My father always said that good health is a man's greatest treasure. As long as you stay healthy, he insisted, you can survive anything life throws at you. He would repeat this wisdom every chance he got, and for good reason.
Father – Magnus, as the village knew him – grew up impoverished and half-starved. As a boy, he often went days on nothing but wild greens and rainwater. Even now, his voice would tremble when he recalled those hungry nights. Perhaps that's why he swore he'd never go hungry again once he had the means. He built our cottage at the foot of a mountain, where game was plentiful and the soil rich, and he planted enough to feed an army. He even named our homestead Mountain and Sea Cottage, to celebrate the bounty of both land and water.
Even in his old age, Father was as strong as an ox. I once saw him hoist a full keg of ale onto his shoulder as if it were a sack of feathers – and he was past sixty at the time. But I digress. The point is, Father was obsessed with strength and vitality. He foraged all sorts of bizarre ingredients, convinced that consuming them would strengthen us.
"Close your eyes and eat it. It'll taste just like crab – see, it even has as many legs. Best if you eat it while it's still wriggling, son," he'd say, pressing some squirming critter or foul concoction toward my mouth.
"Gods, it's still moving!" I'd gag, eyes bulging. In one particularly traumatic instance, I ended up throwing the creature into a pot of boiling water, cooking it into a soup just to be able to choke it down. I pinched my nose, gulped the broth in a single swig, and tried not to retch. Don't taste it. Don't you dare taste it... Somehow, I kept it down – barely.
I can still recall Father's booming laugh as I doubled over, fighting nausea. "Must be delicious – it left you speechless!" he would crow, thumping my back while I shuddered. "No one else will ever care enough to give you something this precious, but I will, because you're my son."
Thanks to that strict (and thoroughly insane) upbringing, I sampled things no one my age even knew existed. Giant centipede stew? Had it. Troll liver jerky? That too. Friends who heard about my diet always asked the same question: What in the world did that taste like? I refuse to describe it – the mere memory is enough to turn my stomach.
The worst part wasn't even the taste; it was the smell. Our home reeked like a witch's cauldron – a cloying miasma of boiled herbs, beast entrails, and who knows what else. The stench clung to my skin and hair no matter how I scrubbed. In my adolescence, I burned through sachets of lavender and rose oil trying to mask that odor. At the time I thought I'd never get it out of my nostrils. In hindsight, perhaps I overreacted… but Saints, that smell was awful.
Still, Father's unorthodox methods achieved what he intended. I grew up hearty and strong, rarely falling ill, far sturdier than other lads in our village. For that, I'm grateful. "Thank you, Father," I whisper, bowing my head in the darkness to where I imagine his kindly face. If not for him, I'd likely be nothing more than a pile of bones in this forsaken place.
You see, I currently find myself deep underground, in a place where countless less fortunate souls have ended up as piles of bones. An underground labyrinth – cold, lightless, and miles beneath the surface.
Some might wonder how a young man like me ever ended up in a deadly maze crawling with monsters. Truth be told, I often wonder the same. But thinking back, I can trace it to a single bizarre encounter two years ago…