Scene 3: Somewhere above Golarian -Jonathan the Haunted
My eyes slowly, painfully open to brightness I have never known. At least not that I can remember. It is so painful I have can't even keep them open. My eyes shut and I the next thing that I know I am awake again, with my eyes closed, about to reflexively open them. This time I last a bit longer, but still can't seem to keep them open. I don't know how long this goes on, the only way I have to keep track of time is by breaths, so I use them to count. At first when I count, I get distracted after a few hundred. Eventually, I manage to keep track at the same time as reducing the amount of time it takes to recover. This goes on for a long time, as the blinding light becomes a little more bearable. When my can keep my eyes open for long enough, my eyes adjust and I slowly come to realize that I am in some kind of glass tube. As my eyesight grows stronger still, I can see that there are other glass tubes filled with other people. Then I realize that they all look the same.
They. All. Look. The. Same.
It's then when I realize that I can't move the rest of my body. I don't know why, but I can't move my hands. Why can't I move my hands? Who did this to me and why? I get angry at the thought, and then I feel a finger slightly shift. Getting angry seems to help me focus and move for some reason. Focusing on anger doesn't help, but thinking about getting revenge seems to be better to focus on. First a finger, then a hand, then an arm, a leg. Eventually, he could get some movement out of most of his body, but he never did it while those things walked by. Shortly after regaining his ability to see, he saw some things that looked almost like satyrs walking between the rows?! of pods that his pod was in.
Most of the time the things were disinterested in the pods, but occasionally, they would stop at one and look at something on the tube. They would talk back and forth for a bit, but sometimes they would just leave after. Other times they would push something on the tube and the person inside would disappear. Sometimes the person would look like they were dropping out of the bottom of the tube, sometimes the tube would flush with a green liquid and the body would dissolve. I hope that the person inside didn't feel anything from it, but I would doubt that the satyr-things felt the same way, if they were concerned about it at all. I'd never have my eyes opened when they would pass, and I would always wait to hear those satyr-things move on before opening them again.
On the last day that I remember being in the tube, I was looking around and moving my head from side to side. I think I caught the eye of another person whose eyes were opening. Just then, with a rapid pace, the satyr things came down the walk way. The satyrs noticed that the other person's eyes had been opened and pointing towards me. I got my eyes closed quick, and waited. I knew that the satyrs would be coming to look over my tube. I had hoped that they had not noticed me, but they stopped outside my tube. I heard them talking their foul tongue, and hoped against anything that I would one day be able to break out of this tube and get revenge against the things keeping me captive. Their conversation stopped after a while and I heard them walk off.
I waited for what seemed like a thousand breaths. I slowly opened my eyes. I was still facing the tube that had held the person looking at me. It was full of that green liquid. I gasped involuntarily and immediately the face of one of those things got in front of me from above. How had I not heard that it was up there? I saw it reach it's arm down and push a button. The tube filled with some kind of smoke as I saw it smile with its foul, tentacled mouth before I went unconscious.
I woke up on a hard surface, with the light fading around me. It was night time, and there was a pack next to me. A kind young man came rushing over to me to see if I was okay. I can understand him! My voice felt weak from lack of use, but I answered that I didn't know. I can't remember when I felt this unconfined or free! It's amazing! But I also wanted revenge. Revenge against the ones who had imprisoned me and the rest of the people. Wait, I've finally seen what I look like. They were copies of me! All of them!
I fell unconscious at that, and I apparently taken to a bed. I woke up with a masked figure sitting in a chair across the room from me. I had apparently only been unconscious for 2 "hours" or so. The lady (the voice sounded feminine) asked me what my name is, and without thinking I said "Jonathan". I was worried that the woman was secretly one of the things that had kept me captive, but her voice had none of the tenor or pitch of those that were my captors. She asked me if I remembered anything about where I was before I arrived at the Abbey. I told her that I didn't remember anything about where I was before I arrived. I think that she knew that I was lying, but she didn't confront me on it. She went on to tell me that I could stay as long as I needed to, but that this was a functioning Abbey, and that after I was better, I would have to help out. She left me to rest.
Help out? I don't even know what I know how to do, how can I help with anything?
Over the next few days, I learned that I have an odd assortment of skills with no reasons for knowing some of them. I had puzzled out that I was pretty good at being sneaky (must be from my time in the tube), and all of that time spent focusing on trying to focus trying to regain my senses must have heightened my perceptive abilities. Unrelated to my time in the tube, I seem to be have some proficiency with both cooking and patching up people. I don't know where I would have picked up those abilities, but at least I have something I can help out with here at the Abbey.
A few days later, the Abbess came to me and told me she recalled a place to the south that was legendarily related to a beam of light. In a town of Sandpoint, there was a place called "The Old Light" that might be related to a beam of light in some way. Apparently there is a festival occurring in a couple of days, and there is a sage that might know more about this ancient thing. Maybe he can help with finding the beings that wronged me. I thanked her and figured on getting ready. It wasn't until she had left and I was back to working on what I was doing that I remembered that I had never told her that I was wronged by some "beings".