Chapter Text
Nott pulled her picks out of the lock and opened the door, carefully, her eyes widening when she saw the thing inside. "Jessie, stay back!" she whispered, raising her crossbow on instinct.
The thing had been sitting in the middle of the room, but even without turning to look at her, it retreated, chains jingling as it moved quickly but awkwardly to the back corner of the room, letting out a frightened whine as it tucked itself as far as it could get into the corner.
The crystals jutting out of its skin glinted in the light from an ever-burning torch in a sconce just on the inside of the door, and its chains continued to rattle as it tried to shove itself farther into the corner, as if it could claw its way into the stone and hide.
She'd initially assumed it was some kind of rock monster, but she could see, now, that it wasn't, that the flesh around the field of jagged crystals was soft and pink and - her whole body shuddered as she realized it - human.
"Holy shit," she whispered, more to herself than to Jester behind her.
The thing squatted down onto its legs, its human legs, studded with even rows of crystals that laid flat, almost like scales, and its arms came up around its head as if to protect itself.
Once it wasn't moving, other than a visible tremor that rattled its chains and made the crystals glint again, she could start to take stock, moving forward just slightly, but keeping a hand out to tell Jester to stay back, until she could guess, even a little, what she was looking at.
She really, really hoped that her first impression had been only a little bit wrong, that this creature was half-human half-something-else, but with it still and hunched and in a posture she knew, part of her was already starting to accept that it wasn't, that this was something much worse than - than maybe anything she'd ever seen.
Crystals stuck out all over its form, but the body underneath was thin, too thin, its ribs visible from feet away, and nausea started to build in her stomach as her eyes tracked down its spine, the skin pulled tight enough by its hunger that she could tell not only that there was a trail of crystals running down the length of its spine, but that each of those crystals was between two bones, not an outgrowth from the bone itself.
When she reached the bottom of the spine and realized it had a fully human ass, she felt the crossbow dip without her deciding to let it, pointing at the floor.
She might be sick. If she couldn't find something to prove that this was just a creature, she might throw up right here in the doorway. They'd passed a lab, on the way to this room. They'd passed a room with a table, too, a table with restraints built in. It had been set up for surgery. They'd passed what she'd thought of as a torture room, with a chair in the middle secured to the floor, its restraints hanging open as if waiting for an occupant, but she was beginning to wonder if she'd been wrong, if "experimental room" was more accurate.
This room was clearly a cell, but even the shittiest most po-dunk jail she'd ever slept in had been better furnished. Other than the creature's chains, the only thing in the room was one stinking bucket in the corner. There wasn't even a soft place to sleep or sit.
It was hard to see the creature's head with its arms, also covered in glimmering crystals, trying to protect it, but what she could see was just more proof that this wasn't some kind of bizarre half-elemental. It had hair, filthy and matted, but still hair, cut raggedly at the ends.
The creature's startled whine had shifted, and now it whimpered quietly, sounding somewhere between a child and an animal.
"I think you can come in," she told Jester, her voice soft as she stepped into the room, sending a sharp flinch through the creature's body, "But let me approach it first. It's not - this is -" she didn't have words. She wasn't sure she was ever going to have the words, if she got close enough and this was a person.
By the time she was about 3 feet into the room, the whimpering had stopped, but the rattling of the chains had intensified as the creature shook harder, doubling its efforts to tuck itself down into nothing in the corner.
Behind her, Jester swore more vehemently than Nott had ever heard her.
The creature didn't turn, even as she came nearly within arm's reach of it. It was literally a cornered animal, and she was ready for it to whirl on her, to be pushed from flight to fight, but it didn't, and her stomach just soured further.
She absolutely should not touch it. But even as she thought that, she realized that might not be true. If this thing was human, its teeth would do some damage, but not much. If it was human, its nails weren't claws and its teeth weren't fangs, and fuck, it had to be human, because she could see every bone, now, and this thing was built like a human with crystals sticking out from it, not like some kind of giant crystal hedgehog.
"Nott, what - what do we do?" Jester asked, sounding smaller, younger, and more frightened than Nott was used to, not that Nott could blame her.
"I don't know yet," she said, keeping her voice as soothing as she could. "Just - give me a minute."
Another step took her in arm's reach - her arms, not the human's arms, but they still didn't move other than another flinch.
"Can you understand me?' she asked quietly.
The human whined, but she didn't know if that was a response to the question, or just a reaction to her speaking so close by.
"I'm not going to hurt you," she said quietly. "Can you put your arms down for me? I only need to look at you, it won't hurt."
Another whine, but no movement. The sound was about as animal as she'd ever heard from human vocal cords, but there were still two options, here. They didn't understand, or they didn't believe her.
Ok. Ok. She needed to stay calm. She needed to stay calm and strong and focused, because this was like something out of one of those gruesome horror plays with people in monster costumes and buckets of blood, but she'd been in real horrible places before, and Jester hadn't.
"I'm gonna touch your shoulder," she said, glad that at least the way the human had tucked themself down small meant she could reach. "It won't hurt. I'm just gonna touch your shoulder, and then maybe you'll believe me, ok? I need a look at you, and I can't get those chains off if you won't let me reach them."
She wasn't surprised by the answering whine, and even the sharp yelp of panic when her hand rested gently on the human's shoulder wasn't really a surprise, just a disappointment.
The human's arms moved, shielding their head a little better, but they didn't lash out, and that was - not good, actually. Not even a little bit good.
"It's ok," she said, hoping her voice was soothing and not panicked. She was trying very hard to sound soothing and not panicked. "You're ok. See?"
This close, she could peer through the human's guard enough to tell that it was probably a man, the shaggy reddish hair matched by a beard that looked only half-tended, trimmed unevenly to keep it out of the way.
There were crystals coming out of the top of the human's shoulder and more jutting out of his shoulder blade, but the side of his shoulder was almost ok, so she rubbed her hand gently side to side along the top of his arm, above the highest of the crystals in his arms, which were denser there than on his torso and seemed more random.
The man didn't whine again, and his arms stayed up but started to relax a little bit. His breathing even started to settle, which was a good sign.
Nott's first attempt to get the man to turn toward her was as gentle as she could make it, and she was sure it wouldn't work, just meant it as an introduction to the idea, but shockingly, he went where her grip led him, and she had to bite back a sound of shock.
Behind her, Jester gave a cry of dismay, tinged with horror.
The man's chest and stomach were free of crystals, which she'd thought was the case, since she'd had the impression of a soft underbelly in his original scramble into the corner and all of his hunching and pressing into the corner would have protected it, but she'd assumed he was just protecting the softest part of himself.
He wasn't. He was trying to keep her away from a tangled mess of old scars, raised welts, and long, uncovered cuts. He'd been whipped, often, over the one area where there were no crystals to account for, and she fought through another wave of nausea to check for infection, knowing full well how easy it was for untended injuries to fester. She checked his genitals, giving only a quick glance, enough to know he wasn't horribly wounded down there, and then looked away, even though he'd made no attempt to cover up.
He wasn't bandaged, didn't look cared for, per se, but the open wounds were clean, and there was no dried blood. They hadn't washed his hair, but they did keep him partially clean, which was - something, maybe.
His breathing was came faster and faster, his body tight with fear, but he didn't move from where she'd turned him, quivering in place.
She was shaking and she knew she couldn't stop that, but she thought she could still keep her voice steady, so that was what she focused on, murmuring, "I'm so sorry, sweetpea. I know, it hurts and it's scary. But I'm not gonna hurt you. We're not gonna hurt you."
There was no answering whine this time, but she only had to look at his face to know why. His eyes were wide and blank with terror, his mouth hanging open as he panted with fear, nearly hyperventilating as he stood completely unprotected in front of her.
Ok. Time for a bold move. She couldn't fix that kind of terror, any more than she could fix the things that had happened to him that her mind still couldn't linger on long enough to name.
"Jester," she said softly, "We definitely can't touch the crystals until we know more, but can you heal his chest? And his stomach. Maybe then he won't be as afraid that we're going to hurt him."
Jester moved hesitantly forward, eyes wide, and Nott hated this, hated her ball-of-sunshine cleric being in this den of horrors, hated making Jester face the fact that the worst things in the world were often not monsters at all.
"Of course," Jester said. As she turned toward the man, her voice took on the same tone she used when Sprinkle had come, implausibly, through another scrape with death. "You're ok, Mister. You're gonna be ok, and we're gonna get you out of here, and maybe find you some pants, and we're gonna figure this out, and we're not gonna let you stay here, ok? But first I'm gonna heal you up. It'll make you feel way better, I promise."
Jester's fingers shook as she reached for the front of the man's ribcage, halfway between chest and stomach, but Nott couldn't blame her, not with her own hands still shaking almost as hard.
Nott could tell from the flash that Jester had put a lot of power into the cure wounds spell, and sure enough, the open cuts closed and the welts started to fade, but that wasn't all - the closest crystals lit up, too, and the man moved to parallel Jester, pressing his own fingers to her side and - casting a smaller cure wounds spell?
Jester and Nott just stared, at him and then at each other.
"Ok, that's weird," Nott said. "But it's a problem for later. I - we can't leave him here."
Jester nodded. "Of course not."
The man's eyes were a little more present, watching Jester intently, as if waiting for her to do something else.
Nott got out her copper wire, but before she messaged the others, she had another idea. She held the wire up to her face and cast Message on the man. "Hi. My name's Nott, and me and my friend Jester here are just trying to help. If you can speak this way, please tell us your name, youcanreplytothismessage."
The crystals lit up again, much more faintly this time, and the man tipped his head sideways, making the same gestures Nott had, but without a bit of wire, and neither a reply nor a new casting seemed to be coming.
She hadn't really expected it to work, but she'd had to try.
Turning to point back toward the outside world, she decided to focus on Caduceus. She didn't know how to explain, but she at least trusted him to help right away when they got the man out of here, instead of just being shocked.
"Caddy, we've found somebody, and I think he's an experiment. We're gonna get him out, but maybe warn the others. Youcanreplytothismessage."
The answering voice was calm but puzzled. "What do you mean an experiment? We'll do our best to help, and I'm happy to warn the others, but I'm - not sure I understand."
Nott sighed, recasting the spell. "I'm not sure I understand either, and I'm standing here. They put crystals in him, magic ones, and something is very, very wrong, but I don't think we can fix any of it right now. Jester healed his most recent injuries, but - you'll see."
She started running out of breath, as much from sadness as the length of the message, and didn't bother telling him he could answer, since she was sure she wouldn't have an answer for any question he asked.
"I'll warn the others," Cad answered, "Do you think he's dangerous, or do you think we're dangerous to him, if we get spooked?"
She thought for a moment, then recast the spell to answer. "I don't think he understands Common, but he did some weird echo of Jester's spell when she cured him. So technically maybe he could be dangerous, but even when he was cornered, he hasn't tried to fight. I think as long as you give him space, it'll be fine. It's just - when I saw him I thought he was some kind of weird rock-creature, so make sure the others don't attack. If he hadn't been obviously chained, I might have shot him before I realized."
"Ok," Cad said, his voice still reassuringly chill. "I'll pass that along. Be careful."
Jester was tentatively patting the front of the man's shoulder, his eyes locked onto her but his breathing a little slower. "It's ok," she told him, her voice still mostly soothing, "Nott didn't mean that she will shoot you, because we're not going to hurt you, ok? She just meant she was a little scared, but you understand that, don't you? Not knowing what's going on and getting a little scared?"
"He can't sneak with us," Nott said, starting to rifle through her bag, "Not if we can't explain that that's what we're doing. So you should dimension door him out once I get him unchained, and I'll sneak out the old-fashioned way."
Jester frowned. "But that's our getaway plan. What if something goes wrong and you're stuck here alone?"
Nott smiled, trying to look as reassuring as possible. "I have my cloak, and you can give me the Blessing of the Trickster. And we've already mapped out where all of the guards are. Even if Ikithon has some kind of alarm or a way to get here from a 2-days ride away, they'll still be looking for him, not us."
Jester bit her lip. "I guess, but-"
Nott finally found what she was looking for, a length of spare bandage and a scrap of fabric from a ripped curtain, which she'd stolen from a house they were breaking into a few months ago because she liked the floral pattern on it. The scrap wasn't quite as big as she'd remembered, but it was big enough that when she tied it around the man's waist with the bandage, it at least did something to shield his modesty.
The fact that the man let her do it, unresistant, even as he watched nervously and whined in confusion, was also the proof she needed that it would be safe to unchain him and send him off to her friends.
She gestured to the man's wrist. "I'm gonna get you out of there," she said, gently, "As soon as you let me see your shackles."
The man whined again, pulling his arm in toward himself as he realized she was looking at it.
She frowned, and he flinched, letting out another whine.
When she grabbed his forearm, unable to avoid the crystals and shuddering at the feel of them, and drew it toward her, he let her, as completely unresistant as he'd been before, even as he started shaking again, and his breathing sped back up with panic.
He seemed surprised when the shackle fell away from his wrist, this time letting out the first pleased sound she'd ever heard him make, a soft little "mrrp" that reminded her of a cat.
When she gestured for his other hand, he offered it to her, shaking, and when that shackle, too, was removed, he tucked his arms in tight around himself, wrapping them around his torso as if to protect himself, and squatted back down again, like he was making himself the smallest possible target.
When Jester laid a hand on his shoulder, he flinched again and didn't move, and then with a flash of Traveler Green, Jester cast dimension door and they were both gone.
For a moment, Nott looked around the empty room, letting out a little growl at the cruelty of it, but then she pulled up her hood and hurried off to catch up with the others before they could freak out the poor man too badly.