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Sometimes an adventure goes wrong. The members of the party find themselves separated or trapped or badly injured. Or some combination of all three.
The Nine Shrines adventurers were called in by a warrior, Frank, who had met Thog in Alran on business. Frank was now working as a vassal (or in other words, as a merc) for a warlord on an island to the north of the Shrouded isles. This warlord was fittingly called Bloodrager of the North. Frank had been shorted pay on his last job, and, being Alarani, was greatly insulted. So he had called upon Thog’s team to covertly remove Bloodrager from power and place Frank himself in power. Thog grumbling, went along with the man’s demands, mostly because he owed Frank for getting him out of a tight spot Alaran. Thog had decided the mission was too sensitive to involve Kyr, citing that “This big lug is as subtle as a Tax Goat in the Alarani Treasury.” They were later quite glad Kyr was left behind.
Little mistakes add up to big ones. Ashe mispronounces Gregor’s cover name(It took some convincing, but he did use something besides “Gregor’s Evil Twin”). Markus attracted a little to much attention as he attempted to become an advisor to the warlord. Gregor comes across as too straight forward to be a courtly knight from a far away kingdom. These little slips were enough to send the whole mission to ruin and, in the end, no one was left unscathed.
—————
Trapped in cells, in a lightless, dank dungeon, Ashe, Markus, and Gregor face the fury of Bloodrager. The only light comes from torches that struggle to stay lit and fill the upper quarter of the rooms smoke. The warlord has clearly dealt with magic-using prisoners before, as the bars on their cells have an enchantment over them. Magic is out of reach and a single touch to the bars from the inside leaves a harsh burn. Isolation and torture of a cruelly various sorts are being used in the name of persuading them to reveal who they are, where they are from, and what secrets of value they know. Of course, none of them intend to ever give up any of that information.
Gregor remains steely, disturbingly calm in the face of confinement and torture. He is familiar with the experience and does not flinch in face of it. The tortures and threats of this place are in no way new or frightening to Gregor. It has all happened before and has ended before. Gregor trusts that this will end, too, by either his hands or his friends’.
Markus cannot help by cry out from the pain, but he does not speak to his oppressors for any reason other than to mock them, which he does with every breathe he can spare. Markus has patience, though he rarely shows it. He can wait them out, wear them down, break them. One day he will get the better of them, one day they will let their guard down and underestimate him. On that day Markus will walk out over them with his friends at his side and fire at his back.
Ashe does not ever speak nor does she ever more than gasp at the pain. Her eery quiet unnerves her torturers, increasing their brutality. Ashe is always listening. She has the power to end all of this, locked away deep inside. She will only get one shot, so it must be executed properly. Information is what Ashe needs. She listens for mentions of other rooms and prisoners, for names of those in charge, from middle management up. Once Ashe knows where all the pieces are, this game will be over.
—————
None of them will be able to recall properly how their escape started. They won’t know who made the first move or the order of the events between the beginning and the end. Something on that day just cracked and so did they.
Ashe broke loose when she heard a guard muttering about two other prisoners kept on the opposite ends of the dungeon. She immediately knew that they were Markus and Gregor. Markus drew a guard to the end of his rope with taunts and snatched up the guard’s keys. Gregor busted himself out with brute force when he realized he had run out of room for tallies on the walls. They collided into one another mid-battle, as everyone in the fortress who could wield a weapon rallies against them.
—————
The blood drips from Gregor, Markus, and Ashe. Their own wounds are the source of some of it, but the spray from their enemies and the gouts that run off their blades provide the majority of the blood.
Behind them are screams and groans of agony as they leave victims with tattered bodies to die. Gregor, Markus, and Ashe leave the building which howls with the hellish cacophony.
The heat of devouring, vengeful flames, set upon the the building and its residents that held them moments (or was it hours) before, licks at Gregor’s, Markus’, and Ashe’s backs. They race away from the place that held them captive from who knows how long, unable to feel any relief in this moment.
—————
Its an hour before the party stops. The sky is choked with smoke. The sun’s position is invisible. They want to keep running, to get farther away from the charred marked they’ve left in the earth, but none of them have the strength. Its amazing that Markus has managed to keep up for this long, but no one has that fact on their mind. Their bodies are beaten, the only consolation to their pains the dark satisfaction that their enemies are more throughly beaten.
Gregor, the bulkhead, took the most damage in the earlier battle, and he is the first to fall. His body crumples to the ground, bloodied and battered. The other two sink to the ground in exhaustion. Ashe crawls to Gregor. She has to heal him, somewhere in her reeling mind she knows that. But as Ashe raises her hands with their green glow, she recalls what these hands and this power has just done. Two golem arms rend through armed men, leaving them shrieking out their last breathes. A glowing dagger in Ashe’s palm guts one man and then another. Her bindings grow looser than they have been in years.
Ashe shakes at the thoughts, frightened, and retracts her extended arms to hold them around herself, to hold herself together. Her breathes are shaky, but Gregor’s are even more ragged. The world is unstable, sliding away. How can this power which did such gruesome acts help Gregor now? How can these hands, coated in blood, stop the blood seeping from his body? These thoughts combine with Ashe’s exhaustion cause the world around her to slip away, spinning wildly. Her precise fears are swept away by the torrent of panic. She feels lost.
And then. A hand is on Ashe’s shoulder, then another is on her opposite arm. The world slows its sliding.
“You have to heal him, Ashe” The voice is far away at first, foggy and out of reach, but her name reaches her. “Ashe, please, I know you’re scared, and I know you’re tired. We’re almost done, but he needs our help.” She hears him now.
“Markus.” Her voice sounds fragile to her own ears. She grabs his hand from her arm. Markus is thrown off balance by the motion, but catches himself and resettles wrapping around her. The world is now as close to being stationary again as she can ever imagine it being.
Gregor must be healed. She takes a deep breath and looks over Gregor’s wounds. There is a deep gash in his shoulder and another in his jaw, but more worrying are the wound on the left side of his abdomen and the slice into his right knee.
“Alright,” Ashe says feeling and sounding more focused now, “can you cauterize his knee and shoulder? I don’t have much energy left and his side needs what little I have.”
“Of course.”
They lean apart, attending to their assigned injuries, but they keep their hands clasped. The process is slow and taxing. The glow of the spiritwork, the faint trail of smoke of the flame. The flumes from the scorched land behind them blanket the sky thinly, paint everything not lit up by their work in shades of gray and black.
When they have down what they set out to do, Ashe and Markus consider their situation.
“This isn’t the best place to set up camp,” Ashe says frowning at the open view of the sky and thick, visibility blocking underbrush.
“No, it isn’t.” Markus has leans back against the closest tree’s trunk, which about half a meter from Gregor, and heaves out a pained breath. “But when you have no supplies, and are terribly worn out from battle, there is no good place to set up camp. Come here.” Markus tugs at Ashe’s hand so weakly she can barely feel it. Ashe doesn’t hesitate shift to Markus’ side, leaning against the tree beside him, their hands clasped between them.
“That was too close,” Ashe whispers.
“Yes, it was. We made it, though.”
“I was starting to worry I’d never see you or Gregor again.”
“As was I. I am here though and so are you. Gregor will be alright. He’s never one to go down without a fight.”
“Yeah, he’s stubborn. We’ll head for the road tomorrow?”
“That’s probably our best bet. We may be mighty adventurers, but I don’t think the scenic, wilderness route is a good option right now.”
“There’s no way I am ever letting us get involved in politics again.”
“A good thought, but difficult to execute. Pretty much everything relates to politics. Trust me, though, all of politics are worse in Hell. If I ever get forced to file an ‘Avoid Accusation of Bribery’ bribery form, it will be, too soon.”
Ashe smiles slightly at the familiar complaints.
“Goodnight, Markus.”
“Goodnight, Ashe.”
The smoke has thinned in the sky, but the sky has still darkened. Stars begin to peek through the tendrils of smoke. Beneath them lie the three. One resting peacefully after the care of his friends, two breathing each other as comfort in their rest. The wounds, mental and physical, are fresh, but they are at least together now, with the stars glinting overhead.