Short Chapter is short :)
Chapter 13
You are Dirk the Dread Pirate Strider and you struggle to wakefulness in a painful haze. Your head hurts where the troll bitch hit you. Your forearm is a dull throb.
You feel something brushing against your shoulder wound and it is this that is making your shoulder a mass of fire and knives lancing down to your hand and up your neck.
You open your eyes and the first thing you see is that you are in a cavernous enclosure made out of purple brick. There is very little light and what light there is is provided mainly by torches set along the walls. From your position you are looking up at the ceiling and you realize you are chained to a table when you try and fail to move your hands and feet.
Your head is free, however, and you turn it to look at whatever is aggravating your wound. Beside your "bed" you see what appears to be an extremely short troll. You wonder for an instant how he could be so short because his head only reaches so far above the table you are strapped to. When you look closer you realize that he isn't short; he's sitting in a wheelchair.
His horns strike you as being disproportionately large for his head. They stick horizontally out of his temples and curve upwards right at his shoulders. His hair is somewhat shaggy but is very close cropped around his ears and horns giving him a look that could be confused for a limp Mohawk.
He was in the process of daubing the bite marks on your shoulder with a clean rag and water; thus the pain that woke you. But as soon as you had turned to look at him he stopped and gave you a sharp toothed grin.
"Where am I" you find yourself asking.
"Uh…the Derse Dungeons." He begins hesitantly, "I wouldn't try to escape. The chains are too thick. I, uh, wouldn't count on rescue either," he continues to clean your shoulder; "Only The Condesce, her bodyguard and I know how to get in."
"So I'm just going to sit here till I die of boredom?"
"Or until they kill you, yeah." The troll mutters.
He rinses out the bloodied rag and continues to clean up your shoulder. Given the circumstances this confuses the fuck out of you.
"Why waste time patching me up then?"
"The Condesce and Vriska want everyone at 100% before they break them."
"Torture. Got it." You say grimly. The troll nods in affirmation. "Bring it on."
He then shakes his head at you expression serious, his enormous horns swinging ponderously with the motion.
"Don't think I can take it?" You say bravely.
"You survived LOHAC. Anybody that can do that must have balls of steel. But nobody escapes the miles." He finishes with your shoulder for now and rolls away in his chair. Leaving you to wonder.