The Archman

Chapter 3 - A Harsh Awakening, Part 1

Eira takes a tense breath in, blinking groggily in the process. She feels like she has been asleep for a week. For all she knows, this could very well be the case. Although she would have had to wake up at some point for water, so it is more likely just a day or less.

As she tries to adjust her position on the uncomfortable wooden floor, she is met with some considerable resistance. Her hands are bound together by a pair of steel handcuffs, the edges of which are starting to rust ever so slightly. She also finds a single steel cuff firmly secured around her ankle, with a chain running from the cuff to a nearby wall where it is fixed rigidly.

Eira blinks a few more times, her eyes trying to adjust to the strange lighting of the space. Everything is shrouded in darkness, but the warmth of the midday sun is in the air. It feels like she is in an artificial night as just the few cracks in the woodwork around her let in a couple of sparse rays of sunlight.

Upon closer inspection, she sees the shackles around her wrists and ankle are far from a pair of slipshod instruments of restraint. They are constructed with a kind of

built-in mechanism which keeps them adjusted perfectly to the size of the limb they are secured to.

Despite their clear age, they are still in very good repair and are reasonably comfortable for a pair of garments made of metal. She is far from an expert on the subject of restrictive devices, however. In fact, she now realises this is her first time being trapped in irons.

She tries to lift herself up to a sitting position, but her muscles are hardly responding to her. She speculates that whatever was in the white smoke must still be in her system.

In her limited state, she looks at her surroundings. Tall metal bars rise from the ground to meet the ceiling, forming three sides of a cell which encloses her, the fourth side being the wooden wall her ankle is chained to.

The smell of sea water is still fresh in the air, mixed with the harsh tang of rust from the assortment of metal around the room. The resulting cocktail is quite pungent and Eira can almost taste it on her tongue.

At the very least, she knows she is still at sea. The gentle swaying of the current beneath her and the crash of waves against the opposite side of the wooden wall make that much clear.

This clarity only brings her a fresh sense of dread, however, as she had been desperately hoping to wake in her bed, the same way she had nearly every morning for her entire life. Instead, she is lying on the hard, unforgiving wooden floor of her cell.

Part of her wants to shut her eyes and go back to sleep, so she has the opportunity to wake again from this nightmare, but an equally prominent part of herself compels her to collect as much information as she can from her surroundings.

She turns her head with just enough effort to shift her gaze around the cell. It is in overall decent condition, minimal amounts of rust covering the bars, cuffs, and chains, which are evidently much older than she is. Standing out against this otherwise decent amount of maintenance, however, is a multitude of scrapes and scratches all across the inside of the cell. All through the woodwork and across the metal bars are dozens upon dozens of deep gashes. The cell looks like it has been used to cage several feral animals, though that does not explain the unnaturally massive size of the scratches which look like they could have only been made by a metal blade at least the size of a dagger.

As she looks at the odd markings throughout her cell, her eyesight returns enough to allow her to see further in the distance. She sees that hers is not the only cell in the space. She is in a large brig which contains nine other cells much like hers, organized into two rows of five with a single corridor dividing them.

The majority of the other cells are unoccupied, except for two. In the row of cells across from hers are two naval officers, each of them in their own cell. They are completely motionless, still fully unconscious from the smoke attack. They must have inhaled much more than she had.

A creaking from a door at the end of the corridor snaps Eira to attention. She shifts her gaze towards the sound, but keeps completely still at the same time, trying not to draw any attention to herself.

The newly familiar sound of metal-on-wood footsteps make their way down the hall. Through the vague darkness, Eira sees the figure travel through the corridor, stopping before a cell containing a naval officer.

Though there is no white smoke to cloud her vision this time, the iron bars and her position on the floor still prevent her from getting a clear view of the figure. The figure clearly has a male build, but she had already discerned that from the previous night.

Instead of the dark cloak he was wearing yesterday, he is now in a plain

long-sleeved white fabric shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He is also wearing a beige apron stained with red blots varied in recency and freshness. The apron comes down to his thighs, which are clothed by a pair of well-worn leather pants.

Eira's eyes run down the length of the pants, landing on a pair of black boots, the toes of which are covered by a thin metal armour which wrap down to the bottom of his foot. She has at least identified the source of the odd-sounding footsteps.

The figure walks with its back to Eira's cell, making it impossible to see the details of his face. He looks absurdly tall to her, though that is probably because her perspective is only an inch from ground level.

The figure opens the cell in front of him, steps inside and unlocks the shackles around the unconscious naval officer, then picks him up off the ground. He carries the limp officer out of the cell over his shoulder, not appearing to struggle in the slightest as he closes the cell behind himself and makes his way back down the corridor. Just as swiftly as he entered, he exits.

Eira takes a moment to reflect on what she has just seen. She is not sure what to make of the new information. Her body is slowly beginning to catch up with the rest of her as she wiggles her fingers and toes to prompt them awake.

Just as she is about to try and lift herself up to a sitting position, she freezes, hearing the wood-and-metal footsteps returning from outside the doorway. Her hearing is evidently starting to wake back up.

The door swings open, the figure walking back into the corridor, no body across his shoulder anymore. Just as with the first officer, the figure makes his way to the cell of the second unconscious officer, unlocking the cell door, followed soon by the officer's handcuffs and shackles. This time as he exits the cell with the second officer over his shoulder, Eira sees him place a small ring of keys into a compartment on his belt which has many more receptacles of various sizes.

Still, she is unable to see the figure's face as he walks down the corridor and back through the door he entered from.

Eira has an urge to sit up to try to get a better look at him before he disappears once again, but she quickly stifles the impulse.

Now fully awake, her heart rate starts to rise with a nervous energy; the sheer amount of unknowns in her vicinity compounds her anxieties. She had thought that maybe if she could see the face of the person who had apprehended her it would remove some of the shrouded dread starting to plague her. As far as she knows, however, he could still be wearing that haunting mask of leather and glass which he first appeared in.

She knows she will soon find out as the metal-on-wood treads return behind the door, which quickly swings open after a few audible paces.

Eira remains completely still. She is the only one left in the brig, so there is no one else the figure could be coming for.

The unique footfalls make their way down the corridor, stopping in front of Eira's cell, a few feet from her head.

Eira's heart races as she closes her eyes, still clinging to her disguise of unconsciousness. She knows it will not be able to serve her much longer.

She hears the sound of keys clinking against one another, followed by the metallic clanking of the cell door unlocking. The aged hinges creak with a kind of menacing foreboding as the figure steps into the cell.

Eira feels the gaze of the figure scowling down upon her and it sends a cold shiver up her spine. She cannot maintain her act any longer, so she snaps her eyes open and looks up towards the source of the glare.