"Talking in Japanese." 'Thinking in the speaker's native language.' .:Telepathic stuff:. "Makai dialect."

AAAAA – Change of time/place or whatever.

Note: All dialogue in this chapter is in Makai dialect. There're no humans, so there wouldn't be any Japanese.

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Skava

Chapter ten: Escape?

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Skava woke blearily from sleep. Although she didn't really need it, she had nothing else to really do in her cell. She could take a few steps in her chains, and could almost comfortably lie down as long as she was pressed up against the wall, considering that she was lying on a cold hard stone floor. It could have been warmed by her energy, but unfortunately the cuffs stopped any large amount of energy to be used. Whenever she tried, they sucked up the energy and then replaced it back into her stores. Humane, but incredibly annoying. She also could keep up her strength by doing pushups and other exercises. But other then those and the occasional meal, she was pretty bored.

"Hello prisoner. Ready for your first meal of the day?" She rolled her eyes. He was back.

"Oh yes, tasteless gruel day in and day out just makes my day. Oh, and I have a name you know. You could try using it. It's not even very hard. Here, I'll help you. Skava. Ska- come on, say it with me. S-K-A-V-A. Two syllables, not hard. And all the A's are short, that's simple enough! Come on, I know you can do it." He leered at her behind the bars.

"Do not try my patience, prisoner."

"Oh, but it's just so much fun." She found herself grinning, further annoying the ogre outside the bars. He simply snorted and threw her bowl of food (if, indeed, it could be called that) and it skidded on the floor besides hitting her on the calf. She immediately howled in mock pain and grabbed her leg.

"You've killed me! It will have to be amputated! Ooo, the inhumanity! I'll never recover!" As she was massaging her leg, she suddenly fought to keep a straight face and not start laughing maniacally. The guard just grunted in annoyance and walked away. As soon as she was sure that he had indeed left, she fought to keep a manic grin spreading across her face as she slipped a hand into the cuff oh her pant leg, and confirmed what she had hoped. They had missed her leg knives! She had become so used to carrying them that she had failed to notice that they should be gone. They were on the inside of calf, strapped by a thin piece of demon hide. She kept them on the inside as people tended to just pat down the outside of someone's leg when checking for weapons and it appeared that it had worked. She grinned at this new development.

'So…now I won't be defenseless when I get out of here. Speaking of which, time to work on these cuffs some more.' She had been slowly working out the mechanisms of the cuffs in the off hours when she was left completely alone. She couldn't get very far at any one time, but she had the talent of "book marking" where she had left off, making it much easier to break through locks. At the moment she has gotten off the first two layers of protection seals and clicked open the first tumblers on each of her wrist and feet cuffs. She was concentrating her mind on the protection seals and was beginning to peel off the third layer. It was like fitting keys into a lock, it had to be the right kind of signal for it to click open. She had opened the first two of the locks for that level when she suddenly stopped. She could feel something there, something that carried a telepathic force.

.:Who's there?:. She called silently. She heard nothing.

'Hmm, maybe it was just my imagination.' She focused back on getting the seals off. There were only five total, and she was working faster now on the third one. And after the seals were off, it wouldn't be hard at all to get the mechanics of the locks to open for her. She could be out in a week, if she was careful. Suddenly she felt a slight mental penetration as a foreign mind began to bend her signal. She immediately fought back and the force retreated, but returned, this time not in her mind but in the lock, showing a variation of the signal that she was giving. The next lock of the seal clicked open.

.:Who are you, and why are you helping me?:. She had to admit, she was scared. Who could it be that knew the locks well enough to know the signals? She suspected a trap. However the force came into her mind again, this time giving an emotion of "I don't like you but I'm not going to hurt you so just stop fighting me and I'll get you out." She decided to let it for the time being. If it was indeed a trap, she could just kill the offender. With the help of the other mind the rest of the locks on the level quickly clicked open. Then the mind was simply gone before she could even say anything.

'Who are you?'

AAAAA

"Wha-? Who? Oh." She woke up from a disorienting sleep groggy and slightly confused. The helper was back.

.:Hello again. Come to help me with my imprisonment?:. Still she felt no response, but she didn't expect anything different. If it spoke, she could match the voice to a suspect if she was caught again and questioned. This time, when she felt the mind come into her own, she let it with no trouble, and almost immediately the first lock of the fourth layer clicked open. As they were working on the others, it became almost an automatic function, leaving her with some mind power left to wander. She began to inspect the mind that was helping her, trying to get a feel for who it was. It seemed to sense this, for it drew away completely.

.:All right, I'm sorry. I get it; you don't want me to know you. Fine. But please, can you still help me? I need your help to get out of here:. She talked on and on for almost an hour, before finally admitting to herself that the helper was gone.

"Damn it, Skava! You're an idiot!" Berating herself constantly, she began to work on the lock alone, slowly peeling the locks off one by one. Luckily the fourth layer had almost been completed before, so she didn't have much left to do. She sighed with relief when the layer was finished. Then she sat back and waited for her food.

AAAAA

A week had passed since she had last felt the presence of the helper. Nothing of interest had happened, and she'd been working on the last layer a lot slower now that she didn't have any help with it. She only had three of the ten locks open, and she was sick of the whole thing. She wanted out of the damn cell and she was getting impatient. She started to work on the next lock. It seemed to be easier then the others though she wasn't sure of it. She guessed that she was getting better at figuring out the right signals. She disarmed that one and moved onto the next. Now she was sure of it. It was going a lot quicker then she thought it should be. She stopped her progress for a second to test, and felt it stop just a split second to late. She grinned. The helper was back.

.:Thank you:. She then went back to peeling off the last layer, helped along by her unknown benefactor. She laughed out loud when she felt the last seal give way then quickly reached into her shoe and drew out her set of lock picks that they had also missed. She quickly fitted them and felt the rest of the tumblers click into place. She sighed with relief at the feeling of the cuffs sliding off her sore wrists and ankles. She rubbed them briefly and quickly reached into her pant leg, drawing out the knives that they had missed in their inspection. She quickly jogged over to door and glared at it for a second before simply wrenching off two of the bars and stepping through to the other side of the doorway.

"Well now, let's see where they keep the armory."

A/N: That was a really fun chapter to write. Whoo! Go Skava! And the mysterious benefactor, but you know that Skava's the cooler one. XD. Cyber brownie points go to anyone who figures out who helped her.

Review Responses:

sausage: Thanks for the compliment, that goes for both of the reviews. I like hearing I make people laugh, and thanks for saying Skava has a cool personality. I tried to make her as likable as possible.