Chapter Ten
"Poison," Torri snorted loudly, unable to contain her amusement. Her eyes darted from Knave to Nirra, and back – the moon elf was in a strangely good mood, despite them still being imprisoned and their captors not having shown any intent of returning to them just yet. Also, she was slightly more energetic than usual, especially after her relief to find that she still had her two precious longswords. "And how exactly would that go about? I doubt the sahuagin can swallow an entire human in one big mighty chomp." She rolled her eyes, the smirk on her lips growing. "I swear, all of you mages are dreamers."
Knave shrugged. "The thing was 'inspired' enough to try and bite the man's arm off, as a first thing to do," he defended his argument. "I told you I wasn't certain. I just heard a glass-like crack, and I assumed..."
"Bah!" Torri interrupted him, waving an impatient hand. "All we really need to know is that they won't eat us, at least for the time being." She stood up quickly and began pacing about as if she owned the pace. "Just like they didn't eat those before us."
Nirra blinked, and continued to regard her old friend suspiciously. "Torri..." she began insecurely. "Something is wrong with you."
"They've been here, Nirra," the moon elf turned abruptly, in order to face her. Something about her expression wasn't quite right, almost as if she was close to a breaking point, her eyes shone like those of one nearing the loss of part of their sanity. "I have no idea who they are, or why we're drawn behind them by fate, but it's happening."
Her somber allure, as a whole, did nothing but distress the gold elf even further. "Torri," she began tentatively, yet again. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I know you've suffered quite a few shocks, but..."
"Shocks?" the moon elf interrupted. "No shocks for me, I was expecting this. I should have known." She resumed her pacing furiously, glaring at the only door of their rather vast cell.
Knave cleared his throat purposefully loud. "You were better off sleeping," he declared, fixing the moon elf with a pair of defiant eyes.
"Sure," she was quick to agree, not stopping for any longer than was necessary to cast him a sharp glance. "But now I'm not asleep, and there's no point in reminding me how much better that would have been."
The uselessly large amount of words she was using perplexed the other two, who exchanged wary glances. The moon elf was acting as if she was trying to cover up something, trying to concentrate the fullest of her attention on speaking nonsense for the sake of keeping something else away from her – something she didn't want to have to deal with, more or less. And then there was that issue of them following someone, a fact she hadn't held back from stating ten times over already, just like that, without any explanation. At first, they had tried to pry or persuade one out of her, but she seemed to not even hear the questions and inquiries and had just ranted on.
Nirra brought herself up to her full height and eagerly stepped over to her friend, grabbing her arm with a steady firmness that none would have ever imagined to see in her. Torri settled, a look of recognition in her face, and just stared right back into the gold elf's brown eyes. Usually it was the moon elf who dominated, but Knave's interested stare accorded Nirra the full leadership at present unfalteringly. There was something about the gold elf that easily matched any argument Torri might have brought to her defense. With a sigh, the moon elf relaxed wearily, seeming to resign. Only then did her friend let go of her arm, although the imposing look, the thing that had truly held her in place, did not fade away in the least.
"Come to your senses," Nirra bid her, some of her gentle approach still about her, although lost behind the stone-cold calm and that irresistibly strong commanding appearance. Her eyes flashed darkly, and dominated Torri for one more second, before she pulled away and turned to look at Knave, suddenly her usual submissive self again.
The effects on the moon elf were notable in the blink of an eye. Staring down hard at the rough floor below her, she murmured something in elven, to which Nirra only nodded in response and soothingly patted her arm.
Knave shifted visibly, in order to get their attention back to himself, which occurred almost instantly. "Now, since we've settled that matter," he began sharply, his decided tone bringing both of them back to the more practical present time, "can we concentrate on the task at hand?" He didn't look all too pleased or comfortable with Torri's quirked eyebrow and Nirra's questioning look. "Err..." he continued, "..whatever that is?"
"Escaping, I would guess," the moon elf shrugged and turned to once more regard the door. "Although I doubt it can be done without... wait." She spun back abruptly, her suddenly hope-filled eyes glimmering as they drifted over his still seated figure. "Your Dimension Door spell," she prompted.
"Not enough to transport all of us at once," he was quick to cut down her new-found enthusiasm. "I could take the three of us out, but what about all these men?" he requested, gesturing to engulf the small group of sailors gathered at the opposite end of the room.
Torri muttered something unintelligible, followed by a most obvious curse. Basically, her opinion was that they should simply be left behind, but she knew better than to assume either Nirra or Knave would agree to that.
"There must be a way to help them," the gold elf mused, obviously not even considering the possibility of leaving without that feat yet accomplished. Her eyes met Knave's disapproving frown, headed for Torri, and she discreetly gestured for him to drop that. "She wouldn't leave without them any more than we would," she revealed, something about her expression forcing Torri to stop halfway through protesting vehemently. "She just doesn't like to show she cares."
"Why, thank you very much," the moon elf grumbled in a much dwarf-like fashion, not daring to face her friend and be put down again by her glazed eyes.
Nirra shrugged dismissively, and was about to resume her attempt to find another escape for them, when the door swung open with a loud creak. Greenish scaled beings, about twice the height of a man, had they not been walking half-crouched and bent over, entered the room one after the other, in a most ridiculous procession, by the the surfacers' standards. Their heads and arms presented colorful outgrowths, apparently some way to display their rank – most had them blue, but a couple had them yellow, and the last to enter had been gifted with a pair of considerably larger orange ones.
They stopped in the middle of the room, while two of the plain ones with blue marks remained behind to guard the still open door. "You can understand, yes, surface beings?" the orange-marked one, who was also somewhat bigger than its peers, inquired. Its accent was terrible and it was hissing much in the fashion of a snake and considerably worse than a dragon attempting to speak elven, but they could, indeed, understand. Nirra was the one to nod, and the sahuagin automatically took her for the leader of their entire group.
"I wouldn't have thought so, but it can," the creature spoke toward its own kin, curiously, before turning back to them. "Tell me, then, creature, what do you think we should do with you?"
The situation was more than just awkward. Who had ever heard of captors asking their prisoners what they should do? Torri rolled her eyes.
"You could always just... set us free?" Knave innocently interjected, his smile nothing but convincing in the respect of his being as honest as possible.
The sahuagin hissed weirdly, apparently the counterpart of a chuckle. "You are bold, manling," it replied. "I could kill you on the spot... but it wouldn't serve much purpose, would it?" A few of its peers approved with the last statement, nodding... or at least looking like they did. "Indeed, you shall be set free, for our entertainment," the sahuagin leader continued. "Although HOW free, I cannot say."
That last mention seemed to amuse not only the speaker, but the rest of his comrades, since they all gave the same kind of hissing fits.
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"Great concept of freedom," Torri muttered, her limbs aching from the notable discomfort of her having been stuffed into a crate which was not the ideal in size, to tell the truth. The thing was tall enough for her seated form to sink in entirely, but not remotely as large as she would have liked it to be. "At least they haven't closed it yet." She stared at the small patch of water-sky, the only thing she could see from down there, framed by the crate's top edges.
She heard Knave snicker form inside his own crate, a few feet away from her own.
"It's NOT funny," she was quick to gruffly scold him, although she was quite amused herself by that point.
"I beg to differ," he replied with mock formality, which caused Nirra to give a small laugh, from a third crate somewhere around.
One of their sahuagin guards hissed at them, and they fell silent again. For a while, nothing seemed to happen, but finally they heard steps approaching, and soon the head of the same orange-marked shark man authority was staring down at Torri from above the crate's top. "I hope you will enjoy your... journey," the creature taunted her, which brought laughter from a large amount of his kin that Torri could not see. Then, the official stepped aside, so that one of his guards could place the lid and seal the crate.
Torri was left in the relative darkness. She held her breath for a few seconds, until her ears caught the sound of a few other crates being sealed, just the way hers had. Again, for a few moments, nothing occurred, but finally Torri could feel the pressure shifting when her crate was lifted from solid ground. Somewhere to her right, Knave was whistling in a much too carefree manner, and humming a tune serenely – probably to annoy the sahuagin, the moon elf reasoned. A sharp metal-against-wood thud was heard, most likely a prod at the respective crate, and Knave fell silent, not before chuckling again. She knew that her own crate now hung limply in the air, at the end of some rope by the feel of it, and it took her a while to realize it was descending, probably not bound to stop for a while. Also, the darkness grew with every passing moment.