Eventually Annah fell asleep, still thinking how she was going to get Ratty to stop summoning her. She was woken what, seemed to her, as soon as she shut her eyes. It was (a rather timid looking) Aerie, coming to wake her up while the others got the breakfast ordered. Annah cursed, yawned and got up. Descending the stairs, she reached a conclusion, of sorts, about Ratty.

'Ah window o' oppertunit'y'll come I'self soon'ah later.'

What she didn't know was that window had come and gone... and she'd taken it. Annah also didn't know that it was going to change her life.

Forever

Annah only became aware of the window as they came to the city gates on the east side of the city early in the morning. A guard at the gate took one look at her and immediately walked up to her, clamping a firm grip on her spike-less shoulder.

"You are under arrest for the murder of the Cowled Wizard Edgar Sornhal. Come with me."

Suffice to say Annah was surprised.

"Tha' Hell!? I dannae do it!" She yelled as she started struggling. Her free arm pulled out a dagger, to feel a fingerless glove clamp on her wrist. She followed said hand to Lok's looking back at her, shaking his head.

"Do you have any proof?" Asked Jaheira, as the others crowded around the guard.

"A person matching exactly this woman's description was seen leaving his building early this morning," the guard responded. "There are several witnesses who can testify."

"THAN THEY'RE FECKIN' LYIN! I NEVER LEFT BY THE FECKIN' DOOR!" Annah yelled into his face, drawing puzzled looks from the other.

"Say what you want criminal." He looked at the others. "She will be held in the prison, you may visit her at noon.

"We'll come with you now and talk to her when we get there," was Lok's immediate response.

The guard opened his mouth to argue but hesitated.

"...very well. You may come, but you will have to talk to her at noon like everyone else,' he said after brief deliberation, 'This way,' still keeping his hand on Annah's shoulder.

She walked into the cell, cell door clanking shut immediately after. When she'd had to remove her cloak and hand it over to the warden along with her other stuff, suffice to say he and the guard were extremely shocked.

The guard looked at her uneasily, before he decided to pull up a chair and sit opposite her door to watch her.

'Loké ha' been right... people do find meh frigh'enin'...' she thought idly as she sat heavily on the bench attached to the wall that was her beat, and leant up against the cold wall. After several minutes of listing to the guard and the other prisoners she gave a heartfelt sigh as she looked at the ceiling.

This was it.

She was screwed.

Those primes were going to leave her right here to rot and get a replacement.

No one trusted tieflings.

...Maybe she could pick the lock when the guard fell asleep or left, before they executed her or did whatever they do to a murderess in this city.

Then she could run.

...Oh yea. She was a total stranger to this world. Odds were, she wouldn't last particularly long on her own.

She felt something ooze up inside her. Annah recognised it-she'd felt it-well. Felt them to be exact, a handful of times before...

Fear.

Despair.

The feelings were crushed almost instantly as her eyes hardened. She'd been in worse situations than this and got out of them. With Morte, Nameless One and the others.

Despite her predicament she smiled. She almost missed that bugger of a talking skull. She snickered.

Almost.

Yea, she'd be fine. After all, she'd managed to escape from Sigil. She'd be fine.

Annah sat motionless for hours, thinking of (practical) ways to get out of this particular problem, until the late night's fatigue claimed her, and she fell asleep.

Her last conscious thoughts were that she'd been in worse than this. She'd get out this mess somehow.

...If only she knew what 'somehow' was.

She gave a small groan of displeasure when she woke up. The cold wall had made her back stiff and her spine cracked loudly in protest when she stood up, closed her eyes and proceeded to arch her back. When she opened her eyes she noticed something straight away on the opposite side of the bars.

The guard was gone.

Not hesitating a second she walked up to the door, slipped out a few lock picking tools from under her shoulder plate, and proceed to try and unlock it. It was a difficult lock but Annah was an accomplished thief; within a minute the lock clicked, the door promptly opening slowly as she looked down either corridor.

No-one there.

She quietly closed the barred door then proceeded to move quickly, but quietly, down the east corridor while one or two prisoners watched her in fear. Without warning the door swung open and Annah halted, looking around only to realise for the first time there was no cover. She mentally cursed herself-that was a sloppy mistake, dammit! She crouched down, even coiling her tail against the floor like a spring. As soon as the person started coming through she pounced, slamming into the person. They were too strong though, grabbing her around the waist with one arm and around the neck with a hand before swinging 180 degrees with her momentum, removing their arm from behind her and slamming her hard into the floor, Annah's vision briefly flashing white with the pain from the impact of her head onto the cobbled floor.

"Annah?"

Her eyes snapped open, them having closed involuntarily with the pain, to see the last person she expected to see.

It was Loké.

"Wha' the hell are ya' doin' 'ere laddie?" She wheezed in surprise.

"We came for you. We found proof you weren't the murderer. You're free to go," he said as his grip around her neck loosened. He grabbed her around the waist with both hands and literally lifted her onto her feet.

She stared at him for a few seconds in bewilderment

"Di' ah jess' 'ear yeh correctleh? Ah'm free? You found proof?"

He nodded his head with a small smile. "That mage who had been summoning you kept a diary. So we tracked down the other mage and she kept a diary too." He shot her a cheeky smile. "Rather convenient, don't you think?"

Annah nodded, even as she didn't listen. 'They... they actually bothered ta' help meh?' She was thinking.

He put a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, let's get outta here."

She nodded, a small smile forming on her lips.

When she exited the prison with the others it was dark. Turning to Loké, "Hoo long was ah in there?" was her first question.

A shrug. "Long enough for daylight to go." He gave a sigh. "So much for going to Trademeet today..."

With that they walked to the Copper Cornet.

"How'd ya get tha' proof ah dinnae do it?"

Loké gave a small smile. "As I said, it was rather convenient. First we went to the house of the guy who'd been summoning you. We looked around,'

..."Doing a little looting while we were at it," Keldorn interrupted in a disapproving voice.

"And 'while we were at it'," Loké continued, pointedly ignoring Keldorn's interjection, "We found his diary." His face darkened. "Creep."

Annah nodded. "Ee' was. Ah called him 'Ratteh'."

"Ratty?" Loké gave a chuckle. "The inspector said he looked like one. Well anyway, he wrote down the mage whom he'd got you to rob. It wasn't too hard to find her. She even bragged to us about what she'd done, with you... I mean, your simulacrum."

Annah raised an eyebrow.

"Yea, I know! Somehow she'd made a ward that made a copy of whoever triggered it to form, under her command. Apparently 'Ratty' and her had been at each other's throats for ages. That gem was the last straw."

"So, ya' took her in?"

Loké gave her an evil smirk. "Let's just say we saved the executioner the trouble."

Annah smiled.

They'd arrived at the Cornet by this point and entered to rent rooms for the night and get a meal. It was early evening, the sun not even fully set; but it would take a good day's walk to Trademeet and they'd already been up all day.

Sitting around the two tables nearest the stairs, Jaheira, Loké and Annah around one, the table next to them having Aerie, Minsc and Keldorn. Minsc was eating his way through what was, according to one of the serving wenches, roast lamb, while Aerie was playing with Boo, feeding him small pieces of an apple taken from her pack every few minutes, while the others ate stew, thinking about various things.

In Annah's case it was a thought that had suddenly occurred to her when they'd been walking to the Cornet; he'd literally just picked her off the ground like some kind of doll. Annah knew she wasn't exactly like Aerie-she unconsciously gave the avariel a quick glance; barely five feet tall, more like four foot eight, and appearing to be so delicate that she'd shatter like a porcelain figure if she fell...

...Definitely not like Aerie. Then again, she wasn't exactly heavy-but surely enough to make picking her up like that difficult? She gave a sigh of annoyance, mentally chided herself for being so silly, and proceeded to think about something else which had been gnawing away at her.

It was truly dark now, and Loké was finding the prospect of his straw bed very pleasurable after three people had challenged him to duels and he'd been dragged into a drinking contest with Minsc whom-bless his heart-had drunk everyone else under the tables. Several women had suggested they 'help him to his room', but he was too tired for that (not to mention they were saving), and the alcohol was making thinking difficult. He opened the door to his room sluggishly. Feeling slightly tipsy he sat down heavily on his bed, which groaned in protest, and proceeded to slip off his chain mail and underlying tunic before yawningly silently.

There was a knock at the door.

Groaning for no real reason he stood up, plodded over and nearly caved the door in, until he swore as he remembered you had to pull. He gazed at the person confusedly.

"Annah?" - - - -

-

Weee! The plot thickens! Sorry this one took so long. The 'rescue' was a satire of the fact that there is always some diary or item that proves a someone's guilt in both BGI and II.

I think I'm going to put this up a gear now... :)

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