Fate has been extremely cruel to you... You are an "experimental golem"... There is an "ocean" of torment hidden behind these words.

You strain the artificial muscles of your left arm, trying to move at least a little the mountains of decayed fragments of furniture and some rusty twisted pieces of metal that have pressed most of your body to the ground.

In vain.

You feel that there is little strength in your body.

Your golem-core works stably, supporting your existence (the term "life" is clearly not appropriate here). But at the cost of this was a weakening of the energy supply to the rest of the elements of your... "body".

In the periphery of your vision, pressed to the fragments of the wooden floor, you notice a weak glow emanating from these noisy living creatures who continue to discuss something.

You do not understand the words of this language very well. It's as if the familiar dialect of the Western Nevian language of the human peoples has undergone many changes and acquired many loanwords from other languages. Your hearing catches several phrases with the obvious presence of distorted Elven words. This fact seems to make your mind remember something, restore hidden reserves of information... and gradually delve into the meaning of the speech better.

They are discussing you.

"Golem... it's some kind of magical ancient golem! And it looks like it's not completely broken! It can function!" - you hear the loud sound of one of the strangers' voices.

You strain your strength again.

Gradually, magical energy from the core located deep in your chest begins to spread to your limbs.

Noise.

Cracking wood.

Grinding rusty metal.

It seems that these strangers are also helping you - they are gradually removing a pile of garbage and debris that have been pressing your body to the ground for a long... extremely long time.

You struggle to your knees...

Your hands throw away the pieces of wood, twisted rusty metal and chunks of stone that once formed the wall of the room.

"Hey! Be careful! Don't go too close! That golem can be dangerous!" - you hear the warning voice of one of the strangers.

Finally, you stand up, looking at yourself.

"Body"...

Your "body".

Even this simple word seems, when applied to your situation, like a sadistic mockery.

Rather, "it" can be called more than a two-meter-long piece of meat made of body parts of various anthropomorphic creatures. The body parts are fastened by ubiquitous thin and long rods of some mysterious dark-bluish metal that pierces the flesh, exuding a magical aura. This metal fastens your legs and your arms, like veins that sometimes plunge into the flesh, sometimes emerge. The rods of this metal are attached to the back of your head.

You look down in shock at your right hand, which is clearly a strange dark greenish tint, different from the usual human pale shade of your left hand. Meanwhile, your chest looks like a jumble of metal, some strange pulsating growths of a crimson shade, and sickly gray flesh.

Your legs also look as if each of them once belonged to two completely different persons: the left leg is hairy and has a hoof instead of a foot; the right leg looks like a strong limb of some human, which has a bronze tint.

And metal…

A strange metal of a dark bluish hue, emitting a faint grayish glow, penetrates the flesh of your legs.

Your groin... There could be genitals there... But that happens with normal creatures. With you, everything is different.

It is scary to realize this, but there is simply an abundance of metal rods intertwined with each other.

You do not see your face.

But the looks and frightened exclamations of a group of strangers who found your body - all these indirect signs make it easy to realize that you are extremely ugly.

But...

You can think!

You can strain your memory to catch at least echoes of what was your life lost forever.

You try to do this and you are immersed in painful memories...

These are only crumbs of information about the person whose body gave your body a brain.

However, this is better than nothing.

You recall the image of a tall, stately male elf warrior who lives in a densely populated coastal city among huge fortifications and high towers.

Images of anxiety and elusive betrayal hovering around...

Every shadow inspires fear...

For the last year, life in the city has become more and more oppressive every day...

The Areopagus of the Honorable Negociants passes some strange laws...

You, as one of the city militia officers, are perplexed, but try to fulfill your duty.

Until one dark night, you and your entire family are kidnapped by mysterious attackers.

And then a terrifying nightmare began in reality. Blood. Fear. Pieces of bloody bodies. Magic that disfigures bodies, perverts the very soul and the essence of the universe.

And then you followed orders...Orders of cruel sadists who made you an unnatural monster. "Outstanding experimental exemplar" - the term your master used to describe you after yet another bloodbath, during which you, having previously carried out a covert infiltration into a guarded building, tore apart dozens of bodies of the cult's enemies with your hands, comes to mind.

That's how you became what you are now.

An intense pain in your head...

The memories had their price.

Your body is weakened by years of energy exhaustion and current mental strain. Therefore, pain is something you will have to get used to.

You clutch your head, slowly rocking from side to side.

You utter only one word monotonously.

The word you memorized, recalling the terrible fate of the one whose body gave you a brain. This word is the name of the city.

"Niellen... Niellen... Niellen..." - you mutter, rocking from side to side and trying to calm the excruciating pain.

You pay little attention to the group of strangers. Your vision is still slightly blurry.

"What is he muttering? Do you understand anything, guys?" - you hear an irritated voice.

"Some nonsense... Maybe these are words in an unknown language?" - another stranger answers.

A female voice answers: "I could be wrong... But I read a long time ago in books about ancient history that there was an elven city with a similar name on approximately this territory. Niellen... Yes... I think so. It was a long time ago - more than three hundred years ago. I don't remember very well what happened... It seems that this city was destroyed during long bloody wars between the fragments of the disintegrated elven Empire of the Diamond Throne, young kingdoms of humans, city-states of dwarves and numerous tribes of orcs. The usual political reality of those centuries... The struggle for the redistribution of territories and control over trade routes... In addition, several natural disasters occurred that separated the peninsula from the continent and turned the urban space into ruins overgrown with thorny bushes, moss and trees. That is why we had to go down on ropes - many buildings are buried under the rubble of former stone walls and fragments of towers... But we made the right decision: few people know about this place and, probably, you can find many useful things here. I am sure that the Island of Grey Osiers hides many treasures! "

The shock of realization penetrates your mind.

You **** yourself to abstract yourself from the pain in your head. You slowly sit down on a large stone fragment of the wall.

So the perception of time has played a cruel joke on you.

In reality, not years have passed.

Not even decades.

In reality, more than three hundred years have passed...

Many memories of the past have been erased from the memory of living beings...

They...

They don't know...

About a cruel and insidious cult that controlled the life of the city and, like poison in the blood, sought to penetrate other communities and spread its dominance outward...

About the essence of the bloody military conflict of the past...

They perceive this place simply as ancient ruins...

And for them, you are just an ugly fragment of the distant past...