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On most days, Molly loved being purple. He loved having thick, curly horns that he could decorate with gold and silver. He loved having a tail that flicked behind him.
Most days.
When the Nein needed a place to stop and rest for the night and Jester spotted the lights of the tiny village a mile in the distance, everyone agreed it would be preferable to camping, even with the tents they’d acquired. It was a welcome surprise- the village wasn’t on any of their maps and they hadn’t been expecting to find a place to stay.
There was only one tavern with an inn in the village and it wasn’t hard to find- the entire village was two intersecting roads with a couple smaller roads branching off. Maybe 25 or 30 buildings in all. The innkeeper did a double-take when their colorful group came through the front door and asked for rooms. She set about finding keys for the three rooms they needed, but the whole time, her eyes kept flicking over to Molly. The first couple times she looked at him, he flashed her one of his charming grins, but he couldn’t help but notice the coldness that her eyes held and he was relieved when they were able to head up to their rooms.
They dropped their stuff and most headed back down to the tavern for a late-night drink. Caleb elected to stay in his room and begin the newest book he’d picked up, and Jester said she was tired from the day’s travels and went right to bed.
Molly was barely halfway through his drink when his head began to grow foggy.
What kind of alcohol did this tiny little village have that was getting him this drunk this quickly? He downed another swallow of the ale and set down his tankard. To his surprise, most of the others looked the way he felt.
Something in the back of his mind nagged that there was something extremely suspicious about the fact that all of them were getting whammied, but his head was spinning and he could barely walk, let alone think about suspicious situations, and he just wanted to go lie down.
The five of them staggered up to their rooms and Molly collapsed on his bed, not even bothering to pull off his boots. His head thudded into the pillow and he was lost to darkness.
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Caleb glanced up when Nott came stumbling through the door. He raised an eyebrow as she clambered up onto her bed.
“Strong liquor?” he asked. There was a muffled reply as Nott mumbled something into her pillow. Caleb chuckled softly and extinguished all but one of his floating lights, bringing it down to hover right over his book. “Sleep well, Nott.”
Caleb was well and truly into his book when he heard several pair of muffled footsteps in the hallway outside. They were quiet, but heavy, as though the owners were trying to tiptoe with heavy boots on. He wouldn’t have thought much of it, except the footsteps stopped near his room. He heard the clicking of a lock and hurried whispers.
He extinguished his light and crept over to the door. He pressed his ear to the wood and held his breath. Bits of whispered conversation floated through.
“...quickly now…”
“...fuckin’ demon…”
“...bind his hands…”
Caleb’s stomach dropped right down to his feet at those words. He backed away from the door with a hand over his mouth. There was a soft thud from the next room. The group of people hurried quietly past his room again, but now there was the sound of something being dragged over the wood floor moving with them. Caleb forced himself to wait until the sounds were almost gone, then cracked open his door and peered out just in time to see several men disappear through the door at the end of the hall, the limp figure of Molly being dragged along with them.
Caleb hurried over to Nott and shook her shoulder.
“Nott!” he hissed. “Wake up!” There was no response from the little goblin, not even a mumbled protest. She slept on soundly. Caleb abandoned his efforts and hurried out the door to Fjord and Molly’s room.
The linens on Molly’s bed were in disarray. Fjord was snoring quietly on his bed, and Caleb’s efforts to rouse him had the same outcome as Nott. Caleb remembered how woozy Nott had seemed when she had returned to the room and how strange it seemed now, because Nott could hold her liquor with the best of them.
Unless it wasn’t the liquor that had put her in that state.
Caleb remembered the way the innkeeper had been eyeing Molly.
What were the odds the people of this tiny town had never seen a tiefling before? And what would they think he was?
Caleb ran through the other members of the Nein until he reached-
Jester! Jester had come upstairs right away and wouldn’t have been drugged with the rest of them.
Caleb hurried down the hall to the girls’ room. He threw open the door and his spirits lifted when the lump in Jester’s bed shifted and a sleepy voice mumbled “...Caleb? Whaddyou want?”
“Molly has been kidnapped by some unsavory characters who believe him to be some kind of devil. Everyone else has been drugged and I cannot wake them. You are the only other one awake.”
Jester was wide awake now. She threw back her blanket and tugged on her boots. “Did you see which way they went? How long ago?”
“Moments,” Caleb said, heading for the door. “I saw them leave through the door at the end of the hall and I tried to wake Fjord and then you.” The pair of them raced down the hall.
Just before they burst into the tavern, Caleb put out his hand to stop Jester. “I am going to cast Suggestion on the innkeeper when we get in there. I think it is best for the effectiveness of the spell that we do not barge in.” Jester nodded and pushed open the door.
The two sauntered into the tavern. At this hour, no patrons sat nursing a tankard and the innkeeper was behind the bar, book in hand. She pretended to be engrossed, but Caleb caught the nervous glance she shot their way when they entered.
They approached her and she set down the book, trying to put a welcoming smile on her face.
“Good evening,” Caleb said evenly. “One of our friends has gone missing and I suggest you tell us where he has gone, because I have a feeling you know.”
The innkeeper blinked a couple times, and Caleb was worried the spell wouldn’t take, but he watched as her eyes glazed over slightly and she nodded.
“They took… they’re going to put ‘im in a box and bury him in the graveyard on the other end of town.” She chuckled. “Serves that devil right.”
Jester gasped, her hands pressed to her mouth. Caleb’s heart skipped a beat before he just took Jester’s hand and raced out of the tavern.
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Molly came to slowly and groaned at the hard surface under his back. If he’d fallen out of bed, he’d certainly be feeling it in the morning. He began to sit up and immediately whacked his forehead on something. He groaned again and tried to raise a hand to clutch the aching spot where he was sure a bruise would form, only to realize his hands were bound together.
“Fjord, I didn’t take you for-” Molly stopped as he realized that he was no longer in his room at the inn. His dark vision could make out the shapes of his own body and nothing else. Tentatively, he raised his bound hands until they met the hard surface he’d hit his head on. It was rough wood. To the left and right- more wooden walls. His tail met something down by his feet, and he was willing to bet there was one at his head too.
He was in a box.
He slammed his hands into the lid and was rewarded with a trickle of something dry onto his face.
He was in a box, buried in the ground.
Panic immediately rose in his chest and he fought the scream that wanted to rip itself from his lungs.
If he was buried, he didn’t have a lot of air to spare. No air to waste on screaming.
This wasn’t happening again. Not again. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t Lucien. He was Mollymauk. He was Molly and Molly didn’t belong in the ground.
A choked sob escaped from between his lips. He bit down on his lower lip, digging his pointy canines in until the pain was strong enough to distract him. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was on the floor of his room at the inn.
He focused on breathing slowly and shallowly.
Maybe this wasn’t so bad.
Was it his imagination or was the wood getting more comfortable?
His body felt fuzzy. Was that normal?
Maybe he should go down and get another drink from the bar.
Maybe… maybe he...
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Caleb and Jester crept up the hill overlooking the cemetery. They’d spotted Molly’s kidnappers coming back into town and Caleb’s heart sank at the fact that they’d already accomplished their task. Fortunately, with such a small town, the graveyard was not large, and Caleb could see the only spot of freshly disturbed ground from their perch on the hill. After making sure there was no one in sight, they raced down to the new grave.
“Stand back,” Caleb said, pulling out his clay cat’s paw. An earthen paw rose from the ground and slammed into the recent grave, digging away a huge scoop of dirt. A spot of new wood was revealed. Caleb dug again and again, widening the hole until the edge of the lid, scratched from the digging, was revealed.
“Get it open,” Caleb said. Jester jumped into the hole, jammed the blade of her handaxe into the seam of the lid and the box, and pried down. The seam cracked open. Jester tossed down the axe and jammed her fingers into the crack, heaving the lid upwards.
The lid ripped in half, revealing Molly lying inside. His eyes were open, but the red scleras were glassy and unseeing. His frame shuddered gently and his breaths were raspy and quick.
Jester hauled him out of the box and out of the hole onto the grass. His normally rich purple skin was a sickly lavender and his lips were tinged blue. His hands were bound together in front of him.
Jester retrieved her axe and sliced through the rope around Molly’s wrists, wincing at the raw marks they had left behind. She took one of his hands and turned it over.
“Caleb…” she said softly, showing him the scraped and bloodied skin on Molly’s fingertips. “He tried to dig himself out.” She cast a hurried Cure Light Wounds and the marks on Molly’s hands and wrists faded away.
“Molly? Can you hear me?” Caleb patted Molly’s cheeks, gently at first, then more forcefully when he got no response. “Molly. Wake up. Molly.”
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“Molly. Molly.”
empty empty empty empty empty caleb
“Molly, I know you are in there.”
not empty not empty MOLLY i’m MOLLYMAUK
The hazy forms of Caleb and Jester came into view above Molly. There was something warm on his cheeks. It felt nice and he turned his head slightly, nuzzling into it.
“Molly, can you hear me?” Molly nodded, moving his head a fraction. His whole body was just so heavy and he didn’t think he could manage much more than that but he could breathe again and he was lying on soft grass and not in a box oh gods the box-
Suddenly Molly found that he could very much move again and he surged upward, startling Caleb back onto his haunches. Molly’s lungs felt tight at the memory of the box inches from his body and the dirt trickling onto his face and the air growing stale and the terror of waking up empty again (if only for a moment) and it was so much worse when he wasn’t already dead-
“Molly.” Caleb’s voice was soft but firm and his hands were on Molly’s face again and they were so grounding. “You are hyperventilating.” One of the hands left Molly’s face - he wanted it back - and took one of his hands instead.
Caleb placed Molly’s hand on his own chest. Caleb’s heart beat steady and strong under Molly’s palm.
“Breathe with me, Mollymauk,” Caleb said. Molly felt Caleb’s chest rise and fall slowly and he tried to match his ragged breaths with Caleb’s even ones.
Slowly, his breathing started to even out and his stopped feeling so light-headed and constricted.
Molly sagged forward, a ragged sob tearing itself from his throat, and collapsed onto Caleb’s chest, his head landing in the space between Caleb’s shoulder and neck and he cried.
“Oh, Mr. Mollymauk,” Caleb murmured, shifting so that he was sitting next to Molly and Molly could lean into him. He looped his arms around Molly’s shoulders and held the tiefling through the sobs that wracked his whole frame.
Jester scrambled over and pressed herself up against Molly’s other side, wrapping her arms around his midsection.
“It’s okay to cry, Molly,” she murmured, snaking her tail in a spiral around his and leaning her head on his arm.
Caleb clicked his fingers and Frumpkin materialized in his lap before padding over onto Molly’s legs. He nuzzled his head under Molly’s chin and purred loudly. Molly hiccuped slightly, a tiny smile on his face, and scratched Frumpkin under the chin.
Molly didn’t know how long they stayed in that cuddle pile, but the moon was high in the sky when they began to hear shouts from the village. All three of them tensed at first, but Molly quickly recognized Nott’s high-pitched cries, Fjord’s rumbling shouts and even Kiri, whose calls matched a different member of the party each time she shouted. Caleb unhooked one of his hands from around Molly, dug his wire out of a pocket, and messaged Nott.
“We are in the cemetery,” he said quietly. “We are all safe.” Within three minutes, five shapes crested the hill and came racing down the other side.
“What the fuck happened?” Beau asked as they drew close. “We all went down after we got our drinks and then we woke up and you guys were gone.”
“Apparently the townsfolk here are not as welcoming towards tieflings as the other places we have visited,” Caleb said softly. He gave them the condensed version of the events of the night. Molly twitched when Caleb reached the part about digging up the box, but did not otherwise react.
“Molly, are you all right?” Nott asked.
“I’m f-” Molly started. “I’m-” One of his hands, which had wound up fisted in the material of Caleb’s coat, clutched it even tighter.
“You are definitely not fine,” Fjord drawled. “I think the best thing to do here is get the hell outta town before the townsfolk wise up to your little graverobbing heist. We’ve already got the cart hitched up.”
“Fantastic idea,” Molly murmured as Caleb and Jester hauled him to his feet.
Molly was pleased that even after he climbed into the cart, Caleb didn’t leave his side.