FC0 - CH 2: Night Stalker

[JadedDM]

The next thing Tavi could remember, aside from some vague nightmares, is waking up in total darkness. At first, she thinks she is blind. But then she realizes there's simply no light. She's lying on her back on a cold, stone slab. She hears the repetitive dripping of water nearby, and the squeak of a rat. Wherever she is, it smells old and foul. The air is cool and dank.

If she moves at all, pain suddenly shoots through her jaw and knee. Both are still injured. Her chest feels better, though. If she touches it, she finds her wound covered in sticky bandages. Her armor has been removed, as has all of her gear. If it is nearby, she cannot see it.

[HorizonsDream]

Tavi dares not to move at the moment, just so she can simply adjust to the pain she is in. "Hello?" she calls out with a wince. Talking was going to be hard to do with her jaw broken like it was. ~Why would they want to capture us?~ she thinks to herself. This didn't make any sense to her. Normally, the goblins wanted livestock, not actual people.

[JadedDM]

"T-Tavi?"

It was Hallie's voice. It sounded like she was in the next room. "Tavi, is that you?" She sounded shaken, as if she had spent a great deal of time crying recently. "We thought you were dead. You've been asleep for over two days now."

[HorizonsDream]

"I feel like I died," Tavi admits. Slowly she sits up, then stands. Ignoring the pain, she fumbles around in the dark, feeling her way around so she can get some sort of idea as to where she is. "Who is there with you?" she asks softly.

[JadedDM]

Feeling her way around, Tavi realizes she's in a small stone cell, roughly ten by ten feet in size. To the north are bars. The door is locked. On the south wall is where her bed is, where she woke up, the stone slab. There's a small chamberpot near it that is not only full, but does not appear to have been cleaned in ages.

"It's just me and Sparrow in here," Hallie says. "It's a cell just like yours. Every day, a female goblin comes by with food and water. She's been checking on you, I think. They seem to want us alive."

There's a hesitation, then a repressed sob. "Tavi...I think mom and dad are dead. There's nobody to rescue us. Nobody knows where we are."

[HorizonsDream]

Tavi tugs on the bars, but realizes they aren't going to give with a few simple tugs. She was going to have to come up with a plan. "Then...then we are going to have to save ourselves," she says, trying to hold back a small sob as she thought about her parents and grandmother. This was not how things were suppose to be. She was suppose to be the big damn hero, and she turned out to be nothing more than a big damn failure. ~This is no time to sit back and feel sorry for yourself,~ she tells herself. ~What would dad do?~

"Okay, so they captured us for a reason," she tries to think this through logically. "This isn't something goblins normally do, is it?"

[JadedDM]

"I don't know," Hallie says. "I can't speak Goblin, and none of them will speak to us in Common, if they even can. I don't know what they're planning. Maybe they want to eat us!"

[HorizonsDream]

"...If they wanted to do that, they would have done that back at the house," Tavi says calmly. "They wouldn't have gone through the trouble of trying to patch me up." At least, that is how Tavi saw it. It was more than likely they were going to sell them into slavery or something, but she wasn't going to tell that to her sisters. "Is Sparrow all right?" she asks. "And are you all right? They haven't...done anything to you have they?"

[JadedDM]

"Yes," Hallie replies. "Sparrow is asleep. I try not to wake her. Sleep is really the only solace we have here. We're both fine, physically. They haven't done anything to us yet. Sometimes one of the guards will come stare at us awhile, but something or someone is preventing them from touching us."

[HorizonsDream]

Tavi lets out a sigh of relief upon hearing that her sisters were at least okay physically. She couldn't do anything for their emotional state right now. She couldn't even do anything for her emotional state right now. "Okay, so do you know when the goblin lady comes by to feed us?" she asks. "And are we under constant guard?"

[JadedDM]

"It's hard to tell what time it is...or what day it is down here," Hallie says. "But I think the female should be arriving pretty soon. As for guards, I've seen at least two of them. They're down the hall, and sometimes one will come and check on us before returning to his post. I hear them chattering sometimes, arguing...rolling dice and clinking bottles. That sort of thing."

[HorizonsDream]

"You said that the female checks on me? I'm going to assume she is the one that tried to bandage me up," Tavi says thoughtfully. "Which means she probably comes into the cell. I think I might have an idea, at least to get some information as to what is going on. Don't let on that I'm awake okay?"

[JadedDM]

Hallie agrees, and Tavi lies back down in silence, waiting.

She has half an hour to think over her plan and what she'll do. At that point, she hears someone approaching.

It's still very dark, but her eyes have now adjusted enough to make out faint shapes. Peeking out of one eye, she spots two goblins approaching her cell. Both have glowing red eyes that make them easy to spot, even if their bodies are just black blobs in the darkness.

One of the goblins pulls out a keyring and opens her cell. He remains there while the second goblin, who seems more lithe in build, approaches Tavi.

[HorizonsDream]

Tavi waits for the goblin woman (or at least what she thinks is a woman) to get closer and actually start changing her bandages. Reaching up with both hands, Tavi reaches up to grab the goblin's throat. "Call the guards and you'll die," Tavi says. "The same goes for your friend there. He makes one more, and you die," she says, knowing that she is taking a big chance here.

Grab Roll (14, pass)

[JadedDM]

The goblin gasps in surprise, attempting to call out, but cannot as Tavi's hands are wrapped around her throat. She does drop her tin tray, which clatters to the ground loudly. The food, water and bandages spill out onto the floor while the goblin woman struggles, her red eyes wide with fear as she attempts to say something.

The male guard draws his short sword and warily takes a couple of steps into the cell. "No. You let go or you die," he counters, speaking crude Common. For the moment, he holds that position, as if trying to decide what to do next.