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EU: Chapter 026 | A Night Walk Beyond Walls
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 10:15:40 +0000 UTCPrevious Chapter | Table Of Contents | Next Chapter
The prison was surrounded by walls shaped like hexagons, laid out in a honeycomb pattern. Each hexagon enclosed six hectares of land and was bordered by twenty-meter-tall walls.
Every hexagon touched six others. At each junction—where three hexagons met—stood a watchtower, three meters high and made from the same mortar as the walls.
Each tower was circular and housed three seats, one for each soldier. Each soldier was assigned a hexagon but mainly focused on a single hectare, occasionally glancing at neighboring plots.
—Crackle.
An oil lamp hung from the ceiling in one of the towers. Its thumb-sized flame cast a soft, flickering glow. The three soldiers inside, all Level 1, sat cross-legged under it.
They wore thick leather armor, layered with woolen shawls to keep out the night chill. The glass casing kept the wind from snuffing it out.
“Sheesh, it’s cold tonight,” one of them muttered as he carefully pulled a rectangular wooden piece from a wobbly tower of blocks.
“Don’t blame the cold for your lack of skill,” the second one shot back, pulling out a piece from a trickier spot.
“We have this same conversation every night,” the third one said as he reached for his piece. His hand twitched, and the wooden tower toppled over. “My loss.”
They were playing Jenga. It was the only thing that helped pass the time. Technically, games were banned during duty hours—they were supposed to stay alert.
On paper, that sounded doable. But day after day, cramped and idle, vigilance became a joke. At least the day shift had the Elves to watch, minor distractions and idle chatter..
The night shift had it worse. There was nothing to see or do. Though eight moons lit the land, the Elven Prison remained shrouded in darkness thanks to the towering presence of the World Tree, which loomed at 8.8 kilometers tall.
Its canopy blotted out the sky, plunging everything below into endless shadow. The place was pitch black.
If a soldier dared to look out beyond the tower, all they’d see was a thick wall of darkness—eerie, suffocating, and cold. Too many had lost their minds staring into it for too long.
After enough soldiers broke down, the newer ones learned to pretend. They kept their eyes on the lamp, or each other, never looking beyond. That was the unspoken rule—don’t look outside.
They weren’t allowed to bring games, so they made do. They'd collect plain, rectangular wooden pieces during their off hours and hide them under the chairs. Nothing fancy—just enough to build their little tower and make it through another long, silent night.
Just them, the cold, and the wind that never stopped whispering.
“I won again,” the second soldier said dryly after a few more rounds.
—Chuckle.
The wooden tower toppled with a soft clatter. With the practiced ease of someone who’d done this a hundred times, the second soldier started rebuilding it. Then he froze, eyes narrowing at the shadows beyond the tower. “Guys…?”
“You see something?”
“No,” the first soldier said, not even bothering to look up. “Probably just your nerves.”
“I swear something moved behind me,” the second soldier insisted, eyes scanning the shadows.
“If you're spooked, just check,” the third one grumbled, standing up with a stiff groan. He dipped his index finger into the oil lamp, pulling out a thin stream of fire, and stretched it out beyond the tower. “See? Nothing there.”
“Don’t mess with me like that,” the second one muttered as the fire circled around the outside of the tower before flickering out. The fire flickered out, leaving only the lamp’s small flame to hold back the dark.
“I know I felt something…” he whispered, shivering a little. ‘Damn, I’m losing it.’
But he wasn’t imagining things.”
There really had been something behind him a moment ago—and now, that something was sitting quietly on top of the tower.
⊱⨷⟐⨳⩥⚔⩤⨳⟐⨷⊰
Perched atop the tower, Pinaka scanned the landscape. Points of light blinked in the distance—each one marking a watch tower.
“So that’s the layout,” he realized. They couldn’t have shown it to him more clearly if they’d tried.
The central prison area was surrounded by six hexagons in the first ring. The second ring held twelve, and the third had eighteen. Each hexagon held six plots, all worked by Elves.
Thirty-six hexagons in total—two hundred and sixteen Elves. ‘Strange,’ Pinaka thought. ‘I remember counting 218.’
One Elf was assigned to the potion factory. So either he miscounted, or there was one extra Elf doing neither farm work nor potion-making. ‘I’ll figure out who eventually.’
But for now, he wanted to scout the edges of the prison. According to what Mahnaka had told him, there were multiple prison cells scattered throughout the area.
Pinaka was currently stationed in the cell responsible for growing staple crops—rice, wheat, and the like. ‘Would be great if the Humans only monitored within the walls and not outside them.’
That was just a guess, though. He needed more information.
Each hexagon was numbered 1 through 36. He was stationed in the staple crops sector—hexagon 4—just beside the main prison zone. Right now, he was crouched atop a watch tower that connected hexagons 4, 5, and 15. Hexagon 15 was part of the second ring, and beyond that was the third.
‘This shouldn’t take long,’ he thought, pressing lower against the roof. He focused his enhanced hearing on the soldiers below. The clack of wooden blocks told him all he needed—they were playing Jenga.
He listened patiently, waiting for their chatter to signal the moment the game reached its peak—that tense point when their attention was locked on the wobbly tower
None of them ever looked outside. They never had a reason to.
That was when Pinaka moved.
He jumped down from the roof, his wooden shoes softened for stealth.
—Thud.
A faint noise echoed below. The soldiers stiffened, ears perked. Outside the tower, everything was pitch black. Pinaka had darted right past them—but in the dark, all they caught was the sound.
If any of them had been looking out at that exact moment, they might have caught the faint blur of his shape slipping by.
“There was something!” the second soldier blurted, scrambling to his feet. He grabbed the lamp’s flame and flung out a stream of fire across the wall.
The light streaked through the darkness—
—but revealed nothing.
“Maybe it was the wind,” the third soldier said after a few minutes of pointless searching. They stayed inside, sweeping the stream of fire across the wall outside.
With no railings and barely two meters of width, it was far too easy to slip. Especially with the wind constantly howling through the prison. None of them were willing to take that risk.
“Could be,” the second soldier muttered, patting his chest as his heartbeat began to slow. He slumped back into his seat. “I want to quit this job!”
“Don’t be stupid,” the third one snorted. “The pay’s insane for what little we actually do. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else, not as a commoner.”
“I know,” the second soldier sighed. “My family’s living comfortably because of this salary. We even splurge a little whenever I go back home.”
He held up his arm to show the goosebumps. “Still… doesn’t stop me from getting scared.”
Even the smallest topic could spark hours of conversation between them. With nothing else to do, talking was all they had.
⊱⨷⟐⨳⩥⚔⩤⨳⟐⨷⊰
While they rambled on, Pinaka listened intently to their voices.
Pinaka clung just below the wall’s edge, gecko-like. The instant he’d landed, he’d rolled to the edge and gone still, his gloves burrowed tiny roots into the stone.
He watched as the fire streams flicked through the air above, sweeping around without revealing anything. Shifting light danced across deeper shadows, but none touched his hiding spot. ‘Good thing I moved fast. Would’ve been bad timing otherwise.’
In his wall-crawling pose—uncannily like something out of an old action film—he waited for the patrol to settle. When it finally did, he crept up and crossed along the narrow wall between hexagons 4 and 15.
As he neared the next tower, located where hexagons 4, 15, and 14 met, he crept around the side and began crawling up vertically, soundless against stone. Once he was past the soldiers' line of sight, he climbed back onto the top and kept moving along the path between hexagons 14 and 15.
At the end of that path was another watchtower, with three more soldiers inside. They were monitoring hexagons 14, 15, and 31. From there, he moved on the path between hexagons 15 and 31, and then 31 and 32, finally reaching the watchtower at the end that monitored hexagons 31, 32, and the space beyond the prison wall.
Pinaka hugged the edge, crawling underneath the tower. When he finally reached the outside-facing side, he exhaled, slow and steady, dangling in the shadows.
Out beyond the wall, it was pitch black for several hundred meters. But in the distance, a few faint lights blinked into view.
‘Another prison, maybe.’
‘If I could find some fireflies… I could reproduce their glow when I need light.’ He scanned the area, eyes straining for movement. ‘They’re always in forests. If Gangnea has anything like them, I need to find it.’
‘Well… I do have another way.’
Carefully, he began climbing down the wall, using the tower’s glow to estimate how far he had to go. Once he was nearly at ground level, he whispered, “Status.”
A faint flash lit up as his Status Window opened, just for a second—barely long enough to cast a soft glow over the area. It vanished in a blink—he’d already memorized it.
‘Lots of shrubs,’ he noted. ‘Ash-covered ground. They burn the plants often—makes hiding harder.’
That wasn’t ideal.
‘If they torch this place often, it'll be hard to stay hidden…’
Then he paused.
‘Wait. Am I an idiot?’ He resisted the urge to smack his forehead. ‘But if they’re torching it all… maybe they’re erasing my tracks for me. And since they’re not bothering with inspections, just torching it all… I might actually be safer.’
Near the wall, one could build an underground bunker. The entrance hatch could be covered with ash, blending in perfectly. ‘This’ll save a lot of time digging through the prison. And once the shrubs regrow, they’ll provide cover for movement.’
More importantly, two Elves could communicate just by touching the same shrub. That meant the plants could become a link between Pinaka on the surface and the Elf who’d be living underground. It’s possible!
‘Even if the bunker gets discovered later, my identity stays safe. Starting tonight, I’ll officially be working in the potion factory,’ Pinaka thought. Resolved, he turned back and slipped into hexagon 4.
On the way, he transformed his gloves and shoes into withered wheat stalks and planted them in the soil. He paused, listening carefully. Once sure no one was nearby, he sprinted into the tunnel.
His feet, shaped like tiger paws, absorbed sound with every step.
—Thump. Thump.
His heart rattled in his chest—he breathed deep, willing it to slow. He pulled sweat from his skin, condensed it into a drop, and swallowed—grimacing at the taste. Then, slowly and silently, he slipped back into his cell, only opening the gate after confirming Mahnaka and Zetaka were asleep.
‘Their breathing is slow and steady. Probably napping.’
He closed the gate gently behind him and let out a quiet sigh. ‘That was my first time outside. A little nerve-wracking… but efficient. Less than an hour.”’
‘I’ll have to check the prison’s terrace later.’ For now, though, he didn’t risk it—the window for the soldier’s arrival was too unpredictable. Sometime in the next six hours, he could show up without warning.
⊱⨷⟐⨳⩥⚔⩤⨳⟐⨷⊰
—Clap. Clap.
Two hours later, the double clap echoed through the prison. Pinaka slowly stood up once Mahnaka and Zetaka left, deliberately being the last to leave his floor. Patted his cheeks, changing his face.
‘This should be enough.’
‘Let’s go.’
He climbed the stairs slowly, biding time until dinner ended. The soldier left right after. From above, Pinaka saw Raepekka linger while the others filed back.
Once the coast was clear, Pinaka descended the stairs, stepped onto the railing of the first floor, and dropped down to the ground.
He landed softly—right in front of Raepekka—and gave him a confident smile.
…
Gangnea Daily Article #26:
Whenever thunderclouds form nearby, lightning rains upon the World Tree.
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