You reach the fortress at about noon the next day.  It's really not much of a castle.  Instead of stone, like you would expect, it's made completely out of wood, with a few rickety looking towers poking up from behind the wall. Once you're only about a hundred feet off from the moat, Kralmer stops you.


"Send my family out this way, when you get out." He points at a spot where the moat goes under the wood.  "You see where the water crosses under the wall?"


"Yeah?"


"That should take you into the dungeon."


You don't say anything.  This is all happening so fast, you're not sure you're ready.


"Thanks again, human."  Kralmer says, "Whatever happens, I'll make sure your legacy lives on."


"Right," you say, "Thanks."


There's no point in stalling, so you start running towards the moat, fast as you can, so no one sees you.  Once you reach the edge, you don't hesitate to dive right it.


The water is warmer than you expected, and murky.  It's hard to stay afloat with a backpack on, but you still manage to keep your head above the water.  Luckily, it doesn't seem to be flowing in any particular direction, so you have no trouble with current.  You swim for the opening Kralmer pointed out and duck under it.  Suddenly, the sunlight from above is gone.  You're in a sort of dirt tunnel, with just enough space at the top for you to breathe.  It's fairly short, and before you know it, the river opens up into a sort of pool at the edge of a huge underground room.


You swim to the edge of the pool, out of breath.  Are you really this out of shape?  For a moment you sit on your hands and knees, panting.  Then, you look up and get a good look at the wall on the other side of the room.  You suck in your breath.  It's lined with cages, set into the wall, dirty and disheveled Oalkwardner eyes staring out at you from behind wooden... well, they're not exactly bars...  more like fat wooden sticks.


It looks like this part of the fortress is built into the hillside, as half of the walls are wood, and the other half, dirt, hard packed.  


Thankfully, there are no guards down here, at least not right now.  You need to decide if you're going to free the prisoners now, or wait until after the king is dead.

You free the people first

You rush up to the bars of the nearest cage to you.  In that moment, you decide that there's no way you're leaving anyone behind.  If you're taking one, you're taking them all.


"I'm here to save you."  You say in a low voice, "all of you."  


"What... are you?"  Asks the Oalkwardner in the cage, inching backwards.


"I'm a friend, now let me get these bars off the cage."


You grip the bars and pull as hard as you can, but they don't budge.  This is real wood, not the Paper-Mache everything else in this place is made of.  You're going to have to find another way to get through it.  Maybe you can steal the keys off a guard or something.  Or maybe...


You sling your bag off your shoulders and go through the contents until you find what you're looking for.  It takes a minute, and for a moment you fear it might have fallen out of your bag.  But no, at the bottom of your bag, lays your lighter, untouched since the night you first woke up.


Maybe, you can use this on lock of the cell!  Because even that's made of wood, for some reason.  Or maybe you should just play it safe and look for the keys...

You attempt to burn through the lock

Working quickly, you put the lighter up to the keyhole and flick it on.  Somehow, even after you swam through that moat, it still works.  The lock catches instantly, faster than you would've thought possible.  Once again, you grip the bars and wrench open the door.


"Are you a wizard?" The Oalkwardner asks,  "What kind of magical power is that?  I've never seen anything like it?  Also, is it going to eat the whole door?"


You glance once again at the door to see that the entire thing is engulfed in flames.  How is it possible for fire to spread that fast?  Either this is your faulty memory at work, or this wood is different from the stuff back at home.  Even as you think this it's already spreading to the rest of the cell.


"Get out of there!"  You cry, pulling the Oalkwardner out of the flaming cell.  


The fire is spreading quicker and quicker.  Before you even manage to take so much as two steps back, the entire wall is in flames.  The other trapped Oalkwardners scream as they and their cells are consumed in the flames.


"We've gotta get to the exit!"  The Oalkwardner says, pointing to an opening in the wall, with a spiral staircase just beyond it,  "Come on!"


"But what about-"  You're cut off by a loud crack.  The exit collapses, and sparks fly everywhere.  One of them lands on your Oalkwardner friend, and catches him on fire.  


"Gaahhh!"  he screams as the flames engulf him, burning him as if he's made of paper.  Your stomach turns at the sight and you look away.


At that moment, the ceiling caves in, and falls right on top of you, killing you instantly.

You epilouge

So, you're dead.  But let's look on the bright side of things, shall we?  After you died, the fire spread to the rest of the palace, burning it completely to the ground.  No one escaped, not even the king and his invincible suit of amour!  Not even his children made it out, so there was no one left to take his place.  No one, that is, except for the rebel alliance the Grand Protector and his army were trying to find.  With the king dead, they sweep in and take power within a month.  They estate a new order, where everyone shares what they have, and the government owns the means of production.*


Even you get to live on in the hearts and minds of everyone you saved from the king's reign of terror.  They even erected a statue in your honor!  (Though, it looks nothing like you).  You will be known forevermore as, "Human, Martyr of the New Order."


So, in a way, even you get to live happily ever after.  Everyone, it seems, gets a happy ending.


 

Except for all the innocent people you killed in the dungeon.


 

And Kralmer, because his entire family is dead.  He will forever curse your name.


*I swear, I'm not communist.