dasa

	This is the 20th time the sly wizard has fooled the knight. This time he tricked Orgden into believing he had a wife! Oh yes, Orgden's "master" has some terrible, dark magic that he likes to cast to play tricks on him. You can hear him, his cackle echoing through the gelid tunnels every time he fools the weary man with his cheap illusions.

"Only on a human! Only on a man!" he blurts out, "What silly, little, ugly things you are," the sound of the wizard's deep, hoarse voice made him shiver.

"Why do I call him master?" Orgden wondered, "Did I serve him before or is this another wicked spell? It must be his witchcraft that is warping my memories. One moment I call him for what he is, a monstrous wizard, and the next moment I call him master."

For Orgden, it feels like he had spent years wandering through the cave — the cave with over a hundred different tunnels to explore, each leading to a unique path. The only source of light coming from tiny, pale purple orbs floating about in the cave.

The wizard isn't ordinary. Born to the most barbaric race, an ogre he is, with the intellect of an adult male. He learned sorcery and soon began torturing and killing the humans who his eyes laid upon, he became infamous and soon had a bounty that Orgden sought. He knew the Ogre was in the, "Cave of Chimera." Orgden knew it would be dangerous. Many men have tried, those who entered rarely got out, and those who got out were demented souls begging to be slain. Orgden thought back on his "wife" the wizard conjured up.

"Why did I believe that? Nobody would love me. I'm hideous, and a fool," he heard a crack beneath him. His legs had stepped onto a skeleton. He stopped to look at its skull, half expecting it to move.

"Even if it moves, I'm not going be afraid. He won't fool me twice with the same trick."

He is starving, the only thing he has is a wineskin. The last time he went for a sip, the wine smelled of vomit and when he touched the wine with the tip of his tongue, he felt bits of food.

"It's just a trick. It's only wine," he reminded himself.

So he opened up his wineskin, he put the tip onto his lips, and without smelling, drank it. His eyes started watering as he felt bits of food move down his throat, the thick liquid required him to put effort into his swallowing. After drinking a quarter of the wine, he started retching. He threw the wineskin in frustration. He dropped to his knees. And started weeping.

He stood up after a while, he realized the tunnel only grew colder and his stomach more hungry. He stared at his sword and he dropped it. The sound of teeth ringing is the only sound to be heard. His eyes searching for a secret passage, a way out.

"I want to feel the warmth of the outside world. I want to see a face again. I want to leave." Orgden thought.

Suddenly, Orgden heard a low, deep voice say:

"It is complete. Your mind is mine."

The walls of the cave were visibly getting narrower, and the orbs getting dimmer. Orgden began to panic, running anywhere, running to any new route that he saw. The orbs' light was extinguished, the tunnel in complete darkness.

Orgden loudly pleaded, "PLEASE LET ME OUT. I DON'T WANT TO SLAY YOU. I'M BROKEN, I'M BROKEN, YOU DID IT! THE OGRES ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE; THEY'RE BETTER THAN HUMANS, OUR HISTORY FILLED WITH PLAGUE AND OPPRESSION, YOURS FILLED WITH HOPE AND GLAMOUR. YOUR ENSLAVEMENT UNJUST, I ADMIT WE'RE EVIL, LET THIS BUG LIVE AN INSIGNIFICANT LIFE."

Orgden ran to any new whole he could find, and at last he saw a light. He sprinted with the little bit of energy to run out of the cave, and out he was.

He looked around and then his body collapsed — if he could produce tears he would be sobbing. The sun hit his face, the green of the trees was reassuring, the squirrels' fur so beautiful. He saw a concerned knight coming towards him. The knight kneeled down and lifted Orgden's head, and gave him water to drink.

"Are you okay, what's your name?" the knight asked.

But Orgden was too weak and tired to respond, only a faint sound can be heard when he tried speaking. The knight understood and carried Orgden into the shade of a tree.

"I will be back, I'm going to the cave, to slay the Wizard," the knight stood up and entered the cave.

The knight was like Orgden: he was unprepared, arrogant, and had a lust for acknowledgment. He traveled through the tunnel with ease, his mind unaltered. When he encountered the wizard, it's sufficed to say he was disappointed; the wizard spoke in tongues, and even at one point he sprinted away from the knight. The knight hunted him down, swung his sword and sliced the ogre's leg off. The wizard was crying like a baby, a pathetic spectacle. But he slew the wizard and took his head as proof. The knight stepped outside of the cave, he looked around, and Orgden was gone.

"Where did he go?" the knight thought.

But he did not ponder that too much. He continued walking. He couldn't wait to receive the bounty and more importantly, the praise from fellow knights for slaying the ogre.