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Inky blackness surrounded Gale. It felt like he was wading through molasses, every footstep a struggle, slowed by the substance all around him. In the dark, he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. A successful attempt to get off the Nautiloid and safely to the ground landed him in this predicament. It would take some time before he could decide if wandering blindly like this for… who knows how long, really, was better than being crushed between an Illithid ship and solid earth.
He needed to get out. To escape.
He didn’t know how long he would have before he needed a magical object to sate the Netherese orb within his chest; it seemed to rear up at almost random moments, like an old war wound. And if it happened here, of all places? He wouldn’t last long. He knew that much.
Another hour or two -- or was it a day or two? -- of wading through dark sludge, and a bright, brilliant light cut through the pitch black. It blinded him at first, but he made his way over to it.
Gale desperately rushed towards it, fear that it would close shut while he was stuck moving at a snail’s pace. anxiety clawed at his chest like a raging owlbear intent on mauling him to death. Relief washed over him as he clamoured through the wet murk. He could barely see through the light, too blinding in the unending darkness.
It was his way out, that much he could tell. He held his hand a breadths-width away from it, the magic pulsating from it. There was a sliver in the middle where the magic wasn’t as strong. He perhaps could stick his quarterstaff through or reach his hand out and communicate with the other side, but not pull himself through.
After a second’s consideration, Gale decided a hand was more friendly and more likely to garner assistance.
He steeled his resolve and plunged his hand and arm through, waving it about and searching for purchase.
“Hello? Is anyone out there?” Gale called with a hint of uncertainty. He snatched at the air and tried to keep the desperation from his voice.
Two hands suddenly clasped Gale’s arm. In surprise, Gale jerked back, as if the hands were teeth that would rip his arm off if he didn’t. But then, another pair of hands joined their friend, and then another. Relenting, Gale let the force tug him through the portal with all their strength.
Gale was pulled free like a sword from a stone, brought out into the bright light of the material plane. He winced, raising his hand up to lessen the glare while his eyes adjusted to the sun, trying to gather himself and stand upright.
“Yes!” Gale exclaimed jubilantly, “I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I am for your assistance! I was afraid I’d be stuck in there…”
He trailed off as he looked for his saviours, but paused as he looked down to see six small goblins staring at him in surprise. Goblins, orange skinned and short creatures that weren’t the most… welcoming of Faerun’s denizens. That explained why it took several of them to tug him out, he realised. Considering their dumbfounded expressions, they weren’t even sure what they were doing when they pulled him free. ‘Goblins put up a bloodthirsty facade, but perhaps they’re decent beings under it all?’ Gale wondered to himself.
Definitely worth revisiting, he decided, but first he needed to get out of this new situation.
“Well, yes. Uh… hello.” He muttered sheepishly, trying to get his bearings.
Gale surveyed his surroundings, a beautiful space filled with greenery, boulders, and… well, the burning rumble of the Nautiloid ship he’d been previously captive on. One look at it told him he’d made the correct decision thrusting himself into the other plane. And then he checked himself over, both physically and mentally. Everything seemed to be in order: Brown, shoulder-length hair, five o’clock shadow, a long purple robe, fancy-yet-beneficial for-extended-travel-knee-high boots, and, of course, his quarterstaff. He felt the utmost satisfaction that he was well and truly alright.
He cleared his throat, nodding at the goblins still staring at him in awe. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done. If you hadn’t pulled me out of there… well,” Gale shrugged, “I’d be in a lot of trouble, I’ll tell you that much.” He smiled, but the goblins just kept staring at him slack jawed. It was as if he was speaking a completely different language.
His smile became strained after several moments of awkward silence.
“Um… okay.” He clapped his hands in a gesture of finality.
“I think it’s time I head on my way. If you ever have need of a wizard…” Gale let his words trail off as he backed away slowly and edged around the mythical portal still etched in the stone’s surface.
A particularly thick and ugly looking goblin, the assumed leader of the group, suddenly thrust a small, pudgy finger at Gale. “Grab ‘im!”
As if answering the sounding of a battle horn, they all jumped him.
One lunged, grasping at his arm with surprising strength for such a diminutive creature, latching onto it, and snarling through the length of rope clenched between its bared teeth. Another dashed forward, grabbing his other arm and quickly looped rope around his wrist.
“There’s no need for this!” Gale shouted, but it didn’t take a genius to know where this was headed. Reflexively, he cast a quick fire ball and blasted the goblin in the face. It let out a shrieking death rattle filled with the pain of a creature suffering severe immolation. It fell to the ground with a thud, smouldering and smoking, but it was just one of many. He shook his hand free of the rope, and it fell to the ground.
Now truly incensed, the other three goblins scrambled towards him. One found the momentum to vault over him and wind rope around his neck, but lost purchase as they couldn’t stick the landing and tumbled to the ground. The other two lassoed him with their own ropes, pinning his arms at his side, allowing the other goblin on his arm to tug his hands behind his back and secure them tightly.
While Gale was distracted, the one who called for his capture had hurried behind him and onto the rock, gaining a higher vantage equal to Gale’s head height. As the goblins pushed and pulled at Gale, they forced the wizard to stumble back enough for the intrepid goblin to pull a red bandanna between his teeth and knot it tightly behind his head.
“Mmh?” He gave a surprised half-yelp, more than a little worried at the rapid breakdown of communication.
The little buggers had actually gagged him, on top of wrangling him like an ornery rothe!
Gale felt the situation deteriorate much more than expected. Silenced, he wouldn’t be able to cast any spell, and with his arms behind his back, he was already thoroughly helpless.
“Make sure he can’t do nothin’.” One of the goblins snarled, and in the absolute chaos of it all, they had made exactly sure of that.
But the goblins weren’t finished with him. Rope after rope was lashed over his arms and torso: they were wound all over him in a haphazard, erratic manner until the goblins were pleased with their captive mage. The 16-braided flax hemp ropes were tight, tighter than he had ever experienced (much to his chagrin; many a time he had wished Mistra would have been this rough with him), and the rough fibres were beginning to squeeze and wrinkle his deep purple wizard’s robes. Despite his predicament, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the mistreatment and indignity he was being subjected to. An angry, petulant huff escaped his nose as he twisted this way and that hoping to gain some kind of helical tension in order to loosen, or maybe even snap, the ropes that were growing tighter and tighter by the second.
His sense of balance was being toyed with, it seemed; as each of the four goblins had their own lead, each also had their own vector of control. They tugged on him, like he was an ornery steer in Waterdeep’s outer pastures, laughing and guffawing as they continued their malicious progress of making sure that their captive was well and truly bound. He couldn’t keep upright; every movement he made was countered by a giggling, incessant goblin tugging on the opposing rope. Angrily, he tried to shift his elbows and bring his wrists up, closer to his chest, so that he could loosen one of the rings of rope or maybe, Mistra willing, remove the accursed gag.
No such luck. The lead goblin was as ugly as he was quick, and like a viper striking out, he grabbed both of Gale’s wrists and not-so-gently tugged them behind his back.
With an ornery sneer, the goblin chided his prized captive.
“None of that, Mr. Wizard!” He jeered, leading to a chorus of further mirth from the other captors.
“I’d much prefer your hands back here, where they can’t do no funny magic business!”
‘Ah.’ Gale thought to himself, as casually as one would recount the weather. ‘I may be in more trouble than I thought.’
With shocking speed and skill for a creature so dim, the goblin began binding up Gale’s wrists, crossing the hemp over and under, across and around, until a veritable mess of knots held them together.
“That’s you sorted!” The goblin leader said proudly, doing a silly little dance as he and his compatriots celebrated a captive well captured.
Ignoring their obnoxious mannerisms, Gale tried to assess the situation. He flexed his wrists up, searching for the knots, and finding so many that it was dizzying for him to keep track of them. Even when he focused on one, he discovered that they were so interlocked and interconnected that picking at the knots was completely useless. The goblins had opted for quantity, not quality, but Gale was nonetheless trapped.
Calling for help was out of the question as well. Those damn goblins had jammed two bands of cloth between his teeth and knotted them so tight that it bit into his the edges of his mouth painfully. He supposed he could try, but he was afraid that the goblins might interpret that as some sort of challenge, and he’d very much like to keep his tongue and lips intact.
He looked down at his ankles. Not hobbled, thankfully. Perhaps, if he was quick enough, he could make a break for it and run to the nearest outpost of town. Sure, he would look ridiculous, like a trussed up turkey, but at least then he’d be saved.
‘Positive thoughts!’ Gale insisted, shaking his head to clear the doom and gloom. ‘You just have to get away from these little…’
He thought for a moment, then settled on, bastards.
Tentatively, he poked at the tight straps of cloth between his teeth. There was some give there; he could maybe slide it down below his chin? Or even gnaw at the ropes when they weren’t looking? Alas, this plan was dashed when, upon further poking and prodding, he discovered that the double knots at the back of his head were going nowhere.
To be captured was one thing; to be captured by goblins!? Elminster would never let him live this down, if he found out about it.
In one final mockery, they all pulled him down to his knees before the leader slipped a noose over his head. This one, thankfully, had been knotted several times so it wouldn’t tightened and choke him. A lead, like one would attach to their dog’s collar before taking it on a walk.
But now that he was thoroughly helpless, they began their journey, leading Gale by four leads, back and forth, back and forth. Pulling and jerking him back and forward with wicked laughter, keeping him on a constant need to find balance and move onward. How could he forget about the tightness of the ropes wound around him when the reminder was always fresh at each tug.
It was impossible for him to stand up straight without choking the living daylights out of himself!
He complained through the gag, of course, a lot of good that would do him. They’d saved him, only to turn him captive! As much as Gale was pleased he’d been rescued from the portal’s cold darkness, he was afraid he had traded one bad situation for another.
Gale called out, begging for anyone to listen to his story. The last thing he wanted was to be a meal for these goblins, or any of their nasty friends for that matter.
“Think Minthara will be pleased? I bet she’ll praise us!”
“Ugh, why’d you have to talk about the Drow? I wanted to eat him, but now she’ll know we thought of it, and she’d slaughter us all if we did.” The leader snapped, slapping her companion over the head.
“Armmm! HMMMM!” He gave a duet of muffled cries, the second one much more punctuated, to no avail.
“At least one of us is thinkin’,” the one behind him called.
“Alright, you idiots! Let’s head back… uh…” the leader searched, struggling to recall which direction they’d come from, “this way!” He forced Gale to switch directions on a dime, almost stumbling to the ground.
They laughed as he tried to right himself, but they didn’t give him a moment to get comfortable before they were off again.
The goblins led Gale up the road, passing through the rocky foothills up and into an area completely covered in green trees and a flowing river. After almost an hour and a half of walking like this, taunting and teasing, poking and prodding, tickling and threatening with a myriad of weapons, the entourage came to a stop on the road just before a bridge.
In their path was a tall, burly male Dragonborn. His salmon and white scaled skin shone quite brilliantly in the shade of the lush vegetation. Clearly, he was a warrior of some sort, judging from the slashes in his clothes and scars on his exposed arms.
The goblins sneered and snickered, and Gale could infer their meaning instantly. ‘Another lone victim.’
Gale’s heart leapt, innumerable feelings and desires slipping through his mind. A wish to be saved, a hope that the newcomer could escape and not suffer the same fate, pain at a particularly painful jerk of the rope at his arm…
He tried to warn him and draw the warrior’s gaze, but only indiscernible murmurings made it through the layers of cloth. Instantly, Gale felt an odd sensation in his brain -- an uncomfortable wriggling from his Illithid tadpole -- connecting his mind to this Dragonborn. Another survivor?
Flashes of the Dragonborn’s time aboard the Nautiloid passed through Gale’s mind; however, he had a strange feeling that the Dragonborn caught much more of Gale than he had of him; was he an open book to this warrior? How far could he delve into the recesses of his mind unfettered?
The connection broke, and Gale found himself out of breath as if he’d just run a marathon. His gag didn’t provide him any relief, forcing him to breathe loudly through his nose. He looked up and found the Dragonborn’s eyes -- burning bright fluorescent green -- lock in his gaze.
Gale gulped, feeling… something intimidating in his eyes.
The scene seemed to go on for aeons between the tadpole connecting them and sharing an unbroken long look. The Dragonborn’s eyes flicked from Gale to each of the goblins in turn. He smirked, casually saluting Gale in a gesture the wizard assumed (or rather, hoped) meant he would attempt to rescue him.
A deep, guttural roar caused the rocks to shift and bounce, a mini tremour that immediately shook Gale to his core. The man reared backwards, his chest bulging outward, the leather breastplate almost looked like it would split from the pressure. His arms outstretched, black razor sharp claws revealed to his future kill. “Come and get it!”
Spurred on by fear, four of the goblins released their ropes on Gale -- although he was disappointed to discover that they had not slacked in the least. They drew bow and quarterstaff, shooting bolt after bolt, their various projectiles and artillery whizzing past the Dragonborn or bouncing off his gear. The head goblin watched, but held a firm grip on Gale’s lead, jerking it forcefully almost on reflex.
The Dragonborn slaughtered each and every one of those goblins, crushing one’s head under his boot with a sickening crack, slashing another with his claws and splashing its blood and gore all over ground. The other two, he bull-rushed and sent them flying off the edge of a nearby cliff to their deaths far below. Their screams faded before the met the bottom.
His head turned slowly, breathing heavily, menacing eyes focused on the last goblin, who began shaking like a leaf.
“You can have him! Just let me-” It started, but the Dragonborn swiftly pulled a handaxe free and buried it into its chest from several feet with a sickening squelsh.
Gale stared at the bloody scene, studying the dead goblins, but found he didn’t have much sympathy for them. He looked up as the Dragonborn walked slowly over to him. He was damn impressed by his saviour; being able to take on those numbers all on his own was mighty impressive, and he would’ve voiced his admiration had he not been gagged within an inch of his life.
As his hero neared, he leered at him, looking up and down, but settled on his face. “A handsome captive, I see.” He sneered, his mouth opening to reveal numerous layers of serrated teeth.
Despite his menacing appearance, Gale couldn’t help but appreciate the compliment; however, he wished he was free to reciprocate. He tried to speak again, but the gag prevented anything intelligible from escaping his lips.
“Wm, mmhnk mhuw-”
The Dragonborn leaned in, appraising Gale upclose, and slid a cold claw between cloth and skin. He tugged the gags out from his mouth to let them rest at his neck. “Who do I have the pleasure of rescuing?” The tall, hulking figure eyed him with a look Gale wasn’t quite able to discern… evaluating…?
Well, then it was in Gale’s best interest to make a case for himself. The Dragonborn did go out of his way to rescue him, after all.
“Well, let me first say, what an absolute feat of strength! You took down many more than I was able during my initial meeting with these creatures.” Gale praised, “Although, I’m sure the one I incinerated,” he emphasised proudly, “would hardly have changed the results of your battle.”
The Dragonborn tested the ropes here and there, causing Gale to squirm a little at the taut ropes digging uncomfortably into his robes. He undid several of the other leads, yet none seemed to lead to his freedom. They fell to the ground like dead snakes at his feet. “You’ve done me a great service, my dear man.”
“They saved me, only to cruelly bind me so! My name is Gale of Waterdeep, and I’m a wizard!” He excitedly let the dam flow from his lips now that he was ungagged, a punishment that hurt him more than most others. “I can feel that you have one of these worm parasites in your head as well! Perhaps we can be a benefit to one another! It’s the least I could do to thank you for your act of heroism. I’m sure an accomplished warrior of your calibre would be all the better with a prestigious mage at your side.” Gale puffed out his chest only to be suddenly reminded of the restricting bonds.
The Dragonborn stared at Gale wordlessly, his eyes shifting instead to the ropes lashed haphazardly, yet firmly. He gauged them as he circled similar to a shark circling its prey. “Gale, is it?” His face became inscrutable as he pulled and tested the ropes, checking their strength.
“Yes! And I’d most like to be released as soon as possible. I’m really no help at all in this condition.” Gale grinned at him and squirmed a little more to show how eager he was to see the ropes removed from his person after so much jostling and time restricted.
Another moment went by of uncomfortable silence before Gale wiggled his fingers and flashed his winning smiling over his shoulder to the Dragonborn. “Ah, are you worried about keeping the integrity of this rope? I have no particular use for it, so if you’ve a dagger or something sharp, it should be a quick freedom for me.”
Behind him, his saviour’s hands suddenly reached, one enclosed around his chest and pulled him back into the Dragonborn’s sturdy figure, while the other hand grasped at Gale’s throat. It continued to slither up until he held Gale’s jaws between his thumb and middle finger. He snickered darkly, warm breath brushing against his ear. “Really, Gale… I can think of many ways you’d be helpful like this.”
Gale gulped nervously. The man’s strength… his hold on him. It was… both frightening and sensual at the same time. His hero scared him… and intrigued him simultaneously. He gasped, as the Dragonborn pulled back his head a little more. “I’m… uh… sure you can. And I’d love to talk with you about it! You’re very forward, and I can appreciate that. But sincerely, I’ve had an eventful day-”
The Dragonborn snickered ominously, retracting his hands only to return with a balled up black silk inserted into Gale’s open maw. He spluttered at the sudden addition to his bondage, and could do no more than push it a millimetre before the Dragonborn grasped the thick cloth around his neck and pulled it tight between his teeth. Worse still, he pulled it tight and tied it off behind his head.
Gale let out a surprised and indignant moan, shaking his head emphatically.
“Whmt mmr mhuw MM-hmg?” He tried to ask.
“Don’t worry,” he said, but his words held no hint of remorse nor comfort. Deft fingers ran along the lead around his throat and grasped it possessively. “I just don’t have a dagger to cut you free, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t loosen them.” He shrugged nonchalantly, but the gleam from his claws along with the return of the accursed gag made his act of deception a little harder to believe.
“I’ll set you free, you can be sure of that. I can tell with one look that you’re a wizard worth befriending.” Those eyes flicked up and down his body again, returning to his face. He reached out and ran the back of his hand against Gale’s cheek. “I just think you’re beautiful like this… and, well… you talk too much.” He chuckled, earning an eye roll from his captive.
Now captive a third time, Gale expressed his displeasure at his treatment by angrily rolling his shoulders and thrashing wildly against these accursed ropes.
Saved, bound and gagged, saved, bound and gagged yet still! He’d traded his captor from a bloodthirsty entourage of goblins to a handsome, mysterious stranger. Gale tried his best to tell the Dragonborn he wasn’t going to take this situation. It was embarrassing enough to be like this with the goblins, a strike against his record and a bruise on his pride, but then to be saved again and found in the same situation?!
The Dragonborn ignored his symphony of muffled music, tugged the lead, and spoke to Gale the way he would an unruly mutt. “C’mon, Gale. We’ll walk for a little while longer and make camp. I’ve heard there’s a tiefling camp nearby. If we get there, we’ll be pretty safe from the wilds. He gestured at the goblin carcasses, “and these.”
Gale let out an exasperated sigh through his nostrils, shaking his head like a bull.
But at yet another tug of his lead, he found his feet following, moving just behind him obediently. Despite everything… Gale believed this man would release him… eventually. Or perhaps he was just too tired to tell the difference between a covetous Dragonborn and a friendly companion.