The days crawled slowly while I was stuck in my wooden prison. Between visits from Harke and Mallie, I traced patterns in the walls with my makeshift fingers, counting splinters and mapping every crack in the aged boards.

  Their visits brought life to my solitary existence. Mallie's bright chatter filled the musty air while Harke's analytical mind provided engaging conversation. But more importantly, they brought materials.

  "Look what I found!" Mallie dropped a handful of rusty nails into my wooden palm. "The cook threw these out when the kitchen shelf broke."

  Good. Very useful. I projected, already planning how to incorporate them into my growing collection.

  "That's not all." She reached into her pockets, producing bits of wire and metal scraps. "The stable master lets me help with the horses now. Lots of old horseshoes and broken tools there."

  Harke's ingenious mind also came up with a clever idea, one that had worked perfectly. He'd managed to convince Belmund that as a monster, I required metal for sustenance.

  "It's quite f-fascinating," Harke had told the rotund slaver, putting on his best scholarly voice. "The creature appears to metabolize metallic substances for survival. Quite remarkable, really."

  Belmund had scratched his bare chest, frowning. "So... it eats metal?"

  "Precisely! And if we don't provide enough, well..." Harke had let the implications hang in the air.

  Now, thanks to his deception, I received a steady stream of discarded metal. Broken tools, rusted weapons, damaged armor pieces, all delivered under the guise of "feeding" me.

  "B-brought you something special today," Harke whispered during one visit, producing a small but intact sword blade from beneath his robes. "Found it b-buried under some refuse near the eastern wall."

  Perfect for. Small weapons, I projected, already calculating how many shivs I could craft from it.

  The pile of materials grew steadily in my corner, hidden beneath straw and broken boards. Each piece brought me closer to freedom, to revenge, to fulfilling my promise. When no one watched, I worked tirelessly, Assembly flowing through me as I shaped and reformed the metal.

  Mallie proved especially resourceful. Her small size and innocent appearance let her go places others could not.

  "The dumb guards don't even look at me," she said proudly, emptying another pocketful of scavenged treasures. "They think I'm just some stupid kid."

  Their mistake, I projected, admiring her cunning. Keep bringing. What you can.

  "But not too much at once," Harke reminded her. "We don't want anyone getting s-suspicious."

  He was right. We had to be patient, careful. But with each passing day, with each piece of metal added to my collection, I felt better. Soon, I would have enough to build not just my new body, but weapons for all those who yearned for freedom.

  I stared at the growing pile of materials in the corner of the shed, anxiety gnawing at my wooden frame. The collection had grown beyond what we could easily conceal. Scraps of metal poked through the straw, glinting in the dim light that filtered through the shed's walls.

  "We n-n-need to find another hiding spot," Harke had warned during his last visit. "The guards are getting more curious."

  He was right. Just yesterday, one of the slavers had stuck his head in, peering around with narrowed eyes. Only quick thinking from Mallie, who'd created a distraction by dropping a bucket of water, had kept him from investigating further.

  Too many pieces, I thought to myself, picking up a nail and rolling it between my crude wooden fingers. Need better solution.

  The nail caught the light, and I found myself wishing I could just make it disappear, tuck it away somewhere safe like... like...

  The nail vanished.

  I froze, wooden joints creaking as I stared at my empty hand. A blue status box materialized in front of me.

  What? I reached out mentally, searching for the nail. There! I sensed it, existing in some impossible space just beyond my perception. With a thought, it reappeared in my palm.

  My heart would have raced if I still had one. I grabbed another piece of metal: gone. A strip of leather: vanished. Each item I could feel, catalogue, and recall at will. Pretty soon, all the materials Harke and Mallie had gathered wound up inside my magical storage space.

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  The ability felt... familiar. Like remembering how to walk, or breathe. Had I possessed something similar in my forgotten past?

  The system message appeared as I practiced, growing more comfortable with this new power. Perfect timing; this would solve our storage problems and speed up our preparations considerably.

  This changed everything. We could gather more materials, faster, without fear of discovery. My new body would soon be ready, and with it, freedom for all those imprisoned here.

  What is Hellzone? I projected the question to Harke during one of his visits.

  He settled onto a crate, adjusting his dirty robes. "W-well, you're in one right now. This is the Lodrik Hellzone."

  I tilted my head. Explain.

  "Hellzones are... sp-sp-special places. The Holy Twelve, er… the gods who rule our world, well, their p-power can't reach here." Harke's fingers traced patterns in the dust. "The land is d-dead, warped by chaotic magics. Monsters roam freely."

  The description matched what I'd seen since clawing my way out of the earth. The desolate landscape, those rat-dog creatures, the floating electric rocks...

  "Nobody really lives in Hellzones except monsters and criminals." He cast a meaningful glance toward the shed door, where boots crunched past on patrol. "Like our... h-hosts."

  Why Qordos here?

  "P-perfect hiding spot. Regular armies won't follow slavers into a Hellzone. Too d-dangerous." Harke's voice dropped lower. "But there's another reason people brave these places. Hellzones are rich in rare materials. M-magical gems, ancient preserved woods, alchemical ingredients. Things you can't find anywhere else.

  "Adventurers come from all over to hunt for treasures here. The big cities pay very well for Hellzone materials. Some make fortunes, if they survive l-long enough."

  If they survive. I remembered the group I'd killed, their weapons and armor suggesting they were such treasure hunters. The memory still brought me shame.

  "The Lodrik Hellzone is actually one of the... t-tamer ones," Harke continued. "Close to civilization, relatively speaking. The Kingdom of Aspiration is right to the north east of us. The monsters near the edges aren't too dangerous, either. But deeper in..." He shuddered. "Well, that's where the real treasures are. And the real d-dangers."

  The information settled into place alongside my fractured memories. Something about Hellzones felt significant, but like so much else, the meaning danced just beyond my grasp.

  I then questioned Harke about a different term that had surfaced from my broken recollections, one that stirred powerful feelings inside me. But try as I might, I couldn't remember the reason those emotions ran so deep.

  What is. Primordial?

  Harke looked confused. "P-Primordial? What do you mean?"

  Not sure. Does word mean. Anything. To you?

  Harke's brow furrowed as he considered my question. His fingers drummed against his knee while he searched his memory.

  "I... I've never heard that word before." He adjusted his position on the crate. "Is it perhaps something from your p-past?"

  Maybe. Word feels. Important.

  The term churned in my mind, bringing forth intense emotions I couldn't place. Anger, fear, respect; all tied to this mysterious word that meant nothing to the healer.

  "Could be from an ancient language?" Harke pulled out his notebook, flipping through pages of cramped writing. "I've studied quite a bit of etymology in my research of healing m-magic. But 'Primordial'... it's not ringing any bells."

  The word had surfaced when I'd witnessed the escaped prisoner's torture. Something about the violence had triggered it, along with fleeting images that dissolved before I could grasp them. Now, trying to recall those fragments felt like grasping at smoke.

  "What does it make you feel?" Harke asked, quill poised over a fresh page. "When you think of this word?"

  Power. I projected the thought with such force that Harke winced. Great power. Not human power. Not like king. Or lord. Power like. Thunderstorm. Hurricane. Fire from. Sky.

  "Interesting." He scribbled in his book. "Though that doesn't tell us m-m-much about what it actually means. Could be anything, really: a person, a place, an object..."

  I slumped against the shed wall, frustrated. Another dead end in the maze of my lost memories.

  "Don't worry," Harke said, closing his notebook. "If it's important, it will come back to you eventually. The mind has ways of protecting itself from trauma. S-sometimes memories need time to resurface naturally."

  But something told me this wasn't just about my personal history. The word "Primordial" carried weight beyond my own fractured past. It felt like knowledge that should exist in the world, yet here was an educated healer who'd never encountered it.

  Why did that strike me as wrong?

  Harke burst into my shed, his face pale and sweating. His usual stutter was worse than ever.

  "B-b-bad news. Very b-bad." He collapsed onto the floor next to me, wringing his hands. "The c-caravan. It's coming."

  When?

  "A w-week. Maybe less." He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. "They're from the southern kingdoms. B-barbarians. They're the ones who... who usually buy c-captives from Weath."

  My wooden fingers creaked as I clenched them.

  Mallie.

  "Yes. Her and the others." Harke's voice cracked. "We're running out of t-time. There's no way we can-"

  Plenty of time.

  "What?" He stared at me. "But we've barely started! The weapons, your new body-"

  Don't need sleep. I gestured to a pile of metal parts we'd collected. Can work constant. Day and night.

  "But that's..." Harke's eyes widened as he realized what I meant. "You really don't need to rest at all?"

  No. Will build. Everything. Be done. I reached up with my wooden arm and placed a hand on his shoulder. Trust me.

  "Even if you work non-stop, that's still..." He shook his head. "The risk if we're caught-"

  Will not fail. The thought-words carried steel in them. Will free everyone.

  "And then what?"

  Kill them all. My wooden fingers tightened on his shoulder. Every slaver. Every guard. Chanos. Belmund. All of them.

  Harke swallowed hard, but didn't pull away. "You really think we can do this?"

  Yes. I released his shoulder and turned to the collected materials. Now go. Bring more metal. Every piece. Counts.

  He nodded and stood. At the door, he paused. "No Eyes?"

  Yes?

  "Thank you. For giving us hope." He smiled sadly. "Especially m-m-me."

  I watched him leave, then began sorting through our stockpile. One week to build a body that could match Chanos. One week to forge enough weapons to arm every prisoner. One week to plan our escape and revenge.

  More than enough time.

  Both my wooden and flesh fingers began twisting metal strands together as Assembly activated. I had work to do.