Eventually, I made my way down the other end of the hallway, which happened to turn right and had many more cells before finally stopping at another iron door. Mentally I named this one Door 2 and the one closer to my original cell Door 1. Unlike Door 1, this one had an intact statue next to it that I assumed was the same one that was once on the other end before it broke into the jagged rocks I’m using now. The statue was of a tall bulky man wearing a magnificent crown on his head, standing on a pedestal, with one hand seemingly pulling out his sword with the other hand stretched out in front of him, like he was casting some sort of spell. Looking down, I read the words on the pedestal.

Hyronius Galamon

Founder of the Galamon Dynasty

3142 - 2579 BC

What?! Thousands of years before the Catastrophe?! I have read about the Galamon Dynasty, but its founder was unknown and lost to time according to all the books I’ve read, I thought. If this is true, then I’ve just discovered ancient forgotten knowledge! I realized giddily, forgetting for a moment where I was and what condition I was in.

From prior knowledge, I knew that the Galamon Dynasty was at its peak about 400 years after the Catastrophe, having conquered half of the known world at the time, but is now a husk of its former self as the Galamon family nowadays are just rich nobles who live in castles.

So… I was captured by the Galamon family? Maybe? But why would they do this? I need answers, Goddamnit! I fumed. All I remember before waking up inside this dungeon was that I went to sleep in my room at night, and that’s about it. Unless… I sighed. It seems as if the horrifying nightmare that I woke up from… wasn’t just a nightmare.

The only way I have been moving forward without thinking much about my “dream” was by convincing myself that it was indeed a “very intense lucid dream,” which I was able to believe for a while because I have lucid dreams often. However, there was one image engraved onto the statue’s pedestal that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that my drowsy nightmare was not simply my brain putting my into insane situations: an insignia of a wyrm wrapped around an orb staff.

While I didn’t have the state of mind to register that insignia during the moment when I rushed the warrior in my “dream,” I most definitely do now. And that warrior had this exact insignia on his right shoulder plate. If I had any doubts before, they were all washed away on this realization.

The world of fire was real. I saw nobody on the streets but the Galadon warrior with a torch. Everyone I knew and loved, my family, my friends, my rivals, they may all be dead. The house I grew up in for twenty years -- gone. The library that I spent the majority of my time in -- gone. My entire town, all I knew, was burnt to the ground.

At this moment, life caught up with me and I just dropped to the ground, ignored my current semi-imprisonment, and cried openly for my past life that was long gone. I would never find the same peace again.

…

After crying my heart out and gathering my bearings, I resolved to myself that I would leave any more unproductive activities until I was free and safe. So, I got ready to mentally create my next short term goals as well as some long term goals.

All right, for the short term, I need to find a way to get through one of the iron doors. I don’t think waiting for some Galamon guard to open them is a very reliable idea. Though, I should create some contingency in case that happens so I could escape in an ideal way. Now, I realize that I could go in and out of any cage as I wish because I picked all the locks already and all I have to do to avoid getting stuck was bring the ladder with me inside whichever cell I am going into. Then I could just drink some drain water, set the ladder, climb up to the open door, pull the ladder over, and get down outside the cell. Easy. Since the drain water probably isn’t going anywhere and all the many remaining fleshy skeletons are most definitely not going anywhere, I have a reliable source of both food and water.

Now, for the long term, I need to know why my town was attacked by the Galamon family. I didn’t even know the Galamon still retained enough power to obliterate an entire town! Maybe the history books I was reading were slightly outdated. Next, I will find exactly whoever was responsible for the attack on my town. And I’ll KILL THEM ALL!!!

...Ah, who am I kidding? I’ll be happy to get out of here alive -- forget killing a single Galamon. Besides, I don’t want to kill anyone innocent, and of course there are many innocent people within the Galamon family as well. I just want to punish those that ruined my life and took away everything.

Sighing, I decided that the first thing I would do was make a countermeasure for anyone opening Door 1, since I deduced that Door 2 hadn’t been opened in forever, and probably won’t be -- if the rust connecting the door to the doorway was any indication. Therefore, I took the moss out of my pockets. Remember how I thought that they might be useful for something. Well, here is that something. The moss was so hard that it was completely stuck together and I could slowly bend it in different ways. So I just made a sack out of it: I put all the moss I had onto the ground on the hallway and flattened them.Next, I made a couple shapes like a horseshoe and superimposed them all by angling each successive moss piece slightly to the right of the previous one. After putting as many jagged rocks and locks I could fit into this paraboloid, I pulled together all the top parts and spun it around like I was using a screwdriver.

Looks like my craftsman background is coming in handy now, huh? I thought, wondering how ironic it was that I was making weapons against the Galamon with random things from their dungeon.

By the end, the top part of the sack was so tightly held together by the hard moss that I could carry the sack from the top without all its contents ripping through the bottom or sides of the bag.

Perfect. I grinned.

I made as many of these weaponized sacks as I could until I only had a few rocks and locks left, since the moss I simply got from any drain. My plan if a guard opened the iron doors was simple: I would hear the guard about to open the door, and quickly use the ladder to get up above the iron door. Luckily for me, there was a jutted out part of the wall directly above both iron doors, like a semi-platform -- probably some sort of design -- that I can now use to my advantage.Then, once I’m on this platform, I would throw as many weaponized sacks as I can from as high as possible on the guard, who is hopefully disoriented for enough time for me to grab the ladder, jump back, and break it over the guard’s head for an immediate knockout by falling with the ladder. I doubt my plan would work flawlessly due to too many chaotic factors in the moment, but I resolved to do at least something resembling it in the situation that a guard opens the door.

As a set-up for my plan, I placed as many weaponized sacks as I could on the thin platform above Door 1, and the last two I kept in my pockets.

...

Now, it was time to try breaking out of here. I figured that if I wanted to make any amount of noise, it would be a good idea to do it near the door that no one used in forever: Door 2. So I went to the other end of the hallway and broke through all the rust with a jagged rock. Next, I decided that I would target the weak point of any door: the hinges. Luckily, the hinges were on my side and the door would open towards me into the dungeon, both signs of outdated design. Though I can’t blame them because this place seems to have been built a very long time ago. It seemed as if these particular iron hinges were big, bulky barrel hinges.

I decided to coil a hard moss around a lock and repeatedly swing the mechanism up into the middle hinge as kind of a discount hammer, but instantly had a better idea. I stuck a jagged rock into the lock, sharpened the other end with the help of another rock, and continued my swinging actions using a mechanism somewhat equivalent to a hammer slamming up on a screwdriver to dislodge the iron nail inside of the barrel hinge. Since there was so much rust, it took a while, but I was finally able to get the nail out of its hinge. Then, kneeling down, I did the same on the bottom hinge. I couldn’t really reach the top hinge at my respectable 5’ 10’’ height, and I didn’t feel like walking all the way to the other door to get the ladder... so I sat on the shoulders of Galamon founder’s statue.

Haha, I wonder what Mother would have said if she saw me doing this. “Have you no respect for your elders, young man?” The thought brought a smile to my face for the first time since I saw this place.

Once I dislodged the last nail, all I had to do was pry the large, multi-ton iron door out of my way.

...Oh. Well, this should be no trouble at all, I thought sarcastically before giving up for now and falling asleep near Door 1, since I decided to be near Door 1 as much as I can.

Better safe than sorry, I thought grimly, before sleep overtook me once again.