"Welcome, such a pleasure to meet you- I trust you had a safe journey."

"Pleasant enough until you kidnapped my friend!" Gwaine snarled.

"Now now- I think you ought to remember who it is who has your friend."

"Please- just tell us what you want." Arthur spoke.

"Patience, patience- we haven't even introduced ourselves yet- Merlin here was very good at that" he said, smiling wickedly.

Arthur took a deep breath, pushing down all bad thoughts as to what that phrase could mean and tried to see past this man's madness. "I am Arthur Pendragon, this is Gwaine and Leon." he clarified.

"That's Sir Gwaine to you." Gwaine corrected. Arthur shot Gwaine a warning look, before suddenly spotting Merlin. He gave him a quick up and down, at once noticing bruises and fresh cuts- what had happened?

"Ah, of course sir knight! Oh- and I see you have noticed a few of Merlin's… accidents. You see, where I come from, accidents always happen- whether you've done wrong or not."

"You did this to him?!" Leon demanded.

"Why I ought ta.." Gwaine started, fist clenched in one hand.

Merlin was still being held by the guards, and several other men stood between him and his friends. However, he managed to catch Arthur's eye and sent the "Don't worry- I'm fine" look, which only caused Arthur to roll his eyes. He saw determination flare in his king's eyes as the message of "We will get you out." was sent across. Merlin was grateful for that, but the more he thought about it, the more his head seemed to buzz. The edge of his world was becoming fuzzy, and was it unusually hot in here?

Gwaine, of course, hadn't been able to punch the living daylights out of this guy like he'd wanted to, but he was stirring up the tension in the room that broke through all fake welcomes from earlier.

"Give Merlin back." Arthur stated- not loudly not angrily but with much authority.

The man only sniggered before saying "But then you'd miss the game! The wonderful game that I've had planned out for quite some time now. The game that you won't want to miss out on- after all, it is the game that decides whether your friend there lives or dies."

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? What have YOU DONE WITH MERLIN?" Arthur was losing it. He had held his patience with this man for too long.

"Well Mer-lin why don't you tell us" The man replied smarmily "How are you feeling?"

"Fine" Merlin announced, straightening his posture as he did so.

"DON'T LIE BOY…"
"Leave him ALONE!" Came Gwaine's shout.

"Come now Merlin- isn't your head rather fuzzy? Aren't you burning up? Can't you feel an itching, venomous thump throbbing through your veins? After all, didn't I I warn you about staying away from certain people? They could give you poison you know."

Merlin's expression gave everything away- the man had described every single one of his symptoms. Merlin's face had turned to utter paralysation, his breathing had even increased. He didn't even need to say anything.

Gwaine had released a long angry breath before placing his hands around his head and pacing as far as he could within the boundaries of the guards. Arthur stepped forward.

"Alright- you seem to have us caught. We'll play your game."

"No! Arthur-" Merlin tried to argue but he was silenced by the kings glare- and the increasing throbbing.

"How do we play?" Leon quizzed apprehensively.

The man skipped around for a little out of glee, laughing to himself like a madman- his body a monstrosity of malformed shapes.

"You have 1 hour to search this castle and grounds for specific ingredients- combine these ingredients and you'll have the vital remedy needed to cure poor Merlin" At the mention of Merlin's name heads turned to look in his direction. The sight wasn't good- Merlin had slumped into the guards' hold, breathing heavily.

"Find the vial and bring it back here."

"That's your game? How can we even trust that this remedy will work?" Arthur huffed.

"It doesn't look like you have much choice, young King."

"But how can we trust you'll give us an hour- it could be a complete bluff" Leon added.

"Ah, well lucky for us, Merlin can help there… You see his condition will become fatal in 1 and ten minutes. However, so that I don't cheat and so that you don't have any chance of getting to him, I've got the perfect solution."

"Why can't you leave Merlin out of this?"

"Otherwise you would just take him and go- where would the game be? How would that be any fun?" scoffed Eernseth.

"If you hurt him…"

"Ah well sir knight- that all comes down to your timing…" And with that the man gave a wide toothy laugh before starting a dark chanting. Lights dimmed across the room, winds blew violently and a shadow storm flew towards Merlin in a complete fury. No one could see a thing- pieces of untouchable black shadow latched themselves everywhere until the storm died down. From his crouched position on the floor, Arthur stood up. What the hell was that? Helping Gwaine and Leon up, he was about to speak when Leon, who was looking behind him, whispered his name with dread. Swivelling round, Arthur was witness to the state of his manservant. Really- how did he get himself in these predicaments?

"Isn't it marvellous?!" Eernseth cried. "Now we can keep track of time and tabs on Merlin."

Eernseth's great idea appeared to be trapping Merlin inside a giant sand timer. Merlin's eyes were darting about to every angle, noticing that there was no clear way out and that the flow of the sand heaped above him had yet to start. He began to feel quite exposed and claustrophobic, as he was stared at by everyone in the room, and being the victim in all of this, as well as the fact that- well, to be honest, dying by sand terrified Merlin. His hands placed against cool glass, he tried to call for his magic, however, like before it didn't gone down well and it resulted in Merlin feeling much fainter than before, his magic feeling too far away for comfort. Seeing that there was no physical or magical way to break the glass Merlin's hands fell back to his sides.

The worry in Merlin's eyes had become more apparent now even to Leon, who wasn't particularly close to the manservant. He was concerned completely and only wished that they'd be able to find everything in time. Gwaine, from knowing Merlin as his best friend, was picking up on several different signs he could see- the poison was obviously kicking in as Merlin seemed to spend more effort holding himself up, he was clearly hurting slightly from the previous wounds- however, the complex determination that his friend was showing, even if it was just to not give into this man, renewed Gwaine's faith. Arthur held a certain respect for Merlin; he could pick up on the brave face Merlin drew on. The fact that the poison had been affecting him for longer than they realised had him worried, but he just knew that they would all get out of this. They had to.

"You can't do that to someone- that's not humane!" Arthur claimed, outraged.

"I'm afraid these are just the rules" Eernseth claimed "Now that sand timer will fill up in an hour, therefore you have 1 hour to gather the ingredients before he suffocates and then the extra ten minutes to feed the remedy to him before that kills him!"

No-one said anything as the plan of action formed out between them all. This man had caught them and the only way out of this was to play his game.