Disclaimer: The Forgotten Realms and two of the characters in this fic are not mine. All mystery guests will be revealed at the end of this fic so all I can say is BE PATIENT. .
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Sashen came awake slowly, by degrees. It felt warm and dry, not unlike the memory of her Aunt Dorie's kiln in Baldur's Gate. Gradually, the roughness of the ground on which she lay resolved itself into dull aches and a pounding pain somewhere above her right ear. She felt gritty, like sand and dust had fallen inside her shirt collar. The dull aches turned into sharp pains as she started to move and found the scrapes on hands, forearms and shoulder. Sashen pulled what courage she had together and opened her eyes.
She blinked, then blinked again. It looked exactly the same with her eyes shut as open. The red glow from the dragon had been completely cut off. The space around her was so dark that the dark seemed almost tangible. Briefly, Sashen reviewed the spells she had at her disposal. Nearly all were destructive in nature and would not generate a lasting light.
Sashen pulled herself free of the rubble that she lay in, awakening a whole new set of bruises in the process, and felt around for a marginally decent place to sit. After discovering the hard way that she could not fully stand up, Sashen found a shallow little nook that she could fit into and proceeded to take account of her situation while impatiently waiting for the ringing in her ears to fade away to something tolerable.
The mage remembered running as fast as she could for one of the deep crevices leading off of the dragon's hoard room. She vaguely remembered footsteps following her and supposed that Zaiid, Mathis or Branwe had run in a direction similar to hers. Conceivably, someone was close enough to link up with her and find a way out.
Sashen could feel that her shoulder bag with her spellbook, change of clothes and bedroll still hung off her unscraped shoulder. Unfortunately, she did not carry any of the heavier items associated with camping, but she knew she always kept candles and a small flint stone packed away so she could study her spells at any hour. She checked her knife sheath at her waist and found her dagger in its usual home. The mage grinned. It would take some rummaging but she could at least have some candlelight for a little while, maybe find a useful scroll tucked away in her book and hopefully have her brother, the thief or the cleric find her sooner rather than later.
As Sashen reached to unsling her pack, a faint yipping noise froze her in mid motion. She stayed as still as she could while listening as hard as she could. The yipping became clearer and seemed to move closer. At a loss for what to do in such tight quarters, Sashen pulled her cloak off her shoulders and covered herself with it, ignoring the burning aches that moving brought on and hoping that enough dust caked her cloak to make it less distinguishable from the rocks. With luck, anything with darkvision that looked at her and would think "rock."
The yipping thing now had a friend that made growling barks with it. Burying the panic that screamed at her to flee, Sashen focused on staying silent and still as the creatures got closer. A scent, dry, musty and reptilian, overlaid the smell of dust and igneous rock. Sashen heard a soft patter of footsteps get louder as the creatures came closer.
The footfalls stopped and the mage heard more yips and barks. She waited as the barking voice came a little bit closer. Her fear rose in direct proportion to the critter's perceived distance from her shrank. Then she heard two muffled thuds. Trying very hard not to succumb to the wave of panic that coursed through her, Sashen remained as motionless and silent as a partridge in hunting season.
Something suddenly clapped around her mouth. Terrified, Sashen struggled and thrashed as one of her arms became pinned against something that had a little give to it. She drew breath to start shrieking like a banshee when an oddly accented baritone voice hissed in her ear, "Stop it! Do you want to draw the kobolds to us? Because I can assure you, there are more of them than you or me and they will not be as nice as I. Clear?"
Mouth still held shut and breath coming in small gasps, Sashen nodded and felt the stranger's grip ease a tiny bit. She did not think the new slack would be enough for her to break free. "Good," the voice continued in her ear, "I'm going to let you go now. Try anything... interesting and I will simply leave you here without those candles of yours."
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A/N: I hate cliffhangers as much as the next person but this is a long section and could use some break up. On the other hand I really want to update this on a semi regular basis. For those of you who took the time to read this far, thank you! Please leave a review should you have time to do so!
On an unrelated note, I have discovered that most descriptive language is visually based and not aurally based.