As the confused silence in the guardroom seemed to lengthen, Elsa could hear a hubbub starting in the hall...the sound of distant footsteps, running...a shout…a steadily ringing alarm. The prisoners had apparently finally realized they were free…and the true prison break had begun. Elsa realized she didn’t have much more time before her problems multiplied.
Facing her, the warder finally drew his sword but still quite casually. "This is your last warning...I don’t want to have to hurt you, little girl...but I will if you give me no
The other guards were still in a panic over the alarm...and Jan was confronting the newly arrived Gerda, the woman Elsa had been pretending to be.
Ellsabeth, with her sword drawn, focused on the Warder and his approach towards her "Please stop where you are. I would hate to have to make you taste my new blade."
The warder sighed. "Have it your way...." and fainted left before striking with a low sweep aiming to knock Elsa down.
Elsa dropped backwards skillfully over the desk, avoiding the sweep from the Warder and responded by bringing her legs up before thrusting them forward, driving the heels of her feet into the Warder's Groin while he was off balance.
The Warder was taken by surprise and collapsed, both due to pain and shock. He paused, tried to catch his breath, but he was not recovering well.
Despite the Warder’s distress, all the guards save for Jan had rushed out the guardroom door....footsteps echoed, the sound of many running people, more shouts...the clash of steel could soon be heard and one of the guards screamed, followed by a dull snapping sound. Screams, and curses and shouts of triumph grew louded.
Ellsabeth set her feet, not liking the sounds from outside the room at all. "I warned you you stupid son of a bitch." Standing in front of the Warder she drew her arm back before thrusting forward to use the hilt of her blade to knock out the Warder, butting her back into the blow.
With a dull thud, the reeling Warder went down, stunned if not unconscious. Suddenly both Jan and Gerda were staring at Elsa. Jan whispered "Gerda...what have you done?' as if he had just seen his favorite kitten kill a mouse.
Ellsabeth looked to Jan and Gerda as she sheathed her sword. "THAT’S Gerda, not me. Try to keep up you ninny. This place is about to get very dangerous. You should both either leave or take shelter until the situation is over."
Gerda was staring at Elsa in what seemed to be wide eyed horror as Jan looked just confused.... more screams come from the halls beyond, and the first of the prisoners started to flood the pathway down from the prison, civilians fleeing in terror.
Jan was looking back and forth between the two girls, mouth open. "You....you are ....identical....'
Suddenly Elsa realized that Gerda was bleeding from her left eye, a slow drip down her cheek. At the same time she felt a strange wetness on her own right cheek. She reached up touching her cheek with her right fingers before pulling her hand back to look at her fingertips. They were red with blood and there was a steady pain in the back of your head. Then a voice, one she seemed to recognize seemed to whisper nearby "Excellent....now kill him....' Only she was not sure which of the two the voice was speaking to.
-
Below ground, the woman previously bound in the cocoon had apparently been unconscious due to the toxin. As she gasped in air her skin grew less pallid and her eyes fluttering open. She stared at Eduwiges. "Rowenna?......no.....you're too young...you must be....what did she name you?'
Eduwiges stammered, 'Eduwiges...' she did not know what else to say. “Rowenna was my mother…”
Daedre the Shadowslip, once of the Blood Eye but now a freelance thief, reached out, smiling. “Your mother? Well, what else would you think? Ed-u-wig-es...well ain’t that a mouthful"...one hand weakly cupped Edu's face...."Oh my stars....you have Sarick's eyes....you have his eyes..." and she began to weep leaving Eduwiges dumbstruck.
The sound of alarms echoed through the chamber as Above Elsa had begun the prison break. The four guards who had been in the hallway beyond the chamber came rushing in and were briefly stunned before shouting. "She's loose..the Box is open!!!" They rushed forwards, weapons drawn'
Rising to meet their rush, Edu was shaken by Daedre’s words and the lead guard shouldered her out of the way. Eduwiges was not expecting that and was sent sprawling but rolled to her feet unharmed. The guard's target seemed to clearly be Daedre, his spear leveled at the helpless woman.
Calidis moves to pick Dee up and pull her bodily out of the way but the woman clutched at Cal's arms. "No...." she said weakly..."Forget me...save my little girl....please....' With no other option, Cal moved to shield the woman from the oncoming spear.
Xan stepped back, knocking an arrow and firing at the lead guard rushing towards Calidis. The arrow struck the man who cleanly in the chest and knocking him off his feet. Cal looked up at her love and smiled.
The remaining three guards paused now and took up defensive positions as Edu rose imposingly and Xanderian waited to choose another target, three on two were not good enough odds under the circumstances. Glancing towards the massive doors, they were clearly stalling for time.
With a rasp, the massive door began to open as the guards grew confident, calling out. "Back away from the prisoner...NOW. There is no way out of here alive.'
As the doors slowly opened, a dull roaring could be heard from outside....and then spiders began pouring through the doors. Hundreds of them, of all sizes, flooding over the smug guards like a wave as they started to scream. This was not the reinforcements they had expected.
Eduwiges saw the wave of spiders coming and blanched, then prepared to kill as many as she could before they took her down.
The wave of spiders spread out and broke over Edu. They flooded over her boots, several of them scurrying up her legs.
Xan moved to help Cal bring Dee to her feet, the toxin was still in her system so it seemed she could barely walk..."We can'’t...we can’t leave..without the arrow.'
Eduwiges took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles and prepared to start smashing the spiders that were crawling up her body. 'I told you I had a bad feeling about this!'
However she stopped, realizing they were not biting her. In fact they seemed to be surrounding her protectively. Eduwiges looked down in astonishment, 'Ummmmm….Xan??!!'
The Tasakh looked down at Dee. "Much prey comes…You must get the sacrifice out of this place....take her.'
However Dee was resisting. "We need the arrow! If we leave without it....we will never have another chance.” She pointed at Edu. "If we leave without it...sooner or later....he will come for her, he can’t help himself…and she will die.'
-
Above ground, Elsa and Gerda were now face to face...they stared at one another, each one with a slow trickle of blood from the opposite eye and Elsa for a moment was stunned by a memory she should not have had. Of laying swaddled in a basinet, no more than a few hours old as she watched the baby beside her lifted out and taken away. Then hands reached for her...foul, gnarled hands studded with ruby rings, each with three lines embossed into the gem. She heard a voice...her mother’s, calling out weakly. "There is something wrong in the nursery...the babies...they want the babies!..." a door is forced open with a crash, the hands pull back and seem to turn to smoke, and the memory passes.
Jan looked between the two women in shock. "Oh...oh god...you are bleeding.....you both are. What is going on here?'
Ellsabeth had no more idea than the man did, and kept her gaze fixed on what appeared to be her identical twin as she sheathed her sword and clipped her Chakram to her belt.
Gerda's bleeding eye went wide and she extended one hand, whispering a word in a language Elsa did not speak and Elsa felt the chakram she had just clipped to her belt start to snap away...
At this point Elsa was unsure if she should reach for her twin or move back cautiously. Her response was to drop her hand down and grab her Chakram before it could detach from her belt.
Gerda cursed as Elsa denied her the chakram, and her gaze moved as the sword that the stunned Warder had dropped sailed across the room into her hand, It was then thrust into Jan's abdomen so hard that the point came out his back and for a moment he was lifted off his feet.
Jan staggered, eyes wide with the same confused look, and he was dead before he hit the ground, blood fountaining over Elsa. The two women looked at one another, Elsa in shook and Gerda in hatred, and after considering her options, Gerda spun and sprinted for the still open door....'
-
Meanwhile deep within the Donjon, as the spiders seemed to surround Eduwiges Dee was in Cal's arms, whispering. "No...don't...don’t fight...you don;t understand...I didn't...I didn’t want it to be like this...not now..not yet...."'
Several of the spiders had now switched into hulking Ungoledan forms, half man and half spider, backed by spiders the size of small wagons.
Eduwiges held her sword in one hand. 'Ahh Lethy!!?? What the feck am i supposed to do?'
Calidis just pulled Dee into her arms and lifted. In her opinion, it was better than leaving her on the floor where the spiders were. "I apologize but we have little time before we are caught."
Xanderian slowly raised Heartbreaker and aimed, speaking calmly to Eduwiges, keeping Calidis and Daedre behind her. "I am not sure they mean you harm, my lynx....but any that go for you, I will slay....
Almost as if to answer Xan's words, the Ungoledain all dropped to one knee. The lead warrior murmured through mandibles. "Hail the Daughter of the Timeless Word....we honor our bond.'
The three companions looked at one another in confusion. They were clearly kneeling to Eduwiges.
Dee whispered to Cal..."They....they feel Sarick's blood in her and it scares them....we..we need to continue the plan. we haven’t much time....'
Eduwiges looked around incredulously and lowered her sword. 'Elbereth!' she slowly, so as not to stir up the spiders again, walked towards the others.
Calidis held Dee easily but furrowed her brows in confusion. "What plan is this? Did you mean to be here in the first place?"
Dee looked at Cal..nodding."I had to get....into the Donjon....if only I had known about..the crawlers and what they want....this would have been so much easier....things went....wrong.'
Suddenly the Tasakh, leader of the Ungoledain towered over Edu, looking down at her. "Will the Daughter of the Timeless Word keep her dame's oath? Will ssssshhhhe free the Broodstone from the beast of Dol Gul, her sssssire? Will she free us from the grip of Ssssssssshhhhhhadow?'
-
In the Guardroom above, Gerda made a run for the door as Jan fell dead as Elsa's feet. Behind her the warder was finally regaining his senses, viewing the scene and hissing at Elsa. "Murderess...what have you done?'
Ellsabeth’s gaze shifting between The Warder waking up and Gerda trying to escape. Pressed for time she lining up her Chakram and hurled it towards the hinges of the door, hoping to block Gerda's escape then rebound to strike the Warder.
The disk sails true, hitting the hinge but failing to snap it, however it did bring Gerda up short in surprise, assuming the attack had been meant for her...she wheeled sword held low as the the chakram rebounds, taking the warder in the head as Elsa had intended. The sound like an underripe melon being sliced echoed as he took the razor edged disk in the forehead, the blade sinking in as he collapsed once and for all. Elsa stared, this was not quite what she had intended, but now Gerda was on her.'
Ellsabeth held up her hands trying to show peace. "I am sorry. I was not aiming for you. I did not want you to run away but I had to take care of the idiot." Points to the Warder to indicate who the idiot was she is referring to. “Who…who are you? What are you to me?”
Gerda snarled and was not answering questions. "Stupid bitch...time for you to join mommy and daddy....you should never have come here, your plots won’t work....'
Gerda stabbed underhand, a classic assassin move. Elsa, her hands still up to try to appear non-threatening, felt the blade cut into her gut, a killing blow for sure...but for some reason Gerda stayed her arm, leaving Elsa wounded but with her organs still inside. Gerda looked away as if hearing a voice and whispered..."Yes...yes mistress...." and backed away, headed for the door as the floor at Elsa's feet grew slick with blood.
Ellsabeth grabbed her stomach in shock as she dropped to a knee. With what little strength she had left she removed a Throwing Dagger from her belt and hurled it towards the door trying to stop Elsa from leaving.
The dagger slammed into the door beside Gerda’s head, but did not stop her. The woman turned back as she took the dagger out of the door and slid it insolently into her belt. "I will return this to you another time, "sister"...for now, enjoy the hospitality your Gondorian masters give a woman who murders their guards, if you survive that long. Let’s see if your witch can save you now.'
And with that Gerda is gone and Elsa collapsed, sinking into darkness as the prison break raged around her. Her last thought was that this was surely her end.
-
Meanwhile below ground Daedre struggled to stand while answering the Tasakh’s question. "The deal...the deal will be honored....She...she is not part of this....don't hurt her...your dead is with ME you damned crawler...I am the sacrifice....'
Eduwiges began to get coldly angry, she cracked her knuckles and approached Dee, 'Woman, what is all this? Speak now, your life depends on it...Most of the spiders fell away from her, except for one, which was riding Edu's shoulder like a parrot.
Calidis looked to the leader of the Ungoledain, ignoring Dee. "What is this deal? Why must there be a sacrifice? Speak quickly."
The Tasakh looked at Cal. "She is the sacrifice, she swore she will use the weapon of becoming again to slay the Beast of Dol Gul and regain our Broodstone...the Broodstone lost, leaving us helpless before the men of the island land....'
Calidis held Dee protectively and nodded. "Men of the island land," she murmured to herself, as if trying to solve a riddle.
Xan unnocks her arrow. "My loves...calm...there is much here that we must understand....do not challenge when we are at such a disadvantage....
Dee looked at Edu as the younger woman confronted her. "I..I'm sorry....I have...so much to tell you..I never expected to...to see you...least of all like this...we need to get the arrow...and get out of here...then...then I promise, I will tell you all of it, Button.'
Eduwiges paused as a distant memory drifted its way through her mind. Button. She shook her head and grimaced, focusing on the practical. 'This arrow, how do we retrieve it?'
Dee smiled and whispered. "It is here...in the Donjon...the arrow in the treasury...was a dummy..and I knew it...I meant...meant to get locked in here and bust out...didn’t...didn't understand about the creepers. But I got lucky...they want what I want...or at least they think they do.'
The Tasakh spoke again. "We cannot touch it...only the sacrifice can take the weapon....the weapon which will free us. You, daughter of the Timeless word...go with the sacrifice and the first born. Gain the weapon, or die here.
Eduwiges looked at the others, 'Well, it looks like the same old same old, fetch it or die.' She casually stroked the spider on her shoulder, 'Shall we retrieve the bloody thing?'
Calidis sighed and then nodded grimly. She looked at Dee and picked her up again as the woman nearly swooned into her arms. "I shall carry you. You are in no fit shape to go anywhere to fetch anything yourself, and we cannot let you slow us down."
Dee smiled bravely...and Cal remembered for a moment all the thousands of times she has seen Edu make the same expression. "I...I am alright...just wasn't...expecting to be a damn caterpillar...I swear to god before I go to that damn cemetery I am going to kick Taro's ass, he should have known about this...'
Eduwiges prepared her gear, deep in thought as Dee looked at Cal and Xan....her voice going very soft and almost fragile..."You....you are her friends?'
Xanderian nodded softly. "Yes....we love her...
Dee sighed sadly. "Good....this will not be easy for her....'
Calidis sighed as well. "She has never sought out things that were easy….why should she begin now."
The Tasakh called out. “Come, we will lead you to the place the weapon rests…there is no more time.”
