An account of the time spent elsewhere
"Following my departure, I began to travel through the many different worlds, from one to another. I was hoping to find the one I was born in, the one of deserts and cities, but I had no such luck. For a time I was trapped in the body of someone called Montmelier. That was an odd experience.
"There are many roads that lead into the dimension where I was caught, but only three that lead out. And of those three, two lead into other worlds under their control. I accidentally stepped onto one of the roads leading in, through a nameless gate in a world of wind and flames. Before I knew what I had done, servants dove onto me and took Hundredfold, binding my limbs.
"'They' are a group of spirits from a world long since dead. I had heard of them many times before, but had never gotten a solid answer about their nature. The stories say that They gather in the worlds they control, drawing information from those foolish enough to enter and putting their bodies through the most grueling tests they can conceive.
"As it happens, those stories are true.
"I have no knowledge of just how long I spent in that dimension. Time flows differently there; I could have spent six months in that dimension or ten thousand years. What I showed you was only one of their 'games'. I can remember being torn to pieces and rebuilt, having my brain taken from my head and unraveled, being dismantled joint by joint. My eyes were burned out of my head with hot steel several times, only to be regrown. My throat was not so lucky. They carved my neck open again and again, all my blood drained from it, until the last time left it too badly damaged to cut any more. I think you can imagine what they did to my genitals.
"When they captured me, they tore my soul out and put it in a bottle. I had to find that bottle to have any chance of escape. During the brief periods they let me rest, I searched for it. If they caught me looking, they put me through even greater tortures. Thankfully, I can't remember those. Truth-trading requires a strong memory, which means I remember everything else.
"I found my soul at the bottom of a pit of corpses, which began to tear into my flesh as I pulled my way back up. That's where my most recent wounds came from. When I had my soul back in my body, I fled... into one of their other worlds. I was captured again, but this time I stole a weapon from them and fought my way free. It broke as I found the proper road out.
"And this is how you found me, voiceless, bleeding, and wounded. I wish I had never left."