Chapter 13
Vekao called out to Lizzy again, “Lizzy are you alright! Answer me Lizzy, what’s going on?” Vekao was getting more and more concerned as the time slipped by, then suddenly he felt someone touch his arm!
“Vekao it’s me, keep quiet.” Lizzy whispered into his ear, “I’ve slipped free of the bindings and now I’ll try and free you, so hold still!”
So Vekao lay still and was silent as Lizzy started working on the ropes that held him, soon she had them worked free and she slipped the hood off his head, Vekao looked at her and smiled. Then they both went over to help free Taithmar, she looked very relieved when they pulled her hood off and removed the gag from her mouth.
“Well it’s about time. So what’s going on?” She said to her rescuers.
Lizzy quickly placed her hand to her lips to silence her, “I’ll explain the best I can, but keep your voices down, I’m not sure if they have a guard at the door or not.” She then ran lightly over to the door and placed her ear against it so that she could hear. Vekao in the meantime, continued to untie Taithmar, finally she was free and on her feet rubbing her hands together to get the circulation going again. Lizzy came back over to where they were standing and motioned for them to follow her to the far corner of the room.
“Well I don’t hear anything on the other side of the door, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a guard posted, so we will continue to talk quietly over here.” Lizzy said to her friends.
“Sounds good to me, so now tell us what you know Lizzy?” Vekao replied back to Lizzy.
So Lizzy told both Taithmar and Vekao what had happened, and her meeting with the apparent leader of the group responsible for hijacking them. Her companions both looked concerned and they decided they needed to figure out a plan of escape as soon as possible, yet they didn’t have their weapons, and Taithmar didn’t have her staff, so it would be a very difficult course of action. They quickly ruled out Vekao trying to force the door open due to the fact that this would probably cause too much of a disturbance and alert any guards in the area.
Their plan was a simple one, Taithmar didn’t have her staff to augment her powers, but she was able to speak now, so she would wait close to the door and attempt to caste a sleep spell to put to sleep whoever might come to check on them. She was going to make them pay for what they had done! The others, Vekao and Lizzy would take the ropes that had tied them and use them to pretend to be still tied up and then they laid down on the floor, facing slightly away from the door in order to temporarily fool anyone coming into the room to check on them. Taithmar would have her ropes in place also, but she would leave the hood off so that she could keep an eye on the door. Of course this would not fool anyone for very long.
Time passed slowly for the three friends, it was an added burden to Taithmar because of the dimly lit room they were held in, one torch burned along the far wall. They sat waiting for something to happen, but no one returned for them. They were beginning to rethink just having Vekao use his brute strength on the door, when they suddenly heard a sound on the other side of the door. Someone was coming in! Finally they could put their plan in motion!
The lock on the door jiggled a little and then they could see the door beginning to swing open, well technically only Taithmar could see this from her hiding place close to the door, she waited. The door continued to open and a guard stepped into view, he was a human male dressed in leather and carrying a very large broadsword, he entered the room cautiously, he looked around quickly and his eyes narrowed slightly when he looked at Taithmar, who surprising to the guard, looked back at him! Taithmar waited for the guard to approach her before she acted, which was a good thing since coming in behind the first guard was a second guard, this one was female, young, and armed with a wicked looking longsword! It may have been that they were sent to dispose of their ‘guests’!
As the first guard approached her Taithmar looked into his eyes and spoke a word of power, willing him to fall asleep. He resisted and continued forward, blinking rapidly as he did! Then it seemed to hit him like a load of bricks! He dropped over unconscious and was not moving! The second guard saw this happen and hesitated, she couldn’t figure out what was happening until it was too late, Taithmar decided that a little deception was in order so she cast a very simple illusion towards the confused guard, an illusion of a goblin with a raised sword! The guard fell backwards when out of the corner of her eye she saw the illusion pop up out of nowhere! Not knowing if it was real or not she quickly got to her feet, but then stumbled a little closer to Taithmar. Taithmar quickly reached out and pulled the legs of the guard out from beneath the woman, who promptly hit the ground with a thud! She lay there briefly stunned and moaning softly trying to roll over to defend herself, but Lizzy had taken the opportunity to flip over and throwing the ropes off herself, the hood falling to the floor beside her, she rushed over and deftly punched the woman in the jaw! The guard crumpled to the floor and lay still.
Vekao leapt to his feet and taking the ropes he quickly started tying up the two guards. They also took the hoods and used them to gag their mouths. Lizzy took the longsword from the now awakening female guard, while Vekao took up the broadsword from the first guard. Then they all went to the door and peered out it into the narrow corridor beyond.
“Well it looks like it’s clear, for I don’t hear any approaching footsteps anyway?” Lizzy spoke first.
“Yes well lead the way then!” Vekao grumbled to Lizzy, as quietly as a minotaur could do.
So very quietly the three companions slipped into the corridor and began heading in the direction that Lizzy had been lead earlier that day, back to where the man Perskel was located, they hoped! There where no others guards in sight during their trip down the passageway. Soon they came to where Lizzy was presented to the bandit chief, they hesitated at the door, pausing long enough to listen, there was no sounds from the other side. So they entered in, Vekao leading the way.
Inside there was no one in sight, but they did spot where the man Perskel had been sitting examining there belongings. Lizzy breathed a sigh of relief and ran up to the table, she quickly went through there things and started handing stuff over to Taithmar and Vekao. The minotaur was very happy to see his trusty battleaxe still there and quickly dropped the broadsword he had been carrying. Both Lizzy and Vekao heard Taithmar exclaim with joy when she spotted her staff leaning up in the far corner of the room, she swiftly retrieved it. But, try as she might, looking all around the table, under the table and throughout the room, Lizzy could not find the one thing she most feared would be missing…the artifact!
“I can’t find it! It’s not here! Now what are we going to do? We have to get it back! “Lizzy said in rapid succession. She was dashing around the room turning over piles of items and looking under anything that she thought might be hiding the thing, but not having any luck in finding it!
“Lizzy calm down.” Vekao exclaimed to his friend. “Something must have happened to it, but we won’t find it by panicking!”
“Calm down! Calm down! What do you mean calm down? It’s gone Vekao! Gone, they took it! How can this be! How would they know it was valuable at all?” was all Lizzy could say at the moment.
“Well Lizzy it was a very powerful magical item. They probably have someone in their midst who knows or at least understands magic and discovered it had a powerful aura around it! I don’t know, but rest assured we will find it, we have to.” Taithmar said in response to Lizzy.
“Well let’s go then!” cried Vekao to the two women and he began to head out the far door. He no more than opened the door when he ran straight into a man coming from the other direction.
Wham!
They collided and the man went down in a heap, while it hardly fazed Vekao at all. He moved quickly and snatched up the man by the back of the neck and hauled him up to eye level, a alarming display of his awesome strength!
“W-what’s going on?” the man stuttered at Vekao. “Who are you? Oh my! You’re the prisoners from the ship!”
“That’s right human we are and you are going to give me some answers!” Vekao snarled back at the man he was holding aloft. “The man who was here earlier, Perskel, where is he?”
“P-perskel?” The man mumbled back to Vekao. “He’s gone!”
“Gone? Gone where? When? Speak quickly human and I’ll allow you to live!” Vekao spat back at him, glaring at him and daring him to say a lie.
The man looked at the minotaur holding him, he looked back at Taithmar and Lizzy, then he said, “All I know is that he found something that he said the Dhag’arii would pay him a lot of coin to have, so he and the rest of the band took off awhile ago to a place where we meet the dark dwarves to sell our slaves.”
It was then that Vekao dropped the man to the ground. He turned to look at Lizzy and Taithmar with a look of dismay. They looked back at him just as completed dumbfounded. The bandit leader was taking the artifact to the very ones they were trying to keep it away from! If the dark dwarves got their hands on it, the war would be lost and the Kingdom of Lijissa may fall completely! They couldn’t let that happen! Just then though they heard the man who Vekao had been holding running at full speed back down the corridor! But Lizzy was quicker! She took aim and threw a dagger that she carried at the fleeing man, it hit him in the back of the head and he went down hard, slamming into the wall!
“Nice throw Lizzy!” Vekao said to here as he went sprinting up the corridor after the man.
“Thank you uncle, it was nothing” Lizzy responded back to him as she and Taithmar came running up behind Vekao. When they reached the man they found that he was merely unconscious, for the butt end of the blade had struck him in the head. He lay sprawled out in the corridor as still as could be. The group ignored him as they went by, Lizzy only pausing long enough to grab up her dagger which was lying next to the man.
They ran on down the corridor to a set of double doors which were barred from the side they were on. So they lifted the bar and went through with weapons drawn, looking for any signs of trouble. Seeing no one on the other side, except another empty room, this one looking like a entry hall for there was no furniture to speak of and there was another set of large double doors on the opposite side of the room, about 100 feet away. They made their way over to the doors there and found that they too were barred from the side they were on, so listening at the door, and hearing nothing they lifted the bar and opened the door. On the other side was the outside world! They had found the exit to the complex that they were being held at, but there was no Perskel and no other bandits to be seen! Everyone was gone!