It took some time for Nudd to wake up, which we used to discuss our plans for the next days, after the others told Dror and me not to give the dragonborn another mystery potion. At least, with some… unlucky aftereffects, I could get him to vomit out the potion and shrink again. Hopefully that scar doesn't stay...
We needed to find Veasna and Yaza as quick as possible. Getting ingredients for the potion lady could give us good supplies, but that wasn't a priority at all. The elves under Soth Authwei were still after us, the mindflayer cult were the only string to get Laelia away from her midnight snacks and I still didn't have nearly enough money in my pockets. Which reminded me of the artifact, still a promise of a sack of coin. I glanced over to Adara.
In any case, we needed to get moving.
And just as I thought that, my ears registered the rumbling of hooves. A centaur hunting party? No. I gulped. Laelia had been quicker to notice than me, but not quick enough to prevent it. They had us surrounded. At least twenty elven soldiers in the uniform of Braseath, swords drawn, eyes on us. My heartbeat quickened as I instinctively grasped my bow, even though I was well aware that we would be unable to defend against such masses of enemies. We were doomed. Caught. The thought flashed through my brain, that they could just hand me over to Lunuca.
We need to get out of here.
I stood still, arrow nocked, waiting for Adara's reaction, as the orcs and Laelia all had their weapons out, ready to fight. Two people stood out between the elven soldiers. A strong-looking, pale woman with raven-black hair and red eyes, and an older priest in fine robes. Something about the man, how he was mustering every single one of us, ticked me off. His… overly confident, disgusted glare.
"Can't you do that transportation thing again?", I heard Adara whisper to the elf."You know, like you did with the tarrasque?" "I am not sure, but now that you mention it, we have this mindflayer teleportation thing, remember?", the cleric answered. I flinched. "No! I mean..." I looked over to Nudd. "We could use our temporary giant to break through." "Nudd no like teleportation. Makes stomach sick. Oh, many little horses… Nudd hungry." "NO!"
"Wait, I know her", Laelia suddenly jerked, pointing at the red-eyed woman. I grinned. "I'm surprised that anyone recognizes this", pointing at the elf's strange appearance. She glared at me. "I would hit you with my staff if it wouldn't hurt!" Well, dumbass, you would miss anyway. As the strange woman's eyes met Laelia's, Ori stepped in front of his girlfriend.
"Well, I suggest getting the fuck out of here, Adara, please say something", I practically begged, feeling my life in danger right now. This is no place to die, nor to be arrested.
"So you've decided to finally crawl out of your little nest." "To be fair, we never crawled in the first place", the elf spoke back to the old elven priest. I had a vague idea who that man might be… and I kind of wanted to shoot him already.
Before I could realize that thought, Adara stepped in front of us. "Authwei, I guess you want something more than just find and kill us, because else you would have blown us all to bits now." I glanced at the priest. Wait, he was that dipshit that called himself Veasna's father?!
"You know, I've heard a few rumors of my little angel going missing." It kept all of my strength to keep my laughter in. That brat, an angel?! Adara coughed. "Oh, you have no idea how right you are." He seemed confused, and I took the chance to nudge the druid in the side. "Maybe we should not tell him that we lost her."
He looked around, in between us. "So, where is my daughter." I put on the most confident grin I could still muster. "We are not going to answer that, because if we do, you're going to kill us." Authwin glanced over to the red-eyed woman, who started grinning. "She's not here. The smell is far too long gone. She's somewhere else. The question is whether they even know where she went. As far as I know, that little thing is great in breaking out."I grinned. "Not as great as I am at finding people."
"So, you don't want to tell me where my daughter is.", Authwei sighed. "That's fine. There are worse things than death, you know?" I felt even more uncomfortable as two guards stepped forth, putting their blades into the ground. "So, are you going to tell me or do you want to make this hard for yourself?" The elf looked up. "Well, if you want us to tell you, you kind of have to give us something in return, you know?" "I can give you a quick death." "No, I was more thinking about "life"?" I coughed. "If I want a quick death, I can just go home. You need to give us something better than that."
"Sure", he said, looking over to the woman who calmly got off her horse, walking over to us with not a hint of caution. Ori instinctively went into a defensive position, but the elf put her hand on his back. Apparently she was certain she could deal with this.
"I always knew you were worthless dirt, but I didn't know that you were a traitor too", she viciously grinned at the elf. Laelia shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't consider myself a traitor, but… screw you. Now's not the time to talk about that." I widened my eyes as the next thing I saw was the woman just kicking her in the stomach at full force, sending the elf to the ground, coughing. I'm the only one allowed to do that! Stumbling, Laelia got back up, refusing to stay down.
With every time that arrogant hag talked down on the elf, I got more intent to just shoot her in the face. But… no, screw it, I would so shoot her first chance!
Laelia gave in. "You're right, Veasna isn't with us. But we do know where she could be!" "We know exactly where she is", I corrected, trying to better our position. She glanced at me. "We were actually on our way to look." The red-eyed woman raised an eyebrow, looking back at Veasna's horrible dad.
Adara stepped forward. "I can tell you where she is, as long as you let go my companions." The priest frowned. "And you want to sacrifice yourself for greater good?" "I mean, you're not going to get the chance to find one of the great orc tribe leaders, right?" Neither me nor the elf liked the idea. Especially as I was hired to protect Adara.
"May I make a proposal?", Laelia spoke up. "We seem to have a shared goal right now, which is to find Veasna. So why don't we set our differences aside for the moment and go together?" "Do you think this is some kind of fairy tale, where everything will end up nice for you?", Authwei huffed. "Oh, girl, it's so obvious that you are just out of the temple." "Thank you, that was notwhat I was getting at. Veasna is in danger and if you want her back safe, you would to well to take us with you."
"So I would need a bratty little cleric who doesn't know anything and got poisoned three times in a row because she was stupid?", he answered. The elf rolled her eyes. "I trusted you, you betrayed me. I'm pretty sure that's more accurate." "I'd just call it your own stupidity. And also, why should I work with that scum?", he looked over to the orcs, who looked incredibly pissed of at that. And there the racial differences started again… goddamn, how I hated it, just like the talk about the rights for the artifact.
I only started listening again as Authwei turned to Adara, fixating her with his glare. "I don't need you to kneel down to me. I can make you." The next thing I saw, he cast a spell, and Adara went down with a scream. I stiffened, as my client was visibly in pain. Goddamn, I'm supposed to protect her…
My gaze flew to Laelia. "Fuck it! Use that thing!" We needed to get out of here, no matter that teleportation was dangerous. If this would go on, we'd end up either dead or as prisoners, and I wasn't too fond of the idea of torture. The elf's facial expression distorted for a second, apparently Mimo took over. Before Authwei realized what we were up to, a shining glow emerged from the medallion Laelia was holding, and a jolt went through me.
Even if my stomach was rebelling, our environment had suddenly changed, through the rush of adrenaline I barely registered it. What mattered was that most guards were gone, but that Thalia and five of them were still standing next to us. Some horses were cut in half by the circle that had teleported us, and our cart was gone, unfortunately.
I saw Thalia almost getting hit by Laelia, and without hesitation let go of my bowstring, whispering the incantation for Hunter's Mark as I shot. The first arrow hit her, the second she could avoid by a hair's width. Snarling, my hand grabbed back to the side of my backpack, where my daggers were in their sheaths, grabbing one and hurling it at the woman just as she wanted to turn around, hitting her in the leg.
As the elf started bombarding the guards with spells, my vision was focused on Thalia. Even though I would never openly admit it, the elf had grown onto me, the closest thing to a little sister I could imagine. And that bitch had dared to hit and insult her like that… even though the elf was just trying her best, even becoming a traitor of her folk in the name of justice.
… maybe she just reminded me of my own self a few years ago.
As I snapped back out of my thoughts, I realized that Thalia had turned and run, already having a significant distance from us. And just as I noticed that, I also felt that a guard had cast a spell on me, just in my moment of distraction. My whole body seemed to become stiff, and I felt that apart from my eyes, I was completely unable to move – paralyzed.
I tried to fight back against the effect as my comrades were fighting the other guards, but to no avail. My mental strength wasn't the best, I was a coward after all. As Adara cast Shatter, my ears began ringing. Goddamn elves and their stupid magic! Well, the magic of one elf was on our side right now, attacking the guards in the form of a Spiritual Weapon.
After about 20 seconds, I finally managed to muster the strength to break free from the spell, breathing out and glaring at the guard as I got behind Ori, to get a better position. To my relief, the same guard fell by Dror's axe just a few seconds later. I nocked a new arrow, latchign it right between two pieces of armor on the last guard that had been running around, healing his comrades, before doing the same with another dagger.
As the elf said something to him, he wavered, before going down on his knees and surrendering. I took a moment to catch my breath, before going up to the dude, taking his weapons and tying him up. Did this before with criminals, guess it's the other way around now…
Looking at the elaborate longsword and the holy symbol, I smirked a little. "Guess your lame goddess won't help you right here and there." I stumbled a little as Laelia punched me in the side, almost steaming. Oops… Right, she still has the same faith as those dipshits.
"Can I eat him?", I heard giant Nudd say, still a bit drunk from the potion, licking his lips. I shrugged, grinning down at the guard that was close to peeing his armor. "If he doesn't answer our questions, you can eat him all you want." He went white.
"Wait, wait! I'll tell you everything I know!" I grinned. Good enough. Loyalty is overrated anyway.
"Then start with telling us your name." "B-Botum." He hesitated for a moment. "Look, you shouldn't do this. Lady Thalia… She's very strong, and she'll come back to rescue me." I laugh, dryly, rolling my eyes.
"Really? You think that would save you? First of all, we're wanted dead anyway. Second of all, she just ran and left you all to the wolves. She'll do shit and rescue foot soldiers." He shrunk a little, all his hope diminished to truth. We all knew how they treated people by now…
After a few minutes of recollecting ourselves, checking on poor Geronimo who was quickly developing alcoholism after joining our merry crew, we decided to take a rest. Most of us could barely stand, and needed to recover strength and magic. The guard had nowhere to run anyway.
As I woke up, most of the others were already up and awake. Why, just why didn't I inherit this trait… Nudd was still sleeping, but had shrunk… considerably. To the size of a hand puppet. Standing up and getting ready, I realized that a lot of things were off in this forest. It was too perfect. Too beautiful. Too… quiet. Not a single animal, not even a trace of one around. The only sensation was the calm wind on my skin, but even then, not a single leaf was rustling. According to the elf, there was also a strange magic around...
After eating breakfast and getting ready for travel – unfortunately without the rich rations we bought – I got down to find the vampire again. She couldn't have kept running for long… How far might it be until she felt safe? Her tracks were quite obvious to me, as she had ran at full speed, the soles of her boots clearly visible.
The others followed me as I went through the forest, keeping my eyes on her tracks with ease. Not thinking ahead, that woman…
As we walked, the elf questioned Botum a bit more, but I barely listened. Apparently he had let a man with dark skin and freaky eyes into the city of Braseath, who had wanted to speak to the head priest. Nothing too interesting, no person I knew really matched his description.
With my company at a distance, I finally spotted that bitch. A nasty grin snuck up on my face as I nocked an arrow, the same way I would hunt a deer. Just that I would shoot a deer just once instead of latching three projectiles deep into her flesh. My dagger missed, but I enjoyed the small expression of pain in her face.
But even with that, she came closer to me, and actually tried to charm me. Luckily, I managed to shake the feeling off, sneering at her in disgust. Nope, having been charmed by that dryad is mooore than enough.
Giving her a small, hateful smile, I pulled back my bowstring, sinking two more arrows and a dagger deep into her flesh. As my arrows hit, I heard Laelia cast a spell, enveloping Thalia's surroundings in spiky undergrowth, casting her Spiritual Scytheagain. But just as I thought it was going to go well for us, that bitch took out some kind of token… summoning five things that looked kind of human, but even more disgusting. Not zombies, but way worse.
Adara growled as she wildshaped, Ori got in front of me yet again – cover was better for me anyway. Just in the right second, though, as the five spawns launched themselves in my direction, attacking the orc in my stead. I took the chance to climb up to his shoulders for a better position, nocked new arrows, trying to hit Thalia from the top of this whole mess, but as one of the spawns lunged at Ori, I almost fell, the arrowhead scratching the side of Ori's head. Gritting my teeth, I managed to hit our enemy with the second shot at least, enjoying the sight of her body peppered with my arrows.
But to our shock, she tried to use her charm magic again – and managed to get through Ori's blockhead. My reflexes took over as Ori grabbed my leg and threw me off his shoulders with ease, but I managed to land without hurting myself, now standing in the middle of the elf's spikes behind the spawns. Feeling that this was terrible luck, I watched our dumb barbarian launching a dagger at Adara, ripping open the skin of the owlbear that was our druid. The worst thing though was that the spawns got off of Ori, focussing on Dror instead, all five of them getting all over the fighter.
I hissed, taking out the thing that I had had in my pocket for a long time by now. The spider ball the strange lady in the underground kingdom had given me. With goosebumps I took the white nest in my hand, before hurling it at Thalia. The projectile burst open, with thousands of tiny spiders now scrawling over her skin, itching and biting.
She was visibly in pain, and just as I started to get optimistic again, that bitch just… turned into mist. God-fucking-dammit. I nocked another arrow, trying to shoot the spawn attacking Dror, but missed badly. It wasn't looking too good for our overwhelmed fighter. Laelia seemed confused, trying to wake Ori from his madness by stoning him.
Even I flinched as Ori, still charmed, lunged at his old comrade, cutting off his arm with his axe in one smooth motion, making it even harder for poor Dror to free himself from the spawn's claws. With grief in my heart, too far away to help, I watched how they crawled all over him, devouring my friend with their sharp nails and teeth. Pain grasped me, but I couldn't turn my gaze away as he dropped to the ground, motionless. Dead. Not the first time I had watched a comrade-in-arms die, but just as painful. Just for a second, I imagined the dread Ori would be in later.
Swallowing down my emotions, and seeing how the spawns had gone over to attack the elf, I lifted my bow and started hailing arrows again. My teeth were grinding as Adara and the charmed Ori began fighting. If it goes on like this, we might loose her as well… Thoughts rattled through my brain. We had way too many enemies on the battlefield, Ori was the biggest problem though. At least the vampire had disappeared, so she couldn't give new orders… wait.
The next chance I got, I put my bow back in its hold, closing my eyes as I cast the spell, trying to remember every detail about that bitch's face. The magic of nature enveloped me, giving me the same appearance. I saw Adara's eyes widen a little as she saw me, most likely thinking that I'm really Thalia. If this doesn't work, we're screwed.
"Stop it! Get over here!", I hissed, loud enough for all of them to hear me. The spawns lifted their ugly heads, glancing back at me just like Ori. My pulse was racing as I was waiting for them to screech and attack them… but every single one crawled over to me, including Ori, who started to completely ignore Adara. I saw the elf laying on the ground behind them, unconscious already. Please help her, Adara… Luckily, she seemed to have the intention already, as she instantly dropped her weapon to stabilize the cleric.
But as they got closer, I felt the heat of the moment again. What do I do? How do I distract them? My gaze fell at Ori, and I knew I'd regret this later if he found out, but I needed to restrict his vision, so… "Get on your knees and lick my boots", I ordered him, seeing Adara's eyes go big as the giant orc followed my orders. He's so gonna kill me. But as I glanced to the two other girls again, Laelia was whispering to Adara. Maybe she had noticed who I really was. The druid was also up to something, but I couldn't see from here...
As I was trying to figure it out, something wrapped itself around my chest tightly, squishing the air out of my lungs, and I was ripped backwards until I faced a dark-skinned tiefling with mad yellow eyes, holding the whip that had bound me. Tall, muscular, scars all over his arms, and no shirt. Some kind of barbarian for sure.
I hissed at him as the spawns and Ori surrounded the tiefling, insecure about where the hell he came from and what he wanted. "Whose side are you on?" He raised his eyebrows. "No one's. I'm searching for someone named Ava… Silverspoon?" My face went red as he butchered my name, but I tried to lie myself out of it – What if he's after my head? - telling him that I knew no one by that name.
I heard how Adara and Laelia behind me were just trying to wake up Ori. But even as I was trying to intimidate the tiefling with the spawns, he just pulled out something I hadn't seen before, causing all five of the undead creatures to dig themselves back down into the ground. I gulped, just hoping that he's not hostile…
At least I could finally hear a hollow knock before Ori's heavy body dropped to the floor, unconscious. "I'm looking for her to deliver something.", the tiefling finally said, and I breathed out – not meaning that I trusted him. My identity was still a private detail! So I cast Disguise Self again to look as if I was letting go concentration on the spell, turning into the elven guard from before again. "Sorry, she's not with us, but we can tell her if we meet her", I swiftly lied, feeling Laelia's eyes rolling.
"I'm coming from a comrade of yours… a tiefling named Yaza?", he finally revealed, making my eyes light up a little.So she's alive at last. And he seemed to be friendly towards her, so at least he wasn't on the elves' side. "I'm searching for that Ada to show her the way there." At the impatient glares from both Adara and the elf, I finally let go of the spell, revealing myself.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm Ada." "Already thought of that myself."
After a long rest, we all woke up in the forest. I felt the bags under my eyes as my sleep had been ridden by nightmares again, mostly of Dror's death, mixed in… with that night with my former fiance. The tiefling had left us before, saying that he wanted to find Soth; Authwei.
My tired eyes found the dug-up earth not far away, where we had had to dig a grave yesterday. I still couldn't fathom the fact that he was dead, but seeing Laelia holding his birthstone, and knowing that she had his most important belongings, made me feel it again. I didn't dare take anything. A warrior deserved to be buried with his gear after all.
I didn't find the hunger to eat breakfast, to I just packed my things, looking around at the ground that was still the same battlefield. Is that Dror's blood over there? I shook my head violently. I have to concentrate on my job.
After everybody woke up, we decided to hurry up and save Yaza and Veasna. Mendeku, the tiefling, had told us that she had been the one calling out my name the whole time…
As I started following Mendeku's tracks to where he had come from, I noticed a sound from my backpack. Oh fuck, I forgot to feed Coco! In a heat, I ripped open my bag, basically hurling out the little creature. But it had already munched up all my food and bitten into my purse. Goddamn little asshole! As I looked up, I saw that it had significantly grown, munching on a bush. Then, it clicked. Did I… forget to water it?
Shaking my head, I took out my waterskin, opening it and pouring a few cups over the creature. With a poof it went back to its original size. In the awkward silence of the others watching me, I took out a string and tied it to the side of my backpack, so it was dangling down and couldn't eat without me putting it down. Laelia was just looking at me in disbelief. At least Coco's helpful…
Starting to follow the tracks again, we slowly noticed that we were missing something… Nudd. And the guard we had taken prisoner. I bit my lip. We couldn't just leave the dragonborn behind like this, we had dragged him with us after all.And he still has to make my arrows and the other weapon…As I was the best at tracking and Geronimo the fastest, we quickly decided that the two of us would gallop back and get our blacksmith.
Luckily, I was pretty used to riding on horseback, even though I was still more comfortable with mules. A grin snuck on my face as I thought about Domino, the mule father and I used to have. After about twenty minutes, we were back at the clearing from yesterday, and I jumped off to search for Nudd. I quickly found him in exactly the same bush Dror had laid him down in, still snoring. Shaking my head, I put the tiny barbarian into my backpack.
Looking at the traces of Botum's tied up figure, I glance at Geronimo. "How far do you think that guard could have come?" He shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe half a mile at most, if he crawled the whole night." "How fast do you think we could do that?", I grin, and he seemed to get the idea. It wasn't a big detour, and I didn't want to let the elven guard off just like that.
As I jumped on his back, Geronimo instantly fell into gallop, making it a bit harder for me to hold on without a saddle. After a few minutes, I could spot Botum crawling on the ground with his bound limps, going forward with ambition. Grinning, I jumped off of the centaur's back, landing in front of the elven man with a backflip.
"Long time no see", I grinned down at the man who just sighed in defeat, looking at my boots. "Look, dude… I won't kill you, but… I'm a bit pissed that you ran away."
He slowly looked up at me. "What would you do in my situation…?!" I shrugged. "I mean, in your situation I'd try to get the fuck out of there or stab them." "Stabbing is hard...", he mumbled, raising his tied hands. I blinked. "What you meant to say was 'I am a coward and I'm not brave enough to stab a person.'" "I've killed people before!"
"I'd ask you for proof of that, but I...", I glance over to Geronimo, and think of Nudd in my backpack. "We can make this easy or we can make this hard." "… I take easy.", he sighed. I nodded. "You're a soldier of Braseath, right?" "Yeah..." "I guess you have a family back home or something like that? Cheezy?" He was quiet for a few seconds, before admitting: "Yes, I have a family."
"Okay", I sighed. "See… I may not look the part, but I was once a guard like you. So let's say I let you go, and if we ever get to Braseath again, you owe us a favor. A big one. Because honestly, we would have all reason to kill you." He nodded, gulping down his visible fear. "Deal."
I take out one of my daggers, for one second contemplating whether I should kill him, but he held his hands up in front of his face in defense. Shaking my head, I took his arm and cut through the rope. "Look, I can't give you anything for the journey because I don't have anything anymore, but… get out of here before I make another decision." I watched as he nodded, quickly untying his feet, before he ran off.
"Oh, wait, you forgot something!", I called after him, watching him stiffen with a "Huh?". With a smile I tossed him his holy symbol. He looked at it for a few seconds after clumsily catching it, giving me a little bow "Thank you!" before running away. I sighed. Was this a good idea?
I glanced to Geronimo. "If you ever tell the others about this, I will kill you." "I don't judge", he just shrugged. "You horribly disfigured him, and he somehow escaped and went back to Braseath." "Just tell them I killed him. That's easier. They'll just believe you without any comment. Well, let's get back."
After some other minutes, we arrived back at where the others were waiting. "Guyys~ Who wants to take the tiny little dragonborn?" "That took you quite a while. Did something happen?", the elf asked. I shrugged. "Can't do anything about Geronimo being damn slow."
The centaur stopped, looking at me and sighing. "She fell off one or two times, we had to stop." Well played, dude. I punched him playfully against the chest, hearing him giggle as he pat my head. I looked up. "Do you still have some of that Tequila?" "Ada, now's not the time, we need you sober!", Laelia tried to intervene, but my buddy handed me the bottle, both of us receiving a glare as I took a sip and handed it back. "One would think after yesterday that you would stop making bad decisions, but one has to see that no, you do not learn!", she tried to lecture me. "Did you get Nudd at least?"
"Yeah, in my backpack. Don't you hear that?", I pointed out his snoring. I took him out, tossing him to Ori. "Make sure he doesn't vomit!" The little guy looked miserable, to be honest. Suddenly, Nudd began growing, leading to the orc just straight-out dropping him onto the ground. We all watched in shock as not only the dragonborn's body grew, but from his neck a second head started to emerge – bright red, in contrast to his copper body.
I took the Tequila bottle and took another mighty gulp, with Geronimo following my example almost instantly.
After Nudd, now speaking from two heads with synchronous voices, woke up, I returned to tracking, trying to finally find that stupid mindflayer colony. At least that hulk of a tiefling leaves deep footprints… After another few minutes, I confusedly noticed that they… stopped. Abruptly. With no exit in sight.
Mimo was the one to finally pinpoint a concealed hole in the ground, by telling Nudd to walk down there. And they call me sadistic. I told the others that we should climb down in pairs, after seeing that it went down multiple hundred feet. Laelia and me, Ori and Adara. Unfortunately, I slipped as I started climbing down, and the elf wasn't enough to hold me. I only got to breathe again as Mimo took her over and cast Levitate, allowing me to slowly descend, tied to Laelia, with a rope digging into my stomach.
Down there, I untied myself, leaving the elf to care for Nudd, as I had spotted something way more important. A giant statue of what seemed to be a winged mindflayer dominated the hall, with a waterfall running down its back.
And in front of the stature sat a tiny elven girl, staring at the statue, hands in prayer. I pressed my lips together as I sprinted over to Veasna, pulling the little elf into my arms. Her hands were cold, her eyes bloody as if she hadn't blinked in ages. No matter what I said, she wouldn't wake up.
"I'm sorry, little one, but this will hurt", I whispered, before slapping her with the back of my hand. My heart skipped a beat as she finally blinked, and I pulled her into a hug, mainly to block her vision of the statue. "You're alive… You're safe now, Veasna. We're here."
She hugged me back as strong as she could, and I could hear her sob as she began to cry in my arms. Holding her close, I closed my eyes, concentrating. I need to find out where Yaza could be… The longer I concentrated, the more I could sense the beat of lives around me, of my favored enemies, of humanoids. My friends… The others… all in the same direction… about half a thousand… two different levels, above us.
I stood up, lifting up Veasna with me as she didn't look like she'd be able to stand. "I found out roughly where Yaza is. Ori, can you..." "I want to stay with you", the small elf whimpered, grabbing onto my armor. Sighing, I nodded. "Okay, okay.", I whispered, trying to sooth her. "I'm not going to leave." But she's too heavy to move freely… "Ori, can you carry some of my stuff? I'll take Veasna."
Looking at the others, I knew we couldn't just run around in this base of mind flayers without a plan and avoid getting noticed. "I have the rough direction, and I'm gonna cast a spell to allow us all to stay silent", I told them, and everybody seemed to agree. "We need to get upwards somehow."
After Nudd had recovered a little, I got my concentration together to cast Pass Without Trace. Shadows began radiating from my feet, starting to envelop the others, seemingly mending them into the dark corners and walls, silencing their footsteps and making their movements less obvious. I could feel that I was barely visible just now. It felt great, and my hunter's instincts reveled in the lightness that were my silent steps.
With Veasna on my back, we started going in the direction I had sensed the humanoids in. I noticed that the elf had to keep our two-headed dragonborn from looking at the statue and getting hypnotized. We quickly found a room with a tunnel that led straight up, with no other exit. Mimo told us that most mind flayers moved by levitation anyways. He, in Laelia's body, would go up there and throw us a rope.
As the rope came down, I quickly climbed up with Veasna on my back, happy to have my gloves in between my palms and the hemp. Up, I saw that the elf was struggling with my weight, and I went to help her. Quickly, we got Nudd up, and as he took over the rope, I took a moment to look around. It's been weeks, but I'm still not used to seeing in the dark…
Four tunnels led from here, from one emerged screams. The ground was bloody over there as well… On the walls were pipes with a green liquid, dimly enlightening our surroundings, much to my discontent, as shadows had slowly evolved into my best friends over the years.
Using my Primeval Awareness again, I could feel that there were two tieflings in that bloody room, so Laelia and I felt the need to look into it.
I'd seen a lot of blood in my life, but this took the crown. We saw about eight glass tubes, with different creatures inside. An elven woman. A centaur, with the hind-legs cut off in order for him to fit in the tube. An orc. Two tieflings. A currently turning mind flayer. Standing next to them was what I could only believe to be an illithid, a whole, real mind flayer, taking notes of the torture that was happening.
I shook my head as we could see that none of the tieflings were Yaza, and pulled back out of the room. She was our first priority after all. Back with the others, I cleared my throat. "I think I can find Yaza's exact position if I cast a spell, but I need to let go of our stealth for that." After a bit of discussion, all of us agreed that we wouldn't want to search her in between of what had to be the population of a large village.
Letting go of my concentration, the shadows around us dispersing, I cast Locate Object, trying to find Yaza's robe, the picture of white and blue fabric clear in my mind. After a few seconds, I could feel it, like an outline inside my head, pinpointing the location. "Above, and a bit behind me...", I told the others, turning around to face the direction – and a wall of stone.
In the ceiling was a second vertical tunnel, and we got up in the same way as before. Up there, Mimo told us that these were the stables. Even worse than slavery… It was a weird fence with a lot of people locked in behind of that. As everyone got up, Laelia suddenly stiffened, and after the others got quiet, I could also hear it. A scream. A scream of a voice that I had barely heard screaming before.
Yaza.
I could feel Veasna shiver a little on my back as she could also hear the suffering of our monk, and I felt the urge that we needed to free her as quick as possible again. How long had the two been down here now? A day? Two?
Taking the lead with Veasna on my back, we all quickly went into the tunnel. What I saw made me choke for a second. A mountain of dead bodies, heads broken open and emptied, laying naked on the ground. On top, three mind flayers. Two of them holding Yaza by her arms, trying to counter her immense strength. The monk was barely conscious and was wearing just as many clothes as the corpses, and with the third mind flayer trying to get a hold her her blue-haired head, it was all too obvious what they planned to do.
Just as I was looking around to find a suitable spot to hide and attack from, I heard someone scream out from the cages and pointing at me – the heads of three mind flayers turning around and facing a caught ranger.