The Oubliette at Ak Min Tor

Part 4 The Tower of Guntrel

As I recovered and gained strength in that Tinnic village, my life before the Oubliette began to refocus itself in my mind. It wasn't all at once ... it was more like a little trickle of memories. There were little flashes that slowly began to make more and more sense as time went along.

The first several pages that I wrote were almost disjointed, or seem to be now when I go back to view them again. I'm going to leave them like they are. They represent how I saw the world at the time of my release ... escape from the Oubliette. I think that they actually show a more accurate picture of events than I could write now.

I guess I thought that I might forget things again, and if I could just get it down on paper, I might be able to refresh my memories as time went on. It's probably one of the things that has helped my mental acuity to return again. So much time lost in that place ... so much of my life gone to never return.

The quill was beginning to fold over on the end, so I cut it at a fresh angle. I will need to get another one soon. There are plenty around here with all the water birds. Okay ... what to write today? I dip into the bone pot of ink and begin again.

I remembered events that happened long before my imprisonment. I remembered who I was, and why I was in the Shorun in the first place. I'm probably not anybody that they will ever write songs about. They write songs about heroes, and villains, and people that make some kind of impact on the worlds. That's not me.

I was named Jassron, after my grandfather Jassron the Elder, and I think there were probably a few more by that name in my lineage too. I was raised by my aunt and uncle after my parents were taken away by the Notables. The Notable houses ran everything in the district that we lived in. It was a little place near to the western boundary of the Centerhold.

My aunt taught me about writing and counting. That was the big influence on my life. My uncle was a simple stonecutter, when he wasn't tending to the pigs on the rich guy's farm. Both of those professions always seemed like too much work for me.

As I write all of this down, I can't help but think of all the things that may have influenced my path. They weren't all good. I had a girlfriend who was a little bit older, and she had these grand dreams of being an adventurer. I'm really not the adventurer type, but she was really pretty ... and she could do things with her body that I'd never even heard of before. Once you get a wuff, that's it ... you're wrapped from that time on.

The Notables were making everybody's lives miserable. They had everything, and everybody else were basically slaves for them. You followed everything they said, or you paid the price. My parents were trying to grow their own food. The thing is, they didn't have the permission of the Notables to do it. That meant that it was stealing. They paid the price and were never seen again.

I ran away from home when I was still a year from my twentieth. I don't think that it was to escape my life or anything, but there was an element of escape to most of my actions. Thinking about it now, I really didn't have that bad of an upbringing. I had food to eat, and I had a roof over my head ... you know how kids are through.

Bad choices ended up putting me in some bad situations. I followed the girlfriend to the wilder lands at the western edge of the Centerhold. The Notables didn't have as much influence this far from their capital, but they still wanted to control everybody's life.

There was a group of Rebels that wanted to carve out a niche for themselves at the edge of the country. They thought that they could get by with more stuff this far from the center of control. They also had the steep ridges of the Soloman Holding to run back to if things got too rough. Their incursions were noticed, and a small army was sent to put them down.