On the second day, you began to mine the walls of your prison cell.
You've managed to carve out enough room for a bedroll. Grabbing a blanket from your pack, you lay on the ground. Your trial continues.
You spend the night on a pallet of stone, shivering through the frigid night. Go to sleep
On the third day, you decide to explore the corridor. There has to be a way to escape.
The passage is long, but leads you to another cell. This time, the occupant is human. His name is Dennis, an x-ray scientist.
Dennis is excited to meet a fellow mage. Too bad the duke's men took away your spellbook.
The two of you begin to share stories of your work with x-rays, your families, and your times at the university. You speak of your experiments in the field of magic.
The days have been long, so an excuse to talk seems quite welcome. Though you must soon part, Dennis tells you to meet him every couple of days, so that you might share stories of your work.
A couple of days later, you meet Dennis, who's excited about a breakthrough. He believes he's found another way for living beings to manipulate x-rays without disrupting the objects around it.
You are intrigued. If this technology became readily available, it would change the world. However, the scientist says he needs more time to understand the properties of this material.
Another pair of days pass, and you meet with Dennis again. This time, he doesn't want to talk about x-rays.
His wife, Theresa, passed away recently. He needs someone to talk to.
You've also had someone pass away recently. Your son, who passed away eight years ago. You and Dennis hold each other, hoping to protect each other from the grief of loved ones lost. You discuss the past, the present, the future.
One day, Dennis doesn't come to meet you. You spend the day in solitude, waiting.
Two days later, one of the queen's men opens your cell. He has your spellbook in hand. When you reach out to take it, he snatches it away.
The guard tells you that the Mage Guild is no more; you are to be put to work in the queen's mines.
The next two weeks are spent in the mine. You bend over rocks and shove them into a cart. It's backbreaking work. Thankfully, the duke's men allow you some time to rest and eat between shifts.
You don't know how to turn the queen's contraption, which you now know powers a city of undead.
On the night of the twenty-eighth day, you find yourself in a mine cart heading towards the destination to which you were most recently dispatched.
As the cart slows to a stop, you lift your head to see that you've been transported deep underground.
You no longer hear the sounds of pickaxes from the mine above. You have no choice but to work this mine by yourself. You simply can't risk the wrath of the undead queen by telling her that her precious mines need workers.
For the first time in weeks, you are alone. Time seems to pass faster here, alone. Only one more shift left until you can sleep.
Your thoughts turn to your son. You wonder how he's doing. You decide that tonight, you'll make real food for the first time in weeks. Tonight will be a home cooked meal.
You set up a creel in the corner to catch the rainwater in a container. You pull out a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, a container of sauce, and a packet of salad. You toss them into the cart and grab a couple of dried apples as you go.
Due to the fall of the guild and the passage of the mines into the queen's dominion, you must use this contraption to preform the process.
As you close your hand around the wheel, the queen's will is the only thing you know.
The weight and size of the objects located in your hand hold you back. Your arms shake as you turn the wheel. Instead of the wheels of the cart turning, turning, turning, you fall forward, toward your items, toward the container, toward the ground.
You fall head first into the bucket carrying the sauce.
As you lay there, the last thing you hear is the words that you speak, with your last breath: "I am a hero."
And then you die.
