the watch are one such consistent thing, while it is unpredictable where they'll be seen (and for how long) it is known that they always will be seen somewhere. it could be anywhere.
the silent watchmen are as permanent as the stones, just in a less fixed position.
a pair appeared on the other end of a drawbridge, one that gave you only a precious minute or so to gather up some flavorful red growths on that column it led to (otherwise, it was a dead end. a 10 diameter thing with a mere few-foot wide ledge for a walkway, with the bridge up you would be trapped, hopeless)
the growths on that column were a necessary toll for passage, the only way you would be permitted through that plaza, the one with the chain that hung just low enough for you to climb up to the archway leading away to a potentially useful stairwell.
or at least you thought as much.
it could not be said if these watchmen were placed there because it is true that the red growths you would use to cross the plaza to reach the archway were needed to reach a stairwell that would certainly lead to a way out from this place (at least eventually), as all prior sets of watchmen had impeded you reaching dead ends.
they may have simply appeared because you had been seen repeating this infraction too many times*, of leaving the plaza, crossing the drawbridge. gathering up red growths. it is all infractions, and their presence could be a mere punishment.
*it is known that you are not always watched in the carceral place, just that you always might be.
the watch are distinctive, unmistakable. their heads and faces are shielded, covered by grotesque helmets attached to shoulder and chest armors. this region of the carceral place presents its watch as mask-faces with crude, ugly expressions: these two smiled. they turned their chests and heads to face you. they are without speech.
watch are not often fast or agile (unlike the pests), as they are weighed down by the bulkier armor they can't remove, and often (as was the case with these) heavy armored robes.
They carried simple weapons, staves with fat weighted heads, their purpose clear: they would clobber you, smash your skull and ribcage, toss you into the dark tangled abyss of structure below.
you reasoned that if you were able to push one off the edge with a good bash of some kind, and then not get tripped up by the other right after, it would then just be a matter of scraping off a bit of red growth as you moved around the column.
if you were able to get around and then back to the bridge without running into that second watch as you did that, you would then easily outrun them.
this is what you would do then.
they readied their staves as the bridge lowered, and you pulled loose a cracked piece of stone ornamentation you had seen previously.
you heave the weathered knob into the solar plexus of the leftmost watch, and then you charge as they begin to tumble off the narrow column ledge from the blow. their bare arms and legs splay wildly as they appear to float off the edge of the architecture, their staff balancing for but a moment before joining them in the abyss as their robes ripple like sails.
they make no sound, but the second watch clangs their staff against the column, just above your head.
you rip out one handful of red growth, then two. you cannot see the watchman. you cannot hear them.
you wonder: would they have followed you around, or would they have turned face to charge you in a new direction?
you are certain they would not turn, and so you continue round the column.
and you see them, they are on the bridge. they did not follow you at all, and you are a fool, and the impact into your solar plexus is sudden and awful as the staff smashes you into the column before you crumple and fall into the dark as well. you barely take in breath before it is over.
and when you awake your breathing is far too loud.
your arms reach up and feel cold metal, and fumble over the integral locks that hold the grimacing helmet on your head when you find them. you arms are slowed too by armored robes, gaudy and worn down by time and many wearers. they smell like old sweat, the helmet like rust.
at first it was awful to take watch, excruciating. you would have wept, begged forgiveness if your voice could be heard. it is not like that anymore.
none ever speak of taking watch, since there is nothing to say. all here commit infractions, and so all at some time have taken watch. and shall again.
all here have thrown each other into the darkness, have cracked each others ribs and skulls. all here have been the cruel gargoyles watching over each others passage.
you understand that if you let them use your body for now and do as they will say they will at least not change it, or this will at least delay them changing it. at least this is understood, and so it is easy.
you will be able to eat and drink too, when the helmet is removed.
your infractions were not great today, and so you hope you will not be asked to do too much in penance.
though none will know that it was you, but it could of course be any one of you, and so it is always you.
and if you do this thing they ask of you they will let you return to your cell as you had died normally, without infractions. awaking as usual, barely clothed but without cruel assignments.
you listen for the creaking sounds of the many limbs of a warden as you rise up, testing the weight of the staff in one hand, and feeling a dent in the sternum of your armor with the other.
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