Chapter Six: Hook, Line, and Sinker

After dinner, Sovereign Uriel and Count Wesley retired to the Gildspire family crypt. The Sovereign's mother had been a Gildspire, and aunt to the late Count, and had chosen to be buried in her family's ancestral tomb rather than in Emon as was tradition. Pike could respect that, as she could the Sovereign's commitment to this annual journey. It was a touching gesture, really, and an opportunity she guessed the Sovereign rarely got otherwise to reconnect with his kin.

But for the moment, she found herself unspeakably bored, posted outside the crypt with Grog and Keyleth and a couple of stone-faced guards. The Gildspire men stood arrow-straight and motionless as statues on either side of the crypt door, while Keyleth paced back and forth, Grog squatted on the ground sharpening his axe, and Pike sat on a bench off to the side, swinging her legs and thinking.

Not for the first time, she wished she could have gone with Vax and Percy—a wish that had less to do with boredom and more to do with worry. They were capable fighters, sure, more than capable. Vax could strike a killing blow before his enemy ever saw him. Percy, for all his cultured gentility, could be merciless in battle. Ripley didn't stand a chance against the two of them if it came to combat.

Vax, however, was not exactly the most level-headed when it came to his sister. Fiercely protective of her, Pike had more than once seen him unthinkingly throw himself in harm's way in Vex's defense. He operated more on emotion and instinct than reason when it came to her.

And as for Percy, well—

"You okay, Pikey?"

Startled out of her ruminations, Pike jumped and looked up at Grog with a wan smile. "I-I'm okay, buddys," she said. "Just worried about Percy and Vax."

"And Vex, too," Keyleth added, nodding.

But Pike scoffed. "Nah. Ripley's a little bitch. She's the one who should be worried, not Vex. But we all know how Vax gets when Vex is in danger. And the last time we met Ripley, Percy was… I was scared of him as much as for him, you know? He had that gun pointed at each of us at one point. I mean, I was only there as an astral projection, but he almost killed the rest of you."

"That wasn't really him, though," Keyleth protested. "It was that demon."

"Was it, though? All of it?" Pike blinked back tears. "Demons can't create, Keyleth. They can only amplify what's already there, feed on it and make it grow until it consumes you." She shook her head, trying to keep her breathing controlled and even so she didn't start to cry. "There's so much darkness in him, still."

"Well, yeah." Keyleth sat beside Pike and shrugged her shoulders. "Seeing your whole family murdered will kind of do that. But there's no way Percy would actually hurt any of us. Especially Vex."

"Yeah, but there was something different about Ripley. They way he reacted to her." Pike scrunched up her face as she struggled to find the right words. "Something… visceral. I think she hurt him in ways the others didn't, and I… I'm just worried about what he'll do when they finally catch up to her."

"He's gonna blow her head off, and then bring Vex home," said Grog. "I don't see a problem with that."

Pike sighed. "I wish it was that simple, Grog," she said. "I really wish it was that simple."

Vex groaned as consciousness crept back in. Her entire body ached, stiff muscles protesting their prolonged stillness. Her mouth tasted dry and sour. The sound of a hammer ringing against an anvil echoed from somewhere a few rooms away, and for an instant, she started to smile—Percival is at it again, I wonder what he's making this time—before she remembered.

She wasn't home in the Keep. The last thing she remembered was getting swarmed by goblins, her bowstring singing as she took down one after another after another, determined not to let them near the Sovereign. She remembered Keyleth's roar, and the thundering blasts of Percy's pepperbox. And then… something heavy had slammed into the back of her head, and everything had gone dark.

She tried to reach up to touch the injury, to check for blood and see how bad it was, but she couldn't move at all.

Her eyes snapped open.

Bright light speared into her brain, setting off an insistent throbbing where she'd been struck. She hissed in pain, squinting until her eyes adjusted.

Where in the Nine Hells was she?

Securely bound to a chair, for one. Ropes around her wrists, chest, waist, and ankles held her all but immobile. On a long wooden table pushed up against a wall, she could see her bow and quiver, alongside some other tools—or were they weapons?—that she didn't recognize. The room had walls of rough-hewn stone, and no windows; the light came from braziers in the corners, where something burned with a strange, bright blue light yet gave off no heat. The cool air smelled of soil and damp, Underground. But there was nothing to indicate where this subterranean chamber might be located.

Vex tested her bonds, flexing and twisting her wrists as much as she could to see if she could work them loose. But the rope only dug painfully into her skin, and she stopped, cursing, when she felt a warm trickle of blood roll slowly down her palm.

A voice came from the darkened hallway beyond the open door, and Vex realized only then that the sound of hammering had stopped. "Ah, Vex'ahlia, you're awake. Good. I was beginning to wonder if my little helpers had gotten a touch overzealous."

Vex froze. That voice—a woman's, throaty and rich and dripping with smug superiority—sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," she quipped to hide her discomfiture.

The voice laughed lightly. "Yes, I do. And I think I'll keep it that way for a while. After all, my goblin friends worked so hard, and sacrificed so much, to bring you to me. Allow me my little game."

"Goblins…?" Vex's stomach turned as the pieces fell into place. "It wasn't an attack on the Sovereign at all. It was a trap!"

"No, Vex'ahlia, it was a kidnapping, the voice said with a chuckle. "This is a trap, and you're the bait."

Vex snarled. "That may be the last mistake you ever make. My brother will come for me, and when he does—"

But the voice only laughed louder. "Your brother? Vax'ildan means nothing to me. He'll be easily disposed of. I'm trying to lure a different fish altogether."

That could only mean one person. "Percival," Vex breathed. Which meant her captor had to be… "If you lay one fucking hand on him, Ripley, I swear to all the Gods I'll tear you apart myself!"

"See, I knew there had to be a brain in that pretty little head of yours." Ripley stepped into the light, reaching up with both hands—one flesh, one metal—to lower her hood. Slowly, she wandered past the table and toward Vex, trailing her real hand almost lovingly over the tools arrayed there. She picked up what looked like a meat hook, large and gleaming and wickedly sharp, and held it up to the light, admiring it as if it were a piece of fine jewelry.

Vex's heart pounded, and her breath came suddenly in short, shallow gasps. She redoubled her efforts to free her hands, gritting her teeth against the burning pain and ignoring the renewed rivulet of blood that now dripped from her fingertips.

"Hush, my dear," said Ripley. She gently caressed Vex's cheek with the curve of the hook, the steel icy cold against terror-flushed skin. "I'm not going to harm you." Her voice darkened. "Yet."

Even in the bright morning sunlight, the Adrickham manor exuded darkness. Shadows seemed to seep from every crack in the walls, every shattered window, every crumbling pillar. Thorny vines crept up the masonry as if to strangle the very stones, and thick brambles, unkempt and growing wild, choked the walkways all around. The sun beat ineffectually at the dilapidated roof, as if trying—and failing—to breathe life back into the estate.

The only sign that anyone had been here in decades was a swath of trampled vegetation, beaten flat by the passage of feet back and forth. Many feet, from the looks of it, Percy decided. The path was too wide and well-worn to have been made by Ripley alone. "Expect company when we get inside," he said to Vax.

Vax nodded in reply. "More goblins, no doubt."

The path led around the back of the manor, to a small door built right at ground level. Percy and Vax would have to stoop to get through.

If they could get it open, of course. Percy pulled on the handle, but it stayed stubbornly shut. "Locked," he muttered. "Of course. Perhaps if I can discern what kind of mechanism—"

But Vax nudged him aside, lockpicks in hand. "Allow me."

He had the lock open in moments, and the door swung wide to reveal a long, dark tunnel sloping down under the manor. Vax stepped back and gestured inside. "After you."

One after the other, weapons in hand, they ducked through the door and plunged into the gloom. The door clicked shut behind them as they descended into the lair of the monster.