Raewyn crept along yet another dank, filthy corridor, hugging the shadows, and cursing the need for stealth. After long, agonizing weeks spent scrying, working through informants, and sifting through dockside rumors to finally discover where in Luskan Casavir was being held, Raewyn wanted to charge into Blackrock and wrest him from his captors with all the rage and fear inside her. She knew to do so was not only suicidal, but posed a risk to Casavir as well. Therefore, she had come alone and taken pains to disguise her identity, so that if the worse befell and she was captured, she was unlikely to be connected to a seemingly abandoned rogue paladin. Nevertheless, she would have given much for her companions and her Graycloaks at her back.
She was shaken from her musings by the sound of another guard approaching. Silently sending a thank you to Neeshka for training her to slip where she pleased unseen and unheard, she ducked into a shadowed alcove. She let stillness flow like water into her mind as Neeshka had instructed her, and watched from beneath a sea of calm as the guards passed within mere inches of her. She waited until quiet filled the hall once more before resuming her silent search.
She had covered over half this wing of the prison already, stopping by each cell and peering in to see who was imprisoned there. She had only a general idea of where Casavir might be held, but all her best informants had been unable to find out where in the massive structure exactly, forcing her painstaking cell by cell search.
She had seen enough, however, to build a cold fury within her. The first thing she did on getting Casavir safe home would be to speak with Lord Nasher about the plight of the poor wretches kept here. Blackrock was notorious up and down the Sword Coast as a hellish nightmare. Even the worst of thieves, thugs, and brigands spoke the name in hushed voices, for those who were sent to Blackrock were not seen again.
As Raewyn had moved through the long rows of cells, she saw that Blackrock's reputation was not exaggerated. The conditions were deplorable, and the occupants she had discovered came from every race and every land in Faerûn. One leaf at a time, she reminded herself. She smiled briefly at her unconscious use of one of her foster-father Daegun's favorite phrases before returning her attention to the task at hand.
Before she moved, she checked, for the hundredth time, the bag of holding at her belt, where she had carefully stashed every healing or restorative elixir she, Sand and Elanee could think of, along with armor, weapons, and clean clothing for Casavir. Fearing he might be too weak after months of imprisonment to don the daunting weight of the plate armor he usually favored, she had chosen instead to bring lightweight armor, chain of elven manufacture, and a pair of short swords. Besides, plate armor, shields and longswords did not suit for crawling through tunnels, and if—when, she corrected herself sternly—she found Casavir, they would be doing quite a lot of that.
The next cell held an elf, withered and drawn, who sat in the middle of the room, not moving. And the next after that held an aged tiefling, old enough for his horns to have two full curves. She knew from Neeshka that he must be at least a century old. She winced thinking of her friend as she looked a moment more at the venerable being before her. She had just moved toward the next cell when an earsplitting cry shattered the silence.
"Noooooo! Gods, no, please, not again!"
She froze, immediately terrified of the surge of guards she expected to come running in response to the racket. A heartbeat later her fear turned to something else. She knew that voice. It was Casavir.
She had found him, for the cry had come from a cell near the far end of the hall. As the echoes died, she realized there was no response coming. No guards' boot treads echoed in the corridors. Not even the other prisoners stirred. Were all of the cells' other occupants so broken that they didn't notice? Or were such cries not unusual? Neither option did anything to reassure her, despite her relief that she was not now surrounded by guards on full alert. A moment's hesitation and her fear for the paladin outpaced her fear of discovery, and she raced on silent feet toward the cell from which his voice had come.
She reached the cell, and steeled herself before peering in through the barred opening. The huddled figure before her eyes could not be Casavir! A man clad in rags sat, knees drawn to his chest, his head buried in his hands, murmuring brokenly. Her heart twisted as she looked harder at the shape of the shoulder, the contour of the hands, the curve of the skull, and realized it was indeed Casavir. He was thin, worn, bruised and filthy, but it was him. For all that her heart sang to see him, she wanted to weep for his obvious suffering.
Taking a deep breath, and remembering once again Neeshka's tutelage, she put aside with some effort the image of the strong paladin now muttering in the corner, and closed off her mind to everything but the lock before her. She had never come close to the rogue's skills, but Raewyn had, the tiefling pronounced, become 'not too bad' with the thieves' tools she had given her. Still, she fretted over how long it was taking her to find the pressure points that would release the lock mechanism. They lock was rusted and grimed, giving evidence of how much time had passed since this door had been opened, and Raewyn again bit down her rising anger.
Finally, with a soft 'chink,' the lock gave way. Jamming the handle of one of the picks into the frame as she had been taught, she reached into her bag for a small flask of oil with which to silence the hinges. Given the lack of reply to Casavir's outcries, she doubted anyone was listening or would hear if the hinges creaked. On the other hand, a prisoner's cries were much less likely to bring the guards at a run than the screeching of what in this place could only be a cell door's hinges, and she was grateful her rogue tutor had included this step. She would never have thought of it on her own.
Finally, after stowing her tools and the flask, she took a fine string and rubbed it in the filthy corners of the doorframe until it was the same shade of filthy as everything else here. She then tied it around the lock, making it appear that the lock was still closed, another trick she had acquired from the former thief. It wouldn't pass any real inspection, as the door would not quite close all the way thus rigged, but someone merely walking past and not looking for something to be wrong would be unlikely to notice it. She hoped it would be unnecessary, given her familiarity with the guard shifts, but if someone did come by, it should give her the time she needed to determine Casavir's condition and get him ready for the escape she had planned.
At last, she eased the door open with painstaking slowness. This was the most vulnerable moment of the rescue. With the door half open, she would have to decide whether to go into the cell or back down the hall if someone came. She didn't know if Casavir would inadvertently reveal her presence if she went in, but she could not flee down the hall without leaving the door ajar. Either could put both her and Casavir in grave danger. She took a deep breath and began to slowly inch open the door far enough to slip inside.