The road to the nearest city wound across a landscape that seemed half asleep. Pale fields unrolled beneath a quiet sky, touched only by the distant shimmer of the rising sun. Wendell walked with Lilian at his side, and behind them the golem followed in a strangely rhythmic cadence. It studied them with the same quiet curiosity they directed at it, tilting its head as though comparing the two humans to some forgotten image embedded deep within its soul.
The creature seemed to listen to Wendell's commands, allowing the three of them to travel together. Wendell watched the uneven gait of the creature. Every step looked like its first, yet there was no clumsiness in its movement. Rather, each lift of its heavy foot seemed a deliberate choice. The golem seemed to enjoy the act of walking
"Maybe he likes the dirt," Wendell murmured.
Lilian turned and nodded with certainty, almost amused. At some point she had begun walking backwards, watching the creature with bright interest. "It makes no sense," she said. "Normal golems don't have preferences or quirks. This one seems to enjoy himself though."
A faint flicker crossed the creature's face, as if it understood her words, although the expression vanished quickly.
"You should name him," Lilian said, turning toward Wendell with a small smile. "It seems like something you should do, since he listens to you."
"Name him?" Wendell tried to brush the idea aside, but a memory surged forward, flooding his mind so suddenly he swayed in place. A single word rose to the surface, clear and heavy like a stone dropped into deep water.
"Melody?" he whispered.
As soon as he spoke the name, the golem staggered mid-step. Its relaxed, almost cheerful expression disappeared. For a moment its entire form froze, like the name had touched some hidden core within its body.
A gust of wind swept past them. The grass shifting along with it. A sound slipped through the air, faint yet sharp, like a single note plucked from a string. Then another followed. Wendell looked for the source, expecting a distant instrument or perhaps a breeze through reeds, but there was nothing around them except the empty road and what encompassed it.
"Did you hear that, Lilian?" Wendell asked.
She looked at him with mild confusion. "Do you mean the grass?"
The road ahead of them wound through an everlasting deserted landscape, touched only by the winding road ahead of them that lay bare. Grass growing on either side, and boulders that one could only assume to be the same as melody had been earlier. There was nothing that could have made that sound anywhere around them.
He hesitated. "Never mind. It was probably nothing." His voice trailing off.
But it had not felt like nothing. That faint collection of notes seeped into his bones in a way he could not explain. A memory surfaced, and they continued towards their destination.
Lilian turned to where Wendell had been, hoping to inform him about the city ahead of them. It had changed enough to warrant some caution, but when she did, something felt off. There was nobody there. Wendell had disappeared from sight. The golem as well. Nobody except her was left. A panicked expression appeared on her face, she grabbed her knife waiting for a potential ambush. Nothing. The sound of wind rolled across the barren landscape, brushing past her blade. When suddenly she felt a force on her shoulder, whipping around to respond to the threat she was stopped halfway by an oppressive force. Her blade failing to cut anything. An invisible weight grabbed her wrist. And a voice echoed from the wind. "Lilian it's me" She leaped back from the voice. The force let go of her as if it had never been there in the first place.
The next moment a pale man appeared from where she had been. His voice was familiar. It was Wendell. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to scare you" The next moment Melody appeared next to him. "It seems the golem has an ability to turn invisible. Knowing that, I just wanted to test the extent of its ability" Lilian stared in disbelief, her cheeks turning red. Trying to hide her embarrassment she quickly turned towards the city sheathing her knife in the process.
Wendell turned to Melody with a confused look, the golem did the same. They both had a look of silent pride. Looking ahead at Lilian who was already a ways in front of them they scrambled to catch up.
They continued walking until the looming shape of the city came into view. At first Wendell mistook the towering structure for a mountain, a solid wall of stone stretching so high it almost blended with the sky. Only the distant flicker of firelight atop the structure revealed its true purpose. The city walls were titanic, rising like a fortress meant to withstand the fury of wars long gone.
As they followed the wall, the air changed. A hum of distant life slipped around the immense stone barrier. Many demi humans and the like were lined up in front of a distant section of the wall. Some appeared to be wealthy adventurers and soldier, however some appeared to be on deaths door. Staggering corpses that only barely managed to remain upright, formed a second, longer line.
"Slaves" Wendell was rather familiar with this reality, after all he had once been a slave. A slave that had changed owners so many times that the very concept of slavery no longer held meaning. To be enslaved meant to serve a single individual, and yet Wendell Weaver served as a slave for the first 1000 years of his life, changing owners more times than he cared to remember. Only gaining his freedom a couple decades before his imprisonment after his owner 'mysteriously' died.
"Some rather fond memories..." Wendell caught himself whispering. Although it seemed like those memories were not meant to be fond. "An effect of the bar that still lingered?"
That made the most sense to him.
Lilian tapped his shoulder. Bringing him back to his senses. The memories faded, and voices spurred his brain. Voices that were not familiar, they were coming from up ahead.
They had reached the shorter section of the wall, where a reinforced gate stood open to the overbearing amount of refugees. Two guards stood before them, armored in materials Wendell did not recognize, their glaives forged from pale materials that glinted unnaturally in the morning light.
A humming melody pierced through the wind, a note played in unison with it. A string plucked from the air.
The three travelers approached the gate steadily.
However, neither guard reacted to the approaching trio. Their eyes slid past them as if they no longer existed. Lilian was the only one their gazes focused on, as though she were the sole person present. However their glances had not been trained on her, but the sound she had made when walking by. Luckily the two soldiers seemed to be more focused on the impossible number of refugees, and seemed to attribute the noise to one of them instead.
Then it happened again. A melody, soft and humming, threaded itself into the passing wind. It brushed against Wendell's ears. The moment he turned toward it, the sound faded, and the spell broke.
The guards jolted upright, startled by the sudden appearance of the trio who were now fully visible.
"State your business, travelers, and golem," the guard on the right demanded.
Wendell leaned toward Lilian. "So the golem doesn't alarm people much?"
She whispered back, "Adventurers sometimes summon golems with enchanted satchels. People are used to it."
He nodded, though he felt a distinct dissonance in his chest. It had been a long time since he interacted with normal city life. Traditions had shifted. He had not been around to witness any of it.
He straightened his posture. "We are here for supplies," he said with more authority than he intended. The guards staggered in place. They seemed intimidated by him. His appearance was certainly unorthodox and could have been mistaken for a threat.
The guard on the left whispered something to the other. A shaken look appeared on both guards' faces. A look that did not belong to this place or time, but a look that he was used to. A look he had seen so many times, and yet his memories did not fully comprehend what they meant.
The next moment the guards signaled to someone at the top of the gate. The enormous doors groaned open, and the smell of warm stone, and street food rushed out to greet them. The morning sun crested the horizon, its light bending over the wasteland behind them and illuminating the city's entrance.
A cobblestone path stretched forward, paved with granite and strange minerals that shimmered in subtle patterns. The city beyond the gate pulsed with life. Sounds crashed together in a chaotic harmony: vendors shouting, footsteps echoing, creatures huffing, and countless voices layered over one another.
Creatures of all kinds filled the streets. Some Wendell recognized, others looked like they came from distant realms he had never heard of. A group of furred merchants walked briskly in one direction. Children with elongated ears darted between stalls. Mounted travelers urged their reptilian beasts through the crowd. The air was thick with the scents of spices, roasted foods, and fresh fruit. Wendell's stomach growled loudly.
"How long has it been since I ate?" he muttered.
Lilian heard him and laughed softly.
Once they stepped fully inside, the gate closed with a final, echoing thud. Lilian tapped his shoulder. "What was that about?"
Not fully comprehending what she meant, Wendell shrugged it off as to not reveal his lack of awareness towards the situation. Lilian seemed to accept that fact and quickly moved on to the more important question she had been waiting to ask.
"Do you have any money?"
Wendell shook his head, as if he could not be more sure about this fact.
"Then that is our first task." Lilian said rather proudly, skipping forward at an advanced pace.
Wendell did not understand her plan, but he followed as she strode confidently deeper into the city. The golem trailed behind them, its presence causing the crowd to part unconsciously. People glanced at Lilian, but their eyes drifted away whenever Wendell stepped too close, as if an unseen instinct discouraged them from looking directly at him.
That was the look he was used to.
The deeper they went, the quieter the city became. They passed through narrow alleys and looping streets. Some paths narrowed so tightly that the golem had to slow its pace, scraping lightly against stone walls that bore centuries of history.
Eventually they reached a small building trapped between two larger structures, almost forgotten in the shadows. A sign hung on the door with faded letters. Wendell could not read it, he did not know how. He was not taught as a slave. Lilian sighed, acknowledging that out of the three of them she was the only one that could read. She stepped closer to the sign studying it carefully.
"It says a lost bartender works here," she read. "Or used to. The rest is missing."
A chill crept up Wendell's spine. The words felt too familiar.
He looked at the small door, the single window above it, and the dim light flickering within. Something deep inside him stirred.
When he opened the door, the interior greeted him with near-darkness. Only a faint bulb flickered overhead, its weak glow bouncing off dusty tables. The air inside tasted of old wood, forgotten stories, and something else he could not name.
Then the rising sun peeked over the massive wall outside, their journey in the city had taken longer than he had realized. Its light slipped through the door, cutting across the room. The brightness spread slowly, revealing the bar in full detail.
Wendell's knees buckled.
The counter stood in the exact same shape he remembered. The stools sat in perfect intervals. The shelves behind the counter were lined with bottles of distorted, unfamiliar liquids. A single glass sat on the bar, polished to perfection, besides a single set of finger prints layered on top, untouched by time despite the decay everywhere else.
He knew this place.
He knew it far too well.
Wendell stared at the glass. Memories rushed him like a collapsing building. His breath thinned. His pulse roared in his ears.
"This is the same bar," he whispered. "The same one I was trapped in."
The walls seemed to vibrate around him as the truth cemented itself. The prison he lived in for the last decade was not a dungeon or cell. It was a perfect imitation of a place he trusted, a place tailored to his nature as a bartender. It fooled one of the sharpest minds in existence by never feeling like imprisonment at all. It drained his memories gently, severing connections to people he cared for. It made him believe his isolation was his own choice.
His hands trembled. Rage filled him, blooming from a place of deep betrayal. Yet beneath that anger lived sorrow, the kind that lingered after realizing a decade of life had been stolen without him noticing.
The golem stood silently at the doorway, unable to fit inside. Lilian remained near the threshold, watching Wendell with quiet concern.
Wendell inhaled sharply, forcing his mind to steady. "So this is how it is," he said. "A prison disguised as my home."
His anger rose again recalling that the time he lost was not only his own, but that of his family too. After living for so long alone it almost escaped him. The only reason he cared about he time lost was for this reason. Wendell did not care for himself, he had lost that feeling long ago. His rage pulsed like a second heartbeat. He felt it build in his chest, seeking release.
And as he neared his breaking point, something happened. His many experiences, stacked like sediment across centuries, whispered reason into him. He understood the situation not through emotion, but through the echo of wisdom gained across many lifetimes worth of memories.
"This is a nice perk," he muttered.
Yet even with that clarity, he did not push away the pain. He welcomed it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to let it settle in his bones so that he did not forget the cost of having his freedom stolen.
He was silent for a long moment.
Then he reached out and touched the glass on the counter. The fingerprints that lay on top of the perfectly polished glass, aligning with his hand perfectly. The instant his fingers brushed its surface, a faint memory returned, swirling through his mind like a familiar voice.
And just like the many times before, Wendell began polishing the glass. His own glass this time. A glass he had drank from before his memories were erased.