In which the plot is delayed...
When Edwin could see again it was because someone had lit up a cantrip. There was an incredible pain up his left leg and numerous smaller ones down his back and arms. The Red Wizard blinked through dust and floating debris, dazed, gaze roving. Someone was hovering beside him, obscured by the light they were holding. Fingers brushed bits of stone and fractures of wood support beams from around his face and shoulders. He shifted slightly, trying to clear his vision through rapid blinking. His head ached.
Sounds. There was a ringing in his ears, and the light hurt. Ah! A moment of clarity: he realized he'd suffered a concussion. He tried to move, but that made pain scream up through his left leg. The light was too bright, and he closed his eyes with a groan, batting at it feebly- feebly! He had never been feeble.
Whoever was holding the cantrip had the sense and decency to dim it for him.
"You're alive," he heard the relieved gush clearly this time. Voice. Place the voice... His thoughts were slow. The thief?
He looked back up to see Imoen kneeling over him, great slabs of rock and timber forming a peaked tent over their heads. A sneer dripped over his lips. "Yes, fool, I'm alive," he muttered. "What happened?"
Imoen laughed. "Cave in," she answered.
"Yes, yes, I remember that. I'm not daft yet. You were outside; so how are you here now?"
"I came in after you, smarty pants."
"And what in the name of the hells possessed you to run headlong into a rock-fall?"
"Because I'm the trap expert," she drawledwith harmless sarcasm.
He snarled and tried to move and insult her simultaneously. Blinding pain stole his breath and he grabbed reflexively against the stone earth. He had to bite his lip to prevent from crying out. Imoen's face switched from cheeky to concerned, and he felt her fingertips over his arm as if the touch should somehow be comforting.
"You're pinned at the leg," she told him. "Take it easy."
Edwin looked down to see that his thigh was not occupying the same volume of space he'd typically been accustomed to. He could not feel his foot. Alarmed and incensed, he began sputtering words to invoke the crushing obstacle's destruction.
"Don't!" the thief exclaimed, grabbing his hand and smothering his somatic gestures. He ripped back from her touch with a fevered snarl, numbed to the sharp press of debris against his back and shoulder. "You blow that up and you'll bring the whole thing down on us!" she told him. "It's the load, Edwin, the weight! The load is being carried on a contact point just beside where your leg is buried!"
"Trap expert!" the Thayan howled with laughing adrenaline and flushed rage. " So, being an expert, you ran in here to be buried too? Need to be an expert at being trapped, eh? What use you are!"
Imoen scowled. "I saved your life!" she snapped. "You stood there like a dolt staring up at the ceiling! Like it had displeased you and you were picking which choice words to shout at it. I pushed you clear of the worst of it!" She gestured over at a large bolder embedded in the ground to their side. "You'd be over there otherwise!"
Edwin had no real memory of what had happened over the last few seconds, so he couldn't refute her statement, but he was angry all the same. "Oh forgive me," he spewed sarcastically. "I'm so grateful to you for my powdered femur, then!"
"You are such a baby!" she snapped at him. "Complain, complain, complain, no one else is ever good enough for you!"
He laughed at that, leaning back into his collapsed alcove. "That's because no one else is me," he retorted, clutching at his throbbing temples. His leg was going numb and he was conscious again of all the stones and wood splinters digging in to his robes. For a moment his thoughts were fragmented and roved helplessly.
Then something finally occurred to him and he frowned, grabbing her wrist in one clawed hand and focusing on the orb of light she was holding. It took him a moment to be sure of what he was looking at. Then his gaze flicked up to her from under a furrowed brow.
Imoen blushed slightly. "I couldn't see," she told him. "What was the harm in trying?"
"Plenty of harm when messing with forces entirely beyond one's piss-poor ken," he told her. "But you are a sad excuse for a liar, and this is not the first time you've done this. Is it?"
Imoen squirmed, glancing around at nothing before twisting slightly to the side and sitting rather than kneeling beside him. "Please don't tell anyone," she said.
"Why?" he asked bluntly.
Imoen shrugged. "It's not me. Being a wizard, that is. I haven't the talent or the patience." He sneered, wondering if she really fooled herself into believing that. What a self-sabotaging little liar. For her part, Imoen thought about her words for a second and then grinned at him. "I guess you could say I'm just a very good monkey."
He didn't smile. "You are capable of magic, and you prefer sleight of hand? Pathetic. But nevertheless this does not explain why you would hide it."
"Well there was always so much pressure!" Imoen complained. "If you could do magic you were going to end up a stuffy old librarian with no life. Pah! No way, no sir, not for me, blah. I had more exciting things to do!"
"Magic is power, girl. I say it's that you have no stomach for. Don't pass me trite little lies about 'patience' and 'librarians' when you spouted off the list of languages you can read only a few hours ago as if you were proud of it. I already know what happened. You miscast something. A little spell went wrong. Maybe you lit something important on fire, or imploded a cat. Whatever happened you became scared of yourself, ran, and hid. You're a coward, and the worst kind of coward at that. Most men are cowards because they haven't the means to be strong; yours isn't a lack of means but of will."
Imoen frowned from him down to her hands for a moment. He smirked, glad to have hit a nerve.
"So if you will not let me remove this rock, how are we escaping? Or do you intend for us to die here?"
Imoen glanced at him and then realized he was pale and sweaty. She hesitated and then leaned over him and ran her fingers behind his back to clear away gravel and debris. He grimaced at her nearness, but let her pull his shoulder up so that she could brush out splinters from beneath him. He was stuck on his side and could not easily do it for himself. "We have to let them dig us out," she told him. "Before you came to, Garrick gave me a sending. I told him how to get to us. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't the one who got hit in the head, because all you'd respond when he asked our location is 'under a gods be damned rock you insipid fool!'."
Edwin laughed at her plan, not her joke. Rely on the party! Rely on them to dig him out! He never relied on anyone; he just needed some time to think on what to do. But it was going to take awhile before his headache cleared, that much was apparent. "I didn't ask why you were motivated to hide your magic," he told her after a moment. "I asked why I should refrain from telling anyone about it. Does the witch know you're learning the craft when she so ignorantly lets you into her confidence?"
"Dynaheir ain't half the bitch you are," Imoen told him. "And I'm more interested in looking then in learning. I like books. I figure she sort of knows I understand a bit of the writing, but she doesn't see any harm in it. It's not like I'm going to steal it and give it to you, after all."
"Well that's the wisest thing I've ever heard from you; I suppose you do have a gram of common sense. A lack-luster liar, a terrible trap expert, a self-sabotaging mage, and a mediocre archer. You really are a jack of all trades."
"I suppose you think yourself an ace?" she asked him. "Ace of flippant remarks, maybe! You can tell anyone you want, because it's not like I've got any means to stop you. I'd just prefer if you didn't is all. I like having one secret."
"Secrets are d-danger-... One- you- hnrh" He blinked rapidly, wondering why his thoughts had suddenly failed him, and Imoen shifted closer.
"Edwin?" she touched his face. "Edwin? You're cold, I think you're going into shock." She picked a flask from her belt and brought it to his face, offering him a drink. He grimaced and took it, letting her lift up his head a little so he could swallow. The sudden change in head elevation made him dizzy though, and when he looked like he might faint Imoen cursed and shifted closer to him, getting her leg under his head to keep him propped up. His vision swam for a moment and he couldn't respond. Then he smelled something familiar and the world stabilized long enough for him to realize Imoen was offering him a vial. A healing potion!
"You," he hissed, disbelieving and enraged. "You had one the whole time?!"
"Just a sip! You can't drink all of it!" she warned him.
"You little bitch-"
"You need someone to set your leg back to a semblance of normal before mending it with magic or it'll heal wrong!" she hissed at him, trying to keep her voice down so as not to aggravate his obvious headache. "Trust me, I've broken plenty of bones before! Most of them, actually..."
Trust was not something Edwin Odesseiron did, but he was the not the one holding the healing potion. So when she tilted it to his lips he drank what she offered, and then there was little he could do aside from vaporize her to get hold of the rest of the vial. As much as he hated her in that moment, it did not appear Imoen would voluntarily permit him to die. That was something.
"How's that?" the thief asked him after a moment, pulling off one of her archery gloves and lifting the back of her hand to his brow. Edwin shoved her hand away in annoyance. "Warmer," she commented, and then looked up as they heard murmurs and the shifting of dust.
"Fools are going to collapse the space; if they don't just leave us here to rot," Edwin muttered. "We haven't a dwarf or anyone else who understands mines or caves."
"We have Montaron and Jaheira," Imoen noted thoughtfully, though Edwin chuckled at her naivity. "They won't leave us. Aegis won't. And there's plenty of breeze gtting in through the rocks, so we won't suffocate while waiting, neither."
"Your sister! And she's currently running a party of highly devoted and steadfast individuals?" the conjurer asked with a laugh. "I don't think she can dig us out alone if they just leave her here."
"I talked to Garrick! They all know we're alive down here," Imoen told him. "Honestly Edwin, have a little faith. I ran in after you, didn't I? Well you can think they'd leave you if you want, but they're not going to leave me!"
"Have faith?" he asked, amused. "In whom or what? Friendship and camaraderie? Sparkles and rainbows?" Imoen rolled her eyes and heaved a dramatic sigh and then abruptly looked around. She felt over the ground on either side of them and then her fingers slipped down the side of the Thayan's robes. He grimaced. "What are you doing?" he asked irritably, quite opposed to any unnecessary touching,
Imoen giggled, and then sat back up with his spellbook clutched triumphantly in one hand. Edwin's eyes widened and his upper lip curled. He grabbed painfully at her arm, his long nails digging into her skin. "Don't you dare," he hissed, the words for a spell bubbling up in his mind.
The thief grinned down at him. "That's why I ran in here Edwin! I knew they'd never dig you out for no reason. It was all a plot to steal your spellbook. Now I'm going to slit your throat and when they dig me out I'll tell them the ghoul got ya!"
"H-Haalvut do yol ahrk-!"
She muffled his final word with her gloved hand, alarmed, and then winced when he bit down on her fingers. His nails curled into her skin, drawing blood as he flailed at her. "Edwin!" she exclaimed in a sharp whisper. He was now trying to gorge her eyes out and she had to get some control over his arms to stop him. Fortunately she had dexterity, bracers, armor, and significantly better leverage! "Edwin I was joking! If I wanted to hurt you I never would have woken you up at all!"
He writhed for a moment more and then went still, glaring daggers up at her. Imoen frowned down at him, taken aback by how seriously he'd responded to the 'threat.' She shook her head rapidly, sporting scratches now not only from the cave in but from the frantic thrashings of a severely paranoid wizard.
"How the hell could that be normal to you?" she whispered to him, removing her hand from his mouth and shaking the pain out of her fingers. "Anyone could tell I was joking! How could that be concievable to you? Remind me never, ever, ever to go to Thay!"
"You wouldn't last fifteen seconds," he snapped furiously. "Now give me that book!"
"No. How many fingers am I holding up?" she lifted three. Edwin's hold tightened on her arm again, but this time he didn't successfully draw blood. His brows furrowed and then he shook his head and blinked rapidly. She would not distract him like this.
"Give it to me!"
"Tell me when the world stops spinning and maybe I will," Imoen told him, brazenly opening up the book right over his head to have a look.
"Give- Stop!" he gasped.
"Why? she turned the page disobediently.
"Stop! I warded it!" he clawed frantically at her arms. "I warded it! Do not read anything! What page are you on!? Stop!"
"Er, five?" Imoen hesitated, looking down at him in surprise. "You did what?"
"I inscribed an Explosive Runes spell on some of the pages!" the conjurer hissed at her. "If you read them you will kill both of us!"
Imoen raised a brow. "Which pages?" she asked.
"Give me my spellbook!" he demanded.
"Edwin, which pages?" she asked calmly.
"I am going to kill you," he muttered desperately, looking around in disbelief, but the world was spinning and he knew he didn't have the clarity to manage most of his spells.
"Okay, let's go through them quickly one-by-one. Skimming page five. Dum tee dum tee dum!"
He sputtered incoherently in draconic, trying to fumble together a spell. When he felt the sparks of magic fraying and contorting dangerously around his fingertips he realized he had to give it up or he was going to conjure a disaster. "S-stop!"
"Hmm, no explosions, now page six."
"YOU KLEPTOMANICAL, ASANINE, SLUT OF A BELDAM! I AM GOING TO SUFFUSE YOUR PILFERING SKULL WITH LOBOTOMIZING WORMS! I WILL USE YOUR VIOLATED HUSK TO SUMMON A PIT FIEND, AND TRADE YOUR SOUL TO THE WHIMS OF INCUBI!"
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," She flipped the page. "Seven..."
"IMOEN!" She was surprised he even knew her name.
"I think you're bluffing. Eight-"
"Every page that ends in nine!" The words tore out of him in such a shriek, it was as if she'd just stolen part of his very soul. "Every page that ends in nine is warded!"
Imoen looked down at him. He was pale again and looked on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, with his clawed fingers wrapped helplessly around her forearms and his breathing shallow and rapid. She was quiet a moment and then turned the book right-side up, earning her a shudder from him as he realized she'd been bluffing the reading. Then she carefully turned through the pages, spying the number in each corner before settling on a place to begin her search.
Edwin said nothing, listening to the pages flip and knowing with everything in him that he was going to destroy Imoen of Candlekeep if it was the very last thing he ever did. His senses were coming back to him. He could try another spell, but he'd have to be swift. He needed to hold her off long enough to say the full incantation. He needed clarity.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. He said nothing. "Do you think you can cast?" Silence. "Well... let me know if your vision clears." The edge of the spellbook moved, and he twitched when she lowered it down to his level. "I think this might help."
Edwin touched the book, more to claim it than to actually heed her. His brows furrowed as he tried to get his pupils to focus. It was a touch-delivered acidic spell that she had turned to; one of his less useful spells.
"If you are incredibly careful I think you can use this on the stone to carve your leg free," Imoen told him thoughtfully, rubbing her chin as she considered the obstacle. "It was the only spell I saw modest enough to use with precision."
Edwin looked up at her. He was beyond human communication for the moment. His eyes conveyed coldness and confusion. Then he looked down at his trapped leg. The sensitivity to light meant he could barely focus his eyes enough to read, but as his fingers twitched across the paper he thought he might remember the spell well enough to cast it without preparation.
The rocks above them clattered and clicked, occasionally stirring dust; but there was nothing they could do about that except wait.
"No, no, no, don't faint, don't faint, not again-!" she breathed, lifting up the vial of smelling salts and waving it under his nose. He grimaced, blinking rapidly to clear his head and trying to focus on the present.
"Thank you, Lady Obvious," he hissed, and then sipped again on the healing potion when she put the salts aside and offered it to him.
The angle he had to work at was awkward. Trapped on his side, with an immobile slab of rock hung low over top of him until about the level of his ribs. Imoen had propped him into a position where he could reach the offending stone, though he could barely see what he was doing. She had to bend over double to get a good look at the pin herself, and she had one hand on his wrist to help guide him.
If he slipped, he'd either crush both of them or amputate himself at the thigh. Neither could be much worse than this indignity, but he had toiled on regardless, worming his fingers slowly up into the rock limed with conjured acid.
"You lost the spell," Imoen notified him, and he growled inarticulately because it was true. Stopping to recharge the spell each time he lost his focus was slow torture by madness. Imoen giggled at his expression. "Come on, you're almost there," she rallied him, or tried to. Mostly he just wanted to reach up and dissolve her face off. "Lozuk hanzin haalvut-" she prompted him.
"Ugh, stop," he groaned. "Your pronunciation is abysmal."
"Yeah?" she quipped. "Well, that's why you're the wizard and I'm the lovely assistant, maestro." She fluffed her hair.
"If you were a wizard, I wouldn't trust you within a thousand feed of me," he muttered. "Much less with this task. Not only would you end up maiming me and killing us both, but no doubt you'd somehow also tear open the fabric of reality with your blundering."
"Well, when this is over, maybe you can put that big fancy brain of yours to work learning a, gee, I don't know, 'hold-immense-weight" spell or a 'run-really-fast-on-short-notice' spell. Or anything else that doesn't involve your chores, paranoia, devils or explosives. Then again, maybe you should just build a golem. That could be cool."
He scoffed. "Useless, expensive, troublesome things that drain the spirit of vim and spoil a wizard into complacency. A weak deterent against an... inevitable... succession that... undermine a man's i-instincts... Nn... like ...wom... what... what were... damn starbursts..."
"You're not going to be able to do this," Imoen sighed, worrying a hole in her lip. Her words seemed to snap him back to glaring lucidity. "Come on," she advised, offering him the flask, "drink some more water and try to get a handle on things-" he batted the flask aside, hissing out the necessary words in draconic and digging his fingers back into the stone around his leg. Imoen grinned. There was more than one way to motivate an Edwin.
He burned away more and more of the rock, despite ominous creaking from all around them. The trouble happened, in fact, when he had managed to partially free himself and a sip of healing potion set his pulse moving into his crushed leg again. The pain blindsided him.
Imoen reached down to feel the pin and realized he wasn't yet free. Any more tugging would only further fracture his leg and hurt him worse. "You're not done!" she told him. Nails coiled into her hands.
"Says the useless child to the man in Red..." the conjurer uttered blackly, because he knew he was trapped, he didn't need her to tell him that, and he wasn't sure he could manage another spell like this. Imoen looked back at him, dismayed.
"What... Edwin, even if you black out, I'll be able to tell them what you want them to do, What do you want? Because if you don't say anything, there's a woman up there with an axe who is going to get you- most of you- out one way or another. We can ask Xzar or Dynaheir to try and cut you out your way... Or if they don't have anything prepared for the job, well, one supposes there is the little fact that you've the perfect acid spell written down in your spellbook for them to-"
He scrambled to grab at her neck over his shoulder, tilting his head back to glare viciously at her. He was livid and exhausted and nearly hysterical with pain and stress. He almost spoke the words right there again, with his hand at her throat. Then she'd grabbed his fingers away and was squeezing them in a way she no doubt thought was comforting.
"You're a genius. You can do it," Imoen advised him sagely.
"Edwin? Edwin, I just had a brilliant idea."
He moaned into her lap, and his only comfort was that he'd drank just enough healing potion to feel his foot again, so he knew it was going to survive. The bad news was he could feel his foot again; and all the splendid ways in which his newly liberated leg was twisted up and contorted.
She'd pulled him under the shoulders a good six feet back from the ominious monolith he'd been trapped under. Each inch had felt like a hammer on his crushed limb, but once he was free he had insisted on it. To be fair, Imoen had tried her hand at setting the limb to rights, but he was too overwhelmed and angry to let her; and she honestly didn't trust herself to force it. Jaheira was the healer, not her.
"Edwin!" she rubbed his shoulder. How much time had passed? Those fools really were taking their time in digging. "Brilliant. Idea. Edwin."
"Spare me the brilliance of w-worms," the Red Wizard hissed.
"Your bats, spell, Edwin! The conjuration you did to mess with me at the carnival! Summon them and have them try to find their way out. Then have them swarm up and down to where we're at. The party will be able to follow them to us. Right?"
He opened his eyes, considering the suggestion through searing pain and pounding headache.
"Are they smart? Can you give them a command like that?" she asked hesitantly. It had been almost an hour, and though she could still hear the murmurs and movements of the people above them, Edwin was getting worse.
The better question, he thought looking at his shaking fingers, was if he even had a single cantrip left in him.
Her light was gone and things were dark. Edwin had asked her to extinguish it when his headache had become unbearable. She heard the crackle and turned her head just in time to see the halfling slip down into the rubble beside her. The first thing he said when his infravision pierced the darkness was her name:
"Imoen!"
And a rush of relief went through her. "Thank the gods," she croaked, a little choked up about finally being rescued. She shifted a little and then went still as she remembered the situation.
"The bats were brilliant; was that yer idea? What's it? What's wrong?" Montaron asked, touching her shoulder as he came up quickly beside her. "Oi!"
"Edwin," Imoen agreed, "he's been out for about a quarter of an hour maybe? He took a blow to the head and the cave in totally ruined his leg. How wide is that hole? You need to get Branwen down here- or at least someone who can carry him up!"
"It's small, it's why I was first. Hold up." The halfling grunted and backed up, looking up through the breach. "Need a healer!" he called. "The wizard's down."
"Imoen!?" Aegis called.
"I'm fine!" the violet girl hollered back. "Get someone down here!"
"Gonna be a sec; there's a huge ass pillar in the way!" the ranger growled, glaring down at the narrow opening. Aegis looked up at Branwen, who was shaking her head. "Can you shrug off the armor?" she asked. "Even if we manage to widen it, this is gonna be a tight squeeze either for you or-"
"Move..."
Aegis looked up. The word alone and without any polite fixtures was in theory a command, but it came delivered with a feeling of humility, like a maternal offering. The ranger stepped back quickly and then Jaheira was swinging herself down through the breach. She landed next to Montaron and with a glance at the halfling she strode up beside Imoen.
"Jaheira!" the girl exclaimed, relieved beyond words to see the druid. "It's his leg and his head! Can you do anything? I have healing potions, but I didn't trust myself to set it!"
"It's well you didn't," the half-elf murmured, examining the twisted thigh and then feeling carefully over the man's scalp. "He will be fine," Jaheira decided. "Help me lie him flat. I have skill enough to put the leg on the mend, but we will need to split it regardless till morning."
Imoen scampered to help, and bit her lip as she watched the druid work. "Thank you," she blurted after the first prayer of healing had been administered, and Jaheira was requesting help to splint the leg. "For coming! For coming back? I guess you didn't leave. For- I know he's an utter pig head, and now I think I even hate him worse than ever, but thank you."
Jaheira just clasped her shoulder wordlessly, and then went back to mending him. They finished the split and Jaheira shifted to mend the wizard's bruised cranium as Imoen scooted back to give her space.
Montaron came up behind the archer girl then and put his hand on her shoulder. "The devil were ye doin'?" he hissed to her. "By rights ye should be dead."
"What?" Imoen asked.
"Don't play dumb, I watched ye bolt straight into this shit. Ye could o' died, Pink. And not 'xactly for the sake of a bloke who deserved it."
"I had to do something!" she exclaimed.
"Ye think half the group would o' stayed to dig him out if he were alone? Ye think that daft bard would o' missed him enough to realize there might be o' way ta contact him? No. We wouldn't o' even know he were alive under this. Woulda just had to shrug our shoulders and move on."
Imoen bristled slightly, but then if anything the last couple hours had taught her that some people simply didn't do 'good' very well, and one needed to read between the cracks to understand their motives. She shifted about on her knees for a moment and then lifted up a hand and placed it warmly on the halfling's own.
"Thank you for worrying," she said. "But I'm a little shaken right now, so could you please not lecture me for awhile?"
Montaron was quiet for a moment, surprised. "Yeah. Yeah, sure kid... Come on. Let's get ye up first; Jaheira can carry this one up after ye."
Dagger: Don't worry! I disbelieve in the novelization! Now start signing in before you post so I can stalk you back!
Blue: Xzar was always really forthright with Aegis and Imoen but not necessarily around the harpers ;) Not that it took long for Jaheira to put two and two together and accuse it of him in the Truce scene, which was a long time ago. Its just a little different when you see it in full fledged undead form!
Hehe, Montaron upset just about everyone last chapter XD. Right after bring awesome, too! Damn him. I used real world inspiration to figure his actions out for that scene. I know some older men 60+ who would think it complementary to touch the butt of a 20-yr old woman or to hollar a cat call about her going home with them. I added in a little more evil halfling and got a nice twisted moral flavor :3
Hehe, Xooridoe, that's what i get for editing this on a phone... xD
Damn ghouls...
Thank you for your reviews :) I honestly couldn't write without them. This fandom is nearly dead .
