Chapter Text
“On a scale from one to ten, how bad would it be if I-“
“At least a twenty.” Callissa cut her off and barked a laugh as she wiped the blood from her broad sword and re-sheathed it. She stepped over the corpse of the goblin she had just slain and slumped to the ground beside the leth half-elf rouge.
“Really?! I didn’t even say it yet!” Daze said as she frowned and outstretched her injured limb away from the blood soaked battle they had just won.
“Pretend like we’ve known you for more then five minutes Daze.” Opium chimed in as his fingers shifted over Dazes slashed leg. He sat on his knees in front of her and pointedly ignored Dazes glare. Daze was nimble but a goblin had landed a sharp blow to the vulnerable spot in the thick leather armour covering her left thigh.
“-who’s side are you on Opi?!” Daze cut in, but any further scolding was cut off by her clenching her teeth as Opiums deft hands worked at patching the wound. His fingers glimmered with magic as he worked and her leg began to heal at an enhanced pace.
Opium chuckled and stood after a few moments dusting his hands off on his legs. Although he was on his feet, he was only as tall as Daze while she was sitting. The height difference didnt seem to bother Opium though as he smirked at her.
”You know how I am, I just say it how it is.” He ducked just narrowly missing the smack Daze was about to deliver and backed up out of her reach. Callissa laughed again as Daze flushed and began to patch her pant leg up enough to travel again.
”Stop messing around you three, we need to get out of here before more show up.” Gor-el hissed at them. Had she not known the massive Half-Orc for as long as she had she would have flinched at his tone. Despite his looming size and strict attitude at times, he was actually quite soft for those he cared for, and luckily for Daze was was included in that category. Still, his words were enough to silence them as they quickly finished patching themselves up. It had not been an easy battle despite the five of them being accomplished adventures. But Daze felt proud nonetheless. Thirty armed goblins to their five group members was a pretty big accomplishment.
”Gor is right, we should probably find somewhere relatively safe to camp tonight that’s not near a goblin battlefield.” Thalia pitched in as she shimmered and turned back into her regular human form. Her dark skin glimmered with residue from her transformation from lioness back to human. She dusted her clothes and pushed some of her braids from her face, revealing the white swirling tattoos of her Druid circle edging her face and disappearing under her clothes as the trailed down her neck.
Daze nodded and pulled her hood up, obscuring her vibrant silver hair. It was rather hard to scout unnoticed with a glowing beacon on your head.
“Same formation?” Daze asked as she slung her bow over she shoulder and pulled out her dagger. The others nodded and Daze, despite having a serious wound on her thigh minutes ago, now darted at an incredible pace low to the ground. In seconds she seemed to meld with the shadows around her.
Daze attributed her natural finesse in stealth to her Elven heritage but it was her human determination that had helped her perfect it into an art form. She moved silently as she kept 90 yards a head of the group. Far enough that she could scout but close enough that they were in range for her to communicate telepathically with them through their rings if need be.
It was quiet though. Eerily so while she scouted a head letting the group follow behind as Daze gave the all clear every once in a while. The whole place felt unnatural to Daze, but maybe that was just because she was used to the background noise of the forests she grew up in. This was different and had all of them on edge constantly, but they didn’t expect much else when they had entered the Underdark. They had picked up a bounty from a King in the area for a reward that would keep them in luxury for at least a decade. It was an offer hard to pass up.
Daze shook her head to clear her mind, she had to be focused completely on her surroundings. She could wonder later what their bounty had done to anger a king so badly that the reward was well beyond a small fortune.
Eventually, around what Daze presumed to be dusk, she found a patch of gnarled but ultimately harmless grove of trees off path where they could set camp for the night to rest. It was a perpetual dusk here and Dazes sense of time was her own internal clock now as she relied on it to follow her years of routine despite the lack of sun.
They set up camp with a speed that demonstrated by years of practice. Routine. Daze found the site and began to prepare a fire whilst Opium created a magical hut around them making them invisible to anyone on the outside and masking any evidence of their presence. The others set to work setting up bed rolls and menial tasks that needed to be done at every camp site. Within 30 minutes everyone was settled in with a warm stew cooking over a warm fire.
Dazed thanked what ever deity that Opium followed that he was with them. The small dwarven cleric always saved a bit of his magic so they could have a secure spot to rest every evening that was completely hidden. This also included being able to have a fire and warm meal where in other circumstances they would have been stuck with cold rations and a dark chill night. The invisible protective hut was a luxury Daze appreciated.
Callissa took first watch like usual, but unlike usual, they had taken to staying in the hut during watch to keep themselves invisible to anything lurking in the night. The underdark was an unpredictable place and your watch was more likely to get you discovered away from the invisible hut then out and scouting the perimeter like they usually had done.
It was a little cramped, doing everything they usually did inside the huts barriers but it was safe and that was what mattered right now.
They weren’t stupid. They knew that there was a good reason no one else took up the call when the king offered the bounty. But they had had a lifetime of experience doing risky thing and they were widely known for their effectiveness as skilled adventures. Despite their risky quests, they knew when to play things safe, in large amount because of Gor-el and Opium. They kept the others in check and kept them safe over the past five years.
Gor-el with his level head and protective nature and Opium with his magic and healing. Daze rarely said it out loud but she was grateful to have them as her friends and protectors.
Daze glanced up from where she laid curled in her bed roll to Callissa as she stood watching out the one-way walls of the hut like a solid red and black stone-statue. Daze followed the lines of the tiefling woman’s deep red skin to where is disappeared under obsidian-like black armour as she drifted off to sleep. She knew Callissa would wake her in a few hours for her shift and until then she would be watched over as she fell asleep in the foreboding underdark amongst the people she calls home.
...
“Daze. Wake up!” Callissa shook the shaking half-elf awake and Daze shot up like a bolt. Callissa caught her and held her shoulders firmly as Daze tried to collect herself.
”You’re still having nightmares aren’t you.” Callissa stated with more of a statement then question. Daze leaned into her friend hold as she drew in deep breaths. The teifling woman seemed to always radiate a comforting warmth and it helped ground Daze now.
”Its getting worse the longer we are here. He begs me to help him and every time I get close to breaking the chains, I get ripped away and I can’t free him.” Daze mutters as she struggles to her feet.
“I wish I could help Daze.”
Daze only nods in response as she takes up her post as look out and Callissa stretches out onto of her bedroll and quickly falls asleep.
Daze looks around at the eerie forest surrounding them watching for any threats. She thinks back to her dream and how the man, no older the she was, clung to her as he cried and she struggled to break the chains that kept him tethered by his ankle to the floor. The metal never gave though, not truly, no matter how hard she tried. So she would hold him as she soothed the various injuries he sported in each dream. It was always the same things, she’d comfort him as he begged her to free him and she would struggle and fail to fulfill the request.
But the dreams were different in the way his injuries were never the exact same as he seemed to age with her as the years passed. He had frequented her dreams irregularly and she had only a hand full of memories where he seemed less distressed then usual. They would talk then, but whenever she would get details like a name or his location they faded as she woke in the morning.
She always awoke shaking and with a deep sense of helplessness after these dreams. They had always had the feel of a memory rather then a dram but Daze knew since the moment they started 15 years ago that she had never met this man.
In fact she had never even met a dark elf, a drow, at all in her life.
And despite the large reward from the king to come here on this mission, Daze and her whole group knew that she would have jumped at the opportunity regardless of the reward if it ment she could finally find the boy haunting her dreams.
...
Nempori curled in on himself more as he lay on the cold mildew ridden floor. He wrapped his arms around himself trying to recall the sensation of the soft arms that had held him in his dream. His dreams were the best part of his day. He felt cared for and safe enough to cry. Looking back, he couldn’t remember the last time he cried in from of someone other then the woman in his dreams.
He clung to every second of those dreams, Praying to whatever merciful deity out there that would listen that someday that woman from his dreams would actually free him.
Nempori, he hated that name, pressed his eyes shut tightly as he tried to conjure the face of the woman who was his solace in his sleep. Remembering her helped him sleep better despite his awful conditions. He hoped she was real, he had never seen a light skinned being, so he knew he’d never actually met her before. He hoped she would find him soon; but if not,
he hoped that someday someone would find him.