I was smacked awake to stare at a very large and imposing man in uniform.  He waited for me to take in my surroundings (strapped to a chair in a torture chamber) before speaking.  "Silvanus Draby," he boomed, "Welcome to the Pit of Fire."

"No shit," I laughed.  "I'm honored."  He landed a solid and rather painful backhand slap across my face.  Why had I said that?  It just popped out.  Anyway, the Pit of Fire is the most secure prison in the country, reserved for only the most Infamous and Evil Offenders.

After I finished swearing the torture commenced.  It was bad, like nothing I had experienced, and I was eventually deposited barely alive in a cell.  I was unconscious by the time I hit the floor.

I awoke from rancid nightmares to equally rancid food being shoved through the slot in the bottom of the door.  I didn't eat; I was still nauseous from the killing and the torture and all.  I couldn't get the walls to stop crawling, so I shut my eyes for a while, trying to get my mind under control.  After a while I opened my eyes and looked over at the guard outside my cell, who was watching me warily.  Warily.  That's when it hit me.  People, nobility, government people, were afraid of me.  Me!  I could use that...  I thought for a moment, decided I was sufficiently covered in blood, cuts, bruises, and other extremely painful wounds, and said, "My skin itches."  The guard's eyes widened ever so slightly and I grinned, which probably scared him more.  Oh, this was going to be fun.  A Plan began to form in my mind.  No one had ever escaped from the Pit of Fire before, but I'd be dammed if I didn't try.

I began to cultivate a fear of me in all the guards but one.  He was the only one who hadn't shown any fear of me at first, but, little did he know, he was the biggest Pawn in my Game!  Over the next Indeterminable Amount of Time, I was tortured, got to know the other guys in the hall, was tortured some more, and was just generally constantly in pain.  The only thing helping me retain any sanity was my Plan, and even that didn't help very much.  It was during this time I had my first full, wakeful Hallucination.

It started with the walls bleeding.  I rubbed my eyes on the irrational suspicion that (even though I hadn't been tortured in a few days) there was blood in them, but my hands came away clean, and the walls kept right on bleeding.  I heard footsteps in the walls, then the grim figure of Death stood before me, holding his Big-Ass Scythe.  I looked at him, into his empty eye sockets, and said, "Shit, I can't die yet.  Go back to hell."  He made a rude gesture, then everything vanished, the cell was empty with blood-free walls, and the guard (one of the ones who was afraid of me) was staring at me.  I said to him, "What?" and he dutifully pretended to ignore me, but that's when I realized I had just been hallucinating.  Greatly unnerved, I lay down and rolled over, and thought to myself that I had to get out of there Fast.

It was apparently also during this time that I began talking without really being aware of it.  After a while everyone in the hall knew all the stories and adventures I had had, and I would occasionally be started out of a Rant/Trance by a cry of "Not this one again!"  I would then apologize and try to explain that I couldn't help it, but I could never finish the sentence; the prospect bothered me too much.  It was all in good fun anyway.  I never really saw any of them, but for some reason they had all rallied around me.  Bak, Murphy, Tazo, Laristik, Garrit, and Infir.  I didn't even know them for long, or particularly well, but I remember them all.  I grew to need them in the time it took for me to feel my Plan was ready.

Finally, that time came.  Guards were trying to bribe each other to take their shift so they wouldn't have to be near me.  And the one guy, poor, doomed, brave guard, continued to see me as nothing more than an insane, harmless Piece of Shit.  Perfect.  Much torture, much darkness, and several hallucinations (some of which, I confess, involved Aveline) later, I was finally ready to act.

I lay in bed awake all day before the Night of Escape, when my Brave Guard had shift, going over everything in my head to see if I'd missed something.  In truth, I had missed lots of things, but my distracted and somewhat (ha!) incoherent mind couldn't see that.  I thought the Plan was perfect.  It was then, lying in bed, that I heard a Voice.  This was weird, since hearing voices had not been one of my, um, quirks.  Anyway, "...Silvanus..."  I looked around, looked at the guard, who by no means looked like he would want to speak with me.  I knew it was none of the Guys, since they would have called me Sil.  "...Silvanus..."  I shrugged.

"Huh?"  The guard glanced at me, and I took it down to a whisper.  "What now?"

"Silva...I need...talk to you..."

"O...kay."

"...about...magic..."

"Um..."

"...why...can't use it..."

"I wish I knew, but I haven't the foggiest."  Silence for several minutes.  "Okay then."  I went back to trying to get some sleep, deciding to think about it later.

I didn't sleep, but that wasn't unusual, the guards changed shift, and my Pawn was in place.  Go time.  I was sure to be up and pacing around when the shift changed, so the guard wasn't suspicious when I approached.  If anything, he seemed annoyed.  "Whaddya want, Draby?"  Damn, but I hate my surname.

"I was thinking-"

"Sure ya were."

"Shut up, I'm doing you a favor.  I was thinkin'.  I've collected a lot of treasure, and I'm never getting out of here, so what good is it doing me out there?  I was thinking I should have someone bring it to me, ya know?  And you seem like the bravest guy here..."  I let him complete the sentence on his own.  He was suspicious, but I was pretty sure I could count on him to be greedy.

"Where do you keep it?"  He's mine!

"It's a secret.  Can't have the world know.  C'mere."  Yes, lean in close to the nice, harmless, crazy guy.  I tried not to look at his keys or the knife on his belt, both of which would soon become Very Important.  He thought for a while, then shrugged, took a step closer, and leaned in.  Brave, completely unimpressed by me, and gullible beyond belief.  "First, you go the Capitol.  Then you get on a boat and sail west along the coast..."  He listened, intently, committing my bullshit directions to memory, and not noticing anything.  I reached through the bars of the door, grabbed his head, and slammed it against them.  He crumpled to the floor and I bent over to claim his keys.  "Sucker."  I let myself out of the cell, kept the keys, and took the knife from his belt, sticking it into my own.

"Holy shit, Sil, you escapin'?" Bak asked as I started down the hall.  I paused.

"Yup," I answered, unlocking his cell, followed by the others in the hall.  In a few minutes, all the guys were standing around me.  "Okay, guys, here's the Plan," I said.  "We're gettin' out."

"Obviously," Tazo said.

"I'd rather avoid bloodshed, cuz to be honest, killing people makes me whorf, and I hate whorfing, so ergo, I hate killing.  Knocking people out is fine thought.  So is looting their unconscious bodies."  There was appreciative (no really) laughter from the group.  "Well, who knows the way out?"

"Head toward where it doesn't stink!" quipped Infir.  We all chuckled, but actually, that was the best anyone had.  I could find my way to the torture chamber, but I really didn't want to go there, and nobody else could find their way anywhere, so we decided to follow Infir's advice.  But first we had to leave the hall.

So it turns out there are a Hell of a Lot of guards in the Pit of Fire (surprising, since only a fraction of the building is cells, and each hall of prisoners is well isolated from the others).  It also turns out that they're all either scared to death of me, or completely not expecting seven inmates to come busting in on an escape mission.  Of the former, all whimpered at me not to kill them and were greeted with an "okay" and unconsciousness.  Of the latter, surprise was our greatest ally in overcoming them.  Of course, there was an exception, a third kind of guard, and we met him alone in a hallway.  We were almost at the exit (we knew because we had threatened one of the Scared Guards into giving us directions to Out), and he probably heard the commotion as we came through the hall before his.  We blustered through the door, myself in front, and ended up face to face with Spell in Preparation.  Reflexively, I took the knife I got from the Brave Guard and threw it into the guy's throat.  He collapsed and I walked over to him.  I know.  I'm surprised it was over that quick too.  I looked down at the body and let out a cry of delight.  The bastard was wearing My Sword.  I swept it into my arms and gave it a few practice swings before proudly stuffing it in my belt.

"Aw, c'mon!" whined Murphy.  "Pick the nicest thing he has, why don't you!"

"Hey now," I said, turning to him and patting the bronze hilt.  "This is my Sword."  There was a murmur of recognition; they'd all heard the story several times, I'm sure.  Murphy shrugged,

"...fine."

"Thank you."  Eventually, finally, we made it to the exit, and I paused in the threshold, my hand on the door.  "Well, men," I said, feeling a speech was in order.  They all rolled their eyes, but waited.  "We made it.  What we have done tonight is unprecedented-"

"Make a stupid plan work!" cut in Tazo, and we all laughed.

"Okay, so that too," I allowed.  "But we escaped the Pit of Fire!  We're free!"  I opened the door and immediately saw the Warden, the big imposing man I had met when I first opened my eyes in the Pit, standing firmly in our way in the courtyard.  "Well, dammit, man!" I yelled at him.  "Ruined the moment!"

"I'll not let you pass, Draby!" he roared, pulling a greatsword from his back.  I drew my sword.

"Fine then."  I ran forward.  He brought his sword toward me in a powerful down stroke, and I dodged to the side and slashed at his torso.  My sword banged off metal; the jerk was wearing armor.  I let my momentum carry me past him a ways, and then I circled him, thinking.  He was wearing a breastplate and bracers, which meant his legs, back, and upper arms were open targets.  He wore no helmet, so his throat was bare too.  He held his sword in ready for either a sidestroke or an upstroke, neither of which would be as easy to dodge as the down stroke.  I ran back in.  He chose the sidestroke, which I rolled under, slashing at his legs as I went by.  He pivoted, using the force from his swing to turn himself around, and swung down at me.  I kept rolling, and I could feel the wake from his blade as it narrowly missed my back.  I rolled to my feet and turned back toward him and smiled, pleased by the sight of the blood on his leg.  First blood was mine.  Naturally, that just pissed him off.  He charged me.  I could tell he was going to bring his sword at me in a diagonal upward stroke, and there was no way to dodge that without retreating, and that would give him an advantage, so instead I did something Stupid.  I jumped onto his blade as he swung and used its force to catapult myself over him and land a deep cut on his back.  He went down on one knee as I hit the ground and turned back toward him, then he suddenly spun around and threw a Massive Fire Spell at me.  I narrowly dodged most of it, but still ended up with a Nasty Burn on my left arm.  I'm sure I screamed in pain, but how can I be sure?  He came at me again with a down stroke, and, distracted as I was by Intense, Excruciating Pain, I only had time to bring up my own sword in a hasty block.  There was a loud, metallic CLANG! and I was sure my beautiful sword had shattered, as well as maybe a few arm bones.  But then, I'd be dead, right?  I opened my eyes to see his Huge-Ass Sword stopped barely an inch from my shoulder, held at bay by my watered-steel blade.  There was silence, broken only by a strangled, "...the hell?", but whether it came from him or me is anybody's guess.  I realized suddenly that I could beat him right then.  I released the tension in my arms to break the block, moving to the side so his sword wouldn't rend me in half, and let him fall forward onto my perfectly intact blade.  Then I withdrew my sword and collapsed to the ground right there next to his body, shaking and dry heaving and just generally a mess.  I've never been able to get the Heroic Victory Pose down quite right.

--------------------------

"...Then the boys and I traveled around together for several months just having a good time, and they kinda peeled off one by one 'til it was just me Vagabonding on my own again until I chanced upon you here."  Aveline raised an eyebrow at me over her teacup, and I cracked.  "Okay, so I was looking for you.  Happy?"  She smiled and put down her teacup while I picked up my own mug and took a quaff of Kaffei.

"Yes."  She was dressed in high fashion and looked like she had done rather well for herself in the year or more we'd been separated.  I'm sure I looked like Hell, despite attempts to look otherwise for this meeting, and we still must've seemed an odd pair to any who saw us in that little cafŽ.  "A fascinating story," she continued, "though that's hardly surprising.  It differed only slightly from the books."

"The what?"  She produced a small, copper-piece novel from her handbag and handed it to me.  The title was "Vagabond God" and a brief perusal revealed it to be a novel of my exploits, from The Rescue of the Fair Maiden and The Blowing Up of the Governor's Mansion to The Escape From the Inescapable Prison.  I started laughing.  "No way.  I'm flattered...I think."

"The dragon did liven your version a bit," she added.

"I'm sorry?"

"The dragon.  You said the Warden summoned a dragon during your fight.  That's how you got the burn."

"I said that?"

"Yeah."

"Huh.  Was that the only out-there thing I said?"

"Yeah."

"Well!"  I leaned back in my chair.  "Only one unintentional-exaggeration-that-I-didn't-remember.  Not too bad."

"So...you're still having...problems?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, I'm insane," I announced.  "Have hallucinations and everything, though usually only when I'm tired, drunk, or trying to sleep."  I help up the mug of Kaffei.  "My new best friend."  I took a drink and set it back down.  "Only heard voices, well, a voice, once though."

"Really?  What'd it say?"

"Wanted to know why I can't do magic.  I said I didn't know, and that was it."

"You know, Sil," she began, "seeing things, acting and speaking without thinking or knowing, that means you're crazy.  But hearing voices isn't necessarily indicative of insanity."  I nodded slowly.

"So you think someone was trying to communicate telepathically with me?" I asked.  She nodded.

"I can think of many kinds of people who would be interested in the answer to that question."  There was a long pause as we both considered the implications of that.

"So," I finally said.  "What have you been up to?"

"Nothing nearly as interesting as you."  I shrugged, not accepting her attempted dodge, and she continued.  "I ran when you told me to and eventually found myself in a town.  I needed a place to hide out, so I snuck into some middle to upper class house's basement.  The master of the house found me, but he was nice; gave me a chance to explain myself.  I ended up telling him my life's story-"

"What, were you hiding in his wine cellar?"

"-and he took pity on me.  I told him I wanted to do something about slavery, and he said he would help.  He introduced me into society and now I'm trying to get to a point of high enough power to influence the government, persuade them to abolish the slave trade.  I'm actually doing it, Sil.  I'm going to make a difference."

"I'm glad.  So who is this Munificent Benefactor?"

"Sir Crispin Cappault."

"Crispin?" I asked laughingly.  What can I say?  It's a funny name.

"Yeah.  Do you know him?"

"Actually, yeah.  I think I stole from him once."

"No!" she exclaimed with laughing outrage.  "Remind me not to introduce you!"

"You guys still hang out?" I asked, and immediately wished I hadn't; I had just noticed the ring.

"Crispin and I were wed three months ago."  She stared at me intently, waiting for a reaction.

"...oh.  Congrats."

"Thank you."  She smiled, relieved that I wasn't going to make a scene.  In truth, I wanted to start screaming, but that wouldn't have been polite.  And besides, I knew how stubborn she was, so I determined to make my peace with it and wish her happiness.  "So what will you do now?"

"I dunno.  Probably just go back to Vagabonding.  It's what I do, and ya know...I really do love doing it."  She thought for a moment, gathering the courage to ask me something.

"You could stay.  Help Crispin and I take down slavery.  You...could stay..."  I was already shaking my head.

"No.  Thanks though.  I hope you succeed.  But it's just not my style.  I think I'd much rather hit the road again.  I'll be around, but I can't help you.  Sorry."

"That's alright.  I didn't expect you to agree."  We sat, just looking at each other for a while, and I knew we were really separated.  We would still be friends, but we could never be on the same road again.  I decided that was a good time to end the conversation.

"Well!" I said, standing.  "Good luck.  I'll be in town a couple days maybe, so I'll see around you around."  She stood as well and we shook hands for a long moment.  "It was really nice to see you again."

"Yeah.  ...I missed you."  There was a pause, then she let go.  "Bye."

"See ya."  And we went our different ways.  For now.