"Sir Rupert Vronesberg of the kingdom's knights. Swordless. Honorless. Fairless. I have let the wizards of the weeping woman capture me and confine me within these black walls. Black hearts. Black souls. I shall slay the weeping woman and save the realm from evil."

  A distant old fool lays his hand on Rupert's shoulder. His beard was an untamed dragon and his eyes were death.

  "Speak to me, captive of the sorceress. Teach me about this cursed world I have bereached."

  "I can not speak of what I do not know" says the old fool. "I have been a captive to these walls for a million years. I have seen many men man my mortuary. The mushroom men, the lizard men, the dog men, the ape men ... And finally ... Your men"

  "Insult me not, old fool" cries Rupert. "They are not my men. They are not I!"

  "They are all you men. You are one. Men are men."

  "Then, you are one of us men, too!"

  "Ah ..." Reckons the old fool. "Perhaps I am. But still!"

  The old fool jumps and stands atop a stool like a knight conquering a dragon with a head raised proud.

  "I am not the man whose shit confines himself to the world!" He cries.

  "Perhaps so." Rupert thinks to himself out loud. "You are a wise man. A million years of solitary have not softened your mind."

  "A mind is a stronghold." Says the old fool. That was the last he spoke before he knocked himself out with his bucket and went to sleep.

  A shame.

  "You, whose mind breaths not." Speaks Rupert to another man who sits blankly, staring into the distance, perhaps not fully awake or sane. "Hear my story."

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  Rupert stands and grabs his pants. Perhaps they were his legs. He's not sure whether he is wearing them or not, as a result of the pitch dark of the dungeon.

  "My wife was Karmaline of Nord. She was a simple woman. She couldn't cook, but she made a wonderful mushroom stew. She could only count to seven, because that was the number of times she had to squeeze our cow's udders for milk. My son was a cheerful lad, of nine. He was a gay knight. Gayer than most. He fought with sticks and stones. Once rescued his mother from a ladybug. We lived in a cottage by the waterfall. I had taken great pleasure in the waterfall, because that is where I conducted my private business. It was my offering to the gods of fertility, to carry my dung away and give life to our wheats and carrots at the bottom of the river. Not her's, though. Her shit wasn't good. She shat in a different river for the witches to reap bad crops. Regardless. My wife was beautiful. She was fine-looking. She was alright. Well, she wasn't bad. Her spirit was pure. As all simple-minded men and women were. And my son was pure of heart and spirit. And my father ... Want to hear about my father?"

  A light suddenly beams across Rupert's face, bringing his story to a halt, as two men are thrown into the dungeon, which is locked shut once again. The men were eerie. They had resemblances of orcs, ogres perhaps, they had a stupid way about them.

  "I shan't be here. I need to find the weeping woman, to slay. And my wife and son, to rescue." Rupert cries.

  "Come with us. We are leaving." Whispers one of the men. They are not orcs, or ogres ... They are gremlins! Demons of the other world, but not all gremlins are evil, some can be beings of holiness. These gremlins were here to rescue the good Sir Rupert Vronesberg.

  And so they did. The speaker unveiled a magical orb. Black as the night, but not evil, for it was a salvation for Rupert.

  He casted his magical words, which Rupert did not understand. He lit the orb on flames, and threw it across the black walls.

  BOOM!

  ... Were the words the gremlin mouthed, but they were not magical words, as the orb did not cast itself. It merely smoked and went still.

  That was when the blue mages came in and took my saviors away. The gremlins struggled and cried as they were dragged out. They spoke more words that I never understood, all I could understand was their anger, a pure rage of men fighting for their lives.

  Perhaps they, too, were knights of a different realm. They did not belong to this world. Then again, not the old fool, not the vacant man, not I, no man from this world seemed to belong to this world.