yeah," came a despondent reply.

"We've got to find a way out of here."

"Sure," Yaz replied, bitterly sarcastic. "Just close your eyes and wish upon a star. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. We'll be magically transported to some faraway land, and all our problems will be gone." The skeleton sighed. "I'm sorry. I never should have let you get dragged into this."

Yaz's despondency paused Arwin for a moment. Things didn't look good, but Arwin refused to succumb to the same sense of despair that Yaz was apparently falling to. He knew it wasn't just their perilous situation that bothered the skeleton, though. The Enchantress had hit Yaz where he already hurt. She'd called Yaz a failure. He suspected that Yaz had already felt that way for a very long time. Although Yaz had seemed cheerful enough so far, Arwin figured that, underneath a thin surface layer of congeniality, the man was depressed and struggling to hold onto the hope of ever finding his lost love.

Arwin put fire into his voice. "Yaz, forget what she said. She was just trying to get under your skin. You can't let it get to you. Heck, you don't even have skin to get under."

"Why? It's all true, isn't it? I'm a joke. All this time, wandering all over the place, never finding her. Not even a hint. I failed Epheria."

"Don't say that!"

"It's been so long," Yaz muttered distantly. "I can't even remember her face. Her face!" he cried with anguish. "She's gone. Forever. And there's nothing I can do about that now."